Temple This week!

Dear Fam,

This week was so awesome! So many crazy this happened! First off, our two investigators were baptized!! We had our stake conference this weekend and the only time that would work for them on Saturday was after the adult session so we started the program at about 8:30 pm. Because it was stake conference they were both confirmed at the baptism.  I had the most amazing feeling of peace through out the entire baptism. I wish I could fully explain their situation but just know that miracles truly happened to get them to where they are today. I am so grateful for the experiences I am able to have as a missionary. I really believe that answers to our prayers most often come in our actions more than anything.  I learned so much about that plan of salvation during this experience and I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost who has taught me these great things.

 

Our stake conference was a live broadcast from Salt Lake and Elder Bednar and Elder Scott spoke! It was one of the greatest meetings I have ever been to! I loved it. Elder Bednar taught about sacrifice and consecration. He said as the hastening of the work of the Lord continues we as members are required to learn, change, and improve so we can be taught by the Holy Ghost and not get stuck in the regular routine things we have always done. I was reminded again of the fact that nothing great ever came out of a comfort zone. He then spoke of sacrifice and how it is motivated by faith and hope which lead us to have a renewed desire to constantly serve others. He said eventually this leads to consecration where he closed his remarks by saying, "If we are consecrated to the Gospel we will not only die for the Gospel but we will develop ourselves and live for the Gospel."  Then Elder Scott taught about prayer. He said prayer is a sacred privilege we all have and talked about how we face challenges is so important to our happiness. He said that when praying we can receive one of 3 responses from heaven:

1. Peace or a confirmation of what we are asking.
2. A sense of a stupor of thought.
3. Feel no response at all. 

He posed the question, "Why would a loving Heavenly Father chose not to give us a response to our prayers?" His answer was because We are here to learn and grow by exercising faith in Him. He said that answers seldom come while we are on our knees but rather they come in peaceful moments. Moment s where we are studying the scriptures of pondering the things we have learned with a grateful heart. He added that the most important principle of prayer is gratitude. I agree completely with everything he said. I rarely receive answers to questions that I ask God to answer just for me. Usually my prayers are answered when I am searching for a way to help someone else or during my scripture study.

This Saturday I get to go to the Temple!  I have talked about him before but there is a guy in the YSA ward named Derek who was baptized about a year ago and he will be receiving his Endowment this Saturday!  He already has his mission call and will be serving in the Hungary, Budapest mission.  He leaves for the MTC on November 19th.  I have been able to get to know him very well over the passed 8 months and I defiantly see him as a little brother.  He is also the most prepared for a mission of anyone I have ever seen.  He has come to all of our district and zone meetings and conferences for the passed year.  Even President Mecham knows him well.  His mission President will have no idea who he is getting! I feel he will be a very obedient and effective missionary.

Life is great and God is good, All the time.  Thanks so much for all of the awesome support you all are to me.  If you all have not seen the movie Meet The Mormons make sure to go see it!

Love,
Elder Holland

Sorry It's Late!

Hey Fam!

I'm so sorry this letter is so late!  We have had an absolutely crazy week and President Mecham was here for most of it so we did not have any time to e-mail until today.  It has been an incredible week though!

 

First, I have been working out like crazy for the passed 6 months trying to burn off all the blubber I gained over the winter and I finally hit my goal last week!  I can finally dunk!!!! (See attached photo) I have been working at this for a few months and was quite pleased to actually be able to do it again :)

 

So we have been meeting with an investigator and her son for about 6 weeks now and when we first met with them we prayed to know the date the Lord would have them be baptized and we felt that October 18th was the date.  They accepted the date contingent upon them both receiving their own personal witness from God that the Church is in fact true.  They have both had experiences while reading the Book of Mormon that have led them to believe the book is true but last Sunday was, in my opinion, the moment where they received their answer from God that His Church truly has been restored to the earth.  We got a call Sunday morning informing us that our investigator's youngest son had been throwing up all night and they were not going to be able to make it to church.  He is only 2 years old and has been sick with the flu for over a week now.  It got really bad on Sunday and our investigator requested we come and give her son a blessing before church.  As we prepared to head over to her house I felt the feeling, as I have before, that God would respond to their faith and the little boy would be healed.  We said a prayer and I felt the Holy Ghost fill my heart. We gave him an anointed blessing of healing.  My companion anointed and I was given the opportunity to give him a blessing.  In the blessing he was told by the faith of his family and by the power of the Holy Priesthood he would be healed as a witness to them that the Church is true.  We went over on Monday night to go over the questions for baptism with them and they told me the boy is back to his normal self and has not showed any signs of sickness since he received the blessing.  They are ready to be baptized :) I have no doubt in my mind that God lives and that He loves us.  I know that the Priesthood is on the earth and all the Priesthood keys necessary for salvation are here and reside in The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints.  I am so grateful to be a part of the lives of so many incredible people here in Montana.  Our investigators will be baptized this Saturday after the evening session for Stake Conference :)

Also, If you have not seen the movie Meet The Mormons GO SEE IT!!!!!  It was only gonna come to Montana if the people here requested it enough times so all of the missionaries here got to see the movie a few weeks ago and then we went to work knocking on doors inviting people to request the movie.  We found out a few days ago it will be playing at the theater here this Friday!  I loved it and know you will too :)

Thanks again for all the birthday cards and packages.  I am so grateful for the great love and support I have from back home :)

 

Love,

Elder Holland

and it has been raining lately so there have been some awesome rainbows :)

 

Conference

Hey Fam!

Well this week was really as good as it gets :)  I got to do so many awesome things and to top it off it was General Conference!  We had tons of missionaries get transferred this transfer so we are getting to know all the new missionaries in our zone.  I am not sure if I have said this before but Missoula is totally the Sister's zone.  We have 16 sisters and 9 elders.  It's awesome cuz they do things we never could and people always seem more open to listen to sisters over Elders.  I love it here and am grateful to get another transfer here.

My new Companions are Elder Brunham, from Arizona, and Elder Oaks, from San Diego! I love how the Lord keeps us San Diegans together.  Ha-ha it will be a great transfer. I am looking forward to all I will learn from my companions.

I would be very grateful If you would all please join me and add an investigator and her 10 year old son to your prayers.  They will be baptized on the 18th of October and I am super excited for them!  We missed the first session of General Conference on Saturday because we were helping them move but they are now in a house with a big yard and it seems like things are going well for them.  We have been teaching them for about a month now and because they have been reading and praying they both feel very good about being baptized on the 18th :)

The YSA ward also threw a surprise birthday party for me in between sessions! They are all so awesome.  AND on Sunday the Harris family made me Mexican chicken and had a oreo green mint chip pie and a huckleberry cake for dinner!  I love the people here :)

I am not even sure what to say about General Conference.  I feel like the General themes were follow and sustain the Prophet, Missionary work, and enduring to the end.  I loved President Uchtdorf's masterful teachings about the principles explained in Moroni's Promise (Moroni 10:3-5).  I love how at the end he added the fourth step to go and do something about it!  The scripture he quoted, John 7:17, is one I love to share frequently with those that are experimenting on the Word.  The Invitation that stood out to me the most actually came from Elder Andersen's talk when he invited us all to find some of our favorite scriptures and share them.  I thought and prayed about this all weekend and decided to share this as one of my favorite scriptures, "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know you’re doing."  This is toward the end of the Book of Mormon in Mormon 8:35.  It is Moroni, the son of Mormon, speaking and what he says changes everything about how we should receive the messages in the Book of Mormon.  I remember when I first read the Book before my mission how I kept wondering how the principles of a book written almost 2,000 years ago could be so relevant to me and the world today.  It says in many places that they could not put even one one-hundredth of all the records in the abridgement that was made by Mormon and Moroni.  This scripture helps answer the question to how they knew what, out of all the plates they had, to include into this sacred text.  They, just like other Prophets, were given a vision of us TODAY.  They saw all of us and were given this knowledge so they would know exactly what to include to help us.  If you look at the Bible and what it says about Christ the Old Testament testifies of Christ and what He WILL do, The New Testament is a record of what He DID, and the Book of Mormon explains WHY He did it.  The Bible was primarily written to the Jews whereas the Book of Mormon was written for the Gentiles or the world.  The Book of Mormon literally contains a guide to how we need to live to return to live with God once again.  I am so grateful to the 23 authors of the sacred record and all those in this dispensation that sacrificed so much so I could have the privilege of learning the things, daily, that I need to be doing to be the happiest version of me I can be.  I have had many sacred and special spiritual experiences in my life but I have had more spiritual experiences while reading the Book of Mormon than anything else.  I know without a doubt that is true.  I hope and pray you all will take the time to read from it daily and to receive the Spiritual sustenance it provides.

Thank you all so very much for the birthday cards, packages, and constant letters of encouragement.  I love you all and am so grateful to have you all in my life.

Elder Holland