Spaghetti Eating Contest

Hey Fam!
 

Holy smokes it's hot here!  I think I may have just acclimated to sub-zero weather but it has been about 100 degrees each day and I feel like I am melting!  

Things are going really well though :) There are a few people that we have not been able to see in a while that we got to see because they wanted to say bye to Elder Bishop.  So we have many appointments with lots of people this week which I love.

We have Zone conference with the Kalispell and Stevensville missionaries tomorrow haha which means Elder Bishop will be staying with us tonight.  I miss him as a companion but Eder Griffith is great!  He is 20 and from Pleasant Grove, Utah.  He just spent the last 6 months in Butte so he is very happy to be here.  We teach well together and I feel we will be able to keep the momentum moving together.

One of our recent converts was able to ordain his son to the Aaronic Priesthood and to be a Deacon yesterday!  Wow what an awesome experience!  I felt the Spirit validate and it was a very special experience.  I am so grateful for the priesthood and all God allows us to do to help our brothers and sisters here.  The hospital is in our area so we get to give many blessings all the time and I have seen so many people healed it is incredible.  

We woke up super early on Tuesday morning (The day before Elder Bishop left) and hikes to the summit of the "M".  It was awesome!  We could see way into Bonner, all of Missoula, and out into the mountains!  I love being in nature and am so glad I get to serve my mission in such a beautiful part of the world.  

Sorry it is short this week but thank you all for all your great love and support!

Love,

Elder Holland
 

Spaghetti Eating Contest -- Video

I get another transfer here!

Hey fam!

So I get to stay another transfer!  I'm stoked but unfortunately Elder Bishop is being transferred to be an assistant to President Mecham. He and I have gotten along really well and have some awesome gospel studies in the past 4 1/2 months. I love gospel discussions and learning all the insights and scriptures each person has found. He will def be missed but my new companion will be Elder Griffith.  He was companions with Elder Bishop for 3 months a while ago and I've heard he is awesome so I think it will be another great transfer :)

So the Fourth of July was pretty fun!  In the morning we got all 24 of the missionaries out to Fort Missoula for the Fourth of July breakfast.  It was a blast! The entire breakfast is donated by our Church and they use it as a fundraiser as well. They charge $5 a person and donate everything to Fort Missoula. We served over a thousand people. I have never made that much bacon in my life!  It was really fun. It was pretty much run by missionaries and all the servers were missionaries dressed in their proselyting attire. The only downside was it has been crazy hot and by 10:00 it was like 85 degrees And cooking under a tent with like 15 grills gets quite toasty... Sorry I didn't take any pictures but I got 2 pictures from one of the missionaries I will send.

Then as a zone we all went on a hike!  Elder Bishop and I found a sweet trail up in rattlesnake canyon that is about 3 miles round trip. We did a fun activity involving rocks and a discussion on the  Atonement at the top of the hike.  I love being in nature.  Truly, all things denote there is a God.

We have been teaching this lady who had not been to Church for quite some time.  She has now come consecutively for the past month and loves the way she feels at church. Her husband passed away a few months ago and it seemed like she had tried everything of the world to bring the peace she needed but nothing would work. Somehow, we knocked on her door at just the right time.  She has taken the steps to repent be made clean through Christ. This is seriously my favorite part about being a missionary; repentance.  So many people think it is a scary thing but in reality it is he greatest thing we are able to do here in this life. To have a change of heart and forsake the natural man is to be closer to God and the peace that comes with it is unlike anything the world can offer :) this lady got up yesterday and bore her testimony. It was powerfully simple.  She basically said that as she has read and come to Church that everything just feels right. She acknowledged a unique peace she had desired since her husband passed and now knows that because she has chosen to follow the Savior she was given this peace.  At the end of her testimony she said, "I am here because it feels right, and this is where I am going to stay." I was soo happy when she said that!

I love being a missionary. The other day someone asked me how much time I have left as a missionary and it made me sad to think I have only 9 months left. I really could do this forever.

Thanks for all the great love and support I receive from each of you!  I hope you all had an awesome and safe Fourth of July :)

Love,
Elder Holland

Hello! It rained a TON

Hey fam!

This week was excellent! It rained a TON and this part of the world is beginning to turn really, really green :) if Montana was like this year round I could totally live here. We have been on bikes a lot as well and it has been awesome to see people all out and about because it's finally summer here.  We were on a "Diet" this month to get rid of the extra weight we packed on last winter and I ended up getting rid of about 15 lbs. So I am satisfied and ready to start eating all the candy I have saved in our kitchen for the last 30 days :)

We have been spending lots of time making sure the needs of all of our recent converts are met. They are all progressing really well in the Gospel and all have callings and great friends in the Church.  They all have unique blessings they get to experience now that they have made and are honoring the covenant of baptism with God. Yesterday we had dinner at the home of the family that was baptized and they told us a really amazing story.  They were talking about tithing and how they had just paid it for the third time this last week as members of the Church. They said they had heard many different stories of blessings that come from paying tithing but had not experienced one personally yet. She recently had a baby and there were some complications so she was in the hospital for a while and they had a balance of just over $10,000.00 still due. They said they went online last week to check the total due on the bill and were shocked to find that the bill had been paid for in full. He said he had a printed statement from a week prior that had the amount written on it so he called to find out what happened and they said the have no idea but the balance is paid. I believe this is one of those tender mercies promised by the Lord when he tells us about the blessings that come from paying tithing. I love the actual scripture, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Malachi 3:10. They said immediately when they learned of the debt being paid their minds were turned to this promise and they knew it was given to them because they had paid their tithing.

I am so grateful to know that God truly does communicate with us!  I know He answers prayers and that when we obey His commandments we really do receive so many blessings that there is not room enough to receive them.
 

Transfers are next week and I really hope I get to stay!  Things are going great and I love being companions with Elder Bishop.

I hope you all have a fantastic week and that we may all remember those that sacrificed so much so we can be independent here in America. 

Love,

Elder Holland

Spanish Lunch

Hey Fam!

So this week was great! The sun is shining and the weather is just like home :)  We get the occasional 30 mph wind accompanied by some rain but it clears up in like an hour and is back to sunshine.  

We had our Zone Training this week and we really focused on finding new people and obtaining unshaken faith. I got to give a discussion on unshaken faith and we searched for formulas on how to obtain this kind of faith in the Book of Mormon. We looked at 2 Nephi 31:19-20, Jacob 4:5-6, Enos, and Mormon 9:27-28. I have researched this topic quite a bit and have found that if I analyze what these great Prophets did to obtain that kind of faith that we can also gain this faith in any principle of the Gospel. It takes time but it is possible.

We had a fun lunch this week with the family here that are from Barcelona. They grew up in the Catholic religion and were baptized about four years ago. They fed us dinner last Sunday and we got talking about spanish food and so she said she would feed us a Spanish meal for lunch on Friday so we went and had tortilla Espanola and a Spanish salad. It was awesome. Elder Bishop does not like eggs so he had to deal with that and he really does not like vegetables so when Sister Ribera said you are supposed to rub the tomato juice all over the bread he almost flipped. I thought it was pretty funny.

I got sick this week and lost my voice which is kinda important to go and teach people but it's all good it is coming back and I should be all good in a day or two.

We still have a bunch of people we are trying to get in with and have appointments with many of them this week so hopefully all works out!

Thanks so much for all of your love and support!

Love,
Elder Holland

 

 

Another great week!

Hey fam!

This week was excellent as usual!  the work has seemed to slow down a bit in our area because so many of the people we are teaching are out of town because of the nice weather.  We have quite a few people that are ready to either come back to church or to be baptized but they are going to be gone for the next few weeks so we have been focusing on finding even more people this past week.

I found an excellent quote from President Thomas S Monson while listening to a General Conference talk this week. He said, “[The Lord] commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and … they shall learn in their own experience Who He is” (in “The Way of the Master,” Liahona and Ensign, Jan. 2003). I agree with this completely and feel this is a great explanation of why we have to go through such hard things in this life. When talking about the Savior and what he would do for us the Prophet Alma told the people, "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities (Alma 7:11-12).  I have come to learn that if we do all we can to keep the commandments, especially in times of adversity, that we come to know who Jesus Christ really is and what he did for all of us.

My invitation to all of you is to find the Savior in your life TODAY.  To ask God to show you his hand in your life and as you pray at night and give him a recollection of your day I testify that He will show you some of the things He has done for you THIS day.  God is mindful of us all. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to live and experience trials so I can learn who I am and especially learn who Christ is and what I can do to allow Him to help me more.

I love you all and hope and pray for your health and safety. Thank you so much for your great love and support.

Love,
Elder Holland

Elder Carlos A. Godoy

Hey Fam!

This week was super busy! We were all over the place!  The weather was like 65-70 and mostly sunny all week so it was like heaven :) We drove to Helena on Wednesday for the Mission tour and stayed till Thursday for mission leadership council. Then after MLC we had to drive from Helena to Bozeman to pick up a missionary and then drove to Missoula.  It was lots of driving but totally worth it because while in Bozeman we stopped by John (The Fresh Rapper) and Heather's and got to visit with them!  They are getting married! And John has his first solo album out and is a legit Mormon Rapper! He said he is gonna send a box of CD's home so Cutler and Jaromy can pass them out to help him get his name out there. They are doing well and it made me really happy to see them. :)

I learned so many awesome things from Elder Godoy while he was here.  During our leadership meeting he went into all the different trials that Lehi and his family had to go through on their journey out of Jerusalem and into the new world.  He talked about how we typically remember Nephi as the courageous stalwart prophet who endured all these crazy trials and overcame so much but we forget that his brothers, Laman and Lemuel were right there with him the entire way.  Yes, Laman and Lemuel were the cause of much of the suffering Nephi had to go through but they went through all the same hardships; building a boat, sailing across the ocean, wandering in the wilderness, etc. The only real difference between the two was their perspective.  Nephi did his best to look at things as God does rather than just have the dark perspective of only seeing what was happening in that very moment.  It changed everything.  I believe God gives us the knowledge of His plan for us so we might have a hope for the future and so we can be happy even in the darkest of hours when the world seems to cave in on us.

Elder Bishop and I match ties like every day and our recent convert, Matt, wanted to match with us so we got 3 matching ties :)

Elder Godoy is a convert to the Church. He explained his entire conversion story in his home town, Porto Alegre, Brazil.  He is seriously hilarious! We had a great time listening to and learning from him.  He really does hold the mantle of his sacred calling as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. 

I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Each day is a blessing because I get to share that unique message with fellow brothers and sisters. I am reminded of something that was taught by Elder Boyd K. Packer, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Only when they (those struggling with the Church and their faith) have some knowledge of the plan of redemption will they understand the supposed inequities of life. Only then will they understand the commandments God has given us.  If we do not teach the plan of redemption, whatever else we do by way of programs and activities and instructions will not be enough." -All- Church Coordinating Council Meeting, 18 May 1993.

I invite all of you this week to ponder and focus your studies on the Plan of Salvation.  Focus on where we came from, why we are here, where we are going.  I promise you that as you keep the Plan God has made for us even before the foundation of the world that whatever battle you are fighting at this moment will be lifted and you will be able to bear the problems you face.  It will also help you see and understand the need for the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to take upon himself the sins of the world.

I love you all and am so grateful for the Gospel and your love and support as I share it with our brothers and sisters here in Missoula.

Elder Holland

Mission Tour!

Hey Fam!

 

This last week was awesome!  We really got to take some time and help the members here understand the role they play as member missionaries.  We had a fireside on how to be a member missionary last night.  It was like 2 hours long and was really interactive with the members.  We did role-playing and had lots of different break out groups and discussions from Preach My Gospel.  We had been planning it for weeks and I feel like it went just like it was supposed to.  We had a couple recent converts bear their testimonies and it was so powerful.  The guy that I was talking about a few weeks ago from Clinton was baptized on saturday!  He got up and bore a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel.  It was really cool because we focused on online proselyting and how we can be most effective online and so they showed some screen shots from his baptism.  His wife is currently living in Hawaii and he will join her in 6 weeks but she was able to watch the entire baptism on Skype.  I am so grateful for technology and how it helps the work of the Lord progress.

 

We are having our mission tour this week and we get to spend some time with Elder Carlos A. Godoy of the first Quorum of the Seventy!  He is from Brazil so we are all learning Called to Serve in portugese to sing to him.  It is actually really hard for me to speak portugese because it messes with what I have learned with spanish but i'll figure it out :)  I am excited because he will be doing a discussion for the leadership of the mission and we will probably get to have some one on one time with this great disciple of Christ. 

 

Overall everything is fantastic here.  I love the weather.  Elder Bishop and I decided to get back into shape for the month of june and set some really good goals!  We will see if we can hit them ;)

 

I love you all and am so grateful for all your love and support!

Elder Holland