Short & Sweet This Week

Hey family,

Well congrats to my little bro nick for getting into byu. No big surprise as you're so amazingly smart! I am excited for you!

Ok so President called us last night and told us that we would be coming to the offices today to train one of the new missionaries. So Elder Cruz and I are now with Elder Rojas as well. He is a mexican but has lived in the US his whole life, so he speaks both spanish and english. He seems really cool. So you might be wondering "well that is more than two missionaries". You are correct! haha. We are in a threesome from anywhere from one week to the end of this change, when Elder Cruz will be leaving our area to train someone else. So that is the exciting news for today and I will be sure to send the picture of the three of us today.

As for the area, we had a pretty tough week with investigators and we didnt have any baptisms this weekend due various problems. But this Sunday we should be having a baptism of a family of 3. The mom, dad and there kid. They are a pretty awesome family and i think everything will work out with them. We are still working hard, but we had a couple tough situations this week, like with andres who is a little more scientific-thinking and will need to really pay attention to his spiritual promptings, instead of over-thinking everything so much with his head. We had interviews with President this week which went pretty well. We also went to marry the couple who will be getting baptized this week, so i really didn't have too much time to work in my own area.

I dont have too much time to write because of the long training meeting that we had today, but i will fill you all in on more details the next week. Love you all!

Elder holmes (Elder Cruz is on the left, my new comp Elder Rojas in the middle, and then me!)

My new area of Cuatitlan!

Well hey family!

Hey birthday shoutout to Matt Winters, who has his birthday on the 18th. And also a congrats to Aaron Jensen on his mission call! That is so awesome! Brazil is going to be super dope. I hope you have already started working on your portugese!!

As for me, I am pretty pumped up! This new area I am in is pretty awesome and my new comp, Elder Cruz is already my favorite comp that I have had. I am already learning a ton from him and we are going to have some great success together I can tell. He is from vera Cruz Mexico and he has about 10 months in the mission. He is as tall as I am and he is a really funny kid. We are working on his english, so he can come up and study at the Y! Wouldn't that be great? SO he has asked to see some of my photos from the Y but i don't really have any, so if you could send me some to my email that would be much appreciated. Send the ones with the chalk party and some with my friends! The bummer about my new area is that I wont be sending too many pictures because it is a little too dangerous to be carrying my camera around all of the time. Although, I am going to send some of the fotos from my last area today, and one photo that i know Nick will love haha. Since the area is pretty hilly, I thought when i got here that it looked like I might losing a little weight. But then my comp introduced me to a little something called banderillas. Oh no. This is the photo i am talking about. They are giant corn dogs with the hot dog, bacon, pineapple, chicken nuggets, cheese, and much more, all wrapped into one. Seriously Nick's dream! The history of this place is as follows, The guy who opened this store was a missionary and one day at a district meeting, all of his american comps bought corn dogs to eat from walmart. The guy said "that isnt a corn dog! I will show you a corn dog!" and he made these for all of his companions. Of course they loved them and so after the mission he opened this store. So yeah, i probably wont be losing too much weight after all. haha.

Ok as for my investigators, we have a bunch. Two that we are hoping will get baptized this saturday are named Guillermo and Gire. Gire has a strong testimony and will be getting baptized, but Guillermo still hasn't developed the same. My comp and his old comp found these two in this battered down house, totally hammered drunk. Since that day, they haven't drank at all and are renting a house with one of the members here. It sure looks like they are doing a hundred times better. Guillermo doesn't feel like he has received a spiritual answer yet, but we had an extremely spiritual lesson with him last night. I sure hope that he will able to get baptized with his wife. We have a bunch more investigators, but one that i would like to talk about is a guy named Andres. We worked extremely hard this week and found like 16 new people to teach. Unfortunately, none of them, as the week went on, were able to asist the church, except for only one. We prayed saturday night asking our Heavenly Father to show us a miracle on Sunday. We had worked so hard to find all of these people but none could attend church with us that day. Well on Sunday, this guy Andres shows up with his inactive wife, pretty much just asking us to baptize him! Unreal! It was a direct blessing from the Lord, I know, and I hope that all goes well with him. Good thing is that he really liked church, as well.

I think that is about all that I have to say. Oh yeah, and one more thing I have to say mom, is that I hope you sent those sheets! My house is the coldest place I have ever slept in in my life! It's like I am getting my polar penguin merit badge every single night. haha. I actually am a little bit sick with a cold at the moment. I'm sure the sheets would help!

Love you lots.

Elder Holmes

Bye-Bye Queretaro!

Hey there and happy birthday to momma dog! What are you finally turning 40 this week or what? I lost count! haha. You look great from all of the photos that you have sent me! I hope that your birthday is just fantastic and I want you to know that I am thinking about you! Sure love you mommy!

Ok well as you can see from my title of the email, I have left Queretaro and I am now in the Estado of Mexico, in a place called Cautitlan, which is where the mission offices are. I am comps with an elder whose name is Elder Cruz and it seems like he is a great guy. Everything that I have heard about him is extremely positive, and I think we will get along really well. Well let's just say that it was a little bit hard to leave my city of Queretaro! I had been there for so long that I knew all the guys names at the taco stands, and when I would be walking down the street, random people would just shout out my name! haha. I was a bit famous there. And now I go back to not knowing anyone! Oh well, yesterday in the morning I found out that I was going to leave. I had a great opportunity to bear my testimony in church and then after me, Yolanda got up and bore her testimony! It was so freaking powerful and it almost made me cry. The spirit in that moment and the happiness that was felt was undescribable. I had many people extremely sad that I was going to be leaving. Many people were crying, including me at a couple of times! haha. I was going to cry, but when we went by with Jazmin´s family, I was saying by to all of them when all of the kids started to cry! It so wasn't fair! You know me. I am a baby when it comes to goodbyes. Some of the hardest ones to say goodbye to were Roman, Alan and Sara. They were so nice to us and I had a really special bond with them. Everyone was extremely sweet and thoughtful with me though, including my bishop. I talked with him for a bit and he just told me, "just keep doing what you are doing. You did an amazing job here and your Heavenly Father is really proud of you and your work!" It was nice to talk with him as well before I left. I ate like 10 times on Sunday and I probably gained another couple of pounds! haha. And of course the Castillo family was sure tough to say goodbye to. They were like my family here and they are such wonderful people. I met so many awesome people in Queretaro and I really will never forget them. They will be a part of my life forever, that's for sure. Mom, you should see my book. It is so legit. The problem is is that I don't know if it will be able to fit everyone on my mission! It is already pretty loaded with really fun pictures and writings of all the people.

The work went pretty well this week and I left the area still in pretty good shape. My new area here though is massive. It is completely different from Queretaro. In Queretaro it was really flat and safe, and here it is extremely hilly and is supposedly a little bit dangerous. But the good news is that maybe I will lose some weight here with all of the hills! haha. I have the same feelings right now as I did when I left on the mission. It is weird but I am way excited. Supposedly we have some pretty good people here and the area is doing well. We are living in a pretty legit house that the members rent to us so everything should be really good. I don't think there is much else to say. To wrap up the week in just a couple words, there were lots of water works! haha. Oh and mom, I never did receive that package, but I will just end up sending all of the letters to Elder Ostergaard and he can give them to the different families. I sure experienced a happiness this week unlike any other. Yeah, there is no way I would rather be anywhere else.

I love you all. Elder Holmes