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

I'm Really Close to Being Able to Roll My R's!

Well I would like to start out like always with the happy birthday shout outs!! This week we have Bryan Padua on the second and Mear Bear padua on the third! I hope that you both have fantastic birthdays and that you both know that I will be thinking of you! And mom, your birthday is coming right up here soon. My comp Elder Ostergaard has the same birthday as you. But unfortunately for him, I think I will be going from this area next monday, the day before his birthday. But who knows. There still is the possibility that I will stay here in Queretaro, which wouldn't be too sad, because it is pretty legit here. I have some great converts and friends here.

Oh btw, mom, i want you to send me my old furry sheets! haha. It isn't super cold but all of the houses are made of brick so they are pretty chilly usually. I was thinking about my furry sheets last night when it was actually pretty cold, and how nice it would have been to have them to crawl into!

Well as for the week, it was a pretty good one. Roman was baptized on Saturday and received the confirmation on Sunday. The service went pretty well, but he didn't want too many people there, so it was really small. He was pretty happy about it. Also we had another guy that contacted us in the street and he is also progressing along well. All of my converts are doing well. It is a little hard because we have church at 8 in the morning. So sometimes it is hard to get all of them to church, but for the most part, they are all doing really well. Oh yeah and like 2 weeks ago one guy came to church all by himself. He is the dad of one of the members in our ward. This member had told me that he had sent like 10 different missionaries to the house of his parents and that they were never successful with him. SO this guy approaches me in church and asks me what I did to get his dad to church. I was like what? Who is your dad? haha. He had just come all by himself! Of course, we started to teach him more this week and when we got to the word of wisdom, he told us that he had a big problem with cigarettes. His name is Augustine, btw! We taught him the word of wisdom last week and had him write down his goals of what he was going to do. Well to this day, he hasn't smoked a single cigarette. He was smoking like packs before. It is really amazing what we all can do with the help of the Lord. The next obstacle for him is going to be getting married. It is another situation where they have been together for 35 years and still aren't married! So we will see how things work out with him this week. Well, that is all that i can really think of as far as what is going on here.

Thanks so much for the pictures you sent. Wow Christian looks so much older! I love the pic of him where he is about to fall asleep right there in the band concert! haha. That's my boy! And hey, a big congrats to Spencer Groner! That is really so awesome that he exercised his faith and is doing so well!

Today we went to bowl in the morning and then we went out to lunch as a district! It was really fun, but i didn't bowl too well! Oh well, everything is going great for me here. I do still have those days where i feel like my spanish still bites! But i definitely have come a long way! I am really close to being able to roll my r's. haha.! I love you all and miss you lots!

Elder holmes

Messi Never Rests!

Well a Big happy birthday shout out to Seanie Cassity this week. I hope the birthday is just awesome for you on the mission! I want you to know that i am reading your letters and you are doing such great work! Sure love you seanie! It's also hard to believe that it has been two years on friday, that dad had his kidney transplant. Uncle Lee, i want you to know that a day hasn't gone by that i haven't thanked Heavenly Father for your amazing sacrifice! i love you so much. And Lee Holmes, congrats on the eagle scout award! The pictures were awesome and i sure wish i could have been there to sit in the eagles nest! Let me guess, Grandad tried to go sit in the nest like he always does!!! Maybe if he would have left his mother side as a child to go camping, he could have sat in the nest as well! haha. I am just kidding g-pa! You are still pretty hard core and your support means the world to me and the fam!

Well everything down here is still going well. We didn't have too much success this week but i did have some pretty cool experiences. On Thursday, we had a zone conference where we learned a bunch of good stuff and it got us really excited to work! And then on Friday i went on inter cambios with my district leader elder marquez! He Is really awesome and i learned some great stuff from him! We had a ton of success when we worked together and I learned more really good stuff. I can see and feel myself progressing in my lessons and in my teaching. So as for the baptisms, Roman the brother of Alan and the son of Sara, should be getting baptized this saturday.

Today we went to play a little soccer and basketball but i have a little bad news! I think i kind of pulled my muscle last week! Last sunday Roman was joking around with me and he went running out of the church, so of course I started to run after him and yeah, you can take it from there! I am that stiff and weak right now! So i played last monday and could hardly play, but today I used a ton of icy hot and a bandages! haha. Messi never rests! It was really fun though and we had Allan come play with us and also my convert Israel, who can play really sick! So as you can see, everything is going pretty well. I think i will probably be gone in about 2 weeks but who knows? I wouldn't mind staying here. All of the people here like me and i need to watch out because whenever i say something is cool, they give it to me! Even the shirt off someones back! haha. I feel like i am robbing them if I take it from them, but they take offense if i don't!

Well still working hard and everytthing is going great!! I love you all! keep me in the prayers! I always need the help!! Peace out boy scout!

Elder Holmes

More Marriages and Baptisms!

Well so this week was again a pretty great week for the work down here in Mexico! Except for we did have a couple heartbreak situations! I will start with the good news! We figured everythijng out with the matrimony of Sara and Jesus. They were married on Wednesday and then she was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. What a great week! After her baptism, we did a sweet bonfire for all of our recent converts and we bought hot dogs and marshmallows to roast over the fire. Everyone had a really awesome time! I will try to send some photos of the baptism and the fire and everything. Sara is extremely happy and is doing great in the church, as well as her son Allan, who was baptized a week ago! Bishop just called him to be the first counselor in the priest quorum, which he is way excited about! He really loves everything about the gospel and is getting ready to leave on the mission next year! Sara's son Roman is a little bit more serious and isn't really too sure about a baptism, but we are going to talk to him some more this week.

Well so now to the tough part of the week. We were teaching Maria on Wednesday night and we taught her the law of chastity for the second time. After teaching, I asked her if she has any questions or doubts about what we had taught her and she said no, that everything is fine. So i committed her to live the law of chastity after i asked her if she had any problems with it and her answer was that everything is good. Ok so then my comp said SO you have been married civilly right? And she said "no! Is that going to be a problem?" Yes that is a problem! haha. She has like 30 years with her "husband" and 8 kids and has never been married! I almost died! So we will be working with them, too, on a way that we can marry them this week so she can be baptized! We will just have to see how it all goes! I guess she didnt really understand the law of chastity the first 2 times I taught it to her! haha. As for Bizmar, he doesn't really have the desire and hasn't received his answer to prayer yet, so we are still working with him.

SO this week we lost two complete days of work in order to go down to the state of Mexico to marry Sara and Jesus, so the week was a little bit slow, and we didn't have too much time in our area. However, we did bring some new people to church on Sunday. They were some of the people who contacted me in the street and they are really cool people, so we will see how they progress, as well. Everything is going great though, and i am still loving my area. Things are still looking up, however our leaders got a little bit mad at us because of the baptisms that fell through this week, but hey I am working for the Lord and not for them! haha.

Oh and to answer your question mom, yeah we see President quite a bit! We are going to have a conference this week with him. It is usually about every six weeks that we see him and the assistants! I hope all is going well with each of you! I Love you all so much and miss you too!

Love,
Elder Holmes

I Am the Luckiest Guy to be here in Mexico!

Well what is up!!

I will just start off today by saying that I didn't throw my back out! But I might have dislocated my shoulder playing soccer today! Just kidding mom, but it hurts like none other. The baptism was awesome! We Baptized Salvador and Alan on Saturday morning. They are both pretty shy people and they didn't really want anyone to come to their baptisms. As for sara, we couldn't work out how they could get married, so her baptismal date is for this following Saturday. Elder Ostergaard and I are going to go down to this place that is really far away to get them married this week. Alan is real legit and i had the honor to baptize him as well on Saturday. We have a really strong relationship and he is pumped to leave on a mission in a year.

Well i am trying to think of what else I could say in this letter. I am thinking back on this last week and really don't remember too much of it! haha. After the baptism, we went over to Salvador's house and he cooked pizza for about 20 different people! Including sara, alan and their family, so that was also a great experience and a bonding time for them with some of the other members from the ward. Salvador cooks like a boss and he is always so generous with us. He was like a totally different guy after his baptism. I had never seen him happier. He was participating in all of the classes on Sunday and was just so positive. He always hated being in groups but something happened over night that now he just seems really at peace and happy. I think it is safe to say that his baptism changed his whole perspective on life. The guy is really awesome and I am the luckiest guy to be here in mexico!

We also brought a couple other people to the church named Maria and this Bizmar kid again! We have baptismal dates with them for this coming Sunday, but we will see how it all turns out! Oh and one more thing. This week was pretty tough. I found myself just completely exhausted. I had no energy and it was really tough to keep pushing along! Saturday night came and I think the Lord knew the tough week i had had. And as we were walking back to the house, I had three different people contact me, asking us if we could come to their house! It was so random! Never in my mission has that even happened, so we will see what happens with these different people! I know that God has a plan for every one of his children and I am only here to find the ones who have been prepared to hear that plan! Well, love you all!

Elder Holmes

P.S. i will send photos of the baptism and what not, and of these sweet astroturf soccer fields we played on today!!