March 17th - "Remember ME??"

Hey Guys!

Remember me? My name is Elder Holmes and I am actually currently STILL serving my mission!! haha. I am not home yet bros!!!  What ever hapened to "perseverar hasta el fin"?? haha. I would love to see the pics of the opening of nicks mission call, the video, pictures of moms trip in london, etc..... What if I all of a sudden just stopped sending you guys emails and pics? Do you at least still read my emails?? I am not going to complain however because mom did write me a pretty detailed email about what has been going on, but my question is, who in the heck is even playing on the nuggets team?  I hear all this talk about us tearing it up, and I don't think we even have anyone good. Sure sounds like a lot of fun going to the Knicks and Grizzlies games this last week and everything. When does march madness start? You need to send me my draw!!

As for me, the weeks are flying by, and we have been all over the place with tons of things to do. One of the fun parts about being in the offices is that we get to travel, and I get to know the parts of the mission where i have never been, such as Hidalgo! This last week we went to study with a companionship there in a place called Valle de Mezquital. It is extremely far away from the offices!  We had to take one of those big coach busses and then three diferent comvees just to get there. It took us about 3 or 4 hours, we studied for 2 hours and then we came all the way back! We thought that it was going to just be a little morning trip, but it was a lot further than we thought. I took some pictures there because I had never been there and I also was able to try the famous food from there called pastes!  They are wicked good! The other trip that we did this week was that we went to Queretaro again yesterday in the morning. We went to study with some missionaries and then I was able to work the whole day with Elder Hyde. We wanted to help them out because Elder Smith hasn't been able to leave the house for the last week and a half, and the doctor says that he still has to stay inside for the next couple of days. He is recovering well, but the doctor doesn't want it to get infected with all of the polvo and what not. He should be good to go this next week. It has been fun for me to go there though and see some of my converts and the people that I left in teaching that have now gotten baptized. Yesterday when we worked we found a great guy named Alejandro, who accepted a date to be baptized and to come to church. I know that there are still tons of people waiting for me, to teach them the gospel. We got back from Queretaro today in the morning, and now we are pretty tired so we have spent some of our p-day just chillin.The weather here in Mexico has been pretty cold for the past week, but it's great weather to work in!  It has been super cloudy and yesterday it actually rained on us a little bit.
 
On Thursday I went on a division with Elder Watson, my MTC companion. It is pretty amazing to see how far we have come in our spanish and in our teaching! In the mtc, I remember stuttering over words and not knowing any spanish at all, and now the both of us can actually teach pretty fluidly in spanish!! He is a great kid. One thing that I have definitely learned in my mission is how important a baptism really is! I always knew it was super important in my life, but sometimes we are way too casual in sharing the gospel when there are thousands of people around us struggling, just because they dont know where to find the truth. I have learned to invite everyone to be baptized and in any situation. It is the first step on our way back to our Heavenly Father. Watson and I talked about this before we started the day, and during the day we focused on inviting EVERYONE. We acutally ended up putting a baptismal date with a taxi driver while he took us from one part of the area to another part! haha. He was actually so excited to listen to us, and he was so pumped when we told him about baptism. He accpeted a date super easily, and it was a great testimony to me that God is preparing his children to hear the only true gospel!! Baptism is the best decision someone can make, but it is also just the begining of what he asks of us! For some reason, every time I have been in divisions I have had a bunch of success! I think the Lord is trying to make me miss the field!!  I hope that some of those blessings also start to come in my own area!!

We have had some great success with a young guy named Angel in our ward! He has progressed a lot, and today he is going to be baptized at 8 o clock! He is really excited, and he has definitely been a tender mercy of the Lord for my comp and me. I will be sending you guys the photos as well of the baptism but not until next week. My testimony has grown so much in the time that I have as a representative of his son Jesus Christ, and I know that there are people all around us waiting to here the word of the Lord! Work hard with the missionaries. We will only receive our salvation, if we help those around us in need! I love you all so much!

Love, Elder Holmes

PICS INCLUDE:  
1)  The pic with the big teddy bear is a family there in Queretaro that really liked me!
2)  A pic of the land scape of valle de mezquital!
3)  The pic with the two elders is the first church that was built in our mission, and one of the first ones built in mexico! Pretty cool stuff!