Pyramids of Teotihuacan

Hi family.

This week was a little bit of a crazy week, like they have all been. We have been shuffling through a lot of our investigators rather quickly. Aide dropped us because she is having a bunch of problems with her husband and right now isn't the time. Elia has come across like a thousand different crazy problems that Satan has seemed to put in her path right before she was about to do something right. And yeah, we pretty much lost everyone that we had been working with. But not to worry, because the Lord blesses us in all different kinds of ways and we found an extremely nice lady this week named Reina. We had a good member lesson with her and then she also came to the church with us on Sunday. If everything works out ok with the word of wisdom and stuff, then she will be getting baptized on conference weekend, which would be pretty dope. We are working hard, but it hasn't been as successful down here in the State of Mexico as it was in Queretaro, which is pretty weird, but we will keep working hard and see what blessings the Lord has for the people here.

Well today I am writing so late because as I had mentioned last week, Andres took us to the pyramids. It was so awesome and pretty fun because it was just packed with tons of people. We met a bunch of members there from different parts of the world and we were like famous there because every Monday the missionaries always go there, so every single person that is selling stuff is looking for the elders, saying "i have good stuff for you. Here, here, the elders always treat me well!" It was really funny as every single vendor would call out "elder" to try and sell us stuff. haha. I decided that since it is a once-in-the-mission experience, I bought some pretty cool souvenirs. I bought a sick mexican man purse (or "murse" for those who are a little more hip!), a sweet knife, and this pretty cool looking flute. Yeah with my mexican satchel, I am looking pretty legit mexican! Haha. All of the people there wanted to take pictures with us, as well. A few times it was a little awkward with the girls who would like try to hug us! haha. But it was a really fun experience and Andres and his wife just spoiled us! They are so awesome. We went with elders named Elder Hyde and Dove. They are from the same generation as my comp Elder Rojas, so it was a really great time. I will be sending some great pics along today.

What a fun week that you had as a family, and the opportunity you had to have Andrew at home, as well. I sure miss all of you, but my mind is pretty dang focused right now. That's awesome that Cade will be working with you and that is fun that you will be going out to California. As for your question as to whether we get to go to the temple here, mom, the answer is "No". I am still like an hour and a half from the temple and it's out of the mission, so we can't go. I would really die to go right now.

Well there really isn't much else. I have been noticing more the hand of God in everyday of the work. It has really been amazing, and I will tell you a story next week if everything works out with this one guy we found! (I bet you are all on the edges of your seats now, but you will just have to wait, just like the cliffhangers in "24"! haha. I love you all,

Elder Holmes

March 12th: Bye-Bye Elder Cruz

Short e-mail this week from Scott. He sure loves and appreciates all of you! Hope all is well with you and yours! -- Carolann

Well as you can see from my title, this week Elder Cruz left our area, and is now one of the secretaries in the offices of the mission. It was really hard to see him go, as he was one of my favorite comps that I have had here on the mission. We really got along well. So you are probably wondering how everything is going now that it is just me and Elder Rojas. Well everything is going pretty well. We had a pretty good week but a couple of bummers as well. With Elia and her girls, we had an awesome lesson on thursday night where they were so excited to get baptized and everything, and the mom even invited us to come to her birthday party which is today, and everything was just grand! Well then after that lesson, they just bailed on us the whole week! Her mom got sick on saturday and then she never answered any of my calls, so who knows what the problem is there. We will be going tonight to their house to eat dinner so we will see how that all goes. We also brought four new people to church this week, so we will also see how they progress throughout the week. I will let you guys know what is up with them. And finally Aide: we had a church activity on saturday that she came to that she really liked, but then wasn't in her home sunday for church, or anything like that. Andres is doing really awesome. Yesterday he was confirmed and received the holy ghost. That was great. I think next Monday he is taking us to the pyramids of "teoteokaun". Really I have no idea how to spell that place! So that should be pretty sick.

Ok so I also wanted to tell you guys a little story that happened at one of our lunch appointments this week. Oh my gosh. So this one lady signed up to give us food every Thursday for the entire month! I wasn't looking forward to going to this ladies house but we still went. When she opened the door, you got this crazy smells from her dogs and everything was a complete mess! So....we went down the stairs to enter into the house and she told me to go through this one door. I pushed the door open just to see tons and tons of junk all over the place. There were clothes thrown everywhere, rotten food and trash all over the place and just everything you can possibly imagine. I said "in here, hermana". She said "yes, just go take a seat on the bed". In my mind I'm thinking "where in the heck is the bed?" Literally the whole room was completely full with trash, leaving like a 6 inch path that we walked on to get to the middle of the room where we could see the bed! No joke! The room was also really dimly lit, so really it was like a scene from one of those creepy scary movies!! SO you are probably all thinking the same thing that i was, THERE IS NO WAY IN THIS LIFE THAT I AM EATING THIS FOOD! HAHA. But I ate it.... NO just kidding. I bet mom just about lost it right there!! The good news is that she had forgotten she was supposed to feed us, but she did give us some nice rotten apples that we could eat on the road, that had massive bugs coming out of them! haha.

Well so there is your fun story for the week. Maybe we can take a picture on Thursday when we go back! And every other thursday for the whole month! Well other than that, there isn't much too new with me. My comp and i are getting along great and i am really growing a lot spiritually in the position that I am in. It has been crazy hot here, but we are working hard, and we should have some great success in the future! I was hoping to send some pics today but I'm out of time. I sure love you all.

Elder Holmes

Toma Frito!

Hi everyone! I have to say that this week might have been one of the hardest of my mission!! I will go into a little bit more detail as to why, but I would like to say that I am thinking of Poppy this week, as it would have been his birthday this coming saturday, I believe.

Well to start off, Elder Cruz still didn't get his new comp so we continue in a three some, and so that is still a little bit tough, but we are trying to work through things. Also, this week all of a sudden it got extremely hot! Like I'm telling you it is hard to believe that it is March. Sometimes i am jealous when I read Sean's letters to hear how cold it is up there in Finland! Anyway, we worked like crazy this week. We were knocking doors like crazy, contacting everyone, asking references, the whole nine yards. And we were having absolutely no success whatsoever! Literally, I was just thinking about laying down on the side walk to take a little nap! haha. The first day it got hot I didn't put any sunscreen on and I ended up with a blister on my nose from how scorching hot the sun was. No one really realizes what a mission is really like until you are actually living it. I knew it was going to be hard, but sometimes I don't even know how I am still walking. haha. Anyway, after all of this you would think that our numbers would be terrible, but you are wrong. The Lord blessed us so much this week it isn't even funny. Andres got baptized! ! The change he made was absolutely amazing! He was able to overcome all of his scientific theories and put all his faith in the Lord! The lessons with him were so amazing this week and I grew so much spiritually! To see someone completely change like he has is definitely one of the reasons that I am here. His wife was crying just about every lesson and was so grateful for what he has learned and the changes he has made! I think he will be one of my best converts! They love us so much, they will do anything for the missionaries. That is not even it. On saturday night at 6 in the night after a whole week that just was so hard, we found this lady named aide. She accepted everything and then joined us at church on Sunday. We will have to work with her this week because I think she was a little bored in church. You know how some testimony meetings are. haha. Anyway....that's not even it. Then this lady named Elia called us Saturday night and said that she and her two kids would be joinging us for church as well. Well in the church we talked about baptism and then she and her 2 girls accepted a date for two weeks from now. She thanked us so much and said how we had come into her house at the perfect moment and how we have changed her life! So, i hope everything progress well with them this week as well. Anyway, after you have read this you are probably thinking "wow what the heck is this cat complaining about? Everything is going just fine!" But all i have to say is that it was a hard week! I am worn down physically but there isn't anything I can't do with a little help from the Lord. I know he always blesses us after the trial of our faith. It is so true and we just need to excercise a little more faith sometimes.

Well today I am writing really late because we had a zone activity where my comp, Elder Cruz, cooked a ton of meat and we all played a bunch of sports, which was really fun, but my white little legs got owned! haha. Well I sure love you all,

Elder Holmes

A Little Slow Posting -- This is from February 27th!

Well wow that is extremely exciting to hear about the pregnancies of amberlee and elise at the same time. Congratulations you two! And i was pretty dang ticked to hear about abbie and her broken ribs! You have got to be kidding me. Yeah the lie detector is necessary, mom! That is my dog they are messing with. And yeah i hope the titan car is doing ok! haha. I am just kidding mom. I am so glad that nothing bad happened to you or the lady that you crashed with. And last of all, of course I am ticked about you selling the condo, dad. haha. But i know that you only do what is the best so i guess it is ok. I hope that you get a new one by the time that i get back, though!!

Ok well as for me here, we only had two of our three baptisms this week. The dad (Miguel) got hit with every sort of problem in this last week and come sunday, he was working because he has absolutely no money to even buy food for his family. That was kind of a hard experience, but we will see how he can progress this week. Elder Cruz did the honor of baptizing Marisol and her daughter Angeles, which i will send the picture of their baptism. It was a really nice service and the two of them were both really happy and content. The week was a little bit tough though, as well. As you can imagine, a threesome is a little bit more difficult in every aspect. We are still trying to find how the best way is to teach with three of us. President told Elder Cruz on Friday that there are a bunch of new missionaries coming in tomorrow, so we will see if he gets a new companion then. We still don't know what/when they are going to do with all of us and how they will separate the area. Oh yeah and all the missionaries received cell phones the other day, which is pretty exciting, and makes things a lot easier for us here.

As for the area, we have some really great investigators, but we are having a really hard time bringing them to church. We have two named Alberto and Faustino. They have kept every one of their compromisos and do everything we ask, but they can't come to church because their mom is bedridden and they can't leave her. They have read a ton of the Book of Mormon and they tell us that they know it is true, but I think we will not continue with them because they can't fully progress without coming to church. We also have a family named Elizabeth and Alfredo. They have three girls who were baptized, but they still can't be baptized because they are not married. The wife is still waiting for him to change, and right now he is in a "testing" period from his wife to see if he has actually changed. They are attending church every week and this guy is completely changed, but still a no on them, so we will try to work with them a little more to see what we can do. They are so awesome though. I actually made crepes for all of them for a family home evening the other day and they all loved them. Actually I have made the crepes like 5 times since you sent me the recipe! And just the other day i made toad in the holes for my comps, which they really liked as well. Well as for me, everything is going well and obviously I am still happy! Just have a couple of things to sort out! love you all

Elder holmes

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