Greetings from "The Captain"

Hi everyone.  

Hope this e-mail finds you all just livin' the dream there!  Mom, so glad to hear that your surgery went well.  Hermana Call actually sent word to me on Thursday night that all had gone well with the surgery and that you were doing fine.  She sure has been nice to me!

As you guys probably already guessed, this week was also an extremely busy week for us. Like every single week that i have had since I have been here in the offices. This week President wanted us to visit a couple of different companionships and work with a couple of different elders, but most of them were way far away! On Wednesday we went to some district meetings in Atotonilco and than we traveled about an hour and a half in bus to go and do divisions with the zone leaders in Valle de Mezquital (Hidalgo). We were up there with them the whole day working in their area, which was a good experience for us. One of my good friends from the mission, Elder Dove, is there. It was good to see him and work with him for the day.  We slept in their house (which is always my least favorite part -  sleeping in the houses of the other missionaries!  It is only my least favorite part because the elders never have any extra sheets, blankets, pillows, etc!  The night that we were up there I slept on some nasty matress with a super nasty blanket. You know those blankets that smell SUPER good and feel like silk? Yeah not those! haha. SO usually i don't get much sleep when I'm travelling, so that kind of plays in to my being tired sometimes. 

And then on Friday (yesterday) we went up to Queretaro to study with some of the elders up there. It is always fun to go back to Queretaro! It is so pretty up there, and I just love it. It was sad to see Elder Hurst leave last week, but they are just killing it up there in my old ward! It kind of makes me jealous!  Anyway, here are a few answers to some of your questions.

SO today is the baptism of the Hermana Maria and a little kid that is 8 years old from the ward! But the problem is that THERE IS NO WATER IN THE CAPILLA!  Unreal. We should have a water truck coming to fill up the pila here in a little but I hope it gets here. If not, we have our plan de respaldo in a different church building that is close by. So we will see what happens, but she is super pumped up for her baptism!

• How is the rest of your teaching pool?
• The teaching pool is struggling a lot right now in our area. We haven't been finding any one lately, and the ward has been tough to get references from. We are working hard on it though, and I hope to see some miracle here in the next couple weeks! 

• Are you getting much time during the week to work your area?  
• We dont get too much time to work in our area! This last week we worked all day Tuesday and a little bit on Thursday night. This next week we should get a little bit more time in our area, but we also have a bunch of missionaries arriving, which means more training sessions. We have about 9 new ones that we are going to train this next Tuesday.

• Does Elder Cruz speak any English?
• No not really, but we are working on it! The other day he gave his testimony to the new gringo elders that got here. He is getting better! 

What a great conference it was last weekend! It was so inspiring, and I was able to receive some great revelation for me, the mission, my area, and the investigators we have right now. The power that is felt when the general authorities speak is a testimony to me of the truthfulness of this church. The spirit that I felt as Elder Holland bore testimony literally shook my body! They are prophets and apostles of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Love you all,
Elder Holmes

Crazier than I Had Thought!

So big news here in the mission.  Our e-mailing rules have changed!  President just this week finally gave us the same rules as all the other missions in the world, that we can now have contact with anyone through email. The only rule is that we can't email people of the oposite sex within the boundaries of the mission, which is pretty obvious. We now have an hour and a half to write, which is Double the time we've had actually! Kind of a big surprise for all the missionaries, but everyone was pretty excited about it.  SO if anyone wants to write me here in these last couple months then they can write me at my email address scott.holmes@myldsmail.net!  I doubt there is anyone out there that is dying to write! Especially since my bros don't even write anymore! haha. 

OK, so this week was even crazier than I had thought it was going to be, because as you guys have heard, my companion Elder Hurst is no longer my companion. Sunday morning President told us that Elder Cruz would be coming here with me to the offices, and that Elder Hurst would be going to go to my old area there in Queretaro! I am not going to lie. I am pretty jealous because that area is just exploding and it looks like they should be setting some new records in the mission!  But we will see how they do! Thinking about it, I could have still been there with Elder Hyde! But you can't have your cake and eat it too!  So I was then made from one day to the next Assistant one, and took on a lot more responsibilities as well. I thought it was pretty nice just following Elder Hurst around! haha. The consejo for the zone leaders was canceled last month, so I had never given a consejo as an assistant, and this week i had to plan the whole junta with Elder Cruz (and the help of Hurst) and Cruz and I both gave the junta (it being the first one for the both of us!). I am not going to lie, I was pretty worried about it this week, and I didn't really sleep great. The days felt a lot longer because I was stressing over it. But honestly, it was one of the best juntas that I have given, and everyone really enjoyed it. We should see some great stuff happening here in the mission! I also think that President and Hermana call enjoyed the junta which is always a good thing. We talked about the teaching of the mission, and I remembered a cake example that I saw at BYU when they talked about how to teach! I dont know if I ever shared this with you but I bought a cake for the consejo, and when I pulled it out, I asked everyone who would like some of the cake.  Of course, everyone raised their hand! I related the cake to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I then said just like this perfect cake, everyone should want the gospel in their lives, and asked "so why do some people reject it"?  I then grabbed the cake with my hand and threw it on a little plastic plate.  I asked everyone who wanted a piece now. I then related that to our teaching. We have the perfect message, but it depends on the way that we "serve" it to the people. I thought it went really well, and I had done this activity with some of my other zones before. We talked about how the doctrine needs to be in our hearts as missionaries and did some great practices, and really felt the spirit!

As for the rest of the week, Monday and tuesday we had a bunch of new missionaries coming in that we had to train, and also a bunch of missionaries that were headed home (like Elder Marquez and my old comp, the other Elder Cruz). We gave 3 capacitaciones to the new missionaries and the trainers, and also went down to the mtc in the DF to pick them up. That night I had a good talk with Elder Marquez, and as you can imagine when missionaries go home they are so excited that they don't even sleep!  SO me sleeping much here in the offices isnt too likely!

As for our baptism, Hermana Maria isn't going to get baptized this week because her son wasn't able to come down here to baptize her. We will be having the baptism next Saturday instead. She is still really excited, and went to the first session of conference with us today in the morning! WOw what a session it was and what great testimonies! The testimony of Elder Eyring was just so powerful!  This is the true church. There is no doubt about that!  You can sure feel it as the prophet and apostles speak. I am excited for the rest of the sessions. 

Now Just to answer some questions that you guys had:

• So what are the training plans the next 3 months? How many missionaries will you be receiving?
• President really still hasn't let us know whats going to go down, but all I know is that for the two new missions,  we have to train an assistant for the both of them (2 assistants) and 2 secretaries as well. And then for our mission, we will need another one, so we will see what happens! 
• When do the two sister assistants get called?  Just like you go out on splits and study with the elders the sisters need the same treatment.  Mom's mission president was sure inspired 30 years ago. I'm surprised it hasn't been done more in the past.
• I actually talked about this with president the other day, and he also thinks that it is something that they will have to do with so many new sister missionaries! We are going from 25 sisters in the mission to about 100 so we will see what they end up doing for the leadership.

Watch the conference everyone! They are special witnesses of Jesus Christ! I love you! 

Elder Holmes

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! (from March 30th)

Wanted to send these pics so WILCOX can see that I'm still dominating at MATA MOSCAS!  Yeah baby! That is definitely why I got an "A" in her class!  Anyway, my comp and I have been teaching some English classes to the ward sisters down here and they like the game too.  It has been fun to teach the members English, as well as how to better live the gospel!

Here are some pics of my comp and I, with a member of the ward.  We had just finished bowling on our P-Day.

Hey family.  I can’t believe that I forgot to wish the only girl that is waiting for me a Happy Birthday last week!  Claire Chilton! You better still be waiting for me! I hope that you had a great day, Claire, and I bet you just look even younger than ever! I sure love you lots!

Sure glad I finally made dads life, by answering the million different questions that he asked me last week, so I guess I will answer his questions again this week. I have flipped over a new leaf! Anyway......

1. So how was the week?


This week went pretty well for my comp and me. Things have been pretty busy planning for the big week that we are going to have next week! I hope to write you guys next week with the two baptisms that we should be having in our area, and all of the events that will be going on! Today we have changes for the mission, so this week we helped president out a little looking at the changes, as well as the leaders in the mission. He Invited us up to his house to eat lunch with him and his wife, and then we talked about changes for a couple of hours. Tonight we should be looking at them as well. He asks us for different suggestions, as we are the ones who see the whole mission, and talk to the leaders every night, but it is truly amazing how he receives inspiration before making every change! It really is the Lords work. He knows exactly where we need to be, and with who, in order to have a successful mission. I surely have seen that in my mission. 

2.    Are you loving being an AP?


There are for sure some fun things about being ap, but there are also a couple things that I miss about the field such as the hours spent proselyting. I love how we are able to study with all of the new missionaries, and see the progress that they are making. It has really helped my teaching as well, because we are always doing practices with them and studying hard to help them grow. I like also how president is always close by. Wow what a amazing man he is.  He amazes me on how he always stays focused and is always praying in his mind. Its been an amazing learning experience for me, to say the least.

3.    Do the zone and district leaders respond to you well?


I feel like the majority of the district and zone leaders respond well to me. I feel like I have built a pretty good relationship with them over the year and a half that I have as a missionary. I always try to earn their confidence. Something I liked a lot from one of my teachers in high school (mr. Clark) was how he talked about confidence and respect. Clark Began by asking all the members of his class if we respected him. We obviously all said yes, and he asked us why? We answered that we respected him because he was a teacher, and he was older than us. He then taught us that respect shouldn't just be expected with the position we hold, or with the age we have, but that we should win/earn the respect of everyone. He told us that he was going to work hard to earn our respect, and I feel the same with the position that I have been given right now.

This week should be busy with the changes and the training for the new missionaries. The consejo de lideres de zona (which we always have in the house of president), the zone meetings on Thursday, Conference Saturday and Sunday, and then the couple of baptisms that we will have on Sunday.  My good friend Elder Marquez is leaving this week with all the miss arises who are going home. It will be sad to see him go, but I was sure glad we became great friends here on the mission.  

I am so excited for General Conference next week, and I am so grateful for this Easter season that we are in!  The sacrifice that was made on the cross was something so important for each of us to understand and appreciate, but what is more important this Easter season, and rarely remembered, is that He Lives!  I am so grateful for the resurrection, and the sacrifice my Savior made for every one of us!  I love being a missionary for His church!  

To finish my letter with a funny story, I will tell you guys something that happened to me last week as I was on the bus ride up to Queretaro.  I drank a ton of water before the trip, so I had to go to the bathroom about 10 times on the trip.  My bad karma is that I never flushed the toilet because those toilets are always nasty!!  SO  one of the time when I got up to use the bathroom, I had my phone in my hand and when I entered, the bus driver hit a bump and there went my cell phone into the very full toilet!  YES!!  So I pulled it out real fast with my hand and let it lay out for the whole night.  When I turned it on the next morning it was as good as new! However, my comp refuses to use the phone now!!!  

Love you all so much,

Elder Holmes

Much Better!

Wow, so this week was a definite improvement with the emails that were sent to me!! haha. It was sure fun to hear from all of you. We had a pretty great week with some really cool events that happened in our area! I am going to start off by telling you guys what we did today! We went to watch a kid from our ward open his mission call! I was so happy to see him open his call, because i was kind of sad that I missed Nick's call. This made up for it, and actually he is going into the mtc the same day as Nick! His name is Alejandro, and he was called to serve in the North Carolina spanish speaking mission! Maybe he will get to meet my friend Chrissy! haha. Oh I heard she is going to get married! Tell her congrats for me!! Speaking of friends, I also want to congratulate Lauren Cochran with her mission call to Africa! Too bad you leave the exact same day that I get home! You will do great Lauren! 

Ok so the baptism last week of Angel went just great, but we were a little worried because his boss didn't let him off of work until 8:30 that night, so we had a really late baptismal service for him, but it was super special, and he is extremely happy. He Is progressing great in the gospel! 

SO i want to tell you guys about a miracle that we had this week, and something that rarely happens on the mission! Her name is Maria Christina. Last week we received a reference from some elders that attend our same church building. We tried contacting her last week, but we couldn't find her in her house. On Monday we went to go visit her, and the first thing that she told us was "I am going to be baptized next week!" haha. This took my comp and I so off guard that we started to laugh a little bit, because we are the ones who should be putting a fecha with her, and not her just telling us! haha. She then goes on to tell us that Her son is being baptized in another mission this weekend, and that he will then receive the priesthood, and will baptize her. So all the work was kind of done for us! We then talked to her about the organization of the church, and how she needs to be baptized here so that she can have visiting teachers, etc. (because she was going to get baptized in the ward of her son). She was just pumped with the idea, and this last week went to two of the activities that the hermanas of the Relief Society put on, and she is just in love with the church and the hermanas! So this weekend she is going to the baptism of her son, and hopefully by the 7th of April, her son can receive the priesthood so that he can then come and baptize his mom! How awesome would that be? He will see if that all works out! She is just pumped to get baptized, and she already is progressing a bunch! 

This week we did a bit of traveling again, and today I would like to answer some of the questions that dad asked me! Yah dad that's right, I am actually going to answer your questions! haha

• How do you like the ward?                      
• The ward is a really awesome ward here in atlanta! They have been really good at giving the missionaries references, and they all understand that we have a really full schedule, so sometimes we can't come to eat in their homes or visit them, and they don't get mad about it! haha. I have met a lot of people that get kind of upset when the missionaries don't visit them. 
• Do you live close to the mission home?
• We lIve about 30 minutes away from the mission home. 
• Is the mission office separate from the mission home?  If so, are they close to each other?
• So we have the offices and the mission home. Two totally diferent places. The house of president is in a really fresa(nice) place in valle dorado, and the offices are here in Cuautitlan. 
• Do you eat with members or is your schedule too sporadic and you eat more on your own?
• We eat with the members, but lots of time we have to cancel because we aren't in our area, and then we usually eat with the other missionaries. And of course, sometimes we have to eat on our own. But the hermanas are super good about it here in our ward. 
• Have you seen any area 70s?  Are any general authorities scheduled to visit before you leave? 
• We listened to Elder Alonso the other week when he came to the mission, but there are no others planned before I leave the mission. 
• Did you get my photos from last week?
• Yes i did get your photos!! I love getting photos so keep them coming. Oh and mom I also got the package with the jersey and Rafa just loved it! As well as his wife! She says it makes him look extremely guapo! haha. thanks!

So That is all there is from me. I love you all a bunch! 

Love, Elder Holmes

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! 

March 10th - A Crazy Busy Week!

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How are you guys doing???

I am doing pretty well, but I like how dad asked me if I've caught up on my sleep that i needed! I got a good laugh out of that!  This was definitely not the week to do that. But I did just take a little nap for about an hour or so, so I am feeling a lot better. This week was a crazy busy week! The time seems to go by so fast, that I don't even remember everything that happened in this last week. It was also filled with a couple of diferent adventures. 

I would like to start by adressing one of dads questions of what we do on p-day. Well it is a lot diferent because we are the only missionaries with their p-day on Saturday instead of Monday so we really cant do anything with the other missionaries. So these last couple weeks we have been visiting converts of my comp and what not. Last week we went to make some pizzas with one of his converts and that was really fun. I will send you guys along the photos of the sweet pizzas that we made. And you might be asking why haven't you visited some of your converts, and the answer is that we are going to go visit them today because it is the baptism of Karla at 6 in the afternoon, Mayra and Adrian's daughter, my converts in Tepozatlan. She just turned 8 years old about a week ago, and my comp Elder Neyra who was with me when we baptized Mayra, came down from Tijuana to baptize Karla. SO that is going to be a really fun afternoon. I hope to see most of my converts from Tepo there in the baptismal service. Great stuff! 

Ok now i am sure you guys are just anxious to hear about the week! On Monday we got to go down with President to the airport to pick up six new american missionaries that got here to the field. Let me tell you, it was soooo Weird to be in the airport to pick all of them up. I havent been there since I was first getting here over a year and a half ago. They are all extremely excited to be here in Mexico. They had been serving in Ogden for about 4 weeks when their visas finally got there. It was fun to see their faces as we went back to the house of President. I remember just looking out and soaking all of the mexican culture in. We stopped off at a little tienda and bought them a bunch of mexican treats. We went back to presidents house and ate. They then had all their interviews, and then we came back to the offices so that they could sleep before their big next day. The next day we had the training meeting and they all then found out who was going to be their trainers. During the meeting, I received a call from Elder Hyde and Elder Smith in Queretaro. They told us that Elder Smith was really sick and that he wasn't going to be able to give the zone capacitation tomorrow there in Queretaro. When the meeting was finishing up, and they were all going to their areas, we got another call from them and found out that Elder Smith went to draw some blood at a little hospital, and then had gone to the bathroom to do a urine test, when he fainted and smacked his face on the toilet. Well with that bad fall, we found out that he had broken his nose and that he was going to need surgery. So Instead of following with the normal plans that we had, we had to travel up to Queretaro real quick so that I could go to some meetings with the Stake Presidents, while my comp stayed with Elder Smith in the hospital. I stayed the night in my old house there in Queretaro (just like old times with my bud Elder Hyde) and then the next day, I went to give the junta to all the elders there in Queretaro. They were all really surprised to see me there!

While i was up there in Queretaro in the church building, I saw an hermana that was good friends with the Amaya family (my converts whose member friend had died). She calls up one of my converts right then on the phone, and before I knew it, she was there in the church to say hi to me! haha. It was Viviana. We talked just for a minute because we then had to have the juntas with president. I was able to talk to the rest of them on the phone though, and they were all excited to hear from me. It was crazy how that worked out. The next day I went to eat with a great family there and I went to say hi to a couple of my converts. They all seemed to be doing awesome. We then went back to the hospital where we found Elder Smith getting out of surgery, so we just had to take some pics with him!!  My comp and I then traveled back here to the state of Mexico and got here at about 9 o clock at night! Thursday and Friday we studied in the mornings with new missionaries and we just had the afternoon to work and find new people. But it has been extremely hard to find people to teach in our area. When we are here we are working like crazy, but we haven't seen much success. I think that guy named Angel that I told you about will get baptized next week, but that is the only person we have right now. Well I think that is about it.  It was a pretty crazy week, but filled with some great and tough experience. 

Love you all,
Elder Holmes

PICS INCLUDE:  Making pizzas with Elder Hurst; Making sure one of our converts never forgets me; getting the new missionaries some mexican snacks; visiting Elder Smith in the hospital; the baptism of Karlita!

Wow! I am Mad!

Hi family.  Here is Scott's letter for the week.  He was a little ticked that Nick hadn't opened his call before he wrote on Saturday morning.  He was able to go on a bit later and his e-mail to us then was simply "TELL ME WHERE HE IS GOING!!!!!"  We were fortunately able to e-mail him right back with the news of Sao Paolo Brazil, and his response was "YESSSSS!!!! Hey bud I am way pumped for you!!! Congrats! You are the boss! i love you so much!" We are thrilled that Nick and Scott will be able to enjoy 3 weeks together after Scott comes home and before Nick leaves.  Thanks to you all for your support this weekend - and ALWAYS!  Love you.....CA

Hi guys.  So I got here to the offices all early today to see if you guys had emailed me where Nick is going on his mission!  But no!  Sooo rude!  My guesses are (1) Argentina -- I'm sure he's going here!  But if he goes to Mexico, I'm guessing Queretaro and if he goes stateside, I'm guessing California.  I think I'm going to win!!!

Hey guys,

So this is going to be a really short email because I am super ticked at all of you today because I have to wait even more time to see where Nick is going to be going on his mission! haha. I couldn't even sleep last night, and now I have to wait another night just thinking about it. I did dream last night that he was sent to Vera Cruz mexico! I really hope that he comes here to Mexico! It is the best country ever! And it would be even sicker if he came to the mission that I am in or the Queretaro mission! But I am super excited to see where he will be spending the next 2 years of his life. The mission is the best experience that any young man can have, and a wonderful way to forget about yourself and work hard to help other people! Nick, I am so excited for you!  I just know that the Lord will send you exactly where He needs you!

Wow the weeks just pass by crazy fast because it seems like we always have a million different things that are going on!! Last saturday was the baptism of Loli, which was another great experience, and she was so happy! She is a really old lady, and lives in Chiapas. She headed back to her house this week, but she went as member of the church to take the message back to all of her family. She is such a great laady, and I will send you guys the pics of the baptism that we had. This week was spent in capacitaciones in the state of Mexico and the state of Hidalgo. We had meetings for all of the leaders in the mission. President and Sister Call, along with my companion and me, gave the capacitations. On wednesday after the meeting in Hidalgo, we stayed up there and worked with some of the missionaries. We got back about mid-day on Thursday and only had Thursday night and Friday to work in our area. It is kind of tough with so little time to work in our area but it looks like after this week things will start to calm down a little bit. On monday, 6 Americans are coming in! I am pretty excited to see them, because it gives me hardcore flashbacks to what it was like when I first got to the field. Also with nick opening his mission call, it has taken me back to 2 years ago when i opened my call and went through the temple. I actually just renewed my temple recomend because it had been two years since I first went in!  I cant believe that!  It feels like yesterday when all of that was happening. The time in the mission really has passed by soooo fast. Maybe I will just extend for another year! haha. (I would but I have to get home to be the best man in the wedding!) All this talk about me being the best man, and i have never once been asked to be the BM! haha. Then on Tuesday we have the meeting for all of the trainers and the new missionaries, and then on Wednesday we have the meeting with all of the zone leaders here in the offices. After that it should be pretty calm and then we will focus in on doing divisions with the zone leaders, studying with the new missionaries, etc. 

I don't know if you guys have realized, but I am trying to write better weekly letters since I have been here in the offices because it has been way too hard for me to write in my journal! I have been pretty good at writing in my journal my whole mission. I had never missed a full week without writing, and for most of my mission, I have written every single day. But right now there just seems to be no time. And many times we aren't even in the house! So, mom help me out by printing out all of my letters. I feel bad not writing, and I need to find the time to do it. Also this last week we successfuly switched houses, and the new house is pretty legit. I will have to send you guys some nice pics of it. It is the nicest house that I have lived in my whole mission. 

Now to finish my letter off I want to tell you guys of a experience that I had this last Sunday in church. We went at 11:30 with the bishop before church started at 12 to have a little junta with him and his counselors. When we were finishing up the meeting and going to get ready for the first hour (sacrament meeting) he says "Oh Elders, you guys are speaking today in church!  I love when they do that!!!  It was fun though because I got to present myself with the ward, and I talked a little bit about our example as members. I shared with them a quote that I like "Live everyday so that the people who are around you will want to know Christ, because they know you!" I talked a little bit about the Amaya family (my converts in Queretaro) and how because of the good influence of their friend who died, they wanted to know Christ. I think it went well. I have gotten pretty used to speaking on the spot!  Well I love you all!  Send me an email right when Nick opens his call!!!! I am pumped!!

Love,

Elder Holmes