Hola de San Sebastián!!
Before I begin, I hope all the mothers had a wonderful Mother's Day
yesterday!! Of course, shout out to my beautiful mama and also to my little
sister Megan who turned 9 on Saturday!! Feliz Cumpleaños!! :)
I'm here!! In Puerto Rico!!! WOW. What a crazy week it has been already!! I
don't even know where to start. Oh, how about with, Elder Zwick and his wife are
our temporary Presidents?!? What!! They are AMAZING people, I can't even get
over it!! All of us thought it was Zivic, but when President Zwick walked into
the airport I thought to myself, that's not Elder Zivic. Hahaha but seriously!!
They are absolutely incredible!! So that first day we just went to the Mission
Home, got a little orientation and ate, and then we were off to meet our
companions!! Oh and also, since the whole Mission President thing was such a
quick change, President Zwick arranged for every missionary in Puerto Rico to
come together for a meeting!! Which apparenly has never been done before, so on
Thursday, every single missionary in Puerto Rico met together!! How cool is
that? There are like 200 of us I believe? But I got to see Elder Gallagher and
Hermana Cole!! So that was so fun!! He just talked about the direction of the
mission and gave us some awesome counsel!
My amazing companion (mi mama) is Hermana Sosa from Hondurus!! It has only
been less than a week here and I've already learned SO much from her! She speaks
a little bit of english which is nice sometimes haha :) but she has been in the
mission for 9 months and is SO bold and talks to absolutely everyone! Which is
amazing right?? Of course! Haha but at first it was terrible for me cause she
would make me talk to everyone too - yeah, I thought I knew a little bit of
Spanish.. yeah this isn't Spanish people!! Haha it's Puerto Rican Spanish!!!
Haha really though, before the mission when people would tell me how fast they
would speak and how they wouldn't really say their "s", it's SO true!!!! It's
such a beautiful language though and I'll get it eventually haha!
Well, my beautiful area is San Sebastián! We live in a house underneath a
members house and basically there is a jungle in my backyard! NO joke!! But with
the jungle, comes many creatures... Heavenly Father obviously knows my fear of
bugs.. especially spiders!! But these are huge spiders! Every night before you
get into bed you have to shake out your sheets and then shake them again! Same
with your clothes too! But it's all part of the experience, right? Haha anyway,
so the first day that we came to the house, it was SO messy! Apparently the
Elders before didn't clean anything up, and they didn't clean up any of the
bugs! So we spent the whole day mostly in the kitchen emptying our the drawers
and coupboards and everything haha! Oh and we get a lot of cochroaches too..
which almost tie on my list with spiders! Anyway, our area is pretty big and we
just split it in half with the other companionship. We've mostly stayed close to
the house but when we need to, the members above us are absolute angels and will
give us rides!! They are so sweet! So there are 28 "barrios" here, which are
like smaller areas inside one larger area I guess, but there is only one
"barrio" in the whole area, which is a ward! Haha confusing right? But I love
the ward, it's only about 20-25 people but they are so fun! They all think I
speak Spanish or something and will always try and talk to me! And then I have
to have that awkward conversation of how I've only been here for 5 days :) Haha
it's great! But yeah, the bishopric introduced us in church and I had to speak
so now they all know :) And, no one knows how to play the piano so I've been
asked if I can do that too!! And for the primary!! It's going to be fun haha!
But I really do love it here, good people!
So this area hasn't had sisters in a very long time apparently cause
everytime we talk to people they are like, oh yeah we've talked to the guys in
shirts and ties before but we didn't know that there were sister missionaries
too hahaha yup, that's us now! And since all of us are new in the area, we had
to basically start from scratch and we've been contacting for these past few
days! Man, I just love the people here. And they are so receptive to
listen!! But we'll see what happens when we actually start teaching the
lessons! We are going to be so busy though, we have 8 new investigators and 12
appointments just this week!! Here we go, right?? Haha and wish me luck on the
Spanish!!
Oh funny story!! So a lot of people here are Catholic and they really like
to make it known to us haha so we were contacting the other day and we started
talking to this lady who was on her patio and when we told her who we were she
basically yelled at the top of her lungs, SOY CATOLICA!! Which is I am Catholic!
Haha she was nice. Oh and some of the people here think I'm Puerto Rican (I must
be getting tan already :)) and others think that my parents must be Puerto Rican
haha either is good right?
Ok, so I learned something really important this week. Spanish is a little
difficult. Ok it's really difficult sometimes! Haha well, for me anyway. I would
sit in lessons and just try SO hard to concentrate on what they are saying and
find myself only understanding 10%. Sometimes, nothing but a few words! I would
constantly pray during the lessons too, just to understand a little bit, but
nothing would come! But I know the Lord was trying to teach me something. And
it's still a lesson in progress! First of all, He loves us! He wants us to
succeed! He wants us to be happy! But, He also wants us to rely on Him! And I've
realized that in times of difficulties, it's so important to never forget that.
And, we need to try and recognize the tender mercies He gives us in our lives.
They are everywhere!! As I've gone through this past week, and as I've tried my
best to rely on Him, He has helped me recognize the little accomplishments. The
little victories! After I bore my little testimony in Sacrament on Sunday, there
was a visiting family there and the dad of the family had told me that for only
5 days, my Spanish is super good! Haha like what? That was something I
definitely needed to hear, and Heavenly Father knew that! And also, never
underestimate your potential!! We are all sons and daughters of God, can it get
any better than that? Anyway, I hope everyone has such a wonderful week!! Not
sure what the weather is like in the States right now, but it rains all the time
here!!
Love,
Hermana Holt
Elder Gallagher
(his sister is married to my cousin)
President and Sister Zwick
The newest missionaries
Dear Brother and Sister
Holt,
We are so delighted
to send you this photo of your amazing missionary. It was wonderful to receive
Sister Holt, and especially satisfying to extend a warm welcome to the Puerto
Rico San Juan Mission.
Your missionary and your
entire family will be blessed, as promised by the Lord in Section 31 of the
Doctrine and Covenents:
“I will bless you and your
family… and they will be one with you..”
Thank you for your trust.
We assure you that we will take very good care of your precious daughter. The
people of this wonderful mission will love Sister Holt, and we know that she
will be deserving of that love and respect.
This weekend is Mother’s
Day, therefore you can expect a phone call from your missionary. We encourage
you to be available for that call .
May you be blessed with
the joy that comes from applying the teachings of the Savior in your lives.
There will be much growth that takes place here during Sister Holts mission. You
will be able to experience it through the correspondence which you receive each
week. We encourage you to also write each week in order to provide the moral
courage and strength from home which is vitally important.
May you continue to be
blessed in every meaningful way. We truly love Sister Holt with our whole
hearts.
Sincerely,
President and Sister
Zwick
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