Week 70: Sweet 16

Hola a todos!

We are just on a roll!! Or better said, Heavenly Father is SO merciful!! This is our third week in a row finding more investigators to teach and it has been a blessing. It's kinda hard sometimes going a while without teaching a single lesson; so it just feels so good, so amazing to just sit down with these people, feel the Spirit, and just testify and share what we know is true. There is no other feeling like it! We hope and pray that these people will want to progress, but I've learned a lot about faith this week, and that it all is in the hands of the Lord. 

We had a super fun Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) this week with our amazing less active Quenia! She had invited over some other members too and let me just say that there is POWER in hearing the testimonies of the members!! They gave her so much encouragement and support which makes her process of coming back so much easier. We are all pumped now and want to do one with all of the less actives! Success? Si :) I've come to realized that just spending some time with the people who need it and just offering help, love, and support can make a lot more of a difference than we think! It's the pure love of Christ that changes hearts. 

Hermana Patino and I have been focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon, especially in the contacts we do and we have been amazed at how much we are using it and how many we are giving out to people! Who doesn't want to hear how Christ came to the Americas?? There is so much power in the Book of Mormon and I love reading it and studying it everyday. We have been reading it together as a mission and we will be finishing this week - what better way to feel the Spirit of the Lord than to read the prophesies and testimonies of the prophets? I testify with all of my heart that the Book of Mormon is true and that it does testify of Jesus Christ. It changes the lives of people - I know because I have seen it, and I know that it has changed me as a person, as a missionary, and as a disciple of our Lord and Savior. How blessed we are to receive so much love from our Heavenly Father!! I hope we can all be a little bit better this week in our personal study of the Book of Mormon, it has been given to us for a reason!!

Love, 

Hermana Holt

 

16 months down and...

 

 

 2 to go!

 FHE with ward members

 

 Quenias rottweilers-they are huge

 Dr. Frayli

 Mi Patino

 

Week 69: People are Prepared!

Hola a todos!!

We have ANOTHER new investigator, and even better it's the wife of Victor, the new investigator from last week! WOW. What an amazing lesson, the Spirit was so strong and I really feel that they are prepared to hear the Gospel! When we got to the lesson and they had both read the Restoration pamphlet and were ready to learn! And it was so crazy because apparently last week when we were teaching Victor, one of their family friends had had a serious accident but survived. And that all happened in the same hour we were there! He said that after we had left he had immediately started reading the Restoration pamphlet and as he finished he received the phone call from his wife telling him. It was obviously super hard for them and he said that he started to pray with his family, which he never does, and that he felt something telling him that all of what had happened (us passing and then the accident) was a testimony to him that it was true and that God was in charge, and that it was giving him the strength that he need during this time. He was basically crying when he told us this and his wife was too!! I was so shocked but wow, I felt so grateful! I KNOW Heavenly Father hears the prayers of His children. We are super excited to get to know them more and to teach them more :)

Quenia now has THREE sundays in a row coming to church!! I LOVE it!! She's doing super great. Still is struggling with some things at home, but it's so amazing to me to see the strength of these people with what they go through. She has so much faith and is an example to me of really relying on the Lord in ALL things.

Wow, time is going by super duper fast.. my companion hits her 9 months this week and it feels like i was just there!! Time really does go by fast when you're sharing the Gospel :) Share it with someone this week!! Your week will go by SO much better!! The Church is true everyone!

Love,

Hermana Holt

Week 68: Make it Rain!

Hola a todos!!

This week Heavenly Father definitely heard all of our prayers over here in Puerto Rico because man, did it RAIN! We've had about 3 or 4 days of pretty good non stop rain - it'll pour for some hours and then sprinkle for a few more and then pour again! Luckily it has been pouring mostly at night but I'm pretty sure I've been wet for about half of the week haha. But we need it! What they've been saying is that this drought is SO bad that we'll be in it if not until December, until 2016, and then until who knows when! It's pretty bad. This week they actually started turning off completely the water; living out of water gallons is definitely a different experience, but it's a good one! 

And due to the rain, the people were locked up inside their houses! BUT, Heavenly Father has blessed us even more this week with 3 new investigators!! We are SO excited. And even better, one is a family! They have a 2 year old daughter who is so cute! The mom's name is Yubelki and we actually contacted her taking the bus one day and she was super willing to have us over! We stopped by and met her husband and had a great lesson about the family! It was SO crazy though because right when I was about to mention baptism, a ton of their nieces and nephews came running into the house!! Hahaha not the best moment, right? But we are super excited to get to know them more! 

Our other new investigator we found on my intercambio with Hna Madrigal!! Love that Sister Missionary! Anyway, we decided to go contact into the mountains a little bit when it started to POUR like crazy.. but we still felt we needed to keep walking and I'm so glad we did because we met Victor! He let us teach him right then, but since his wife wasn't home we just shared our message outside and we have a return appointment this week and his wife is going to be there too! It was such a blessing for me to be in the lesson because I felt really that the Lord truly is preparing people to hear the Gospel. Victor kept thanking us for stopping by and kept telling us how he felt so much peace as we shared with him about our Savior Jesus Christ. I felt it too! 

Guess who came to church again?? Quenia!! She's great and I love her SO much!! She's still thinking about moving to Texas with her kids which kinda bums me out, but if that is where the Lord needs her than I'm ok! I loved it because we went home with her after church for lunch (she makes the BEST Sancocho!) and I asked her, So what have you done this week? She just looks at me and said, Well, basically I've just been reading the Book of Mormon! WOO HOO! I love it :) It's a powerful book you know! Make sure you are reading it EVERY day!! 

We have some high goals this week and I know that with our Savior, Jesus Christ that we can reach them. This is the Lord's work!! How grateful I am to be a part of it! Have a great week everyone!!

Love, 

Hermana Holt 

 

There are no words

 Hermana Madrigal always brings the rain to Guaynabo

Week 67: Meet Hermana Patino

Hola a todos!!

So my new companion is not Latin haha but she is SO great!! Her name is Hermana Patino from Jacksonville, Florida and we have already had a blast together!! People have already told us like 10 times that we could be sisters which I don't know why haha but that's a compliment for me because she is adorable!! Tuesday was a long day of waiting for her to arrive but as soon as she got her we were right off to work! Poor thing, I've already taken her around like only part of the city on foot so we've been super tired (and apparently I walk super fast.. oops!).. the city has been a change for her since she was just in the mountains for the past 4 months, but she has adapted quickly and is already a city girl - she is already teaching me so much!!  

Well this week has definitely had its ups and downs, its funny times and scary times! It has been interesting but good! You guys aren't going to guess who came to church yesterday, QUENIA!!! When she walked in I seriously wanted to cry!! Haha I probably almost knocked her over because I basically ran up to hug her, but I was just too excited! After sacrament I asked her how she had felt and she just looked at me and said, Let's just say that I'm going to keep going.. Wow, it was amazing and we are so excited to see the changes that she's making, what a testimony builder to me! Church was also amazing because all the youth just got back from SOY, or their EFY and WOW best testimony meeting ever?? 6 of them had gone, 4 of them were counselors and 2 went as youth and let me just say that not only is that SOY changes lives, but it is more that the Gospel changes lives. These youth came back stronger than ever with SO much energy to live the Gospel everyday of their lives! The Gospel is just pure joy!! It was amazing because one of the youth, who I had never seen before, bore her testimony and shared how she left not even wanting to go and came back not even wanting to leave, she said she was a whole different person.. what an example! What an experience those youth had! Haha I remember those EFY days, and I add my testimony with those youth! The Gospel is the one thing that brings us happiness and something that should be lived everyday to the fullest! 

Soo this week we kinda worked without our cell phone.. hahaha super long story but lets just say that it was left in someones car and we've been without it for like 4 days now.... oops!!! I know back then they might not have had phones as missionaries but it has been so hard to work without it!! Technology really is a blessing that we can use to hasten the Lords work and we should take advantage of that and never loose it haha!! 

Wow time goes back so fast, that's all I have time for right now! The Gospel is so worth it, the Church is true, the scriptures really do testify of Christ, and I know that with all my heart! Heavenly Father knows who we are and what we need and He is a lot more close to us than we think He is. Have a great week everyone!!

Love, 

Hermana Holt

 

 

Hermana Patino and I

 This is what the mission does to Americans