The Plan

Painting

Sculpture

Dance

Architecture

Literature

Music

Theater


These are the seven arts. It is said that all major art forms fall into these seven categories. A prized friend of mine mentioned "The seven arts" to me more than a couple years ago, excited about the concept of such definition to the art realm, I shared his excitement to a degree, but thought no more of it. Then, slowly, over a period of two years I realized that I can do anything. The phrase "I can do Hard Things" grew into me, and I became someone who could do those things. That's when, as if true inspiration was waiting for me to be ready, sprouted.  I wanted to become the master of the 7 arts. But how can one do that? To master all these intense art forms, would be impossible.  So my idea changed a little bit, because I couldn't dedicate my life to something that would not yield positive results and help me support a family in the future. So I let that idea fall to the back of my mind for a while.
Then this idea propped back up when another grand friend of mine and I delved into the idea of a photography business. We both have moderate talent in that field and were excited at the prospect of growing our business and our talent. But I cannot stop my imagination. So small a project, a photography business is only the beginning for us. Then the words to an idea slowly poured into my brain. A production company, 7 pillared and producing the best artists in every field. Now for some strange reason, THAT seems a little less impossible to me, and a whole lot more fun. Here we are, I have a dream to hold on to. This is the goal, the 7 pillared media monster.

We've already begun, the photography business is well under way christened with the name The Slight Advantage studios. We have many clients and look to have many more. But what we need, what I need right now is a name for the over-arching, grand master productions company that will house all these smaller companies.

This kind of sounds very unrealistic, and difficult and the odds of someone becoming successful with this kind of idea don't seem too great. That's exactly why I'm writing this today. A majority of this blog will be dedicated to the progress of our business, our beautiful little creation, so you can all read from beginning to end, how this media giant will have come to be.

This chapter of the blog--PAINTING. Photography and Graphic Design are included in this art. Watch as we master it!


And if you have any suggestions on the name, please let me know.

Something Great.

Home. Not again, but for the first time.

I made it. 4 weeks ago I was stepping off of the plane that had flown me from Montreal, Canada, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Two years of teaching, praying, wading through sorrow and affliction and growing into something bigger and better. Finished. Never have I experienced so many hard things...And never have I thanked God so many times for the chance to experience them. Folks, I grew up, and I saw a side of the world I never thought I'd see. It was dark, and cold more often than not, but the prettiest diamonds are always in the darkest corners of the mine. And find them I did. The characters I met in the True North could not be created by anyone's imagination, completely original. They each left their brand on my soul, their own watermark on the lesson they taught me. I cannot help but smile with each thought of my Canadian brothers and Sisters. This....new, me is a direct product of the faith and confidence they placed in the old me, as I changed. It's interesting how that works, isn't it? Before anyone becomes something great, they often have friends and family around them who insist on treating them according to their potential. I feel that this is love, interacting with one another's best possible (even if imaginary at the time being) versions of themselves, refusing to perceive each other as the horrible messes we often are. Let's face it, in reality we often resemble Frankenstein's Monster a lot more than we would like. Good Intentions sewed sloppily together to half-baked determination, with distraction and nearsightedness filling in the gaps--this monster gallivanting around on his magnificent steed, the scapegoat of circumstance. Our best friends, and deepest bonds, have nothing to do with who we are, but who we want to become. And there is nothing more gratifying than watching your faith realized, your confidence vindicated. It's that I told you so feeling, but yet answered with gratitude for being told so.  Sadly, this happens rarely.

There are many, many adjectives to describe this generation, quite a few of them being negative. Ungodly, and Godless are there, a label worn proudly by some, hid ashamedly by most. When we love like we described, we cannot help but remove ourselves from these titles. And that we could all be a Godly people! What peace would reside in that world! For that is the Gospel, friends. 


Here I am, in Kaysville, Utah. Everything has changed. It is not a new place, but all the people have changed in one way or another. Either they've changed or my relationship with them has changed. Nothing stayed the same. In fact the only thing I can ever count on is that things will continue to change. My family grew to include siblings-in-law, a niece, and little brothers no longer qualify for the definition of "little." Life is real now, not a game. No longer a Missionary life coach observing from the side-lines, I'm in the game again. How Exciting!  And what an adventure it will be, as long as I stay on the bright side of change.

Wish me luck.

March 5, 2012

Hey family, 

 

WOW. This week has been a whopper of a week. We had our Zone study, which went really well. Everyone who gave a training did EXACTLY what we hoped they would. INspired. It took a lot of our time to prepare for it, which really hurt our area. After that This weekend we had a team of elders get into a big fight, so we had to drive way out there and sit down with them and discuss their feelings and all that jazz. It was good, we were able to help them out a lot. They'll make it through the transfer together...we hope. 

This last week we were knocking doors, and we knocked into this lady, an african. She had been crying. We begin to contact her and she collapses agains the door frame, bawling. We ask what's wrong, she tells us in between heaves that her son died that day, over in Kenya. What divine intervention. Without saying a word I pulled out my book of mormon and flipped open to Alma 40. We shared this scripture with her and testified of the happiness found in the fact that she will see  her son again. She looked at us and with watery eyes said "but it's so hard."

We asked her before she shut the door. "Rose, can we pray for you?" She started to sob again and said "oh please" and she feel to her hands and knees, in the apartment building hallway. Elder Andersen gave a soothing prayer. 

We'll let you know how it goes with her in the future. 

Other than that, our week has been demolished with appointments fallen through, and administration. Hopefully next week will be better!

Peace,

Elder Holm (1)

February 20, 2012

Hey Family,

Not much happened this last week, transfers were a little stressful, trying to get all the missionaries to the bus station (where there is no parking, so we have to fit multiple teams into only a couple cars...yeesh) But everyone is where they are supposed to be now and we are good to go! Elder Andersen is my new companion, he's from Norway, he's a pretty cool cat.

He's very different from Elder Leavitt, it's going to take me some time to get used to the change--when you're with the same companion for 4 1/2 months, it's pretty rough to change to a new one. But I like elder Andersen a lot and he's got some good fire behind him. The rest of the weekend I was down with a sinus infection, which was too bad. But we still managed a little bit of work here and there. I'm doing better now, I think. We have a lot of good work ahead of us! Well, we had nothing really to report on because we spent most of the week in the apartment, as I recovered, but Elder Andersen makes a mean Chicken Bacon egg sandwich! We got to know each other really well while I was sick. Now I'm more pumped than ever to do good work! And spring is in the air up here!! Hallelujah!

Peace be the journey,

Elder Holm (1)

February 13, 2012

Dear Family,

It's great to see everyone so busy, Chandler's lookin' good with those drum sticks! That's awesome that he's doing so well. This week I don't have much time, but Robert got Baptized! I'm pretty sure Robert and I were BFF's in the pre existence. He has a powerful spirit about him. He will have lots of opportunities to serve in the church, that's for sure. Transfers are this week, Elder Leavitt is heading to Laval--he'll be a district leader there. I'll be receiving Elder Andersen, I'm very excited. I'll be able to give you more details about him next week. We had 2 surprise baptisms in our zone this last week! Our zone is on fire. We're working hard and seeing good results! Sorry the email couldn't be longer!

Peace,

Elder Holm

February 9, 2012

Dear Family,

Things are going really well, one of our investigators was baptized last week! She is such a wonderful lady, and has a solid testimony. Her baptism went without a hitch...kind of...well there was a lot of rust in the water from the unused water tanks, (not many baptisms recently I wager) so the water was a disgusting brown color...but that didn't phase her, she was still extatic about being dressed up in white like an angel. It was a great experience.

Another investigator came to see our baptism, but wasn't able to make it to church the next day. He was up all night thinking about the baptism, and so when it came time to come to church he was exhausted and had a headache. Hopefully that was the spirit working within him, agitating his soul. Every soul aches for repentance, this much I know.

Our friend from Nigeria is doing really well, he almost clapped a couple times at church after some peoples' testimonies. He really liked the testimony of the ex-drug dealer we spent Christmas with. I love that man, what an amazing person.

(Elephant on our way to Petawawa)

We had a strong lesson with the Nigerian, and we were able to teach him about the importance of him connecting with God. He is so ready, he just needs to accept him. I am most sure he will be the next one to be baptized in our area.

We have a baptism is this friday! We've stopped by this investiagor lately just to say hi, because the Nigerian lives in the same building. He is going to be an apostle one day, he's been having some major opposition from the adversary in the form of bad dreams and darkness. The sisters shared with him the details of the first vision, and how Joseph Smith was nearly destroyed by Satan before God and Christ came, and he just starting crying. He recognizes truth. Which is the essence of spirituality, the ability to recognize truth. He is one of my favorite investigators.

(parliament)

We also visited a family that I had seen on splits about a year ago. It was a miracle now that I look at it, a year ago I visited a family for half an hour, a less active, part member family. Since then, the parents have actually gotten married and have another child on the way--now they are ready to receive the gospel and return to church--that's what she told us yesterday, it was a miracle. Had I not remembered they would have never been visited. The stake president was with us as well, we go on splits with him often.

Well that's all for this week folks, sorry I was late this week, we have zone conference and zone activity today and tomorrow.

Peace be the journey,

Elder Holm (1)

January 31, 2012

Family,

Super busy week! We spent a couple days up in Petawawa, a military base about 2 hours northwest of Ottawa, to help the missionaries up there boost their teaching pool. Afterwards we had a District leader council with all our District leaders and President Cannon, to discuss the missionaries in our zone and how to help them. Afterwards we went on splits, and saw some miracles! Sister Cannon came with me and two other district leaders, Elder Cherry and Elder Hibbard, and we taught two lessons and committed 3 people to baptism! Two of those are husband and wife, a small phillipino family with a 2 year old son. Finally, teaching a family! Missionaries' dream right there. Elder Leavitt took elder Dalton and President Cannon to Petronille...she needs another week before her baptism, she's just not ready yet. So it's this saturday! The suspense is killer. Our chinese friend is still trying to solve the puzzle of Christianity, before passing judgement on the book of mormon. Grrr. That's alright, he'll figure it out eventually.

Zone leader council was good, President Cannon went a little trigger happy with transfers last transfer and swapped out a lot of zone leaders, every team was affected (except elder Leavitt and I). So we helped the assistants train the new zone leaders about Planning and Area book and goals (the most boring subjects). We made it fun though. It's fun to see elder McRoberts once a month, he's been a zone leader in Quebec city for a while now. To be honest I'm quite excited to not be a zone leader anymore and just go and do work, to be rid of all this administration garbage.

Well, that was our week, lots of travel and teaching and committing and all that jazz. Way to go Chandler on fixing the cupboards! That's legit. Noah, you keep womanizing at those dance recitals!

Peace be the journey,

Elder Holm (1)

January 23, 2012

Dear Family,

We had a great week, we met with our african investigator again. We finished the plan of salvation and taught him the restoration. He had a lot of things to say. He used to really look for the truth and visit a lot of different churches. The kind where the pastor walks around and touches people and they start shaking. Timothy said "The pastor would always touch me, and NOTHING would happen, I mean come on! I thought it was just me, that I just couldn't feel the spirit, then once I went and the pastor touched my friend, and he started shaking! Afterwards I asked my friend, 'Harry! You HAVE to tell me, I HAVE to know. What happened? was it real?" and then Harry turned to me and said "No way! It wasn't real at all! I just didn't want to be the odd one out."

The animated way he told the story gave us a good laugh, he's a really lighthearted guy. We're really excited to help him progress. He told us of the religious corruption he saw in Nigeria and all other african countries. He just wants to follow God, so we're going to show him how. He's very down to earth.

We will also have a baptism this saturday! Our investigator from Rwanda, is going to be baptized! We are super excited for her, it's about time we saved a soul!

Well we have to go to petawawa today, so I don't have much time, but keep up the good work all and go share the gospel with someone today!

Peace,

Elder Holm (1)