March 28th, 2011

Family,

This week has been an exhausting, stressful week. But easily one of the best of my mission so far. We've discovered that Elder Holbrook and I have a lot in common, he's the only one I've met in the mission that has seen The Dark Krystal, Flash Forward, Samurai Jack and loves Zelda as much as I do. It's uncanny how much we have to relate to one another. So of course we get along great, Elder Holbrook wants success just as much as I do, and is willing to work just as hard as I am. Which is as much as possible. And the results of this is that we have doubled our teaching pool, finding 5 new investigators in 1 week. In this one week we have surpassed half of our goals for the Month. The Holy Spirit is being poured out upon Abitibi and miracles are happening. Our main investigator, who dropped us last week, has decided to return and continue the lessons with us, he'll be dunked soon, as well as a couple other people. If Elder Holbrook and I continue to work as hard as we did this last week, we will gain similar results and will be leading our Zone as well as the Mission in Baptisms and Lessons. This is truly a miracle as well, because we are working in an area that holds three large towns, Rouyn-Noranda, Amos, and Val d'or. Altogether there are about 95,000 people in our rather large area, but we only have time to work in Val d'or which is about 34,000. And our numbers are steadily increasing to the point where we are surpassing the work of other missionaries who have access to millions of people on the Island of Montreal.

I made one of the biggest decisions of my life on Sunday. We had a big meeting, with all the leadership in the branch (all the active members in the branch, minus two or 3) 10 people, in the Branch President's small office, and we discussed the future of Rouyn-Noranda. The discussion grew heated, members started shouting, one had to excuse himself before he got too angry. Both sides want 2 branches, but Rouyn-Noranda doesn't have enough priesthood, and to split the branch now would be devastating to the work and everything would collapse. But on the other hand, it would increase the work in Rouyn-Noranda as many members there would like to go to Church every week but don't want to drive to Val d'Or every week. But there is more success in Rouyn-Noranda, more people willing to join the church.

At the end of the meeting, the 1st counselor and the Branch president turned to me, because Elder Holbrook hadn't been here too long, and because I'm senior comp. and asked "Elder Holm, you are the missionary here, you have jurisdiction over this area. What are your feelings on this. What should we do?" Since the room was pretty evenly split, I got to make the final say. This was very nerve wracking. I had had some warning of this, and had prepared a response, but obviously it was not what the Lord wanted because I ended up saying the opposite of what I had planned on saying.

That we need to stay together in Val d'Or. That, as missionaries, we are posted in Val d'Or and that's where the Mission President believes we need to be. And that we really only go out to Rouyn-Noranda when members have referrals and lessons for us, but (and I can't believe I said this in front of everyone) None of the members of this branch are making the cut when it comes to referrals and introducing us to people for us to teach. That they all need to do better, even the lady who provided our investigator that is close to baptism. They then asked Elder Holbrook what he thought, he agreed. It was nice to have someone to back me up.
We decided the future of missionary work in Abitibi. The future of the Branch.

It was a very stressful meeting. But it was good. We already have some members who have committed to do better. It's very strange to me that all these adults would listen to a 19 year old guy. But, the Spirit gets his message across, one way or the other.

We've also been improving our cooking skills, and as result of that was what Elder Holbrook and I call "Val D'orritos". Basically, meat, home made refried beans, lots of spices, rice, pasta sauce, more rice, more spices, all with home made tortillas. Whenever we were running low, we would just pull out the left overs and add a little more meat and rice and have another huge meal. It sustained us for the week, it was quite amazing. Like bread and fish, it was just never gone, it kept collecting mass each time. It was missing a certain taste, but nothing salsa can't fix. We planned out some meals for next week, which is good, because I never want to eat Val D'orritos again.
Well family, that's about it, we are working hard and will have more miracles to talk about in the near future. A couple baptisms within next month. Keep up the good work at home and remember genealogy.
Love,
Elder Holm