June 13th, 2011

Family,

So this week was pretty rockin`. As usually nothing really happened during the week, except our wonderful investigator who was supposed to be baptized soon called us this last Tuesday and dropped us, without really giving us a reason as to why. OUCH. Now I know how all those girls I dated in high school felt..Haha...ah...okay. But it`s okay because all we had to do was call her fellowshipper and ask her to talk to our investigator to see what`s up, and report back. We knew what they were going to tell us however, because after a couple days of turmoil being ignorant to her problems, we fasted all day and discussed and prayed for her for an hour and a half during weekly planning, finally ending with a prayer and immediately after the prayer we each wrote a letter to her. Elder McRoberts and I shared later our letters with each other and discovered that they both covered the exact same concept. That she didn`t know that she could actually push back her baptism date and that she is just nervous and scared. Good old answers to prayers. So it was no surprise when we heard from her fellowshipper today that she still wants to be baptized but just wants to take a little bit of time with it, and not be dunked in 3 weeks total from her exposure to the church, because she was nervous and scared. Understandable. And take note, had we not spent all last transfer building strong ties with members, there would have been no net to catch this woman as she fell from investigation. Member work is the reason this investigator is going to be baptized soon. Very important.

We two Haitian twins on friday, both nine years old and just dying to get baptized. They are being transferred to our ward because the branch their family attends has no other youth. Their older Brother and sister are members, their parents aren`t...yet. The elder brother is...Hayden, but black. The last thing he said to me as we left was "Oh, he be BOSS" in his black slang talk...in english. He`s a hoot.

On Saturday we headed out to Venice! Venice, Quebec that is. Just on the north shore of Lac Champlain. 500 members gathered on Saturday to help with the flooding damage that occurred. We were stationed in a little trailer park in Venice, where it was still pretty flooded and very devastated. It was sad to see the people just living in ruins, but we did a lot of good and helped them out a lot. I`ll send some pictures. Before we left for Venice, all the volunteers gathered and we sang I am a Child of God, everyone singing in their native tongue. French Spanish and English were most prevalent, it was really cool. I wish I had recorded it. I`ll send some pictures soon.

Our ward here is splitting! It will be two soon, and the transfer just began. President Cannon has promised another set of missionaries here to help, but until next transfer we have to man two wards all by our lonesome. It`s going to be a very busy transfer. Exciting stuff! It may sound kind of boring to you, but a ward split really just rocks your world as a missionary, it`s crazy. President Cannon sounds very frustrated with the lack of missionaries coming in.

Well, that`s all I have to say about that. Oh, except one last thing. Canada Post is on strike.....no mail.....ah....Satan is a tricky son of a gun who won`t hold back any cheap shots. It`s going to be a long summer. Have a good week and Enjoy the sun!

Peace,

Elder Holm