Family Unit.
Turns out I'm staying in Val dor for another transfer, big surprise!! I think I'm going to be here for a long...time...which is good, we just barely seemed to have earned the trust of the members and they are starting to give us referrals and take us home teaching. This is excellent. It's about time we got things rolling here.
So, not much has happened here. We had a meeting with this die hard catholic man who's mission is to convert the elders. Normally I wouldn't have allowed us to meet with him, because it's what other missionaries would call a "waste of time." But when it's too cold to go tracting outside and your mission president says "You'll just have to find another way to do missionary work," I see it as a good opportunity to practice teaching. If you can remember, the first time we met with this man, E. Johnson inadvertantly tried to convince him that Jesus was a sinner and a catholic. The opposite of our intentions. And this man, pwned him with the bible.
So we were hoping for a better outcome this time, it was good practice for E. Johnson to refrain from bible bashing. So we get there and the first thing I ask him is "So...about baptisms for the dead...what's the catholic's deal on that?"
He had never heard about that before, so we looked up some scriptures and read through them. He uses an "Easy reader simplified" bible. This is frustrating. Because he's just reading someone else's interpretation. So he tried to explain to us than when Peter spoke of baptisms for the dead, he was speaking of Jesus, who is dead, and we need to be baptized of him. In a last ditch effort, I said "Well, let's look at the french version, for some clarification..." (Mhe is bilingual.)
Lo and Behold, in french it says, basically "Why are we baptized for those who have died, those who are dead, if they rise not in the end?" AMAZING. I love french. The spirit was in the room, the spirit of truth befell this man as he looked at that scripture, and a couple other ones that we pointed out about the spirit world.
He said "Man, you guys are the best missionaries that have come across here, none of them ever showed me stuff like this. I'll have to talk to my priest. I honestly have no idea about baptism for the dead, I'll have to look into it. This is interesting."
VICTORY. He has no intention of changing, but I feel good whenever truth is revealed, it feels great.
Well that's about all that's happened, we had a couple meetings with the Albanian. She is super crazy, and loves to talk about God. She has a lot of questions about Satan and God and the symbolic meaning of the fall of Adam and Eve versus the fall of the angel of the morning. We're working with her.
Well that's about all, we're having fun and working hard. Trying not to get frostbite.
E. Holm
January 31, 2011
January 24, 2011
January 24th, 2011
Family.
This week has been quite an adventurous one. We had Zone conference down in Ottawa, and we got to split some other missionaries. There are 2 elders covering all of downtown Ottawa, the lack of missionaries we have here is quite frustrating sometimes. One of these elders is our District Leader, Elder Hall, from England. They have a ward of 150 active, 300 less/inactive people. Needless to say, they have a lot of work ahead of them. Their work is very different from our work. Anyhow, I went on splits with Elder Hall, and we met this family, a family that downright left me with a migraine.
As we shared dinner, I observed that this couple were as happy as could be, no marital problems, and as smart as could be--they spent most of their time talking to Elder Hall about String Theory and all sorts of physics nonsense, but still had enough room in their brains to talk about poetry and literature with me, as well as Stem Cell theory. I hope to establish here, that they are really smart. It came to our spiritual thought discussion, and they sat us down.
We spoke of their beliefs. They joined the church for its family principles. They continued to search for answers. They didn't have a real testimony, they had questions, people just continued to tell them "wait until you get to the temple, you'll find answers there." So they waited, kept commitments and went to the temple. They didn't find any answers after they temple. Once I heard that I wanted to say "Well duh. Nobody has answers after the first temple trip." But they continued to go and eventually stopped.
Now they don't believe in God. The husband looked at me and held up 3 fingers
"There are things you know you know,
There are things you know you don't know,
And There are things you don't know you don't know."
Then he continued to speak
"I don't know if there is a God or not, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't need to know."
And Darned it all, they were the nicest people I've met in Canada. Super nice. Elder Hall asked the man 2 questions. In his stellar English accent.
"What if you're wrong?"
The man just laughed. "Ah the wager, who's wager was that again?"
"Pascal's wager" I mumbled.
"Ah yes, you see, I am a fan of stoicism, the belief of controlling your rational emotions. I've made a choice, if there is a God I will stand before him and honestly apologize and pay for the choice I've made."
"Aren't you afraid of not living with God, of Hell so to speak?" I asked him.
"You see, it would be irrational to live in regret, I can't comprehend what hell is like right now, why fear it? and once I'm there, I can't change it, why live in regret? It doesn't make sense.
Why do you fear Hell Elder Holm?"
I took a moment to respond. "I guess I fear it because I cannot comprehend the utter pain and suffering that comes with the consequences of Hell. I've been told that the consequences are beyond my comprehension, and that frightens me most of all. Rational or not. And it's not that I fear pain, or death or fire and brimstone--he nodded in agreement to this--but it's because I fear living alone, without love. Love from God, love from others, because love isn't a rational emotion, and is something I'm afraid Hell is lacking."
He looked and smiled at me, and said "And that is perfectly okay that you believe that, I accept that." Once again, so nice. At this moment, I felt sad for them. They believe they are so intelligent. Yet they lack the knowledge found in the heart of every child. It's sad, really.
Elder Hall then asked them, "So, if you don't believe in our church anymore, why do you keep your covenants? I see you are still wearing your garments."
The man answered "1. because I respect the people who witnessed me make the covenants, 2. Because they are so Comfortable!"
Yeah right, sounds like a huge JUST IN CASE WE'RE WRONG to me.
At the end they thanked us for our time, and said they were surprised when Elder Hall asked to come back. "Usually elders never come back after tonight, and the sisters always cry. I'm impressed with you two."
Huh.
Anyways, left that problem in Ottawa, back to Val D'or. We didn't have any investigators come to church, sad. But that's okay, the branch president came back up this weekend and took us out to a chinese buffet. It was at this buffet that I discovered Frog's Legs. Yes, the man you knew who could live forever eating nothing but chicken noodle soup and doritos, has decided to be adventurous with food. The world is upside down. Frog legs aren't too bad, they do in fact taste like chicken. They still came with the spine and everything though, that was a little difficult to get over.
Sunday was cold. A crushing -40 farenheit/celsius with wind chill. I have a video I'm leaving in My dropbox for those who would like to view. Also with this email, a picture of myself, after 20 minutes of tracting. Frozen eyelashes, nosehairs and everything else.
That's about it this week, transfer calls are this saturday, we'll see what happens.
E. Holm
This week has been quite an adventurous one. We had Zone conference down in Ottawa, and we got to split some other missionaries. There are 2 elders covering all of downtown Ottawa, the lack of missionaries we have here is quite frustrating sometimes. One of these elders is our District Leader, Elder Hall, from England. They have a ward of 150 active, 300 less/inactive people. Needless to say, they have a lot of work ahead of them. Their work is very different from our work. Anyhow, I went on splits with Elder Hall, and we met this family, a family that downright left me with a migraine.
As we shared dinner, I observed that this couple were as happy as could be, no marital problems, and as smart as could be--they spent most of their time talking to Elder Hall about String Theory and all sorts of physics nonsense, but still had enough room in their brains to talk about poetry and literature with me, as well as Stem Cell theory. I hope to establish here, that they are really smart. It came to our spiritual thought discussion, and they sat us down.
We spoke of their beliefs. They joined the church for its family principles. They continued to search for answers. They didn't have a real testimony, they had questions, people just continued to tell them "wait until you get to the temple, you'll find answers there." So they waited, kept commitments and went to the temple. They didn't find any answers after they temple. Once I heard that I wanted to say "Well duh. Nobody has answers after the first temple trip." But they continued to go and eventually stopped.
Now they don't believe in God. The husband looked at me and held up 3 fingers
"There are things you know you know,
There are things you know you don't know,
And There are things you don't know you don't know."
Then he continued to speak
"I don't know if there is a God or not, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't need to know."
And Darned it all, they were the nicest people I've met in Canada. Super nice. Elder Hall asked the man 2 questions. In his stellar English accent.
"What if you're wrong?"
The man just laughed. "Ah the wager, who's wager was that again?"
"Pascal's wager" I mumbled.
"Ah yes, you see, I am a fan of stoicism, the belief of controlling your rational emotions. I've made a choice, if there is a God I will stand before him and honestly apologize and pay for the choice I've made."
"Aren't you afraid of not living with God, of Hell so to speak?" I asked him.
"You see, it would be irrational to live in regret, I can't comprehend what hell is like right now, why fear it? and once I'm there, I can't change it, why live in regret? It doesn't make sense.
Why do you fear Hell Elder Holm?"
I took a moment to respond. "I guess I fear it because I cannot comprehend the utter pain and suffering that comes with the consequences of Hell. I've been told that the consequences are beyond my comprehension, and that frightens me most of all. Rational or not. And it's not that I fear pain, or death or fire and brimstone--he nodded in agreement to this--but it's because I fear living alone, without love. Love from God, love from others, because love isn't a rational emotion, and is something I'm afraid Hell is lacking."
He looked and smiled at me, and said "And that is perfectly okay that you believe that, I accept that." Once again, so nice. At this moment, I felt sad for them. They believe they are so intelligent. Yet they lack the knowledge found in the heart of every child. It's sad, really.
Elder Hall then asked them, "So, if you don't believe in our church anymore, why do you keep your covenants? I see you are still wearing your garments."
The man answered "1. because I respect the people who witnessed me make the covenants, 2. Because they are so Comfortable!"
Yeah right, sounds like a huge JUST IN CASE WE'RE WRONG to me.
At the end they thanked us for our time, and said they were surprised when Elder Hall asked to come back. "Usually elders never come back after tonight, and the sisters always cry. I'm impressed with you two."
Huh.
Anyways, left that problem in Ottawa, back to Val D'or. We didn't have any investigators come to church, sad. But that's okay, the branch president came back up this weekend and took us out to a chinese buffet. It was at this buffet that I discovered Frog's Legs. Yes, the man you knew who could live forever eating nothing but chicken noodle soup and doritos, has decided to be adventurous with food. The world is upside down. Frog legs aren't too bad, they do in fact taste like chicken. They still came with the spine and everything though, that was a little difficult to get over.
Sunday was cold. A crushing -40 farenheit/celsius with wind chill. I have a video I'm leaving in My dropbox for those who would like to view. Also with this email, a picture of myself, after 20 minutes of tracting. Frozen eyelashes, nosehairs and everything else.
That's about it this week, transfer calls are this saturday, we'll see what happens.
E. Holm
January 19, 2011
January 17th, 2011
Famille,
Remember how I said it was cold last week? Yeah... We went sledding for young men's last wednesday. It was roughly -15 degrees, Farenheit, with a fierce wind. I took off my gloves really quick to adjust my scarf, by the time I had reached up to my scarf and found the zipper of my jacket to unzip a little (to give me room to adjust) I had lost motor control of my hands/fingers. So I gave out a quick "oh" and jammed my hands in my pockets. I was rather stuck for a moment or two-just looking at my gloves on the ground, waiting for my hands to feel again. Carter's Russian hat has come in handy and works quite well up here against the wind. It's also a great conversation starter, because it's kind of ridiculous.
We pulled another investigator out of the area book. She has had pages upon pages of visits with Elders going for about 3 years now. Goodness me. But of course, I think to myself "It's about time then, for her to get dunked." I wasn't going to meet with her, until I found part of a manuscript under my bed. It looked like someone was writing a book, so naturally I read through it and edited it, slashing words and the like. I had read somewhere in the vast records of th new investigators records that she was writing something. We met with her and it turns out she is an author to be, and is writing a book. After explaining myself and giving back the partial manuscript, she looked over the corrections and inquired of my assistance. I have the first three chapters of her book in my backpack, soon to be corrected and handed back. SERVICE. Enjoyable service. She has a lot of questions concerning the apocalypse and book of revelations, and cavemen. I decided the other day to take an hour and read all of Revelations. BRAIN EXPLOSION. It was ridiculous. Of course she has a lot of questions. E. Johnson started explaining to her the entire facet of caveman-ism and how it relates to the gospel. I cut him off and told him to run it by me later, so as to avoid blasphemy again.
Later in the apartment he explained to me how cavemen had actually evolved from apes and that they weren't actually human, they just thought and walked and acted like humans. We had a little chat.
Cavemen question won't be answered by us, looks like.
I have found that Val D'or is the Twilight Zone of missionary work. Things work in mysterious ways up here. Elder Johnson and I have been praying very hard with great wrestling in the spirit to find a new investigator, and all the doors we knock each day are angry, sometimes violent in response. No one responds well to us.
Then, lo and behold, after sitting down Sunday morning and realizing we had no investigators coming to church, we hear someone walk in behind us and sit down in the back row of our little cultural hall. Immediately the members, all 8 of them, start talking to this man.
"Oh hello, are you the journalist?" (we had told a member and his wife about the journalist we met) "Nope," this new guy said, a little weirded out.
Two other people asked him the same question, by the end he was introducing himself as "a visitor, not the journalist."
We pulled him into investigator class, and lo and behold, he's from Salt Lake City. Apparently he works for Rio Tinto, the company that owns the Enormous copper mine in SLC and he's up here for work, for a long time. He speaks english too, thank heavens.
We asked him why he came to our church and he said "I dunno, I asked the Holy Spirit where to go to church today and he said to come here--so I googled your guys' church and found the address"
BAM.
He seems extremely responsive to the Gospel and has committed to read the book of Mormon, and we all know what happens when you read that book...
So what we learn from this is that God in fact does answer prayers, and when you thrusteth in your sickle, you will harvest. Your harvest there might sneak up from the other side of the field and catch you unawares, but it still comes.
Oh yeah, our 95 year old investigator that we gave a blessing too, is in fact in the hospital. She might become a pass off to the elders on the other side of the veil here pretty soon. Ah well, she'll get the message all the same.
So E. Johnson and I are down in Ottawa now, for zone conference, that was a really long drive. This is the first time we've been with other missionaries for about a month now..actually closer to five weeks. And they had cut nightly calls as well a couple weeks back, so we didn't even talk to other missionaries on the phone except on Sundays. Needless to say, it's nice to be around friends again.
Well that's about all I have to talk about this week, except that I cannot believe that Carter got a MASTER SWORD. Goodness.
Till next week,
E. Holm
Remember how I said it was cold last week? Yeah... We went sledding for young men's last wednesday. It was roughly -15 degrees, Farenheit, with a fierce wind. I took off my gloves really quick to adjust my scarf, by the time I had reached up to my scarf and found the zipper of my jacket to unzip a little (to give me room to adjust) I had lost motor control of my hands/fingers. So I gave out a quick "oh" and jammed my hands in my pockets. I was rather stuck for a moment or two-just looking at my gloves on the ground, waiting for my hands to feel again. Carter's Russian hat has come in handy and works quite well up here against the wind. It's also a great conversation starter, because it's kind of ridiculous.
We pulled another investigator out of the area book. She has had pages upon pages of visits with Elders going for about 3 years now. Goodness me. But of course, I think to myself "It's about time then, for her to get dunked." I wasn't going to meet with her, until I found part of a manuscript under my bed. It looked like someone was writing a book, so naturally I read through it and edited it, slashing words and the like. I had read somewhere in the vast records of th new investigators records that she was writing something. We met with her and it turns out she is an author to be, and is writing a book. After explaining myself and giving back the partial manuscript, she looked over the corrections and inquired of my assistance. I have the first three chapters of her book in my backpack, soon to be corrected and handed back. SERVICE. Enjoyable service. She has a lot of questions concerning the apocalypse and book of revelations, and cavemen. I decided the other day to take an hour and read all of Revelations. BRAIN EXPLOSION. It was ridiculous. Of course she has a lot of questions. E. Johnson started explaining to her the entire facet of caveman-ism and how it relates to the gospel. I cut him off and told him to run it by me later, so as to avoid blasphemy again.
Later in the apartment he explained to me how cavemen had actually evolved from apes and that they weren't actually human, they just thought and walked and acted like humans. We had a little chat.
Cavemen question won't be answered by us, looks like.
I have found that Val D'or is the Twilight Zone of missionary work. Things work in mysterious ways up here. Elder Johnson and I have been praying very hard with great wrestling in the spirit to find a new investigator, and all the doors we knock each day are angry, sometimes violent in response. No one responds well to us.
Then, lo and behold, after sitting down Sunday morning and realizing we had no investigators coming to church, we hear someone walk in behind us and sit down in the back row of our little cultural hall. Immediately the members, all 8 of them, start talking to this man.
"Oh hello, are you the journalist?" (we had told a member and his wife about the journalist we met) "Nope," this new guy said, a little weirded out.
Two other people asked him the same question, by the end he was introducing himself as "a visitor, not the journalist."
We pulled him into investigator class, and lo and behold, he's from Salt Lake City. Apparently he works for Rio Tinto, the company that owns the Enormous copper mine in SLC and he's up here for work, for a long time. He speaks english too, thank heavens.
We asked him why he came to our church and he said "I dunno, I asked the Holy Spirit where to go to church today and he said to come here--so I googled your guys' church and found the address"
BAM.
He seems extremely responsive to the Gospel and has committed to read the book of Mormon, and we all know what happens when you read that book...
So what we learn from this is that God in fact does answer prayers, and when you thrusteth in your sickle, you will harvest. Your harvest there might sneak up from the other side of the field and catch you unawares, but it still comes.
Oh yeah, our 95 year old investigator that we gave a blessing too, is in fact in the hospital. She might become a pass off to the elders on the other side of the veil here pretty soon. Ah well, she'll get the message all the same.
So E. Johnson and I are down in Ottawa now, for zone conference, that was a really long drive. This is the first time we've been with other missionaries for about a month now..actually closer to five weeks. And they had cut nightly calls as well a couple weeks back, so we didn't even talk to other missionaries on the phone except on Sundays. Needless to say, it's nice to be around friends again.
Well that's about all I have to talk about this week, except that I cannot believe that Carter got a MASTER SWORD. Goodness.
Till next week,
E. Holm
January 10, 2011
January 10th, 2011
Well family.
As you might have surmised, it is cold up here. I used to wish for sunshine, but in all reality I forgot the warmth that clouds bring. It always seems to happen at night, just as we are crossing the street, the clouds disappear and the moon lights up the road. It is a strange sensation, very similar to the "Eye of the Storm" scene in Day After Tomorrow; you know the one where everything starts freezing instantaneously, helicopters freeze in mid-air and people start dying left and right? Yeah, just like that. It starts in the fingers and toes and I can feel cold creeping up into me. Needless to say, we scurry from the open air like Furlings from the open field and try to find an apartment building to knock. There have been multiple occasions where I refuse to wear a hat (for I have this perpetual fear of baldness approaching-EVERYONE tells the missionaries they go bald cause they wear hats too much in the winter here.) my forehead loses all circulation and I sit in the car, looking in the mirror, furiously pumping my eyebrows up and down, trying to warm my upper face back up. I think I've already told you this. Anyways.
We gave talks in church this week. I find that I would rather give a talk in front of 600 people in English, rather than butcher my way through a French talk in front of 10 people who already know me really well, and will continue to be a great part of my life for a long time. It wasn't too bad, but it took me a really long time to find out how to say what I wanted-- E. Johnson was done with his talk in about 15 minutes, he just typed it all out in english and threw it onto Google translator...sigh...he learned the hard way that this does not work. A lot of people were confused.
We have 2 new investigators, that we've found. We tried to commit one, we call her crazy lady, because the first thing she told us is that an angel came over one day and had a smoke with her, and that Jesus stopped by one day at her mom's house and performed miracles. I have no doubt that she felt the spirit during these apparitions...and that's all I have to say about that. She's "too old to be baptized again" but we'll see. We've been spending a lot of time In Rouyn-Noranda, for both E. Johnson and I and the Branch here feel that that's where we need to work. We are slowly but surely progressing. We also had sacrament meeting in Rouyn-Noranda, where I got to be music conductor/soloist. Because no one knew the tune of the hymns selected, basically E. Johnson and I had to belt it out to lead everyone. And E. Johnson didn't have a hymnbook, so he put his head down and sat there laughing. It was basically a solo. So my advice to Hayden and Chandler and Noah-Join the ward choir and practice singing. I also got called to play the piano as well. It's a good thing I've got a couple hymns down, but I don't know how many times I can play "Sweet hour of prayer."
I'm growing more and more impatient with tracting. Which is shown in my contact-it's getting quite crazy for me. We'll introduce ourselves and it'll go like this.
"We're missionaries-"
"No no no"
"No it's true, we are missionaries,"
"No thank you, I don't have time,"
"Can we try another time?"
They start shutting the door, "yeah sure another time"
I take a step forward "What day is the best for you?"
"Uh..."
"How about tuesday, we'll be here around tuesday, at 3? Are you going to be here?"
"Yeah, sure." Slam.
We usually go a day early, at the appointed time, so they don't see us coming and ditch out on us. It has gotten quite effective. Effective meaning, we quickly discover if they are really interested or not.
Luckily we got in the Newspaper the other day, had an interview and everything, and we're going to contact the journalist, he was interested and might become an investigator. Now that's what I call a good interview. It's good to see my media classes really paying off up here, it's helped a lot so much. No other missionaries even knew that we could do what I just did up here. It's going to be fun up here.
Also, sad enough to say, my past gaming has helped quite a lot when talking to people. I can usually make a contact a potential by saying 3 words "Wii, XBOX, or PS3?"
Who would have thought?
Well that's our week so far, nothing too exciting yet, except that I heard from E. Cherry in Sherbrooke and all our investigators we found together are on the path to baptism, even the Gay guy. That was comforting to hear.
Peace,
E. Holm
As you might have surmised, it is cold up here. I used to wish for sunshine, but in all reality I forgot the warmth that clouds bring. It always seems to happen at night, just as we are crossing the street, the clouds disappear and the moon lights up the road. It is a strange sensation, very similar to the "Eye of the Storm" scene in Day After Tomorrow; you know the one where everything starts freezing instantaneously, helicopters freeze in mid-air and people start dying left and right? Yeah, just like that. It starts in the fingers and toes and I can feel cold creeping up into me. Needless to say, we scurry from the open air like Furlings from the open field and try to find an apartment building to knock. There have been multiple occasions where I refuse to wear a hat (for I have this perpetual fear of baldness approaching-EVERYONE tells the missionaries they go bald cause they wear hats too much in the winter here.) my forehead loses all circulation and I sit in the car, looking in the mirror, furiously pumping my eyebrows up and down, trying to warm my upper face back up. I think I've already told you this. Anyways.
We gave talks in church this week. I find that I would rather give a talk in front of 600 people in English, rather than butcher my way through a French talk in front of 10 people who already know me really well, and will continue to be a great part of my life for a long time. It wasn't too bad, but it took me a really long time to find out how to say what I wanted-- E. Johnson was done with his talk in about 15 minutes, he just typed it all out in english and threw it onto Google translator...sigh...he learned the hard way that this does not work. A lot of people were confused.
We have 2 new investigators, that we've found. We tried to commit one, we call her crazy lady, because the first thing she told us is that an angel came over one day and had a smoke with her, and that Jesus stopped by one day at her mom's house and performed miracles. I have no doubt that she felt the spirit during these apparitions...and that's all I have to say about that. She's "too old to be baptized again" but we'll see. We've been spending a lot of time In Rouyn-Noranda, for both E. Johnson and I and the Branch here feel that that's where we need to work. We are slowly but surely progressing. We also had sacrament meeting in Rouyn-Noranda, where I got to be music conductor/soloist. Because no one knew the tune of the hymns selected, basically E. Johnson and I had to belt it out to lead everyone. And E. Johnson didn't have a hymnbook, so he put his head down and sat there laughing. It was basically a solo. So my advice to Hayden and Chandler and Noah-Join the ward choir and practice singing. I also got called to play the piano as well. It's a good thing I've got a couple hymns down, but I don't know how many times I can play "Sweet hour of prayer."
I'm growing more and more impatient with tracting. Which is shown in my contact-it's getting quite crazy for me. We'll introduce ourselves and it'll go like this.
"We're missionaries-"
"No no no"
"No it's true, we are missionaries,"
"No thank you, I don't have time,"
"Can we try another time?"
They start shutting the door, "yeah sure another time"
I take a step forward "What day is the best for you?"
"Uh..."
"How about tuesday, we'll be here around tuesday, at 3? Are you going to be here?"
"Yeah, sure." Slam.
We usually go a day early, at the appointed time, so they don't see us coming and ditch out on us. It has gotten quite effective. Effective meaning, we quickly discover if they are really interested or not.
Luckily we got in the Newspaper the other day, had an interview and everything, and we're going to contact the journalist, he was interested and might become an investigator. Now that's what I call a good interview. It's good to see my media classes really paying off up here, it's helped a lot so much. No other missionaries even knew that we could do what I just did up here. It's going to be fun up here.
Also, sad enough to say, my past gaming has helped quite a lot when talking to people. I can usually make a contact a potential by saying 3 words "Wii, XBOX, or PS3?"
Who would have thought?
Well that's our week so far, nothing too exciting yet, except that I heard from E. Cherry in Sherbrooke and all our investigators we found together are on the path to baptism, even the Gay guy. That was comforting to hear.
Peace,
E. Holm
January 3, 2011
January 3rd, 2011
Hi family,
This week has been a crazy one. I have gotten to know E. Johnson rather well. And we will continue to get to know each other better, seeing as our zone conference is on the 18th (Kyra's birthday) and we won't be seeing any other missionaries until the 5th week of this transfer. Ya...5 weeks with one person, just one person. It's a good thing E. Johnson and I get along really well. To better describe E. Johnson, he is just like a ginger version of Alex Heder (watch Hayden's reaction). It's true, but this is good, I know exactly how to get along with him now. Like all Gingers he's got a fiery temper that comes out when people don't listen to us. Which is good, because it means he cares. He also does a lot of very funny things. I'll give you a couple examples.
Sometimes we cross english-only indians up here. Our english contacting skills are pretty bad. We contacted this one guy and started talking to him, he rejected our offer to learn more, so I offered if we could help him out and do service for him,
The man's face dropped. Immediately after the words came out of Johnson's mouth, I said
"NO, no we will not do that sir, but we would love to help out."
He did not take us up on that offer.
I'll keep you updated on the crazy things he says, it keeps things interesting.
This week has been a crazy one. I have gotten to know E. Johnson rather well. And we will continue to get to know each other better, seeing as our zone conference is on the 18th (Kyra's birthday) and we won't be seeing any other missionaries until the 5th week of this transfer. Ya...5 weeks with one person, just one person. It's a good thing E. Johnson and I get along really well. To better describe E. Johnson, he is just like a ginger version of Alex Heder (watch Hayden's reaction). It's true, but this is good, I know exactly how to get along with him now. Like all Gingers he's got a fiery temper that comes out when people don't listen to us. Which is good, because it means he cares. He also does a lot of very funny things. I'll give you a couple examples.
Sometimes we cross english-only indians up here. Our english contacting skills are pretty bad. We contacted this one guy and started talking to him, he rejected our offer to learn more, so I offered if we could help him out and do service for him,
the guy said "no, I'm good thanks"
I said "Are you sure? We'll help you with anything."
"Anything?" the guy said jokingly.
"Anything?" the guy said jokingly.
Then E. Johnson chimed in. This is where it gets weird. Johnson later claims that he didn't even realize what he said, until I told him, he thought he said "We'll clean your floors." But somewhere in the lingual blender there, it came out as "WE'LL LICK YOU'RE FEET!"
The man's face dropped. Immediately after the words came out of Johnson's mouth, I said
"NO, no we will not do that sir, but we would love to help out."
He did not take us up on that offer.
I'll keep you updated on the crazy things he says, it keeps things interesting.
We were walking some member's dogs, in the Canadian wilderness. All of a sudden a huge rotweiller/wolf mix came running at us. It kept falling into the deep 3 feet of snow, we'd see it for a couple seconds, then BAM, it would disappear...then pop up again, and disappear into the snow. I was laughing, and I turned to see that E. Johnson was gone, running down the street. I thought for a second, then turned to see the rotweiller rolling onto the road and finally picking up speed.
Needless to say, we got our exercise. We've been working real hard, and this week we have an appointment with the local newspaper to have an article put in. I'm liking this, partially because I think door-to-door is very ineffective. Why not just have a newspaper print our testimonies and deliver them to 20,000 residences? So that's our plan, and we're going to talk to the mayor on friday. As well as talking to the local TV news station about an interview...So pray for my french this week, hopefully we'll be able to communicate well this week.
New years eve was kind of "missionary like" because we literally had no food. We scrounged up some change and bought some potatoes. And had mashed potatoes. That was it. Just mashed potatoes. One of those wonderful missionary experiences, but now we have plenty of food, luckily.
We got a new investigator, but sadly I'm thinking we'll have to drop him soon. He is determined to convert us to catholicism. The first meeting we had, he asked us Why there is polygamy in heaven and why we stopped polygamy just because of the American laws, and why didn't Jesus tell Peter about the church in Americas. After he asked me this, I said "We are not prepared to answer your questions." (Having no intention to ever prepare to answer his questions) But E. Johnson didn't catch the drift there, and promptly began to answer his questions. All of it was pretty much blasphemy, that he said. And then he said,
"So, if the catholic church is true, then Jesus Christ is a sinner."
This offended the man. I usually try to back up my companion, but I don't know where he was going with this one. I just looked at him. And prayed. He tried to explain it, but he didn't understand enough of the catholic church to know what he was talking about. Sigh. Well. You know. He'll catch on soon enough. It's not about bible bashing and arguing, it never was.
We'll have a companion study on "not saying things."
Well that's about all I have for this week, I'll keep you updated with weeks to come.
E. Holm
Needless to say, we got our exercise. We've been working real hard, and this week we have an appointment with the local newspaper to have an article put in. I'm liking this, partially because I think door-to-door is very ineffective. Why not just have a newspaper print our testimonies and deliver them to 20,000 residences? So that's our plan, and we're going to talk to the mayor on friday. As well as talking to the local TV news station about an interview...So pray for my french this week, hopefully we'll be able to communicate well this week.
New years eve was kind of "missionary like" because we literally had no food. We scrounged up some change and bought some potatoes. And had mashed potatoes. That was it. Just mashed potatoes. One of those wonderful missionary experiences, but now we have plenty of food, luckily.
We got a new investigator, but sadly I'm thinking we'll have to drop him soon. He is determined to convert us to catholicism. The first meeting we had, he asked us Why there is polygamy in heaven and why we stopped polygamy just because of the American laws, and why didn't Jesus tell Peter about the church in Americas. After he asked me this, I said "We are not prepared to answer your questions." (Having no intention to ever prepare to answer his questions) But E. Johnson didn't catch the drift there, and promptly began to answer his questions. All of it was pretty much blasphemy, that he said. And then he said,
"So, if the catholic church is true, then Jesus Christ is a sinner."
This offended the man. I usually try to back up my companion, but I don't know where he was going with this one. I just looked at him. And prayed. He tried to explain it, but he didn't understand enough of the catholic church to know what he was talking about. Sigh. Well. You know. He'll catch on soon enough. It's not about bible bashing and arguing, it never was.
We'll have a companion study on "not saying things."
Well that's about all I have for this week, I'll keep you updated with weeks to come.
E. Holm
December 27, 2010
December 27th, 2010
Sup Fam,
So the sun came out for the first time today in forever. I've never been so happy to see the sun! Too bad it'll set in about 5 hours. Ah well, wouldn't want to get a sunburn. There are a couple things I forgot to tell you about Val D'or. They don't shovel the sidewalks here, because people just use snowmobiles to get everywhere. Really. I've seen like five people just driving their snowmobiles down the streets and on the sidewalks to get everywhere. It's crazy.
I don't know much more to say, we just talked on the phone like two days ago...
Someone just walked into our office/church and told us a story about how his son just got ambulanced to a hospital in another town and he can't make it there because he just lost his job at the mine and his settlement hasn't cleared the bank yet and he doesn't have any gas in his car. The town is called Rouyn Noranda, that his son is in. Turns out he used to be an investigator and he knows that we are "nicest people he's ever met" and his girlfriend used to teach the gospel principles class, but that didn't sit well with him because he knew she wasn't practicing what she preached. But he used to go to church and he knows the mormons. He said he wants to come back-but people will say anything for money. He was asking for 50 dollars. E. Johnson whipped out 45 and just handed it to him. Sigh. The guy was actually upset that we didn't have the last five. He tried to sell us his radio, but we told him that's all we had, because in reality, we're missionaries, and it's the end of the month. He didn't buy that we were out of money, in an angry mutter he said "I'll be here for church" and stormed out.
Great. Kind of fouled up our morning there. Hopefully he realizes how much it is to give up 45 dollars, and he'll be a little happier when he gets to church. On the bright side, we have a new investigator now, heheh....sigh. It's all about the numbers anyways, right?
Our new investigator called yesterday and wants us to give her a priesthood blessing today, that's some landmark progress for this lady, she's known the church forever, literally, forever (she's the 95 yr. old) So that will be good, it kind of tears our P day to shreds, but that's alright, there's nothing to do in Val D'or anyways.
We went tracting last night around 7 o clock, it was -12 Celsius, with heavy winds, and heavy wind chill. I had forgotten my beanie, and by the time I had thought to use my hood, my hood was stiff from the cold and I wasn't about to wrap that frozen hood around my head. By the end of our tracting, I literally could not feel my forehead. It must have been a funny sight to see, as we got into the car I was furiously pumping my eyebrows up and down, trying to get feeling back into my face.
I can't believe that Carlie is Pregnant! That's insane. Still isn't registering.
So we got our callings yesterday in the branch. We're the Young Men's Presidents, and the Branch Presidency whenever the branch presidency isn't there. Which is about every other week. It was surprising, we had about 12 members show up for church. Soon we'll have it doubled, no worries. Actually, we make a trip out to Rouyn Noranda each week, to work there, because a lot of members come from there. So our goal is to set up a new branch in Rouyn. That's what we're looking at, our goal for the next six months there. It can definitely be done.
Welp, that's about all that's going on. It was good to talk to everyone, Everyone sounds about the same, that's good.
Love,
E. Holm
So the sun came out for the first time today in forever. I've never been so happy to see the sun! Too bad it'll set in about 5 hours. Ah well, wouldn't want to get a sunburn. There are a couple things I forgot to tell you about Val D'or. They don't shovel the sidewalks here, because people just use snowmobiles to get everywhere. Really. I've seen like five people just driving their snowmobiles down the streets and on the sidewalks to get everywhere. It's crazy.
I don't know much more to say, we just talked on the phone like two days ago...
Someone just walked into our office/church and told us a story about how his son just got ambulanced to a hospital in another town and he can't make it there because he just lost his job at the mine and his settlement hasn't cleared the bank yet and he doesn't have any gas in his car. The town is called Rouyn Noranda, that his son is in. Turns out he used to be an investigator and he knows that we are "nicest people he's ever met" and his girlfriend used to teach the gospel principles class, but that didn't sit well with him because he knew she wasn't practicing what she preached. But he used to go to church and he knows the mormons. He said he wants to come back-but people will say anything for money. He was asking for 50 dollars. E. Johnson whipped out 45 and just handed it to him. Sigh. The guy was actually upset that we didn't have the last five. He tried to sell us his radio, but we told him that's all we had, because in reality, we're missionaries, and it's the end of the month. He didn't buy that we were out of money, in an angry mutter he said "I'll be here for church" and stormed out.
Great. Kind of fouled up our morning there. Hopefully he realizes how much it is to give up 45 dollars, and he'll be a little happier when he gets to church. On the bright side, we have a new investigator now, heheh....sigh. It's all about the numbers anyways, right?
Our new investigator called yesterday and wants us to give her a priesthood blessing today, that's some landmark progress for this lady, she's known the church forever, literally, forever (she's the 95 yr. old) So that will be good, it kind of tears our P day to shreds, but that's alright, there's nothing to do in Val D'or anyways.
We went tracting last night around 7 o clock, it was -12 Celsius, with heavy winds, and heavy wind chill. I had forgotten my beanie, and by the time I had thought to use my hood, my hood was stiff from the cold and I wasn't about to wrap that frozen hood around my head. By the end of our tracting, I literally could not feel my forehead. It must have been a funny sight to see, as we got into the car I was furiously pumping my eyebrows up and down, trying to get feeling back into my face.
I can't believe that Carlie is Pregnant! That's insane. Still isn't registering.
So we got our callings yesterday in the branch. We're the Young Men's Presidents, and the Branch Presidency whenever the branch presidency isn't there. Which is about every other week. It was surprising, we had about 12 members show up for church. Soon we'll have it doubled, no worries. Actually, we make a trip out to Rouyn Noranda each week, to work there, because a lot of members come from there. So our goal is to set up a new branch in Rouyn. That's what we're looking at, our goal for the next six months there. It can definitely be done.
Welp, that's about all that's going on. It was good to talk to everyone, Everyone sounds about the same, that's good.
Love,
E. Holm
December 20, 2010
December 20th, 2010
Qu'est-ce que sup, family,
Woof, you guys almost struck out completely on letters this week, good thing pops pulled through with a letter from his blackberry. Thanks Pops! But I understand, it's a busy time and all.
So. Transfer calls. Crazy things happening. I'm going Senior Companion to an elder that is only one transfer old, and we are flushing into the VAL D'OR area, or more commonly known as Ahbitibi. It is the furthest north in the mission you can go.I'm going from the furthest south in the mission to the top of the top. In the dead of winter. I'm going to die. There's a super strong branch up there, of 8 people. heheh. But the work is turning around up there, they just had the first baptism in 4 years up there last transfer. My new comp, E. Johnson, and I will tear it up for sure. It will be fun.
I gotta learn french. It will be nice to be senior finally. Not that I'm shooting for position or anything, I just think I could be so much more effective in a senior position. I've had some good ideas shot down by some seniors that I know would have been effective. NOW IS THE TIME.
So, to get there from montreal is a 4 hour bus ride to ottawa, then 5 hour drive to val d'or. Yikes.
This past week has been nothing but tracting. Woo... But I have learned an extraordinary amount from E. Valido, especially about the bible. Like crazy things. Ah well, I still like the Book of Mormon better.
We got to help at a toy-donation event here at the church, and set up a missionary table and everything. E. Valido and I have been working very hard this past week, and a couple days extra. So this past week and a half. And in this time we have found 50 potentials. Crazy, I'm kind of sad to leave Drummondville after only being here for a week. The work here is going to explode. Man, it's already exploding.
Christmas this year will be kinda lame, seeing as we are flushing into an area. But I'm sure E. Johnson is cool, we'll have a blast. Thank you so so very much for the packages, I have to open them tonight though to make sure everything fits in my luggage.
VAL D'OR.
So, if you guys have a quilt handy, I promised a member I would ask for one before I headed out to Val D'or. If not, that's fine, I'm sure they have a lot of blankets up there. I feel bad asking for one right after you sent the christmas packages, but I might die.
I'll be calling Christmas Eve sometime, probably around 9 o clock for me, so 7 o clock for you guys. I might try a little earlier, like in the morning too. I'm just gonna call to let you know what time I'm calling on Christmas.
Um, that's really all we did this week, was tract, nothing crazy exciting or anything. Not even that many interesting people. It's been a long week. Ah well.
I'll talk to you guys on Christmas,
Joyeux Noël,
E. Holm
Woof, you guys almost struck out completely on letters this week, good thing pops pulled through with a letter from his blackberry. Thanks Pops! But I understand, it's a busy time and all.
So. Transfer calls. Crazy things happening. I'm going Senior Companion to an elder that is only one transfer old, and we are flushing into the VAL D'OR area, or more commonly known as Ahbitibi. It is the furthest north in the mission you can go.I'm going from the furthest south in the mission to the top of the top. In the dead of winter. I'm going to die. There's a super strong branch up there, of 8 people. heheh. But the work is turning around up there, they just had the first baptism in 4 years up there last transfer. My new comp, E. Johnson, and I will tear it up for sure. It will be fun.
I gotta learn french. It will be nice to be senior finally. Not that I'm shooting for position or anything, I just think I could be so much more effective in a senior position. I've had some good ideas shot down by some seniors that I know would have been effective. NOW IS THE TIME.
So, to get there from montreal is a 4 hour bus ride to ottawa, then 5 hour drive to val d'or. Yikes.
This past week has been nothing but tracting. Woo... But I have learned an extraordinary amount from E. Valido, especially about the bible. Like crazy things. Ah well, I still like the Book of Mormon better.
We got to help at a toy-donation event here at the church, and set up a missionary table and everything. E. Valido and I have been working very hard this past week, and a couple days extra. So this past week and a half. And in this time we have found 50 potentials. Crazy, I'm kind of sad to leave Drummondville after only being here for a week. The work here is going to explode. Man, it's already exploding.
Christmas this year will be kinda lame, seeing as we are flushing into an area. But I'm sure E. Johnson is cool, we'll have a blast. Thank you so so very much for the packages, I have to open them tonight though to make sure everything fits in my luggage.
VAL D'OR.
So, if you guys have a quilt handy, I promised a member I would ask for one before I headed out to Val D'or. If not, that's fine, I'm sure they have a lot of blankets up there. I feel bad asking for one right after you sent the christmas packages, but I might die.
I'll be calling Christmas Eve sometime, probably around 9 o clock for me, so 7 o clock for you guys. I might try a little earlier, like in the morning too. I'm just gonna call to let you know what time I'm calling on Christmas.
Um, that's really all we did this week, was tract, nothing crazy exciting or anything. Not even that many interesting people. It's been a long week. Ah well.
I'll talk to you guys on Christmas,
Joyeux Noël,
E. Holm
December 13, 2010
December 13th, 2010
Hey Family,
I'm now in Drummondville-which is an hour north of Sherbrooke. Some other elders were having some trouble getting along up here, so President asked me to take part in an Emergency transfer and swap out one of the elders. This happened friday morning, so I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone from Sherbrooke, but you know, that's life. I'd like to think of it as a very BATMAN exit, someone is still asking a question and all there is is an open window and some curtains blowing in the breeze. The transfer ends on the 21st, so I should just be here for one week, or more if President transfers me here for good. So it's a very limbo week, for sure. I'm sad to be broken up with E. Cherry, after we got off the phone with president he wasn't too happy about the situation either, he described us splitting up as "having an abortion against your will," I really like E. Cherry. I felt like I left Sherbrooke in good standing, we were able to boost our numbers from 3 to 15 investigators, and reactivated a good part of the ward, it was cool. Onto the next area.
My new companion is E. Valido, he is a VERY interesting character. He is 27 years old, decided to go on a mission right before he finished his masters in Critical textualism of the bible. He was a full time baptist minister before he was converted to the Church. He curses like a sailor, and is not a clean person--he's about the same height and shape as uncle Tim. Maybe a little shorter. He's also a graphic designer and a marine/army guy, he did both. He knows a whole lot about the bible, that's for sure.
So yeah, my comp is a baptist minister. How crazy is that. The branch here is really cool, really excited about missionary work, that's for sure. A longer letter will come next week, when I have something to write about here in Drummondville. I will also let you know where I'm going next week, if I'm going anywhere.
All the Best,
E. Holm
Before the change, there wasn't much going on. Just working and all that jazz.
I'm now in Drummondville-which is an hour north of Sherbrooke. Some other elders were having some trouble getting along up here, so President asked me to take part in an Emergency transfer and swap out one of the elders. This happened friday morning, so I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone from Sherbrooke, but you know, that's life. I'd like to think of it as a very BATMAN exit, someone is still asking a question and all there is is an open window and some curtains blowing in the breeze. The transfer ends on the 21st, so I should just be here for one week, or more if President transfers me here for good. So it's a very limbo week, for sure. I'm sad to be broken up with E. Cherry, after we got off the phone with president he wasn't too happy about the situation either, he described us splitting up as "having an abortion against your will," I really like E. Cherry. I felt like I left Sherbrooke in good standing, we were able to boost our numbers from 3 to 15 investigators, and reactivated a good part of the ward, it was cool. Onto the next area.
My new companion is E. Valido, he is a VERY interesting character. He is 27 years old, decided to go on a mission right before he finished his masters in Critical textualism of the bible. He was a full time baptist minister before he was converted to the Church. He curses like a sailor, and is not a clean person--he's about the same height and shape as uncle Tim. Maybe a little shorter. He's also a graphic designer and a marine/army guy, he did both. He knows a whole lot about the bible, that's for sure.
So yeah, my comp is a baptist minister. How crazy is that. The branch here is really cool, really excited about missionary work, that's for sure. A longer letter will come next week, when I have something to write about here in Drummondville. I will also let you know where I'm going next week, if I'm going anywhere.
All the Best,
E. Holm
Before the change, there wasn't much going on. Just working and all that jazz.
December 6, 2010
December 6th, 2010
Hola Familia,
This week has been a very difficult one, but a very successful one at that. Including this week's work, E. Cherry and I have been able to quadruple our teaching pool since the beginning of the transfer. It's very exciting, a lot of people are progressing towards conversion. It was rather funny, one of our investigators had a question about evil spirits, so when we showed up the first thing he did was turn on "Amytville Horror" and ask us, "does stuff like this acutally happen?" It took us about a minute and a half to explain to him, in french (everything takes longer to say when in french) that we needed him to turn it off, and by then we had seen/heard 5 people get gruesomely murdered in the film. It was kind of difficult to bring the spirit back into the lesson, but by the end we got it back.
We knocked into this guy house --he let us in and we sat down on his bed in his little apartment; he sat in his chair across the room. He had a big tub of cigarettes and a tall glass of beer on the table, and we could hardly see him through the cloud of smoke. He told us a story of how he used to go to church until his pastor caught him coming out of a strip club and told him he couldn't come back anymore. He's been looking for God ever since. We were able to teach him the first lesson and commit him to baptism, his answer was "Yes, I will get baptized, but I don't want anything to do with your book, just Jesus." So we have a little bit of explaining to do, he still doesn't get that the Book of Mormon is all about Jesus. Which is weird, cause it says so right on the cover.
Another new investigator we found this week is from Nepal, she is Hindu, but doesn't like Hinduism because she believes in only one God. Banksy. She talked a lot about Ghandi and the Dalai Lama and the importance of the soul and how you should have no fear, because whatever happens, God is in it. Then she interpreted E. Cherry's dream, that was crazy, and she showed us her temple in her room, which consisted of trinkets from every religion you can think of. My favorite part was the Lava lamp next to the nativity scene.
The work is increasing, becoming almost too much for just two missionaries to handle, which is a really good thing. We were able to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday, in French, it was really good. We've also started really studying Spanish, because 7 of our investigators speak spanish, and we would like to be able to talk to them.
Good luck Chandler at the concert! That's really exciting - someone take pictures! Good luck Noah at the Ballroom recital! Are you waltzing this time, or a different kind of dance?
Good luck with everything! Oh, and transfers are coming up on the 21st, so everything you mail has got to go to the mission home for now, because I might get transferred.
Thank you so much for everything and have a nice week everyone!
E. Holm
This week has been a very difficult one, but a very successful one at that. Including this week's work, E. Cherry and I have been able to quadruple our teaching pool since the beginning of the transfer. It's very exciting, a lot of people are progressing towards conversion. It was rather funny, one of our investigators had a question about evil spirits, so when we showed up the first thing he did was turn on "Amytville Horror" and ask us, "does stuff like this acutally happen?" It took us about a minute and a half to explain to him, in french (everything takes longer to say when in french) that we needed him to turn it off, and by then we had seen/heard 5 people get gruesomely murdered in the film. It was kind of difficult to bring the spirit back into the lesson, but by the end we got it back.
We knocked into this guy house --he let us in and we sat down on his bed in his little apartment; he sat in his chair across the room. He had a big tub of cigarettes and a tall glass of beer on the table, and we could hardly see him through the cloud of smoke. He told us a story of how he used to go to church until his pastor caught him coming out of a strip club and told him he couldn't come back anymore. He's been looking for God ever since. We were able to teach him the first lesson and commit him to baptism, his answer was "Yes, I will get baptized, but I don't want anything to do with your book, just Jesus." So we have a little bit of explaining to do, he still doesn't get that the Book of Mormon is all about Jesus. Which is weird, cause it says so right on the cover.
Another new investigator we found this week is from Nepal, she is Hindu, but doesn't like Hinduism because she believes in only one God. Banksy. She talked a lot about Ghandi and the Dalai Lama and the importance of the soul and how you should have no fear, because whatever happens, God is in it. Then she interpreted E. Cherry's dream, that was crazy, and she showed us her temple in her room, which consisted of trinkets from every religion you can think of. My favorite part was the Lava lamp next to the nativity scene.
The work is increasing, becoming almost too much for just two missionaries to handle, which is a really good thing. We were able to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday, in French, it was really good. We've also started really studying Spanish, because 7 of our investigators speak spanish, and we would like to be able to talk to them.
Good luck Chandler at the concert! That's really exciting - someone take pictures! Good luck Noah at the Ballroom recital! Are you waltzing this time, or a different kind of dance?
Good luck with everything! Oh, and transfers are coming up on the 21st, so everything you mail has got to go to the mission home for now, because I might get transferred.
Thank you so much for everything and have a nice week everyone!
E. Holm
November 23, 2010
Picture Update
First companion; Elder Perry.
Newest companion I believe... Elder Cherry.
First baptism.
"At the symposium. Me pretending to be interested in art so others would come ask questions. Furthest right in background = E. Perry talkin' it up."
"On our way back from the symposium in Quebec City, we saw a bunch of dinosaurs, so we took pictures."
"Dinosuars and monster trucks! Spare Time! Yeah right :)"
November 22, 2010
November 22, 2010
Family,
So this week has been...hard to remember....Things start to blur really fast out here. The ward is doing really well, E. Cherry and I are helping out the ward choir, that's a fun little break every sunday afternoon--I never thought I would be saying that about choir.
This week we had a lesson with an enormous family down in Stanstead, about an hour's drive south from Sherbrooke. We discovered that when we drove into the town, we were less than 3 miles from America. I could have driven straight into Vermont! What a strange feeling. The lesson went horrible, the parents were constantly yelling, at each other, at the kids, the kids were yelling at the parents, and at each other, we abandoned the thought of trying to teach them a full lesson and somehow squeezed out a good scripture and spiritual thought. The family is less active, but their two younger sons haven't been baptized yet, and the parents really want them to go through the lessons and be baptized, so we'll be making a lot of trips to the Vermont border in the next couple weeks.
We had an excellent lesson with our Gay investigator, we watched the testaments-and by the end he outright told us that he believed that Christ visited the Americas and started tearing up. But he's had a lot of rejection in his life, being gay-he's not even really gay, he's like a non-practicing gay...it's strange... so we invited him to church but he's just too scared of being rejected there. But we'll find a way to get him there.
We were sitting in church, and saw a girl sitting a couple rows ahead of us. Neither of us recognized her, we later found out she wasn't a member! We had an investigator at church without even knowing it! She came this week as well, the members are really working well with her, so we're giving her time to come to us, we don't want to push ourselves onto her and scare her away.
We had a couple from Madagascar visit our english class, they liked it and they are bringing their children next time...so hopefully we have some time to prepare a lesson for them. Also a Columbian guy is coming and bringing his daughter, so we'll have six new students in the class who don't speak any english. As my Iranian friend would say "Dat's Crazy."
One of the biggest problems here in Sherbrooke I've found is that missionaries in the past here, haven't really done anything, except baptize people who were not ready to be baptized. Most of our recent converts are inactive or going inactive because they were hardly taught anything before their baptism. Alot of them think church is more like a social club, and have no testimony--so we spend a lot of precious time fixing past missionaries lazy halfbaked work and reteaching these recent converts. But you know, work is work when you are a missionary. E. Cherry and I get along extremely well, we usually spend our in-between-houses time translating songs into french, songs like "There can be miracles" from Prince of egypt. All songs sound better in french.
E. Cherry and I have gotten really good at winging lessons in our Sunday school classes, because of course the default teachers are always the missionaries, the past two weeks we've been improv teaching, it has it's own thrill to it, that's for sure.
We had another investigator at church yesterday, the mother of the girl that comes on her own, and the older single ladies of the ward put on a dinner after church. While this investigator was eating and telling everyone about herself, (we were in the cultural hall) a girl kicked a ball and it hit her square in the face. I just about choked on my food, my first thought was "This is hilarious." I could just picture the rumor going around how mormons lure you in, and then hit you in the face when you least expect it. But she was cool about it, she got a little angry and rambled off something in spanish, but hey, everyone does that here. Spanish is the Angry language.
Well that's about all that's happened so far around here, E. Cherry and I are going to rock our own little thanksgiving this week, it will be...well pitiful. Neither of us like to cook and we found a sale on Ramen, so we've been having oatmeal and ramen this week, a 'self motivator to get more dinner appointments'
That's about all, keep up the good work at home,
E. Holm
So this week has been...hard to remember....Things start to blur really fast out here. The ward is doing really well, E. Cherry and I are helping out the ward choir, that's a fun little break every sunday afternoon--I never thought I would be saying that about choir.
This week we had a lesson with an enormous family down in Stanstead, about an hour's drive south from Sherbrooke. We discovered that when we drove into the town, we were less than 3 miles from America. I could have driven straight into Vermont! What a strange feeling. The lesson went horrible, the parents were constantly yelling, at each other, at the kids, the kids were yelling at the parents, and at each other, we abandoned the thought of trying to teach them a full lesson and somehow squeezed out a good scripture and spiritual thought. The family is less active, but their two younger sons haven't been baptized yet, and the parents really want them to go through the lessons and be baptized, so we'll be making a lot of trips to the Vermont border in the next couple weeks.
We had an excellent lesson with our Gay investigator, we watched the testaments-and by the end he outright told us that he believed that Christ visited the Americas and started tearing up. But he's had a lot of rejection in his life, being gay-he's not even really gay, he's like a non-practicing gay...it's strange... so we invited him to church but he's just too scared of being rejected there. But we'll find a way to get him there.
We were sitting in church, and saw a girl sitting a couple rows ahead of us. Neither of us recognized her, we later found out she wasn't a member! We had an investigator at church without even knowing it! She came this week as well, the members are really working well with her, so we're giving her time to come to us, we don't want to push ourselves onto her and scare her away.
We had a couple from Madagascar visit our english class, they liked it and they are bringing their children next time...so hopefully we have some time to prepare a lesson for them. Also a Columbian guy is coming and bringing his daughter, so we'll have six new students in the class who don't speak any english. As my Iranian friend would say "Dat's Crazy."
One of the biggest problems here in Sherbrooke I've found is that missionaries in the past here, haven't really done anything, except baptize people who were not ready to be baptized. Most of our recent converts are inactive or going inactive because they were hardly taught anything before their baptism. Alot of them think church is more like a social club, and have no testimony--so we spend a lot of precious time fixing past missionaries lazy halfbaked work and reteaching these recent converts. But you know, work is work when you are a missionary. E. Cherry and I get along extremely well, we usually spend our in-between-houses time translating songs into french, songs like "There can be miracles" from Prince of egypt. All songs sound better in french.
E. Cherry and I have gotten really good at winging lessons in our Sunday school classes, because of course the default teachers are always the missionaries, the past two weeks we've been improv teaching, it has it's own thrill to it, that's for sure.
We had another investigator at church yesterday, the mother of the girl that comes on her own, and the older single ladies of the ward put on a dinner after church. While this investigator was eating and telling everyone about herself, (we were in the cultural hall) a girl kicked a ball and it hit her square in the face. I just about choked on my food, my first thought was "This is hilarious." I could just picture the rumor going around how mormons lure you in, and then hit you in the face when you least expect it. But she was cool about it, she got a little angry and rambled off something in spanish, but hey, everyone does that here. Spanish is the Angry language.
Well that's about all that's happened so far around here, E. Cherry and I are going to rock our own little thanksgiving this week, it will be...well pitiful. Neither of us like to cook and we found a sale on Ramen, so we've been having oatmeal and ramen this week, a 'self motivator to get more dinner appointments'
That's about all, keep up the good work at home,
E. Holm
November 15, 2010
November 15, 2010
FAMILY.
The Baptism went really well. We spent all day preparing for it though, but it went really well. Everyone who was supposed to be there showed up, I was lucky enough to conduct the meeting (Absolutely terrifying) but it all worked out to the best. There is nothing like a baptism, the Spirit there is a strong one. I just sat there, on fire the whole time, it felt like. I have a picture of the investgator and her husband and the son of the bishop and the coolest black person ever. He went to jamaica on his mission, english speaking, so whenever he speaks english he has some crazy accent slang thing going on. Also, I don't know if I told you this, but our bishop is black, like from the congo black, with some crazy cool gray hair going. He looks like Nelson Mandella and Morgan Freeman mixed. And excellent combination. He's way cool.
Thanks to our investigator's excellent example, we now have two more baptisms coming on the way, two of another brother's sons from a previous marriage will be getting baptized within the next couple months, how excellent. It's amazing how many people are affected by one person when they decide to follow the light.
French is going really good, comprehension is at an all time high, speaking is still okay. We've run into so many people from columbia however, that we have started studying spanish, so we can make initial contact and set up another appointment, where we can bring a spanish speaking member with us.
E. Cherry is amazing. I was quite nervous at first, because transfers are like blind dates that last 6 weeks, but E. Cherry is almost like being comps with Carter or Hayden or Chandler or Noah. I knew we would bond quickly when he mentioned that he was a fan of the old Olsen twin movies they used to put out. I have never, ever met anyone who has seen those old movies. We are very much on the same page. It is going to be one of the greatest transfers ever. He's been out for 4 transfers, so we're both learning french really fast, and it is so nice to have a companion that isn't going home soon. The work will be exploding quickly, as it already has. Cherry is from Snowflake Arizona, so we are both going to freeze this winter.
That's about all that went on this week, Hopefully more baptisms will follow. Our goal is to keep the font full.
Light up the Darkness,
E. Holm
The Baptism went really well. We spent all day preparing for it though, but it went really well. Everyone who was supposed to be there showed up, I was lucky enough to conduct the meeting (Absolutely terrifying) but it all worked out to the best. There is nothing like a baptism, the Spirit there is a strong one. I just sat there, on fire the whole time, it felt like. I have a picture of the investgator and her husband and the son of the bishop and the coolest black person ever. He went to jamaica on his mission, english speaking, so whenever he speaks english he has some crazy accent slang thing going on. Also, I don't know if I told you this, but our bishop is black, like from the congo black, with some crazy cool gray hair going. He looks like Nelson Mandella and Morgan Freeman mixed. And excellent combination. He's way cool.
Thanks to our investigator's excellent example, we now have two more baptisms coming on the way, two of another brother's sons from a previous marriage will be getting baptized within the next couple months, how excellent. It's amazing how many people are affected by one person when they decide to follow the light.French is going really good, comprehension is at an all time high, speaking is still okay. We've run into so many people from columbia however, that we have started studying spanish, so we can make initial contact and set up another appointment, where we can bring a spanish speaking member with us.
E. Cherry is amazing. I was quite nervous at first, because transfers are like blind dates that last 6 weeks, but E. Cherry is almost like being comps with Carter or Hayden or Chandler or Noah. I knew we would bond quickly when he mentioned that he was a fan of the old Olsen twin movies they used to put out. I have never, ever met anyone who has seen those old movies. We are very much on the same page. It is going to be one of the greatest transfers ever. He's been out for 4 transfers, so we're both learning french really fast, and it is so nice to have a companion that isn't going home soon. The work will be exploding quickly, as it already has. Cherry is from Snowflake Arizona, so we are both going to freeze this winter.
That's about all that went on this week, Hopefully more baptisms will follow. Our goal is to keep the font full.Light up the Darkness,
E. Holm
November 8, 2010
November 8th, 2010
Family,
This week has been a good one, we went down and helped out with the Symposium held at a college, it was really cool. Yet, as missionaries on campus we weren't allowed to proselyte, we were there just to answer questions and show that mormons are normal people. There was of course a little confusion in the presentations, because a lot of them were done by religious professors and the like, so they weren't always accurate, but they weren't strictly contrary to our beliefs either. My favorite lecture was called "God is an American" It wasn't as bad as it sounds.
E. Perry and I were in charge of the art gallery and the homeless choir exposition. Yeah, apparantly an LDS guy wanted to do some good, so he rounded up a bunch of homeless guys and taught them how to sing. They weren't half bad! They didn't really mention the church or anything at all though...but it was a nice concert.
I've still been nasty sick this week, but only this awful cough remains now. The funniest thing happened in English class.
So our Iranian friend is studying and working in cryptography, which is message coding and decoding. He was trying to explain to our chinese lady student, what it was, so he got up and wrote and example on the board. This is the example he used.
"Attack on the eleventh September"
Using a sequence, he coded the message with Alberta wheat can't.... etc...Just a simple sentence, with which if you have the key, it's easy to read. There was a miscommunication upon the date eleventh september, so to jog our memories, our Iraqi friend drew two buildings and a plane flying right into them.
So quick recap. An Iranian, and Iraqi and a Chinawoman are discussing cryptography with the sentence "Attack on eleventh September" on the board next to a drawing of one of the most tragic terrorist attacks in history.
I'm teaching english to a terrorist cell. Haha. Anyways I thought that was humorous.
I'm excited for this Saturday, it is the day of our investigators baptism. We've got everything picked out and everything, she's just gotta make it to that day. Cross your fingers, or better yet pray. It will be exciting for sure. Today is E. Perry's last day in the mission field, tomorrow we're driving up to Montreal for Transfers, my new companions name is E. Cherry. Kinda strange, eh?
He's only been out 3 transfers, so it is going to be fun, we will both learn a lot.
There's not much else to say....
E. Holm's Christmas list.
1. Christmas music, more specifically Amy Grant and Taylor Swift's christmas album.
2. Christmas music, more specifically Amy Grant and Taylor Swift's christmas album.
Maybe possibly just send christmas music if at all possible as soon as possible? I am grieving over the lack of Christmas music on my ipod.
Have a good week!
E. Holm
This week has been a good one, we went down and helped out with the Symposium held at a college, it was really cool. Yet, as missionaries on campus we weren't allowed to proselyte, we were there just to answer questions and show that mormons are normal people. There was of course a little confusion in the presentations, because a lot of them were done by religious professors and the like, so they weren't always accurate, but they weren't strictly contrary to our beliefs either. My favorite lecture was called "God is an American" It wasn't as bad as it sounds.
E. Perry and I were in charge of the art gallery and the homeless choir exposition. Yeah, apparantly an LDS guy wanted to do some good, so he rounded up a bunch of homeless guys and taught them how to sing. They weren't half bad! They didn't really mention the church or anything at all though...but it was a nice concert.
I've still been nasty sick this week, but only this awful cough remains now. The funniest thing happened in English class.
So our Iranian friend is studying and working in cryptography, which is message coding and decoding. He was trying to explain to our chinese lady student, what it was, so he got up and wrote and example on the board. This is the example he used.
"Attack on the eleventh September"
Using a sequence, he coded the message with Alberta wheat can't.... etc...Just a simple sentence, with which if you have the key, it's easy to read. There was a miscommunication upon the date eleventh september, so to jog our memories, our Iraqi friend drew two buildings and a plane flying right into them.
So quick recap. An Iranian, and Iraqi and a Chinawoman are discussing cryptography with the sentence "Attack on eleventh September" on the board next to a drawing of one of the most tragic terrorist attacks in history.
I'm teaching english to a terrorist cell. Haha. Anyways I thought that was humorous.
I'm excited for this Saturday, it is the day of our investigators baptism. We've got everything picked out and everything, she's just gotta make it to that day. Cross your fingers, or better yet pray. It will be exciting for sure. Today is E. Perry's last day in the mission field, tomorrow we're driving up to Montreal for Transfers, my new companions name is E. Cherry. Kinda strange, eh?
He's only been out 3 transfers, so it is going to be fun, we will both learn a lot.
There's not much else to say....
E. Holm's Christmas list.
1. Christmas music, more specifically Amy Grant and Taylor Swift's christmas album.
2. Christmas music, more specifically Amy Grant and Taylor Swift's christmas album.
Maybe possibly just send christmas music if at all possible as soon as possible? I am grieving over the lack of Christmas music on my ipod.
Have a good week!
E. Holm
November 1, 2010
November 1, 2010
Howdy,
This week has been a good one, a hard one, but a good one. I've gotten to the point now that when we go contacting, I'll usually talk to one person while Perry crosses the street and talks to another, there is no better feeling than conducting a full conversation while introducing yourself and then asking for a number and address and saying farewell in a whole nother language. It feels great to be at that point. And I've started making phone calls in french, that's just terrifying. But it's working out! I still need a whole world of practice before I am fluent however.
We had a temple trip this week, it's kinda crazy, before anything happens, they have a vote to see what language will be the language of the session, luckily it was english this time. Whew! Sometimes it's spanish and mostly french, how insane. We ran into a lot more Columbians this week, so many that we've pulled out a little book of spanish phrases so we know how to introduce ourselves in spanish. It's crazy.
We have a baptism coming up in a couple weeks, on the 13th, hopefully it won't fall through! But the investigator is ready and willing and wants to be baptized really bad, so I'm sure it won't. It's too bad that that's the week after transfers, so E. Perry won't get to be there, he's headed home to Alberta! But he's headed to Ogden to Weber State for college, it's a small world! Speaking of E. Perry, he's been awful sick lately, and I've finally caught it from him. I woke up a couple days ago without a voice, which makes it kind of difficult to contact and speak french and all that, so I've just been practicing my comprehension and listening skills. The doctors haven't gotten back to us yet, but they think that E. Perry might have pneumonia, hopefully my chest cold here doesn't progress into that. That would be a nightmare. We're on strict orders from the Mission President and his wife to stay home and rest, which is the MOST FRUSTRATING thing in the world. But what can you do? It seems like I was just progressing with the language too, but there are other ways to practice it than to speak it I guess. I've never really lost my voice like this, it's strange. Eh, give it a day, it'll be back.
There's snow on the ground up here. It's already begun, crazy. I might be buying boots pretty soon, especially since it's still snowing. We're headed up to Quebec city tomorrow, for the big symposium expedition thing, it should be awesome!
Well, that's about all I can think about, Have a good week, and take good care of Grandpa,
Peace be the Journey,
E. Holm
This week has been a good one, a hard one, but a good one. I've gotten to the point now that when we go contacting, I'll usually talk to one person while Perry crosses the street and talks to another, there is no better feeling than conducting a full conversation while introducing yourself and then asking for a number and address and saying farewell in a whole nother language. It feels great to be at that point. And I've started making phone calls in french, that's just terrifying. But it's working out! I still need a whole world of practice before I am fluent however.
We had a temple trip this week, it's kinda crazy, before anything happens, they have a vote to see what language will be the language of the session, luckily it was english this time. Whew! Sometimes it's spanish and mostly french, how insane. We ran into a lot more Columbians this week, so many that we've pulled out a little book of spanish phrases so we know how to introduce ourselves in spanish. It's crazy.
We have a baptism coming up in a couple weeks, on the 13th, hopefully it won't fall through! But the investigator is ready and willing and wants to be baptized really bad, so I'm sure it won't. It's too bad that that's the week after transfers, so E. Perry won't get to be there, he's headed home to Alberta! But he's headed to Ogden to Weber State for college, it's a small world! Speaking of E. Perry, he's been awful sick lately, and I've finally caught it from him. I woke up a couple days ago without a voice, which makes it kind of difficult to contact and speak french and all that, so I've just been practicing my comprehension and listening skills. The doctors haven't gotten back to us yet, but they think that E. Perry might have pneumonia, hopefully my chest cold here doesn't progress into that. That would be a nightmare. We're on strict orders from the Mission President and his wife to stay home and rest, which is the MOST FRUSTRATING thing in the world. But what can you do? It seems like I was just progressing with the language too, but there are other ways to practice it than to speak it I guess. I've never really lost my voice like this, it's strange. Eh, give it a day, it'll be back.
There's snow on the ground up here. It's already begun, crazy. I might be buying boots pretty soon, especially since it's still snowing. We're headed up to Quebec city tomorrow, for the big symposium expedition thing, it should be awesome!
Well, that's about all I can think about, Have a good week, and take good care of Grandpa,
Peace be the Journey,
E. Holm
October 25, 2010
October 25th, 2010
Hola,
It's been a busy week! We started out with a zone conference and afterwards had a split. I went with E. Ninataype for a good day and a half, it was an interesting experience. All our appointments were in spanish. I learned a lot. I need to learn french, and then probably spanish. A LOT of people speak spanish here, a lot of columbians immigrate here. But I had quite the miracle happen while on splits. It's amazing how you must encounter trials or darkness before you see the light. We were knocking doors, and had no success, until we hit the basement door. We knocked, this guy opened up while our hands were on the door knocking. It was pitch black inside, the only light came from the smoldering end of the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Due to the lack of light his eyes were enourmous, almost too big and dark, and his eyebrows were crazy all over the place. He had a huge agitated smile, almos panicky looking, on his face, while he held back his rather large bulldog. Some low, rythmic music was pulsating in the darkness.
The first thought that came to mind was a direct response to the feelings I had for this guy.
"woah, well you're the devil." He slammed the door after we tried to introduce ourselves, and E. Ninataype asked me "did you feel the evil-ness man?" It was a disturbing feeling, to be sure. But after such an encounter you always find the light.
We were walking back to the car when we stopped on a street corner, so E. Nina could take a phone call. I saw a short, middle aged woman walking towards us, with her ipod on, and thought "why not." Then I thought "how you would feel if someone interrupted your music listening experience?" Then I thought, "oh wait, it's the GOSPEL." so with reason enough to interrupt her, I gave it a shot.
In shattered french.
"Hi. I come from the States, I am learning french. Is it okay if I walk with you and we practice french?" (I find that people are usually more friendly when you instantly state your inferiority from the get go. No joke)
-Okay- was all I understood out of her next sentence, so we began to walk. She was very nice. Eventually conversation turned to church (the nametag helps) and I asked her what religion she is
-Christian!-
"What is it the church that you wait at?" I asked her.
-I am Christian but I don't go to church-
"why?"
-Because I don't know which one to go to-
I almost laughed out loud, it sounded like a roleplay from the MTC. so I told her
"why not come to church with my friend and I?"
She said sure! and afterwards E. Ninataype came and saved the conversation. We found a park nearby, taught her, and committed her to baptism on the 6th. Hopefully it works out. She seems very excited.
That was crazy. Now think. If I wasn't here. No split. the missionaries wouldn't have had need to practice their french, they would have continued to walk or contacted her in a way that might not have been optimal, she would not have found the gospel. Being here is already worth it.
I've got a whole lot more stories, but I'm out of time. I can't believe mom got in a three car pile up! Crazy stuff, what vehicle was it in? That probably didn't help the sickness. That stinks, I'll keep her in my prayers. For everyone else, it sounds like everyone is having a good time, Good! Keep up the good work, send me some pictures, Pictures pictures pictures!!
Oh and somebody Better be using that camera, if it's not being used PLEASE send it up here, I'm dying with this little point-shoot.
It's starting to frost outside. It's below freezing all the time now. Sigh...gonna be a long winter.
Peace be the Journey!
E. Holm
P.S.
We have a couple new members in our english class, every single person is from a different country. (E. Perry is from canada, alberta, so we are all from different countries.) It is verily insane, but the Highlight of my week! Also, I got to play a hunting horn this week, I forgot how much I miss the trumpet!
It's been a busy week! We started out with a zone conference and afterwards had a split. I went with E. Ninataype for a good day and a half, it was an interesting experience. All our appointments were in spanish. I learned a lot. I need to learn french, and then probably spanish. A LOT of people speak spanish here, a lot of columbians immigrate here. But I had quite the miracle happen while on splits. It's amazing how you must encounter trials or darkness before you see the light. We were knocking doors, and had no success, until we hit the basement door. We knocked, this guy opened up while our hands were on the door knocking. It was pitch black inside, the only light came from the smoldering end of the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Due to the lack of light his eyes were enourmous, almost too big and dark, and his eyebrows were crazy all over the place. He had a huge agitated smile, almos panicky looking, on his face, while he held back his rather large bulldog. Some low, rythmic music was pulsating in the darkness.
The first thought that came to mind was a direct response to the feelings I had for this guy.
"woah, well you're the devil." He slammed the door after we tried to introduce ourselves, and E. Ninataype asked me "did you feel the evil-ness man?" It was a disturbing feeling, to be sure. But after such an encounter you always find the light.
We were walking back to the car when we stopped on a street corner, so E. Nina could take a phone call. I saw a short, middle aged woman walking towards us, with her ipod on, and thought "why not." Then I thought "how you would feel if someone interrupted your music listening experience?" Then I thought, "oh wait, it's the GOSPEL." so with reason enough to interrupt her, I gave it a shot.
In shattered french.
"Hi. I come from the States, I am learning french. Is it okay if I walk with you and we practice french?" (I find that people are usually more friendly when you instantly state your inferiority from the get go. No joke)
-Okay- was all I understood out of her next sentence, so we began to walk. She was very nice. Eventually conversation turned to church (the nametag helps) and I asked her what religion she is
-Christian!-
"What is it the church that you wait at?" I asked her.
-I am Christian but I don't go to church-
"why?"
-Because I don't know which one to go to-
I almost laughed out loud, it sounded like a roleplay from the MTC. so I told her
"why not come to church with my friend and I?"
She said sure! and afterwards E. Ninataype came and saved the conversation. We found a park nearby, taught her, and committed her to baptism on the 6th. Hopefully it works out. She seems very excited.
That was crazy. Now think. If I wasn't here. No split. the missionaries wouldn't have had need to practice their french, they would have continued to walk or contacted her in a way that might not have been optimal, she would not have found the gospel. Being here is already worth it.
I've got a whole lot more stories, but I'm out of time. I can't believe mom got in a three car pile up! Crazy stuff, what vehicle was it in? That probably didn't help the sickness. That stinks, I'll keep her in my prayers. For everyone else, it sounds like everyone is having a good time, Good! Keep up the good work, send me some pictures, Pictures pictures pictures!!
Oh and somebody Better be using that camera, if it's not being used PLEASE send it up here, I'm dying with this little point-shoot.
It's starting to frost outside. It's below freezing all the time now. Sigh...gonna be a long winter.
Peace be the Journey!
E. Holm
P.S.
We have a couple new members in our english class, every single person is from a different country. (E. Perry is from canada, alberta, so we are all from different countries.) It is verily insane, but the Highlight of my week! Also, I got to play a hunting horn this week, I forgot how much I miss the trumpet!
October 18, 2010
October 18th, 2010
Bonjour-luh.
So this week has gone by pretty fast, I have to pull out my journal here, everything in the mission field becomes a blur after a while. So I'll pull out some crazy stories. Here we go.
We visited a less active member who is a professional artist. Apparantly he is the most well known artist in Quèbec. He is into abstract art and such, it's cool. He told us the story of how he decided to come on a mission. Or, rather, how it was decided for him. He wanted to go on a mission, but his father would not let him go. So the member called up his stake president and told him the news. Some twenty minutes later, Ezra Taft Benson walks in and begins to talk to his father. Benson sees a chess board, sitting on the coffee table. Turns out the boys' father is the region champion. Ezra Taft Benson says -how about we play a little game of chess. If I win, your son goes on a mission, if you win, he stays. - Benson won.
We have had a lot of dinner appointments this week. And a couple with some spanish families. I now know what Dad was talking about when he told us he used to throw up after dinners on his mission. Spanish people will never. stop. feeding you. I find that a majority of my prayers nowadays include the sentence -Lord, please help me eat all of this food.-
For some reason, people around here love Cream of Carrot soup. Which is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. It has the texture and consistency of baby food, and tastes like Carrot, honey, salt and garlic, with a tang of soy. Man, that was difficult.
So big news! The last week of this transfer E. Perry and I are heading up to Quèbec city, for a whole week! I guess there is a big "symposium" going down, and every year the city selects a religion to showcase, this year it's our turn. So they are pulling in the Quèbec city missionaries and the nearby surrounding missionaries to help at this big...thing, to present material, teach lessons, all sorts of stuff I guess. I hope I can speak french by then.
The quèbecois accent is close to being unlocked. Here are a couple things that have thrown me off the most when talking to people. "Luh." Similar to the article "le" which can mean he, it, the. They stick is on every sentence they spit out. Sometimes multiple times. It's like saying like in english like all the time.
Bien oui luh, je vuex luh, luh très grand voiture luh. At first out here I tried to direct translate everything. so.... good yes the, I see his, the, very big car it.
By the time I even figured it out, the conversation was over. Sometimes they even just say "Luh Luh LUH luh!" kinda sing song like. It means various different things. And instead of saying "tu" which means "you" they say "toy" which, to them, means you. ou est-ce que toy viens? WHAT.
But in general, I like quèbecois much better than regular french, it's much more fun. Correction, it will be much more fun when I finally get it down.
English class was crazy this week, because The two chinese ladies, the regulars, asked us if we could tell them a story out of the bible, they thought they were very intriguing. So I asked them 'have you heard the story of Adam and Eve?' 'Oh yes, it is very popular in china'
So we ended up teaching two chinese ladies and the iranian muslim man the plan of salvation. They had some very difficult questions. Like "What is Devil?" "What is God?" Why just put two people on earth, why not many people? "Your God is all powerful, why does he not stop wars?"
And the hardest ones came from the muslim "After that, for eternity, we do what?" or. "Where did God come from?"
The Chinese ladies just thought it was a hoot. They would giggle at certain parts and were just fascinated. The Muslim was very nice, "that was very interesting." That was it. But holy cow, it is so difficult explaining to people who have never heard of God or Satan or Jesus Christ. It takes careful teaching and lots of thought.
No more tripod! E. Oropeza headed home yesterday to catch his brother's wedding! He's a great missionary, but things are so much nicer with just two missionaries, now it doesn't look like a gang is beating down your down everytime we go knocking!
Church is getting better, I'm able to understand more, so that's good!
That is about it for this week, more to come I'm sure. That's too bad about mom being sick, or about Noah losing the race there. E. Perry is sick as well, I hope I don't catch it. But I will.
Peace be the Journey!
E. Holm
So this week has gone by pretty fast, I have to pull out my journal here, everything in the mission field becomes a blur after a while. So I'll pull out some crazy stories. Here we go.
We visited a less active member who is a professional artist. Apparantly he is the most well known artist in Quèbec. He is into abstract art and such, it's cool. He told us the story of how he decided to come on a mission. Or, rather, how it was decided for him. He wanted to go on a mission, but his father would not let him go. So the member called up his stake president and told him the news. Some twenty minutes later, Ezra Taft Benson walks in and begins to talk to his father. Benson sees a chess board, sitting on the coffee table. Turns out the boys' father is the region champion. Ezra Taft Benson says -how about we play a little game of chess. If I win, your son goes on a mission, if you win, he stays. - Benson won.
We have had a lot of dinner appointments this week. And a couple with some spanish families. I now know what Dad was talking about when he told us he used to throw up after dinners on his mission. Spanish people will never. stop. feeding you. I find that a majority of my prayers nowadays include the sentence -Lord, please help me eat all of this food.-
For some reason, people around here love Cream of Carrot soup. Which is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. It has the texture and consistency of baby food, and tastes like Carrot, honey, salt and garlic, with a tang of soy. Man, that was difficult.
So big news! The last week of this transfer E. Perry and I are heading up to Quèbec city, for a whole week! I guess there is a big "symposium" going down, and every year the city selects a religion to showcase, this year it's our turn. So they are pulling in the Quèbec city missionaries and the nearby surrounding missionaries to help at this big...thing, to present material, teach lessons, all sorts of stuff I guess. I hope I can speak french by then.
The quèbecois accent is close to being unlocked. Here are a couple things that have thrown me off the most when talking to people. "Luh." Similar to the article "le" which can mean he, it, the. They stick is on every sentence they spit out. Sometimes multiple times. It's like saying like in english like all the time.
Bien oui luh, je vuex luh, luh très grand voiture luh. At first out here I tried to direct translate everything. so.... good yes the, I see his, the, very big car it.
By the time I even figured it out, the conversation was over. Sometimes they even just say "Luh Luh LUH luh!" kinda sing song like. It means various different things. And instead of saying "tu" which means "you" they say "toy" which, to them, means you. ou est-ce que toy viens? WHAT.
But in general, I like quèbecois much better than regular french, it's much more fun. Correction, it will be much more fun when I finally get it down.
English class was crazy this week, because The two chinese ladies, the regulars, asked us if we could tell them a story out of the bible, they thought they were very intriguing. So I asked them 'have you heard the story of Adam and Eve?' 'Oh yes, it is very popular in china'
So we ended up teaching two chinese ladies and the iranian muslim man the plan of salvation. They had some very difficult questions. Like "What is Devil?" "What is God?" Why just put two people on earth, why not many people? "Your God is all powerful, why does he not stop wars?"
And the hardest ones came from the muslim "After that, for eternity, we do what?" or. "Where did God come from?"
The Chinese ladies just thought it was a hoot. They would giggle at certain parts and were just fascinated. The Muslim was very nice, "that was very interesting." That was it. But holy cow, it is so difficult explaining to people who have never heard of God or Satan or Jesus Christ. It takes careful teaching and lots of thought.
No more tripod! E. Oropeza headed home yesterday to catch his brother's wedding! He's a great missionary, but things are so much nicer with just two missionaries, now it doesn't look like a gang is beating down your down everytime we go knocking!
Church is getting better, I'm able to understand more, so that's good!
That is about it for this week, more to come I'm sure. That's too bad about mom being sick, or about Noah losing the race there. E. Perry is sick as well, I hope I don't catch it. But I will.
Peace be the Journey!
E. Holm
Made it to Canada!
Last picture from the MTC
Flood
Walking with the companions
Sideways street lights
Yuck
Apartment
Companion!
October 12, 2010
October 11, 2010
Salut!
Sounds like you guys have had a busy week! I guess that answers my question about Emery getting married, sounds like that has been the event to prepare for! That's cool that the president sent you guys a letter, he's a cool president. It's good to hear you guys rented out the condominium! Sweet! Not a fan of the smoking but nowadays a blessing is a blessing! Carlie only worked for Dr. Grant for a day?! Understandable. I'm glad we're finally finishing up with the whole applehead witch things. I hate those heads, blech. But everything sounds like it's going good there! By the way thank you for the coat money! I got a good North Face double layer coat with a lifetime warranty. The outer layer is completely water and wind proof--it's like a super tarp. the inner layer is Packed with insulation. So, in this rainy weather, all you have to do is take the inner layer out, viola! Raincoat. But I'm freezing, so I just keep the inner layer in anyways. They have a monopoly on coats here, since the average winter gets to about 30 below. not including windchill, off the river and lake. I am going to die. So I might need some money for boots later on, but I should be set for gloves because I got a 50 dollar gift card with my coat. SET.
It's been a crazy week so far. I'll probably say every week out here is crazy--that's because it is a crazy place, Sherbrooke. Really though.
But on the other hand, we ran into a lot of Muslims this week. There are two types of muslims in this world, nice ones, and mean ones. We met a lot of mean ones, who are just dying to tell you how wrong you are and what you are doing is a waste of life. These ones make us laugh. FOOLS.
I worry for Humanity sometimes.
We met a nice one though, he answered the door saying -we are all good people here, there is nothing bad between us, there is no problem here.- he sounded very nervous. We then told him we were missionaries, and that we taught a free english class- he let us in and looked very relieved. He showed us all the stuff he made whilst in prison in Iraq, he and his family are Iraqi refugees. Then they gave us some awesome Iraqi delicacy-not unlike pizza pockets filled with coconut.- He was a nice muslim.
A full sunday church meeting in french was a headache and a half. After a while I just read my scriptures. It was interesting. To say the least. I don't get many chances to speak french, everyone here is bilingual. While contacting I have to ask people to speak french to me so I can practice. Which has turned out to be a pretty good icebreaker. *Hey, I need to practice french, will you talk to me?* They usually are glad to help. Then I say *Let's talk about God, or about the family, or about the Gospel of Jesus Christ* It's fun.
We have 3 progressing investigators and hopefully a baptism coming up soon, as soon as she quits smoking. So we're having success! But soon there will be so much more, it will be fantastic. Taught a couple lessons this week, it was really good. Hopefully next week will be even better.
Also, if you guys ever want to send mail, send it through the US postal service, that way it won't get destroyed through customs and cost the mission more. Cool! and also, I need some help, I need someone to send my driving record to the mission office, in case I need to drive next transfer. Next transfer half the mission will be under 3 transfers old! Crazy!
Peace be the journey
E. Holm
Sounds like you guys have had a busy week! I guess that answers my question about Emery getting married, sounds like that has been the event to prepare for! That's cool that the president sent you guys a letter, he's a cool president. It's good to hear you guys rented out the condominium! Sweet! Not a fan of the smoking but nowadays a blessing is a blessing! Carlie only worked for Dr. Grant for a day?! Understandable. I'm glad we're finally finishing up with the whole applehead witch things. I hate those heads, blech. But everything sounds like it's going good there! By the way thank you for the coat money! I got a good North Face double layer coat with a lifetime warranty. The outer layer is completely water and wind proof--it's like a super tarp. the inner layer is Packed with insulation. So, in this rainy weather, all you have to do is take the inner layer out, viola! Raincoat. But I'm freezing, so I just keep the inner layer in anyways. They have a monopoly on coats here, since the average winter gets to about 30 below. not including windchill, off the river and lake. I am going to die. So I might need some money for boots later on, but I should be set for gloves because I got a 50 dollar gift card with my coat. SET.
It's been a crazy week so far. I'll probably say every week out here is crazy--that's because it is a crazy place, Sherbrooke. Really though.
But on the other hand, we ran into a lot of Muslims this week. There are two types of muslims in this world, nice ones, and mean ones. We met a lot of mean ones, who are just dying to tell you how wrong you are and what you are doing is a waste of life. These ones make us laugh. FOOLS.
I worry for Humanity sometimes.
We met a nice one though, he answered the door saying -we are all good people here, there is nothing bad between us, there is no problem here.- he sounded very nervous. We then told him we were missionaries, and that we taught a free english class- he let us in and looked very relieved. He showed us all the stuff he made whilst in prison in Iraq, he and his family are Iraqi refugees. Then they gave us some awesome Iraqi delicacy-not unlike pizza pockets filled with coconut.- He was a nice muslim.
A full sunday church meeting in french was a headache and a half. After a while I just read my scriptures. It was interesting. To say the least. I don't get many chances to speak french, everyone here is bilingual. While contacting I have to ask people to speak french to me so I can practice. Which has turned out to be a pretty good icebreaker. *Hey, I need to practice french, will you talk to me?* They usually are glad to help. Then I say *Let's talk about God, or about the family, or about the Gospel of Jesus Christ* It's fun.
We have 3 progressing investigators and hopefully a baptism coming up soon, as soon as she quits smoking. So we're having success! But soon there will be so much more, it will be fantastic. Taught a couple lessons this week, it was really good. Hopefully next week will be even better.
Also, if you guys ever want to send mail, send it through the US postal service, that way it won't get destroyed through customs and cost the mission more. Cool! and also, I need some help, I need someone to send my driving record to the mission office, in case I need to drive next transfer. Next transfer half the mission will be under 3 transfers old! Crazy!
Peace be the journey
E. Holm
October 4, 2010
October 4th, 2010
I MADE IT!! Holy cow. Im in Sherbrooke now, the farthest south the mission goes I think. It is a trilingual area, French, English, and Spanish, and its insane here. CRAZY. I wish I could write with correct punctuation but this is a French keyboard and I cannot find the apostrophe. rats. Anyhow. Im in a tripod right now, I get two dads! (Nevermind what they say about our church being narrowminded). Elder Perry and Elder Oropeza. Everything, absolutely everything is in French. Its mind blowing. And the French they speak here, not the same at all. gah. Its cool, it will all come...eventually...
This place is a huge melting pot. We had dinner my first day with a liberian woman, and in our english class there is a couple chinese women and an Iranian man, more to come, crazy eh' FOUND THE APOSTROPHE. Can't find the question mark. Hmmm....I had poutine for the first time on the first day, at Mont Royal Hotdog, a HUGE plate of double fried french fries, soggily drenched in triple thick gravy, cheese curds literally floating, stacked on top were about 7 strips of bacon, shredded and torn. It just destroyed me the first time I had it... yuck. So, much, goodness. Cannot be taken in all at once.
Knocked doors first day. Was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Rejection is a lot easier when it comes to you in another language you do not understand- especially a pretty language like French. There are always these old men shouting such fluffy little comments of hate, it is like being slapped in the face with a feather. At least they try.
Nobody here likes religion. There are a couple nunneries, but everyone is either a non-practicing catholic or they believe in science. The catholic Church used to run everything around here, like, EVERYthing, until about...maybe..a generation ago everyone just walked away from religion, they had had enough of the catholic church taking control of stuff and telling them what to do. Look up the Silent Revolution, thats what we as missionaries are trying to fight. There is hope within the rising generation, the college kids. That is where we will most likely find success.
The first door I knocked on, I introduced myself in French, the lady spoke english. Ah ha. A lot of people here speak english. In fact, all my teaching appointments so far have been in english. Thank Heavens!
Apparantly there are a lot of gays and lesbians here in ol Kaybec. Gross. Hopefully wont run into too many.
Im sure Im going to be here for a while, we are an hour and a half from any other missionaries, so Im going to be setting up here for some long term stuff.
By the way, I really need money for my winter coat, its starting to get cold here, high 30s and such. As soon as possible, si'l vous plait. All the trees here are on fire! Such brilliant colors, the leaves are changing.
This last sunday was the first day I actually saw the sun here in quebec, its been raining nonstop since I got here. The river flooded over and shut down the bridge while we were teaching a lesson. It was a long lesson. and when we came out the apartment building had a moat. I have pictures, I am sending an SD card to Miss Bell today, hopefully it will get there soon.
Conference was AWESOME. especially in English, thank goodness. I could have used some cinnamon rolls, and it sounds like you guys had an awesome time, which is good! Due to the time change, we watched conference at 12-2 and 4-6 and then priesthood was 8-10. A crazy change for sure, but a good one. It sounds like chandler is loving the drums! does he have a practice set at home, and if so, has it driven mom insane yet? Found the Question mark! Good luck Noah in Ballroom dance, that's a sure fire way to get all the ladies!
HAHAHAHAH I cannot believe Carlie is working at Dr. Grants! Oh that is good! Has she gone insane yet? I bet she is not liking it at all. Carter is going to study abroad in China? Sweet! Sounds way cool, nothing like complete immersion in something you have no idea about to make you feel alive. I miss the good old days of DTV, sounds like Hayden is rocking the scene there. thats good, how is the old job for Hayden? Are the Allen's still alive?
I will let you know more as it comes, the mission field is a million times better than the MTC!!
Peace be the Journey,
E. Holm
This place is a huge melting pot. We had dinner my first day with a liberian woman, and in our english class there is a couple chinese women and an Iranian man, more to come, crazy eh' FOUND THE APOSTROPHE. Can't find the question mark. Hmmm....I had poutine for the first time on the first day, at Mont Royal Hotdog, a HUGE plate of double fried french fries, soggily drenched in triple thick gravy, cheese curds literally floating, stacked on top were about 7 strips of bacon, shredded and torn. It just destroyed me the first time I had it... yuck. So, much, goodness. Cannot be taken in all at once.
Knocked doors first day. Was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Rejection is a lot easier when it comes to you in another language you do not understand- especially a pretty language like French. There are always these old men shouting such fluffy little comments of hate, it is like being slapped in the face with a feather. At least they try.
Nobody here likes religion. There are a couple nunneries, but everyone is either a non-practicing catholic or they believe in science. The catholic Church used to run everything around here, like, EVERYthing, until about...maybe..a generation ago everyone just walked away from religion, they had had enough of the catholic church taking control of stuff and telling them what to do. Look up the Silent Revolution, thats what we as missionaries are trying to fight. There is hope within the rising generation, the college kids. That is where we will most likely find success.
The first door I knocked on, I introduced myself in French, the lady spoke english. Ah ha. A lot of people here speak english. In fact, all my teaching appointments so far have been in english. Thank Heavens!
Apparantly there are a lot of gays and lesbians here in ol Kaybec. Gross. Hopefully wont run into too many.
Im sure Im going to be here for a while, we are an hour and a half from any other missionaries, so Im going to be setting up here for some long term stuff.
By the way, I really need money for my winter coat, its starting to get cold here, high 30s and such. As soon as possible, si'l vous plait. All the trees here are on fire! Such brilliant colors, the leaves are changing.
This last sunday was the first day I actually saw the sun here in quebec, its been raining nonstop since I got here. The river flooded over and shut down the bridge while we were teaching a lesson. It was a long lesson. and when we came out the apartment building had a moat. I have pictures, I am sending an SD card to Miss Bell today, hopefully it will get there soon.
Conference was AWESOME. especially in English, thank goodness. I could have used some cinnamon rolls, and it sounds like you guys had an awesome time, which is good! Due to the time change, we watched conference at 12-2 and 4-6 and then priesthood was 8-10. A crazy change for sure, but a good one. It sounds like chandler is loving the drums! does he have a practice set at home, and if so, has it driven mom insane yet? Found the Question mark! Good luck Noah in Ballroom dance, that's a sure fire way to get all the ladies!
HAHAHAHAH I cannot believe Carlie is working at Dr. Grants! Oh that is good! Has she gone insane yet? I bet she is not liking it at all. Carter is going to study abroad in China? Sweet! Sounds way cool, nothing like complete immersion in something you have no idea about to make you feel alive. I miss the good old days of DTV, sounds like Hayden is rocking the scene there. thats good, how is the old job for Hayden? Are the Allen's still alive?
I will let you know more as it comes, the mission field is a million times better than the MTC!!
Peace be the Journey,
E. Holm
September 26, 2010
September 24th, 2010
ALRIGHTY.
So sorry about the confusion, nah I'm not in Canada yet, still in MTC, it's THIS monday I'm heading out... Monday the 27th. I don't have much time so this one will be a quick one.
Elder Mendoza and I were selected to teach the new missionaries on Monday how to begin teaching/teach the first lesson. Do Carlie and Carter remember the scenarios they cycle you through the first day? yeah, we were the missionaries--they miked us up and we acted out a contact in front of about 50-60 new missionaries. The "investigator" almost didn't let us in the door. But we got in and rocked it. It was a nice little ulcer, you know.
French is going well, I'm glad I'm going to Quecbec, where French is AWESOME. Instead of saying "Vous frappez le ballons avec le pied" (you kick the ball) in Quebecois you say "Vous kickez le ball" NICE. They use a lot of english phrases/verbs. It's just a cooler sounding French is all. That's for sure.
This last week has gone by fast, did George Snell tell you I saw him?? He conducted my health awareness meeting! Crazy! It was good to see him. If you need/want to send anything out to me, it's gonna have to go to Canada...dear elders aren't any good anymore, so just email me instead!
Thanks mom for the long letter/updates, it's excellent to hear about everyone, but unfortunately I don't have anytime to reply--I'll respond as soon as I get out to the field and have more time.
This week has been super boring! Time to go!! I'll call around 12-2 p.m. on monday! (Earlier for Miss Bell of course)
Je t'aime!
E. Holm
So sorry about the confusion, nah I'm not in Canada yet, still in MTC, it's THIS monday I'm heading out... Monday the 27th. I don't have much time so this one will be a quick one.
Elder Mendoza and I were selected to teach the new missionaries on Monday how to begin teaching/teach the first lesson. Do Carlie and Carter remember the scenarios they cycle you through the first day? yeah, we were the missionaries--they miked us up and we acted out a contact in front of about 50-60 new missionaries. The "investigator" almost didn't let us in the door. But we got in and rocked it. It was a nice little ulcer, you know.
French is going well, I'm glad I'm going to Quecbec, where French is AWESOME. Instead of saying "Vous frappez le ballons avec le pied" (you kick the ball) in Quebecois you say "Vous kickez le ball" NICE. They use a lot of english phrases/verbs. It's just a cooler sounding French is all. That's for sure.
This last week has gone by fast, did George Snell tell you I saw him?? He conducted my health awareness meeting! Crazy! It was good to see him. If you need/want to send anything out to me, it's gonna have to go to Canada...dear elders aren't any good anymore, so just email me instead!
Thanks mom for the long letter/updates, it's excellent to hear about everyone, but unfortunately I don't have anytime to reply--I'll respond as soon as I get out to the field and have more time.
This week has been super boring! Time to go!! I'll call around 12-2 p.m. on monday! (Earlier for Miss Bell of course)
Je t'aime!
E. Holm
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