Email - December 5, 2011
(We sent Elder Holmes a micro cassette recorder and a tape full of family and friends voices) I sure did get my surprise! I have been able to listen to it and I have to say, I was smiling the whole time :) It was really good to hear from everyone! I think the funniest part was when you were asking the young men in the ward to say something and they completely froze. haha Putting people on the spot is
always fun. I'll make sure to fill up a tape and send it back to you. I have a memory card I'm going to be sending to you within the next couple days.Thank you so much for your testimony and I love you too! I also know that the church is true and that Heavenly Father sure does send earthly angels and he also sends heavenly ones to aid us. I love you more than sleeping in!!! I believe that I have spoken about going to "empty nesters" before. For those of you who don't know/don't remember, it is basically one Monday a month when a bunch of elderly people get together and have dinner. Inevitably, the gathering also results in various semi-heated political discussions that are quite entertaining. I like to call it dinner and a show. The reason that Elder Rich and I have been going is because we are invited by one of the attendees Bro. Lonnergan. So, it is a win-win situation for us because it is free food and a show. haha That is what we did for dinner on Monday last week. Tuesday, we did service with Bro. Miner, as we do every week. We (Bro. Miner) dulled another chainsaw chain which put our initial project on hold and so we also hauled firewood and cleared this ridiculous patch of thorny brush. We had a really great lesson with Tyler about the priesthood and how the church is organized. I love how perfectly the Lord's priesthood organization works to keep the church going. He pretty much eats up everything that we teach and he is really on fire. In fact, at the lesson he told us that he had some money to pay his tithing in church (mind you this is
his first Sunday at church) but they never passed around a collection or anything for him to pay. So, we explained how tithing works and that we pay tithing in private to make sure that we don't do it to be seen by men. We had dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread with an older couple in the branch, the Ashfords, and talked about doctrine and stuff for a while. While we were there,
Bro. McWhinnie called for another reason and jokingly asked us to bring him a doggie bag. So, before we left we really got him one and brought it to him that night. It was the least we could do after all he does for the missionaries! The next day, we had planned on going and seeing one of our investigators, Sis. Sapp, but she had to cancel on us and so we rescheduled for Thursday with her. To fill that time, we went and saw some of the less-active/unknown members on the branch roster. We saw Bro. Schiltz and had a
lesson with him. He is very friendly and loves us stopping by, but he is active in another church and at this point he is not interested in coming back. However, he did say that he knew a lot of the people who go to empty nesters and so he is probably going to start going to that. We also saw another less-active family, the Pryors. They are also very nice to the missionaries. Sis. Pryor had been in a car accident the previous day, nothing too serious as far as injuries go, bruises and stuff, but she was still a bit shaken up from
it. Wednesday evening we are starting a class where we get together and read the Book of Mormon. After meeting with the branch mission leader, we were planning on holding that but unfortunately nobody showed up. It was somewhat expected because it was the first week and it was a last minute thing but we are expecting attendance to build and a few of our investigators and some
recent-converts have said that they want to go so that will be awesome. So, after waiting for a bit to see if there would be any stragglers we went out to dinner with Bro. Alexander at a Taco Bell/KFC and I ordered a double-down. Heck yes! haha Well, Thursday came and Sis. Sapp had to cancel on us again. We did have another appointment with Tyler that day and so we went to Bro. Miner's (which is where we teach Tyler) and we did some service until our appointment. We taught him about Temples and doing proxy work for our deceased ancestors. Bro. Miner asked what he is getting/wanting to get from meeting with us and Tyler told us how he used to be apprehensive about what happens after death and that he wasn't sure what exactly does happen. However, that fear is subsiding with his knowledge of God's plan of happiness for us. We did weekly planning, cleaning, and went by some former investigators and less-actives in Eldon until our meeting with Michelle at Taco Bell. We had a really good lesson with her about the importance of prayer and scripture study and how they are a benefit and a blessing to us. We had dinner again at the
Miner's because it was Sis. Miner's birthday and they invited us. In case you haven't noticed, we eat at the Miner's quite often. haha They are so sweet! I got the audio recorder with the tape on Saturday and so, of course, I had to take a listen! It was way awesome to hear from everyone! It definitely put a smile on my face :) That day, we went in to Eldon and stopped by some more people. We stopped by Bro. Fenton, a less-active member, and had a lesson with him and then on our way to our dinner appointment we stopped by and had a short lesson with Sis. Sapp. She is always so apologetic about how often she has to cancel on us and tells us that she is glad we haven't given up on her. Our dinner was with the Doyle's and it was their Thanksgiving dinner because one of her daughters was in the hospital on Thanksgiving day. That puts my Thanksgiving dinners consumed up to three this year if you don't count all
the leftovers in our fridge. haha On Sunday, we had stake conference. It was held in a civic center in the city of Lebanon which is about an hour away (not in the middle-east) and so we hitched a ride with some members, the Wiley's. There was a reorganization of the Stake Presidency and so they had their area Seventy there and Elder Walter F. Gonzalez from the Seventy. The wife of the new Stake President got up and bore her testimony and she shared a really cool experience about how she was going through a hard time and her husband told her that anyone can play the first three quarters of a game, but winners can play the fourth. She said that after some time, her trials did not go away. She told her husband about it and he told her, "Oh honey, I forgot to tell you about overtime." She bore her testimony that our God is an "overtime" God and that he asks everything of us but he blesses us and strengthens us more than we can imagine. I add my testimony to hers that I know if I stick with it, even through overtime, on my mission that the Lord will strengthen me and I can do anything. I love you all! Thanks for the Christmas packages I'm sure you all plan on sending me :) Elder Holmes
always fun. I'll make sure to fill up a tape and send it back to you. I have a memory card I'm going to be sending to you within the next couple days.Thank you so much for your testimony and I love you too! I also know that the church is true and that Heavenly Father sure does send earthly angels and he also sends heavenly ones to aid us. I love you more than sleeping in!!! I believe that I have spoken about going to "empty nesters" before. For those of you who don't know/don't remember, it is basically one Monday a month when a bunch of elderly people get together and have dinner. Inevitably, the gathering also results in various semi-heated political discussions that are quite entertaining. I like to call it dinner and a show. The reason that Elder Rich and I have been going is because we are invited by one of the attendees Bro. Lonnergan. So, it is a win-win situation for us because it is free food and a show. haha That is what we did for dinner on Monday last week. Tuesday, we did service with Bro. Miner, as we do every week. We (Bro. Miner) dulled another chainsaw chain which put our initial project on hold and so we also hauled firewood and cleared this ridiculous patch of thorny brush. We had a really great lesson with Tyler about the priesthood and how the church is organized. I love how perfectly the Lord's priesthood organization works to keep the church going. He pretty much eats up everything that we teach and he is really on fire. In fact, at the lesson he told us that he had some money to pay his tithing in church (mind you this is
his first Sunday at church) but they never passed around a collection or anything for him to pay. So, we explained how tithing works and that we pay tithing in private to make sure that we don't do it to be seen by men. We had dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread with an older couple in the branch, the Ashfords, and talked about doctrine and stuff for a while. While we were there,
Bro. McWhinnie called for another reason and jokingly asked us to bring him a doggie bag. So, before we left we really got him one and brought it to him that night. It was the least we could do after all he does for the missionaries! The next day, we had planned on going and seeing one of our investigators, Sis. Sapp, but she had to cancel on us and so we rescheduled for Thursday with her. To fill that time, we went and saw some of the less-active/unknown members on the branch roster. We saw Bro. Schiltz and had a
lesson with him. He is very friendly and loves us stopping by, but he is active in another church and at this point he is not interested in coming back. However, he did say that he knew a lot of the people who go to empty nesters and so he is probably going to start going to that. We also saw another less-active family, the Pryors. They are also very nice to the missionaries. Sis. Pryor had been in a car accident the previous day, nothing too serious as far as injuries go, bruises and stuff, but she was still a bit shaken up from
it. Wednesday evening we are starting a class where we get together and read the Book of Mormon. After meeting with the branch mission leader, we were planning on holding that but unfortunately nobody showed up. It was somewhat expected because it was the first week and it was a last minute thing but we are expecting attendance to build and a few of our investigators and some
recent-converts have said that they want to go so that will be awesome. So, after waiting for a bit to see if there would be any stragglers we went out to dinner with Bro. Alexander at a Taco Bell/KFC and I ordered a double-down. Heck yes! haha Well, Thursday came and Sis. Sapp had to cancel on us again. We did have another appointment with Tyler that day and so we went to Bro. Miner's (which is where we teach Tyler) and we did some service until our appointment. We taught him about Temples and doing proxy work for our deceased ancestors. Bro. Miner asked what he is getting/wanting to get from meeting with us and Tyler told us how he used to be apprehensive about what happens after death and that he wasn't sure what exactly does happen. However, that fear is subsiding with his knowledge of God's plan of happiness for us. We did weekly planning, cleaning, and went by some former investigators and less-actives in Eldon until our meeting with Michelle at Taco Bell. We had a really good lesson with her about the importance of prayer and scripture study and how they are a benefit and a blessing to us. We had dinner again at the
Miner's because it was Sis. Miner's birthday and they invited us. In case you haven't noticed, we eat at the Miner's quite often. haha They are so sweet! I got the audio recorder with the tape on Saturday and so, of course, I had to take a listen! It was way awesome to hear from everyone! It definitely put a smile on my face :) That day, we went in to Eldon and stopped by some more people. We stopped by Bro. Fenton, a less-active member, and had a lesson with him and then on our way to our dinner appointment we stopped by and had a short lesson with Sis. Sapp. She is always so apologetic about how often she has to cancel on us and tells us that she is glad we haven't given up on her. Our dinner was with the Doyle's and it was their Thanksgiving dinner because one of her daughters was in the hospital on Thanksgiving day. That puts my Thanksgiving dinners consumed up to three this year if you don't count all
the leftovers in our fridge. haha On Sunday, we had stake conference. It was held in a civic center in the city of Lebanon which is about an hour away (not in the middle-east) and so we hitched a ride with some members, the Wiley's. There was a reorganization of the Stake Presidency and so they had their area Seventy there and Elder Walter F. Gonzalez from the Seventy. The wife of the new Stake President got up and bore her testimony and she shared a really cool experience about how she was going through a hard time and her husband told her that anyone can play the first three quarters of a game, but winners can play the fourth. She said that after some time, her trials did not go away. She told her husband about it and he told her, "Oh honey, I forgot to tell you about overtime." She bore her testimony that our God is an "overtime" God and that he asks everything of us but he blesses us and strengthens us more than we can imagine. I add my testimony to hers that I know if I stick with it, even through overtime, on my mission that the Lord will strengthen me and I can do anything. I love you all! Thanks for the Christmas packages I'm sure you all plan on sending me :) Elder Holmes
Email - December 12, 2011
Tuesday was my five month mark as a missionary! What's funny, though, is that I didn't even realize that until Elder Rich pointed it out at the end of the day. It sure doesn't seem like it has been that long but 19 more months still seems pretty daunting. haha I have as many months left as Elder Rich has been out. So, Tuesday was pretty eventful. I had just finished showering and our power
decided to go out! It had snowed the night before (although not much) and so we thought that maybe it was because of that and so we figured it would just come back on later that day. So, we tried a bit to fix it but didn't put a huge amount of effort into it. We went over to the Miner's house and used their stuff to cook our food for lunch and we chilled there for a while because we were supposed to have an appointment there, but he had to cancel and so after helping them cook dinner, we went over to the Schofield's. Lexi, their daughter has been talking to her friend about the gospel and so we went over there to go over the Restoration lesson with Lexi and answer any questions she had, just to help her know what to say to her friend about the gospel. That night, we got
home and our power was still out! The Miner's didn't want us to freeze to death (even though we told them that was unlikely) and so they insisted that we stay at there place. Elder Rich was unplugging their Christmas lights in the front room before we went to bed because that is where we were sleeping and he knocked over a 12 in Christus statue from their fireplace mantle. It broke off
one of his arms and parts of the robe and there were little pieces missing that made gluing it back together not viable. So, Elder Rich had to buy them a new one! Luckily, they had an 18 in. one on sale for about $105 and so he got them that. The morning of the next day came and we went back to our apartment to get ready for district meeting, to find our power still out. Before we left for the meeting, Elder Rich flipped the breaker a few more times and it finally came back on! We aren't really sure why, but we were sure glad that we had our microwave back. haha During the day, after district meeting, we had a Book of Mormon class again. This time, people actually showed up! Bro. Alexander brought his family and one of our investigators, Sis. Sapp, came as well! The
spirit of the Book of Mormon is so amazing! It went really well and I have high hopes for the class. On Friday we volunteered as bell ringers for the Salvation Army outside of a local grocery store and it was really cool because we saw a few people that we had taught before or haven't seen in a while. It also felt good to know that I'm helping people this Christmas. The next day was the branch's Christmas party and so during the day we went and helped Sis. Stitchler decorate the building for the party. The party was pretty fun and had some good food! They had a karaoke machine there and Pres. Koeppen (the Branch President) and I sang the first song. I don't know if he chose the song on purpose as some sort of cruel joke or not, but for some reason we sang "I'll be Home for Christmas". What a terrible song. haha That night, we went and saw Kevie in his spray shop and we had a really spiritual experience with him as he told us about an experience he had earlier that day. Christmas is obviously bringing mixed emotions but I'm definitely trying to focus more on the Savior this year. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and encourage you all to do the same! I love you all :)
decided to go out! It had snowed the night before (although not much) and so we thought that maybe it was because of that and so we figured it would just come back on later that day. So, we tried a bit to fix it but didn't put a huge amount of effort into it. We went over to the Miner's house and used their stuff to cook our food for lunch and we chilled there for a while because we were supposed to have an appointment there, but he had to cancel and so after helping them cook dinner, we went over to the Schofield's. Lexi, their daughter has been talking to her friend about the gospel and so we went over there to go over the Restoration lesson with Lexi and answer any questions she had, just to help her know what to say to her friend about the gospel. That night, we got
home and our power was still out! The Miner's didn't want us to freeze to death (even though we told them that was unlikely) and so they insisted that we stay at there place. Elder Rich was unplugging their Christmas lights in the front room before we went to bed because that is where we were sleeping and he knocked over a 12 in Christus statue from their fireplace mantle. It broke off
one of his arms and parts of the robe and there were little pieces missing that made gluing it back together not viable. So, Elder Rich had to buy them a new one! Luckily, they had an 18 in. one on sale for about $105 and so he got them that. The morning of the next day came and we went back to our apartment to get ready for district meeting, to find our power still out. Before we left for the meeting, Elder Rich flipped the breaker a few more times and it finally came back on! We aren't really sure why, but we were sure glad that we had our microwave back. haha During the day, after district meeting, we had a Book of Mormon class again. This time, people actually showed up! Bro. Alexander brought his family and one of our investigators, Sis. Sapp, came as well! The
spirit of the Book of Mormon is so amazing! It went really well and I have high hopes for the class. On Friday we volunteered as bell ringers for the Salvation Army outside of a local grocery store and it was really cool because we saw a few people that we had taught before or haven't seen in a while. It also felt good to know that I'm helping people this Christmas. The next day was the branch's Christmas party and so during the day we went and helped Sis. Stitchler decorate the building for the party. The party was pretty fun and had some good food! They had a karaoke machine there and Pres. Koeppen (the Branch President) and I sang the first song. I don't know if he chose the song on purpose as some sort of cruel joke or not, but for some reason we sang "I'll be Home for Christmas". What a terrible song. haha That night, we went and saw Kevie in his spray shop and we had a really spiritual experience with him as he told us about an experience he had earlier that day. Christmas is obviously bringing mixed emotions but I'm definitely trying to focus more on the Savior this year. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and encourage you all to do the same! I love you all :)
Email - December 27, 2011
Well it was the week of Christmas and honestly besides Christmas nothing terribly exciting happened so I apologize that this will probably be a short email. On Tuesday I had a pretty cool experience. During the day we went around Eldon and stopped by a bunch of people and we were able to teach a couple lessons. We had dinner at the Stichler's place and it was getting late so we were just going to head back to the apartment. On the way back though, I felt like we should stop by and see one of our investigators, Maggie. She has been having some medical problems and so we haven't really been able to meet with her much. Usually when we have stopped by she had been asleep or at least not up to meeting with us. However, she was actually up and about this time when we went over and we were able to go in and talk to her. It wasn't really anything drastic, but it was a testimony builder about recognizing and listening to the promptings of the Spirit.The next day, we had district meeting in Osage Beach and Elder Nordine, the district leader, decided that since it was the week of Christmas we were going to cut the lesson short and play a game of Jeopardy that he had put together. Of course, I won! My prize ended up being a pack of gum that Elder Nordine happened to have in his
pocket. It was Trident layers though so that was pretty sweet :) That night we had the Book of Mormon class again and our investigator, Sister Sapp was able to attend again. As always, the spirit of the scriptures was amazing and it went great. I just want to thank everyone for the Christmas gifts that they sent and for all the notes of encouragement and support. I thank you all for your prayers. I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and took the opportunity to appreciate our Savior, Jesus Christ and all the things that He has done for us. I love you all! Elder Holmes
pocket. It was Trident layers though so that was pretty sweet :) That night we had the Book of Mormon class again and our investigator, Sister Sapp was able to attend again. As always, the spirit of the scriptures was amazing and it went great. I just want to thank everyone for the Christmas gifts that they sent and for all the notes of encouragement and support. I thank you all for your prayers. I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and took the opportunity to appreciate our Savior, Jesus Christ and all the things that He has done for us. I love you all! Elder Holmes