Week 5 or 6 Uh Oh

Hello Everyone!

 

Sorry that I haven't gotten on to email yet, we went to the Temple this morning and just got back an hour or so ago!

 

Sounds like it has been a crazy week! It sure has been the slowest week here in the MTC, one. slow. day. at. a. time. But I have loved them all!

 

That is a bummer about Kaylie's Letter, at least they still sent it, You'll have to thank Jen for me for giving her a quarter for me!

 

Wow, the ceiling opened up at Grandpa's lunch?! that is Crazy! I want to go eat there when I get home, and just say it is my birthday to see if they'll do that for me! ;) Just kidding, lying is bad... Sounds like it was a good thing to have the family in town though, bummer that the last brother wasn't there. I was sure glad to see him before I left!

 

Speaking of Missionaries, I have only gotten to one of those stories from the package (yes the package got here) I read Grandpa's and there were some FUNNY stories! Esp the Poop drink one, I shared that one with a couple of the guys in my district! :D But I am so glad to know that I am part of that lineage of missionaries, it makes me remember that I am part of a Great family and that I have a lot to look up to and to work up to!

 

Good luck with your new class! You will have to teach me how to draw when I get home!

 

Um yes the package did get here! I will talk more about it later...

 

okay.... Now to get into the week.

 

I figure that it is not a good thing if I am only about to leave the MTC and have No idea what week I am on.... I am in week 6 so that must be I am writing about week 5. There we go! (took me a second to think about)

 

This past week has been pretty good! Let me think, I have seen some GREAT Mormon messages, which will come in a little later in the letter as well, um we had an awesome Devo on Tuesday, and we have taught some Great lessons!

 

You asked me about the food last week?? Well I will send a picture what it looks like, there are two kinds of food that get people excited here. On Tuesday nights (I call them Gringo Nights) because that is when the Gringos come in and we Always get Costco Pizza for dinner that night, but it usually isn't always cooked, so only sometimes do we Love it. The other kind of food that is fought over here is.... oh yes.... Corn Dogs... You heard me right, Corn Dogs, they are pretty awesome!

 

Sad thing is, is I really don't remember most of this week.

 

So we have two "investigators" both of them our people who our instructors taught on their missions, so one is named Angela and from the beginning she really hasn't been to interested in the church but more and more every time she becomes more interested, and she committed to Baptism yesterday, so that got me and Elder Robertson stoked! Our other "investigator" is named Ulesis, he goes to school at the U and is pretty interested in the church, he basically knows everything is true, he just needs to know for sure by himself, so we asked him to pray about baptism our last lesson with him, and we will find out on Monday if he says yes or not.

 

Hey, did you ever find out about my scholarship? Are they going to hold it for me??

 

Okay, so this weeks Mormon Message? It can be found in the 2010 messages, and is about a kid in California, his name is Sean Kimball, he surfs, and he decides to quit the surf team for seminary, oh and he is from the Laguna Beach ward. Yeah, watch it! :) It surprised me as well!

 

So I got the package notice last Thursday, could have gotten it Friday but the Mail Lady left early so I had to wait until Monday, and on Monday when I got the package, I opened up the package, and now both Candy packages are empty... :/ so I will need more swedish fish sometime! :) Oh and if you want to know how to become popular here in the CCM, you carry around Nesquik at Breakfast and Dinner and everyone stares you down in jealousy, or you have Maple Syrup! A kid in my district got maple syrup in his package last night and we are all jealous of him!

 

I am sad I won't get to see Elder Gibelyou, Elder Adams, or Elder Madrigal all coming the day I leave. But I don't have an itinerary yet, I will get it tonight, tomorrow or Saturday! One of the guys in our zone asked President Pratt when he thinks we will leave and he said probably Tuesday morning at 1 in the morning. So if you don't want me to call you I don't have to, but I am allowed to call home! Or I guess I could wait until I get to Chile, oh and I will be coming home on June 30, 2015.

Thank you so much for the package, it really did mean a whole lot! :) The Strike is over?! Woot!! Everyone in here just jumped for joy!! :)

 Yes, I actually forgot to share my experience yesterday! Every Wednesday we do a thing called TRC where we teach a member who is a local from around here, but we have been teaching other missionaries for the past couple times, but I understood almost everything that they said the other day! It was AWESOME! I Loved it! They only thing is, Chileans speak about 2000X faster is what I understand...( I asked Connor how he was feeling about his progress with the language, I reminded him that the Lord will help him when he gets to Chile next week,) Thank goodness, I am going to need to know that soon, cause I feel it will be frustrating next week, but I know that God has called me as a Missionary now, not in 6 months when I can speak fluently, so he will help me to know what to do and teach by the spirit! :)

Thought for the week:

 

"Sometimes you have to step down from your high mountain and climb/work up another to get higher"

 

"Attitude effects your Altitude"

 

Well, that was my work from this week,

 

Love Always (and the last email from Mexico)

 

Elder Holt

All the guys in my room

I thought I looked like Grandpa Hale with the glasses on. (When he was on his mission)

The normal food that we eat

Elder Holt and Elder Moore

A Beatles picture after we returned from the temple

Mexico City Temple

My Grandpa, Whitney Hale as a missionary in the Central States Mission

Grandpa Whitney Hale

 

Week 4 One whole month

Hello Family,

 

Well it sounds like you guys have had a pretty crazy week! :) I got an email from Jayden this week, woot woot! Sounds like he is Stoked that he leaves next tuesday! Bummer he isn't going to South Africa anymore, but Provo will be way sweet!! Grandpa, the 95 year old man! I hope he gets my letter soon! That is weird it hasn't gotten there yet......... That is way cool there were a lot of people there, I am proud to call myself the Grandson of someone like that!

 

Sadly, my feet are still smelling... Really bad, enough that sometimes I can smell them with my shoes still on.... UGH! Ha but it isn't to bad I guess it could be worse, I mean, I found out that the Jones's toe juice they gave me helps warts, and I have had one on my toe since day 1 here, so I started putting that on it the other day, hoping it will go away now.

 

Jayden, man what a Stud! Hopefully he will send me a copy of his talk, because it sounds like it was super sweet!! :) Um, and I am glad you got to sit with Andrea, make sure to go to Josh's as well, because I am sure Dylan will give his talk the same day and you will have to tell me how they do! :)

 

Great thoughts, they are very true,

 

and that is crazy you saw that Mormon Message (Extraordinary gifts, Mormon messages for youth) I saw that one last Friday, and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Cool! I wish I had some crazy talent like that kid, but I know I have some gift from God, I just have to work it out with him, and so does everyone, I have watched all of the 2013 and 2012 Mormon messages, and I have like 9 more in 2011 then I will start 2010, but I have watched some very sweet ones! :) It is my favorite part of the day, after I am done with the TALL lesson I have around a half hour or so to watch them, and the spirit just fills my soul, I Love it! I saw one yesterday in 2011 called "I am a Child of God" and at first I thought it was a dumb one, but by the end the Spirit hit me super hard confirming to me that I am a Child of God and that God does love me, if you have a chance check that one out! :) It is a little easier to get to the videos is you look under "resources" then go to the "Video" then just click on "Mormon Messages" I have learned something though, if you first go to youth, and click on the top left video, and push play, then go through the process I just explained, the videos, will never have a problem loading!

 

Um, okay so my most spiritual experience this week was last Saturday, it was Really cool, you will have to show this one to Dad, because he was half the reason I couldn't stop crying... So during our morning lesson, we watched part of a video where a guy had been involved in a car crash caused by a drunk driver, and it killed his pregnant wife and two kids. He struggled for awhile and then showed a crazy amount of forgiveness and forgave the 17 year old kid who had been the driver who killed his family. After we had watched the video, we were told that we were going to role play that experience, we were going to be missionaries and teach the kid, that through the atonement he could be forgiven and return to live with his Heavenly Father, at first, before we started, I felt super annoyed, I was wondering to myself, why should we do this? I think that is kinda dumb... So the other set of missionaries taught us first, and I role played as the kid, then it was our turn to teach them, I got real quiet by the end, when we bore our testimony to him. Even though it was in very broken up hard to understand spanish, the spirit was present. After I said, Amen, the spirit hit me so hard. I was here on this mission for a reason. I am here to teach people that by the Atonement of Jesus Christ they too can be saved and return to live with their Heavenly Father once again, and that is the part that got me even worse, is Dad said, that hit him once during a lesson and I thought about his experience, and then it just got worse and I couldn't stop. Luckily it was the end of the lesson, and I got to go outside where I could clear my mind and stop before we had our service activity!

 

Now, can I say how much I have learned that I LOVE Sunday's? They are Amazing, NO studying of the language, no classes, just devotionals and church. Sweet!! This past Sunday, Elder Robertson and I gave the lesson in District meeting, we talked about the Talk from Elder Ballard, that Steve gave me! That was really cool, then we took a lesson that Sister Jones gave us in Sunday school a couple years ago, where you write a note to someone and give them a compliment, so because we had sacrament in ten minutes at that point we just said, to write the notes through out the day, and after the Sunday night Devo we would hand them out to each other. I thought of doing that because I still have, well had mine from Sister Jones´s class in my Aqua Bats wallet, that I forgot to pull out, so it is nice to have another one, and everyone loved it! During Sacrament, Elder Horsley and I sang, I asked the week before if we could do a special number and the branch presidency was excited! So we sang I am a Child of God in Spanish "Soy un hijo de Dios" I sang the first verse, and he came in siging the alto part at the chorus, then he sang the second verse and I came in at the chorus singing the tenor part, then we were unison at the third verse and sang it beautifully, the spirit was definitely there! Now at sacrament we never know who is going to give a talk until Sacrament, they get up and tell us, right after we take the sacrament, which is actually cool, so we all prepare a talk during the week. It is supposed to be mostly in Spanish if you can. I figured that since I was singing I wouldn't have to give a talk, and so I asked the president when we were going to sing in the program and I saw he had Elder Holt down to talk, so I asked him if it was the other Elder Holt, and he said yes, then he came up to me thirty seconds later and said, "acutally.... It's you." Oh Great. Now I have to give a talk that I didn't prepare because I thought I was going to be safe.... ha! It was super cool, the topic was on faith, and so I figured that was my farewell talk so it couldn't be to hard, I thought about even giving the same talk, so I whipped out some scriptures on faith, and then just gave a talk, it was soooo cool, and the spirit helped me! It was a testimony building experience! That night at devotional we watched a devo from President Ballard back in Febuary of this year, and one of my friends who graduated last year, named John Poulson was the elder to give the opening prayer, and I saw Spencer Critchfield in the Chior! It was way sweet!

 

This past Tuesday we had an awesome Devo that was live from Provo, Elder Scott was the general authority who spoke at it! It was super spiritual, and by far one of my most favorite devotionals yet! We got to see how many missionaries were at Provo, and after seeing the whole crowd in the basketball stadim at BYU, I am okay with my 800 missionaries here...

 

We have two guys in our zone who are companions, who both have twins here at the CCM, one of them named Elder ____ his brother hasn't been doing to good, and kinda wants to go home. The other companion Elder ____ in our district has started to struggle this past week, so I have tried talking to him a couple times and reaching out to him, letting him know how much I love him and know that I am here for him to talk to. Our district had a fast for him this week, hoping that he would want to stay here, and so he is trying to face the ccm and see where he will go from there!

 

Okay, that is about everything I think that I have!

 

Um I remembered this week that I never got Amber her Senior Ball pictures, will you run those down to her???

 

Also, will you get the Walkers and Achzigers address for me??

 

Oh and in the birthday package, if you could Send me a Frizbee?? I meant to bring one and forgot, if you have the chance, maybe go to Mr. Wood at the highschool and buy a MOS frizbee for $10.00 if not the red one will be fine! :)

 

I Love you all,

 

Elder Holt

 

P.S. Mom, I Love you so much, I really don't know how to show it, esp when I am soon going to be half way around the world, I Love you sooooo much! Thank you for everything you have done for me in the past 18 years of my life!

 

The crazy rain storm last week, it hailed and it was super awesome! Yeah, no studying was done that night until the Rain stopped

 

                                A picture I took of a few guys from my zone when we played Ultimate

they tried to take one of me which wasn't as good but I guess it will do!

 

                                                                        a better picture of them

Me with my Branch Presidency on my Right is President Florez who is the first councilor and on my Left is President Suaste they are Amazing, I Love them, and I will Surely miss them when I leave in 12 days.... 

 

Week 3 Ummmmmmmmmmm

Hello Family and Friends,

Well, week three has come and gone. We hit our Hump day of the MTC this past Tuesday, and it was weird to think, We ended up changing class rooms, which at first I was not happy about, because I loved our classroom since it was right next to the boys el baño and the drinking fountains outside, we are now located at the other end of the hall next to the hermana´s el baño and no drinking fountain. But see, I grew to like it by the time we actually switched because, they had to move a lot of things outside from other class rooms to make room for new missionaries coming in, so they left some rolly chairs outside and so we went and all got a rolly chair, and now every district in our building is SUUPPER jealous of us all. I kinda took it as a transfer in the field, but just to a different classroom, sounds like a good thing!

The reason they had to change pretty much EVERY district on the entire campus is because the Peru and Argentina MTC´s are both full and so next week, they are sending an extra 100 missionaries our way already to the 100 that were planning on arriving next Tuesday, we will then have around 800 Missionaries on our campus here. (Good thing I only have 2 and a half more weeks here...) I forgot to tell you about this place, so the whole campus is about 94 acres, half of it is probably houses, that house all of the hermanas and half of the elders, those of us that got here in the first three waves of Americans and all of the Native Elders are in Apartments, which I actually prefer because we are all a lot closer with other districts I feel! It is pretty cool! But we really are only allowed to hang out in like 30 of the acres, from our apparments to where our Sacrament meeting is held, if you look up the school on google maps you can probably see how big it is, I am not sure what the school was called though, I always forget, but I do know it started with a B and it was a highschool, so that could help your search. Maybe if you ask Juan Becerra, he will know?

Well, I know that letters people have been sending me have been arriving, I have gotten a couple letters, which end up making my day, but I still haven´t gotten that letter that you said Brandon sent, so maybe that address is wrong?? If so, could you throw it up on my facebook that the address is wrong, so people can write the correct address? 

Oh boy, I knew as soon as I left, that the Man Cave was gonna be attacked... I can only imagine what my room will look like when I get home...(Dad and Mom dejunked,mom) Sounds like an exciting busy day of work, and it always feels good to clean! Speaking of cleaning, after I am done emailing this morning, I will probably be going back to our apartment to sweep it out because I am so sick of all the dust bunnies and things I touch when I walk bare feet (which I don´t do anymore) or do my push ups/crunches in the morning.

Shoot, Tom Call is married! That is kinda funny, because I was actually thinking of him yesterday and that he was getting married! Sounds like an Expensive wedding, but had to be loads of fun! I am kinda jealous about the band, because more and more I realize that I miss music like Big Bad Voodo Daddy, and Chicago and all them big band stuff! Even my Reel Big Fish that I started to listen to again at the end of the school year with Jayden.

Jayden has his farewell this Sunday? That lets you know how fast it has gone, because when I left he had a month and now it is his turn to start preparing to serve the Lord for the next two years. Crazy stuff!

A Party for Grandpa? Well, I am WAY ahead of you on writing a card in the mail, I got that sent off last week, so it should be getting there today or yesterday, hopefully he likes my letter, but if you want to wrtie down another memory for me, ummmmm write down.... (Mowing the lawn on the riding mower on his lap, when I got to steer, I use to Love doing that with him!) You will have to wish him a happy birthday for me, and tell everyone Hello and that I Love them all!

I am still bummed that I didn´t get to see Sasha´s brother before I left... Man, all that talk as a kid that he was going to come over, and he got there 10 days after I left. I am sure he is a great guy if he is related to Sasha, which in the long run now means he is apart of the Family and related to all of us! Love him, so he will want to stay there and not go home before I leave! :)

The fútbal here is WAY fast,  I think I told you this last week, but we usually play with my district and the district going to Osorno, and then we split up into three teams and play at least ten games in the hour of gym time we have. We play games of either the first team to score stays or if the 4 minutes run out, the team captains play rock, paper, scissors. Everyone loves to play that... not. But it is a ton of fun!

And yes, you did read that right, there is a district all going to Osorno, that me and Elder Robertson are not in. We are in the District where everyone is actually going to Rancagua, which I think I told you that last week too, oh well. I am SUPER jealous of Elder Justin Adams, who will probably be coming here the day I leave, if I am correct. The people who he will be serving with for the next two years are Amazing, and I Love them all. Besides the fact he gets to preach along the sides of David Archuleta... ;) But I actually am glad I am in this district, because I Love these guys so much! I am going to miss them when we depart for Osorno. Along the lines of Loving people, I have grown a love for the Mexican people here, which gets me so excited to meet the Chilaen people, I already am growing a love for a people, who I haven´t even met yet!

Ummm Spanish? Well it was different then what I thought I guess, last Sunday I got called in to have an interview with President Florez (The first councilor of our Branch Presidency) and he asked me if I knew how good at Spanish I was, then he told me he knew I was pretty good at it. He had told me that the branch presidency gets letters of our progress from our instructors each week, and the one last sunday said that I did really good last week with speaking,  I was really confused when he had called me in, I thought maybe I was in trouble for something (Not that I do anything bad here...) But he told me that and I got really confused, because in class Elder Robertson is the one telling me how to say something if I mess up, and I just felt like he was ahead of me in the language. But when he told me that, it kinda made my day, and he told me an experience on his mission where he had to help the english speaking missionary speak spanish and the english speaking missionary helped him speak spanish, so I was supposed to encourage Elder Robertson to speak more this week during our lessons with our "investigators" which I did do! But the language is coming, slowly I guess. We are all nervous to get to Chile, because apparently the people there speak like 200x faster than Mexicans and Mexicans talk SOOO fast! -_-

Okay, now that I got all your questions out of the way, I guess I can tell you about the rest of my week.

The reason I titled this email "ummmmmmmmmmm" is because I really don´t know what to title it, because every day here is the same, not much different then last with some minor exceptions.

I meant to tell you last week that I met someone here. There is another kid from Utah who plays Water Polo. But you can´t guess what team. Oh what was that? Cache Valley? You are Right! Yeah.... The team that we made enemies with this year... And a kid who we all weren´t very fond of. Number 7 on Cache Valley who is the Really Tall guy on their team. and I guess he is pretty cool! I like him a WHOLE lot better now that I have gotten to know him out of the water. I sure didn´t like him at the summer games this year. But he is a cool kid!

One of our lessons with our "Investigators" this week was with an investigator named Angela. Her story is, that her whole family is Mormon, but she isn´t at our first lesson, she thought we were there for her Mom or brother, but we were there for her. We would challenge her to pray and read the Book of Mormon at the beginning but she didn´t really do that, so the other day, during one of our lessons, we taught her the first vision, the spirit was so strong, and after I said the first vision, Elder Robertson said, "Joseph Smith wanted to know so he prayed to God to find out what church was true, Angela if you want to know what church is true you need to pray as well." Which after that I immediately said "Cómo se Siente" which means "How do you feel?" and she responded after a minute of silence "Like I need to pray.." Which was AWESOME! Then with our last lesson with her, we got her to pray in front of us, which was pretty tough, but we found out she didn't know how to pray, so we taught her how, and encouraged her to pray, at first she didn't want to in front of us, but I encouraged her that it was okay, because we were only there to help her, the spirit was so strong and it got me SUPER excited for teaching people out in the field!

It is kinda funny, after we do our lesson in TALL we have time to get on LDS.org and watch Mormon Messages or do something else, so I have put a logo "Elder Holt Photography" on some of the pictures I have taken and been going around setting them up on other people´s computers, in the lab that we always go to! it is kinda fun to see some of these pictures here that I have taken like the CTR ring picture or a Temple picture I took on the screens all blown up!

A week ago tuesday our devotional was givin live by a member of the 70, his name was Elder Vanswela, I don't think that was spelled right, but he gave us a good message, and I think you should look him up, he is pretty recent into the 70.

You want to see how busy it is? I took a picture at lunch today... When I first got here 3 and a half weeks ago, it barely filled half of that room, and there are now people on the right of me, and at the very far side of the room on the right over there... It is pretty hard to find a seat these days, the poor people who have to make all the food. Laundry is good, you just have to fight for a machine, it was frustrating the first week because everyone in my building went to the temple so I spent three hours in there that day, so last week I was up at 6 doing it and I got both mine and Elder Robertson´s laundry done in the morning because he was sick, and today I was up at 4:50 and all the machines were already being used, so Elder Robertson and I found a secret room. Yes there is a place to buy products, we bought detergent on the first week, and then we found out we didn't need to so it just sits in my closet. Yes I get to see the elders who are going to Osorno, three of them sleep with me and the other ones sleep in the rooms next to us, our room is kinda the party room, we have all the funny/cool elders, so every night after everyone has changed and gotten into relaxing clothes they come and fill up our apartment and just laugh until we go to bed. Last night Elder Borup's mom sent him a package with another Elder who got here this week and we opened it up and there is a ping pong net, so we set it up on our livingish room table and now we have ping pong tournis at night before we go to bed! It is now the hot spot that even elders from other zones are coming to hang out with us! I also just got a hair cut about an hour ago, and it doesn't look too bad, here are the before and after works of the nice short mexican ladies, it was kinda a fun experience, I have never had to slouch while getting my hair done!

Okay, last thing, I don't know if there is a way you can do this, but in the next package, (to chile) could you maybe send me an ipod with speakers? I really miss music, and a bunch of the guys going to Osorno have ipods. But we can't listen to music until we get down there, but I just realized recently that I am missing my movie music. If you end up sending me an ipod, could you make sure to put Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Tron, Inception, and of course Church Music whether that means some of the Garrets stuff, motab, or and classical stuff, that would be... AMAZING!

Oh and I think I found out I will actually be three hours ahead of you when I am in Chile, not two hours.

Okay, that just about sums things up for this week!

I Love you all,

Elder Holt

The lunch room is getting full with all the new missionaries

Before my haircut

After my haircut

Modeled this statue after me... Obviously...

Week two: Sickness Breaks out

Hello Family,

This past week has been Mucho better. Before I get into my novel, I better answer your questions.

Duh Mom, of course the Temple is all in Spanish... ;) That would be why I hardly understood any of it, and it took me like ten minutes to get past the veil, but just so you know, I was the first White Elder in there!

Um, no the CCM is not close to the Temple, the old one was right next to it, but we are about 45 minutes to an hour away drive, so it took us all morning to get there and back. Um the CCM is the MTC for us, but it is translated as *Centro De Capacitacion Misional Mexico*

That is so Crazy that Danny and Josh will be in the same mission! That would be WAY cool if Danny was
transfered to be in the Tye's Mission though! I am sure they would Love him! Esp when they find out we are related! ;)

I guess I can wait for a package, but you know... If you are bored... You could send a candy package from Dearelder.com those have seemed to be a big hit down here! :)

That is not good to hear about Brother Jacobsen, please give him my regards, and if necessary (I am sure it is already done, but make sure someone gives him a blessing) The Lord has the power to create miracles, and I have seen that first hand many times!

Okay... Now onto the past week. Lets see.... It has actually been pretty boring, I mean other than the fact I got to play soccer every day! Well, I guess Futball, but I have grown a new Love for the game. I am not sure if that is good or bad, because that may mean I am going to come home and want to play on a team somewhere... But the second day we played out on a field and it was pretty fun, but I sucked it up... Then we started playing on these cool courts that I don't remember the name of, but it is an outdoor basketball court, and underneath the hoops, they have goals, so it is a soccer field the size of a basketball court, and then there is a fence all the way around the court. There is a special name for it, but I don't remember what it is... Um, but I was told by the kid who is going back to the states to play soccer for UVU after his mission that they are all over Chile *Hooray* because I am falling in Love with the game, esp after starting to play good as a goalie and field player! :) more as a goalie though...

I finally tracked down Elder Simpson last week, as I was coming back from doing a TALL lesson which is just learning the language on the computer, *notta fan* but I ran into him, so we took a quick picture. If I have time I will run to the lab that I can go on the internet with and update the post with all the friends and put it on there, but I am probably going to need you guys to do that.

I have a bunch of things I wanted to tell you guys about, but I forgot my notebook full of things in my room, so when we come back to email this afternoon, I will let you know...

Um, oh yeah, on the second day I forgot to mention we had a meeting with the CCM President, and it was with all the guys who had arrived here the day I got here. There were quite a few of us. One of the things he asked was how many of us were 19 and maybe twenty of the guys raised their hands, and then he asked how many were 18 and 90% of the people then raised their hands, it was so cool to see that so many young men are willing to serve the Lord.

Oh here is a funny story! You will love this one! On like 2nd of 3rd night here when we went to bed all was well, I obviously wasn't use to this twin size bed yet though, from downsizing from my Queen. I found out that I must thrash and jump around when I turn and change positions, because at like three in the morning I woke up to a Huge Thump and a Bang, and my companion woke up, and I realized I was rubbing my head.... I pretty much threw my head into our metal bedsize cupboard piece thing, it was funny the morning after, but man it was loud and if I remember right, it hurt. Since then I think I also slammed my head into the Wall as well... ha! But I have slept pretty well lately, now that I am getting used to this new sleeping style.

I found Elder Strang yesterday morning, thank you for the card reader, now I don't have to bum off other people! That is always super nice!

I think it is a coincidence that you just so happended to send me Spencer's letter, because I sent a letter tospencer.hale@myldsmail.net last week, and that definitely is a different elder down in Brazil... Not my cousin... Ha! So now I can write him and try again! :)

Okay, so sickness has broken out, here in the CCM. But DONT worry, it isn't that bad, it started in my Zone with the other district, one of the Hermanas had a cold and past it to a guy who sleeps in my room and then I got it and I am better today, Tuesday was a crummy day of blowing my brains out, but I am better today. Elder Robertson didn't end up so lucky, he got somthing else that isn't very fun, he has been super aicky or however you spell it, and then he has been coughing and hasn't been able to breathe, he has gotten two blessings from our ZLs and he has gotten medicine now, today he is on the uphill side of it though!

Last week after we were done emailing we went to go do laundry, but when we got there, there was a HUGE line and so it ended up taking like two hours for us to get it in, and five hours to get it all done, and in the end, my whites didn't even end up drying all the way because the power went out twice in fact so I just took them out, and I have been wearing damp garments all week! So today, I told Elder Robertson not to wake up so he could rest and I would do his laundry for him and I got up at 6 to do it, and got in there and they were all taken already but two machines were just about to open up, there were two elders just folding their clothes and then they said they were up at 3:30 doing their clothes... and I thought I was early.

Okay, past that I can't think of much more, I will write you again this afternoon, and tell you the other half of everything that I needed to tell you that I wrote down during the week!

Until then,

Elder Holt

 Um, so funny story, after we just got off emailing we went out and started to play some futbal on that court I was telling you about, and some of the natives came so we repicked teams, and then the natives picked me to play on their team with an hermana, and then we played I hopped in the goal and we came off only once, once we started really playing none of the other teams in my zone could beat us! We were way good! :) I think I may just come home LOVING this sport!

Okay, so the second half of my letter...

First off, I Love how Awesome the CCM is, it is a lot more relaxed because we have less elders and sisters then Provo does, like at breakfast and lunch we are allowed to have our P day clothes on, where as in Provo you can´t do that, and we can play sports on P day also, as you can see, we have time to write more then once, I Love it!

OKay, so here is my second half.

I Love my district I never got to mention that, none of them are going to Osorno, but me and Elder Robertson, they are all going to Ranquga and our DL is going to Colorado Springs! I am going to miss these guys so much, and hermanas becuase they have become like family in the last two weeks, hopefully they allow Elder Robertson and I to come to their Mission Reunions!

I heard a cool statement the other day that the work of the Lord is hastening down in South America, and that a lot of people are starting to pick up religion again, esp now that the pope is from Argentina, but see most of them are not thinking that "Oh the Pope is from Argentina" they are more proud and saying "Oh the Pope is from South America" Cool stuff huh? What a perfect time for the Catholic church to help the work of the Lord!

So I figured something out about Elder Robertson this week, we were sitting down at lunch and then I realised who he reminded me of! I don´t know if you guys remember the movie Wreck it Ralph or not, but he makes me think of the guy named Fix it Felix Jr. who fixes what Ralph messes up! He even kinda sounds like him! :)

Sister Nelson from Laguna Beach is here, and i see her all the time! Not that I ever talk to her, she really doesn´t know that I exist which is a good thing since we are on a mission, although I did talk to her about her flight from Cali the second day when I first saw her, not that she remembered who I was... I think.

Okay and the last thing, is the other day, when I took that cool CTR ring picture, I taught everyone in my district how to use their cameras, like how to change the effects and stuff! So Half of them have started to take more pictures now that they know how to use their cameras. We took a way cool video that same day of spinning our rings, and I would send it to you, but I think it is too big of a file, so when I get out in the field and can show you the video over drop box I will, it was SWEET!

Okay, I Love you guys,

Love you,

Elder Holt

A cool picture I took in the morning of a silouette of a palm tree

All the Elder's tags in my Zone

Our second Sunset (Looks like Fire)

Elder Holt and Elder Jake Simpson

Our first Mexican sunset

The One Ring that Rules Them All. (Yeah, I took that picture and it was my idea!)

Elder Holt and Elder Kolby Strang