Monday, November 4, 2013

Week 21

FAM!

WARNING: THIS WAS THE BEST WEEKEND EVER!!  Lots of explanation points and excitedness coming your way!!

You will NEVER believe this, but Carolyne came to church!!!! SHE CAME TO CHURCH.  After 15 years of saying she was coming and then backing out, SHE CAME! I wish every missionary who has ever worked with her could have witnessed it!! PURE AMAZEMENT! Heavenly Father was definitely planning the perfect meeting for her to go to. It was testimony meeting and every single testimony was exactly what she needed to hear.  Like I was dying because it was just too perfect!!  We also had lots of visitors in our Ward that were here for the Ironman and some of them even bore their testimonies and said THE PERFECT THINGS!  It honestly could not have gone better.  ALL our members came up to her and were so nice and she had such a good experience.  She was even telling some people, "You might see me get baptized here soon." Also one of the returning members I have been working with since I got here  got up and bore her testimony.  The closing hymn was "I know that my Redeemer Lives" and that is a song that Carolyne always makes me and Sister Sam sing for her! What are the odds!?!  I could ramble forever about yesterday.  We also taught Relief Society on Member Missionary Work and I think it went AWESOME.   Our meal calendar got so filled up after that lesson that we do not have a single open date in November for a dinner.  haha!  We also got like 6 invitations for Thanksgiving dinner so we will probably be eating all day long when that glorious day comes!  Church was also great because all the members came up and were telling me how happy they were I get to stay another transfer.  I just love these people!!!

Now onto Saturday!! AH I don't even know where to start with Saturday.  It was the funnest day on my mission so far!!  We volunteered at the Iron Man from about 11-8:30.  First off, an Iron Man is CRAZY! It’s a 6 miles swim, 112 mile bike, and THEN running a marathon! I mean these people were INSANE!  Our job was to pass them anything they needed during their marathon like water, perform, grapes, energy gel, chicken broth, and all sorts of random things.  It was intense because there were about 3000 runners!  Sometimes they would call out for something but they don’t stop running so then you have to run along with them and give them all the stuff.  It was so intense and so fun!  The best part was I saw about 3 BYU fans running!  I always yelled Go Cougs and they always got SO excited to see our nametags!  A few other runners ran past and said, "Hey Sisters I'm from Utah!!"  It just made our day! (:  The PCB Ironman is a huge deal.  It sells out every year in about 40 seconds!  Crazy huh!?  It was such a fun experience and we got SWEET T-SHIRTS for volunteering!  We were standing ALL day though and can I just say, it felt like we had been at Disneyland all day our feet hurt so bad. We were actually SORE in the morning?? Imagine the Ironman athletes!!  Cool story, there was actually 2 Arabian Princes (maybe Tajikistan haha) participating.  I got to hand one of them water (: I also got to give the 1st place female an energy bar!  I felt pretty cool!  Our ward covered about a half a mile so it was a whole ward event volunteering and it was a blast!  Good bonding moments with the ward.  It was literally right along the beach, they do swim in the ocean, and we saw the prettiest sunset ever!!  I have lots of pics!  I did get sunburned though.  My forehead especially, cause usually a helmet is covering it!  So worth it though. I will NEVER forget it!  We also planted tons of seeds and lots of people recognized our name tags and were really grateful! Awesome experience!  Oh and the extra hour of sleep came on the perfect night cause we were just exhausted by the end of it!

Earlier in the week we came across a few BIBLE BASHERS/ANTI-JOSEPH SMITHERS.  I was like whoa peeps, settle down. It was kind of intense but kind of fun at the same time!  It’s frustrating though because sometimes I just want to yell in their face, "WE HAVE THE TRUTH I PROMISE."  But obviously as representatives of Jesus Christ we would never act like that so we bear strong testimonies of what we know is true and that’s about all we can do.  Although of course I'm going to throw out a few scriptures and see their response ;)

Also, this week one of our members gave us a referral and then set up an appointment for us to teach her in the members home.  That is just the exact circumstance that missionaries PRAY FOR EVERY DAY.  It was awesome and we will continue to teach her this week.  We got 4 new investigators this week!  Heavenly Father is really leading us to some awesome people and I appreciate everyone’s prayers, they truly do help!

On Tuesday we got to have a District Activity so we played some bball in the church gym for a while.  Whoo, I'm a little rusty but by the end I had it back!  Crazy to see another transfer begin!  Two of my favorite elders in the mission finished their two years, Elder Murdoch and Elder Buchanon.  They were awesome and it’s sad to meet friends and then they leave! 

Each week we get trained in Family History a little and no one can figure out why I am not connected to Esther??? It’s the weirdest thing.  I’m connected to everyone else including Dad, and Esther is connected to dad but I'm not connected to Esther! It’s strange and no one can quite figure it out! 

This week a Returning Member we just met for the first time opened her door and was like "You are the two most stylish missionaries I have ever seen in my life time.  This is crazy. Come in!" We were like yessss score!

Each transfer we work on a new Christlike attribute and this transfer I chose Humility.  I think humility is sooo important not only as a missionary but in everyday life.  I really am going to focus on that more. 

Dad, you looked AWESOME as ABE!  That seriously is the greatest costume I've seen in a while! LOVE IT!  I'll let you know if I have any ideas for next year!  You killed it this year though!!!!  Danny you look pretty sick as well! That better not have been my jean vest ;)  Aunt Rhonda also looked WAYYYY GOOD! She should be the real actress for Effie no joke! I loved hearing about the Cougar Growl and how you made the Bowl guy do it.  Haha I tried doing one for Sister Sam and it was my usual Fire hose sounding one haha! 

Shannon, thank you so much for sending me the Halloween card!  It was SO CUTE!!  The pictures were so cute and I keep them in my bag and show people (:  Your hair looks way long! 

Mom, thank you for the letter!!!! Made my day! 
                                                                             
Well as you can see this week was just one of those weeks where everything was going right.  I'm so grateful to be here, especially in this area at this time.  I miss y’all so much but it sounds like everything is going well! Happy to hear BYU had a great weekend!!!  That’s always good news!!  Good luck this week vs Wisconsin!!  FSU steppin’ up big time vs MIAMI! Although, how are we ever going to get ahead of Oregon?? I want to see FSU in the Championship man!  Dad in answer to your question, no one really has talked much about basketball yet.  All football so far.  I have a funny picture of a huge Bama fan house I'm sending today!  Mom, thank you so much for putting the pictures on Iphoto! That will be the easiest for me to get to and will save me tons of time when I start making the slideshow!  THANK YOU! 

A cute girl named Lauren, she’s about 20, is taking us to Pier Park today.  It’s the best mall they have in the Panama City area.  It’s right by the beach so we are pretty excited!  May not have time to write y’all :( We'll see though. 

I LOVE YALL SO MUCH. PRAY FOR YOU EVERY DAY.  Thank you for everything and have a great week!!!! <3/ Sister Lauren Holmoe!!


Bama House

 Panama City Ironman








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