General Conference!

Hello!! What am amazing conference weekend! I am so very grateful for the opportunity we all had to really be spiritually fed by those who have been called to lead, guide, and counsel all of God's children across the globe!

This has been a pretty great week, like most of the others. I can not believe it is already October, I swear September JUST started. Time is flying a little too fast for comfort nowadays!

This week we really focused on concentrating our efforts where they are needed most. We have had a lot of people to teach recently but they haven't all been ready or willing to progress. Finding people to teach is not usually a problem for us (knock on wood) but finding people who are REALLY interested in seeking truth and ACTING on the truth they find is usually a little bit harder... So we have recently been trying to focus more on those who are prepared so they can more successfully and completely be converted to the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have also been spending some time this week inviting! Our purpose is to INVITE others to come unto Christ, and we have definitely been fulfilling that as of late! We are going to be having a church tour in our ward this coming Saturday evening! We made flyers and announced it in church and we are hoping that the members will able to invite their neighbors and friends! We are also hoping our investigators who are having a hard time coming to church will be able to come experience how we worship in a non-threatening, comfortable way.

We were able to teach Valda the Plan of Salvation this week, and that was very special! She is 94 years old, from Latvia and she has a very positive and unique outlook on life! She is so vibrant and hopeful! She helps us understand every time we go how perfect God's plan is and how blessed we are to have been given bodies that can do so much!

Wednesday we set up our smartphones for the roll out this week! This sister is going to be on Facebook soon! Our mission was chosen to test a new area book app that will help us more effectively "teach repentance, and baptize converts." We will also be on social media, again for the purpose of fulfilling our missionary purpose.

After our meeting where we set up the phones, we had a lesson with Mattie. It was our last lesson and she decided she is ready to be baptized!!!! YAY!!!! She is going to confirm a specific day and time with her parents for the next couple weeks and her interview is this week! It has been such an immense blessing to be able to see the faith of this young woman grow! Such a miracle!

We also got to teach/supervise a mission prep class with the young men, it was really great! The activity was for the young men to teach 2 non-members. They were split into 2 groups. Mattie was one of the non-members since she is dating one of the young men, and the other was a sweet young man named Clifford. He has been coming to scouts for a while now and agreed to be an "investigator" for the practice lesson. Long story short, Clifford was really moved as he heard these young men share this message with him and he accepted a Book of Mormon and said that missionaries could come and see him! Yay! Another miracle!

On Thursday we got to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Bill, Mark, and Lori, it went really well! They are progressing wonderfully! We also watched a couple Mormon Messages with them!

And then it was..... General Conference!!!!!!! We watched the Saturday morning session with Mattie at her boyfriend's family's house, it was a lot of fun and the spirit was really strong! She seemed to really enjoy it! Then we watched the afternoon session at our ward mission leader's house, Brother Patrick. We were supposed to have Edward there but he didn't show :( Later that day we met a really cool African lady! Her name is Kadiyachu -that's how it sounds- she doesn't read or write or really speak English so it was kinda hard communicating with her but she has a very sweet spirit and we will be seeing her again soon!

Sunday morning we watched with Bill, Mark, and Lori at their house, they had BYUTV! It was really great and they loved it! They watched the afternoon session without us because we were with Vaiola at the Toliseli home!

After conference we contacted a referral we had received, someone who had requested a Bible. We delivered the Bible and brought her a Book of Mormon, she accepted it and we taught her the restoration, yay! Another miracle!

I have to say, it was pretty great week! I can't wait for more!

The Church is true!

Sister Holt