Merry Christmas! (11/28/2020)

 Holy cow guys. This week flew by. This was my last week in the MTC. I can't believe that 5 and a half weeks have already come and gone. The MTC was such an amazing experience and I am so grateful for everything that I learned while I was 'there'. (or while I was at home on zoom...)

I also just want to say thank you to my amazing teachers who really made the MTC the best possible. They were the greatest. I learned so much from each of them. I am going to miss class with them every day. But they told us we are ready for the field, so I am going to trust them haha

Now I wanna say thank you to my district. You will never convince me that there was a better district than this one. We became best friends. We were constantly learning from each other, teaching each other, laughing with each other. It was the best. (And yes, I will be sending more pictures😉) Hermana oKAY, Hermana Brazofuerte, Hermana Mosca, Elder York, and Elder Brownie, you are going to be the best missionaries in the world. I can't wait to hear about all of your adventures. (sincerely, Hermana No Ahoga) 

During my time in the MTC, I have felt so so close to my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I don't think my testimony has ever grown this much. I am so so so grateful for the experiences that I have had over the past 6ish weeks. And I can't wait for more to come💛

I want to challenge everyone who is reading this email to say a prayer in your hearts, and ask to be able to feel God's love during this Christmas season. It will make you so happy:) 

Speaking of Christmas. I'll explain my subject heading now jaja. Since I am flying to North Carolina this week, my family decided to do our sibling secret Santa before Christmas. So we are celebrating Christmas eve this weekend:) I love Christmas, and I am excited to spend part of the season with my family. But I am even more excited (sorry mom) to spend the season out on my mission where I can be serving people 24/7!! It will be the best! 

On Thursday we got to eat thanksgiving dinner! I was home with my family of course, which was awesome. But due to COVID we didn't get to get together with extended family which was sad, but it was still a really fun night! We also may or may not have already been decorated for Christmas... We are just grateful for the birth of Christ extra this year😁 

This week I also got to meet my companion! It is crazy, we have been companions for almost 6 weeks but just met. We were able to surprise our district and show them that we were doing our zoom call together. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet her. We are best friends now 😂😉 We also got to meet 2/3 of our teachers today! Me and my companion (the rest of our district couldn't make it) met Hermana Cole y Hermano Nelson for breakfast! It was so crazy seeing them in person instead of over zoom! But it was so so much fun. 

I am not sure when my next pday will be yet... But I will email again soon!! (First email in North Carolina) Thank you so much again to those who have emailed me! I truly appreciate reading them throughout the week (sorry that I can't respond until P-days haha). I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving! I love you all!

This is how we did our last MTC class together!

Hermana Reese is the best!

Hermana Reese and I walking around City Creek together!

Hermana Reese and I got to meet two of our MTC teachers for breakfast!

(BELOW: Our Districts last 'selfies' together!

Thanksgiving with the FamBam!

The Church is True (11/21/2020)

 Week 5ish this week! 

Anyways, thanks for your emails! I love hearing from you guys every week! 

This was a very long week! On Monday we did another little 'prank' on one of my teachers, haha. So when we are all on zoom, we are constantly drinking from water bottles right? Well, on monday all of us (including hermano Nelson) had whipped cream bottles too. So instead of drinking water, we were squirting whipped cream into our mouths. Basically to see how many times we could do it before hermana cole said something. It was great. 😂😂 I will send some pictures! 

This week has been super good. It was my second to last week, and I am so excited for the field, but I am going to miss my district and my teachers so much! I have gotten so used to spending every day with them (via zoom of course). But I am excited for all my new "hellos"

Speaking of which, I wanna tell you guys something I think is super cool. When we are in the MTC we do something called "one on ones" with our teachers. So basically one teacher will zoom one of us and just ask how we are doing and talk about our concerns or whatever. So in my last one on one I told my teacher that I was really nervous to say goodbye to my family, and basically everything that I have known up to this point. My teacher told me that that is very normal. He said a mission is full of "goodbyes". You will say goodbye to every companion, to your family, to your wards. But he told me that a mission is not about the goodbyes. It is about focusing on the "hellos". I will constantly be getting to know new people, and getting so many "hellos". So every time I have to say goodbye, I can look forward to the next Hello :)

This week was just so good. We had so many spiritually uplifting experiences I don't know which ones to share. But I will tell you guys about one thing that I was trying to work on this past week. So whenever I am teaching a TRC I get a little nervous (which I am sure is normal), but whenever I am nervous I start to forget what to say and I panic and try to just read off my notes instead of letting the spirit guide my words. So this week, I didn't write my lesson plans down. That way when I was teaching, I didn't have anything to look at. So i could just 100% focus on the person I was teaching and what the spirit was telling me. It was super cool and I could definitely tell a difference. 

This week I have been feeling super grateful for the Book of Mormon. Isn't is so amazing that we have access to a book that can make us happy every single time we read from it? No matter what I am feeling, whenever I start reading it, I feel calmer, and happier. It is a miracle worker. I am so grateful for it. I love understanding new things about it each day, and learning more about each person in it. We are so blessed to have it as our road map in life. Go read it 😉

What else....

Right! Did you all get to watch our amazing Prophet speak this week? He is just the sweetest, cutest, kindest person ever isn't he?!?! If you didn't get the chance to watch it, stop reading this email and go watch it right now. Or go watch it again. It was great. 

I am so grateful for a living prophet who leads and guides this church today. I am thankful for the technology we have to say in touch with each other, and be able to watch the prophet speak. I am grateful for each of you and the impacts you have made on my life. I hope that you all have an amazing week remembering what you are grateful for! :) 

Love you all! 

Hermana Holt

Over Halfway done! (With the MTC)

 Whelp, this is email number 4! Crazy huh? It has gone by so so fast! I fly to North Carolina in 18 days! I am super duper excited but super nervous haha. 

This week we learned a lot more S

Our amazing district, with two of our teachers, Hermano Nelson y Hermana Cole

Thank goodness for PDay!

We are gonna celebrate Christmas Eve a little early this year!

I was excited, but not excited, when I woke up to this.

panish. Which is very stressful haha. Yesterday we did something called an English fast". Which means yesterday we weren't allowed to speak any English. It was hard. But it was cool to see how much Spanish I actually do know! It is very easy to be discouraged because I see how much I don't know. But then I have to remind myself I have only been learning Spanish for 3 and a half weeks haha. 

TRC's went great this week! Mine and Hermana Reese's Spanish TRC didn't go quite as planned just because of zoom and technology problems. But esta bien. We met with S again and had an AMAZING lesson. We started teaching her and we had a lesson planned, but ended up scraping it and just going with where the spirit took us. The spirit was so strong during that lesson. Me and my comp were both so happy with how it went. It made me so excited to get to the field soon! 

My district always has super great discussions and I learn so much from them. One day this week we talked about Ether 3 in the Book of Mormon. I have read this chapter so much, but 4 verses into reading it with my district I had already learned so much more than I ever had before. I challenge everyone who reads this to go read Ether 3 again, and then let me know how it goes ;)

I guess I will tell you guys how a 'typical' day goes in the Home MTC...

I wake up at 6:30 and get ready for the day. At 7 I study for an hour, and then normally at 8 I facetime Hermana Reese and we study and plan lessons together. Our first class is from 9 am - 12 pm. (4 hours on zoom straight is so long haha) Then I don't have another class until 5:45. But in between those 6ish hours I have workshops (which are basically just extra classes with a lot of different missionaries, they are awesome), and tutor sessions, and TRC's. Then class from 5:45-8:45. Then more personal study until bedtime! It can get pretty busy sometimes, but sometimes I have a long enough break I can do some stuff with my mom haha. 

Anyways, I love hearing from you guys! I hope you all have another great week! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Holt

I am getting sent to the field early! (Week 3)

 Hola mis amigos! 

What a great week! the weeks are flying by. (Even though everyday feels so long haha) I can’t believe i’m already 3 weeks into the MTC!! Spanish is coming along very slowly. There are so many verbs and rules to learn! But I love learning! We also have to learn so many lessons and scriptures. Basically it’s school times 10 😉 

I am getting tired of being on zoom all day everyday. I do not like sitting still for that long. But my district makes it all worth it! We have so many inside jokes with each other and we goof around a lot. I mean... we learn a lot. Haha we actually do learn so much from each other. We also have the best MTC teachers in the world. I can’t wait to meet mi distrito y mi maestros in person one day! (Lame covid) 

I am not actually getting sent out to the field early. But me and some of my district were talking about email clickbaits earlier this week so I thought it would be funny 😂

We talked a lot about the atonement and the Book of Mormon in the past two days. It was. Very spiritual experience. I’ve learned about things I’ve never really thought about before. So amazing! 

We were reading the introduction page en el libro de mormón and so many different things stood out to us! For example. Moroni buried the plates like he was commanded to do. He would have been so sad to seal away that book when he knew it contained the truth and knowledge of this church. But then Moroni was present when the book was unearthed to Joseph Smith. I can’t even imagine the joy he felt, or all the people in Heaven felt on that day. My teacher said that joy is why we serve missions. Because we want to bring that joy to everyone. It made me very excited :) 

Have I already said how much I love my district? Well. I do. They are the best. 

Well, talk to you all next week! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Holt

I love my companion Hermana Reese!

More Distrito shenanigans...

Week 2

 Hola mis amigos!! How is everyone?!

This week went by crazy fast! (felt super slow during it) 

Me and my comp (Hermana Reese) taught our first two TRC's this week!! They were in English. (Spanish comes this coming week, wish us luck haha). One of our TRC's, we will call her "S" went so so well. Me and my comp both felt so good afterwards. And then S wanted us to meet with her again to actually start teaching her lessons! So that was awesome, we will definitely continue to teach her throughout the next few weeks. 

I love my distrito so much!! They are the best! I feel like we've all known each other our whole lives, not just for about 10 days haha! I have learned so much from each of them, and I am so excited for the next 4 weeks to keep getting to know them:) 

One day this week we had a 'zoom' workshop. Workshops are basically just little classes we sign up for to learn about different things. I signed up for a workshop called "conversion to Christ", it was amazing!! I learned so much. We talked about what it means to truly be converted to Christ. It really strengthened my desire to wake up each day with the desire to be like him. 

Every day in the MTC is so busy. We are on zoom for about 8-11 hours a day and it can be super exhausting sitting in a chair for so long. But it is also a spiritual powerhouse and I have found myself looking forward to sitting in that chair now. 

Also I don't really have anything to take pictures of... So enjoy these of my district haha. 

Oh! quick story! So my teacher Hermano Nelson, loves cereal. Every break he eats cereal. So I am gonna send a quick video of what me and my district did to surprise him haha. 

Con amor, Hermana Holt

More pics of my awesome district!  

Semana 1/2

Hola mis amigos!! 

I am officially a missionary! It’s been a great week! (Stressful and long, but amazing!) 

I was super nervous on Wednesday morning for my classes. But after the first workshop I was not nervous anymore at all! The spirit was so strong in that first meeting. There was about 275 missionaries in the zoom call and it is crazy how strong we could all feel the spirit in our own homes all over the world! It was also really nice because we got separated into random breaks rooms with about 7-8 other missionaries. And in my breakout room, there was someone I went to high school with. It was super awesome (and an answer to my prayers) to see a familiar face:) 

It’s so awesome how much we are learning. I feel like we are just constantly having to absorb new knowledge about the gospel, teaching, and español! It’s pretty overwhelming, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything! I feel so much closer to my Heavenly Father and Savior already. 

Sitting at a desk all day everyday being in zoom meetings gets super tiring. Anyone have any advice of what to do in my small breaks? 😅 just kidding it’s still great! I’m already getting more busy! Next week me and my companion have our first TRC’s. Which is us teaching a lesson! I’m nervous, but so excited! 

I love my district and mi compañera! They are amazing!! We have three elders, Elder Martinez, Elder Brown, and Elder Van Drimmelen. And four Hermanas. Hermana Armstrong, Hermana McPherson, me, and mi compeñera Hermana Reese. Me and my companion get along great! My district is so amazing, we are super unified and I can’t wait to keep getting to know them over the next 5 and a half weeks! 

Me, standing in front of my MTC (@ home version)!

My new MTC Study Space

My MTC District