Bom Dia (10-19-15)

FUN VIDEOS OF ELDER HOLT DANCING THE MARABENTA!

(a traditional Mozambiquan Dance) 

Video Credits thanks to Neila!

So it looks like my days in magoanine have come to an end.  Today is transfers, and for some reason the transfer slide hasnt been sent out yet, at least I havent gotten it, but I have been told by many people that I am going drumroll.... back to the matola zone.  I will be going to matola 2c, but that is still slightly debateble because I havent seen the slide, but I will be training, if that changes though, I will let you know.  This week was super fun, we had zone conference, that was super cool because I got asked to be a translator for those who didnt speak english.  I was very honored, but thankfully it wasnt my first time, but my last time translating was for president kretly and he has a super different accent from president koch, so it took me a little while to get used to hearing president kochs.  But the best part about it was that because it would kill someone to translate for 8 hours straight, we divide in partners and 2 people translate for 3-4 and switch every 30 minutes.  Anyways my team translator was none other than my Trainer, Elder Keck, it was super fun to get to go from him translating for me, to us translating together for my trainees.  The next day we had some difficulties because of rain and power outages, we were walking in rain above our ankles and everyone decided that we weren't working that night, but we really were.  We had a lot of lessons fall this week, and between that and meetings it wasnt the best of weeks.  But it was all good.  We got soaked through and that was fun, afterward we had a new elder come to the house.  The transfers just came out and I will be in Matola 2c training elder Sharpe he is a new elder and I translated for him at zone conference.  But yeah, the next day we had an activity, so we spent the next day learning the marabenta, and that was fun, I think my mom has a copy of the video, the file is to big to email, but I think that a friend from the ward sent it home.  We had our three baptism after that, I only got a photo with one of them, but I will have elder combs send me a copy of the pictures he has, so you will get that next week.  It was a great week though.  I am really sad to go, but I have a new adventure awaiting me, so that is really nice.  I am excited and loving the work.  I think the best thing I have had this week was when I got to really feel the love of christ for my investigators.  I think I realized that when you tell people you love them, you really start to love them.  So I love all of you.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

BAPTISM!

Ao Meus Queridos (10-12-15)

Bom Dia,

Everything is going great here in moçambique.  We are working and having little successes a lot.  I am glad that I am here, even though I have spent all my mission until now walking in deep sand.  T3 and Magoanine are famous in our mission for being super sandy, but it is all good.  We are in the last week of the transfer and we will see where things go.  We should have at least one baptism this weekend, maybe three.  We had a boundary discrepancy and we dont know exactly what will happen, but I will let you know next week.  Other than that we spent a lot of time in the house this week.  Our house was getting completely rewired and so we had to spend a few days in the house because of that.  Then we helped out with a dupla that was double booked.  Elder combs got lucky and went teaching, I on the other hand got to spend the whole night in the new house waiting on a refrigerator to come and construct chairs and dressers.  It was all good though because I downloaded conference and we got to a ton of it.  We taught in the little time we had in our area, and have done quite well on our organize the ward project.  The bishopric is on board now, and we are chugging along.  We found 5 new part member families doing this, and I am so excited to see what happened.  Africa is still africa and everything is going well.  I guess everything is just routine I dont have anything cool to write about.  Next week will be good though because we will have our activity and a baptism, it should be great.  Please pray that it will all go well.  I am stressed about the activity, but living in africa is a natural stress reliever so dont worry about me.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Bom Dia (10-5-15)

So, this was a nice week.  We worked really hard had some good success until we got to the weekend and had a lot of distractions.  One of them was the first session of general conference.  We watched it at our bishops house.  It was quite a party, I need to find the liahona email link though, and see if I cant get our picture in the next liahona.  The session started at 6pm for us, and it was in portugues, but it was all good because I actually understood it. It was to the point that I had to mentally switch back to english because I couldnt understand the song, haha.  It was fun though.  Then we left because the 2nd session didnt start until 10pm, even though all of the return missionaries there were telling us to stay, haha.  But yeah I just downloaded all the english talks so we will listen to them during the week.  Technology is nice.  Other than that we had interviews with president, which was really good.  I like president koch a lot, he really gives good advice, and I need to listen to it.  Like having a study journal, oops.  I have been really bad about that.  But yeah, I havent missed yet since my interview.  Also I realized how grateful I am for organization.  Because of the lack of time and technology mozambique has had, our members register is super unhelpful.  So this week and for many more, elder combs and I will be looking to find 308 random mozambiquans with a name and a gps coordinate.  It would be really nice if we had a gps, haha...  But yeah, I think as we organize it we will have a lot more success in our ward.  We are also planning a super awesome activity of cultures.  It is going to be super fun.  I am going to learn a traditional mozambiquan dance called the marabenta.  I will be sure to send you all a video.  But other than that work is going pretty normal.  I still miss you all, but I am loving life here.  I hit 8 months the other day, so that is really wierd.  It seems like its been 2 weeks since I first went in the MTC, but yeah no ones counting anyways.

I love and miss ALL of you,

Elder Anthony Holt

Watching 1st Session of Conference at the Bishop's House

Me and my homie Marcos with our fanny packs!
"THAT IS RIGHT, I AM STILL ROCKIN IT..."

Ola Minha familia e outros queridos (9-28-15)

So it has been another good week here in the land of the red sun.  Granted I havent really seen the red sun this week.  But this week was really good.  We started out working hard, and that is what we did all week.  We did better than we have ever done with lessons since we started whitewashing, including 10 in just 2 days.  But we are going to keep upping that and try for even more this week.  We finally have a really good investigator pool to start with.  We have like 14 families, and then 4/5 individuals.  We are super excited for their progress but are working to get even more.  I think we could have 30 by the end of the transfer.  We have been blessed with some new part member families.  But all in all I think our biggest success this week was with an inactive member.  She was baptized 11 years ago went to church for the lst time 10 years ago.  She has since had a kid, seperated from her husband and is now living in our area.  She is super cool, and us meeting her was definitely a miracle of being in the right place at the right time.  We were walking down the road when she stops and says hi.  We talked and found out she was a member but very proudly inactive.  So we took her number and inv

ited her to church.  We called her the other day and as we were planning our lesson we decided that we were only going to read the book of mormon with her, and let the spirit guide her to church.  This was advice from Elder Hamilton that we got a few weeks ago, and we decided to try it.  It worked really well.  We didnt say a single thing about church in our visits, but she came.  Now we will work with her more, and with her son who is of age to be baptized.  We had many other miracle this week, but I just love this one.  Especially because a lot of our investigators all decided to travel on the same weekend, and we were sittin in church, bummed out because hardly anyone came, when Marta walks in, and I was just so happy and I cant explain it.  Other than that, the week was very good as well.  Summer has started and the weird rain from last week is long gone, lots of hot days and new tans.  My hair is also getting lighter, so its pretty nice.  I am loving life, and very tired all the time.  I definitely miss the southern utah dry heat, as this humidity is making me sweat in places I didnt know I had.  But it is all good, maybe I will finally start losing some weight.  My muscle is long gone, but maybe my fat will leave now too.  I am so grateful though for the Lord in my life, and for his Tender Mercies.  They are so real, and I am so grateful to know he cares enough about me to send them.  I also am sending a picture of our "home gym"  I would say it is really helpful, but between no motivation and only 30 minutes I am not taking a ton of advantage of it.  I will be better this week though.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Home Gym...