Bom Dia (11-9-15)

This has been an amazingly short week, but it is still fun out here in the mission.  We have just been doing the normal thing, of preaching, and trying to save peoples salvation.  It is a truly fullfilling work.  Pretty tiring as well, but I am glad to be a part of it.  We didnt have too much out of the ordinary happen this week.  But it was a good week anyways.  I am really learning the importance of studying, haha.  I have more or less been anti studying my whole mission, but this week during a study I actually found something that change my whole perspective on teaching, haha.  So suffice it to say, I will continue studying even when it seems boring.  But yeah, we got to see some improvement in our area, and after three weeks, I think our area is running pretty efficiently which is really quick on a whitewash, I am grateful for that, because it is super stressful whitewashing.  But yeah, we could potentially have a few baptisms by the end of the transfer, but I am not sure we still need to wait a little bit and establish if they fit all of the baptismal requisite,  but next transfer this area will for sure be baptising.  Elder sharpe and I are doing well together, just working, and training.  I am honored to still be training, but part of me longs for a chance to go into a normal dupla with an older missionary and just work the streets to death, but that will come, right now I have a calling and that is an honor for me.  We had an interesting experience this week that happens a lot but I dont think I have ever written about it.  But yeah, I have grown up in the church and I feel that I have a pretty solid grasp on the scriptures.  And christianity here is fairly young (less than 150 years i think)  and so for that a lot of people dont really know a ton about the bible, especially because they all use the bible in portugues, and most people dont speak portugues very well because it is their second language.  But yeah, a lot of the younger generation clings to christianity and the bible though, and they think they know it all.  But really they know about 5-6 scriptures. Jokes on them, I got 100 scripture mastery verses, haha.   Just kidding, but it happens a lot that someone will try and bible bash you, and it is kind of like bible bashing with a 3 year old, because they recite one scripture and they assume it means what they want, like for example, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there will I[Jesus Christ] be also"  so I have told some people they cant drink, but they say christ is always with them, even when they drink, others say, well there is two of you and on of me, so this counts as church and I dont have to go this sunday.  It is almost funny how much people look for excuses to get out of things.  In portugues there is a phrase, Haver de,  and when someone uses it they are expressing sincere desire and need to do something,  to the point that most countries that speak portugues will never use it because it implies a level of obligation.  But here in mozambique it is the biggest lie imaginable.  But yeah, in spite of this we have been blessed to find the people who are ready for the message, and they are coming to church, and I am grateful for it.  I am sorry I dont have any cool stories, I will try to be a better missionary this week, so I can tell you about them.  I love you all though, and am grateful for your support, I will pray for all of you, and thank you for your prayers.  Have an amazing week.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Another Week Down (11-2-15)

Bom Dia Minha Familia e Meus Amigos,

So this was a Great week but this will be a short week because the internet really sucks.  But yeah, this week was a good week of super hard work.  We spent a ton of time finding, and didn’t have a ton of success.  But we have like 3 families that are all legally married and they are all accepting visits.  Unfortuately they are a little more difficult in terms of accepting the truth.  But they are starting to feel the spirit and I know that they will do good eventually.  We also had a crazy miracle last night.  We ran into this woman named Berta Nhambire and she is a member.  She was baptized in Portugal in 1992, which makes her one of the oldest members in the entire country of Mozambique, a pioneer for sure.  But she has her husband, Gomes who is a member of the roman catholic church.  They are legally married, so that is good, but he is very hard against the church.  I have faith though that the spirit can touch him though, and ask for your prayers for the two.  Other than that we knocked a lot of doors, and we just did normal missionary work.  So I want to take a minute though and shout out my mom.  Last week was her birthday, I wont say her age because it doesn’t matter.  But I planned a surprise with my aunt, or I would have given this shoutout last week.  But I just want to, as publicly as my little group email will allow, publicy tell the world how great she is.  She has been my support and I love her so much.  The talks from Conference about moms definitely made me really mom trunky because I miss her so much.  She definitely fits the descriptions of those angel mothers to the letter and I am so grateful for her.  I know I was a punk about it before the mission, but I am and will always be a mommas boy, and she is my momma.  So if you see her, give her a million hugs for me. Anyways, I am gonna finish now so I can get to your personal emails, I hope you all have an amazing week, please send your prayers, I definitely need them.  I miss and love you all soooooooo much. 

With my Love,

Elder Anthony Holt 

Bom Dia (10-26-15)

Meus Queridos, 

This has been a fun week.  By fun I mean the type of fun that I enjoy in starting an area with absolutely nothing and just figuring out how to find and teach people.  It ended up being really productive and the lord blessed us a lot.  I am in a super wealthy area, it is amazing.  I rang a doorbell for the first or second time in my mission.  Acutally like 20.  But it is super cool.  Our area in a period of about a ten minute walk turns from normal rural mozambique to like some of the nicest houses I have seen in my entire life.  It was super cool.  I am grateful because a lot of the families we found were legally married, and they all seem very elect.  We had an amazing experience.  The whole time I have been on my mission I have been really struggling because I feel like I wasnt feeling the spirit.  I went and evaluated everything, from unworthyness, to lack of testimony, to making myself the exception to the rule that the fruits of the spirit come to everyone, and all that because I didn't feel overwhelmed in the spirit.  In this battle I went through and evaluated everything, and fixed everything that seemed broken, but for some reason the spirit still wasnt overwhelming me like I had felt before in my life.  I have never prayed harder, and in some of the times I honestly felt that my prayers went unheard, that I was the exception to the rule, that I had screwed up to bad, or that I was based on a lie.  It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  But, when I fixed what was wrong in my testimony, in my work, when I rebuilt what I knew I expected to feel a flood of the spirit, and it wasnt there.  I started feeling better though a few months ago and finally decided that if it was real, God would tell me eventually, and I would know.  I finally in a Zone Conference 2 weeks ago was translating when I had the thought fill my mind, "Just because you are not overwhelmed by the spirit doesn't mean it isn't there."  So for these last few weeks I have made a serious resolve to always look inward when I teach to see if I could feel the spirit.  As I did so I started to realize that it is there.  It is always there.  When we are in an environment where the spirit can reside, those of us who have been baptized and confirmed by proper authority of God, which exists in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Our lives literally change.  We receive a constant comforter, and friend, that even when we stop believing in him because he isnt making himself so obvious to us that we cant ignore him, he is there, he is subtle, but he is always there.  I realized this as I was teaching a Restoration lesson, one I know like the Back of my hand, when our investigator prayed, in the middle of the lesson, when he asked God if it was true, and after the silence I looked into his eyes, and I didnt even have to ask, because I knew that he had recieved his answer.  I am so grateful for the time I have in this short mission of mine to learn and love, and live.  It is something that has changed my life, and I can not describe how grateful I am for it.  I love every single one of you and wish that those of you who dont share this happiness that comes from this gospel might open your hearts to the message, I promise it will change your life.  It is also my prayer that those of us who know this message, who have this good news, might not keep it in, there are billions of people in this world who do not know that God is our loving heavenly father, that Jesus is the Christ, the redeemer of mankind, and savior of the world.  That through him and by him, we can become eternal beings living and loving forever with those who we truly love.  I know that these thing are true, and as we open our mouths, even to someone who doesnt appear to be the "mormon type" they will be touched because what we teach is not a new doctrine, it wont be the first time they hear it. But because of the Veil a loving heavenly father has placed in our minds, we our the only way they have to remember it.  I love every one of you, and pray for you every day.  I ask for your prayers.  The work is hard, and I need them so badly.  Know that you are always in mine, and that I pray for your well-being.

Ate La no Ceu,

Elder Anthony James Holt

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...