well like wow... (2-8-16)

So yeah, it has been a year since I sent my first one of these, so that is pretty cool.  But other than that not much changed.  To celebrate my year mark, I did.... nothing.  So yeah, it just kind of came and went.  But, yeah, I had probably the longest, hardest days of my mission the day before, so I was just wasted on the actual day.  But we did find some cool people to teach on that day, so what better way to celebrate.  Yeah, I had a division with the zone leaders on tuesday, and I was with elder ellingson, he like me really enjoys walking.  So naturally we walked... alot.  But even for us walkers, we were dead at the end of the day.  We went out at 10 and started working.  And we got really far out, and so it was kind of stupid to go back for lunch, because it would have wasted like 2.5 hours, so we ate out in the area, KFC woot woot.  I realized that something is wrong with us missionaries, becuase we both bought a family meal each and then a 2 liter of coke, and we ate it, at it was good, but like I think I still could have eaten more, haha.  Normally you walk out of a lunch like that with a stomach so full it hurts, but I walked out, burped and was ready to go.  Elder Ellingson goes home in a few weeks, and said he is going to miss being set apart as a missionary, because when you are set apart you can litterally eat anything and still be a little hungry, haha.  We missionaries know how to eat.  But then we had a full day of work afterwards, and skipped our language study, finally we had a lesson go a little long and then the chapas were bad, so we got home like 5 minutes late. it was the hottest day of the year, and it was work, but it felt really good to do it.  Except for the little sunburn I got, which was the first I have had in like 9 months.  But then we had a good week teh rest as well.  Especially on sunday.  MENDES FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!  I was super bummed out because we found a ton, but no one came, and then as I walked out I saw mendes, and I honestly just about cried.  But yeah, that night we sat with him and his family and his wife and daughters already have super strong testimonies, and so we revised the restoration and then we all bore testimony to him.  And then at the end I said, "Now Mendes, everyone here has testified that they know it is true, and they have testified of the blessings of it, so would you like to know as well?" he said yes and I said, "Well then what you are going to do is get on your knees right now and ask the Lord if Joseph smith was a prophet."  We got down on our knees he prayed very humbly, and asked if Joseph was a prophet or not.  And I will say there is no better feeling than being able to tell him how he is feeling, becuase the spirit is telling you how he feels, and helping him Identify the spirit.  He is still a stubborn man but it was a great experience.  I was given a testimony of fasting again, becuase I have never had such hard fast as that one, but I would do it a million times again to help these people see why this is important.  I know this work is real, and I am grateful that the Lord Trusts me to take part in it.  I miss you and love you all so much, have an amazing week.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

So its been a year... (2-1-16)

Since so many of you decided to remind me of the fact that it has been a year, I just decided to make it m subject line.  this year has been filled with ups and downs, mostly ups though, but they all say I am on the downhill now.  A lot of you asked if I would be doing anything to celebrate my year, so here it is.  When I was packing for my mission I put 8 white shirts and 8 pairs of Underwear in a space bag and sealed it.  I will be opening it on thursday morning.  Other than that I dont plan on doing anything.  In our mission we dont burn anything, it is kind of a waste to be honest, I know many people that would kill for a white shirt, even a dirty one.  But yeah, I also might go eat like 6 krushers at kfc, it is basically a oreo milkshake, it is pretty nice.  But yeah, I will be working though.  Other than that, this week was good.  Unfortunately we got home from email last week, and Elder Sharpe took a nap, and when I woke him up to get ready to go out, he wasnt feeling to well, poor guy had a pretty high fever.  But we let him rest, and he is doing great now, but the week was pretty slow.  I did get to have some good time to read the scriptures, and such.  the doctrice and covenants is pretty dope.  I am recognizing a lot of things that never stuck out to me before the mission.  But I also read some really good talks on being bold, and it was basically revelation.  I have been having a really hard time lately with teaching,because I feel like it doesnt matter how many times I repeat the same things over and over, and how simply I explain things the investigators dont understand.  But I read a transcript from a former district president in the mtc and he said, explain to them how to pray and exactly how they are going to do it and what they will say (thanks for the missionaries, thanks for this new knowledge, is it true, did joseph smith really restore the true church, etc...)  then you just get on your knees and say, alright, you need this prayer more than I do, so you are going to say it. We used that technique once this week, and it worked, now we just have to help the rest of this family, they are super busy and a pain to sit with, but it will work out.  I also had a really cool experience this week.  So on saturday we passed by an investigator and taught them, his wife though had had something wrong with her, and was in so much pain that she couldnt even stand, not even sit hardly, I felt we should explain preisthood blessings, and so we did, and she wanted one.  So we were preparing, and as I would be offering the blessing I was praying really hard in m heart to know what I could say.  I asked Heavenly Father if I could heal her, and I felt a very strong confirmation, and so we gave the blessing. In it I remember blessing her to be healed, and quickly after we talked I remember asking her if she had faith that Jesus christ could heal her, and she moaned yes, and i felt very strongly that I could command her to sleep and she would be healed when she woke up, and we passed by the next morning, and she was up and about, super happy.  Unfortunately not even that was enough to encourage her and her husband to come to church, but it was definitely a cool experience.  But yeah, other than that I have just been doing the normal stuff.  I miss and love you all.  Please have a fantastic week.  

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

I could put my week number, but who cares, counting is for the trunky... (1-25-16)

So I promise I am not trunky at all, but it seems like everyone else is pretty trunky for me, they all like to remind me that I am at my year mark almost, but my comp has even counted the days for me, haha.  He just does it to mess with me though, he knows better than to be trunky, becuase I will out trunk him every day.  So this week was a blast.  We got to work, and we had a transmission from the members of the missionary board.  It was really cool.  Elder Andersen spoke to start, and he mentioned that this next month he and sister andersen would be visiting The Congo, Zambia, and Moçambique.  Right after this the connection cut out for a minute and President turned around and says to everyone, So I would say that counts as confirmed right?  President is super funny, he is very strong but humble man, and he is always joking with people about something or another.  He likes to poke fun at me for my hair, the other day at zone conference we were getting a training from one of the senior couples about finances, and they mentioned that mission money could be used for personal grooming item, and president was sitting behind us, and say, "Elder Holt, you can't use it on hair gel though"  Then later in the day, he went up to Elder Sharpe and pulls out his comb and starts combing his hair, and says to a missionary next to him, "Hey do think I could get my hair to look like elder sharpes"  and then asks how long it takes him to use a thing of gel, to which president responds, "You got to talk to Elder Holt and tell him to train you better."  It was all really funny, President is a fantastic person.  This week elder sharpe and I suffered a lot of frustration.  We have a goal of averaging 5 lessons a day, which is super possible in our area, hard, but possible. But this week it seemed like all of our confirmed lessons fell, but the surprise ones worked out, so we just stopped calling and finally hit a 6 lesson day.  Our investigators are doing well.  I would like to ask for special prayers for an investigator named Mendes Fijomba.  He is the father of a fantastic family.  They are all progressing well, but he has been open to our visits but closed to change.  We think he isnt understanding well, but his family has progressed excessively, and they are ready and willing to do anything to get baptized, but without him, we cant baptize them.  So he needs all of your help.  But I am learning little by little this week, about a lot of things.  But especially praying with more sincerity.  I joke with my companion, that while most people prefer prayers like a long-distance quick call, I prefer skype session prayers.  But I am learning that prayer is really a communication with our Father in Heaven, and if we will shut our mouths/minds for a little bit he always has some pretty profound things to say.  I have also had a reinforcing of my testimony of repentance, in an experience more sacred to I prefer to share via email, I have come to know that my savior died for me.  And I can say like one of my favorite hymns, "I tremble to know that for me He was crucified."  I am not perfect nor close, but I am in the painful and fulfilling process of perfection and purification.  It isnt easy, but it cant be, and I testify that Jesus Christ is who He say He is.  He did what He says He did, and through and by Him and Him alone, can we be clean from sins, and enjoy all the blessing of the eternal gospel of the Lord.  That is my testimony, and I know it is true.  It has come from a billion frustrations, and countless nights on my knees, endless heartaches a little homesickness, and a lot of inadequacy, and with the time I have had so far, this has been a recipe for my testimony.  I am here because of the unrepayable debt I owe to him.  And I also know something my mom taught m with cooking, but I will apply it to testimonies.  It has a lot more flavor if you cook it slower and really take care of it. It is the seed spoken of in Alma 32, there is know better analogy to a testimony.  And as you will notice in the scriptures, the fruits of the testimony, are more abundant than the roots.  So have a faith filled week.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

I think this is week 51, so I am back on track now... (1-18-16)

So yeah, this has been a good week, I was all excited after transfers because I was staying in my house and everything when I get a call from the zone leaders, saying that because of the way the districts had been divided, even though we all kept our comps and areas, because I was the district leader of mozal, we would be moving houses to the Matola Kings apartment. But yeah, so we moved on thursday, it was really good it was depressing, I really loved my house, especially the elders in the house, but the new apartment, is sweet.  It is the nicest housing in the mission other than the sisters, so I feel really spoiled.  But yeah, other than that nothing changed.  On wednesday we had a chapel cleaning for zone conference that was alright, I got on bathroom duty, but I am grateful for my mom, who taught me how to clean bathrooms, well, and my time at chic-fil-a where I learned how to do it fast.  But it is a weird anomaly here in mozambique, back home it is always the mens bathroom that is disgusting, but it is polar opposites,  I have never seen a bathroom grosser, than a mozambiquan womans bathroom, but long-suffering right, elder payne and I just started hucking water everywhere and then we mopped it into the drains, haha.  But on thursday we had zone conference, that was a blast.  It is always good to get training from president, and the other mission leaders.  They announced/explained our new mission plan, it is super good, and I am very excited for the success we will see with it.  They talked about last minute efforts a lot, and it was weird because I kept having the thought in my mind, "What would you be willing to give for your testimony" anyways that continued for a few days, and then the next day we were teaching a family about repentance and the law of chastity, and the thought comes, "how can you ask someone to give up thousands of years of tradition, you are only 19 years old"  finally yesterday we were teaching a less active member about the day of the lord, and the reason he wasn't coming to church, was because he said if he didn't work on sunday he would not have anything to buy food for his family.  and i told him he needed to trust the lord, and the thought comes "how can you ask him to give up food for his family" as we were walking to our next lesson, I was reflecting on these things, and I remembered a good friend of mine from the mission, who was telling me the story of when a friend of his asked how he could give up his life to serve a mission.  And it finally hit me, I knew, as a former member of the seventy said, "There is no medical or scientific advancement, that will save africa, no government is good enough, this continent, and this people will be healed by one thing and one thing only; the gospel of Jesus Christ"  I know that that is true, it is something that solidified for me this week.  I love these people so much, they are the happiest, most humble, friendly people you will ever meet in your life.  And they are impoverished, but I know that I have the one thing that will save them, and I know it will because I have seen it save so many of their brethren.  That is the gospel of jesus christ, it is real, and it is as real as ever.  How can I ask a woman to give thousands of years of marriage traditions up, because I know that there is a better tradition, an eternal one, how can I ask a man to give up a day to earn food for his family, to pay ten percent of what he earns, because I know that if he does the Lord will open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing so great he will not have room enough to receive it.  What would I be willing to give for my testimony, how can I give this part of my life away,  it is simple, because as sure as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, I am positive that this gospel is real, that we, the most sinful people of all can be forgiven of our trespasses against the lord, and that we can become clean, clean enough that we can be together with our families for all eternity.  I will give my life for this testimony, and the lord isn't asking that I die for it, but he has asked that I give these two years, and I will,  at this time in the middle, I have looked back on a lot of things I have learned, a lot that I am not proud of, but I know that the gospel is real, and for that this next year, can be even better.  But we dont need a time of transition to make these decisions, I invite all of you to evaluate where you are with your conversion, and more importantly your consecration to the lord, and make a decision now to be better, because you have not gone too far away, nor are you the one exception in billions, of imperfect children, healed by an infinite atonement, Let Him in, let him change your life, and through you change the lives of so many others, this is what I learned this week, and I hope that you will all pray for me that this lesson will stick, because I need it, and I pray that you will all receive it as well, because it feels so good.  I love and miss you all, but I will be MISSion you all for the little time that I have left to help these people among whom I have but a little time.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Hey, ya'll its Elder Holt's Weekly Email (1-11-16)

Hey, so in case you didnt know this Elder Holts weekly email.  This was a great week, and we are doing work.  The transfers happened, and I will be staying in Mozal B with Elder Sharpe. But I will be the District Leader, so that is interesting, they dont have any manuals or anything on that, but hey, why not wing it?  But this week was super hot, it got above 40 degrees every day until friday.  Then we had some weird indescisive rain, haha.  But it is only going to get hotter.  We were able to find some new investigator families.  Unfortunately, they didnt come to church.  That has been one of the biggest challenges my whole mission, is getting people to come.  The weird thing is that once you get someone to come once they dont usually miss again.  But lately we get people to come 1,2,3 times and then they just stop, it is definitely a mental/spiritual headache.  But it is all good.  We had a cool experience with an investigator this week.  So he lives on the edge of our area, like 1.5hrs by chapa.  And when we get to the stop, we get out and I looked at Elder Sharpe and we both said to each other, "I think we found Africa..."  But anyways, we get all the way out there and we call the guy to figure out how to get to his house, and his phone was turned off.  We had confirmed the lesson before we got on the chapa, so we were super ticked, but for some reason instead of turning around like we normally would, it just seemed to make sense to start walking(which makes zero sense with as busy as we are) and so we did.  I called the dude for like 25 minutes while we were walking, and nothing.  Finally we here someone say Elder and we turn our heads, and this guy comes up and says, I am Iazim, I am Iazim, how did you find my house.  So we found the dudes house and taught him, as if that wasnt cool enough, we found out that a year ago, the elders visited him, just once, but they left a book of mormon, and challenged him to read and pray, and he did.  And he kept reading and praying because he believed his answer would come in the form of a dream, and after like 6 months, he read, prayed, and that night he had a dream, of his father, preaching to a bunch of people saying that the Book of Mormon was the word of God.  He took that as his answer, and we were the first missionaries to get to visit him in a while.  Suffice it to say, we gave him a baptismal date, and we will work and pray for the best with him.  Other than that we were able to talk to another family about the law of chastity, and they accepted it without a problem, their biggest concern was that there baby would have a hard time being away from its mother during the marriage ceremony.  We also have another family showing a lot of potential, and both familes andpossibly a 3rd will be baptized on the 20 of February, and cool thing, on the 20 of february, Elder Neil L. Andersen is going to come visit Maputo, and just maputo, supposedly we will get a meeting with just him, the 40 missionaries in the 2 zones, and Elder Ellis of the 70.  So yeah, that is exciting, so Elder Sharpe and I are working especially hard to get these families to the 20th, just because there is the absolute smallest of a chance that maybe an apostle could watch the baptisms.  But yeah, please send your prayers, we need them really bad.  But I am doing well.  I turned 19 no problems, thank you all for the birthday wishes.  I know what I am doing is real, and I am so grateful for all the support from every single one of you.  Have a fantastic week.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Also, in case you were wondering what the scriptures mean when they say Long-Suffering, it is literally that.  Suffering for a Long Time, we figured that out this week...

Well it has been like a year since the last time I wrote... (1-4-16)

Sorry, that subject was a little bit cheesy, but all is going well here in mocambique.  To be honest, we are all a little confused, there is something weird going on with transfers, and none of us know what to expect, they were supposed to happen today, but nothing did, so I guess we will see.  I will be at least one more day in Matola.  But the new year was fantastic.  We had to come in at 17h00 but it was good, some family members sent me money to go out, but instead I used it to buy a huge pot of Matapa, and 3 chickens, and rice and xima, so instead of having a good lunch out with my comp our whole house had a nice feast.  Plus we had leftovers so we didnt have to cook.  But it was also very good to relax a little bit that day and get ready for the year, 2016 is going to be crazy, so I think I needed it.  But to relax, we ate and played risk, which I one from a crazy disadvantage, but that isn't super spiritual so I wont talk about it.  This week has gone well with teaching, it is weird, on the mission it seems like the opposite of real life, because in real life if you truly give something all your heart, might, mind, and strength you turn out all right, but here on the mission, it seems like the hardest weeks of work, when you teach a crazy amount of lessons, or do a ton of contacts are the worst weeks for new investigators, and investigators in church.  But that probably doesn't make any sense to any of you except the missionaries, and RMs.  But I have continued trying to focus less on the numbers and more on the investigators, so as much as I try to miss you all, I end up getting distracted because for some reason you can tell a man so clearly that he is breaking a commandment, but he wont do anything about it, and not because he is ignorant, or rebellious, just because he doesn't understand you.  It is very interesting, I think I am part of very few missions where you learn a new language, and with hard work you end up speaking the language better that the natives.  Dont get me wrong, Brazillian and Portuguese missionaries will probably speak better than me when I get home, but I am saying this with all the humility in my capacity, I speak better Portuguese than most people here, and it is so frustrating.  I have become a super anti dialect person.  It is cool, but I see all these families that I love so much held back because they will not learn Portuguese above an 8th grade level, and they revert to dialect, so instead of getting good jobs, they all sell stuff on the side of the road, or work in little farms, and barely make enough to get one more day.  It is super sad, but it has made me learn to be more grateful for all that I have.  And especially when I see people making sacred covenants with the lord.  There is not much better than that, so we just have to work Maningue hard this transfer to get there.  But I listened to a really good talk from Elder Holland the other day called Remember Lots Wife, it was about facing the future with hope.  Which is something I really need.  I have learned here on the mission that I am really not all that much.  Most days I am running on empty, Physically, Spiritually, Mentally, and Emotionally.  And I dont have a reserve tank.  But there always seems to be just enough fumes in the tank to get me to the next Tender Mercy, and that is a tender mercy in itself.  I know that God is aware of us, and no matter how hard we try to cement him out, he will get a sunflower growing through the cracks to make us smile.  I might not always be running on full, but I do know that I am running, and I have to be thankful for that.  I challenge you all to recognize it, because that is where the happiness is.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

Happy New Years Week (12-28-15)

So, whats good my homies,  This has been a good week here in mozambique.  It was kind of slow because we losta lot of time with christmas, but it was still really good, especially talking to my family, so good that none of them emailed me, haha.  But I still love them.  This week Elder Sharpe and I got to dial in our area a little bit.  It is super frustrating we are walking so much becuase our area is HUGE.  But we did the math the other day, and if we have a day where no lessons drop, we get an average of 5 lessons.  But in the 7.5 hours we have in the area, we have to do four hours of studies, we spend 2 walking to and from our area to our house, we spend 3.5 walking/running between lessons, and we get a grand total of 2 hours to teach all of the people here about the gospel.  So we have had to learn to be really effective and patient.  It is really wierd because I am teaching and contacting less than I have ever done on my mission, but we have more families that are progressing than ever before.  So you can feel free to pray for them; Gabrial matilde and sara, slesio and lizy, Mendes and Maria, Alexandre and Linda, and Reginaldo and Fatima.  Either husband wife, or both have all come to church and they are all keeping their committments, we will work with 3 of them on the law of chastity this week, so feel free to pray for their faith.  Other than that, on christmas we had our party, singing, eating, watching its a wonderful life, and then playing risk until 22h30.  but it was super memorable.  I cant really think of much else too memorable to say, elder sharpe and I listened to teh forgotten carols, he hadnt heard them before so that was a good tradition to have out here.  But I love and miss you all and wish you a prosperous new year.  

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt