YOMO; Work Hard, Eat Hard (10-24-16)

Family and the rest of you all on my email list that I love(and those that just open this email and then close it, so your phone will stop showing that you have unread mail)...  First off, I love you, and second off, this has been a pretty darn good week, and me and Elder Payne made our companionship goals, but I will get there, so just be patient, haha.  Well this week has been a good week, but also a roller coaster of a week, that is blissfully stressful, haha, I hope that makes sense.  We are just working our hardest, and we are finding some of the most elect people I have ever met in my mission, it is freaking sweet.  We have been trying to apply something president taught and work in what we call smaller-radius areas, so basically, we just get a pencil and draw a circle that is all of the houses within a 15-30 minute walk of the chapel and we only work there.  At first we were nervous because everything in that are was apartment buildings, and that is where the richest people live, and in the mission there is a bad air about them.  But we decided, "hey, a bunch of people all close to each other, they should be a little more educated, and they wont beat around the bush if they don't want to progress, sounds efficient to us" so we bucked up in our faith and we got going.  Withing 2 days we had found some of the most elect people I have met in my whole mission.  For the sake of time I will tell you about one, her name is Sazia, she is super cool, and so we go in, it was her and her 18 year old brother.  She lets us in, and we were sitting down when I notice a ton of books that with authors I recognize, like WHAT THE HECK!!!! you never see that in Mozambique, she had artists like dan brown, agatha christie, nicholas sparks, the dude that wrote 50 shades of grey, and shakespeare, all in portugues.  I just about died, then we talked about books to lead into the gospel, turns out she has 3000 books, that is ridiculous.  Then she tells us she is engaged to a guy from Liverpool, England, who is in Cabo Del Gado working.  Finally we teach the restoration, and the we were just so enveloped in the spirit that it was impossible to deny, she is so in love in reading that I gave her my personal copy of the triple combo to read until we can get her her own copy of the book of mormon.  Then we come back the next day, she has already read the first four chapters of the Book of Mormon and then she asked how many times we had read it and Elder Payne said 5 or 6 and she responds, "Well I am going to read it 12 times, just to beat you"  This happened Friday, and Saturday and then she comes to church, and in spite of a feedback filled sacrament meeting and a ton of noise, she feels the spirit super strong and starts crying.  In gospel principles she read the lesson in the manual and understood it better than the teacher, I am so in awe writing this at how many miracles I have seen in the last few days.  But she is super real.  My area is dope, so many people came to church, I love my comp, I love this work, God lives and I know that this is true.

Now to our comp goals

1-Work Hard, Eat Hard- i.e. the pictures of us at the nice restaurants

2-YOMO-You only mission once

3- I shouldnt send this one via email, sorry

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH,

Elder Holt

So like as part of our YOMO attitude, as well as Work Hard, Eat Hard, Elder Payne and I went to this restaurant called the Fish Market where we picked out the fish we wanted and then they cooked it up for us.  We got shrimp, squid, and this fish that I think is called grouper... 

Here's the pictures: 

p.s. i love you all

Elder Holt & Elder Payne

What the pho?... (10-17-16)

I hope someone got my subject line joke, but if not, I will explain it a little bit better.  So like BIG NEWS!!!! Out of nowhere on wednesday after our meetings with president, he asked to Interview me and Elder Mataveis.  Elder Mataveis went first, and while he was in there I was washing my hands when a thought/feeling/knowing came to me, not strong, but very vivid, that I would not be companions with Elder Mataveis anymore.  Then, I went into my interview, and lo and behold, it happened.  President decided out of the blue to give Elder Mataveis an experience in Swaziland, and we would be changing immediately, and that my new comp would be Elder Payne, who is one of my best friends on the mission.  So that changed happened, on friday, it was sad to see Elder Mataveis go, but I am super excited to be here with Elder Payne, and we are going to do very good things together.  So that brings me to my subject line, in Maputo there is a vietnamese restaurant that sells pho (fuh), it is like vietnamese noodle soup, and it is super good, so we tried it, I have had it a few times in the states, so I was super excited to see if the one here was any good.  And it was the bomb, and the name of the restaurant, was Little Vietnam.  So we were two americans, eating vietnamese food, in africa it was pretty nice.  Our area is going very well though, the investigators we have our nice, now we are just trying to find more investigators.  We have a young woman named Rassane, she is the daughter of a member family that is super strong, they are famous, they were on the back inside cover of the conference edition for May 2016.  But we are teaching her, she is educated, and understanding.  She is having difficulties, because she feels that because she believes in the things we teach, that if she prays for an answer she will get a yes, just because that is what she believes, and that God wouldnt say no.  Her other concern, is that the fact that the church is true would mean that her church that she has believed and trusted in for her whole life is not true.  They are rather deep concerns compared to what we usually get, so that is good, and I feel that we have been able to help, and she has been super open with us, so that is awesome.  I am really excited for her, but she definitely needs your prayers. We had a baptism on saturday, and today we had a big activity on the beach and played volleyball, and soccer.  I am sorry we have had some problems today to deal with so internet is short, and I will be dealing with typical maputo problems as the internet here is not very great.  I love you all very much and hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Holt

Elder Holt & Elder Payne

Wassup Fam (10-10-16)

Well let me get my trunky comment out of the way, so I no longer have triple digits left, I have less than one hundred days, but I am not counting, just thought I would let that out.  This was a good week.  I was on division a ton.  President asked us to divide with the zone leaders in the 2 zones 4 times each over the next two transfers, so we are working on that, and I was on division for three days, but that was fun.  I got to meet some new elders and go to some of my old areas.  In our area because we do not have many investigators that are progressing we have been finding, and so far nothing, but I am sure we will find something soon, we are exhausting all our resources, referrals, contacts, part member families, the only thing left is paying people to get baptized...  Things have been going well though, I am so tired though, I haven't been this tired since the beginning of my mission, I really hope I get adjusted soon.  We watched conference on saturday and sunday, it was good, I understood everything, but that much portugues will give anyone a headache, I enjoyed it though.  Also on Saturday I got to go to Matola and watch a former investigator get baptized.  I baptized her sisters 6 or 7 months ago, but this one didn't progress back then.  The thing is they didn't know that I was in Maputo, so it was a surprise, They started early, which is a miracle for here, and then when I walked in during the opening hymn the whole families jaws dropped, it was funny, the whole ward was surprised, and they couldn't focus on the hymn, I felt bad for being a distraction, but it was super cool to get to see her get baptized.  Other than that, I still haven't got a new camera, sorry mom, but I am trying.  I love you all and I love this gospel.

Love,

Élder Anthony Holt

The Hunt for a fujifilm battery continues... (10-3-16)

I am sure my mom is just heartbroken to read that subject line as once again I am without pictures, sorry!!! but I have made a little progress, in that I have a member that knows where to look and who can look full time looking for me, so that is good.  Since last week I came back from swaziland.  That was fun, but like I really would be ok if President Changed his mind and sent me to Swazi, it is super nice down there, i love Maputo and Mozambique, but swazi was just awesome.  This week has been our first week in the area this transfer, so that is nice.  It is really hard being in the 3rd week of the transfer and still not really knowing your area, or anyone in the ward, but it is ok, because I havent been able to, due to being away, but finally I am getting to know the area a little bit.  We really dont have any investigators, so we need to do something about that.  It is kind of frustrating.  When I got to Nampula there was nothing, but when I left, they had a ton of people to teach and baptize, and it has been the same story with almost all of my areas, I am always a finder it seems like, but I have three transfers here to do my best to get some baptisms, and hopefully a working camera along the way.  Other than normal work, we did get invited to go to presidents house and sister koch made a brazillian feijoada, (black beans, and pork, and sausage, and beef, and all kinds of other really good meat).  I love feijoada, there is a brazillian style, and a mozambican style, but I think I like the brazillian style more, I have only had it a few times on the mission, but it is super good.  I think I also realized why I never liked beans all that much before the mission. Because in america we only eat the canned processed beans, and they arent all that good, but when you get the beans and boil them and cook them yourself, even though it takes way longer it tastes a billion times better.  That same day as we got into the area the senior couple called us and invited us to come over to watch the first session of conference with them, live,  IN ENGLISH!!!! Well my comp wasnt too keen on watching in english, so we did a split with another dupla that had an english speaker and a portuguese speaker, it was nice, i really enjoyed Elder Ucthdorfs talk, and afterward sister kimball made us Enchiladas, I almost cried, i dont think I have eaten that good in one day my entire mission, it was supposed to be fast sunday, but with all the good food it was worth it to postpone the fast one day.  But we are just in the struggle of getting investigators that actually want to learn and progress, but we gon find them, I aint worried.  Have a good week, and I love you all.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt

A week of Zone Conferences 2.0 (9-26-16)

So this week we had zone conferences again.  They were really good.  We had our conference in Maputo on Tuesday, and Swaziland on friday.  So we started the week out coming down from beira and getting ready for conference on Tuesday, we divided both monday and tuesday nights as we had two missionaries waiting to travel that had no area to work in.  Then on wednesday we had a basically normal day, and then we got in the car and drove to Swaziland on thursday morning.  We are still in swaziland and will be driving out this afternoon.  The conferences in Maputo and Swazi went a lot better, and I was very happy with both of them.  Sunday I went to church in english and that was just a thrill.  I am doing well, really tired.  all of these conferences and constant changes really are giving me a beating.  It doesn't help that almost all of my best freinds from the whole mission live in the complex we stayed in in swaziland, so that hampered a little bit of my sleep, haha.  It has been super good to be with those guys again as we haven't been able to talk much since we can't call inter-countries over here, but all is going well.  On our drive down we were a little frustrated.  As missionaries we have to have a workers visa, we call it a Dire, for safety reasons though, we rarely carry, or ever see our dire, we just walk we a notarized copy of it, which is good for everything, including air travel, everything that is except for crossing the swaziland border, and my companion is from Mozambique, so he just needed his passport, but for me, they wouldn't let me leave the country until they saw I was legal to be in the country, strange right? But we got to the border, and they were not going to let me leave, so we had to wait two hours until one of the senior couples could bring my document out, but it all worked out.  The cool part was that the road that comes into the border runs through a game reserve, and just driving through we got to see a giraffe, I spotted it too. I was trying to to get distracted looking for animals, but my companion wasn't looking for any, and I know that you usually see animals if you pay attention, so I payed attention a little bit to the road, but I wouldn't be surprised if we missed others on the side, oh well...The worst part is my camera is still not working so we couldn't take pictures.  I did figure out what is wrong with it, it is just really hard to get a fujifilm battery here in africa.  We did however  have an awesome time in Swaziland. I am convinced it looks just like flagstaff, we were high in the mountains, there was a lot of clouds and for a while we were driving through the middle of a cloud, that was sure exhilarating for my first week driving in a year and a half.  We have enjoyed the niceness of swaziland, and I have really enjoyed my time, I really would like to have served here, but it isn't possible.  The people already gave me a swazi (seswati) name, it is siboniso, (See-bow-knee-so) it means example.  Teaching in english has been weird, but I really enjoy it, it is really nice to preach in my own language.  Swazi also has a super special spirit.  I have watched probably 10+ zone conferences in my mission, but without a doubt this zone conference here in Swazi was the most spiritual. The missionaries here are awesome, and I know they are going to do great things during their missions.  It is almost sad because I know I really won't get to see these awesome missionaries do some of the great things that I know they will do.  I am grateful for what I have learned and now I need to go and apply it to my area in Maputo.  I love you all and I am grateful for your love and support.  I hope you have a great week or as they say here in swaziland, have a blessed week.

Love,

Elder Holt 

I'm Tired... (9-19-16)

I can't think of a better way to describe what I am feeling other than pure exhaustion.  This was a great week, but I am dead, and I am scared to see how much more tired I will be after this coming week.  Then hopefully I will be able to calm down and just do regular missionary work for a change.  Last week we spent all the time with the new missionaries it seemed.  We picked them up tuesday night and wednesday morning.  It was super fun, they are all super excited to be here and I think they will do great.  After that we gave them a training.  Because of the rush of things I never really got trained on how to give them the training and the last time I saw it was when I came into the mission.  But because of the lack of time and the fact we had to give the training in two languages I gave it to the americans in english and my companion in portugues to the brazillians.  That evening I walked with Elder Goes and Anjos as they were waiting to go to zone conference in beira, that was a lot of fun, Elder Goes is going to Nampula so I really enjoyed getting to tell him all about my favorite area ever.  We flew up to beira on thursday morning.  That was fun, we had some divisions.  I walked with Elder Combs(My first trainee, now a  Zone Leader), Elder Morris(From St. Georgeish), Elder Fuchs, and Elder Ribeiro.  They were all fun divisions, and I enjoyed getting to work with different missionaries, and also getting to work in Beira for the first and probably last time, haha.  We had zone conference on Friday, I enjoyed it, we talked about working with members and we brought the stake president to come and help us with some role-playing.  It gave them a more real feel, and I think it was valuable.  The zone leaders gave similar trainings to ours, and I really hope that the mission can faithfully apply what we talked about, it is a super basic principle, but I think that it can make a big difference if faithfully applied.  On sunday we had District conference in Manga, that was good, it was kind of weird as it was my first time watching a sunday meeting in a ward that I am not assigned to work in, but I enjoyed it and I am super excited to see the progress in Manga and hope that the Zone up there can keep it up and get the Stake we have a goal for.  The good thing is that all of the requirements that we missionaries can effect have already been met.  Now we just need the district to meet the requirements that it affects i.e. tithing and such.  They are super close though so remember the manga stake in your prayers.  Tomorrow we will have Zone Conference in Maputo, it will be fun to go back to matola for the first time since I left 6 months ago.  Then we will have a normal day on wednesday, fingers-crossed, and thursday I will drive Elder Mataveis and myself down to swaziland, it will be a good time, please pray that I can make it safely, I am not worried, but it is the first time I have made a trip this long in a while.  I am super happy with what I am doing, I am learning every day.  I hope you all have a good week.  Also pray that I find a new battery for my camera, my camera will not turn on, or charge and I think it is the battery, but I hope that it is just the battery and not the camera.  But I love and miss you all and am grateful for your support.

Love,

Elder Holt

I am in my 14th transfer, what the freaking heck... (9-12-16)

So either revelation has ceased in the church or the Lord though he would play a joke on me (Joking)...  I got called as the Assistant to President Koch.  So really I have known about this for a few weeks know, but for fear that if I told you all, president would change his mind I waited until I was actually down here.  But so I am back here in maputo learning what an assistant does.  Last tuesday I spent hand washing my clothes as our washer had broken, then drying, then we ran to correlation, and I ran home and packed my half-dry clothes up, and first thing wednesday I was off.  When I landed we went to eat at this hotel, it was nicer than anything I had seen for 6 months, I felt really uncomfortable, Thursday we had a meeting and the office couple took us to lunch at the fish market, they had gone earlier in the day and bought a ton of shrimp and fish and paid someone to cook it all, and they took all the staff to lunch.  Friday I learned how to drive, but it turns out I am illegal to drive so I expedited an international license because I need to be driving, but yeah.  It is super crazy here, everything is on the right side, so I had to adjust, also the hardest part is that the blinker is on the right side, and so I always accidentally turn the wipers on.  Other than all this learning stuff we had a baptism on Saturday, and we have started prepping our zone conference trainings.  We were up at 4h30 this morning to take a missionary to the airport and we will be traveling the next two weeks for zone conference.  All in all I am enjoying myself, I thought I was tired with normal work, but now I am just exhausted, I love you all, and hope you have a good week.  Sorry this week there is no pictures, I packed my charger and haven't been able to unpack yet, so I will send some next week, but I sent you 75 last week so it is ok.

Love,

Elder Anthony Holt