Week 74- Last week!!!!

Hello! This year and a half has just flown by! But I'm both excited and nervous to come home! And most especially excited to see my family. As a last update to you all I wanted to just tell you about how my testimony of the Savior has grown, I love this work and just being a missionary in general. :) Christ is the perfect example and he set that for us to follow. In EVERY thing he ever did. EVERYTHING. Even missionary work. Missionary work right now is being pushed so hard because the 2nd coming of Christ is getting closer. And even though all of us don't have the opportunity to be full time missionaries with a name badge. You can STILL be one! To everyone! You all have the opportunity to be a LIGHT in the DARK! Miracles happen everyday, if only you just believe! I've seen many, and many on my mission and I know that God is aware of it all. Here I've gained a true testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and his great and powerful and wonderful Atonement. Have you? If not, I suggest you study and really ponder on his teachings and how you can apply it in your personal life. Its so very powerful. I'm OH so grateful for the patterns and teachings I've learned on my mission and I want to continue to keep those as habits in my life. :) I've also learned the very important role of gratitude in ANY situation. Find the good in all we do, it only makes us happier! I think I'll just leave it at that, other wise Ill spoil my homecoming talk ;)

I love you all, see you soon!

♥, Sister Lindsay Holcomb 

Week 73, MIRACLES ARE FOR REAL!

Wow, just another one of those amazing weeks in this missionary bliss. :)

Monday was great! We had a really great FHE with a less active family and a member family. We taught about, 1 Nephi 4, and how faith can overcome doubt! Tuesday there was a storm, and it rained and hard! We got to our dinner, and we were just dripping, but it was fun!

Wednesday we had zone conference, that was quite the highlight of the week for sure, but it was also kind of a bummer because I was faced with the reality that I will be going home very soon. It all hit me at once, along with the spirit. But it was overwhelming. Haha. I was able to really understand the importance of my mission, though and understand how it has had a huge impact on not only the people that I have been able to serve, and bring into the gospel, but what a huge change has brought about to me personally.

I'm going to skip forward a few days, to Friday, we had a bunch of success. We did splits with the Laurels and were able to get a lot done. We also, had the chance to clean the church building/visitor reception center by the temple! So we got a rooftop picture with part of the zone that came to help clean! 

Saturday was the same, we got lots of lessons & were able to talk to a lot of people! Saturday we also had dinner with the Gallups and guess what?! They surprised us with SUSHI!!!! GLORIOUS! It was marvelous, considering I haven't had sushi in ages! :)

Sunday was a pretty great day too! We did the normal route to get everyone to church, and then headed to church for 3 hours. Had lunch with the Christensen's and then headed back to church! Super miracle though! We had 3 people at church, and they all want to take the lessons! Its so exciting to see the people that are prepared for the gospel :) We finished the night with going to the fireside with Linda! Miracle in itself! It was so great, the picture with Linda is with all the missionaries that have ever taught her in the past year :)

I love this gospel and blessings I see everyday as a missionary! I'm excited to come home and tell all of you the great and wonderful experiences I've had! :)

Have a great week! ♥

-Sister Holcomb

Week 72 - Stress, bring it on!

What a week! I'm feeling the angst as I'm coming closer to a close of my mission, I've never felt more compelled to do everything possible and smoosh everything possible into the day. It makes me feel sooo stressed out, but by the end of the day I cant help but be happy and content with being so tired from working my butt off!

Everyday feels like I just work a little harder, fill my brim off stress a little fuller, but its all worth it!  Tuesday we had quite the experience with an apostate (a member of the church that fell away because of misconceptions), we biked up to him, planning on talking to him about a gospel conversation, but he knew what was coming and stopped us in our tracks. He started telling us that he was a "used to be" member of the church and that he wanted to help us understand what was commonly misunderstood about the church. We tried to testifying to him about the truths that we knew, the Spirit was really working through my companion and I. It was definitely one of those scary experience, but it definitely strengthened my testimony, know the things that I knew!

Wednesday was a real refresher for me, TEMPLE DAY! My last temple trip with the missionaries in the zone! It was glorious! Period. It just confirmed to me, that this church is the true church, that God wanted Joseph Smith to restore to the earth again.

Thursday morning we got up and did some service, had a recent convert lesson with Alex about the temple and going to do baptisms for the dead and family history. We had dinner, made by the activity day girls from our ward, and we got to teach a lesson about missionary work. They asked lots of good questions and it was a blast!

Friday we planned, contacted and had a lesson with Tisha, one of our investigators that is really hard to get a hold of, we talked about the importance of going to church and reading scriptures. She had told us that the scripture that we had sent that morning was pure inspiration for what she needed. :)

Sunday was great! But one of those days where I just want to pull out my hair from being so overwhelmed! It was good though , don't get me wrong! :) We contacted people to wake em up for church, ward council, church for 3 hours.... A referral, named Ryan, came to church! Stopped by Cody B's, Brother Gallup and Graham gave him a priesthood blessing for comfort, he came to church too! Went to another 3 hours for church and than went home and took a tiny break. Had dinner at the Christensen's. They were going to have there friends who were interested in coming to church come over too, but that fell through. They were quite bummed. After dinner, we had a few people that we had appointments with. Meeka and Reagent fell through, they were sick :( Had a lesson with the Balls, taught them about the Restoration with the cups and then went to the millers and had a lesson with them as well!

Fun week! Talk to y'all later! Love you & thank you for all your support the past 18 months!

Sister Holcomb :)

P.S. It rained last night, so the Millers gave us ponchos! ;)

Week 71, Time is just passing too quickly....

This week zoomed by for us! We had our mini missionary until Wednesday night, and of course saw miracles up the WAZZUUU. Last Monday, we went to Trader Joes, which was AMAZING! All healthy food! ♥♥♥ We were able to see miracles everyday!

Thursday we contacted a lot, and we were able to have the opportunity to meet with families that have missionaries out! It was great, the finding idea that President Nattress had with the Apostolic promise, he wants us to apply to the missionaries that are out in the field from our wards.  We haven't been able to follow up yet, but we will be next week! :) Had the last lesson with Alex G. Before his baptism & headed home!

Friday was a little more fast of a day than we thought! It was quite the day, We had contacted some people, and then headed to planning. Dinner, then more contacting, but lots of fun because Sister Farmer and I made a game up to keep our minds occupied from the heat! haha.

SATURDAY! Probably one of the most glorious days of the week! We heard the alarm clock beep a little bit earlier because we got up and had a stellar time and a great turn out at the Ward Block Party Breakfast Feed! We had 25 non members come & 4 less active families show up! There were over 250 people there!

We ended the night with Alex's baptism! THE SPIRIT WAS SOO STRONG! I cant tell you enough times how much I love feeling that! There were many tears, and so much happiness, that was also a huge success because over 150 people were there as well! Alex had asked me to do the musical number for his baptism, so I played "Come Thou Fount" with my guitar, but it was so hot in the room that the guitar went out of tune, luckily the spirit was still there and I just sang louder so no one would notice ;) He is now confirmed and will be receiving the Priesthood next week! :)

Alex with his friend, Sean, that got to baptize him.

I can't tell you enough how much I love missionary work, and how much I want to stay longer! I love the feeling and the opportunity to serve the Lord, just a portion. I hope all of you find ways to strengthen and lift each other this week! I know that God is real and that he is aware of our needs. One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3; 5-7. If you don't know it, look it up! It will change the way you see or think about things! I know He loves each of us! Here's something really cool that I found when I was studying this morning :)

"We can choose to humble ourselves by....

- receiving counsel & chastisement

-by forgiving those who have offended us

-by rendering selfless service

-going on a mission and preaching the word that can humble others

-getting to the temple more frequently

-by confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God

-by loving God, submitting our will to His and putting Him first in our lives"

-Pres. Ezra T. Benson

Anyway, I thought this was interesting, but hopefully it changes your perspective on something! I love you all, have a great week! :)

-Sister Holcomb ♥

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-Sister Holcomb-

Gilbert AZ Mission

Week 70, I ain't trunky!! :P

 Hello everyone! This week was awesome!!!!!

Wednesday was my last transfer meeting, so I had to get pictures of course with my posterity! :) And a few other people!!  It was quite overwhelming because I wanted to just get pictures with everyone! But thankfully I got them!

Friday night, we went to the Gilbert Temple with Alex G. It was an awesome experience! We were able to talk to him about the symbolism about the different designs on the temple, we also talked about after he is baptized that he could come back to the temple and do the baptisms for the dead! He is so excited about that! We got fro-yo after and rode home in a convertible bug (his girlfriends) with the top down! That was so fun!

We found out on Wed. that we were getting a mini missionary, from the Desert Ridge stake (my last area). We got to get them on Sat.  There was tons of sisters from my last ward, but we ended up getting one from another ward, which is obviously okay, cuz they were all adorable. Anyway, President talked about all the miracles we would see with our minis and it truly has happened! We are currently preparing for a ward activity coming up, and everything has just been so smooth, stressful still, but its gone a lot smoother than we thought it would, MIRACLE!!

Anyway, the 2nd day with our mini we had church and 4 investigators were at church!!! We woke up, and stopped by a less active and 3 of the investigators and of course Alex G. (the one that's getting baptized this weekend) was there so that makes 4! MIRACLE!! Oh, forgot to mention that one of the investigators, (Alex S.) that we have been teaching has been struggling with his Dad not excepting the fact that he wants to join the church, so today after PC2 ward, he came up to us & said he wanted to finally talk to his Dad about getting baptized, well we were over at the fellowships house & they all talked with him and asked if he wanted a priesthood blessing for inspiration and peace on what to say to his dad. So brother Dinehart, gave the blessing and he felt it! MIRACLE!!  He went over and talked with his Dad, even though his Dad still wasn't going to budge, he knew what he still needed to do. He knew he still needed to attend church, read the scriptures and continue to do the things he knew were true until either his Dads heart softened or he was old enough to make his own decision. But again, the Spirit bore witness that why I'm here serving a mission is totally and completely worthy every hard time! And the spirit was so strong to bare witness to Alex as well!   

 After church we had dinner and went to a fireside called the mission presidents fireside & I was able to go for the first time in my entire mission (since we can only go with investigators) and Alex G. came! What a great fireside! The spirit was sooooo strong! Recent Converts get to speak and each of there stories were different, but beautiful as they each bore testimony that the things they were taught and the way they felt about the principles of the gospel were true! Alex G. was crying almost the whole fireside!  He is so filled with the spirit, he's golden! I swear he's going to be an apostle one day!

Anyway, I learned a very important thing this week, to find MIRACLES everyday & you'll see more and more as you go on in your week, month & year! I love being a missionary and getting the opportunity to see these big or small miracles! I love having the experience to help others come unto Christ! Have a great week everyone!

-Sister Holcomb ♥

P.S. Sorry about a lot of pictures, we just forgot our camera cord last week!
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-Sister Holcomb-

Gilbert AZ Mission

Week 68- Wait... How many weeks left?!

This is upcoming week is the last week of my 12th transfer. I have one transfer left, you do the math. Its crazy to think I have less than 2 months to do the Lord's work, but I'm putting in "all my heart, mind, mind & strength" to finish out strong! This week has been a blur though, for me especially it went by pretty quickly.

Monday was the norm day of prepping for the week. Well kinda, we switched a lot stuff around to get our hair dyed, then it fell through, but that's okay, cuz its happening today:) We had dinner with a new young couple in the area, which was super fun, because they are SO cute! We got to look at her wedding pictures and stuff, and we found out he served his mission in Philly, Spanish speaking!  

Tuesday was lots of fun! We had district meeting, had lunch with a less active & got to chat with her about her daughter that was coming into town, we contacted a bit and than had dinner with Sister Fuller, and she fed us yummy tacos. :) We were able to go out later that night with a young women named Janel and go by some investigators! We were able to share a temple presentation to Linda, and also to Alex S. (2 investigators we are teaching)

Wednesday, was quite the day, we went on splits with 2 young woman, and it was a really cool experience we had. We ran into these younger couple, they were going around giving flyers door to door, well the girl needed to use the restroom, and no one was answering the door for her, we let her use our bathroom & offered snacks or water; they kindly declined. As they were walking away, I had asked them if they had ever met missionaries before and they said, that they had lived next door to some missionaries before they were kicked out of there home. The conversation continued, and I had asked them if they had ever read the Book of Mormon, they answered no, so I ran back inside to get them both a fresh copy of the Book of Mormon. They both expected and than told me that they were actually in a Christian rehab center currently for recovering drug addiction, and I just told them and testified to them that Jesus Christ was there for them every step of the way & that the Book of Mormon would be a guide to them & that it was another testament of Jesus Christ. Overall, a really great experience!  :) Later that night we had a lesson with Alex G. (the one that's getting baptized Aug. 2nd) We also went out to dinner with him & his girlfriends family to Moreno's; a really great Mexican restaurant! 

Thursday we had exchanges & I was with Sister Marz! That was lots of fun! We got alot done! P.S. We got to go the relief society activity & make my first fondant cake! :)

Friday we had quite the day as well. We went from meeting with Brother Finch, to going to practice the musical number for church on Sunday, to lunch at the Daily Bread (yum), to planning from 1 to 4, a lesson with Bryan at 4:15 & dinner at the Gallups. Just non stop all day.. not to mention we had to walk everywhere because my tire popped for the 2nd time this last week... #the struggle is real.... after dinner we just contacted a ton & stopped by one of investigators house to drop off a cake for his birthday!

Saturday was pretty fun too! In the morning, I didn't feel all that well, I got a mini tummy ache & decided to sleep for a few hours. After waking up & feel better, we went out with a soon-to-be missionary! She got her call the the Rochester NY mission, and the Palmyra visitors center! Anyway, we went out with her all day & it was so fun! We were able to go to a baptism with Alex G. and he got all excited for his! :) Had dinner at a new family in the wards house & than went to a ward BBQ, that was quite the fail... Later that night we had a stake meeting with the big guy over missionary work in the stake & left the meeting early to remind our investigators about church! Sunday was packed full of things to do, so much that at the end of the day I felt like falling over and sleeping in my desk chair! We had a lesson with Bryan (he's getting baptized on the 26th of this month) and had a musical number! Met with Brother Finch, had dinner, had a member lesson with the Coopers, stopped by a potential new investigator, and then headed to make a flyer for the upcoming ward activity :)

 

All in all, twas a great week! I love being a missionary, and I know for sure I'm supposed to be here, at this time & in this place! Hope y'all have a good week! :)

 

Love, Sister Holcomb ♥

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-Sister Holcomb-

Gilbert AZ Mission

 

Week 67 - 1 year anniversary!

This week was nuts! So many things and we still managed to have a good amount of lessons this week! This past week also marked the 1 year mark of the Gilbert AZ Mission! Monday was crazy! It was super fun too though! There was water games and the whole mission was there. We even played ultimate Frisbee, and that was fun. I haven't played that since YSA ward! haha. After that we rushed to get everything else done that we needed to. Later that night  we went to go support one of our investigators at a game that he coaches for! He is the head coach for a high school down here. But it was super fun to go to!

Tuesday, we had another awesome experience of going to the temple. We were at the temple with our entire mission! It was great! Our entire mission went through the temple for our one year anniversary. How neat is that? Not all missions can do that! What a privilege  When we walked in to the celestial room, President and Sister Nattress were there dressed in white. It was a really neat experience. After we had a brief fireside with the temple president, we headed out to take a mission picture.  As if the day wasn't awesome enough we got to meet with Alex, our fabulous investigator. We talked about repentance. Of course everything just clicked. He is quite the young man.

Wednesday.. well, another day, another miracle. Sister Farmer got an email a few weeks ago from Coach Branson (Former Coach of hers) because he was planning a trip to Arizona and asked if he could come visit. When I first read the email she thought, "there is no way." But then she decided, what the heck, why not give it a shot and ask President. So she did! And... We got to meet up with Mr. Branson at the Gilbert temple sight. He was easy to spot from a mile away. What a treat. He gave Sister Farmer and I a big squeezeze... whoops. Then, we took him around the temple. We talked about the symbolism associated with the layout and different engravings on the temple. He is one amazing man. He asked a lot of great questions. It was quite a great missionary experience not only for her, but for me as well, seeing how the Lord softens the hearts of people.

Thursday, DUST STORMMM!!!! Hello Monsoon season!! We ended up getting stuck inside an investigator's house because we got caught in a dust storm. The wind was blowing like crazy. We had to save our investigator's pool umbrella from taking off. I thought that I was going to fly.

Friday, Happy Fourth of July! Sister Farmer and I decked out in our patriotic but oh so professional look. We had to go inside a couple hours early for safety precautions. So, what did we do? Yes, we crawled on the roof to watch the fireworks. We live in a one story house, so it wasn't very high up. We used the wall in our backyard to launch ourselves up there. It was fun! :)

SERVICE SATURDAY! We spent a solid three hours helping a less active clean up his "yard,"  rocks. When we got home I thought that I had gotten a killer tan, but then I got in the shower and realized as I looked at the shower walls and floor that it was all just dirt. Darn! It was really good to getting to associate with his less active dad and brothers as well. It was a good interaction not only with Sister Farmer and I, but for the YSA elders.

Sunday, Fast and testimony meeting! I bore my testimony! I based it off of Nephi, and the Atonement. We had three investigators at church! Miracle!

Great week and another one ahead of us this week!

LOVE you all :)  Have a great week!

Sister Holcomb :)

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-Sister Holcomb-

Gilbert AZ Mission