Elder Samuel Holdstock

  What's good guys? Thus last week was a good one that just flew by. We had several exchanges and just hopped from one place to the other. It was a good week though. We've been teaching Romy for like a little more than 2 weeks now. She met the church because of her cousin and told us she wanted to get baptized after stepping foot in the chapel. From there, she started to get super busy with work and school work that it made it hard to meet with her. Nonetheless, she would get up every morning at 5 to go seminary, even when she was the only student there, and represented the ward in a Seminary presentation when she hadn't even been baptized yet. She has made several changes in her daily life and has seen so many blessings from it. She's set the example for so many people that surround her. Yesterday, she entered into the waters of baptism and made her first covenant with God. It was such a special moment. This week as I've been continuing my Book of Mormon grind, I h...

  What's up everyone! How are you all doing? This last week was a decent one. I had told literally only 2 families about my birthday and we happened to have lessons with both of them that day. As we finished one lesson we were in a hurry to leave to get to another lesson and the family goes, "are you guys in a hurry? We actually made you a little something for your birthday." And proceeded to pull out a massive plate of Pique, and a big cake to complement it. We pounded through, just to show up to the next house and they did the exact same thing. Soooo much pique and cake, but it was a good little birthday time.  This week we've tried to continue visiting all of the guys that were ballers, but they have all gotten so busy. Romy, the girl that told us she wanted to be baptized last week, she has been going to seminary every single morning, then goes to school, and then works until 10:30pm. It's a little hard to find even 10 minutes to get a hold of her, but she is ...

  Whats up everyone? How's everything been going? This last week that we had was incredible. We started by just trying to visit a whole bunch of inactive members, but unfortunately we didn't get as much time to do that as we had originally planned because we just kept finding all these guys to teach. Last Sunday we didn't know almost anyone at church and we saw this guy and felt like we should talk to him. He was a member, but we asked to visit him. He invited us over and presented us to his family. Turned out that his aunt is also a member, fairly inactive, and that he has 3 cousins that are baptismal age. The aunt was so happy to have us over and her kids were so happy to learn. We taught them twice and they cake to church on Sunday. After sacrament meeting one of then came up and said "Elders, what do I have to do to get baptized in this church?" As she started to tell us how she had felt, tears started flowing. So now they are on date for a couple weeks from n...

  What's up everyone! How's life been? This last week was quite a wild one. We had been working with a couple of guys, but we needed way more potentials so we put our heads down and got to work trying to find a bunch of ballers. We prayed and prayed to know how and who, and God really came through. This last week we found like 5 people with extremely high potential to get baptized within the next 5 weeks which was a miracle for our little area of la floresta.  Thus only problem was that we had transfers last week. I wasn't even considering the idea of me leaving because I had been there for 3 weeks in La Floresta and we had just opened it, but I guess I should have considered that option a little more.  Now I'm in Panamericana with Elder Turley. He's from Springville, Utah and got to Bolivia 3 days ago which is going to be fun. We haven't had new americans show up to the mission in over a year, so we are all super excited. Now we just gotta make some miracles st...

  What's up everyone! How are we all doing? This last week we had an interesting time. Basically, we were supposed to have 2 baptism to finish off the transfer nicely, but then neither of them was able to go through. But oh well, what can you do. Hopefully we will be seeing one of those baptisms this Saturday and the other will maybe be the next week with a lot of crossed fingers and prayer. This week we had an incredible day, and then an awful day then good then just slow. Something that was kinda sad was the amount of inactive families we came across where there is only one active member in the family, and the rest have gone inactive because a member did this or a member said that. It made me think about my testimony and the things that I know for sure. The things that I will never be able to reject because of the incredible experiences I have witnessed. Please don't let your testimony rely in the words and actions of others. Center your testimony on Christ, then it won't...

  Hey guys This week was pretty good. Our first full week here in the new area, even though we were technically here before. Now it's just full time over here in La Floresta. We continue to see so many miracles and know that God is directing this work. We've been teaching this guy Luis for a minutes now. He mom and younger brother met the church and got baptized when they lived in Chile, and then they returned to the family in Bolivia and married a member so his step-dad is a member too. He has never been interested in the church until a few weeks ago. Little by little we have seen the changes in his life as he starts to give God room in his life. The man has changed completely. This week he finally accepted a baptismal date for this Saturday. The only problem is that he doesn't want anyone there, just us and the bishop. So please pray so that his family can be a part of this special day. I got to go on an exchange to my old area this last week over in Villa Moderna. It was...