The lingering long winters....oh how I miss them! People here always refer to the cold winters when I say I'm Canadian...haha they even get wide eyes like it's a crazy far away foreign land. I love it. I guess they get so used to Utah missionaries that I am like the unicorn of missionaries! I'm sad that I'm going to miss my little sister's wedding but I am sooooooo happy that I'm not there for the planning. Hey.....we are a healthy family : ) We vocalize and in time will learn to not be like the cookie monster and make everything all about us. Man.....It's weird because I remember Grandpa's birthday party last year and It's so weird to not be at the Van Bruggens for all of the fun family celebrations. It's sad but a good sad. I really miss that guy; our discussions about.....pretty much everything! haha. He is such an interesting, funny and self learned man, not to mention his funny jokes..whether he tried to be funny or not haha I like it how he refers to grandma and how after the many years he has been married to Grandma, he still loves her and shows this through his actions like when he walks her to the car or how he calls her Joanie Baby ahah. Man....happy belated birthday Grandpa and let him know that I love him and miss him. I'm grateful for his hospitality, patience with me and the good example he sets which I've been able to apply on my mission. I got to share the book of all you guys with a family in the ward here and they loved it! It was funny becuase our message to them was about family and how we take them for granted a lot and sometimes it takes us being away from them to understand how important they really are to us. Their daughter is serving in Russia and wrote them that day pretty much the same thing but that she really missed them. She told them that she wanted to hear from them all and get an update on their favourite things and how much she loved them. Trippy becuase thats kind of what I was thinking last week.
The past week was a good one! Yeah I met the Bratts! It was trippy!....they looked like they weren't 100 % sure where they were going so I said, "hey you guys new?" They replied explaining they were new or visiting...i don't remember. The conversation moved to where we were from...my comp said Utah so they all could relate where they all lived. I said I was from Edmonton, AB and she was like, "hey, we have friends that live up there!" I asked the names....who knew...maybe it would be someone I knew...it's happened before....I did not expect them to say the Van Bruggens! haha it was sweet. I said Gerald and Jo-Anne? they said yeah and boom....told em that was my family, my Aunt and Uncle! It was crazy cool! Small world indeed!
I hope Christina get's the part! That'd be cool for her to live in AB again! It's such an awesome place and on the plus side, she can eat prairie oysters!! Christina....you should create your own email and write me! That would be so much better than having a paragraph on Moms! When you get your paint brushes you can paint me a picture of something spritually awesome and mail it to me! Yess! Yesss....write me on your own email so can discuss these things further.....period. Love you too and I will talk to you later on YOUR OWN EMAIL!
haha Megan....what the heck haha I feel like you just reported to your supervisor. Read what you wrote in a monotone voice....that's how I read it : ) haha I miss you a ton and I want to know what book you read and why you weren't allowed to go to sleep! You gotta get your own email too so I can write you! Get on it ASAP punk-a-roo! That reminds me...they don't have dunkaroo's here! what is wrong with the US of A!
So something that has been kind of hard is acting on the spiritual promptings I recieve and not second guessing them. It's so easy to shrug off something that pops into your mind but then you always wonder what the outcome would have been and you don't know if it was a spiritual prompting or not! Kind of hard to learn how to recognize the Spirit if you don't act on these promptings eh? Well, we had a lesson yesterday and t'jonge jonge......it was a sweet experience. The other thing that I've been working really hard to do is to listen to the people and then listen to the Spirit as to what should be done and said. It's so natural for me to think about what I'm going to say while they are speaking, then I always blurt out a thought I thought of way before they ended! So stupid, I know! Well, while we discussed the restoration I really focused on not thinking of what to say and allowed myself to listen to what they were saying and allowed the Spirit to do the thinking for me. It's really cool when you say something or ask something that really hits somebody. I was surprised with the questions and thoughts that came into mind but felt extremely blessed. I got to really be a mouth piece for the Lord. I think I'm starting to understand what that really means and I'm excited that I am going to be able to continue to learn this principle. We don't teach people, the Spirit teaches people. That comes in so many ways and I got to be a part of speaking physically for the Spirit. At the end and throughout the discussion with our friend she told us that, "you must have really prayed becuase you guys answered what I really needed to help me move forward." How cool is that! She enjoyed the questions I asked her. She said they really made her think and it was cool to see how these questions would lead to a principle and also mold into the lesson. It's crazy how the Spirit works and I was amazed at the points and outlooks I recieved from Him. I truly learned things I wouldnt as a I focused all of my energy towards helping her. The Spirit is an amazing companion and I am so grateful that we have been blessed with His companionship. We really do have a loving Heavenly Father. He loves us so much that he gave us a good friend that helps is in so many ways. I know that if I didn't live the way that is asked of me that this companionship would be useless so I urge everyone to do their very best in living as worthily as they can to keep this companionship. I love you all and I miss you! haha I love grandmas mug! Can you send the pic again but attatch in a way that I can download it? haha I miss Aunt Jo-anne and Jo too! I remember the awesome visits we would get from the Bevans crew! I really really miss Nitza's pizza! Dang....that donair pizza! Sooooooo goooooooooood. I hope all is well and I hope you have success with all that you all are doing. Watch March Madness for me and keep me updated! Get the kids to write me with their own email!!!!
Love,
Elder Holt
 |
| Add caption |
Pancakes the stray feline - so Jesse!
No comments:
Post a Comment