Huntington in the wind

Wow this week has been great fun, it was a bit crazy too.

On tuesday we had soo many aptoinments and soo many cancelled! We even had some that were double booked well it all worked out cause we didn't cancel them all. But the apointments we did have were great! Espcially with Richard, at first we had a fellowshipper going then we didn't then she was just going to be late so we invited this other couple and we ended up having 3 fellowshippers and 1 investigator, but he is very open and honest with us. We decided to watch the special witnesses of Christ DVD and it was really powerful! We have been struggling to help Richard recognize the spirit but it was deffinately there! He is scheduled for Baptism this saturday but we are not sure if he is going to go through with it or not. But we are praying really hard for at least one baptism this week. we have many potentials. But because of the powerful lesson we were late for our dinner... But goodness Funny food corner coming up ina bit. But it was crazy we were running everywhere that day we had quite a few unplanned lessons which were good! but we have picked up a polygimist family they belong to the kingston group. I love them they are wonderful! and very open! But because of that lesson we were late for our next one. so we really were running to and from places. And then the wind came up. But it was STRONG!!!! you have no idea! We were in a lesson with an investigator when all of a sudden we heard a crash... there was a truck that rolled down the hill and somehow backed up onto the curb. The wind was THAT strong! But it was fun!

So we had exchanges on wednesday! it was soo good I love the STLs that we have here they are so powerful and loving and have been able to help my companion and I to work more in unity and to teach more in unity! Sister Phagwah was also able to pick up a new golden investigator. she has not been interested lately, her sister got baptized a few months ago. but she has been reading from the book of mormon lately and been doing great! She is also on date for baptism.

Sister Moyano and I:

As for John. Well he is ready for baptism. We spoke in another ward yesterday and invited him to listen to us speak and he did. last night we went for another lesson and he was asking us questions like who is authorized to do baptisms and what time do baptisms happen. He is READY. But then he also asked who officiates the funerals... He is planning his funeral alreday.... crazy. But he is really solid and we are hoping that he can get baptised this week too! We are putting our faith out there.

Funny Food Corner: 

#1 - So we really have very interesting dinners lately I don't know why but hey so tuesday the dinner that we were late for had beef stroginoff, now I have heard about this before but didn't really know what it was... well I think sister P had 2 bites.. I had a bit more cause I really felt obligated to eat something but it really did not look or taste too good. And we had a strange dessert - strawberry-rubbarb pie... YUK. I never knew what rubbarb was, but its a bit tart... But so are the adventures of huntington. 

#2 - So we went to dinner with our 90 year old friend who is a strong roman catholic but she really wanted to feed us dinner so she made spagetti and meat balls :P Was really good!!! I loved it! but she made me eat sooo much and then she had not one but 2 deserts ready for us!!! :| I rolled out of that dinner appointment lol But it was good she also gave us food to-go.

Well there is much more happening but no time. I am so grateful to be a misisonary and to help these people to come to baptism I really know that faith works and that we can see miracles every day! 

PS I am eating fresh cherries almost every day! And bought RAW MILK I LOVE IT!!!! Jealous much?

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

MIRACLES in Huntington

This week truely has been a week of MIRACLES!!! You know how we were planning on a baptism and we didn't know who it would be. Well turns out we had stake conference this weekend and there really was no way really that we could have one confirmation this week cause they encourage us to have the confirmation in sacrament meeting. But Heavenly Father showed his tender mercies this week not only for us but for John as well.

I know I have spoken a bit about John and Wow I really did not expect this to happen. So when we went back on tuesday we asked him how he was doing and he said REALLLY not good, but he needed our help. he asked us to get his will out of his trauck cause he needed to make some changes... Well he later told us he had a heart attak that morning. John is currently suffering from heart failure and has had some mini heart attacks in the past. But this he said has been the worst. He really thought he was going to die. But he said he kept on breathing and taking in easy and he some how survived it. We then got speaking a bit more about the plan of salvation. And spoke about how THIS is the life for men to prepare to meet God (Alma 34:32) and ususally I am not too bold but I felt impressed to share the next verse too which says that we should not procrastinate the day of repentance. I know that John has a few regrets and wants to be clean of those things and so we invited him to repent and also be baptised on either friday or saturday. And HE AGREED!!! it was so powerful. He had also been struggling with coffee as one of his vices and he knew that he would need to give it up forever to do this but he accepted and so we set up a time to have our district leader to come and interview him. We knew it was stake conference and we also knew that he is fearful for his life. I know that God knew what needed to happen for John to finally take this step. He is very worried about his health and so we called our mission president to get permission to do the confirmation at the same time because of his health. So he sent President Clark (counselor ing the mission presidency to accompany our DL to the interview). We made sure we visited john everyday to 1. make sure he was still alive, and 2. to make sure he was still ready for this. I really did see a few changes in him up to this point. It was really amazing to see.

Saturday we had the baptism and since Our DL still needed to do the paperwork we asked him if he and his companion would do the baptism (cause John was worried that he would not come up out of the water.) And they were both ready to help!! I am so grateful for them! they are great! 

I am so grateful to be a part of this mans life! Later on saturday we went to check on John, and WOW he was HAPPY and joking around with us and looked like a different person. his countenance truely changed. He looked like he could live another 7 years. At least! haha but we really don't know those things. We were also able to get one of his first friends in huntington to his baptism who is a very inactive member, but he was real pround of John. We truely did have our faith tested this transfer and we have been able to see miracles as we put our faith to action. And I know that this would not have happend if Both Sister Phagwah and I had not taught him.

Otherwise we still had a good time this week we went out to the wedge on monday with a family we are teaching and her kids are just to funnest! lol. 

We also had a good stake conference with Elder Kevin Worthen of the Seventy. And we had 2 surprise speakers on saturday night - our mission president and his wife. Haha - well it was a surprise to us. It was good though. I wish you all could have been there!!! There is so much that I learned and want to share!!! Main theme that I think stood out to me was that we need to be diciples of Christ 3 Nephi 5:13. Another thing is in 2 Ne 2:25 we learn that our purpose in life is to have Joy. But it is actually a commandment. and we also learn in 1Ne 3:7 that the Lord will provide a way so we can accomplish the above mentioned commandment.

I love This gospel and one way we can be happy and joyful is if we use the atonement and SHARE it! 

We have transfer calls on Saturday Wish me luck!!

And also we have 4th of July this friday... I am preparing myself for a culture shock. But I am prepared with the perfect outfit!

Hope y'all have a great week!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

Huntington News

This has been a crazy week! We are getting slightly overwhelmed with all the work out here. But it is good it keeps us busy. It is just sad when some of our plans fall through. Like we had a baptism scheduled for this last weekend. But he called us up on Tuesday and said that he was not ready that he doesn't have a firm testimony of the things we are teaching him, it sucks cause we cannot see him as often as we would like. Last week sister Phagwah and I needed to go on splits to cover more ground (which helped us teach 10 lessons in one day). So sister phagwah went to his lesson and I went to some less actives that we are progressively teaching. He is no longer on date but we hope that he will pray and find his answer soon.

Another of our investigators called us up and said that he had a questions for us. So we went and he asked if you are on parole if you can still get baptised. well the answer is no. Well he is really one of our super SOLID investigators and he is still on probation which we did not know about. well he is still moving forward. He is getting married next week which is great!! But his baptism has been postponed.... 

We have found 5 new investigators this week which was super! Some more solid than others I hope that we can keep them and help them progress soon. 

We are also teaching this 91 year old roman catholic, she is the sweetest old lady in town! every time she gives us some soda and a treat. She doesn't mind when we teach more about small things that we believe from the book of mormon. I don't think she will get baptized just yet but she is great! and might be feeding us dinner this saturday :)

We had zone conference this week in richfield, it was great! 3 Zones met together (cause the Price Zone is the smallest Zone in the mission and we make an odd number. we usually only have 2 Zones at Zone Conference) It was so great that we were able to see some old friends and also receive training from our loving mission president and his wife. They were also able to hear a solo by me ! WHAT?? How did that happen? well my lovely companion volunteered me to sing! and I thought well there are 3 zones there is bound to be someone else who will volunteer... nope. I got it and I sang be still my soul (quite appropriate for such an attempt) well I got a missionary that I have never met before accompany me she is one of our sister training leaders and I should be going on exchanges with her this week. Well, it went well she was able to transpose the notes to be a bit lower so I did not have to strain on those high notes. it was so good.

So funny food experience: So Since Sister Phagwah is allergic to pork we had beef hot dogs for dinner and it was so funny cause she was in HEAVEN lol she had 3 hot dogs (now just remember she doesn't eat much she is also a tiny lady) She even danced a bit in her chair cause she was getting seconds. It was so fun to watch!! 

Well Hope you all had a good Fathers day! We had 2 investigators with us at church that is like our substitute father for the day. one of which is john, he is still doing so great! He told us he is not ready for baptism this week, but he bought himself 2 new suit pants and shirts and ties for church when he was up in salt lake. We also taught him in the rain this week. he lives in a trailer (which is not a shack but its "getho" and so we teach him on his portch) and well we had a bit of a thunder storm ( nothing like in SA) but we taught for a whole hour with us getting slightly wet. It was fun. I love him so much and hope he strats progressing more, he has told us that when we leave his home he feels more peaceful amd calm - THE SPIRIT IS WORKING WITH HIM!!! we are so excited!

Well I just want y'all to know that i love you and I love this gospel. The atonement works! We do have to sometime patiently bare our afflictions, but as we use Pres Utcdorfs councel that if we are grateful and thankful in our trails and afflictions we will be blessed. Hope we can all find in ourselves and attitude of gratitude in our afflictions. and this will help us develop those Christlike attributes. Watch the talk here.

PS We saw an emu at a former investigators house :) and yes I got a hair cut and cut off almost all the blonde :| haha but at least its lighter in weight

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

Learning Christlike Attributes

Good Morning friends and family! 

Wow Ok So this has been a really crazy week! the work is progressing in the area. We have 6 investigators on date for baptism and we were able to sit with 3 of our investigators at church yesterday! I love it when we are able to do that! we also were able to help 2 of our investigators get white shirts for church. the bishops are so ready and willing to help out. the ward boundries around here are so crazy though I don't get them half the time and so we accidently asked the wrong bishop to  help us out and he was ready and willing to help! it was great Here is Richard in his white shirt:

He is also doing so great! he does however need to stop smoking all together before he can get baptized. He is down to 1 cigarette a day so we are excited for him. we were also able to meet his wife who lives in colorado, grand junction. He lives here to help his daughter out. He is great! I am excited to see him progress He loves the bible and questions everything! But its great he uses the Book of Mormon as a study guide to the bible. We are working really hard with him.

I love these people and I am loving them even more as I serve them. we made some cookies for our investigators :) it was so great sister Phagwah is really helping me understand how I can help and serve our investigators more. I wish all the members could do the same. We are struggling a bit with member support but we are working on that.

John was also at church and we are working on getting him to stop drinking coffee, he says he can do it he just does not want to. We asked him to Act on faith and test is out. We will see what happens this week :) He is great though He is on date for baptism on the 21st of june and we are working hard toward that date. we should have a baptism every week this month. and it will all be dependant on faith. 

We had zone traning on Friday and they are really emphasizing faith. We can do al things is we can have the faith to do it. Faith and Hope is one of the Christlike attributes I am working on. I need both of these if I am going to see success in this area. I feel like sister phagwah has taught me alot about working hard and being bold and increasing my faitha nd love for these people. I am learning that faith does not work if we do not have a hope for these things if we are not positive about our area and each other. When there is faith and hope miracles happen. We have also been working on being more open with each other, and loving each other more. I am grateful for what I have already learned and hope to learn more from our experience together. I think it is going to be 6 weeks of learning and growing and stretching. But I know that we can do it! (that is one of sister phagwahs favourite phrases: You can Do IT!

Well we have had some great service opportunities and have planted some potatoes and eggplant and prepared other parts of this one garden in Huntington. And we helped one of our investigators garden as well planting seeds - I think i am now an expert weed puller :) Though there were some that were DEEPLY rooted. Cannot wait to garden when I get home.

And My tan as result of gardening:

Also we had some interesting dinners this week. some really tough beef and tough lamb and interestingly prepared chicken... and sister phagwah is a bit of a picky eater and so I have eaten half of her meals this week lol it was kinda fun trying to pass off the food onto my plate with out the host seeing. lol Its fun though - I think I need to dish up less food. I am still waiting to eat Elk. Has not happend yet. Oh and sister Phagwah is alleric to pork and turkey. #lifeofamissionary

Hope you all have a great week! Keep the letters coming!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States

Huntington News

Well No time but our area is booming! We made standars this week. I have never come into an area with so much happening. But it is great we have alot of Less active work we even got 17 Less active at church yesterday! I don't get it. LOL I am still in shock we also had over 30 lessons. We are emphasizing short power lessons.

I will give more of an update next week.

But I encourage you all to KNOW your missionaries and Ask them what you can do to help them Find new investigators. We need the help of the members! 

We had a mission wide fast this weekend for new inestigators and to get the areas to preogress! And we got 3 non member refferals yesterday! It really does work. I Hope they turn into something postive.

Hope y'all have a great week!! 

Pictures at George house: (Yes I have an american flag type scarf)

And a fun family we were teaching

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

St. George, Utah Mission

107S. 1470E. Suite 304

St. George Utah 84790

United States