Almost a White Christmas: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

First off I hope y'all had a wonderful spectacular Christmas! I know I did!!! 

We had a bit of a slow week with christmas hope this week will be a bit better!

It all started Christmas Eve. We decided as a district that we would go out christmas carolling to our investigators and members and people in our area. (We unfortunately needed to exclude Kanab cause they live way too far) So Our District Leader Elder Bolokoski played the Guitar. And we all sang Christmas songs! It was the best! We wer able to see one of our investigator families and our landlords (who had a foot operation a few weeks back and just last week broke 3 ribs trying to go to the restroom :( And is now in a rehab center) They really appreciated us coming by and I think we made her week! it was great! We then had some milk and donuts supplied by the elders :) But as we were leaving the La Verkin suburbs to go back to Hurricane for these refreshments we had a mini race with the elders, they got infront of me cause I was kinda on the wrong side of the road and there was a car infront of me so they were in front of us in their car, and we had to lead the way, so I decided put the indicator on showing right instead of left, just to see what they would do.... They fell for it too! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Good thing we have some awesome elders and they laughed it off. Even gave me a high five B-) They are so much fun!

Then Christmas Day started off great! (We actually had a number of gifts under the tree thanks to one of our less actives and Sister Massengales mom - shes great! But now we have WAY too much candy) then we had breakfast with one of our Bishops and Skypes home at the same place It was sooo great to see my Family!!! Too bad baby Fanner was not born yet but I He IS just the cutest thing! Don't you think??? I am an Aunty again!

Then we watched 17 Miracles cause its been a while since we have seen it and it was one of our approved movies to watch on Christmas. I cried like a baby. again. But it was sooooo good! And since it was all about the pioneers in the snow I was like "How cool would it be if it was snowing right now...." (Cause there was snow in the night and we woke up to white mountains) and well we walked outside and it was Sleeting!!!! YAY!!! that was good enough for me. So yes it has been pretty cold! But its all good. The worst was probably our walking day on friday when the "Huricane" winds - being the place not the storm - But i guess luckily I decided to have an allergic reaction to something.. and my lower lip swelled up like crazy and we didn't got out till it had come down. took 2x Benadryl to get it to start coming down. But we were still out that night walking in the cold.

Well Christmas afternoon we had Dinner with our Senior Couple again. Then we had a Zone Activity by going to an alcove mountain thing and had a bon fire And some bonding time it was fantastic!

Ok my companion is the funniest. So at the bon fire somehow we have been dishing out names to all the missionaries in our Zone Like Sister Liu is President Liu (Long story) well our one ZL (Elder Grover) and our DL (Elder Bolokaski) - they are like 2 peas in a pod - got the names Oracles but at first was Oracle and Oracles side kick, but Elder Bolo did not like that then it changed a few times then at district meeting (Friday) the next day we wanted it to be oracle 1 and 2 but they did not want superiority over the other so we also tried Oracle A and B... that didn't work. So I decided Oracle G and Oracle B.... My Companion is sitting next to me typing about this in her mass email and says "Oh I finally get it! Why it's Oracle G and B" LOL ROFL (Roll on Floor Laughing) Man Welcome to my life. I wish you could hear half the things that happen in our week... Its the best!

At the Bon Fire My companion also got the name Chief of police... It fits!!! haha and I read in the NT this week that "whosoever will be chief amoung you let him be your servant" and well I got named this morning a detective... PI Hollander. I was hoping to go under the radar guess not.... haha

Anyway hope y'all are making some new years resolutions :) Here is a video for the new year. Remember "Look not behind thee".

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

Utah, St George Mission

881 South River Road

St. George Utah, 84790

United States

It's Still a White Christmas in Zion

Wow Sister Massengale and I have just seen sooo many miracles her in Zion!!!

Ok First off Crazy old Vi got BAPTIZED this week. Wow that lady ceases to amaze me! I KNOW we had exercied ALOT of faith this week for this to happen. At our last Zone traingin meeting we were committed specifically to pray twice daily so we can read our daily and monthly goals (for the area, district and zone). But we decided to pray for daily, weekly and monthly goals. Anyway we have been saying alot of LONG prayers lately and we have seen so many miracles because of it! One of which being Vi. She is so funny when we got to our lesson this week, we got there and she told us that we didn't teach her everything the last time we came (we taught tithing last) and well we really do struggle to teach her cause she doesn't really want to be taught. But  we always give the pamphlet as a committment and she reads them several times. And when she read about fast offering she decided that we tried to cheat her out of another $20 lol. Man it was just fun. Luckily we know now when she is kidding... I think. But yeah we got as into her as possible and prayed that everything would go well with her baptism, and ot did. But we first had to get through the interview. We were kinda stressing about this one. We wish we could be a fly on the wall with that one. well an hour or so later the district leader came out and SHE PASSED!!!! man I love Vi. I know one of the reasons I was in this area at this time was to help her get to the waters of baptism. She was beaming too it was just a perfect day. I love her so much! 

And we have now hit our goal of 4 Baptisms for the month. 

We are now working on our new investigator goals, we have been receiving golden refferals from the Princes we picked up 2 news investigators with their help and another from the ward. we have about 9 other referrals to contact and our tuesday is PACKED with lessons we are really excited! We are really working very hard here. I want to speak about 2 of our new investigators. The first is Emily, she is 11 years old, her parents are pretty active now and she is a bit mentally handicaped and so when she was 8 the bishop said she was not read for baptism so they have been waiting for this time where now her mental capacity is that of an 8 year old. so we are teaching her and she is doing sooo well!!! we love her to bits! Unfortunately she will be getting baptized after I go home but I still feel priveledged to teach her. The other new investigator is Brentson, he is 20 years old, he may not be termed a "golden" investigator, but it was very interesting after we showed him the He is the gift video he said "wow I have never thought of Christmas like that before" It was such a power lesson - so we then watched because of Him too. if you have not watched it yet PLEASE watch it. If you have not shared it yet please #ShareTheGift, you will never know - there may be someone there that does not know why we have christmas. we take it for granted all the time.

Here are some other great Christmas Vidoes: http://www.mormonchannel.org/christmas-videos

Some other highlights of the week:

I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday!

We had a Missionary Musical Christmas Fireside yesterday and wow it was powerful! We Sang like angels and Our mission president played the guitar. Sorry no pictures.

started the New Testament today and I absolutely LOVE IT!!!!

Sorry my emails have been so short lately. I love you all. Thanks for your kindness and support.

MERRY CHRISTMAS And a Happy New Year!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

Utah, St George Mission

881 South River Road

St. George Utah, 84790

United States

Last Transfer in ZION

You Guessed it! We got our transfer calls on Saturday and We are staying together in Zion and I will be ending my mission here. So if there are some of you who are confused as to why I am going home this transfer and my companion is not (since we were in the MTC together) Turns out I am needed back in SA with my family.

But I am really excited to have another transfer in Zion and that we are staying together and that we are seeing miracles everyday! I love this area and I love my mission! I think I am especially excited that I can have the Holidays here :) 

No Big Chirstmas Presents this week at Zone conference. There was actually no real special reason for it but that there were more things they wanted to train us on so we can be better missionaries! But they did give us a Christmas present. they gave us a Brand new New Testament and our commitment is to study the 4 Gospels and mark every instance you read the words that Christ spoke. (much like the red letter bibles that everyone speaks about that they had as kids where it does the same thing - another suggestion was that we look at all the questions he said as well. I am excited to get started but I decided that I first want to get my Book of mormon read before Christmas and lookis like I may get it finished this week which is exciting. At the conference we also got to hear from some of the patriarchs of the nearby stakes and have a question and answer session - I wish I could come up with better questions that what i did. But thats ok. But I learned alot and am excited to implement alot of what I learned such as making more frequent contact with my ward mission leaders.

Just quickly we had some fun walking in the rain this week. Its winter... sort of, the weather has been really mild, but there is a bit of snow on the mountain tops.

Yesterday we saw some great miracles we first just went to Our High council man for missionary work's house to update him on a few things, and then a Non member walked in that they were working with for us to teach. Well I wish I can say we had a lesson with her right then and picked her up as a new nvestigator and put her on date, but no we didd not, but we were able to speak to her a bit and get to know her a bit - but it was a miracle that we got to meet her :)

Then we contacted a referral from our senoir couple, unfortunately we were not able to pick up a new investigator from that yet either but we were able to teach a lesson, just  need to set up an apointment. The mom was sick so we kinda had to get out in a hurry... And then we went to contact this other home where we actual got a media referral from them (part member home) and contacted them but though that they were just a less active home and gave it over to the Princes well turns out there are 2 kids in there that we have not strated teaching!!! they are such a Golden family - they have just moved here from Vegas and have decided to start going back to church. We gave the kids book of mormons and explained a bit of it and the one kid turns around and says "I now know what the Book of Mormon is, Its a book about Christ!" I just loved it! Cause it is! 

Well Hope y'all have a great week! I know we will!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

Utah, St George Mission

881 South River Road

St. George Utah, 84790

United States

White Christmas

Well I think I had my white christmas early this year... No, no snow. Even better - we had 3 baptisms this weekend! It was a fantastic week! I really loved it!

We had to go through the baptism interview process twice (cause the two boys are bothers so we could get them done at the same time :) They have been investigating for about 6 months and their parents are becoming active again and it was way fun to teach them The kids first had a hard time accepting tithing but their parents were able to teach them and help them in that. Well it hsa been tough to set up appointments with them because they are soo busy they play like 5 sports most of them at the same time lol so scheduling with them is intense, but we finally got them into the waters of baptism and everyone was there that they wanted (except sister eyers that got transferred) But it was especially special because their dad was able to baptize them!!! It was wonderful! So this baptism went pretty smoothly but leading up to the baptism was rough... But I won't lie I think I might become a utah mom when it comes to the cool hings they do for the kids getting baptized.

So the 2 brothers happend on Friday night, then saturday morning was stake baptisms (so here in Utah only the stake center has a font and because there are so many kids and they all turn 8 round about the same time they have stake baptisms each ward would take a turn and have individual services according to ward, and they would baptize the kids one after the other pretty much. Well there was a wonderful family the sisters were working with to reactivate that happend to be cousins to a family we were teaching in huntington and it was a very special tender mercy for me that I was able to be at this girls baptism - she really reminds me of elaine in Huntington :) they are definately cut from the same cloth. I was also able to speak at that baptism. But what was even better was they told me that elain is one date for baptism in januray! Happy day!

So But it was fun so our other investigators names is John and he has been investigating for about a year now and he was going to get baptized 6 Months ago and couldn't because something came up that he needed to be dealt with first, well we got everything cleared and now it was becoming real, for the past month it felt like he wasn't really excited for his baptism but watching him stress over getting the program together this week was great cause we could see his excitement :) Then we had the baptism interview and got to see his sincerity and love for this gospel! His baptism was definately a highlight on my mission! It was truely a special service. THIS is why we are out on a mission to see a change in people I know that John felt the spirit really strong! I know that everything happens for a reason. I love being a missionary.

So Sister Massengale can be pretty funny when she is tired. I don't have time to write them all but yesterday she said "We can't watch this so I'll mute it." Think about it... HAHA

So WE have ANOTHER Zone Conference happening this week which is unheard of. Firstly it is a SHORT transfer (we only have 5 weeks in this transfer) and we usually only have Zone Conference every second transfer. this is going to be the usual 6 hour conference so we think something big might be happening but so we are not disappointed we are excepting "Oatmeal and the district" hahahahahahahaha Quote Courtesy  Sister Prince :D

So remember about the crazy old lady? well she is on date for baptism next saturday... Yeah I know crazy right??? We are preying that her health improves so she can...

Anyway running out of time again.... But we are getting transfer calls this week and well we don't know what is going to happen we hope to stay together but they are also white washing kiabab - cause sister davis is going home and her companion got her visa to Scotland - and we both kinda want to serve there again and we are the only ones left in the mission who have served there.... and this will be my last transfer... last 7 Weeks AHHHHH

Have a great week!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

Utah, St George Mission

881 South River Road

St. George Utah, 84790

United States

Where does the time go???

So I don't know how my companion and I do this every week but we don't have time again today. 

We went to the Temple again. Sister Massengale has not been since Feb so it was good for her to go. We went with Sister Prince (our Snr Couple in our stake) But just sister prince not elder prince, was fun to be just us girls. And to bond with sister prince we also headed to deseret book which is like the BEST store ever!!! Its funny everyone asks us what we would like in our christmas packages so they can send out to their missionaries but we don't even know what we want. I don't know if I really need anything. 

So this week has been crazy! We had thanksgiving dinner (in the afternoon... still doesn't make sense) but we spent it with one of our ward mission leaders and the Princes. But before all that we had our district meeting and after that we had a nerf gun war with the elders it was SOOOOO much fun!!!! but wow was I in PAIN the next day from going up and down all day

But then we got to watch The hobbit #2 in the evening but we started a bit late so didn't get to watch everything.

We had a baptism on saturday 2 kids got baptised. Just wish we could have a baptism with any flaws... thats all I'm saying...

Oh and Watch the video in Christmas.mormon.org #ShareTheGift!

Just do it! 

Thanks for all your support! Have a great week!

All My Best,

Sister Karen Hollander

Utah, St George Mission

881 South River Road

St. George Utah, 84790

United States