Monday, December 30, 2013

I LOVE OKLAHOMA!!!

Hello family and friends,

Here is Bethani's latest post. Please email me if you need her mailing address...the address she gave me last is incorrect, I have the correct one now. (kimberli.holloway@me.com)

Thank you for your continued support of Hermana Holloway, otherwise known as Herman A. Holloway. I really appreciate it and I know it strengthens her.

Love,

Kim

HOLAALOHAHOWDY!!

First of all, I'd like to give a big shoutout to everyone that sent me letters, packages, or Christmas cards. I was just overwhelmed by the amount of love, often from people that I hadn't seen in a while! Thank you so much! I promise I'll respond to all the mail you send me, even if it takes a little while.

This place is just so amazing! I though I would be sad serving in English, but Weatherford is the best of both worlds. We still have some Spanish members and investigators, and teaching in English is SO much easier than teaching in Spanish. We're way out in the country, which means that you can see the stars, and everyone loves fried food, guns, and trucks. I've even started to like country music! Basically, these people have become my people. It was hard to be away from my family for the Christmas season, but everyone here has taken me in and made me feel like family. I absolutely love the people I serve.

This is what my Christmas looked like:

On Christmas Eve we ate dinner with the other missionaries and a family in the ward, and afterwards we washed their dishes and decorated temple cookies!






Then on Christmas morning, instead of doing normal exercise we exercised our arms and opened Christmas presents ;) Thanks family for the regales!




And this was our Christmas dinner! The family that had us (us sisters and one other set of elders from the ward) over gave us stockings that had fake mustaches in them (among other things), so we decided to add that to the nativity. It was... interesting to say the least. But also really fun.



The highlight of my Christmas was definitely the phone call that I had with my family. It was super strange to dial Mom's cell number into our phone, but once I started talking it was like I was back at college again! It was great to hear all y'all's voices again for sure.

The rest of the week was just full of miracles. We found some new Spanish investigators, had a rockin-awesome district meeting about consecration, taught a recent convert about the temple, one of our less-active members hasn't smoked for a month, and then to cap it off, a former investigator randomly came to church and wants us to start teaching him again! We weren't really expecting so much to happen because of the holidays, but the Lord told us otherwise and, as usual, helped us to be in the right places at the right time. The work is moving forward in Oklahoma!

Yesterday in my personal study I was reading in Alma 34, and I was just amazed by everything I was reading. verses 30-41 are especially great, and especially especially verse 31. It tells us rather plainly why we should not put off repentance. Alma says that "now is the day and time of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you." We don't have to be finished with the repentance process to feel the redeeming power of the Atonement, rather we are promised that if we make the decision to repent, we will immediately feel Christ's redeeming power. The Atonement really is the greatest gift that the Savior has given us, and I'm so grateful for it.

I love you all!! Thank you for your prayers, support, and mail. Being a missionary is seriously such a blessing. I hope y'all have a good week, and keep focusing on the miracles.

~Herman A. Holloway

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