We found a trailer park without speed bumps!

Aloha y hola seres humanos! Greetings from Spanishland!!

This week was Zone Conference which was AMAZING (and long, but I think that's mostly because my attention span is short). President Walkenhorst, the APs, and the Zone Leaders all gave trainings about various topics. One of the things that really stuck out to me was about obedience. President W compared each "rule" or principle to a switch on a switchboard. If you demonstrate to the Lord that you're responsible enough to operate that switch then you'll get more, which means you get more rules, which are really just opportunities for blessings. The Lord blesses us with commandments so He can bless us, and if we obey the commandments we'll receive more. Some people have proved their obedience to the point that they can operate as many switches as you'd find in the cockpit of an aircraft, whereas some can only control an analog telephone. It really made me think, because every missionary has to be keeping the commandments to be worthy to go on a mission, but once we're here we don't get to relax the rules but rather we're given the white handbook which has TONS of rules but thereby tons of opportunities for blessings. Interesting, no? It definitely made me want to be more obedient.

Then on Thursday we had the demon wasp incident! If I had my camera chord I'd send pictures, but alas. So Sister C. and I were weekly planning like good missionaries and we decided to open the window because it was BEAUTIFUL out, like 70s and sunny and it was kind of hot and stuffy in the apartment. The only problem is that our windows don't have screens, but we remedied that by putting the fan in the window. Good. Actually not good because a little bit later this DEMON WASP (it was actually just a normal sized wasp) sent from SATAN came in the window and tried to eat my companion and then take her back to its lair to feed its evil demon wasp babies!!!! (actually it just flew in and started chilling on the light on our ceiling) So Sister C started making a flyswatter from her slipper and the twisty stick thing from the blinds while I kept an eye on the wasp to make sure it didn't disappear. Well I took my eyes off of it for about .01 seconds (maybe like 30...) and it disappeared!!! We looked everywhere but couldn't find it. We decided that it had crawled into the ceiling above the light fixture and was going to make babies which we for sure didn't want so we started to carefully take off the light to inspect. Well basically the light turned into a chandelier. No bueno. Then we had to go to the office and get Syndy (the office lady) to help us fix it. The maintenance guy came by shortly and turned our chandelier back into a normal light fixture, so now everything's good again. Hallelujah!! Basically from that experience we learned that you shouldn't touch light fixtures and we need a flyswatter. A little bit later we brought Syndy some pineapple because she was so helpful and basically awesome in general and then the next day she got us a flyswatter. So maybe the wasp was sent by Heavenly Father so we could meet Syndy. Whatever the case may be, it was a pretty funny experience and definitely delayed weekly planning by like 2 hours. 

And then on Friday was exchanges!!!! Sis C and I got to be companions with the 2 STLs (Sister Training Leaders... they're basically in charge of the sisters. It's a fairly new calling) in the zone so I got to lead out Spanishland with Sister Pfister who is an AMAZING missionary but doesn't speak Spanish. Our first appointment was with people who speak English though so that was good and I was able to see her in action. She's fabulous. I want to be like her when I grow up. Our next appointment was at a trailer park and we had the ward mission leader and his fiancee come but the flaky people flaked out. So we decided to go tracting with members! We actually had an AWESOME finding miracle too. We were walking around seeing potentials when Sis P points out this man working on something in his yard. She tells me to go talk to him (because she doesn't speak Spanish) which I wouldn't have ordinarily done because he looked pretty busy. I go over and "heavenly gift" him, which is our usual finding approach. Basically because everyone here is religious you just ask to pray with them, identify the Spirit, and get a return appointment. It usually works pretty well. So we heavenly gifted him and asked if there was anything in particular that he needed. He told us that his dad had actually just died in Mexico. WHOA. So we ask if we can talk to him (Daisy said "compartir palabras de aliento" but I'm not exactly sure how that translates) and he agreed! So we talked about the plan of salvation and gave him a Book of Mormon! The Spirit was so strong too! I hope that he'll be able to progress, but I've observed that there are 2 types of Hispanics: those that are staunchly Catholic and those that believe that religion doesn't matter as long as you believe in God. Neither are very receptive to the Church, and he's the second. So please pray for Rolando!

Then the next day we went to Purcell, which is this tiny "blink or you'll miss it" town South of Norman. It was there that we found the trailer park without speed bumps (which was really exciting because that's the worst part about trailer parks) and we also had an interesting encounter with some other Mexican men. So we were visiting this potential investigator who lives outside of Purcell just off the freeway behind this abandoned gas station with about 5 other trailers. Sketchy, right? Well he wasn't home, but as we were leaving we saw these guys cooking chicken and chilling in their little garage off their trailer. We decide to go talk to them, and they feed us chicken with tortillas and this hot sauce that I'm pretty sure burned a hole through my tongue. You would've loved it Mom. We talked about faith and the gospel and gave them a Book of Mormon. It was super fun! I love meeting random strangers. It's the spice of life. We'll probably go back there and talk to them some more. Hopefully they'll read the Book of Mormon and want to be baptized! Hey, miracles happen right?

Well I think this is sufficiently long, but just know that I love you all and I'm doing SO GREAT and loving being a missionary here in Oklahoma! I'm so blessed and have the best life ever!!!!

Love, 

Hermana Halloween (because Holloway is too difficult for most Hispanics)

Before we begin, I would like to take a moment of silence and appreciate this Oklahoma sunset, as seen from my favorite trailer park:

Everyone ready?

ALOOOOOOOOOHA!!!! And HOLA and HOWDY Y'ALL!!!

How's everyone doing? I'm doing just great. Actually I'm doing AMAZING! Wanna know why? Because I had an AMAZING week! I mean, they're all amazing but I'm pretty sure they're just getting more amazing.

So first of all I'd just like to thank everyone who sent me mail this week. You have no idea how much getting mail can make a missionary's day. My compa and I spend all day saying to each other "we might get mail today!" and when there's mail in the mail box the day just gets 1000000% better! So basically just keep it coming. I'm going to try my hardest to answer all the letters I got but if I don't respond for a while it's not because I don't love you. And if I never respond then it means I don't love you :). But I love you all so that won't happen. Also, I did get one package from my amazing mother from Amazon that had food!! YES! Just a reminder, though, that if you send it via Amazon then the office can't forward it so I have to wait until someone from my zone is kind enough to pick it up for me unless I happen to go to OKC. That's not usually a problem unless it's something that I need urgently.

Alright now on to the good stuff. WE GOT 4 NEW INVESTIGATORS THIS WEEK!!! The first two I'm the most excited about. So my compa and I were knocking doors in this trailer park and we were kind of sick of this trailer park because a lot of the potentials from there have been pretty flaky. So after going around and finding out that nobody was home for a while we decided to try one last door before we were gonna give up and go somewhere else. We offered to pray with Edna (the woman who opened the door) and she let us right in and offered to feed us after knowing for all of 5 seconds. Good sign. Then after the prayer we told her that we had an important message and could we please come back and share it with her? She wasn't having that. She wanted us to teach her RIGHT THEN. So we taught her the restoration with her daughter and they were crying and the Spirit was so strong and she accepted baptism!!! It was so amazing!! We were going to teach her again on Friday but her car broke or something (it's really hard to understand people speaking Spanish on the phone) so our return appointment is on Wednesday. I really hope that nothing happens that would drive her away from the church because she and her daughter both seem super solid! Prayers on her behalf would be appreciated.

Our next new investigator is another trailer park find named Mario. He's Catholic so I'm not sure if he'll be as accepting of the Evangelio (Gospel) but he really loves his family so Sis. C and I want to go back and talk to him about how the gospel can bless his family.

The final investigator this week is also named Mario and he's a brother to Omar and Berto. We went back to the Santos trailer to teach Omar and Berto but it ended up being Omar and Mario. It was a good lesson though. We read part of 3 Nephi 11 and Sister Santos and Hugo (the Santos's son who's in his 20s) both bore powerful testimonies about the Book of Mormon. Member present lessons are the best!! Go out with the missionaries to teach! They need your testimonies! Omar and Hugh are also both hilarious. Hugo especially is just a big goofball. His sense of humor is kind of like Sam's actually. At one point he went into the kitchen and came out with an apron to kill a fly because he forgot that he already had the flyswatter out then later put on the apron, danced a little hula, and told us all that he's going to bake a cake for us. He's basically an older Mexican version of Sam. The best is that he's only 22 but is already in the branch presidency. This Sunday he was conducting and asked me to pray from the pulpit but he either didn't remember my last name or can't pronounce it because he definitely said "La Hermana Halloween dará la oración". Classic. Oh and he asked both me and my compa to speak this next Sunday. Great. We get to go to their house tonight for Noche de Hogar (FHE) so that should be fun! The Santos family is pretty much the best.

Love you all! Keep living, laughing, loving, praying, sharing, and testifying!! Member missionary work is where it's at!! Give out those referrals!!

Con amor,

Hermana Holloway

Dare to be consecrated!

Hola familia y amigos y alguien mas que lea mis correos electrónicos!

All of the messages that you sent me made me so happy!! I'm glad that you've had the opportunity to go to Disneyland so many times and your anniversary was fun. And I LOVED your greenie package. So adorable and tasty and useful!! It's a miracle that it got here on the day that I thought it was just lost forever.

Also, thanks to everyone who sends me mail. I sent off a letter to Kristi and Michael already, but I'll be sure to get back to Jenni and Grandma Holloway today. Everyone else, send me mail!

This week was the bomb diggity (yes I did really just type that)!! My compa and I are still getting used to the area but I think that we've been able to learn super fast. This definitely could be harder than it has been, but with the help of Heavenly Father we've been able to see many many miracles! We also got to dust of the bikes for the first time this week because we're only allowed 25 miles a day and we need to save some for trips to outlying towns that are also part of our area. It's awesome though because biking is super fun! Having to bike in a skirt is a challenge sometimes, but we deal with it.

The major thing we've been focusing on is finding solid investigators. A lot of time what will happen is we'll find someone, they'll say they're too busy for a lesson then, so we'll set up a return appointment. The problem is that they're too polite to say they're not interested so we end up knocking on their door again and they're not home. This was happening so much that we decided to take this "problem" (or future strength as we call them) to district meeting. We do this every week to get input from the other missionaries that's super helpful and often is the solution to the problem. One of the elders suggested that we count the small victories and not just focus on the outward results. By doing that I was able to see SO MANY MIRACLES! For example, on Saturday we found this guy who was really depressed at that moment and needed someone to talk to. We were just biking by and the Spirit said "STOP!". So we did and were able to help him in his time of need. Then on Sunday we went over to the Santos's house to follow up on this young man that's staying in their house. Last week we had given him a Book of Mormon and Sister Santos reported to us that he was reading it. Well we went to talk to him and had an AWESOME lesson with him and his brother who are both so prepared! It was amazing! It was just a huge testimony builder to me that when Heavenly Father sees that we're working hard He magnifies our efforts and guides us to the people who really need us. And now we have 2 new and solid investigators!

Aside from that we're starting English classes this week to help find people and give service to the community. That should be fun. More updates on that to follow.

My district here is also great. Actually after District Mtg. on Friday we were all eating pizza together when I mentioned to my District Leader who is super nice and always asks how he can help that Sister Crockett and I would appreciate some ice cream. This was said COMPLETELY in jest, but he and his comp showed up that night with 2 cartons of ice cream! How awesome is that? We repaid him by giving him 2 referrals from our apartment complex. Now he thinks that whenever he gives us ice cream he gets referrals... But my comp and I are actually really good at finding referrals for other missionaries. I think we're up to 6 now.

Lately I've been reading Jesus the Christ, which is such an amazing book. one of the things that struck me was when Talmage was explaining the parable of the seed growing secretly (it's in Mark 4:26-29). It talks about how a sower planted a seed that grew gradually until the sower came back and found that it had matured into the full ear of corn. I think that this is super applicable to missionary life, because every person that we find is at a different stage in their spiritual development. For most all we can do is plant seeds. When we find those who are spiritually ready to be "harvested" then we have the most outward success, but planting seeds still fulfills the missionary purpose of bringing others to Christ. This parable definitely helped me this week.

Also, one of my favorite quotes from Conference was from Elder Uchtdorf, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith!" Wow! So true! The Adversary wants us to have doubt and think that we can only know if we have concrete evidence, whereas the Lord invites us to trust Him and walk by faith, not sight.

And FINALLY, I should probably explain the title of this particular email. This comes from the son of the sister that lead the choir that I sang in in the conference center. Consecration is when we give all of EVERYTHING to the Lord and He gives us back what we need. My goal as a missionary is to be consecrated, and while this is a gradual and difficult process I still want to dare to be consecrated!

Well I hope this next week is super duper! Sorry this email is so long but I just had so much to talk about. 

Love you all!

~Hermana Holloway

PS: Dare to be consecrated!

I'm in Oklahoma!!

HOLA Y ALOHA!!!!!!!!

Guess what? I'm in Oklahoma! And I survived my first half week here! Life is good!! 

First of all I'd like to give a shoutout to my parents who have been married for 20 years on Wednesday! Wow. They don't look that old do they?

Alrighty, here's a rundown of what I've been doing lately:

I had the lovely opportunity of going to the travel office at 2:30 am to fly to OKC. The airports that we were in provided my first opportunity in public as a missionary. Basically you get a lot of weird looks. Especially when there are 26 of you traveling together! All of the missionaries coming from Provo were English speaking except for me, but we picked up 2 Spanish elders from the Mexico MTC in Dallas during our layover. The whole rest of that day I was super tired, but my mission president is awesome and it was fun staying in the mission home. They have a legit tornado shelter. Like concrete walls and metal hatches and everything. It was intense! Oklahoma is basically a flatter Illinois. I wouldn't think that there was anything flatter than IL, but I haven't seen any hills whatsoever. It was pretty warm until Thursday night when there was a sudden thunderstorm that turned the switch from summer to winter in a matter of hours. So now it's pretty chilly.

My comp/trainer/mom is Hermana Crockett! She's super great! She's really kind and patient and organized and I'm so grateful to have her. Your trainer on the mission is compared to your parent, and she's definitely almost as caring as Mamie. But not quite of course. We're splitting the Norman 3rd Spanish branch with the elders that were already here, so we're whitewashing and shotgunning the area. That basically means that we're opening and taking over an area. The elders here have been super helpful, especially considering we're taking half of their investigators and their car. What we're doing kind of feels like being dropped on a treadmill going like 20 miles an hour, but the elders have been great about trying to make it as easy a transition as possible. Our new apartment is also really nice. We're the first missionaries to live in it so everything is new. And we have 2 bathrooms which is AWESOME.

Basically we've been trying for the last couple of days to put together our area book and get to know the branch. The people in the branch are just AWESOME. Most of the work we do is in trailer parks, and I've decided that trailer park people are the best. They're super receptive to the gospel, they're religious already so even though they might not be interested in the church they respect us as missionaries, they're humble, and they work very hard for very little and share what little they have. Case in point is Hermana Santos. She's a member who cooks for the missionaries every Wednesday and never lets you leave until you can't eat anymore then she sends you home with more food! She's also hilarious, and is convinced that feeding gringos spicy food will improve their Spanish. It's a good thing my Spanish is already pretty good. She also gives nicknames to all of the missionaries. I'm Hermana Halloween and Sister Crockett is Hermana Cracker. I think it's very appropriate that her name is Santos, because she definitely is a saint!

Michelle and Becki will definitely enjoy this story. I had my first "bless your heart!" since being in the South last week. Hna Crockett and I weren't sure which mailbox was ours so we ended up getting our key stuck in somebody else's mailbox, which necessitated the maintenance man replacing that lock and us getting a new key from the very nice lady in the front office that actually "blessed our hearts" to our face. It was a great moment. (PS our mailbox was empty...)

Oh, and I had the first door slammed in my face! Last night we went around and said hi to our neighbors and one man just opened the door a crack and said "not interested!" before immediately closing it again. The Hispanics are usually nicer than that. :)

General conference!!!! So good!!! What really stood out to me the most was the strong themes that there were. They were a lot more prevalent than other conferences. I especially noticed that many were warning that a testimony of the truth isn't enough. You truly have to become converted to the gospel in order to withstand the storm that is coming! Conference definitely made me recommit to becoming a converted and a consecrated missionary. If you don't strive to be better EVERY DAY, you start to go backwards.

I've also been doing a cool study in my scriptures that I recommend. I got a brand-new paperback copy of the Book of Mormon, and I'm reading it and marking it with a specific theme in mind. This time I'm focusing on the Holy Ghost. I got the idea from an MTC devotional by Elder Bednar who said to do this continually until you have a whole shelf of Books of Mormon that is really a progression of your spiritual learning. I think it's awesome so far and I've already learned a lot of cool things. For example, have you ever seen how Lehi and Joseph Smith are really similar? Think about it. Makes sense.

Well until next week! I love you all! You are all wonderful! I wish I had more time but that's all I got.

Love,

Hermana Holloway

Elder Lier has a fake tooth that he can pop out. 

It was pretty entertaining the first time that happened.

This is what P-Day looks like at the MTC. Basically, laundry. 

Intense biking with my companion.

Elder Grimm on his first day at the MTC still wearing his dot.

Hey, Look it is the Daines!!

We're adorable!

Hermana Holloway and Mission President, Brother Walkenhorst and his wife.

She said, "Yes, he really is that tall."

Hey, Guess What? ... I sang in the Conference Center!!!

ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHA familia y amigos!!!! How are y'all doing? I am just dandy. Actually better than dandy. Wanna know why?

BECAUSE I SANG FOR THE PROPHET...THAT'S WHY!!!!!!!

It was seriously one of the best moments of my life. It was a bit terrifying to look out into the crowd to see 22,000 women but I seriously believe that there were angels singing with us. I could go into great detail about everything that happened that day, but I'll just focus on some highlights so this isn't sleep-inducing:

• The General Relief Society is so sweet. Before the meeting they spoke to us and basically made me feel like I was the most special person in the world. And then after the meeting they waited for us all to file out so they could give every sister a hug. By the way, there were about 360 sisters in the choir. And they hugged every last one of us! The funny thing is, though, that I really didn't feel like I was just another sister in the missionary choir. I really felt like they loved me personally and individually. It really reminded me of how Christ loves us. He doesn't see us as a statistic or another warm body or anything like that. Rather, He sees us as the people we are AND as the people we have the potential to become. I don't think I've ever felt the pure love of Christ as strongly as I felt in that meeting.
• When we were riding the bus home Pres. Hacking (of the MTC presidency) asked us to sing some of the hymns that we sang during the broadcast. After that was done we kept singing hymns all the way home. We probably still had 30 or 40 minutes left in the trip but we didn't stop (and we were singing in 3-part improvised a capella harmony, which was legit). The Spirit was SO STRONG and I really felt like we were an army of sisters that has the potential to change the world.
• They fed us well. I came home with 3 Snickers bars and a belly full of 2 sandwiches.
• Sister Wadley, the chorister, was so inspiring. She looks really serious on the broadcast but in real life she's CRAZY but in a good way. Anyways, she really helped us to do our best through constant positive encouragement. It was awesome. 
• I got to live my dream and sing with a missionary choir in the Conference Center! I thank my Heavenly Father for making that happen. That's a once in a lifetime chance crossed off my bucket list!

It was just an overall incredible experience, and you can always re-watch the performances on lds.org!

That was basically the most exciting thing that happened this week. We did have some crazy illnesses going on too. I think people enter the MTC and any health problems they might have had all of the sudden get 100x worse. I've definitely seen the power of the priesthood work this week!

In other news, I go to Oklahoma tomorrow!! I'm leaving on my P-Day, so they've given me today to do laundry and email and pack all of my stuff. Hopefully my suitcases aren't overweight :). Everyone in my district is leaving one by one which is really sad because we've all gotten so close and I don't know when I'll see them again. I'm especially going to miss my companion, who is an ANGEL and I love her. I wish we were all going to the same mission like many other districts here, but c'est la vive.

Along the same vine, anyone who wants to send me letters (which is everyone right?) should send them to my Oklahoma address, not the MTC address.

Thank you SO MUCH for all the dearelders and the package!! The cookies were like manna from heaven. And I love hearing all of your squirrely thoughts, Mama. And tell Ashley that I'm so happy that she's getting better and give Jonas and Addie a hug from me!!

Love you all!! Abrazos y besos!

Herman A. Holloway

Some funny moments from the week:

1. Elder Lier was flipping through our orange MTC manual thing (which is in Spanish) when he suddenly exclaims, "hey! These numbers are in English!". Yes, yes they are. They're also in Arabic!
2. Coming out of devotional yesterday Hna. Quinones and I heard an elder say "there was a straight up B-Dog sitting in front of us!" If you don't know what that means, ask Trevor and Sam. And Trev and Sam, if you ever say that  I might vomit on you then punch you.
3. Hna. Quinones was watching the sign language interpreter during this beautiful harp solo of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". She taps me on the shoulder and points to the interpreter and says "did you know that they can sign music in sign language?" Me: "...She's probably just signing the words to the hymn."
4. Hna. Quinones and I have perfected freaky face pictures together. I have pictoral evidence but the computers are not camera-friendly so you'll have to wait until next week.

Bethani asked me to include the two links below for those of you interested in watching these lovely sister missionaries sing. Bethani is wearing purple and her hair looks blonde in both of the pictures below. It was awesome to see her doing what she loves and is passionate about! We are so excited to talk to her tomorrow!!!

Love you all,

Kim

http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/general-relief-society-meeting/2013/09?lang=eng&vid=2703212494001

http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/general-relief-society-meeting/2013/09?lang=eng&vid=2703107187001

Living the Dream at the MTC

ALOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! And hola tambien! How is everyone? I'm doing so fantastic!! The MTC is pretty great. My district is awesome, the food is edible, the bed is sleepable, and I get to do laundry today! What more could a girl want??

Anyways, it feels like I've been here for WAY longer than a week. New people have already started arriving and it's gonna be great to not be an MTC baby anymore! Hmm... What should I talk to you about. Well I'm in the Advanced Spanish program, which means that I'm learning the same things as English speakers but in Spanish. My district is a mix of Mexicans, a Guatemalan, an Ecuadorian, a half Honduran, two Argentines, and 2 gringos (myself and an elder from Wyoming). Most of them are going stateside, but the other gringo is going (shoutout to Ben McRae) to Panama! And his companion is going to Mexico. But other than that we're all stateside. It's amazing how much my Spanish has already improved just by using it all the time. I'm pretty comfortable talking to everyone in Spanish all the time. It's a ton of fun.

My companion is Sister Quinones and she's from Argentina. She's really sweet and really spiritual and we've already grown so close. She definitely helps me grow and by talking to her my Spanish gets so much better! I'm actually the senior companion, so you can tell Chris that what he said has to happen before you can become a senior companion didn't happen. So there. (though he'll say I'm still in the MTC so it doesn't count but I don't care)

Our days consist of classes, teaching practice, larger group devotional type stuff, study, eating, and repeat! The first two days were pretty overwhelming and Friday was turning me into a giant stressball until we finally had GYM TIME!!!!!!!!!!! It made everything so much better! Hna. Q likes to run so we ran around the field outside and it was so strange to see the outside world. Like people still drive in cars and talk on cell phones and know what's going on outside of the MTC bubble! (what is going on anyway? has life really gone on?)

The MTC is great because you're constantly surrounded by uplifting things. Everything you do is focused on bringing others to Christ. We really have given up our time to the Lord and as such need to focus on what He wants us to do. Plus the Spirit is really strong here and you meet the most AWESOME people. Sometimes, though, I see a pair of missionaries walking around and I think "oh cool there are the missionaries" and I totally forget that I have the same nametag on my chest. Yeah. I'm not really used to that. Or being called Sister Holloway all the time. That's weird.

Oh, and here's the BEST NEWS EVER AND PART OF THE FACT THAT I'M LIVING THE DREAM!!! It turns out that there's a choir of sister missionaries singing in the General Relief Society broadcast this Saturday. And guess what!!! I'm in it!!!!! I GET TO SING IN THE CONFERENCE CENTER WHICH IS THE PLACE THAT I'VE WANTED TO SING IN MY WHOLE LIFE AND I'M SO EXCITED AND I JUST CANT EVEN HANDLE IT!! To decide who gets to sing we had to fill out this survey based on our singing experience, and I'm so glad that I was able to brag about my years of voice lessons and choir. So look out for me on Saturday! And tell everyone to watch! Because it'll be great!!

I also leave in a week. I have to go to the travel office at 2:30 am and my flight leaves at 6:30. I do have a layover in Texas that day so I could call you from the airport... but I don't remember when. Sorry! So if you get a call from a weird pay phone in Texas it's me! It'll most likely be in the morning.

ANYways, being a missionary is great. I love it. I love the MTC too but I'm really excited to get out to the field because when we teach here it just feels kinda fake. I'm glad I don't have to be here for 6 weeks to learn Spanish here! That would be a pain.

You asked what I could possibly be doing on my P-Day. Well this morning I had choir practice so I missed going to the temple with my district so I went later with another Hermana in my zone who's also in the choir. Then we ate lunch and now I'm doing laundry and wearing pants and sending emails and chilling with my district! Life is good!! And later we have MTC devotional which should be good. Pues... I don't really know what else y'all wanna know but just know that I'm loving life and doing what I've been dreaming about doing my whole life!!

Besos y abrazos,

Herman A. Holloway

PS: People should write me letters.
PPS: And I did get my license and the other thing we ordered. Thank you!

PPS: I met a girl that dated Bryant for like a week. She recognized me because of my name tag. And I saw Teal Bickmore and a couple other BYUH people here that I wasn't expecting to see.

Bethani with her cousin, Ben, who works at the MTC.

Drop-off at the MTC and Her First Email

So, all future posts on the blog will probably be by me, Bethani's mom, affectionately called Mamie or Zillie by Bethani. You'll have to ask her where she came up with Zillie when she returns. I am posting from her computer so it will probably say the posts are by Bethani for a while until I take the time to figure out how to change that.

We dropped Bethani off at the MTC at 8:05 a.m. on Wednesday, September 18th. I thought it was going to be fairly easy. It was not. I don't know why I cried as much as I did, after all she has been at college in Hawaii for nearly a year straight (I blame my dad, who is very good at tears). She was SO ready to go. Like "bye mom and dad, I'm good, you can leave." She is excited to serve the Lord and the people of Oklahoma City and I am excited for her and my tears have stopped.

We received an email two days later (on Friday) much to my surprise and excitement. Here are the contents:

Familia,

The Zone Leaders let me send you a short note letting you know that everything is going well! I'm doing great and will email you more on P-Day, which will be Tuesday.

Te amo!

Hermana Holloway

Short, sweet and awesome! We should hear from her tomorrow!!