25 February 2019

We had a missionary devotional yesterday, and that was the big thing for the week. Well, we had stake conference 50 miles away, so we got permission to work with the Raeford elders all day. It was super nice to be able to talk to a whole bunch of the old members that I hadn't talked to for months. But in the devotional, every missionary had to sing in a choir. They asked for some volunteers a week or two ago to sing in a small group or do solos. So I decided that I'd like to sing in a small group, and went to the auditions. About 8 or 9 elders showed up, and Sister Goodman (the senior missionary in charge of it all) started having people sing different things. So, I got called up and I sang a part of Savior, Redeemer of my Soul. Evidently it was good enough where I ended up being voluntold into being in the small group and the solo thing. The small group was 4 elders singing the chorus of the second verse of How Great Thou Art, and I ended up singing the higher part. Sister Goodman asked who could sing a high G, and apparantly I can. With the solo, I sang the first verse of Savior, Redeemer of My Soul with Elders Schmidt and Oberstadt. Second verse was just me as a solo and then Elder Oberstadt was alone on the third verse. I was shaking pretty badly, but everyone I talked to said that I did a really good job still. (There were about 500-600 people there.) One member said that my future wife was probably in the audience, so I'll take that as I did well. The whole devotional was really spiritual and had lot of great speakers. It was interesting though, there were no conducting officers or anything. It just flowed from one part to the next. But it was super good.

25 February 2019

Dear Parents,

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful new opportunity to visit more regularly with your missionaries. They are such a delight.  We are in the midst of doing multi-stake/zone musical devotionals titled Joy in Christ right now and I wish you could see their smiles and hear them sing and pray and bring the Spirit to the room with such power. 

As we move into this new era of communicating home, I wanted to share a mix of my personal observations and reminders from the Brethren that I hope you will keep in mind.

--The length of your calls is up to you and your missionary, but please remember not all missionaries are in the same situation when it comes to family support and relations.  Be mindful of how keeping your missionary on the line might be affecting their companion.

--The principle is one call home (or two, if parents are not together).  Others family members at home may join in the call.  In that spirit, other family members may also join that call electronically (conference call, or video link).  What should not happen is multiple calls to multiple family members throughout the day.

--Remember the principle the Brethren had in mind when they changed the name of the day to Preparation Day when it used to be called Diversion Day.  The day is meant to get the missionaries ready for the coming week to do the work, not as a day to divert or distract them from the work. Please know that the missionaries have many things to do on P-day to get ready for the work and please do your part to help keep your missionary mentally and spiritually focused on their purpose of: “Inviting Others to Come Unto Christ.”

--Missionaries are to initiate the contact during regular PDay hours, not you.  If you need to reach them please message me or the Mission Office directly and we will facilitate whatever contact judgment warrants.

--While virtually all of the missionaries are excited with the option to call home every week, many have already expressed that they may not want to do this every week.  The Brethren have indicated that it is not their expectation that missionaries will call home every week. 

--There will be no increase to mission budgets for these calls. Missionaries are not authorized to make long distance calls which incur additional charges on their mission phones. Missionaries without easy internet access would typically buy a phone card with their own funds. 

--You might be interested to know I send this as a mission president, but also as a father with a daughter on a mission.  I was giddy with love and excitement as I got to speak to my daughter last week.  We will do so again, I am sure.  But, we (meaning me, my wife and my daughter) have all agreed that mission letters are a treasure and should not be discontinued or be entirely replaced by calls.  You say different things (often better things) when you write, rather than call.  We are also agreed that part of the mission experience is to grow in individual maturity and independence.  Just as a great cake cannot bake with a constant opening of the oven door to check on it, a great mission experience is often only achieved after some period of individual struggle without direct, parental observation and intervention. 

I pray for heaven’s blessing upon you and your missionaries as you thoughtfully and prayerfully consider your communications in light of these reminders.

It continues to be the finest honor of my life to serve your noble sons and daughters who give so much to the work of the Lord and the salvation of the people of North Carolina.

Best,

President Holland

18 February 2019

So, in brief, this was an odd week. We're teaching a man who had a flesh eating bacteria infection in his groin and had tons of surgeries and is constantly in pain, and he talks about it every time. He originally was Irish Catholic but it pretty skeptical about almost every church. Fortunately, ours isn't one of them! So he's really interested in learning a lot more. He's not super sure about joining the church, but we'll work with him.

Our weird story for the week is about going to the local HerbaLife to contact the owner again, Al. Well, an older millionaire Rhodesian street preacher came in and started talking to us. He tried to get us to join his ministry, but we politely declined. He later praised us and kissed our hands because "it's a hard job and nobody gives us praise." It was just a weird time. He also bought us shakes. So, that's the week's story. 

4 February 2019

So I now have done my first week in Clinton. It's bigger than Wallace, but that isn't a very difficult feat. Still, it has some more stuff. We'll just have to figure out something to do on P-Days now... Anyway, on to the week.

It started off with getting the apartment cleaned out and throwing out a lot of food. Wallace got shut down due to a lack of missionaries, and we had to clean out everything, and the APs were very insistent that everything be taken out. Nothing was allowed to stay. The rest of the day was saying bye to the members and finishing up our cleaning. 

Tuesday rolled around and that meant it was time for the hour and a half drive to Raleigh. I'd picked up quite a bit of stuff in my months in Wallace, and Elder Reynolds also had a lot, plus all of the stuff that had to be taken out. (Mostly the food.) So, the Malibu was riding pretty low. And got terrible gas mileage all the way to Raleigh. But we made it, and I got my new companion, Elder Rivas. He's from Utah and has been out for eight months. So we went and headed off to Clinton, where I was almost overwhelmed by the size. A whole whoppin 8,600 according to Google Maps. It did feel a lot bigger though. The apartment is interesting. We're next door neighbors to our branch president, and it's not an apartment. It's actually a little stand-alone house. That's really nice because we don't have to worry about loud neighbors or anything like that. 

Throughout the week I've mostly been getting to know the people we're teaching. We've got some really good people, and we set a baptismal date for someone named Cornelius. He's a really nice guy, he just needs to stop smoking. I also had my first online lesson with someone named Esther. She's been learning from the missionaries for a long time now, but just hasn't taken the steps to develop her faith all the way. We're trying to encourage her to read the Book of Mormon, as that's been the hardest thing for her to do. She's a college student with a kid, so it's understandable that she's busy. The lesson was just us reading the Book of Mormon with her, and that was interesting. Doing it over Facebook Messenger gives you kind of a weird seperation, and the connection dropped at one point. Still, she liked it and ended up coming to church. 

Speaking of Sunday, we went to someone's house who we'd set up a return appointment with only to find that there were a bunch of 20 ish year olds there as well. We were pleasantly surprised at how well they received us, and they had a lot of good questions about what it was like to be a missionary. Two of them were 20, and it was hard for them to think about what it would be like to just give up two years of your life to go and preach the gospel. This was made even better by the baliadas the mom had made us. We won't be able to keep teaching any of the kids because they had to go back to school the next day across NC, but hopefully they'll remember what they heard when other missionaries find them down the road. 

I think that's all the major news for this week, I'll keep you all informed!

(Oh, yeah, I hit my 18 month mark this week too. I forgot about that.)