Bella Vista

Well, I had a solid last week in Parque Avellaneda.  One miracle that I got to see before leaving is that Isidora, the mother of Nancy and Roxana, finally went to church.  After the Sacrament meeting, my comp and I were surprised to find that Isidora was there seated next to her daughters. She´s one of the people that I feel will be able to enter the waters of baptism this upcoming transfer, her along with Giovanni, luz, and a few others... oh well, Tito can send me pictures. :)

So, in these last few days, I said goodbye to the ward members, investigators, and converts from the area, and then got the call Monday night that I was going to open the area of Bella Vista with Elder Juzga. So, here I am now, we arrived at the apartment, unpacked our stuff, and now we´re going to figure out where everything is so that we can start working.

From what I´ve heard, this is a difficult area, and that the members are a bit asleep when it comes to the missionary work.  However, Elder Juzga and I are excited to be here and be able to work in this part of the Lord´s vineyard.  I can feel that we´ll be led to where we need to go to find the people waiting here.

Well, I love you all, have a Superb week!! :)

-Elder Holtry

In our e-mails back and forth he said this and I thought it would share. I asked him how he is feeling about his mission right now:

Opening the area means that they gave us the keys, the phone, a taxi, and a bit of info about the area before sending us on our way. We pretty much have to discover everything now. I´m ready for a new area, but I was sad to leave the last one.  A few members cried when we came bye to say goodbye. I love Parque Avellaneda a ton, and I´ll miss it.

How I feel in my mission? In this exact moment, tired... but, beyond that I´m excited for the opportunity to open this area.  I feel that If we work hard, we´ll be able to baptize here, and (If God wants) baptize a lot. I´m at the point in my mission where I’m chill. I try not to stress out much over stuff (I learned about patience from Elder Tito) and I´m just moving forward. I just hope I’ll be able to keep my spirits high and do a lot of good before my times up.

Tito at our apartment

 Elders Cordoba and Tito - Mission reunion. They actually used to be companions also!

La Villa

Con Fe en Cristo

Hello, good day! How goes it? Just to throw out a random fun fact for you, Elder Tito and I have made a pact to not kill ants.  So when we´re walking, we have to be very careful so that we don´t step on them.  The other day we were in our apartment planning for the next day, and I saw an ant strolling along on the ground.  I thought to myself "Great, we can´t do anything about this..." But in the end, we threw it out the window, because that doesn´t count.  We can safely assume that the wind carried it a few blocks, to where it landed in a convenient pile of pillows. :) Also, a funny thing that happened this Sunday was in the Gospel Principles class.  We were going around in a circle, Saying who we were, what type of season we prefer, and how we´ve seen the hand of God that week. When it was Roberto´s turn (Our investigator that´s about 80) he said "I accept any climatical condition that I must experience..." hahaha good man. 

Well, it´s been a good week.  We finally got our new cell phone (So that we can actually call people) and we got to go to the temple (I love it!).  along with that we´ve found several new people to teach, so we´re just chugging along.  Oh ya, a little shout out to Dylan Wright, who completed his mission in England this last week! That man inspires me, and he served an incredible mission!

Well, just one thing i´d like to share is the importance that the mission has had in my life. As i´ve said before, this is NOT easy... but as i strive to get better and serve the Lord and my fellow man, I can feel myself getting closer to the Lord, bit by bit. One thing specifically that I´ve noticed this week is that my desires to be obedient and follow the mission rules has grown a ton. In the beginning, i was just obedient because that was what I needed to do, now I want to do my best to be obedient to follow the Lord, and be worthy of his blessings.  I like something that a Zone leader once said. "Exact Obedience doesn´t bring Miracles, Exact Obedience with Faith in Christ brings Miracles" We have to feel it! So, maybe we need to start by just doing the things we need to, but in time, it´ll change us until it´s apart of us. 

Well, I hope that made sense. As always, I´d like to send you my many thanks! Forward, pressing Forward.

Elder Holtry

River in the Boca Stadium....Apostacy

 A gift from Roxana - A Boca mug

 An extra Birthday candle I left on Elder Tito´s desk.

 Elder Bennet! (Love that guy so much! We did divisions this week, and he finishes his mission next week) 

 Little siblings are the best. Thanks Hannah!

  Zone leaders bringing me peach cobbler for my birthday!

 The Temple!

our district (The Zone leaders already left, but picture them in there too! :) )

 Thanks Family!

 The missionaries of Parque Avellaneda

 Vamos California!

La importancia de la Caridad

Howdy! Alright, so, i´ve had a pretty solid week.  First off, thanks for all the Birthday wishes everyone! I I especially loved the notes from everybody that my mom sent!!!!  I got some letters, and I heard there was some stuff on Facebook (mom sent it to me!!) It was a pretty good Friday the 13th for me, I had a few cakes, some meals with the members, and by the end of the day... I was satisfied. :D 

Anyways, I don´t remember if i´ve mentioned our investigator Giovanni,  but oh well, he´s on his way to get baptized. He needs to get married first, and the elders before us have tried for awhile to help them get married, but to no avail.  We´ve been teaching a bit for these last few weeks, and we finally felt that we should invite them once more to make wedding plans. So, we invited, and they accepted.  They told us a bit about how other missionaries have come in and tried to put a wedding date immediately, but it was all so sudden, but we were able to help them realize the importance of it. It just shows a bit about the importance of loving the people, because honestly, we´ve done our best to teach with love for these last few weeks, and I

love this family a ton! I´m a bit bummed out, because their wedding will be this upcoming month after transfers, so it´s likely that I won´t be here... But oh well, Tito can send me pictures.

Also, we had a few other investigators in the church yesterday, but one of the guys that i have high hopes for is Esteban.  He has a desire to change his life, and to get baptized to come closer to Christ and be free of his sins, so ya, he´s a great guy, he just struggles a bit with cigarrets, but, that´s what we´re here for. To help people. 

So ya, The main thing i´ve studdied this week has been Charity, because as Moroni teaches, we can have the faith to move a mountain, but if we don´t have Charity, we´re nothing.  So, I invite you to follow his invitation, to cry with all your strength so that you might have this Charity.  I have great need of it, and I ask for it every day. 

Anywho, I love you guys, and I hope you have a fantastic week! Onward ever onward!!!!
--

-Elder Holtry

PS- a couple of funny things, whenever we´re on the buses and we pass a catholic church the people always do the cross thing (Hail Mary?) so i´ve tried to time it right by singing a bit of Beyonce to the tune of single ladies, like "All the Catholics, All the Catholics! All the Catholics! All the Catholics, oh put your hands UP!" On up, i try to get the Hail Mary.  So ya, there´s that, and also, our old mission leader one time said "Holtry!" In a gruff voice, and the Elders (Idk why) started all saying that, so now everyone says "Holtry!" I´ll try to record how it is and send it to you! :) 

 I love it! 

 Sweet Tie!

 Me opening my presents

Zone leaders came and brought peach cobbler

Those were the days!

 When your heater doesn't work well in your apartment

 Yes!

 Some meme's from the family

YESSSSSSSS

Birthday Morning

Lugares Santos

Alrighty, well, obviously i´m going to throw this out first: Happy Mothers day/Birthday Mom! Thanks for raising me, feeding me, clothing me and all of that other good stuff!!! Well, it was fantastic yesterday to be able to Skype with the family for a little while, the best!!! 

Now, other than that, not a whole lot happened this week, so i´m just going to say something that I was thinking about in our last Zone conference.  Well, i´ve talked before about the importance of doing the basics, now, i´m going to talk about them again, just for giggles.

In our zone conference, the zone leaders showed us a little bit how they use their planners and make boxes next to their appointments, to remind them to do certain things such as contact neighbors, talk to family members, etc.  Well, this principle is simple, but useful.  In our lives, we can surround ourselves with the things that remind us to choose the right.  It may be something simple, like a picture of Christ on the wall, or something like a list of personal goals that you update from time to time to keep you progressing.  Just remember that the Lord dwells in Holy places, so let us strive always to sanctify ourselves and our physical surroundings, so that we always can have those spiritual reminders in our minds. 

Well, the work goes on! Love you all, thanks for your prayers!

--

-Elder Holtry

I was able to go with a member, David on a tour of the Boca Stadium

 Preparation Room

 "Does anyone care for some overpriced food"

 Breakfast with the Zone on P-day

 Typical Argentine street in his area

 A scarf a sister in the ward made for him

 "Aregenchino" It´s Argentino- Argentinian, and Chino- China man mixed together.

The Villa Alleyways