Week 3: Mueller Park; Heaven on Earth

Hello dear friends and family!

Before I get into all that is happening in the field, I want to say THANK YOU for being amazing and for all the prayers and love and support! I love you all SO MUCH!

Quick notes: send packages to the mission home (especially Christmas packages) and letters to the Bountiful address please!

Happy birthday Jen and Sierra!! WOO HOO!! And congratulations to Steven for earning the title of first letter in the mission field! Thanks so much for that!!

Last week at the MTC:

Wednesday after I emailed you all and finished laundry, we had a zone temple trip! I love the temple. So much. Especially the Provo Temple. We took some group pictures afterwards (see attached) and just enjoyed the time we had to spend there.

We spent an entire day up at Main Campus for what's called "In Field Training." It was fantastic! And I saw Elder Clarin there!

Our last night at the MTC was one of the most spiritual times of my life. The Elders in our district gave the Sisters blessings, then we had a testimony meeting. I know, without a doubt, that this Church is true. This is Christ's gospel, and it is the only way we can be with our Heavenly Father again someday. Each one of those Elders and Sisters is making miracles happen in the areas they have been assigned to. I love them so much.

We left around 8 on Tuesday morning, with about 4 from Main Campus and 28 from West Campus. Total of 32 new missionaries. We took the FrontRunner to Murray then piled in vans and trucks to get to a church building where we did training. We had interviews, wrote letters, and took pictures before lunch, then went and visited Temple Square before they gave us our companion assignments. It was a crazy day! Oh and Sister Hansen got me on the piano to play prelude... before Elder Williams thankfully took over for the opening hymn. Good times.

President and Sister Hansen are incredible. I absolutely adore them, and I can't wait to get to know them better and work with them more.

Mom - can you send us a Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD? You could even burn some favorites on to a CD to send. We just have one Mo Tab disc to listen to in the car, so we would love to have some other songs to listen to! 

Mueller Park Stake

The Stake President, Pres. Taylor, gave us PRO rings: Pray, Read, Obey EVERY DAY. Do it. It's an awesome program the Stake has going!

We share miracles at dinner appointments which is fantastic!

I saw President Eyring go visit his grandkids. That was pretty awesome.

Sunday: We attended three sacrament meetings, one Sunday School class, listened to the Stake President speak twice, had meetings with two Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders, and got to know at least 50 ward members. All before 3:00 pm. Then we were contacting some referrals, had a dinner appointment, visited a recent convert, taught a lesson to a family, made phone calls, and visited a member's home. Busiest day of the week right there.

The first ward we went to had their Primary Program. One of the boys looks like a little Brother Ellsworth and another looked like a little Elder Watkins. Love Primary kids. And they're so talented!! We had a violin duet, a violin and cello duet, and a recorder solo. It was so great.

My companions are Sister LeSueur and Sister Beeton. Sister LeSueur is from Mesa, Arizona and has two transfers left. She'll probably be training me for the rest of her mission! Sister Beeton is from Farmington, Utah and this is her last transfer! I am so blessed to be with both of these incredible sisters. I learn so much from them every single day! We have a car which is great, because we're way up in the mountains. I'm seriously in heaven: mountains, fall weather, and gorgeous views. Life is just beautiful.

The members here are so involved and so willing to help. Everyone needs to have the attitude of missionary work applying to them. The hastening of the work is happening NOW and we all need to be a part of it!! Look for missionary opportunities - talk to people, be friends, show them mormon.org, use family history. The options are endless.

For the family: the food is great haha. We have dinner appointments every night except on P-day. If we don't have a dinner appointment, then we just call up one of the ward or stake leaders and they're more than wiling to feed us or pay for us at Kneader's :) They're so incredible. Breakfast and lunch we're on our own, but we have cereal and sandwich options at Sister George's.

This stake has one other program: the Search and Rescue mission. President Eyring a while ago said that the enthusiasm of the youth to do baptisms has been so amazing, that they are running out of temple names. So the Mueller Park Stake has a goal of finding 1000 names and then doing the work for each of the people. So cool!! Get involved with Family History - it's as addictive as Facebook and so much more rewarding! Plus it brings protection against Satan. What's not to love about family history?!

Nathan - how's family history going for you? Have you been able to do those family names yet?

Well, that's everything for this week. Next week I'll tell you more about the incredible people we are teaching! I love this gospel, I love this work, and I love all of you!! Keep smiling, rely on the Lord, and always remember that Heavenly Father loves you!

Love,

Sister Holbrook

The Big MTC Map 

 Lunch with her new companions