Thanks for the Birthday Wishes

Date: May 28, 2013 Area: Santiago, Chile Companion: Elder Berrios

Hey Family and Friends,

First off, thank you all for the birthday wishes. I opened my email today and I had about 50 emails from a bunch of people so thank you all for remembering my birthday and for the birthday wishes. Just a few weeks and I´ll be able to thank you in person.

This week went by pretty fast, there really isn´t time here to think about much else and I´m really grateful for that because I don´t really want to think about anything else. I just want to keep working until my last day here and then have it hit me that I don´t have any more time here in the mission.

I have been really pretty good about it until this last week when the interviews started and we started seeing all of the missionaries in the zones and everyone started telling me how much time I have left... which isn´t very much.. WE ARE ALMOST IN JUNE!!!! Its crazy. But I´m going to back up a bit.

I don´t remember what happened on Monday,

Tuesday was really cool, I was able to do exchanges with Elder Barnes!!! He is a zone leader now and President had him on the list of people that he wanted us to do exchanges with so I went out there after a Zone Training Conference we had on Tuesday. (I didn´t have to do anything, the zone leaders taught the lessons that President, Elder Millan and I had already taught to all the zone leaders last week... it was a good break=) But after that we did the exchanges and it was really fun to work with him and see how far he has come and how much he has learned and grown. He is a great guy.

Then on Wednesday after the exchanges we had to do some special changes- moving some sister missionaries that were having some problems from one sector to another so that was fun. It was also my birthday and everyone was so nice to me! Sister and Elder Chase (a new couple) made me a birthday balloon tree wishing me a happy birthday, it was really nice of them. Then Sister Waldron made me a plate of Chocolate chip cookies which was really nice of her. Then in the night we had an little party. The Waldrons and the Chases bought pizza for everyone in the office and I made a chocolate cake and the frosting from the frosting recipe that is in the Holland Cookbook! It actually turned out alright if you can believe it!

Thank you for the letter you sent to the office too and for all the gifts! It was really kind of funny because you told Elder Peters to print it off and to give it to me but when he sat down on the computer and opened outlook he saw the email and was like ¨hmm, whats this?¨ and opened it and right at that moment I came around the corner and saw his screen and saw the paper so he just read it to me haha, I´m excited, thank you!

So my birthday was wonderful, I´m not going to be able to forget it.

Then on Thursday the interviews started so we did one zone on Thursday and another on Friday. Friday was here in the office which was nice. But Elder Millan and I check the area books of the different companionships while President Essig does the Interviews. We always finish way earlier than him but I feel bad for President because he started at 8 in the morning both days and finished at about 7 at night.... straight interviews!

And now we are at Saturday again. We had a really cool lesson this morning. We taught the 2nd councilor´s wife who is not a member and he has really been preparing her to come to church and everything. She actually made it this last week. But we went and we had a wonderful lesson with her. We shared the restoration and it makes lots of sense to her, she really thinks that everything that we shared is true. She has one doubt that will be pretty easy to resolve the next visit but she was great. It was just proof to me that the Lord really does prepare his children to accept his gospel and he does it because of his tremendous love that he has for each one of us. It really is incredible and I am grateful to have been able to feel of that love and to see His love work in the lives of his children here in Chile.

Anyway, I am going back through your letters and am going to try to answer some of your questions that you had for me before I have to get off for the week. Yes, it is starting to get colder down here but its still not too bad. There have only been a couple of days that we have really needed a coat. The others are pleasent during the day and at night you just need a light coat. I feel like I´m getting preped for good ´ol SD weather (of course I just probably jynxed myself and its going to get really cold from here on out)

I listened to an amazing talk last night... it really gets to you. You might want to listen to it. Its called ¨a profile of a prophet¨ By Hugh B. Brown. It was given in a BYU devotional in 1955 and it is incredible. THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! =)

Love,

Elder Jaromy Holland

This is the sunrise from our apartment in the morning! We had to wake up before the sunrise everyday this week =) it was fun=)