California is Humid!

So hello!

 

 Yeah this weekend it rained a bit, not too much but enough to say we're not out of water. I think the mountains got more rain than la.

But in all the time I've been here I don't think it's been as humid as it has been this last weekend. It's been pretty miserable. Yesterday it started to rain and so we went back home to grab a sweater so we don' t get to wet, but I was so hot and my shirt was soaked with sweat and then it stopped raining.

This week was going alright, but this weekend was a little frustrating. Saturday it rained a lot during the afternoon, so we got shelter and then Sunday the baptism did not go through, it was a very stressful 3 hours. Let's just say there were some things we didn't know about ** and so I guess even though he seems excited on the outside he told us on Sunday he felt too pushed. We were confused, sad and very stressed. Right now it's still in limbo we don't know what's going to happen with ***, we told him we give it a couple of days and then we will go over and see what his concern and questions are.

Mostly it was his family that was opposing and I think it just got to him. Other than that we really don't have much investigators. We stopped teaching bunch of them this week because they weren't progressing. We did set a date with Linda! Well my comp and his temp comp. I was on exchanges. This week our focus purely on finding and getting new investigators with baptismal dates!

I have got the chance this week to call my previous recent converts and also members who I have gotten close to. The Sunday before departing missionaries leave we have what we call in Spanish the "Despedida" or in English the departing missionary fireside. All the leaving missionaries get to share their finally testimony to those we taught and worked with. So it will be cool and as president says probably the biggest audience I will share me testimony with for a long time! Last year in July August here were almost 800 people. This year I think there will be more. Seeing there are 35 of us leaving.

I love you all and hanks for your support!

Have a great week

Elder Hollingshead

 

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Exchanges!

July 13, 2015

Well hello everyone! This week has been alright. Most of it was between exchanges and then teaching ***, but he's progressing so much, and he's going to get baptized this Sunday!!! So we still need to help him out so like I'm inviting all the members to do this week is to keep him in your prayers! It will really help him out an be able to achieve this goal in his life! So yeah we went to the visitor center on Thursday. It was amazing! *** just kept asking when we could come again. There is this room here in LA VC that is about 8 missionaries... The missionaries on the district which is e videos we watch for trainings and learning. It talks about the missionaries and their lives before and after the mission and how it has changed them.

So we watched one of the stories... When if came to after the mission my stomach went upside down... It's not that I'm afraid to go home, but I'm afraid In a sense.... But the story is really powerful. Then another thing is that of all the times I've been to the visitor center, I've always done it in Spanish, but because *** usually prefers to speak in English, we did the tour in English. It was a little different. The family video seemed a little more powerful for me and it really made me think of my family and all the love I feel from you all! It's been a marvelous 2 years (almost) and I have grow so much and if it wasn't for you and your support and love I don't think I could have done it!

Anyways. I went on 2 exchanges this week. It was fun! Lots of cool missionaries.! I love just getting to know lots of people. I will definitely not be alone at BYU Idaho! So yeah!

I hope you all have a great week! Stay strong and enjoy the Arizona heat for me.

 

Love,

Elder Hollingshead

 

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the 4th War!

Well hello world everyone!

 

Well this week has been really, really long.  I'm super tired! I think the best thing was zone conference. That as great, but the rest of the week was slow and exhausting. So first to explain why it was so long.

Almost all of the appointments we had set up and people we called, did not want to meet with us. So lots of canceled appointments and it was just frustrating then on top of that Thursday at about 4:30 our bikes got stolen...... Yep!23 months and my bike actually got stolen. So we were left to walk on foot. For 4 days. Today hopefully we will get some extra bike working. Seeing I only have 4 weeks I'm not buying a new bike. Oh and we live outside of our area about a 40 min walk just to get into our work area..... Needless to say we spent a lot of time walking and walking. We got lots of conversations when we weren't in

so much of a hurry to get to places.   Also the 4th of July. LA

sounded like a war zone. From 8 to about 1am there were just constant fireworks. It was almost as good as Heber's show. Except being so far away....  I got a video so I'll show it too you soon. 4 weeks. It's actually really scary.... But we had a big call with president on Saturday and it just pumped us all up and gave us a lot more desires to stay and finish strong.  During zone conference while we were singing the efy medley it was a painful, but good experience. It really hit me how much the gospel and missionary work has been a part of me and how much it has changed me.

 
We have been talking a lot about faith and fear in the mission. I've made some very interesting connections. We all know that faith and fear are opposites. They can never occupy the same space. And I realized that many of my thoughts  about people and the work are somewhat fearful! Satan's perfect disguise is to make us be fearful.

This could take many forms. But if we have the faith strong enough in our lord and savior Jesus Christ we can cast out all fear. Like John 4 says perfect love casteth out fear. As we have worked and learned about prayers and how prayers precede, faith and love, success and miracles will happen because that "mighty prayer" is the trigger to our actions. If we just casually pray ( repetitious, broad, without real intent, not truly led by spirit) we can't expect to see any miracles. But if we have mighty prayers and ask for specific blessings, it requires us to do a little more and then we can see the lords blessings if it is his will!  So have mighty prayers. It might take All the energy of your heart but it's worth it!

I love you all! Have a great week!

 

Elder Hollingshead

 

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Missionary Life is Good!

June 29

Well hello everyone.

 

So this week has been very busy, well at least this weekend. The beginning of the week was a little slow, and it was hot. We got lots of contacts, better contacts than usual :) but year so we had a great weekend. Saturday was super busy and finally a little cooler. I don't.

Know how you are surviving Arizona right now. I think it barely got up To 90 one day, and we were dying. Anyways. So Saturday w got 5 new investigators. The first 2 were a miracle. ** was a contact from a long time ago and we stopped passing by because she was never home.

She called us on Wednesday and told us we could pass by on Saturday so we did and we had a good lesson. The next 2 were young kids. She is like 17 and her brother is 11. We just did a little how to begin teaching, and told them that we want to talk to their parents.  Then we started teaching the sister of a recent convert. She is super nice and we have talked to her here and there, but she showed a lot more interest when we started talking about the family. So we taught her and she committed to read and pray and come to church.  It was a busy day and we also went to a small birthday celebration for a little kid in our area. He's a member and they invite us for dinner.  Sunday was good. Our investigator Chris came to church! And he really liked it and right after church, we went and re taught the restoration and committed him to baptism in the 19 of July.

We also had a good lesson with **. It's just a complicated situation and it sounds like it's almost over. They committed to come to church this Sunday, hopefully her husband can come.

I'm happy. It's crazy to think last 6 weeks, but here it comes and it's time to make the best out of it and give it literally everything.

 

I love you all. Have a great week.

 

Elder Hollingshead

 

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District Leader Again

25 June 2015

 

Alan and Marie Hollingshead

 

 

Dear Brother and Sister Hollingshead,

 

Elder Zerin Douglas Hollingshead has once again been appointed as a District Leader in the California Los Angeles Mission.  This assignment comes to him again because he continues to exhibit high qualities of leadership, to demonstrate his excellent teaching skills, and earns and retains the trust of his fellow missionaries. 

 

Sister Weidman joins me in once again extending to you our sincere appreciation for your fine son.  We realize that your example, training, and love have contributed greatly to his success as a missionary.  Thank you for your continued support and for sustaining him through his earlier leadership role.

  

Sincerely,

David N. Weidman, President

California Los Angeles Mission

Families!

Well hello everyone! This week has been good and bad, mostly good. On Tuesday we had a meeting for my companion so we went to the Artesia building and during his meeting we had a training. I was super good.

As missionaries we do lots of role plays, not the most out thing to do, but it's just part of life. So this was a role play inside a role play... Like inception 😊

 It was fun! And it was helping members do their missionary work, basically role playing how to invite their friends and family to hear our message or to check something out. It was fun, and little hard and on top of that it was 10 min long. So yeah Was fun! But as for transfers, nothing changed, we are staying together and I'm going to finish my mission here in hp3. It's a good ward, but I'm actually in the mood for a little change, but that's not up to me so I'm staying.

Yesterday for Father's Day, we went by a members house and we asked him if his family is going to come, he said no... Then halfway through the visit, his family came and then we sat there for a while and talked a lot about our dads,. It was really interesting, needless to say, I felt a little alone, but in a good way, I was the only one there, other than the little kids that grew up in the gospel, but it made me appreciate the gospel and how it blesses families.  It was super cool to get a little closer to these members. Anyways it was a cool Wednesday, first off it was really hot, Andrew were outside for 6 hours just walking around, it was hard but it was all worth it, at

8:30 we went back to the area, and went on one last call for a family.

We went and they were there! It's a family of 8, the dad has some health issues and the family is really close together,  we had actually contacted a daughter first and she is super interested In the Book of Mormon.  We taught them and it was a great lesson. So yeah, it was cool, they got busy with some family things that happened during the weekend, but we will be visiting them tomorrow night! We are super excited and hope everything goes well with them.  We finally caught up with ** and ***. She is not avoiding us, and actually wants to meet with us, but there is some sort of legal thing that is going on and she literally can't meet with us, so we have and appointment with the,  for Sunday hopefully we can help her out and teach her something she needs right now.

 

This week in my studies I ran across this scripture in doctrine and covenants 36:7 "And this commandment shall be given unto the elders of my church, that every man which will embrace it with singleness of heart may be ordained and sent forth, even as I have spoken."  What I got out of it was embrace with singleness of heart.  That hit me, we always hear you cannot serve two masters and this teaches it really well. The gospel is basically the lords heart, is my heart single to his will and his gospel? Am I embracing it will all my heart might mind and strength? It t me and I've thought a lot about it during the week and it's one of my goals for the last 6 weeks is to embrace he gospel with all my heart and do my best!

The *** Family

 

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

 

Elder Hollingshead

 

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I-Pads

Well guess what everyone! I got an iPad this week! So yeah Saturday after i took the act, we went to a training and each missionary got an iPad at the end of it. For those less than 6 months. we have church i pads, 6 weeks from now I will be returning mine to the mission. But yeah so it will be fun being able to use it for a while and get to teach with it, it's still a work in progress, but it's pretty nice.

Little cool things happened this week.

Thursday we were helping a member out and then this lady crossed the street and she was looking at us for a while and we were a little confused, but then she asked us a couple of questions and it comes to that she had lads friends and then her son is going through a hard time and so we stopped by on Sunday and we talked for a while and they as a family became new investigators!  Then we were contacting some people and this man who I guess we contacted, came up to us and was like hey an why didn't you ever call me I was waiting.... That's sometimes super embarrassing especially when you don't recognize them.... But yeah we also had a couple of really good lessons with *** and also ***. They are slowly but surly progressing I think, hopefully we will be able to go to the visitor center this week. This is the last week of the transfer, and I feel like they're is progressing pretty well. Sadly we haven't been able to meet with ** and **, they are MIA, haven't heard from me and haven't seen them in a while. But we are going to have a lesson with M***'s F** tonight! Sunday at church, we had a lesson with M**! She wants to get baptized. She kind of of invited herself to get baptized it was pretty easy, but we can't set a date because she lives outside of the ward, but she thinks next week she might be willing to have us come over and teach her at her house. If that happens she will be baptized super quick! She is just one of those people that is just been super prepared. P*** is doing good, she super smart, but mostly we just need to get an in with the parents, once that happens I think it's going to go great.

 

Thanks you all for your love and support, especially your prayers is week for my test. I really felt at ease with the test, who knows if I passed, but I hope it will go well and be able to start school. I love you all and have a great week!

 

Elder Hollingshead

 

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