Serious about the gospel

Hey Hey Hey!
Another week has gone by! How are you guys?!? Good I hope :) All is well in Hampton, as usual! I've appreciated your letters and It’s so good to hear from you! It makes my day when I hear from you!
It’s been a slightly slow week. But exciting too! We had Zone Conference in Des Moines on Tuesday. So we drove down… it was like a 2 hour drive. It was a special Zone Conference because there were a lot of missionaries there and it was something called a Mission Tour. A member of the 70 came. Elder Wickman, and he was presiding. He gave us so much advice and really inspired me in many ways. I have really been improving my personal study since that conference and I learn so much every day. He shared so many cool experiences that relate to the gospel and missionary work. If you guys get time, you should look him up on LDS.org and check him out. I think he has some talks on there that he gave in general conference. Read the one about Fox Holes if you can find it. But yeah, it was a fantastic meeting; I took TONS of notes and learned so much!
While I was there, I got to meet practically all the Spanish missionaries in the mission... there’s only about 14, but now I have a pretty good idea about the kind of people I will be serving with. They all seem to be fantastic missionaries though. Oh, I also got to see Hermana Murphey again which is awesome. She is one of the coolest, funniest girls I have ever met, and I love every chance I get to talk with her. She's in Sioux City right now and having a lot of fun. But ya, I think she has a blogspot too that you can check out if you wanna follow her. Her name is Caitlyn Murphey. I think she has a sister that is following mine.
Anyway so Zone Conference was the bomb. And then we came home and got started on missionary work again! YEAHH! The only kinda sad thing has been that it has been a very very slow week! Many of our appointments have fallen through this week, so its been tough to keep motivated, But we are still holding strong. We had a couple of really solid lessons this week, but we really want to find more people who are serious about the gospel. So lately we've been praying that we will find serious people to teach.
The other night, just before an appointment, I felt inspired to go to a certain area and knock a Few houses. When we arrived in the area, I looked at Elder Poulsen and asked him Which houses we should go to. He looked at his watch and said, we don’t have a lot of time, lets knock these to and then jet. The first house were two old people who could barely here and it was kind of a waste trying to talk to them haha... but the next house was a gold mine. We knocked 3 times, and just as we were walking away we heard someone calling to us to come to the side door. We began to talk with her about the church, and she began to be VERY interested! She called her husband to come over real quick and talk with us. We set up a time to come by the next day.
We were so excited for this appointment. It was exactly what we have been praying for. Now, this guy, Tom, had told me he read the bible EVERYDAY, and says he can't live without it. I started to fear a bit that he would want to bible bash, especially as I walked in the house and saw the bible on the table where we were to meet. But we sat down with them and they were extremely friendly and nice. We really got to know them and their religious history. It turns out they have attended almost every church in Iowa searching for the truth. They have studied with Evangelists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses for years, but they could tell that their doctrine was kinda funny. They told us that basically they have been searching for Christ’s true church for their entire lives, but haven't yet found it because so many doctrines disagree with what the bible teaches. They had never talked with Mormons! oh ya. As we started with a prayer and began the first lesson, I instantly felt carried by the spirit in the things I should say. Elder Poulsen and I agree that it was our best lesson in English, even that he has had. And as we taught this man, He had so many questions, and it was SOOO awesome cuz they were all the questions that the Mormon doctrine answers! haha.. It was so cool, And he was amazed at the answers we had for him. One of his first questions is: "where the heck did all the prophets go? the bible is always talking about prophets and how they'll guide us! but how can we if there isn't a prophet?" which set us up for the things we had to talk about perfectly. WE were able to answer so many simple questions like that from the 1st lesson, and he and his wife loved it! We left the Book of Mormon with him, and he looked us straight in the eyes and told us:" I will read this book!" It was such a great appointment. We set up a time to go back and I just can't wait!
That was probably the best moment of this week. Other than that, not to exciting... A lot of doors slammed in my face… A lot of people telling me that I am Going to hell... a lot of negative stuff... But the positive things always top the negative things. Faith can always conquer Fear! I love being a missionary and I love sharing the gospel! Please keep me and my investigators in your prayers! I'm making a lot of progress with the language and having full out conversations with members... I'm starting to understand! Things are looking up! :) I appreciate all your prayers and support, and just know that I pray for you as well! Every day! I love you all so much and hope that you are finding success in all that you do! Keep up all the good work! And keep writing me ;)
Much love,
Elder Holman (Sky)