Saturday, January 30, 2010

Our Elder Holmes

Here he is at home before his service began....

Our Elder Cody Holmes has 4- 1/2 months left to serve in the Honduras Tegucigalpa Mission. I have been requesting pictures for a while, but he got his camera stolen last year as he was robbed, with his memory card of course. Randi said, gun or no gun she would have asked for the memory card.

He has been in some very remote areas where developing them was not possible. So finally with this last transfer, we received a few pictures with his email.

We knew he had lost weight walking 10 to 15 miles a day, because we had to send money for new shirts, new pants, and finally a new suit. Minus 60 lbs later, here is our much leaner, and fit Cody. He loves it, and gets up 30 minutes early every day to work out and keep toned up. So here you have the Elder we sent into the MTC, and here is Elder Holmes today.
Here is his email from this last week..he is so enjoying his service. It has been a very growing and moving experience for him.

"Heyyyy.....so, this week went great! The baptisms went through, our branch had 5 baptisms total, we had three and the other elders that share the area with us had 2. It's such an awesome feeling after suffering a bit to get these baptisms. But theyre doing great, we had a really good lesson with all of them yesterday. It's hard to think that the month is already closing in, and that February is coming around the corner. My time really is SHORT. We have a lot of potential baptisms for this coming month as well. We have Miguel, Margarita, Wilmer, Kelvin, Darwin, Deisy, and I think a couple others as well. We are working as hard as we can to get them in for Feb. and I honestly can say this is the happiest I've been in my entire mission! The fruits of our labor our showing! What has been a factor in this is our ability to answer questions and adapt the lessons to their needs. It's not enough to just blurt out the restoration at them, it's about making sure they understand that there was a need to restore the true church that Christ himself had established. Being able to study the scriptures everyday is such a blessing, and my knowledge has grown soooo much. It helps me realize my repsonsibility a little better. I have a few pictures in this e-mail, hope you like them!! I love you all, and thanks so much for supporting this great work. Give the missionaries references! They need them!

Until next week!
Elder Cody Holmes

Friday, January 22, 2010

It's days like these

in our California Winter scene that I dream of being at home every day. Stormy, chocolate chip cookie baking, don't mind floor scrubbing kind of days. Holding and rocking my grandbabies, crafting, scrapbooking, don't mind laundry days. Going thru closets and drawers, gathering items for the D.I., dusting my desk, even don't mind paying bills kind of days. Get out the scriptures, study and pray, wish I was home kind of day.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Happy Birthday to our Julia

As I was holding Hannah the other day, I was telling her about her amazing mommy. Not that she doesn't already know, but, I needed to share with her that information. I told her how I kinda picked out her mommy! I was good friends with Marianne Warner, and when her daughter came home from college, she pointed her out to me. Julia, her ballerina, graduated from the University of Utah, and was now at home in Corona. As I watched Julia, I noticed her modest dress, her ballerina grace, and heard her testimony in the single's ward. Knowing Marianne and Cole, I watched their daughter.

One of my favorite pictures of Julia!At Thanksgiving when Brendon was home from BYU, I pointed her out to him, and I talked her up a bit. Then Grant piped up....um, Mom, I am going to ask Julia Warner out. Oh, okay.

So for the next year, Grant did court this beauty. She spent time with him, and then with us. She had the experience of her life, as we invited her that summer to go on our family vacation, camping in Colorado. A road trip with the Holmes boys is quite an experience. She not only held her own...She survived. She survived long enough to accept a proposal from our Grant, and were sealed in the San Diego Temple almost two years ago.
Now she has begun her eternal calling of mother of two beautiful twin babies and she celebrated her birthday this week as well. We are so blessed to have in our family. So much of life ahead as Mrs. Julia Rebecca Warner Holmes. We love you!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Lovin' the Grandbabies!



Before Heidi and Matt left, I had to get over to Grant and Julia's and take a picture with our 5 adorable ones all together! Jackson wasn't very amused at first...(Grampa doesn't look so very either actually)he being previously used to getting the Lion's Share of the attention from Gramma and Grampa. A little comedy relief as Daphne stole one of Hannah's socks. Kennedy started to slip down, while the twins were content to sleep thru it all.

Now for #6 in March!! Happy New Year all!