BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE!!!

I'M GOING TO THE ARIZONA TEMPE MISSION!!!!

Ok, so this week has been crazy and exciting and fun and so much has happened. 

We got site dresses (regular pioneer dresses) that we will wear when we work sites and for Trail of Hope every week.

We finished our week of dress rehearsals for Sunset by the Mississippi and we started performances!!! Which also means we had our last rehearsal at FM (not too sad about that)

We had an ant infestation in our lovely little double-wide trailer. That was an experience.

I was almost attacked by a dog again. I love dogs :P

AND IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY!!! Sorry I don't remember much about the beginning of the week because the last two days have just been too amazing! So my birthday was Friday, which was our first day of performances (they called them "preview performances" so if we made any huge mistakes, we could use that as our excuse, but it was really our first day of performances). So we got to go and play on the bandwagon! It was so much fun and people would dance and clap and smile and wave and take pictures as we played for them. Seriously so much fun! Lunch was delicious (as usual because the Myers are amazing) and the Bistro was decorated with cute Happy Birthday signs. I got a piece of lemon cake with strawberries and whipped cream with a candle in it for my birthday cake :) We did our afternoon bandwagon trip and then our hymn fest in the Women's Garden. And then we got to go see the stage YPMs perform in "The Promise". It's a musical about the Saints here in Nauvoo. It is incredibly moving! After the news of the martyrdom arrives, Sister Romney sings "They were no ordinary men." I know that they truly were called of God and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet who talked with Heavenly Father and restored the Church to the earth today. 

We had about 6 minutes for dinner after the show and then we had Sunset :) Elder Brague let the trumpets play Bugler's Holiday since it was my birthday and we nailed it! Man that is so fun to play (clearly with divine help since we usually have no chops at that time of day). And Sunset is just such a fun show that we just laugh and have a good time! After it was over, we changed super fast and got to go over to do Trail of Hope.

Trail of Hope is my new favorite part of Nauvoo. We get to lead groups down the trail with a gas lantern to each of the vignettes where the stage missionaries are acting as pioneers who left Nauvoo down Parley Street. Their lines come straight from the journals of these Saints so it is an incredible moving experience to look up and see the temple all lit up while hearing about these Saints who left the temple and everything they had behind because they were following the prophet and they had hope in the future. I'm so grateful for the sacrifices they made and for the opportunity to be here in Nauvoo where we get to portray this Spirit. They knew it was true and I know it's true. And just like them, I know that when our future looks uncertain, we can have faith and hope like they did.

After all the guests had gone through, the YPMs gathered for a testimony meeting in the parking lot. They sang me the most impressive rendition of Happy Birthday that I have ever heard (oh yeah, I got a card signed by all the YPMs, the band Elders gave me chocolates and a card, the Sisters gave me a necklace, and I got packages and cards from lots of other people - thank you so much everyone!!!!) And then we had one of the most incredible testimony meetings I have ever been a part of. One thing an Elder said that stood out to me was "Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous." I love that- Heavenly Father shows His love for us through the small and simple tender mercies that we see every day. Pay attention to them and you will realize how much He loves each of us! It was the most incredible end to one of the best days of my life- I am so blessed to be here, surrounded by some of the Lord's choicest spirits. 

And then yesterday, it only got better!! We had had our normal performance morning, and we were going back to the visitor's center after our afternoon bandwagon run when I turned my head and saw mom and dad in the van driving past the wagon!!!! I knew they were only coming for one reason, so I started freaking out because I knew it meant MY MISSION CALL WAS HERE!!! After freaking out for all of Hymn Fest (where I made a fool of myself announcing Called to Serve) and Sunset, we got to go to the Seventies Hall to open my call. The Seventies Hall is the first MTC of the Church. Not many people can say they got to open their mission calls in the first MTC while wearing a missionary name badge :) coolest experience of my life. We sang "Called to Serve" accompanied by the band to start everything off. It was so powerful, and not just because of the acoustics. The Spirit was so strong as I looked out and saw all of the YPMs and my family and friends smiling. The Church is true! And then Megan cried when she said the opening prayer (and I'm very proud of the fact that she cried more than I did at my mission call opening :)

Then President Gibbons got up and talked about the importance of missionary work because we teach pure truth and people are searching for truth. He also made some very kind remarks about how I can share the Gospel just by smiling because I have such a bright smile. It's because the Gospel makes me happy!!! I have never been truly as joyful and happy as I am here in Nauvoo. And it's because I get to spend all day, everyday serving Heavenly Father. Anyways, I got to open my call after that!!!!!!! And I'M GOING TO THE ARIZONA TEMPE MISSION!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave on September 10 to enter the Provo MTC and I'll be speaking English. And I could not possibly be more excited!!!! It was a really cool experience to look down and see that it said Arizona Tempe (of course I saw it before I got to that point in reading haha) and it just made sense. I don't really know how else to describe it except that I wasn't surprised or shocked because I wouldn't expect to have seen anything else there. I know without a doubt that that is where I am needed to serve and I cannot wait!!!! I am seriously so excited!!!!!

Like I said, it's been the most incredible week of my life. Talk about a spiritual high! And the best part is that it's going to last all summer long :) I love you all and I know the Church is true!!!!

One more spiritual thought- every night I pray right before I start "Come, Come Ye Saints" with my huge solo. Last week, I had been praying that I wouldn't screw up and I'd be able to play it right. But one night I totally botched a note and it ruined the Spirit that was there as the narrator told the story of the faith and hope of the Saints. Since then, I have started praying that any mistakes I make will not detract from the Spirit but that the audience might feel the Spirit of the Saints through my music. Since then, I have not missed one note and I know for a fact that that is not something I am doing. I have divine help as I share my testimony of the pioneers through that song. Heavenly Father will help us in everything we do. I know that for a fact and am so grateful to be a missionary so I can be blessed with the Spirit and have that extra help. But I know that you can also have that help, even though you aren't set apart as missionaries, if you will just pray and ask for help.

Love you! Life is good and the Church is true :)

Sister Holbrook

Pictures:

first one- site dresses with Sister Trego and Sister Parkin!

second- my birthday on the bandwagon!!!!!!

The seventies hall

others- my mission call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jumping on the BANDWAGON!!!

Hi family :)

First of all, thanks for the plunger devotionals! Dad, yours were a bit of a stretch for some of them but I thought Lauren's was pretty good!

This has been another crazy week in Nauvoo, but I seriously love every second of it! Though the weeks are starting to go even faster. I can't believe it's Sunday again!!! The highlight of the week was our bandwagon ride!!! We got to go through our morning run just to get used to the feel of the wagon. But I literally jumped on the bandwagon, and I don't think that joke is going to get old haha It was fun besides the fact that it was FREEZING!!! It's been sooooo cold here, especially since no one came prepared for weather under 70 degrees. Good and bad news is that it will warm up this week, and we will be begging for a cool day before too long!

We started nightly Sunset by the Mississippi rehearsals this week with the seniors and stage YPMs. It's so fun and is getting better every single night! Again, we have been freeeeeeeezing so sitting through rehearsals involves a lot of blankets and sitting really close to the other sisters to stay warm and trying to move freezing fingers to play our instruments. But the Lord is blessing us and somehow we are able to sound good every time we play. 

Other highlights of the week have included spending a couple hours as tourists, going around to see the different sights. We also survived our first huge torrential downpour/typical Illinois thunderstorm. Which wouldn't be that exciting except that we were worried our little house with essentially cardboard walls would fall down. But it didn't!! We also got to have rehearsal one day in the Cultural Hall up on the third floor. They have the original wood floor up there where they hosted Nauvoo dances and such, so it was so cool to be where the Nauvoo Brass Band probably played for Joseph and Emma and the other Saints to dance!! We even sang from the balcony. So cool! I also got cast as one of the leads in our band skit for Bible Camp....wish me luck and pray for my acting abilities (in all seriousness though, please do! I have no clue what I'm doing...) 

We were reminded this week what this is all about. We have our normal rehearsals in the Facilities Management Building, so we have a lot of people who come in for their lunch breaks. One of the days, we came back from lunch and there were still a couple workers there, so we played some jazz tunes for them. One of them told us at the end that he had been having a horrible day and it was long and we was exhausted and just complaining a lot, but we brightened his spirits and now he was going to have a great day. And that's what this is all about- we are here to spread the joy and happiness of the Gospel through our musical talents!!

We also had the unique opportunity this week to have Elder and Sister Durant come and speak to the Band. Sister Durant is better known as Susan Easton Black, and she taught us about some of the history of Nauvoo. What an amazing lady!! Then her husband got up and spoke to us. The best way I can describe it is as a stand-up comedy devotional. It was hilarious but so inspiring! One of the things that stood out to me the most was "You don't need self confidence, you need Christ confidence." We are supposed to do everything, as members of the Church, in the name of Christ. As long as we have faith and confidence in Him and His plan for us, then it doesn't matter what others think and we will have the confidence and strength to do whatever He asks of us. The other thing he told us to do is that when someone asks how you are or how you're doing, you should say "It's my best day!!" Because if you tell people it's your best day, then it will be! We have been instructed by prophets to be a little better today than we were yesterday, so if everyday is our best day, then we are following the counsel of the prophets.

I am surrounded by some incredible people- people who are very talented, who have stronger testimonies, more experience, etc. So we have spent some time talking about weaknesses this week. Bruce C Hafen once said that "growth means growing pains...If you're seeing more of your weaknesses, that just might mean you're moving nearer to God, not farther away." I love that!! It's like Ether 12:27 tells us that the Lord gives us weaknesses so that we will be humble and come to Him for help. Jacob 4:7 says something similar, but tells us that we have weakness so that we will know it is through His grace that we have power to do these hard things we are asked to do. Everyday, my testimony strengthens that this is true!! There is no way we can do these things on our own- we MUST rely on the Lord and on the Atonement if we want to become what He wants and needs us to be.

The Church is true!! I LOVE being a missionary, and I can't wait until people start visiting Nauvoo so that we can share with them the joy we have! I love you all and hope to see you before too long with my mission call. I think Heavenly Father is trying to teach me patience. I'm realizing more and more every day how much more patient I need to be, and this just must be one more step along that path. Love you!!

Sister Holbrook :)

The next time I email you will be a week from Wednesday. Next week is when we are making the transition to Wednesday preparation mornings. These are some pictures you might enjoy- turns out I had an extra minute!

Our first time on the bandwagon! I love my companions :) And Elder Davis photobombed us

On the balcony of the cultural hall where we sang

Happy Mother's Day!

Hello family :) Happy Mother's Day!!! Mom, you are incredible and I love you so much! Thanks for teaching me so much and inspiring me and encouraging me in all I do! Look forward to the picture from the Mursets :) Hopefully Megan will remember to pull out the card a present that I left for you.

Nauvoo is the most incredible place!! I cannot believe I am actually here and actually serving as a missionary. I get to wake up every morning and put on my name badge and drive past the temple. I thank Heavenly Father every single day for the opportunity to be here. 

Mom, in answer to your questions- we eat lunches in the bottom of the visitor's center in what we call "The Bistro". The Myers make amazing food!! We go grocery shopping at Walmart once a week. During rehearsal weeks, we go on Saturdays and during performance season we will go on Wednesday mornings. We do not walk everywhere, we get a 12-passenger van (it's basically a bus we call Bessie :). Though some of us walk places every once in a while so we can get a little more exercise. I sent you another letter explaining some of that.

There have been quite a few adventures this week including a major gas leak in our trailer, a broken air conditioning on the hottest day of the week, and a fire alarm that likes to go off when we use the oven. But we are alive and they take good care of our cute little double wide trailer. There are only 7 sisters in the band, which is way fewer than in the past. But I really like it because we have already gotten to know each other really well, and we have so much fun. There are 9 elders in the band and most of them are finally starting to not be afraid of the sisters so we are starting to have more fun as a whole band.

The trumpet section is amazing. It's me, Elder Foster, Elder Keller, and Elder Dialogue. We sit in the back so we spend a lot of time joking around and laughing. (Dad, we play with our plunger mutes a lot so we were trying to come up with some devotional about a plunger. I figured you could come up with a better one than me...let me know if you think of any good ones. It's harder than in sounds!) For example, in one of the songs Elder Foster accidentally yelled out "Hey Brown Cow" instead of "Hey Brown Jug" so me and Elder Dialogue started mooing like cows in the middle of the song and it was absolutely hilarious! 

Elder Brague is, hands down, the cutest and funniest old man I have ever met. There's really no other way to describe him! He loves to laugh and joke around and he says the funniest things. We've only been here for a week and I already have a whole sheet of quotes from him. Like the other night, he was like "Once your Bb is in tune, it doesn't mean the whole instrument is in tune. Only one note is in tune. Super duck." No idea where super duck came from, but now it's the band's favorite word. We're trying to make it catch on so start saying it too haha Elder Brague also always wears this Nauvoo Legion hat and he loves to turn it sideways as he rides around on his little moped scooter thing. Man, it is downright hilarious. He just has so much energy and is so cute!

Every day this week, we had morning devotional at 8, rehearsal from 8:15-12, lunch til 1, rehearsal from 1-5, dinner from 5-6, and rehearsal from 6-9. This is one of the most difficult and most rewarding things I have ever done. There is no physical way I could play for that many hours every day without the help of the Spirit. There are miracles happening all around us. We are all memorizing so much music and learning difficult passages and playing so much that it would not be possible without the enabling power of the Atonement. I know that through Christ we can do hard things. That through Him, we can fulfill what He has called us to do.

We are actually about 5 days ahead of last year's band, so on Friday we went on a Nauvoo Brass Band Grand Adventure!! We got dressed up in our costumes and we took pictures in the Women's Garden, the stone arch bridge, David's Chamber, and the old Nauvoo Cemetery. The costumes are....fun! At least for now when it's not too hot. We just have so many layers and there's so much fabric and I really will sweat my life away this summer but it'll be worth it! We also spent one of our rehearsals learning our marching routine for the Sunset show. And we spent part of another one doing a performance for the Community of Christ Church as they celebrated the 175th anniversary of Joseph and Emma arriving in Nauvoo. One of the highlights of the week was getting to play for Sister Packer's mission call opening!!!! She opened it on Thursday night in the Seventies Hall, and we got to play Called to Serve!! It was super loud and you could barely hear yourself since the acoustics weren't made for a brass band but it was so powerful to be able to play "Called to Serve" in the first MTC of the Church :) I AM SO EXCITED TO GET MY CALL! Please send me letters to update me on the status..I have the whole band counting down too so it'll be pretty sad if it doesn't get here for my birthday. Another highlight (in case you haven't caught on, everything we do is a highlight minus icing our lips every night because they are swollen and in pain) was seeing Rendevous in Old Nauvoo :) I love love love the senior couples and they just love us! They are so cute! They also made us a delicious breakfast the other day, so there's no complaining here!

Nauvoo is just amazing. I love seeing the temple every single day and there is a special spirit here. When you think about everything that's happened in this beautiful city, it's just incredible. The Church is true and Heavenly Father loves each of us. And He WILL help you with everything if you will just ask. Whether it's your APUSH test, Megan, or my painful lips from playing so much, He will bless us with the strength and energy that we need if we will just ask Him for it. 

I love you all! I don't miss being in the regular world- having no phone or technology might be the best part of this whole thing. It's amazing how much more you can feel the Spirit when you don't have a phone or computer constantly distracting you. I loved your letter! Please send more :) My companions are amazing, we love each other, and we laugh ALLLLLL the time. Like yesterday when Sister Parkin and I thought that Sister Frederickson fell off of her bed hahaha I can't think of anything else random that you would want to know. I love being a missionary- it's the most wonderful thing in the world!!

Life is good and the Church is true! Walk around with that attitude and nothing will ruin your good mood. Love you!

Sister Holbrook :)

The 4 trumpeters in costume

The YPM group