November 15, 2010

getting ready for the snow . . . new boots!

Dear fam:

Hooooly freak, this is a letter to reply too ; )

Ummm, the snow, its umm different.  We got 6 inches that night, I think it was Friday night.  It took us an hour to get to our appointment with Vernon.  Vernon is an African American and loves to drink.  He was a mormon.org referral – he just wanted a book of mormon but he is getting a lot more than that.  The first few times we come over he was drunk, but this time he was sober, which made things better. 

All during the day it was snowing so hard my coat, boots, pants were drenched by the end of the day (I think this was Saturday).  My coat and boots are supposed to be waterproof haaaaaa, nope not any more, they are not!  Elder Katoa and I made it fun, we would ram into the side of each other and make the other fall over, or we would scoop up a snow ball and throw it at each other.  So, we made it a fun day.  That day, we were supposed to teach 4 people but we only ended up teaching 2.  With the snow and a bunch of older ladies needing help, that’s all we were able to do.

I am in the Shingle Creek Ward.  The Wards that surround us are Crystal, Medicine Lake and Elm Creek.  That would be cool to go out to lunch with him.  (Artie’s roommate from BYU lives nearby Rhett, we’re trying to get them hooked up.)

Site seeing on p-day is a negative.  We have to bike everywhere we go.  Once we get done at the library, we go shopping and then by that time it’s 3 or 4 o’clock and it’s time to get ready for the rest of the day and we head out.  So nope, no site seeing here.  There’s not much here, just a bunch of water and white stuff on the ground and Africans walking around    ; )

We can actually go ice fishing, but pssh, that is no fun – go run around on the ice and run into each other . . . or ride the bikes on the ice, now that would be fun.

Alberta is doing good.  We were able to go over there on Tuesday and read some of the Book of Mormon with her.  We were going back on Saturday and teach her the commandments, but then the snow happened and we weren’t able to make it.

We have 4 investigators now that we’ve picked up  Alberta (older Libyan, and I don’t have a clue what language they speak but I do know there is a special hand shake to gain respect); then Vernon, older African American guy I told you about.  He has these special twist.  The most interesting twist one is about Moses.  He says, “do you know why they were in the wilderness for 40 years? Because Moses wanted to kill everyone, he wanted all the power and so he killed and was the biggest murderer.  And when Joshua and Moses went up to that mountain, they did that so they could fight and Joshua killed Moses so he could have all the power” . . . Vernon is an interesting guy.  He seems to like the Book of Mormon, so we’ll see how far it goes.  The next is Mark and Brindy.  They are Liberian.  They are teens, I can’t remember what ages.  They are cuzins and their grandmother helped them get here to America.  Thank goodness they speak almost perfect English.  Also their grandmother Zakpa is a member.  She wants her grandkids to be LDS and so far they are taking really good steps to be there.  We may pick up 4 more this week, depending on how things are going.  Thank goodness for these blessings!

I think that’s about it for all the experiences and lessons for this week.  This Sunday was the primary program.  It was so great to see these children talk and sing and teach so much better, and bring the spirit maybe even stronger than some of us older people.  It was a great thing.  One of the things I thought, or someone told me, I can’t remember, maybe it was a mix of both.  Being a Christian and a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we need a continual conversion.  Not just here, not just there, it needs to be continual.  If it’s not, we will become less active and have a weaker testimony.  How we do that is by feeling the spirit.  If we don’t study/pray and feel the spirit every day, we are not building our testimonies.  Soooo this week and last, I have started to study the Book of Mormon.  I have read it in 10 days and now it is time to study it.  There is such an amazing spirit there.  It has seemed like the last few trainings have been on the importance of the BofM.  We decided (all 4 Elders here), to get the member excited about missionary work that we would challenge each family to prayerfully select someone or a family to give a BofM to.

On Wednesday we went on splits.  I went with Elder Emric (he’s the dl) and Elder Katoa went with Elder Tuimunga (greenie); it was cool to see how we handled some different situations and how people talk differently and can be more receptive and nice depending on your word selection.  We knocked on this door, this guy came out and said he was an evangelical Christian and he had the whole truth and we worshipped the wrong God and the wrong Jesus Christ.  We tried talking to him about who we do worship.  We asked him who he worshipped and he said the true God, not the Mormon God.  It didn’t end very well, and he’s worried and thinks that we are deceived and we’re a cult and all this.  It sure was different.

With Thanksgiving this next week, someone said “thanksgiving is good, but thanks living is better” . . . I thought that was sure interesting.

Love,

Elder Baker