April 18, 2011

Dear fam

it looks like the camp was a lot of fun. but where are the Olympics?! those where good times for sure.

it sounds like Mitch sure has a lot to figure out if he is going to be wrestling it looks like he has to lose a little bit of weight to! speaking of losing weight I am down to a solid 180 finally.

this last week was a different week lots of downers but defiantly a lot of good as well. yes we go tracting. we are supposed to have 2 hours every day set aside for just tracting and talking to people. since our teaching pool is kinda still on the small side we do a lot of finding. on Wednesday we tracted all day. 8 hours it was a long day of getting doors slammed in our faces. we do our best every night to plan. and to say a special little prayer to figure out where we need to be and when we need to be there. if we chose by our selves with no spirit or direction it’s worthless. but when we pray and ask Heavenly Father where we need to go (he knows who is ready) than it makes it much more worth it and we are much more effective as well.

on Thursday we had a specialized training. its where about half of a zone gets together to be trained and also to be interviewed. it’s a much better way of doing interviews and training I think because it’s more personal. the training was on finding. as a mission we have a goal to double baptisms for June. the only way to do that is to start yesterday. a lot of the time, especially when we tract for a long time, we lose faith and I am totally guilty of that one. after you hear so many people say no, go away, its difficult to have faith. if we have faith and it’s what the lord wants, it will happen. we need to do our part that way it happens. faith with out works is dead but also works with out faith is dead. we don’t have faith there isn’t much left of any thing. also don’t be so pushed around when people say no. being persistent and bold are what we as missionaries are to be. not taking no for an answer from any one when we commit them to change and live a better life. after all was said and done with the training I realized I have a lot to change. also in the interview pres asked me why I was being obedient. I told him because you asked me to. he proceeded to tell me that I need to be obedient because I want to be not because some one is asking me to. once I started on a new slate we saw a few miracles happen. that night we had a jt. and we where able to pick up matt, he has had a rough life. I can’t remember if I have said much about him if I have sorry but you get it again. better to be reminded than not to know at all. he had a divorce about 5 years ago and it was the best thing for him. the best change in his life. about a year latter he was married again and was trying to turn to God with his catholic faith (it didn’t get him to far) he had a miscarriage (baby died in the womb) and that really didn't help him at all. as he was in the lowest time in his life.  we left a pamphlet of the plan of salvation. he loved it so much being able to be with his family after this life. when we taught him the second time, we took a convert who used to be a hard core catholic. matt told us over and over that he has a lot to do and to change and that he is learning a lot. but will never change his catholic ways. little does he know  ; )

Saturday night we get a text from a recent convert Tina Mathison (her son Elijah but his nick name is nemohe is 6) told her that he wanted to find a church. she checked out mormon.org and look where she is!  she told us that her son Dylan was home. no one in the church has ever met Dylan, let alone even knew she had a son besides us and the ward missionaries. so told us to hurry and come over hahaha she didn’t have to twist our arm to much. we went over and he is a solid young guy 16 years old with no sense of direction. he is sucked  in to the way of the world. he doesn’t know who God is. after meeting with him he had a very sincere prayer trying to figure out if God is really there. sadly he didn't recognize his answer and or didn’t have the faith to get one.. he still came to church and loved it. the young men are a little more on the clicky side but we and the young men’s leaders twisted their ears a little and Dylan had a good time. hopefully he is brought into the click and not pushed away.

has the McKinney family emailed you? we will be skyping at their house on mother’s day in about 3 weeks. sooo if they haven’t let me know that way we can get it figured out before than so we don’t have to use the old school telephone way.

I was going to ask a question but it kinda off went away and I can’t remember..

love

elder baker