Letters from the last 2 weeks . . .

Sounds like his last week was a little tough . . . if you have a minute to write him during FHE, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you . . . Thanks~

d

October 17, 2011

hello to the family

It sounds like even with the recent tragedy every one seems to be having a good time and being able to create more family memories :)

Yes I did think about school a little bit. Before Elder Cook, we had interviews with president. He started this new thing that is a questionnaire kinda thing where it talks about obedience and relationships and growing. When I handed it to president he said "Elder I don’t need to worry about you, so what you want to talk about?" I asked him about school and he suggested that I not stay home that I jump right into it, where ever it is.  He suggested BYU Idaho but I don’t know about that one ...  that’s far from any family. He did give me permission to write essays and to go around on school websites to get stuff figured out, I don’t really know where to start.... waiting till Christmas is fine I just want plenty of time to go back on forth for editing and getting stuff set in stone.

Here is the list for this week.

Tuesday after district meeting we went to help out roc 5 with one of their potential investigators named adam1 (a1) we were able to stain his deck and to prep it for the upcoming winter.  He is a really nice older gentleman who knows some member’s.  a1 thought it was interesting how his own church was not willing to help him but his neighbor’s church was right on top for helping, and of course volunteered the missionaries!  They are going to teach him tomorrow. He was really touched by the kindness.

We got a call from a member that needed help moving an old school big screen TV like uncle Alfie and auntie Laura had. That thing was a BEAST, trying to get it up the stairs was very difficult but after about 10 minutes we got it done. All we did was service that day, which is good, serving God and sharing the gospel through service, is more enjoyable to me now. all is well.

We went by a referral that we had a2 and eve 1(e1). They had previously met with missionaries and not a member yet is what the referral said. We were really looking forward to going to see them. seemed very golden. a2 was putting together a grill and really needed a hand. It was getting dark and chilly (it got down to the 30's a couple times this week :() we helped him and part of the time he was inside eating dinner... it was all right though, really solid guy. They are about 30 years and have two kids....

agh, the whole number thing and name is really throwing me off I am going to try fake names and try it that way. (Missionaries can’t use their investigators names because there has been some investigator harassment)

e1 will be Stephanie. Stephanie has 2 kids one is 13 and the other is 3. the 13 year old was baptized when she was 8 but Stephanie chose not to be baptized quite yet.  She has now changed her mind. She is with a2 or Bill. Stephanie and Bill got together about 1 year ago but dated some time before that too but not sure when and what happened quite yet. Stephanie and Bill are engaged looking for marriage and baptism which is totally chill with us :)  after we got done putting the grill together they invited us over for dinner the next day for a bbq  mmmm and that went really well they had one of their friends Alisha come as well. Alisha is a less active as well as a convert.

Sad news is both baptisms from Eagan and Brooklyn Park are both less active now ... we don’t baptize less active we only baptize active and looks like I failed that one pretty hard core. maybe later in life they will become active.

Thursday we taught Will and (gezz its difficult to come up with girl names) Sophie. They have been sober for 4 days!!!  Prayers have been working magic with them. Sophie throughout the entire lesson saying "well what do you want us to do?" finally we committed them to baptism.  She happily accepted but Will was a little more cautious. He is a born again Christian and doesn’t really believe in the continual repenting process. Sophie’s son Austin is really surprised that they have been sober for so long. For the 20 years he has been around all he has ever seen is them drunk. He has been very grateful.

We also taught Phil that day. He was in the area book and we thought we would give it a shot. Sure enough he welcomed us in. He went through a divorce in February. He was married for about 3 years and his ex-wife got their son. The nice thing is that the court has opened up and will let Phil have his son on Saturdays. He is super depressed and very lonely. He was in the army for a while so I thought he would be a little tougher around the edges but not so much. Everyone is still human when you rip out their soft spot.

shoot time is short uggggg!!!

Friday was awesome Elder Cook looks so old in person, but is still awesome.  He served his mission with Elder Holland, maybe that’s why they are both so awesome!  Elder Cook talked a lot about PMG.  He helped put that book together. His main focus was on getting 20 lessons and telling wards (not asking like we normally have been doing) to get the ward mobilization going, the use the Perry plan of 15 families, and then also commitments. When we don’t leave commitments we are telling people we don’t want them to change and follow Christ aka we don’t love them. He called us out on that pretty good. We were all able to shake his hand. The shock of the sprit was sooo intense. I will forever remember that.

At church we had 4 gators to take to conference. that right there was intense too. sooo wonderful

Today I got some underarmer as you can tell. I can’t really wear that many under layers like I did before with these suit pants so I went ahead and got that.  A missionary that served in Canada said he would just wear that and his slacks and he was good. we will see.

Let’s see I think that’s the condensed version

love you all

Elder Baker

October 24, 2011

dear fam

Dad, thanks for all the wisdom and insights you shared.

For transfers, I did stay here as well as Elder Marks. It seems like there hasn’t been too much change in the district, in fact I think only one elder is leaving, and he is going to Shingle Creek. 3 of the 6 elders in our district have served there, kinda funny.

This week was extremely slow on the side of lessons.  Sometimes I feel like it’s me and my comp and sometimes the will of the Lord and sometimes the agency of the investigators. We only taught 4 lessons total. We were able to do a lot of finding which is nice, I love to find. I was able to talk Elder Marks in to biking up a pretty big hill and pretty far on our bikes … it was about an hour of travel time going up.  He wasn’t so happy with me at all but we were able to get 2 people that were like yeah that makes sense, come on back. haha that was so awesome but that means we will be going up that way a few more times :)   (we will get a joint teacher so we don’t have to bike).

Yesterday at Ty and Blondie’s we had a good chat about all that. Ty took a tumble as well, when Blondie did but nothing broken or hurt on him as well.

The drunks that we where teaching after about 10 days of being sober relapsed and got drunk again. She tried to kiss me and tried to get a hold of me. Alcohol is so disgusting, I want punch it in the face!  The good news is they are both going to some sort of inpatient place for about 3 months to really get the addiction out of their system.  However that crave from what I’ve seen will always be there.  Telling an alcoholic that’s been drinking for years and years to not think about drinking again is almost impossible. Satan knows our weak points, but God can be our strength and we can overcome.

Lots of drama with a family we are trying to work with … lots and lots of drama. I thought that would be over with after high school but guess not. 30 year olds can still get sucked up in that nothingness.  Pride and lack of communication can really destroy a relationship in and outside the gospel.

Well, there’s really a not a lot to report on or talk about. This next transfer will be Halloween, Thanksgiving and the first snow fall. Minnesotans say snow is another 4 letter word we aren’t suppose to say hahaha.

I hope and pray that this week will be better and that my comp and I can find some constancy in teaching and finding.

I love you all

elder baker

ps:  I have plenty of labels for quite some time. Incoming letters have slowed down a lot, I am still getting some but not too often and that’s chill its part of the mission life. I’ll be glad to do the Christmas cards again that wasn’t too bad last year. I have a lot better hold of missionary life and being able to set priorities and such. I am trying to get some pictures send them via email but it’s not working. either the computer has some sort of block or I can’t figure it out along with my comp and other missionaries. I’ll send out the flash drive and you’ll just have to guess what each one is and all that... sorry. 

October 10, 2011

 

fam

Nope no new shoes. The pair that was left behind from some other missionaries are working fine for now. After i beat these ones up than I’ll get some more.

ha-ha no one is cool enough to go English speaking ;) … just kidding!  (all the kids in his age group are going Spanish on their missions. . .)

People getting home and marriage … YUCK!! But it’s right around the corner!

No, I won’t be able to go to the temple. The only exception to go to the temple is if you’re within 45 min. I am about 2 hours away from the temple.

I would love to meet Mr. Hosman after the mission. During is a sticky time. I would rather not get to know him now if that’s ok. I know it would be nice to talk to a family friend but it’s only for 2 years that I get to serve the Lord. (One of Dad’s BYU roommates will be in Rochester at the Mayo clinic for some cancer treatments for his wife and we thought it would be fun for them to get together . . . guess not  =)

No pictures to day there’s not enough time.

Sounds good about the school stuff. I’ll let you know about what I come to next Monday.

Why is it called the World Series when it’s only in the USA?  (good question~)

The highlight of this week. General conference is a great time to build our testimonies of having a living day prophet and also prophets and leaders of organizations of the church. We should listen to them as much as possible (thanks for the letter this week and the Ensign's been a good read) and sometimes we get the blessing of having them come to us. Elder Cook is doing a mission tour and a stake conference here this week.  Cool thing is at the mission tour it will only be a select few zones meaning the ones in the cities and than a special invite to the Rochester (Rhett's District) district as well :) :) :) and than 2 days later we will hear form Elder Cook again at the conference :) I know everyone will be jealous.  (yep, I’m JEALOUS!)

Well shoot I gotta go

Elder baker

October 2, 2011

October 2, 2011

Dear fam

Conference was so enjoyable! I don’t think I can add any to your great highlights! The brother that talked about time struck me the most. There was an institute study on that before I came out. It really touched my heart. My companion and I were able to feel of the spirit and have it all to ourselves ... we didn’t have any investigators to feel the love with us.

Last Monday it was raining and it was a chilly rain, but that didn’t stop us from playing in it! We went to a little park with the zone leaders and the sisters. No one had a key to the church we were at so we played outside. It was a lot of fun! Lucky no one got sick too. When we got inside the church we played some dodge ball, I got some mean blisters on my feet ... I’ll be getting new shoes probably next week. There were some extra shoes in our apartment so I will see how those will work.  If they do I'll wear those, if they don’t then off to the store again...

Tuesday we visited with Lance and Jonie Condron and they dropped us... than we had another appointment with Robert and Meagan and Robert picked up his stuff and went back to Iowa he dropped us … three gators in one day when our teaching pool is already so small, it was a good kick to the gut.

Wednesday Mike Elzy is getting ready for the temple! We are trying to teach him slowly and have him retain all that we are going over. Wednesday we will be reading from the Book of Mormon and than Fridays we will be teaching him some principles.

Also we started teaching the Louis family however we probably won’t be teaching them to much more. When Elder Kinikini was here he baptized them, great solid couple. They know their testimonies and that the church is true and are willing to abide to that.  I don’t really see too much of a need there.  I wonder sometimes if I am going to marry a Mexican or a polly or something because they make alot of great food. Dinner was with the Aguilera family. Thankfully the sisters came with us because my broken Spanish wouldn’t get us very far. We had tacos and man were they sooo good! Bobby and Mitch where lucky to get that for two years.

Thursday was windy there was a constant of about 30mph and than gusts up to 45mph so we would be slow riding ... I remember this time with Elder Katoa last year.  That morning when time is very difficult to use effectively we got 2 future investigators (people that say we can come back) I haven’t seen that happen in ... ummm a long time. We were able to get in with a different future investigator. We found Chan about a week ago and finally able to teach him. He is Buddhist form an Asian country. He is very difficult to understand and to talk with. We may be dropping him if this next appointment doesn’t go over well. Having language barriers is the worst because there’s no way to go around that in a short period.  It was also Ty Croswson's birthday. We and the sisters sang him happy birthday and ate his pie. Blondie said we made an old man really happy. 

Now here is the highlight of the week. That night as we were going by potentials of future investigators, we ran in to this drunken couple. Normally the standard is to give them a card make sure they put it in a pocket and then let them be. But a prompting said otherwise. We got their names and a phone number Greg and Desiree. As we were leaving Desiree went to open another beer and pointed the thing at me and sprayed me a little bit. Lucky our next appointment canceled on us so I didn’t have to go in smelling like alcohol. We have since then been over there a couple times when they are sober. They really want to quit but Satan has such a firm grasp on them. Desiree's son Gilbert really wants them to stop drinking but has no faith in them or in us getting them sober.  We’ll see.

Friday we talked to Zeyad. He had prayed very fervently. He asked God to give him and job, sure enough Zeyad got a job!

Well that’s the highlights of this week. :) Another good week with a better one coming :)

On a side note I come home in about 10 months. Elder Potter (we came out together) is having his sister start looking at schools and tuitions and applying and stuff. Once I get home, school in some places will start 2 weeks later.  What should we, well I do about this?  Push to go to school that semester or wait one?  I’ve thought of a few different schools SUU, NAU, BYUI or just a community college in Phx. What do you say wise family?

Have a great week, talk to you next week.

love

elder baker