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.
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