new p-day

Monday, February 7, 2011
Hello!
My name is Jason Doolittle. I am the ward mission leader for the Shingle Creek ward in Minneapolis, MN.
Your sons, Elders Baker and Miller, asked me to e-mail you to let you know that their p-day has been changed to Wednesday of this week. They will e-mail you then.
So you know, they are both exemplary missionaries and I am honored to have had the chance to serve with them.
Kind regards,
Jason Doolittle

How nice was that?  Thanks Bro. Doolittle!

January 31, 2011

dear family!

Thank you dad for your inspiration.  I will continue to do my best to go onward and upward!

Eddie, this last two weeks,  is really progressing.  We went over there about every day this last week and he decided to take out his ear rings.  (I think I am going to ask him for them just as a remembering thing of the gospel).  He has his interview for baptism this up coming Saturday the 5th.  The ceremony will start at 6 o’clock.  Hopefully Mark will be able to be baptized than as well but that’s not up to us; we just roll with the punches. Mark is doing fine, we went over to his place last night to drop off some forms that need to be filled out.  He was pretty sick but he was so happy that we came by and gave him that so he can be baptized.  Shara and TJ are ummm . . . I don’t know . . . we talk a lot with them but they seem to cancel every appointment. Elder Miller feels really good about them so we’ll keep on doing our thing.  We also picked up two other investigators Fred and Mike. I don’t know much about either one. They both are super interested and both are a little … crazy?  Who knows what the spirit can do as we work with them.

It’s been a good week. As we have been going over to eddies place so much, its been nice to see the seed bloom in to a pretty flower. Soooo nice not to just plant a bunch and not see the fruits.

It’s snowing again here. We have like 5 inches now and we are supposed to get about 5 more... uggg snow.  It is good for missionary work but that’s about it.

This week we also had exchanges. it was nice to go down in the south area and see how different it is there. Way more ghetto and much more difficult to find commitable people. The funny thing about it was we were able to find future investigators for the Hmong, Elm Creek, and North Shingle Creek. I felt bad we didn’t find one for their area, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. I have definitely learned this week that life is not fair and probably never will be.

Yesterday at church we had a 5th Sunday thing with the bishopric. It was on the Lord’s store house. I had no clue what that was.  There where a lot of people that didn’t know. Super glad I wasn’t the only dork raising their hand who didn’t know. Anyway bishop did a really nice job at teaching us about it. I learned that the Lord moves us around, gets us jobs in places where we need to be in order to further push the work forward.  People have traits that only they have and some one needs to hear it from that person to become converted or to stay strong in their faith.  He also talked about seeing a need and filling it, not just standing around and waiting for some one else to do it. See. . . Act . . . Do

The library has changed their policy on who can use the computers and who can’t. Elder Miller is not able to email his family today but will be able to next week. Do you think you could send them some thing saying that he is ok? Their email address is brad@impressivehomesutah.com and if that doesn’t work try impressivehomes@comcast.net

well I gota go..

love elder baker

January 24, 2011

dear family

my eyes are good. i threw away my contacts and scrubbed the containers nice and good dried them out and there seems to be no infection. all is well!

the Minnesotans say the worst (of the winter) is over. and it wasnt that bad. but i am glad i had those socks for the worst. thanks mom. dont worry about getting more.

yes we had eddie (at church) like always. the gospel principals class was on the priesthoods. and test elder baker day... but it went good he had so many questions about when he could get it (the priesthood) and could april get it and how glad he is that this church is the only on that has it. so glad to hear it.

ragina came to church. how ever she worked saturday night so she was tired. she came to sacrament and than went home. mark came to church as well, he has been struggling a lot. we offered to give him a blessing and he jumped up and said yes. hopefully it will help.

no we havent figured out what day we are going to the temple. a bunch of new guidelines came out and made it so we couldnt go. maybe next week we will end up going. but i dont really know. it seems like with most people the closer and closer they get to the end of a journey they get more and more relaxed about rules or this and that... not president its the other way around with him. (I need to ask him if his mission president is finished in July)

that is a really good quote. it works on just about every church principle every book of mormon study every church every testimony builder. good job mom!

thats way cool about sabrina! where in the US is north Carolina? some where on the east cost right? (well at least he got that right)  hurricane danger....

yeah the new record was pretty insane! (MN broke the record for coldest day, it had been -41 and it dropped to -46) i am sure i got a little frost bite on my ears. it was a little chill! it seems like enough just isnt enough with Minnesota -  most snow, most cold, most . . . whats next!!!???? haha all is well its over and now it starts to get warmer... maybe?? (I just don't think it's over yet . . . sorry to say!)

yes we are still riding our bikes. all the salt is starting to mess up my gears and brakes. i talked with some bike people and they said dont do any thing till after the season or it will get worse. so ill just clean it so no more salt gets in the groves and messes it up more.

we didnt meet with reagina this week because she is working nights this week. and same with the Kennedy family. 

eddie is doing well. last night we went over and set up his baptism on talks and who he wants to baptism and confirm him. he asked if i could do both... however, as a missionary we should only do one of them and than have a member do the other. we tried to get him to choose a member but he wouldnt budge. he decided he would have elder tui do the confirmation instead of me. that will be both of our firsts!

april's dad mike has been showing a little bit of interest as he has seen the great changes in eddie. hopefully it will start a chain reaction of desire to grow closer to Christ and God.

mark may be waiting for a little bit on his baptism. he knows its true but has been having some shaky ground lately. thats why we gave him a blessing and hopfully he can ride though the problems and come out strong!

we got 2 new investigators this week shara and tj. we where riding our bikes around ( really slow it was super icy) and she says - hey are you jahova's!? we ran in to the snow banks to stop and talk to her.  we set up a time to go by, and after we had a lesson  she told us she was glad we arent javhas and that she has a huge interest in our church. hopfully its not only to be informed of truth but to also be baptized.

this last week we had a specialized training. it was really short and brief but jam packed with the spirit! this training was . . . dont let depression get you down. this is the month of depression. but all is well life goes on no depression here. in the interview with president i was able to get sunglasses approved thank goodness for that.  :)    and i talked to him a little bit about Spanish. i guess i will be stayin on the english side.. kind of a bummer but oo well no worries here.

well gota run!

elder baker

Wiltbank cousins unite!

January 17, 2011

dear family
yes i got the socks they work. very interesting. i am still trying to figure out what ones work the best and all that so if you could hold on another week so i can have it down to a science and really know that would be great  (supposedly if you wear silk socks under your regular socks, it keeps your feet warmer)  Also, if you could send a vial and maybe some oil. i forgot all that stuff back home and it only took me 5 months to figure out that I didnt have anything. silly me. we are still good on treats and food from christmas. elder kaota left all his stuff and elder miller brought all of his treats so there is still a lot.

yes we got the family started. (April and Eddie got married!) it was a nice little turn out. i took lots of pictures. but my camera is not the best so only a few can you tell who are in them. (I'm going to buy him a new camera, all his pictures stink!) we had a few members and one relative from april's family. all and all about 15 people.

yes i figured out who presidents sister is. she lives down there. (the couple he lives with have relatives here in Marana, and Rhett can't remember their names, really?)for the life of me i cant remember what her married name is but she is a paynter though. ooo and that is way cool about elder waller and elder lewis. (These 2 Elders are Wiltbank relatives, grandsons to Aunt Afton) elder waller actual called us and told me this last weekend said we were related and the cool thing about elder lewis is that elder kinikini trained him as well. so we are cousins and also brothers.  another interesting thing about that is that a member came up to me and said elder baker you have some relatives in mesa right? i said yes the haws' fam. and he went on to say well you have some other family there and you have quite a bit of family up here in the same mission... weird that  a member knew me from a different ward but that was cool that he shared that info with me yesterday. (MORE INFO PLEASE)

words of wisdom of about a talk on families. i never really knew what people meant by families being the foundation of everything and that satan doesnt want families at all. look at the world today. people get divorced, and sleep around and even gays. satan hates families because they help us out so much. families really are ordained of god. i didnt really know what that meant until i got out here and really saw how true that was. 

so recap on the week. a little bit different week. but it was a good week we were able to go and teach cindy. but that looks like not very good at all. she is telling us that God is telling her that she needs to stay with her church. satan is so good at what he does he won on that battle. she even came to church and then she felt the same way...

Samuel is still lost. he was so golden but now no one knows where he is. not even his family. so no good there at all.  raginia umm she is still so golden and wants to be baptized but is scared because she has this vision that she has to be perfect after baptism. trying to share with her that as long as we are human we cannot be perfect. the only one that was able to do that is Jesus; he was part immortal and had the seed of God. so he was able to, but none the less we should put forth our most effort to be like Christ. we weren’t able to set a date for baptism but hopefully we will be able to soon.   Mark, goodness that boy, he is really starting to understand the gospel and baptism. good news there. we were able to go to the church as a less active joint teacher. normally not the best idea but it worked out so well. mark and the jt where able to relate and the sprit was really strong. doing reactivation and investigating is the best... sometimes!

another interesting thing that happened was we were doing some street contacting and we were talking with this lady and she was like come to my home. so we set up a day to go and share a brief message and than we would have another investigator... turns out she is a less active. that was supper weird and confused us so much.

this week i got some sort of weird infection in my eyes. the doctor put me on some drops and said i should be good in about a week to two. he said not to wear contacts at all till then. it’s amazing to think that when i first got contacts i thought i looked weird. and now its all turned around! it’s funny how life works.

on Wednesday we get to have a zone conference. i am looking forward to that! president always gives great trainings. and speaking of that last night we were able to go to the president’s fire side for recent converts and investigators. we took Eddie. he is doing so well. it just amazes me how the spirit can change some body. he went from not knowing too much, to having a testimony about Christ and now he understands and we are able to have a spiritual conversation . . . so good, so good! and sorry i dont have any pictures this week, i left all my stuff in bro hyatt's van... whoooops :)

some other great news is that next week we are finally going to the temple! so next week i wont be emailing on monday i will be emailing on... maybe Wednesday or whatever day we go.
well i love you hope its a good week

love elder baker

Fun pictures in January 2011!

This is Eddie and April and their kids - they are getting married soon and then hopefully baptized after that!                  Elder Katoa and Elder Baker

This one was labeled "old school" - it's your guess what that means!

It's cold . . . that's all he said . . . It's cold!

                                                 Welcome to the hood - Elder Miller - Rhett's new companion.                                                                       They came out together from the MTC.

This made me laugh right out loud - it's labeled . . . Safety training!

January 10, 2011

dear fam

baptism no...!!! wedding yes.

April and Eddie came to church but lost their daughter again... we spent maybe 30 min looking for her. samuel came and so did ragina. ill talk about them in the end of the email.

we did hear the news yesterday (about Gabby Giffords and the Tucson Tragedy). knocking on doors you get a lot of weird and very exaurated or over stressed information. that is sad news... but dad is definitely good at giving those kinds of talks and is very smart! thanks dad for being my dad :)

Ill for sure let you know about the socks. my face mask thing is working miracles! thank you sister bliss.

i probably wrestled the Nogales guy last year. he was a junior and had a lot of potential. i think he actually placed. freaking breaking my wrist ugggg.  it sounds like the team is doing all right go tigers!

thats good news about sister farmer. she actually sent me out a check. umm but there’s no chase bank around here... how do i go about that? tell her thank you for me and i will also send her a thank you card as well

a hoddie and a shirt? maybe? anything wrestling from marana is good! its about as close as i can get to wrestling.

yes dad i remember that council you gave me! i do my best to remember all the council even though i some times forget but when i need it most i remember it :)  thanks for being my dad

well on with investigators. it was a hard week again. elder katoa had a big impact on all of them mainly the deah kids. i guess i will start there. after saying goodby elder katoa said some good stuff to mark about being baptized and serving a mission so he can help others out and what not.  mark was so pumped and on fire but when elder miller and i went over he was not on fire at all and has zero desire to learn from us any more... hopefully it was just that day.

April and Eddie seem all right we did a lot of helping with the wedding and taught a little bit about eternal marriage in a year or so. things there are a little stress full for them and not so much on the spiritual side.

we finally got in contact with samuel again. we actually just saw him in the library we chatted for a  little bit. any way he came to church and enjoyed it - he is super golden. we are going over there tonight some time.

oo and we got a new investigator on Saturday her name is ragina. her brother is actually a member, rm and is going to byu right now. and living with her is a cousin samson who was a former investigator. any way so the assistants called us and said call right now and go over there as soon as you can. luckily we were tracting in the area. we call go over and she has a bom on her table. kind of weird if you dont know what she knows. we start with a prayer and she bares her testimony on the truthfulness of the book of Mormon and the prophet joesph smith. and than continues she knows this church is true and that she wants to come to church on sunday and be baptized... to new missionaries we are stunned! we bare testimony back and left because it was so... shocking? her and samuel both seem very very golden.

working with elder miller is rough. i think the first week or so of transfers are just rough making that switch. he is very on the ball and hopefully we will be able to more the work forward some more. and teaching him some spanish and hmong and liberian is fun with white boy language stuff hahaha

the joke of the week but if you ask me its backwards is elder miller mills the wheat and i bake it into some thing good.

ooo and the ward is starting to like us a lot more. people are actually coming up to us and saying hay if you need a jt i am free this night. before it was so rough finding a jt. hopefully its not just because its cold out side it defiantly will help.

well got go share the word

love

elder baker.

Happy New Year, January 3, 2011

Dear Fam:

What another interesting week . . .

Church starts for this ward at 11, which works perfect because it’s right after studies.  We go up to the church and talk with members.  Right now there are 4 wards in the building, but normally there is only 3.  The 4^th ward is here because something happened with their roof, either there is no more roof, or a beam cracked so there is almost no roof, but something to that extent.  Glad no one got hurt. 

Eddie comes to church just about every week, he didn’t come last week because he had the 24 hour flu, fun stuff.  He came this week, but the Deah kids forgot what time church started so we’ll try again with them next week.  They are still scheduled for baptism on Jan. 15, but it will change if they don’t come to church next Sunday.

There were 2 baptisms this week.  One was Yusbeth, a Hispanic girl that the south side elders found.  Half of the service was in Spanish – that was so nice to hear and feel the spirit.  We had about all of our investigators at the baptism – Cindy, Samuel, the Deah kids.  They all liked it and asked when they could be baptized.  The only problem with that is the Deah kids don’t really like to come to church until they get here.  Cindy wants to be baptized, but wants to go to her church . . .

The other baptism was a child of record.  We had April and Eddie go there because it was more of a family thing and there were more kids there for Morgan and Jazmine.  It worked out well.  April and Eddie will be getting married on January 15 at 2:00 pm.  I am glad that is happening.  Eddie is starting to figure out prayer and Christ, but still not enough to where he can be baptized.  On Thursday when we went over, he said that they have been arguing a lot, but that they have started saying prayers together to help them calm down.  It’s nice to know that there is some progress even though it is slow.

That’s weird it’s so cold in Tucson and in Eagar.  It’s normally not that bad but I guess global warming has its own thing in mind.  Knocking on doors when its 20 below (only happened 2 times so far) definitely isn’t fun.

You are right, there is not a sporting goods store in Brooklyn Park.  I have come to find out that there are these little hand warm things, but they are actually toe warmers that I can put on my sock and stay warm.  Thank you Christine for those!

Yup, transfers are this week!  Elder Katoa is going to Manomine, Wisconsin and I am staying.  I get Elder Miller.  He and I came out together and were comps for a little bit.  I only have one problem with that . . . he is not a poly!  I have kinda been wondering who is going to stand in front of me when someone throws a bucket or brick at us . . . no worries  =)  It was interesting when President called this morning.  First, he talked to Elder Katoa and then he said, “Well Elder, we are going to have you move out of Shingle Creek too, and you’re going to be  . . . (like for a minuet or two there was a pause), wait, that’s not right, Elder Baker you stay right there.”  He hung up and then called a few minutes later and said what the low down was – interesting how the Lord and the spirit works.

You are right on this being the only full year I will serve.  Missionaries come up with the weirdest lingo – we call it the black year – it’s supposedly the fastest year, so we’ll find out about that!

Wednesday we went over to the Deah kids place and talked about baptism.  Brindy is really excited, it’s Mark that seems to be a little rough.  He really wants to know the truth.  He is like a young Joseph Smith – really searching for the right answers and he doesn’t want to make a wrong move.  We talked for maybe 45 minutes on the blessings that come from baptism.  The only bad thing that he came up with is that he will be more accountable, and that makes him really nervous.

Friday was good, we pretty much just helped members out with New Years stuff – setting speakers up, connecting this and that.  New Year’s day was fun.  Tons of drunks.  The nice thing is that people were a lot nicer, till later in the day when it got colder.

Sunday was great.  At Yusbeth’s baptism there were a ton of people.  Maybe 30 people were stuck in a little tiny nursery room.  It was such a spiritual moment, even though it was in Spanish.  I would say that is the first time in this ward that testimonies have been . . . well . . . all testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His teachings and blessings.

A funny thing about the baptism is that the font wasn’t filling up fast enough so we had to take a trash can, of course we washed and cleaned it, we filled it up and used that to fill the font.  We had some good laughs about that!

Ooo on Saturday night I guess bikes don’t like cold weather and ice.  My bike is jacked up as well as Elder Katoa’s and we didn’t have a bike on Sunday, so it was lots of walking and that’s also why we are emailing early because with the ride situation and Elder Katoa leaving there is a lot to do.  So the Paynters are letting us email using their computer.

Well that seems like this week in a nut shell

Love,

Elder Baker

PS  one thing that I forgot to say was that Eagan had a baptism about a transfer ago.  His name is James, a younger black guy.  Guess who talked to him and got his info?  Yup, that was me.  He didn’t want to talk to a white boy, so he waited till Elder Kinikini talked to him.  I didn’t teach him, but I was able to get his information.  I thought that was neat, so far “seed planting” is working . . .