December 12 Letter

Heyyy family!

Here's the transfer news! I'm going back to ZL and my new companion is Elder Espinoza. I already know him pretty well so it will be fun :) The new ward is called the Royal Ann ward. I'm sad to leave my son Elder Rodriguez without even finishing his training, but it will be fun cause I will get to go on exchanges with him! My new address will be 4748 W 4175 South APT #3 West Valley City UT 84120-4968

Monday:

We had a pretty fun, pretty busy p-day today. We woke up, started some laundry and then headed out with the zone to play some Top Golf, and then on a hike to Ensign Peak as well. I'll include some pictures below and I think I included some last week from top golf. We came home with the zone leaders to change into pro-clothes (proselyting clothes) to go shopping but when we came back out of our apartment, we discovered that a lady in our apartment complex needed her car jumped, and then when the zone leaders jumped it, the car supposedly locked automatically with the keys and the little baby in it. So we spent some time trying to help her unlock the car with a hanger we got from the apartment until her husband got home from work with a spare set of car keys. Once that got solved we headed off to sams club with a member that the zone leaders knew, and then went to a church building with the zone for the rest of p-day. That night we had an awesome lessons with Luis Dominguez and his family, and Gloria Trajera. Everyone was there and engaged in the lesson. Lessons with the whole family together are always special...it brings a special spirit seeing the family together. We also had a bomb lesson with Gloria. Man, she is so prepared. She understands everything so well and the kids love it when we come over. She basically taught us the whole plan of salvation after us only teaching it once, a couple of days earlier. We were able to go a little more in depth since everyone understood everything.

Tuesday

Tuesday was kind of a hard day for some reason. We spent a lot of time indoors cuz we had to update our area book and that took awhile. I didn't really like it, but it was something that needed to be done. After we finished we waited outside for a couple minutes for Hno Carrasco to come and help us deliver a couch that he had sitting in his house to a family in need. We stopped by their house to see if they were home first and it turned out that that had just went out and bought some couches on a credit card a couple days earlier. But it was good to say hello to them and see how they were doing. After that we went to the church because one of the English wards was having a Christmas party and we got invited to help set up and to go around and meet some of the people in that ward. We were hoping it would be a productive use of time, and it certainly wasn't bad, but we didn't get any referrals or anything like that. We left before the clean up to go to a lesson with Guadalupe. The lesson was alright, it wasn't the best that we've had with her. She does have the desire to come back, but her progress is just so slow and sometimes it almost seems like she doesn't care to come back. I was a little discouraged after the lesson, but Elder Rodriguez said he didn't feel that way and that I shouldn't either. Afterward we headed back to the church to see if Hno Carrasco was there and would give us a ride back. He roped us into staying for the setting apart of missionary that's departing from from our ward.  His family had invited the whole ward and it was really nice! It brought back memories to see him get set apart. It was a little weird to participate in the setting apart of a missionary AS a missionary, but it was good. We made it home right at 9:30 and Elder Jacobe and Griffin were already at our apartment with the zone leaders ready to start exchanges. We had a good time talking and messing around for a little bit, and then I headed off to their area with Jacobe and left my only begotten hijo to take over the area for the first time with Griffin.

Wednesday

I woke Jacobe up and we talked for a while so he wouldn't fall asleep again haha. It was super freezing all day. Probably my coldest yet! We had a lot of fun though. We taught two great lessons and had a correlation. It was a fun day.

Thursday

Weekly planning and then some lessons. One with Hatziry and the other with the Flores family. Not much else to say

Friday we had district meeting and had a "funeral" for hermana Riding who does this transfer. We had a great lesson with Gloria again and then one later on with Miguel Moreno.

Saturday

We got transfer calls! In the morning. Then we had short exchanges with the ZLs and I got to be with Espinoza! It was fun to be with my comp for a short stint.

Sunday!

Lots of people to church and it was an awesome day. I gave a little adios testimony and had a last Sunday lunch with Hermano Carrasco.

I'm out of time but I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Baxter

Elder Jacobe made this for me and my son :)

Hey!

Hey everyone!

Here's a quick up date:

Tuesday:

We had a lot of lessons cancel. We did lots of finding and visits with members asking for referrals. It was COLD!

Wednesday: we had exchanges with elder Griffin! Fun day but also crazy! We contacted some people in the street and played a little game with it. We each gave each other a random word and had to use it in the contact. His was Elmo, mine was cacahuate (peanut). It was a success

Thursday

Weekly planning, several solid lessons. 

Friday

Had good lessons and did a lot of finding! Gloria Trajera and her two kids are on date for baptism. She's super awesome

Saturday

Did a lot of walking in the freezing cold. Good lesson with the Heras who came to church!

Sunday

Andrades came! The whole family! It was awesome!

Today we went hiking and played some golf again. 

Sorry for the short letter. Love you all! Thanks for prayers and support!

Love,

Joshua

Snow, turkey, and #miracles

Dear family,

Heyyy everyone! How is everything going? Everything here is going swell. I'm a little bit sick, but I can't really complain. We got some snow this week! It was pretty exciting. It melted real rápido (fast) but it was still suuuuuuuper cold for a couple days there. But anyway, we only have a half p-day today, so I'll be signing off at 2pm. We have an all day p-day for Thanksgiving, but we won't be able to email, so happy Thanksgiving in advance! We still haven't solidified our Thanksgiving plans yet, but we've gotten several invitations from different members in the ward and stake. The sad thing is they're like all at the same time :( I'm ready to engordarme (get fat) though. Here's some of the highlights of the week:

Monday

P-day! We had the English elders in our stake living with us for the first week, and they didn't move out until Tuesday, so it was a little hard to clean the apartment. Its been super fun to have more than two elders in the apartment though! I'm extra grateful for two showers right now :) We went shopping together with a member, who then took us to our zone activity afterwards. I don't like having to rely on members for rides, but I'm so grateful for their willingness to help out. For zone activity we played some soccer, volleyball, and basketball. It was a good time :) After we got home, we had a lesson with a girl in our ward who's parents are less active but wants to get baptized. Her name is Hatziry, after a Mexican reporter named Ahtziry :) Its those kinds of names that you have to ask them to repeat like three times and then ask them to spell it out haha. Lessons are kind of hard with her because she hardly talks, and so its hard to ask questions, but we're planning to just make the lessons super engaging and fun. Afterward we went to visit the Moreno family...they're struggling on both the spiritual and temporal sides. They had to sell some of their furniture the other day to be able to "move forward." They have the belief that if they put God first He can help them in their lives, but its hard for them to put that belief into action. After that we walked back up to the apartments and talked to a couple people on the way. Nothing else too crazy happened. It is starting to get pretty cold though.

Tuesday...what happened on Tuesday? Nothing much. That I can remember. We did have a great lesson with Guadelupe. I taught her a lot last time was here. We read Alma 32 and taught the principle of faith. She's seems a lot more happy to have us in her home than last time I was here. I didn't really notice it before but she seems more relaxed now.

Wednesday

We had our usual Wednesday morning lesson with Juan. We finally got a member to come with us! It has been super hard to find someone at 11am because everyone is at work or getting kids to school. But Hermano Carrasco was able to come with us and so that was really good. They both have about the same age so we thought it would be a good match up. Lessons are still kind of hard to control just because Juan likes to talk a ton. He has lots of doubts and is skeptical about things like tithing and priesthood authority. We think that if He is patient and tries to work through it with prayer and study he can get over those doubts, but recently it seems like he's just been throwing in the towel a little bit. After the lesson we went to Hermano Carrasco´s house for lunch. We made eggs with Chorizzo Salvadoreño. Im getting the hang of eating with just tortillas. And of course he made the usual "agua de melon" (water melon). La comida pura mexicana (pure mexican food) haha! We came back home to finish language study, and then we went out to work in the trailer parks. We had a good daily contact with Hermana Andrade and shared with her some scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon about why both are important. It went really well! We also stopped by Griselda and a few other people, but no one was really home. 

Thursday

It snowed overnight! We had a DL meeting in the morning with the zone leaders. It was good. But the walk there we FROZE. We had weekly planning and a lesson with Hatziry and the recent convert Flores Family! The Flores family made us empanadas and hot chocolate and the lessons with Hatziry went really well, and she was a lot more involved which was good. So it was a pretty good night.

Friday we had district meeting and district lunch. We have such a fun district :) we didn't have any lessons in the afternoon, so it was kind of long until dinner. The Moreno family wasn't there for the lesson that we scheduled, which stunk. and they don't have a telephone right now, nor are they living in their house at the moment. But we'll find a way :) We did have a good lessons with a returning less active named Miguel Moreno though (no they're not related).

Saturday we woke up and went almost right away to help hermano Carrasco clean the church. This guy is 70 years old and he works so hard it's ridiculous. But we had a good time with him. Also helped him move some sheet rock and other stuff into his daughters basement while we were at it. After we came home, showered, and studied for a little while, we had a lesson with the Andrade family. It was super spiritual! We felt like we should invite them to be be baptized and they said YES! Both the mom and the dad! It was the biggest miracle! They still have a long ways to go, but that was he most exciting thing all week and probably ever since I've been here!

Sunday was also awesome because Hno. Andrade came to church for the first time! Hna Andrade didn't make it, but there were still tons of people at church. Guadelupe came, Hatziry came, and Gloria Trajera! She's the one that showed up at church a couple weeks back and wanted us to teach and baptize her but then didn't show up to any of the lessons we set up. But she came today and she has a cell phone now! Miracles! I got sick on Sunday, but everything else that happened kind of overwhelmed that.

Today has been a short but good p-day. I'm really looking forward to turkey day. :) Its gonna be a great week! Love you all! Enjoy Thanksgiving! You should all watch he video "Because of Him." It's kind of old, but it's a great reminder of Him who really gave us the most to be thankful for. 

Love you all!

Elder Baxter 

that front row tho :)

Puro Mexicano!

Heyyy!

So I didn't send out a letter last week, and we had transfers! So here's what happened: elder Page got sent to West Jordan :( He's still in our zone though so that will be fun. I got assigned stay in Magna and to train a new elder named Elder Rodriguez! He was born in Mexico in the DF (chilango!), but has lived in Colorado/other states for the past ten years, so he's pretty fluent in both languages. Anyway, he got here last Tuesday and we've been having a great time since!

Sorry for the lame letter! Everything here is going great! Loving the work and grateful for the opportunity to serve. 

Love you all!

Elder Baxter

Happy dia de Halloween!

Deaaaar family and friends,

How is everyone? We have an all day P-day today, so that's why the letter's coming in late. Here's what happened this week:

 Tuesday was a pretty normal, uninteresting day. We had a lesson with Hermana Andrade...I can't tell with her. I'm not sure if she's ready to commit to the gospel or not...sometimes she seems ready and all about it, but other times it seems like she's not interested at all, which is pretty sad considering all that Jose did to give her an example. She told us he went to church EVERY SUNDAY all the way up until he died. That last few weeks he had to bring an oxygen tank to church and couldn't even make it up the stairs to the stage to bless the sacrament. He was the best example of enduring to the end that I've ever seen. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We had one lesson with a new guy that we found on Monday! His name is Ramón...we were just walking down the street on Monday and we saw him and went and talked to him, and he said we could come back the next day. So Tuesday we taught him the restoration and invited him to be baptized. He accepted! It was awesome.

Wednesday we had splits with Elder Jacobe from England...he came to our area with me and Elder Page got to go with his MTC companion. Funny thing is that Jacobe sleeps super deep, so it was a struggle to wake him up. Putting ice on his feet ended up doing the trick  we had a couple good lessons...in the morning we stopped to talk with someone and they invited us up on to their porch without us even asking. It was a guy who had just got out of jail and his wife. We shared a short message out of the Book of Mormon with them and made sure the missionaries where they lived were taking care of them. It was a pretty cool, random teaching moment. We also taught Ramon again. He is super hungry to learn...he didn't even know how to pray before and he's pretty excited to be learning all of this stuff. Elder Jacobe also fell asleep in the middle of a stake correlation picture is below, because you know I can't pass up an opportunity like that.

Thursday we had a lesson with my boy Juan! I need to get a picture with him some time. He is doing really well, but he has tons of questions still. We had to tell him that we haven't been able to teach him the things we need to teach him with all the questions and other random research he always brings up. On the bright side he told us that he knows without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true. So that was awesome. We put him on date to be baptized as well. Weekly planning went pretty well. I'm letting Elder Page lead the lessons and planning sessions now so he can keep learning and get that experience under his belt. He did a good job. We taught Ramon for the third night in a row! He's on fire. We also did a lot of finding that night.

Friday we had a big district meeting! The ZLs and the APs were there, so it was fun to have a big group. It was a little hard before the APs got there, cause people weren't participating that much. But Elder Whitehead and McGirr were good about bringing in the fire, and they helped get everyone else answering and participating, so I was grateful for their presence. We went to Ramon's house again for the lesson, but he wasn't there! We were disappointed. Also the lady that showed up randomly to church last week and wanted to be taught didn't show up to either of the lessons we had scheduled. She doesn't have a phone either, so there was no way to contact her. But we feel pretty confident about finding her eventually, so it's all good.

Saturday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! Elder Espinoza came to our area with me. We had a fun day together. There were lots of people out in the trailer park to talk to so we went ham talking to everyone and found a couple people that would like us to come back and teach them. We also had an impromptu lesson with the Saavedra family! This was such a miracle. We had contacted them once before, but she didn't seem very open to us. But we just happened to be passing by and we saw them all outside so we went and talked to them and they let us teach them a short restoration lesson! It went really well with Sister Saavedra, and pretty well with Brother Saavedra. The only problem with him was that he was knocking back beers like crazy. Despite that he payed considerable attention and participated as well. We set a return lesson, so we'll see how it goes!

Yesterday we had a good Sunday. After church and ward council we had our weekly lunch with Hermano Carrasco. We ate some eggs and beans. Classic hermano Carrasco haha. He always cooks it up real good. We had a lesson with Jose Andrades dad! That was a first for me. He was in tears a lot of the time. It was a good lesson, but it was also really crazy. Well meaning Hermano Carrasco had some good things to say, but then wouldn't stop talking. We got lots of good practice tactfully inserting ourselves, but the lesson was still super hard to control. It's also hard to have comp unity in those kinds of situations. But he told us that he knows we have the true gospel because he can see it the way we act (he also has some friends and his boss that are LDS and have had a positive impact in his life). It was very frustrating though because he recognizes that he's far from where he needs and so he's too discouraged to start. But we have a lot of hope for him. We also had some good lessons with the Cáceres family and Marquez family, both of whom are returning less active members.

Today has been a fun day! We started off with shopping and cleaning and other p-day stuff. Now, since about 3:30 we've been here at a church building hanging out with the zone. We played some soccer earlier on and now we're about to have a little costume party. I'll send some pictures.

Love you all! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Baxter

Elder Jacobe Sleeping :)

-The Phone Call

Our district at the zone costume party:

We bought red shirts and the sisters painted them for us

Just bailando y contactando :)

(just dancing and contacting)

Perros, bicicletas, y bautismos: Week 28?

(the title means "dogs, bikes, and baptisms")


Hey family and friends!

How is life outside of Utah? Things here on the inside are doing great. Its been getting pretty chilly, but its been a super nice change from summer. Its hard to believe that we're already almost done with this transfer. I'm hoping that Elder Page and I both stay here...we've been having a blast and getting some solid work done. Anyway, here's what happened this week!

This morning we woke up extra early to get our studies done early enough to go and help the Gunns (an ex senior couple here that help us a lot) move their furniture back into their house for the first time since their ceiling caved in. Then we went home, changed and showered, and went out for lunch and shopping. He accidentally left his iPad in one of the stores while he was looking for a new jacket, but after a silent prayer from both of us we were able to locate it in the lost and found! Someone was honest enough to turn it in. That, or they realized it coded and locked down by the church :) we played volleyball for the zone activity, then came home and got ready for the evening. We were on foot, cuz Elder Page's bike is broken. We just had one lesson with the Moreno family. They said the reason they didn't come to church was because Brother Moreno woke up sick. So we're really hoping hey make it this next Sunday!

Tuesday:

After studies we started off the proselyting day with tons of finding! We didn't have any set lessons until after dinner, so we went to work in the trailer park!  Miracle story there was that we decided to knock a random house to see if by chance it was the one we were looking for (a couple trailers didn't have numbers). It wasn't the person we were looking for, but we found a member who just moved in a while ago and has been looking for a ward in Spanish to go to! So we gave her the address and time and set a time to come back to get to know her. It was pretty cool :)

Wednesday:
We did service allllll morning. We were helping a family in our ward move, and we were the only ones there because everyone else is always working on Wednesdays in the morning. When we came back home we had to dress up fast and run to a stake coordination with the English sisters and a senior couple in the stake. Then we went home, ate some Little Cesar's pizza that a member dropped off for us, and ran to a lesson all the way at the bottom of our area. That lesson was a no show, so we did a little bit of street contacting, then at 7 rode all the way back up the hill for a lesson with Sergio. That lesson was super good! We're teaching the after baptism lessons, so he already has a pretty good understanding which means we can talk in a little more detail. It hit me how greatful I am for the Plan of Salvation...

After the baptism! Happy family :)

Left to right: Elder Page, Carlos, Dolores (wife of Carlos who was already a member), Dayanara, Karla, Hermana Garner (Dolores' sister...the Flores family is living with the Garners right now), Hno. Garner and me

The little girl is Maria Jose (aka Majo), their youngest daughter. She was also baptized.

 Zone Conference Pic

Our lil district! Elder Jacobe from England, Elder Griffin from South Carolina, Elder Page from Arizona, me, Hermana Avalos from Chihuahua Mexico, and Hermana Martinez from Distrito Federal, Mexico

One of our ward member's halloween decorations haha

Baptisms next weekend! :)

Dear family and friends,

Here's my week:

Monday--I got a haircut finally! Then we went and did our shopping and other normal P-day activities. We played volleyball and soccer outside to take advantage of the good weather while we have it. I played goalie! It was rough. That night we didn't have any lessons, just some visits and contacting.

Tuesday--after doing studies we had service! We went and helped someone clean out their storage shed. He bought us lunch afterward at PizzaRev, a create your own pizza place. It was soooooo good. Then we got home and had to deal with some bike stuff. The bike I used to use while I was here is being used by its owner now...so the new bike that I was going to use was a mission bike and was getting repaired, so I had a super crappy loaner bike for a while. Both of the tires kept going flat and so we had been doing a bunch of walking. But on Tuesday I finally got a good bike :) walking is nice for a break from biking, but I'm glad I don't have to walk all the time. So after going to the mission storage shed to get the bike, we went out and worked (mostly contacting/finding) until dinner. Two of our three lessons that night cancelled. But we did finish off the night with an awesome lesson with Hermana Andrade. We taught her about the spirit world, and she was very receptive. We've been stopping by every day lately just to have daily contact and show our support and love. Also on the way home this nonmember gave us a bunch of this delicious soup called Pozole, and a bunch of other food she just grabbed off her dinner table for us. It was super generous.

Wednesday -- we had a lesson in the morning with Juan. He is still taking tons of notes about the Book of Mormon and has been praying sincerely about it. He asks tons of good questions, but it's starting to prevent us from teaching the other stuff as well. So we're gonna work on that for next week. He's pretty busy so we can only meet with him once a week. We also made cookies and wrote thank you notes, had a coordination meeting, and took Sergio Arroyo to a temple chapel session at our stake center.

Thursday -- it was a pretty good day today. We had our normal studies in the morning, then weekly planning for 3 hours. Watched endless "I'm a Mormon" videos during lunch and we were dying laughing about some of them. The humor continued into weekly planning, so it was a pretty good time, relatively speaking. :) We had some lessons cancel, contacted several people and were able to drop and add some people to our are area book. It was a pretty productive evening. Then that night was super crazy because we had to go on splits, but one of the other members (a young men's aged kid) had to be picked up kind of far away from the appointment...and we were running kind of late, so we had to leave elder Page at the members house where we were going to have the lesson, then Hermano Carrasco and I went to pick up the young man from the other side of town and run to a lesson. When we got to the house the gate was locked and we couldn't get to the door, but we could tell they were there. so after calling them didn't work we resorted to throwing pebbles at the window. But sadly that didn't work either...so we made a couple of visits instead and we got to see the Tamayo family! I haven't seen them in a long time, so that was fun.

Friday--we had district meeting! It went well. One of the Elders in our district had to go to the hospital because of stomach problems, and the only other missionaries in our district are sisters, so we almost had to improvise and do district meeting over FaceTime. But luckily the zone leaders were able to come and save the day. Also, cool story of the day: we decided to say a specific prayer to be able to find someone that was ready to hear the gospel-- if we talked with literally everyone we saw. So we did it and we ended up finding 3 people that were either ready to start coming back to church or be baptized. It didn't come in the way that was expected, but our prayer was answered.The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.

Saturday:

We did service in the morning and then had a couple lessons/ visits. At the end of the day we taught the Moreno family, who are on date to be baptized but aren't coming tu church, and helped them clean their house so that they could get to bed on time and make it to church at 9. Then on Sunday they didn't end up coming. Sunday was a good day despite that, but we were pretty sad they didn't come. Dayanara and her family came, and their all set and excited to get baptized next weekend!

Well love you all! Hope you have a good week!

Love,

Elder Baxter

Back in Magna

Hey familia y amigos!

We had a solid week week! It's been really weird but really fun to be back in my first area. It's been cool because some of the people that we found or were working with and then dropped when I was here the last time because they weren't ready, are ready now and want us to come back! Of course there's lots of other people that still aren't ready to hear the gospel, but everyone has their own time. Most people in the ward still remember me as well since it's only been 3 months since I was last here. 

On Monday night, my last night with Elder Andersen we had five missionaries in the apartment! We had to go pick up two missionaries from the mission office and find a place for them to sleep at our house, then go and pick up Elder Cienfuegos, Elder Andersen's new companion. It was a late night...and then on top of it we had to wake up at 4:30am to take an elder from our zone to the mission office for his departure home. :) Later on on Tuesday I parted ways with Elder Andersen and met up with elder Page in the mission office. I spent some time unpacking and then we went out to work! We got to see Hermana Andrade again; it was a different home without Jose there though. 

Wednesday and Thursday we had pretty uneventful days. On Wednesday we had several visits, a stake correlation, and dinner outside with hermana Zepeda (she always spoils us). I got to know her pretty well last time around.Thursday morning we had an awesome first lesson with an older Catholic guy from Mexico. His name is Juan and he has noticed a lot of things about Catholic doctrine that he doesn't think are correct. Him and his wife are both really open to what we have to share. Interesting side note is that last time I was here we taught their daughter the restoration while we were helping her wash her hummer...she wasn't interested at all then but since that time she's gone through a lot of stuff and so she's very open to talk to us now. :) Only problem is she's super busy with work, so it will be a little hard to talk to her. We also had weekly planning ( :/ ) and had a lesson with a recent convert named Sergio.

Friday we started off the morning with a zone training! It was just an hour long, and we're going to be having one at the beginning of every transfer now, which is pretty cool. Friday we also had an awesome lesson with the Moreno family, and put them on date to be baptized. We have to help them get married though, but that's something they're already working towards so we're pretty hopeful :)

Other highlights of the week:

-We put another family on date! They're staying with their family who live in our ward.

-general comference! We took our recent convert Sergio to the morning session. Also my companion and his last companion sang in the priesthood session choir. It was made up of a lot of people I've served with here

-today we went laser tagging, and then cleaned the house and went shopping. Good day :)

Love you all! Hop you have a good week!

Love

Elder Baxter

My new zone! Elder Page, my companion is on the very left.

Bed Bugs, Transfers, and Snow (September 26)

Hey family and friends!

How's everyone doing? We had a pretty good week this week. Its been starting to get colder and there's snow on the mountains! So I'm trying to get myself mentally prepped for winter :) Also we got transfer calls and I'm going back to my greenie area! I'll be district leader and be follow up training a new missionary, Elder Page! (Follow up training is just when the greenie has a different trainer for the second transfer). So I'm pretty excited about that, plus it'll be fun to go back and see some familiar faces. Sadly, I got news this past week from Elder Gee that Jose Andrade died of his cancer. His family could use lots of prayers.

This week we spent almost two full days helping some sisters in our zone take care of a bed bug problem. The whole house got infested and the sisters were starting to get bug bites all over their faces and arms and stuff, it was getting pretty bad. So we helped them move to a members house to stay for a little while while the mission looked for a new apartment and then the next day cleaned out the whole apartment and took everything inside to the dump. We had to use the mission truck and trailer and it was a pretty extensive job! The assistants helped us though, and we had a pretty good time being destructive and chucking stuff into the dump of course :) We also got permission from sister Palmer to sell a really nice weight set they had sitting in their apartment, so we've been enjoying some extra funds :)

We had some pretty good lessons this week. Adrian and Ericka are still progressing, but they seem to be a little bit scared of baptism itself. Ericka literally has a fear of water. But I feel pretty confident we'll be able to work through it. I'm a little sad I wont be in the area anymore to keep teaching them. Sonia isnt doing so great. She has started to miss a lot of lessons and she hasn't come to church in several weeks, so it looks like were gonna have to drop her. We found a lot of new people to teach recently though, so hopefully Elder Andersen and Cienfuegos will have some solid investigators this transfer.

Today for P-day we went to Top Golf (using some of our extra funds :). It was super fun! Its basically a giant driving range but there's targets on the ground that you have to try to hit, and you get points based on how close to the center of the target you hit, and how far away the target is. I'll include a picture below. I'm slowly getting better at golf haha. :)

On Saturday we were having a little bit of a rough day. A ton of our appointments had been cancelled, and it was pouring rain. We had both kind of lost some of our motivation since everything seemed to be going against us. But, we hopped in the car, and went to try and make a couple visits. The song Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing came on and it changed the mood of the night completely. We both felt the spirit strongly and felt that we were doing the right thing, even though we didn't know exactly who we needed to talk or what we needed to do. We ended up having a great night!

Thats about it for the week! Haha I just realized that I never sent the address for this apartment. Oh well! My new address is 8543 S. Elk Run Mountain Rd. Magna Utah, 84044 Apt. #619 

Love you all! Keep it real!

Elder Baxter

We got pranked...the house looked like it got robbed :)

My companion reading the "short" list of possible side effects of a medicine :)

September 19, 2016

Hey Family!

It felt like this week was pretty short since we had p-day on Wednesday instead of Monday. It wasn't the best week this week but it wasn't the worst. We had a ton of cancellations which wasn't too fun, but we had a lot of other good stuff happen!

At the beginning of the week I went on exchanges with Elder Galo in his area. This is his first transfer, so it was kinda fun to be with a brand new missionary for the day. He speaks Spanish fluently so we spoke purely Spanish the whole day, which was good. He's from New York too, so it was the first time I got to be with another East Coaster (whoop!) We had two dinners and after the second one I seriously thought I was gonna throw up which was a first, but i got over it pretty quick. Plus dinner was delicious, so it made it worth it. At the end of the night we visited a family that hadn't been in our plans for the day at all. They were actually a family that I had visited before on a previous exchange. Well it turned out that the mom had gotten in an accident at work and was in pretty bad condition. We ended up being in the right place at the right time to be able to give her a blessing. And, it was cool because the member that we brought didn't have to work the next day and she needed a ride to the hospital but her husband had to work! So it was a miracle.

We also went on exchanges with Elder Spilsbury and Elder Gonzalez. I brought Gonzalez to our area. It was a ton of fun. He speaks some wicked Spanish (he's from Mexico) and he taught me a bunch of new words. It was fun stuff. We've still been playing a ton of soccer with the zone and still been going to the gym every morning with two other elders that live in our complex. 

We have a busy week planned ahead, so hopefully it goes well!

Love you all!

Elder Baxter

At a taco restaurant on Friday :)

Labor Day all day p-day!

Hey everyone!

I had an awesome week this week! It was absolutely packed, but it was

blast. Lots of good lessons and new people to teach! I actually had

some time to write today so it's a little long! So if you don't feel

like reading a lot just skip it and know everything is going well! :)

Monday, We went and hiked up to Cecret Lake as a zone! We accidentally

went the wrong way at first but we found the lake in the end, so it

was a success. Afterward we went to get my haircut and then went and

played soccer with one of the districts (we play tons of soccer now

with the all Spanish zone). It was a blast! But we were exhausted by

the time we got home. We did some emailing, showered up and went to go

have a lesson with Sonia. It was a great lesson! She still has some

doubts, but we're helping her overcome them and she's progressing

toward her baptismal date, so hopefully all continues to go well for

her.

Tuesday - It was Elder Andersens turn to be sick. We stayed in all

morning and after noon while he slept and then we went out about an

hour before dinner once he started feeling better. We visited Omar,

who's a less active guy in our ward who just recently lost an eye in a

work accident, and shared a message with him. He's doing pretty well,

considering! He showed us a picture that the doctor took before

surgery of the chunk of metal in his eye. The metal piece was bigger

than a quarter! It was pretty disgusting :) He had to drive for like

30 minutes with the metal piece in his eye because the paramedics

couldn't locate him where he was. He said that he was going to pass

out (this was before the paramedics could track him) when he felt a

push of extra strength and was able to see well enough to keep

driving. But he said that when the paramedics finally found him he

lost his sight again. It ended up being a pretty spiritual experience

for him! We tried visiting María, an investigator we've been trying to

work with, but she's been dodging us, so we decided to drop her. It

was a little sad because it seemed like she had interest at first, but

I guess she got too busy with work or something. After that we had

dinner with Adrian and Ericka Ortiz and taught them the Word of

Wisdom. They said they don't really do any of that anyway, so they

accepted without a problem. We also had a coordination and  played

soccer at a ward activity with Christ Guerrero.

Wednesday - we had Mission Leadership Counsel today. Pretty good

stuff! They had a guest speaker come and talk to us about repentance.

He had been a member since birth, but went wayward and ended up

founding a pretty notorious gang here in Utah. He got sent to jail and

it was there that he starting changing his life. He had some pretty

cool stories about answers to prayers and things like that. One of the

stories was that he was praying in jail that he would be able to get

some scriptures. After he finished praying the librarian came by and

gave him a slip of books he could request. He put the catalog in a

drawer in his cell, and when he opened the drawer he found a Book of

Mormon there! Another thing was that he was able to get permission to

watch general conference in the tv room even though it wasn't allowed

in any of the other sections. After getting out of jail he has been

able to get active in the church, go to the temple, and help other

cell mates and even his own brother who is now in jail. One thing he

said that I really liked was this: things are always gonna happen to

us in this life, negative or positive. It comes down to two options.

We can be a force for good, or we can be a force for evil. Afterward

we had a lesson with Rebecca a new investigator we found. It was

awesome! She really wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon and

just seems to be willing to learn and experiment upon the word. We

have a second lesson with her this coming week. We also talked to a

crazy less active Colombian. She spent several minutes explaining that

she still lived the gospel even though she didn't go to church. And

then by the end of the visit she was telling us all the things she was

doing that were against the commandments. Sooo it was kinda crazy. The

member we had with us was trying to argue with her, but we could see

it wasn't going anywhere so we kind of ended the visit wished her the

best, and told her we're always here if she needs help with anything!

Thursday - lots of meetings and planning today. We did some follow up

with some of the people we're teaching right after we finished our

studies, as well as doing a little bit of planning for zone conference

on Friday. We went for lunch at Leatherbys with Elder Weller and Elder

Galo, some of the elders in our zone. Then we went straight to a

meeting with the district leaders and sister training leaders to plan

for zone conference. The meeting was pretty uneventful. We just talked

about needs of the different districts and then divided up the

trainings we decided to do. We had a lesson with Leandro (I'll talk

about him later), and made a couple other visits.

Friday - we had zone training! It was a success. We had zone lunch

afterward. We had to take some elders to grab a couple things

afterward. Then we went to try and get some weekly planning done. We

didn't have much time until dinner, but we did our best. Our dinner

cancelled so we went to a Hawaiian restaurant called Mo Bettahs with

the assistants. Good people good times good food :) afterward we had a

lesson with a recent convert named Cesar Rincón. He's from Venezuela

and talks wicked fast. We had a solid lesson with him and then went

straight to another lesson with a less active family in our ward, the

Arevalo's. We kinda threw down the hammer with them a little bit,

talking about the Sabbath day and the sacrament. They responded very

well! It seemed like they just needed a little push to get them to

come. We'll see if their resolution to come holds out until Sunday!

Afterward we tried to visit a couple people to see if we could set up

some lessons with them, but didn't have much luck finding people at

home.

Saturday - we had morning studies and then went to the church across

the street to update progress records and the baptism/reactivation

reports. Then we went out to have lunch at Cafe Rio (again with the

Elder McGirr and Whitehead). Someone anonymously payed for us, which

was suuuuper nice. We had a lesson right after that so we rushed to go

pick up a member that goes out with us a lot but can't drive and

finally had a first lesson with David! David was a referral that we

got a while back from one of his neighbors. We've tried to set stuff

up a couple times but it keeps not working out (last time we had an

appointment with him was the day I was sick), so it was great to

finally teach him the whole Restoration. He is really sincere in his

desire and wants to know if it's true, which is pretty much all we can

ask for! The only obstacle is that he works a ton and is super busy

trying to get his citizenship. After we taught him, we dropped off

Hermano Ariel again and went to buy a white shirt for Cesar Rincón. We

figured out why none of the Latinos are at home on Saturday...they're

all in Ross! Haha. So we got the shirt and headed to dinner. After

dinner we had a lesson with a younger guy from Mexico that we just

found recently...he used so much Mexican slang it was ridiculous. I

could barely understand him haha. Mexicans (especially from the

federal district) are notorious for using a ridiculous amount of

slang. After that we street contacted a guy we stumbled across and

gave him a Book of Mormon. We tried to make a couple other visits

without too much luck.

Sunday - we had ward council at 9:00 and spent pretty much the whole

time planning a Taquiza (a meal/party with tacos? I don't even know

how to desEnglish haha) Then we went out to bring our people to

church. Leandro came! He's an investigator that Elder Andersen was

teaching when he was here the first time! But they had to stop

teaching him because his work was so crazy. But he just changed work

again and conveniently, we ran into him at the church building during

the week! He was pretty close to getting baptized last time the

missionaries were meeting with him, so we'll see where that goes!

Also, Adrian and Ericka came to church again after a couple weeks of

missing so that was good! But the Arevalo family didn't come, which

was pretty disappointing after the lesson we had with them. That day

we did a lot of contacting and set up some lessons for next week. We

also had a lesson with Sonia. It wasn't the best of lessons. She told

us that she hadn't really been reading and she had been slacking on

her prayers as well. And of course not coming to church didn't help

anything. She just really struggles with a doubts that come when we're

not there. It seems like every moment that we're not there with her,

she starts to have all these doubts and fears come upon her. We're not

sure how we need to help her right now. She needs a lot of prayers.

Today we had an all day p-day since its Labor Day. We had a blast!

Elder Andersen and I spent the whole day (literally) with Elder

Whitehead and McGirr. We went out for breakfast, went shopping, went

to their YSA Tongan ward picnic, played games and ate some sandwiches

there, and then went golfing! Afterward we went to get milk shakes and

called it a day! We went all out. :)

Thanks for the emails and for your love and support. Hope you all have

a great week!

Love you all!

-Elder Baxter

 Sometimes ya just get desperate :)

Our zone after zone training!

A laundry mishap we had...the bathroom mat got tangled up and shredded to bits. But my shoes are clean! :)

 Clowning around on the golf course today.