Semana dos in the field!

Hey family and friends! Here's what happened this week.

Monday - First P-Day! Spent the morning doing our personal and

companion studies, and then cleaning the house, doing laundry, etc.

Then we had zone activity where we played some "get to know each other

games" and also some basketball and other sports. It was fun to get to

know some of the other missionaries. Only thing is that zone activity

was super long and so I didn't get to finish a lot of stuff that I

wanted to do. Oh and I finally got a bike! I was going to just buy one

but they said that there were some bikes floating around the mission

that weren't being used, so our zone leaders went and got one for me.

Tuesday - Crazy day today! Tons of walking and biking. In the morning

we had our usual studies and then went to teach our investigator

Fabian. We biked to that lesson which was fun because it was mostly

down hill...the only problem is that we had to come back afterwards

haha. My legs were pretty sore afterwards. The lesson went really

well! We taught him about the plan of salvation and the atonement of

Jesus Christ. He has a lot of sincere questions and a sincere desire

to come closer to Christ. He's a cool guy. After that we went to help

a sister in our ward clear some branches out of her yard and ate some

delicious home-made pizza after. Then we went to visit another family

but we walked so we could do some street contacting. We talked to a

lot of people! It was definitely the most street contacting I've done

so far. Before I came I never would have been able to do that sort of

thing. We visited a less active member and I gave her a blessing of

health in Spanish! Then we had choir practice,  and a lesson with a

lady who's 17 year old son is a member, but she's not. After that we

went to give one of the sister missionaries a blessing with the zone

leaders and came home and passed out. I definitely slept well Tuesday

night :)

Wednesday - We did so much service on Wednesday. We started off with

our normal studies in the morning, and then we had to go to a meeting

that the zone leaders held (because my companion is district leader).

By the time we were finished it was lunch time. Then from lunch until

dinner we were doing service...The county does this thing where they

place dumpsters all throughout the neighborhoods and people dump all

their old refrigerators and couches or whatever it might be that

they've been keeping in their backyards or garages or whatever. Well

we got a bunch of calls from people asking if we could help. So we did

that (and dumped just about any random thing you can imagine) and also

helped an elderly sister from our ward mow her lawn). We barely got

home in time to shower and get ready for our dinner appointment. Then

after that we had mutual activity where my companion and I shared a

short message to the young women about the sabbath day.

Thursday - today we ate breakfast in the morning with a member at

McDonalds, came home for personal studies, then went to have our

quarterly interviews with president Palmer. It was a crazy morning.

After that we had weekly planning and lunch. We took our investigator

Fabian to temple square and showed him around and taught him about

modern day prophets. He really enjoyed the whole thing. I don't

remember if I mentioned this last week or not but he is preparing to

be baptized the 6 of May. When we finally got home we ate dinner at a

members house. My companion thought it would be funny for them to give

me a hot pepper to try. It was probably the hottest thing I have ever

eaten! Haha. The pepper was called chile serrano. It's weird because

at first it tastes like a sweet pepper but then all of a sudden it

just lights your mouth on fire. I was tearing up so hard. After all

that fun we had a lesson with some recent converts, la familia

Hernandez and then went home for the night.

Friday - On Friday we had zone meeting right after our morning studies

which lasted for a couple hours. It was pretty good though! Then we

went home to finish weekly planning and then to go pick up our dinner

from a member in our ward. The lesson that we were supposed to have

after dinner cancelled so we walked to the bishops house and talked to

people we met on the way. One guy cussed me out when I held out my

hand and tried to introduce my self...but everyone else was nice :).

We talked to a nonmember Hispanic lady who was really nice and when we

introduced the Book of Mormon she said she knew it was true, but at

the same time was trying to tell us how religion was an addiction and

some other kind of odd stuff that didn't really make sense. We also

talked to a really nice Catholic guy who surprisingly started the

conversation with us instead of vice versa. He told us that he wasn't

interested in our message but that he knew what we were doing was

really good. Anyway, after all that walking the bishop wasn't home. So

we walked to the ward mission leaders house (which was the

missionaries house until where we live now), grabbed a snack, and made

our way to one last house before we went home. It was the house of a

part member, less active family. They are in some tough circumstances.

We didn't teach them but just visited with them and tried to find out

if there was byway we could help.

Saturday - We had studies all morning, then went to Hermano Carrasco's

(the ward mission leader) house for my companion do work on some

college stuff since he's leaving in July, then we started walking back

home in the rain. Thank goodness a member had mercy on us and gave us

a lift. We picked up our umbrellas and coats and did some contacting

in our apartment complex and in the trailer park. After that we had a

lesson with Jose who is a recent convert. We are also teaching his mom

who I mentioned earlier. He is 17 years old, has cancer and is

probably nearing the end of his life. Despite all of that though, he

has stayed strong in his faith. He is an awesome kid! He's really good

friends with all of the missionaries and so we have a great

relationship with him. After our lesson with him we had dinner, went

to the adult session of general conference, and then went home for the

day.

Sunday - We had stake conference! Elder Alin Spannaus was the visiting

authority and he great talks, both Saturday night and Sunday. We had a

less active that I taught with a member of the bishopric come! We were

happy that she came. After we went to home and ate lunch with some

other elders and then sent our weekly report to the stake president

and bishop and finished some other reports. We finished they day off

visiting some less active families.

Also, I can't remember which day it was but my companion and I ate

tacos de lengua! (Cow tongue tacos). They were actually pretty good!

I'll send some pictures in a separate email.

It was a busy but good week! My companion is really helping me become

a better missionary and I'm getting lots of practice in Spanish! My

mission president told me that due to lots of missionaries going home

soon I'll probably be serving in both Spanish and English wards at

some point in the future, which is a little sad because I wanted to

really focus on Spanish, but I'm learning more and more that the

mission isn't about me, it's about serving others. I'm grateful for

Christ's example of service and I know that as we strive to come

closer to him and be more like him by serving others, our lives I'll

be blessed!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Baxter