Elder Joshua Baxter: 1 Transfer in the Bag!

Last weeks letter! Somehow it didn't go out. Love you all!

Hey everyone!

I had a good week this week! We finished the transfer, went rock

climbing, and got a car! We had our ups and downs, but overall we had

a solid week. Transfer news: I'm staying with Elder Gee here in Magna!

I'm super happy about that. This is his last transfer so we're hoping

to tear it up! Also, we've been in a triplet this week with Elder

Fakatou because his comp had to get transferred early. Here's more

about my week.

Monday - On Monday morning we went hiking with Fabian and Hermano

Posso! It was pretty fun. Neither me nor my companion knew of any good

hikes around here so we just found a path on google maps that looked

like it led up to the mountain...well most of the mountain near us is

owned by a copper mining company, so we didn't end up getting very

far. we ended up going to the Great Salt Lake! I didn't know how badly

it smelled! Holy guacamole (or maybe rotten guacamole). After we got

home we just did emails, laundry, cleaning, and had our apartment

inspected. We passed :) That night we had a a lesson fall through, so

we went and visited a couple families that haven't been to church in a

while.

Tuesday - We did a bunch of service in the morning for a lady from the

English ward with the other missionaries in our district. We basically

just moved some wood and branches to clean up her yard.

She also had like ten new puppies, hence the puppy picture :) After that we
had a lesson with Jose Andrade and his mom. We then had dinner with a family
from one of the English wards. After dinner we were planning to contact a bunch
of people and we had a couple of lessons set, but almost everything fell
through. We did have one lesson with a less active guy in our ward, but I think
that was it.

Wednesday - we had a lesson with Fabian! We found out right before we got there
that the APs would be coming dropping off a car for us because one of our zone l
eaders was going to transfer early and the other ZL couldn't drive. Buuuut we had to
cut the lesson short so that we could pick up some elders from the dentist. And
we also found out that we would have the car for the rest of the week!! We
were pretty excited. We picked them up, went to lunch at a Hawaiian restaurant,
(really good!) and then went back to our area. We had a lesson or two, then went to a
ward family home evening activity. Our recent convert Eduardo Hernandez (he
and his wife got baptized like the first week that I was here) received the
priesthood! Which was awesome.

Thursday - the only problem with having a car is that sometimes we get
used to run errands. So Thursday was a hard day to be productive because we had
to take two elders who are about to "die" (mission slang for going home) to the
mission office for a temple trip. Aside from that, we had weekly planning,
and did some work in the trailer park. It was a kinda boring day.

Friday - we had district meeting, then we did a BUNCH of contacting. Friday
was the first day after getting a car where we REALLY got to work some
solid consecutive hours. And we saw some miracles. One of which was that we went
to visit to one lady who hadn't been to church in a lonnng time. She said she had
been through some hard things and just was having a hard time bringing herself
to go to church, despite how much she wanted to. After we talked to her for a
few minutes and we were about to leave, she told us that she had been praying
extra hard of late for some help. It was a really cool experience to be able to be that help!
Just one of the cool experiences we had this week! I didn't realize how much we had
been missing out on with all the errands we had to run and the complications of being
in a triplet. But it was a good day!

Saturday - we had morning studies then we went to eat lunch and ice cream
with a member at a restaurant called Leatherbys! It was delicious. Then we
came back and did a lemonade stand as a finding activity with the sisters! Honestly
I didn't really want to do it at first, but it ended up going pretty well!
After that Elder Fakatou had a baptism so we went and helped him set up and get
everything ready. Then we left him to go on splits with a senior elder so that
we could go out and work. We contacted some people in the trailer park and then went
back to get elder Fakatou and did some stuff that he needed to do in his area. We
were supposed to have a lesson with a new family that we found but they
weren't home. It was sad.

Sunday - we went to 4 hours of church! Our Spanish ward and
then an English ward for elder Fakatou. We had some meetings,
went home to do some reports/catching up on our own personal record book and then
went to some lessons we were supposed to have...but neither of them were home. We
had to meet the sisters to drop off some supplies and then went to two
more lessons we had. Luckily they were both home! The first one was a hard lesson.
We've been working with them for a while and they haven't acted on our invitations,
so we had to drop them. The second one was the lady that had been praying extra
hard for some help. We just taught her about the importance of prayer,
scripture reading and church attendance. It was a good lesson.

Today - we went rock climbing! It was awesome! We went to Big
Cottonwood canyon. We were so close to the Johnsons house it was crazy! But
at the same time it was super sad because I didn't have their number or any
way to get ahold of them! But anyway, Climbing was a blast, we got to repel too. I'll send some pictures.

Love you all! Hope you have a great week! Hasta luego,

Elder Baxter