Update Time from Magna

Dear family and friends,

How are you all? I had a really good week this week. Time is flying!

Sometimes the weeks seem like days. All is well here and I'm enjoying

the work! Here's what happened this week:

Monday - After climbing had our Zone activity! It was pretty fun, we

played some basketball and some volleyball. After P-day was over we

met with the elders quorum president for dinner and to discuss going

out with the members to help them start doing home teaching.

Unfortunately that took way longer than expected, so that was pretty

much the end of our night.

Tuesday - The first official day of my second transfer! We had a

lesson with José about obedience and how obedience brings blessings!

Also since it was the first day of the transfer, Elder Gee and I spent

some time setting some goals for the next 6 weeks and planning what we

need to do to make it happen. Then we went out and worked! It was a

pretty normal day. We did talk to a less active we had never met

before named Julian...we set up an appointment to come and talk to him

on Thursday...more to come on that...

Wednesday - we had a lesson with José Andrade and his mom after

lunch...we taught them about Baptism and confirmation. It was super

funny because about halfway through the lesson she started getting all

sleepy on us. So we started asking her questions and stuff but despite

all our best efforts she fell asleep for a couple seconds at least 3

different times! It wasn't even a long lesson! Her head and eyelids

kept drooping as she looked at us. It was ridiculous . So we started

engaging her like crazy...we used some bananas from her kitchen to

make an analogy, we started getting super into the lesson, using our

hands a lot, etc. etc. It worked pretty well and it was pretty fun

actually :) By the end of the lesson she said she wants to get

baptized "some time," but the problem is that she doesn't want to do

the things necessary to get herself prepared...she hasn't even come to

church in a long time! So we're going to be focusing on that for her

this next week.

Thursday - we had a meeting to go to for Elder Gee, then we came home

and ate lunch, then we did some weekly planning for 3 hours.  we set

some good plans though. Our dinner cancelled last minute so the bishop

of the ward we're eating with this week took us to Hardys Jr. for

burgers. It was pretty good! I had never been there before. I still

prefer 5 guys though :) After dinner we had the lesson with Julian

that I mentioned earlier...we got there, rang the door and a little

girl answered. We asked if her parents were home and she said she

would go get them...about 3 minutes later we saw an adult come to the

door and shut it on us. We thought it might have been an accident or

something, because when we talked to him the first time he seemed fine

with us coming over! So we knocked again but no one answered. It was

odd.

Friday - Super busy day today...but we didn't do much proselytizing

until the end of the day. But it was awesome because we got to take

Fabian into the temple for the first time! We had district meeting

right after morning studies which lasted until about 12:30. Then we

had to rush home (we didn't have our bikes) because we were getting

picked up at 12:45 by a senior missionary couple who was going to take

us, Fabian and the family that Fabian is living with to the temple.

Welllll, we barely got home in time to grab some granola bars for

lunch and then we ran out the door to meet our ride. And then when we

got to Fabian's house they weren't ready! My comp was feeling a little

panicked about getting there on time. But luckily it all worked out

and Fabian seemed to really enjoy going. We got home just in time for

dinner and then we went out and visited a senior missionary couple in

our area, and did a bunch of other visits. Sadly we didn't have any

lessons though.

Saturday - We spent the whole morning doing service! There was a

member in our apartment complex who was moving to a different

apartment in the complex. He must've decided that since he was just

moving across the way he didn't need to pack very well or get a truck

or anything. Well, we tried carrying his huge couches all the way up

to the new apartment and decided it was a futile effort...so we

starting calling a bunch of the ward members and luckily some of them

brought some trucks to haul the stuff from one apartment to the other!

It was a huge blessing that they were able to come because it probably

would have taken all day if they hadn't. After all of that we had two

lessons with two new people that we had contacted earlier in the week.

The first one fell through, but the second one was an awesome lesson.

It's a guy just a little younger than me named Luis. How we found him

is kind of a cool story...we were sitting down, waiting for a member

to come pick us up to go out with us. When he didn't show up on time

we were just like well, we should go talk to people instead of sitting

here! At first there was literally no one around...the first person we

saw was Luis, so we went and talked to him and he was so ready! We set

up an appointment after teaching a 30 second restoration lesson on the

spot. He had told us when we talked to him on the street that His mom

would be interested in hearing our message too, but sadly she wasn't

around for the lesson. Anyway, we taught him the rest of the

restoration and invited him to be baptized. He said he would pray

about it, and we have another lesson this week! We're really excited

to keep teaching him.

Sunday - after church we had ward council meeting, then went to

Hermano Carrasco's (ward mission leader) house for lunch! I don't know

how much I've told you about him, but he's awesome. He's the one that

the elders used to live with before they lived her. He's kinda like

Grandpa Baxter, but shorter and Mexican, and instead of tuning pianos,

he tunes up cars. Sometimes we call him abuelito. After having lunch

with him we went back to our place to do some weekly reports and

catching up in the area book. We got to visit several less active

members and also had a lesson with a semi active youth in the ward. My

favorite part of the night was that I got to translate a stake mission

leader meeting for Hermano Carrasco! It was crazy! But I think I was

able to at least get the main ideas of everything that was said, so it

was good :)

Algo que yo aprendí esta semana es que Dios siempre está

bendiciéndonos. Pero a veces tenemos barreras en nuestras vidas que

bloquean las bendiciones. Nosotros tenemos que quitar las barreras

para que podamos recibir las bendiciones que dios tiene para nosotros.

Sé que él el evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadera y que por medio de

la expiación, podemos superar nuestras barreras y dificultades.

Les amo!

Love,

Elder Baxter