UPdate

Dear family and friends,

How are you all? I had a really great week this week. We worked hard,

had some good laughs, and talked to a ton of people. It's starting to

get pretty hot out here, and I think the sun is helping me look more

Latino :) either that or the hot peppers! Well I hope that everything

is going well! Without further ado...

Monday we had a stake breakfast to celebrate Memorial Day! The line

was huuuuuge, so we went inside and did some of our studies, then came

out when the line wasn't so big :) Afterwards we went shopping,

cleaned the house, did laundry, wrote some emails, etc. It was a

pretty relaxed day! We also had zone activity where we played some

basketball and volleyball. After P-day was over we went and had a

lesson with a less active family, the Salinas family. They really want

to be active, but in their own words they're "flojos" (lazy). After

that we went to try and visit a couple other families, but no one else

was home. We did get to give a blessing to someone who lives in the

basement of someone we're working with though. It was pretty cool

because even though the person we wanted to see wasn't home, we got to

serve someone in need. My companion and I both feel like we were

guided to be able to be there to help her. She is Filipino and she fed

us dinner later on in the week :):)

Tuesday we started off the day with a lesson with Fabian. This guy is

so solid and we're both becoming really good friends with him. It's

really funny because he's learning English and so he mixes up words a

lot. He told us during the lesson that he's really silly when he first

meets people but after getting used to them he is normal. We were like

whaaaaat? He was trying to say shy, not silly We had our lesson in a

nearby park because it was a really nice day (I got a little sunburned

again though). Afterwards we had a lesson fall through, so we decided

to stop by the church so that my companion could do some school prep

stuff. That took until dinner. The English family that we ate with had

4 little kids...the youngest one was 3 or 4...well during dinner he

crawled under the table and started gnawing on my leg like it was a

bone. He was crazzzyyy. Afterward we shared a message of course, but

it was pretty short since the kids were restless. Reminded me a little

of home :)

Wednesday was a busy day...but I don't remember much of the details.

We did finally teach a lesson with a guy that we've been trying to set

up an appointment with for a while! It was a really good lesson, but he works a LOT, so it's

hard to set up more appointments with him. We finally met a less

active we've tried to contact a couple of times. We also got to teach

Jose Andrade that day which is always good. :)

Thursday morning we had a zone service project! We organized and

cleaned out some of the mission storage units and it was fun to hang

out with the rest of our zone. There is a sister that can't speak or

hear that's assigned to the ASL branch in our zone, and so I've been

practicing my finger signing a little bit, it's pretty fun! After all

of that we went straight to weekly planning. Wow. I was so tired. I

fell asleep while my companion was asking me a question . So we both

went and showered since we were still dirty from the service project

and so that I could wake up :) we finished planning just in time to

head to dinner, after which we tried to contact a couple people and

then had two lessons. The one that stuck out to me was with Sarahi.

 She is someone who could use a lot of prayers. She is a

single mom who is going through some hard things right now, but is

trying really hard to come back to church. She is the one that we met

a week or two ago that said she had been praying for some help right

before we knocked on her door. It was just really good lesson and

lessons with her in general are just very spiritual. It seems that

lessons with those that are truly seeking and trying their best to

come closer to Christ are better and more uplifting. Faith is dead

without works :)

Friday we had district meeting again and had some really good

trainings! Afterward we had district lunch at a Mexican restaurant

called Habaneros. It was delish! But caro (expensive), especially for my limited

missionary budget :) We headed back to the church afterward to finish

some of our studies, then we went on splits with the zone leaders. I

did some service with elder Fakatou, we helped someone move (in our

shirts and ties), and we went to dinner. After dinner me and Elder

GEEman met up again and went to eat with the Filipino sister I

mentioned earlier (yep, it was my second dinner--I wasn't complaining

though).

Saturday was crazy! We had our first lesson of the day fall

through...so we went to the stake center for my companion to do some

school prep again. I usually study Spanish or or one of the lessons

while he does that. After that we had to make a bunch of phone calls

because we were taking Eduardo and María Hernandez to the temple for

the first time, and the person that was supposed to take us all there

and do the baptisms couldn't make it (but we didn't find out until the

night before), so we were calling frantically trying to find someone

to help us. Long story short we eventually made it to the temple and

it ended up being a great experience for us and for the Hernandez

family. It's truly rewarding to see someone go from baptism to

experiencing the blessings of the temple. We tried without success to

visit a couple people after we got back, and ended the night visiting

Hermano Carrasco and updating him on what's been going on.

Sunday--went pretty fast ;) not a super interesting day though. Best

part of the day though was that the Salinas family came to church!! We

also had a couple of other less actives come which was awesome. Sadly

none of our investigators came though. Sunday we also did a bunch of

reports, tried to have a meeting with our ward missionaries (no one

came except Hermano Carrasco), and had two really good lessons with

Hermano Carrasco in place of the meeting. One was with Fabian and the

other with a less active member named Alicia.

Overall it was a really good week! Thanks to all of you for writing

and I hope you all have a great week! Peace out till the week's out.

Love you all!

Elder Baxter