Note from Madelyn

Hey Everybody!!

I just wanted to point out that I added a few new pictures (and even a little video!) to some of the older posts, as those were the letters they came with.  The oldest letter that has stuff added to it is the one titled "When you can't think of a subject..." (you'll have to go back to the last page to see that one).

Hey! (July 18)

Hey everyone! I had a great week last week! Don't have much time but I'll try to update you on he highlights of my week: We had a bunch of great lessons! We have three people getting baptized next weekend so we've been busy teaching them and making sure the baptism is all planned for and set :)  then we have another baptism the next week, so we're pretty excited! had zone conference with our mission president which was awesome. Me and my companion and two other Zone Leaders gave a training for it. We talked about teaching people and not lessons and how important it is to teach the people and not get caught up in the bullet points of each lesson. It's so important because the gospel of Jesus Christ helps us with our individual needs! Today for p-day we went golfing with some other elders that live next to us, it was a blast! I played horribly but it was still fun :) I also may have crashed a golf cart a little bit. :/ It was SUPER embarrassing but super funny too. Someone must be up with our companionship because yesterday my companion accidentally broke a coffee table. We have had a great week! We have knocked a lot of doors without results this week trying to contact people but we have also had some great lessons and opportunities to serve! Love you all, Elder Baxter                                    Have had a couple people say I look like Lionel Messi...                                   what do you guys think?  Mission Leadership Conference Last week in temple square! Everyone except us gringos are from Columbia!

Car, beer, golden idols. Week 13! :)

(July 11)

Hey family and friends!

I hope everyone had a great week! Mine was busy, but awesome.

I am in a new area, so I have been trying to get used to new people,

new roads, new companion, etc. We have a car which is awesome! I'm

pretty sure I'm gonna get fat though. :)) The zone I'm in is the

Granger zone but we're technically in West Valley. My companion is

Elder Clyde from California! He's awesome. I stayed with him and his

companion my first night in the mission! So that's pretty cool. :) we

live in a senior apartment complex now, which is pretty nice. We've

been having a blast. He goes home at the end of this transfer which

means by the end of this transfer I will have killed all of my

companions (again, missionary slang :).

The new area I'm in is awesome! The work here is bursting at the

seams, which is a pretty big change from Magna. There we worked with a

lot of less actives, which is good, but we had hardly any

investigators. Here, we have so many investigators that we don't have

much time to work with less actives! We have six people that are for

sure getting baptized this month which is AWESOME! There are just a

lot of people here that are ready to receive the gospel of Jesus

Christ. They call this area the promised land :)

At the beginning of this week I had my first mission leadership

conference. It was sooo good! The mission president invited a guest

speaker who was a Baptist preacher before he joined the church. He was

hilarioussss.  He had some really good insights from the perspective

of a convert about missionary work and lots of other things. He also

had some really good insights about the history of the priesthood and

blacks. He said that at first it was extremely hard for him, being

African American, but he talked about how he prayed and studied it a

lot, and was able to receive an understanding through the answers he

got to his prayers. It was a cool example of what we should do when we

have doubts about the church. God answers prayers! :)

Yesterday we got to go to temple square again. It was a blast! We

brought a member couple, a recent convert named Carlos and his wife

Mayte who is getting baptized on the 23, and three of their friends

who weren't members. All of them are from Colombia and all of them are

super fun. It's interesting because a bunch of the people we're

working with right now are de Colombia. But anyway, they all had a

really good experience going and we'll be teaching the three new ones

this week!

Last week I didn't have time to write about it, but our zone made a

little float and we were in the Magna parade! It was pretty fun. The

picture I sent last week was us when we were making the float. Good

times! The rest of that day Elder Gee and I spent visiting people and

packing! It was sad to be leaving everyone we have gotten close to!

Then the next morning I had to say bye to Elder Gee too. I'm gonna

miss that guy!

Well that's about it for the week! Excited to be in a new place doing

new things! It's been a busy week but I've enjoyed it a ton! He visto

muchas oraciones contestado esta semana y muchas nuevas oportunidades

para aprender y crecer! Se que Jesucristo vive! Espero que tengan una

buena semana! Hasta luego familia! Les quiero mucho!

Elder Baxter

 Us riding back to the church on the float :)

 Our lil float. Yep, that's Moroni up on the tower.

Meet Elder Clyde :)

No just kidding. He's just a new friend I made in the Asian market today.

Done training! Transfer 3 :) (July 4)

Hola familia y amigos!

We had a fantastic week this week! I don't have very much time, but

here's the lowdown!

We did tons of service this week! Especially me, because elder gee and

I have been going on a lot of splits since he and our zone leader our

both going home this tomorrow. So I've spent a lot of time with our

other zone leader, elder Blatter.

We saw many miracles this week. We found two new families that are

both members (one is active and just had been accidentally going to

the wrong ward, the other is not) but this was huge for us because our

ward is struggling a little bit. In both situations we felt truly

guided to be able to find them. Another miracle that we saw is that

Alicia came to church and stayed for all three hours! She has been

saying she would like to for a while, but hasn't until this last

Sunday. Now, to give a little background refresher on Alicia, when I

first met her, she was a little bit standoffish and wasn't coming to

church at all. She didn't have her own testimony of the Book of

Mormon, and just didn't seem know for herself that the church was

true. Well, this past Sunday she got up and bore her testimony about

the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the church. Elder Gee and I

nearly cried! It's was truly a rewarding experience!

I wish I had more time, but our "all day p-day" has come to an end!

I'll write more next week!

Transfer news:

I am being transferred to Granger! This was completely unexpected! I

will be a zone leader with Elder Clyde, one of the elders that I

stayed with on my first night in the mission.

Love you all!

Elder Baxter