Hey everyone!
I had an awesome week this week! It was absolutely packed, but it was
blast. Lots of good lessons and new people to teach! I actually had
some time to write today so it's a little long! So if you don't feel
like reading a lot just skip it and know everything is going well! :)
Monday, We went and hiked up to Cecret Lake as a zone! We accidentally
went the wrong way at first but we found the lake in the end, so it
was a success. Afterward we went to get my haircut and then went and
played soccer with one of the districts (we play tons of soccer now
with the all Spanish zone). It was a blast! But we were exhausted by
the time we got home. We did some emailing, showered up and went to go
have a lesson with Sonia. It was a great lesson! She still has some
doubts, but we're helping her overcome them and she's progressing
toward her baptismal date, so hopefully all continues to go well for
her.
Tuesday - It was Elder Andersens turn to be sick. We stayed in all
morning and after noon while he slept and then we went out about an
hour before dinner once he started feeling better. We visited Omar,
who's a less active guy in our ward who just recently lost an eye in a
work accident, and shared a message with him. He's doing pretty well,
considering! He showed us a picture that the doctor took before
surgery of the chunk of metal in his eye. The metal piece was bigger
than a quarter! It was pretty disgusting :) He had to drive for like
30 minutes with the metal piece in his eye because the paramedics
couldn't locate him where he was. He said that he was going to pass
out (this was before the paramedics could track him) when he felt a
push of extra strength and was able to see well enough to keep
driving. But he said that when the paramedics finally found him he
lost his sight again. It ended up being a pretty spiritual experience
for him! We tried visiting María, an investigator we've been trying to
work with, but she's been dodging us, so we decided to drop her. It
was a little sad because it seemed like she had interest at first, but
I guess she got too busy with work or something. After that we had
dinner with Adrian and Ericka Ortiz and taught them the Word of
Wisdom. They said they don't really do any of that anyway, so they
accepted without a problem. We also had a coordination and played
soccer at a ward activity with Christ Guerrero.
Wednesday - we had Mission Leadership Counsel today. Pretty good
stuff! They had a guest speaker come and talk to us about repentance.
He had been a member since birth, but went wayward and ended up
founding a pretty notorious gang here in Utah. He got sent to jail and
it was there that he starting changing his life. He had some pretty
cool stories about answers to prayers and things like that. One of the
stories was that he was praying in jail that he would be able to get
some scriptures. After he finished praying the librarian came by and
gave him a slip of books he could request. He put the catalog in a
drawer in his cell, and when he opened the drawer he found a Book of
Mormon there! Another thing was that he was able to get permission to
watch general conference in the tv room even though it wasn't allowed
in any of the other sections. After getting out of jail he has been
able to get active in the church, go to the temple, and help other
cell mates and even his own brother who is now in jail. One thing he
said that I really liked was this: things are always gonna happen to
us in this life, negative or positive. It comes down to two options.
We can be a force for good, or we can be a force for evil. Afterward
we had a lesson with Rebecca a new investigator we found. It was
awesome! She really wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon and
just seems to be willing to learn and experiment upon the word. We
have a second lesson with her this coming week. We also talked to a
crazy less active Colombian. She spent several minutes explaining that
she still lived the gospel even though she didn't go to church. And
then by the end of the visit she was telling us all the things she was
doing that were against the commandments. Sooo it was kinda crazy. The
member we had with us was trying to argue with her, but we could see
it wasn't going anywhere so we kind of ended the visit wished her the
best, and told her we're always here if she needs help with anything!
Thursday - lots of meetings and planning today. We did some follow up
with some of the people we're teaching right after we finished our
studies, as well as doing a little bit of planning for zone conference
on Friday. We went for lunch at Leatherbys with Elder Weller and Elder
Galo, some of the elders in our zone. Then we went straight to a
meeting with the district leaders and sister training leaders to plan
for zone conference. The meeting was pretty uneventful. We just talked
about needs of the different districts and then divided up the
trainings we decided to do. We had a lesson with Leandro (I'll talk
about him later), and made a couple other visits.
Friday - we had zone training! It was a success. We had zone lunch
afterward. We had to take some elders to grab a couple things
afterward. Then we went to try and get some weekly planning done. We
didn't have much time until dinner, but we did our best. Our dinner
cancelled so we went to a Hawaiian restaurant called Mo Bettahs with
the assistants. Good people good times good food :) afterward we had a
lesson with a recent convert named Cesar Rincón. He's from Venezuela
and talks wicked fast. We had a solid lesson with him and then went
straight to another lesson with a less active family in our ward, the
Arevalo's. We kinda threw down the hammer with them a little bit,
talking about the Sabbath day and the sacrament. They responded very
well! It seemed like they just needed a little push to get them to
come. We'll see if their resolution to come holds out until Sunday!
Afterward we tried to visit a couple people to see if we could set up
some lessons with them, but didn't have much luck finding people at
home.
Saturday - we had morning studies and then went to the church across
the street to update progress records and the baptism/reactivation
reports. Then we went out to have lunch at Cafe Rio (again with the
Elder McGirr and Whitehead). Someone anonymously payed for us, which
was suuuuper nice. We had a lesson right after that so we rushed to go
pick up a member that goes out with us a lot but can't drive and
finally had a first lesson with David! David was a referral that we
got a while back from one of his neighbors. We've tried to set stuff
up a couple times but it keeps not working out (last time we had an
appointment with him was the day I was sick), so it was great to
finally teach him the whole Restoration. He is really sincere in his
desire and wants to know if it's true, which is pretty much all we can
ask for! The only obstacle is that he works a ton and is super busy
trying to get his citizenship. After we taught him, we dropped off
Hermano Ariel again and went to buy a white shirt for Cesar Rincón. We
figured out why none of the Latinos are at home on Saturday...they're
all in Ross! Haha. So we got the shirt and headed to dinner. After
dinner we had a lesson with a younger guy from Mexico that we just
found recently...he used so much Mexican slang it was ridiculous. I
could barely understand him haha. Mexicans (especially from the
federal district) are notorious for using a ridiculous amount of
slang. After that we street contacted a guy we stumbled across and
gave him a Book of Mormon. We tried to make a couple other visits
without too much luck.
Sunday - we had ward council at 9:00 and spent pretty much the whole
time planning a Taquiza (a meal/party with tacos? I don't even know
how to desEnglish haha) Then we went out to bring our people to
church. Leandro came! He's an investigator that Elder Andersen was
teaching when he was here the first time! But they had to stop
teaching him because his work was so crazy. But he just changed work
again and conveniently, we ran into him at the church building during
the week! He was pretty close to getting baptized last time the
missionaries were meeting with him, so we'll see where that goes!
Also, Adrian and Ericka came to church again after a couple weeks of
missing so that was good! But the Arevalo family didn't come, which
was pretty disappointing after the lesson we had with them. That day
we did a lot of contacting and set up some lessons for next week. We
also had a lesson with Sonia. It wasn't the best of lessons. She told
us that she hadn't really been reading and she had been slacking on
her prayers as well. And of course not coming to church didn't help
anything. She just really struggles with a doubts that come when we're
not there. It seems like every moment that we're not there with her,
she starts to have all these doubts and fears come upon her. We're not
sure how we need to help her right now. She needs a lot of prayers.
Today we had an all day p-day since its Labor Day. We had a blast!
Elder Andersen and I spent the whole day (literally) with Elder
Whitehead and McGirr. We went out for breakfast, went shopping, went
to their YSA Tongan ward picnic, played games and ate some sandwiches
there, and then went golfing! Afterward we went to get milk shakes and
called it a day! We went all out. :)
Thanks for the emails and for your love and support. Hope you all have
a great week!
Love you all!
-Elder Baxter
Sometimes ya just get desperate :)
Our zone after zone training!
A laundry mishap we had...the bathroom mat got tangled up and shredded to bits. But my shoes are clean! :)
Clowning around on the golf course today.
