December 12 Letter

Heyyy family!

Here's the transfer news! I'm going back to ZL and my new companion is Elder Espinoza. I already know him pretty well so it will be fun :) The new ward is called the Royal Ann ward. I'm sad to leave my son Elder Rodriguez without even finishing his training, but it will be fun cause I will get to go on exchanges with him! My new address will be 4748 W 4175 South APT #3 West Valley City UT 84120-4968

Monday:

We had a pretty fun, pretty busy p-day today. We woke up, started some laundry and then headed out with the zone to play some Top Golf, and then on a hike to Ensign Peak as well. I'll include some pictures below and I think I included some last week from top golf. We came home with the zone leaders to change into pro-clothes (proselyting clothes) to go shopping but when we came back out of our apartment, we discovered that a lady in our apartment complex needed her car jumped, and then when the zone leaders jumped it, the car supposedly locked automatically with the keys and the little baby in it. So we spent some time trying to help her unlock the car with a hanger we got from the apartment until her husband got home from work with a spare set of car keys. Once that got solved we headed off to sams club with a member that the zone leaders knew, and then went to a church building with the zone for the rest of p-day. That night we had an awesome lessons with Luis Dominguez and his family, and Gloria Trajera. Everyone was there and engaged in the lesson. Lessons with the whole family together are always special...it brings a special spirit seeing the family together. We also had a bomb lesson with Gloria. Man, she is so prepared. She understands everything so well and the kids love it when we come over. She basically taught us the whole plan of salvation after us only teaching it once, a couple of days earlier. We were able to go a little more in depth since everyone understood everything.

Tuesday

Tuesday was kind of a hard day for some reason. We spent a lot of time indoors cuz we had to update our area book and that took awhile. I didn't really like it, but it was something that needed to be done. After we finished we waited outside for a couple minutes for Hno Carrasco to come and help us deliver a couch that he had sitting in his house to a family in need. We stopped by their house to see if they were home first and it turned out that that had just went out and bought some couches on a credit card a couple days earlier. But it was good to say hello to them and see how they were doing. After that we went to the church because one of the English wards was having a Christmas party and we got invited to help set up and to go around and meet some of the people in that ward. We were hoping it would be a productive use of time, and it certainly wasn't bad, but we didn't get any referrals or anything like that. We left before the clean up to go to a lesson with Guadalupe. The lesson was alright, it wasn't the best that we've had with her. She does have the desire to come back, but her progress is just so slow and sometimes it almost seems like she doesn't care to come back. I was a little discouraged after the lesson, but Elder Rodriguez said he didn't feel that way and that I shouldn't either. Afterward we headed back to the church to see if Hno Carrasco was there and would give us a ride back. He roped us into staying for the setting apart of missionary that's departing from from our ward.  His family had invited the whole ward and it was really nice! It brought back memories to see him get set apart. It was a little weird to participate in the setting apart of a missionary AS a missionary, but it was good. We made it home right at 9:30 and Elder Jacobe and Griffin were already at our apartment with the zone leaders ready to start exchanges. We had a good time talking and messing around for a little bit, and then I headed off to their area with Jacobe and left my only begotten hijo to take over the area for the first time with Griffin.

Wednesday

I woke Jacobe up and we talked for a while so he wouldn't fall asleep again haha. It was super freezing all day. Probably my coldest yet! We had a lot of fun though. We taught two great lessons and had a correlation. It was a fun day.

Thursday

Weekly planning and then some lessons. One with Hatziry and the other with the Flores family. Not much else to say

Friday we had district meeting and had a "funeral" for hermana Riding who does this transfer. We had a great lesson with Gloria again and then one later on with Miguel Moreno.

Saturday

We got transfer calls! In the morning. Then we had short exchanges with the ZLs and I got to be with Espinoza! It was fun to be with my comp for a short stint.

Sunday!

Lots of people to church and it was an awesome day. I gave a little adios testimony and had a last Sunday lunch with Hermano Carrasco.

I'm out of time but I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Baxter

Elder Jacobe made this for me and my son :)

Hey!

Hey everyone!

Here's a quick up date:

Tuesday:

We had a lot of lessons cancel. We did lots of finding and visits with members asking for referrals. It was COLD!

Wednesday: we had exchanges with elder Griffin! Fun day but also crazy! We contacted some people in the street and played a little game with it. We each gave each other a random word and had to use it in the contact. His was Elmo, mine was cacahuate (peanut). It was a success

Thursday

Weekly planning, several solid lessons. 

Friday

Had good lessons and did a lot of finding! Gloria Trajera and her two kids are on date for baptism. She's super awesome

Saturday

Did a lot of walking in the freezing cold. Good lesson with the Heras who came to church!

Sunday

Andrades came! The whole family! It was awesome!

Today we went hiking and played some golf again. 

Sorry for the short letter. Love you all! Thanks for prayers and support!

Love,

Joshua

Snow, turkey, and #miracles

Dear family,

Heyyy everyone! How is everything going? Everything here is going swell. I'm a little bit sick, but I can't really complain. We got some snow this week! It was pretty exciting. It melted real rápido (fast) but it was still suuuuuuuper cold for a couple days there. But anyway, we only have a half p-day today, so I'll be signing off at 2pm. We have an all day p-day for Thanksgiving, but we won't be able to email, so happy Thanksgiving in advance! We still haven't solidified our Thanksgiving plans yet, but we've gotten several invitations from different members in the ward and stake. The sad thing is they're like all at the same time :( I'm ready to engordarme (get fat) though. Here's some of the highlights of the week:

Monday

P-day! We had the English elders in our stake living with us for the first week, and they didn't move out until Tuesday, so it was a little hard to clean the apartment. Its been super fun to have more than two elders in the apartment though! I'm extra grateful for two showers right now :) We went shopping together with a member, who then took us to our zone activity afterwards. I don't like having to rely on members for rides, but I'm so grateful for their willingness to help out. For zone activity we played some soccer, volleyball, and basketball. It was a good time :) After we got home, we had a lesson with a girl in our ward who's parents are less active but wants to get baptized. Her name is Hatziry, after a Mexican reporter named Ahtziry :) Its those kinds of names that you have to ask them to repeat like three times and then ask them to spell it out haha. Lessons are kind of hard with her because she hardly talks, and so its hard to ask questions, but we're planning to just make the lessons super engaging and fun. Afterward we went to visit the Moreno family...they're struggling on both the spiritual and temporal sides. They had to sell some of their furniture the other day to be able to "move forward." They have the belief that if they put God first He can help them in their lives, but its hard for them to put that belief into action. After that we walked back up to the apartments and talked to a couple people on the way. Nothing else too crazy happened. It is starting to get pretty cold though.

Tuesday...what happened on Tuesday? Nothing much. That I can remember. We did have a great lesson with Guadelupe. I taught her a lot last time was here. We read Alma 32 and taught the principle of faith. She's seems a lot more happy to have us in her home than last time I was here. I didn't really notice it before but she seems more relaxed now.

Wednesday

We had our usual Wednesday morning lesson with Juan. We finally got a member to come with us! It has been super hard to find someone at 11am because everyone is at work or getting kids to school. But Hermano Carrasco was able to come with us and so that was really good. They both have about the same age so we thought it would be a good match up. Lessons are still kind of hard to control just because Juan likes to talk a ton. He has lots of doubts and is skeptical about things like tithing and priesthood authority. We think that if He is patient and tries to work through it with prayer and study he can get over those doubts, but recently it seems like he's just been throwing in the towel a little bit. After the lesson we went to Hermano Carrasco´s house for lunch. We made eggs with Chorizzo Salvadoreño. Im getting the hang of eating with just tortillas. And of course he made the usual "agua de melon" (water melon). La comida pura mexicana (pure mexican food) haha! We came back home to finish language study, and then we went out to work in the trailer parks. We had a good daily contact with Hermana Andrade and shared with her some scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon about why both are important. It went really well! We also stopped by Griselda and a few other people, but no one was really home. 

Thursday

It snowed overnight! We had a DL meeting in the morning with the zone leaders. It was good. But the walk there we FROZE. We had weekly planning and a lesson with Hatziry and the recent convert Flores Family! The Flores family made us empanadas and hot chocolate and the lessons with Hatziry went really well, and she was a lot more involved which was good. So it was a pretty good night.

Friday we had district meeting and district lunch. We have such a fun district :) we didn't have any lessons in the afternoon, so it was kind of long until dinner. The Moreno family wasn't there for the lesson that we scheduled, which stunk. and they don't have a telephone right now, nor are they living in their house at the moment. But we'll find a way :) We did have a good lessons with a returning less active named Miguel Moreno though (no they're not related).

Saturday we woke up and went almost right away to help hermano Carrasco clean the church. This guy is 70 years old and he works so hard it's ridiculous. But we had a good time with him. Also helped him move some sheet rock and other stuff into his daughters basement while we were at it. After we came home, showered, and studied for a little while, we had a lesson with the Andrade family. It was super spiritual! We felt like we should invite them to be be baptized and they said YES! Both the mom and the dad! It was the biggest miracle! They still have a long ways to go, but that was he most exciting thing all week and probably ever since I've been here!

Sunday was also awesome because Hno. Andrade came to church for the first time! Hna Andrade didn't make it, but there were still tons of people at church. Guadelupe came, Hatziry came, and Gloria Trajera! She's the one that showed up at church a couple weeks back and wanted us to teach and baptize her but then didn't show up to any of the lessons we set up. But she came today and she has a cell phone now! Miracles! I got sick on Sunday, but everything else that happened kind of overwhelmed that.

Today has been a short but good p-day. I'm really looking forward to turkey day. :) Its gonna be a great week! Love you all! Enjoy Thanksgiving! You should all watch he video "Because of Him." It's kind of old, but it's a great reminder of Him who really gave us the most to be thankful for. 

Love you all!

Elder Baxter 

that front row tho :)

Puro Mexicano!

Heyyy!

So I didn't send out a letter last week, and we had transfers! So here's what happened: elder Page got sent to West Jordan :( He's still in our zone though so that will be fun. I got assigned stay in Magna and to train a new elder named Elder Rodriguez! He was born in Mexico in the DF (chilango!), but has lived in Colorado/other states for the past ten years, so he's pretty fluent in both languages. Anyway, he got here last Tuesday and we've been having a great time since!

Sorry for the lame letter! Everything here is going great! Loving the work and grateful for the opportunity to serve. 

Love you all!

Elder Baxter