HOLY MOLY!!!!

Hey Family!

Well, another transfer has come and gone! Here's the news: I'm staying

in the area but losing Elder Lavea! I'm really sad to see him go! I'm

going to miss his singing (everywhere we go, especially when he finds

a room with good acoustics!), sarcastic jokes and playing pranks on

him when he falls asleep during studies. It's been fun! We've worked

hard together, biked a hilly area in the heat of summer and had tons

of fun. He's going to the other zone too, so I won't see him too much!

 I'm going to miss the Polynesian culture, it's something I was never

really exposed to before the mission.

My new companion is Elder Mayer! He was in our district last transfer,

and I've served around him a lot in the past, so we know each other

pretty well. It should be a blast! I'll include a picture below of him

and me when we were cleaning someone's house one day for a service

project. Our district will change a little bit but not tons! We're

looking forward to a good transfer!

This week we found a golden couple!!!! Their names are Miguel and

Ericka. They're someone that we've been trying to get ahold of ever

since we first got into the area 3 months ago. They work a lot, and

for some reason we've just never been able to find them at home! But

this past week we finally got a hold of them and had our first lesson.

It was amazing! We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus

Christ and His church. They had been to temple sqaure before and they

were really interested in he idea that in temples, through Gods power,

families can be bound together in marriage not only for this life, but

for all of time, even after death. They accepted our invitation to be

baptized and have been reading and praying about the Book of Mormon!

It's crazy because they're married but they're the same age as me! 20

and 21. So they're a pretty young couple.

This week we also taught the Piñon family and the Madrigal family.

We're still struggling to help the Piñons progress. I don't know what

it is but something just isn't clicking with them. They seem so ready

and they need the gospel...I feel like Hna. Piñon almost knows that

what we teach is true...but it's so hard to have a sit down lesson

with them and really work through their doubts. They're so occupied

with their life right now that they're not giving much time to God.

They recognize they need to be praying and reading the scriptures and

things like that, but they just don't do it. So we're praying for them

a lot! One miracle that happened this week with the Madrigal family is

that they let us in this week! Haha. The Madrigals come to church

pretty regularly and want to be baptized but until now haven't really

made time to let us teach them the pre-baptismal lessons, so it's been

kinda weird! But this week they actually let us in and they opened up

to us a LOT. Brother Madrigal has a long history with investigating

the church and has known it's true for a long time, but hasn't wanted

to give up some of his lifestyle habits. It's pretty crazy though

because he said that every since he was little he somehow has ended up

living right next to a LDS meetinghouse. Anyway, he knows he needs to

get baptized, just lacks the faith to repent and make the necessary

changes. So hopefully we will be able to help him with that!

There were a couple other new potential investigators that we found

this week but I'll tell more about them when we actually teach them a

lesson. But we're pretty excited about them! A lot of them seem to

have a lot of potential! We also stopped by Ivan this week and his dad

invited us for dinner. It was perfect because we didn't have dinner

that day. Ivan's dad really likes us and we have a great relationship

with their family. He actually told us that we could move into his

basement because he's looking to rent! We're probably moving into a

Hispanic family's house in the ward already though. But that will be

good to finally live in the area! I'll be sad to stop living with

other missionaries though, that's been super fun! But anyway, Ivan was

really cute and wanted us to follow him on our bikes to a couple

houses that he wanted us to visit. It was funny! We still don't know

why he isn't getting baptized, but God has a plan! We'll see soon

enough.

This week I also spent some time fixing my bike again. It's finally in

good working order! I have brakes that are actually reliable now! It's

great. Before that though, we had an incident! I had spent a little

bit of time adjusting the brakes in the morning before we went out,

and so I thought I was good. But later that day I found myself riding

nonchalantly down the biggest hill in our area with an ice cream bar

in one hand. Well, when the time came around to start slowing down I

squeezed my brakes and nothing happened. The following happened almost

without even thinking: I chucked my ice cream bar onto the sidewalk to

the side of me, grabbed my handlebars with both hands to brace myself

for impact, and attempted to slow down by jamming by shoe against the

tire of the bike. That didn't work, and the only thing ahead of me was

a street busy with cars. So as soon as the wall to my left ended, I

dove left into a patch of dead grass and weeds and dirt. It was a

bumpy ride but it brought me to a stop and I made it without even a

scratch! #blessings. Elder Lavea couldn't stop laughing and eventually

he got me laughing too. We couldn't stop for like 2 or 3 minutes,

everyone on the street probably thought we were nuts. The thing that

got him the most was the image of me looking wistfully at my ice cream

bar and then chucking it and bracing for impact :). Good times. So

after that I did transplant surgery and took some brakes and other

parts of of an old bike and put them on my new bike. It works like

gold!

We also finally found Alberto again this week. We had a first lesson

with him weeks ago, and it felt like he just disappears off the face

of the planet. His wife is in Venezuela right now with his daughter

and he's pretty worried about her and is trying to bring her to the

states. It turns out that he was more interested in getting temporal

help than coming closer to Christ. We had good lesson though and

talked about how God blesses us temporally as well as spiritually when

we follow him. It was good! We've also been getting the service

missionaries involved with helping him, so hopefully he can pull

through!

Well, I think that's about it for the week! It's be a fulfilling week,

and I'm so grateful I've still got some time on this mission! I love

every minute of it. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that God has

given us through prophets past and current of the plan of happiness

that God has for us and for the gift of repentance and the ability to

change through Jesus Christ!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Baxter

Eclipse Day!

Hey Family!!!

Hope everyone is doing really good! We're on our way to the hike right

now and we're planning on seeing the eclipse! We got one pair of

glasses to share, so we set! We're going to the U and it just happened

to work out for the eclipse as well! So we're excited.

We had a pretty good week! Right after p-day last week we had to go

and get our broken bikes from a members house that we had left them

at. Luckily we still had the mission van from the hike, so it was

pretty easy. After getting home for the night we had to start

exchanges! I went with Elder Frost to his area. They're going through

a drought in their area, so I wasn't sure what to expect for the day

but it wasn't too bad! We talked to several people that sincerely had

interest and wanted to hear more! It was awesome! All the lessons that

they had cancelled for the day, but we still had some good success!

That exchange was he last one we had to do! It felt great to get it

over with and not have to leave my own bed anymore :)

Throughout the week we did several service projects again! Saturday

was almost an all day service experience. We helped someone move to

Herriman in the morning and then in the afternoon helped a member

family weed their garden. It was exhausting! Then when we got dressed

in pro clothes and went out the member family who got us dinner asked

for help with throwing out some sofas too! So it was a crazy day!

Sunday we had a pretty awesome day. Unfortunately the two lessons we

had planned cancelled, but it was the will of God because we found

several new potential investigators from just talking to people on the

street! Two of the approaches were super miraculous...when we first

walked up they were both pretty cold and it was clear they didn't want

to talk to us. But we just pushed through that a little bit and we're

as friendly as possible. As we began to ask them about their beliefs

in Christ the Spirit came in and softened their hearts. It was

amazing! At the end they both accepted Books of Mormon and the

invitation to read a chapter in it! They also said they would let us

come back. It was a pretty amazing experience!

Well those are some of the highlights of my week! We have a new WML

and he is amazing and is really helping support us and helping get the

ward missionaries in action too! It's super helpful. Overall he work

has been a little slow right now, but we're finding a lot of people

and so we're praying for a miracle week this week so that we can help

hem progress in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love you all!

Elder Baxter

Elder Baxter Update 8/14/17

Hey family!!

We've had a great week!! We did lots of service with the district, and

had some great lessons! I don't have tons of time to write, but I'll

try to give a good update :)

First of all, we had an awesome lesson with Stephanie! She committed

to read but still hasn't done it. We're working on that. She's got a

lot of concerns, but it seems like she has come to know that the

church is true. Just had some issues to get over. Nothing new with the

Piñon family. We're still praying and working on them! We weren't able

to find any new investigators this week officially, but we do have

some lessons set up for this week with some golden referrals from

other missionaries! So we'll se how that goes!

This week did a couple service projects as a district. It was fun but

exhausting! On Friday we did some hard work for a lady who had just

recently had a baby. That was really good! I was on exchanges with

Elder Bocazzi from Argentina that day! That was super fun, I learned a

lot of argentine words! They're area is going through a drought right

now, so it was a long day of walking! But we talked to lots of people

and got some referrals, so we were happy! We also took out some young

men to try and visit people with us, so we got to help them great

ready for their missions! It was awesome.

The other service project was on Saturday! This guy was basically

tearing up his whole yard. It was a pretty intense project! And we

worked for like 4 hours haha. But he fed us an awesome lunch

afterwards! The rest of the day we were wreckeddddd, and it was hard

to go out. But we did and had some good small victories!

Sunday was pretty funny because after we we went to church and helped

teach the mission prep class and then after that it seemed like

everything started going wrong. First off, for some reason we didn't

feel much motivation to go out. But of course we did, and when we did

my bike tire was popped! So rode on a flat all the way to our

appointment! Luckily it was all downhill. But we had an awesome lesson

with a less active family who we met recently, and they asked us to

bless their house! It was a super good experience for all of us. They

have two young kids and one of them is 8 and wants to be baptized! We

don't know if they're going to English or Spanish but we're excited

and happy for them either way!

Today we went hiking and got surprised by a rainstorm while we were at

the top of the peak! It was pretty fun, we got soaked! Right now we're

just on our way back home to get ready for the night! It's been a good

week and we're looking forward to an even better one!

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Baxter

M~ can't drive! August 7, 2017

Hey Family and Friends!

Another week has flown by! Man, time is like a vortex in the mission!

It's crazy how fast it goes. This week a lot happened! It was really

good!

Sunday we got the opportunity to go to our stake mission prep class!

This stake does a really good job with it! It's where a bunch of youth

go and learn about missionary work to prepare for when they go out to

preach the gospel of Jesus Christ themselves. It was really awesome!

We got asked to do an impromptu role play about how to begin teaching

someone. It was a huge success! It's fun to be around the youth, I

love it. A couple of them already have mission calls and are heading

out pretty soon so it's an awesome group.

Saturday we didn't have as much service as usual. It was a nice

change! Elder Lavea's bike chain broke the day before though, so we

were on foot and getting absolutely baked! It was a little bit of a

hard day for me though. For some reason it was harder to street

contact that day, and since I was used to being on a bike everything

just felt super slow. We did end up doing a little bit of service for

someone that night with some other missionaries. We were basically

tearing up somebody's whole front yard. Then to finish off the day we

changed in a chapel and went and visited a less active family and

shared a short message since it was already almost nine. We talked

about the atonement and how we can always backtrack and, through Jesus

Christ, be forgiven and have help to fix our mistakes. It was really

awesome. They have a lot of challenges with coming to church so we're

trying to motivate them and help them to come back.

Friday....soooo I had no idea what to do for district meeting. Ideas

just were not coming to me. So I did my best just to study and prep

and then we went to the meeting hoping that the spirit would guide! I

was a little nervous haha. But we got there and it ended up being

great! We talked a lot about Alma 26 which talks about all the stuff

that missionaries go through. It's pretty cool! For the rest of the

day I was on exchanges with Elder Galo! It was really fun. We found a

lot of people at home, had an unplanned lesson with an investigator,

helped someone move for about an hour, and also found a new

investigator! It was a day full of little miracles like that. I loved

it!

So on Thursday's we always visit the Piñon family. They're super

awesome but they just have so much stuff going on that it's hard to

help them progress! They haven't been able to make it to church at all

even though they want to. So we're trying to figure out ways to help

them make it out. When we stopped by this week it was already pretty

late because it was the day Elder Lavea broke his chain so that slowed

us down a lot. And of course when we got there they were eating dinner

so it's kind of hard to interrupt that. But we left them with a short

scripture and invited them to come to church! They'll make it

eventually, :)

 One thing that was kinda funny that happened last Monday was that we

were waiting for a ride to come and get us. They guy we called is

named M~. He's pretty old :) but he's super nice and

always helps missionaries out. Well this brother couldn't find the

address where we were at, so we ended up getting home at like 10! Even

though it kinda stunk it was just so comical that we couldn't stop

laughing. He was swerving back and forth in the lane and just making

these funny comments in his broken English.  Good times :)

That was pretty much our week! It's been hot but we've been loving

every minute! There are lots of hard moments too, but the pains and

troubles are swallowed up in the Joy of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful

for him and his sacrifice for the world. I know it's real. This is a

scripture from the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Alma, chapter 31 vs.

38 it says: "And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger

not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength,

that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were

swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the

prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith." We go through a

lot of afflictions in this life, but as we follow gods plan of

happiness for us, which we call the gospel, it doesn't have to hurt so

much. I'm so greatful for that!

Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Baxter

July 31, 2017

Hey fam!

Monday during the zone activity we made hobo dinners! It's when you

throw a bunch of different ingredients into a package of tinfoil and

throw it into the fire to cook! It's been a long time and it was super

delicious! :) we got to play some basketball and soccer as well, so it

was a pretty fun day! Tuesday started off pretty bad though haha. We

accidentally slept in and got behind on our schedule for the day,

somehow everyone in the house either slept through their alarm or it

didn't go off. But once we did get going we did our best to catch up

and work hard, and it ended up being a miracle day! When we went out

we ran into this young man that is a member of an English ward but who

speaks Spanish that we've been trying to get to come out with us on a

teaching visit. Well it's been hard because he doesn't have a phone,

but we just happened to run into him and he was available to go out

with us that night at 6! So we took advantage even though we didn't

have any set lessons planned. When six o clock rolled around we picked

up Dennis and went to go contact a less active referral we had just

gotten. He was home AND let us in! He told us later that we were the

first missionaries he's let into his house in a long time! And it

turns out that Dennis, our member present is from Guatemala just like

the person we were visiting! It was just one of those things where

everything fell into place perfectly. It was awesome!

Later on that day we were biking toward our last visit attempt for the

day when we biked past Ivan and his family cleaning out their car.

Again, the circumstances were just too perfect!! We decided to stop

instead of going to our last visit and we ended up helping the, for

the rest of the night. We gained a lot of trust with his dad and so we

hope that will help allow Ivan to get baptized at some point in the

future.

Wednesday we had Zone Conference. Our mission president just had to go

through a knee surgery recently, so he was only able to be there for

the beginning of the the conference. It was way different without him!

Usually he bursts into random spurts of doctrine at random points

throughout the conference spitting off a bunch of awesome scriptures,

so it was different to not have him there. But it was still awesome!

We talked about the Book of Mormon as well as integrity and how it

affects our effectiveness as missionaries. It was awesome! We learned

about how to present the Book of Mormon better so that investigators

can realize that the Book of Mormon really is another testament of

Jesus Christ and that, just like the Bible, it is a compilation of

communications from God to his prophets and people in another part of

the world.

Thursday we had a wayyy better weekly planning than last week. It was

really good. It seems like the better your weekly planning is, the

better your week is. So that was a victory! That night we had an

AWESOME lesson with the Piñon family! We have the perfect

fellowshipping family in our ward that have been through a lot of the

same things the Piñon family has been through. We introduced e Book of

Mormon to them and talked a bit about baptism. It was a huge success!

We're excited for them.

Friday I went back to the good old Royal Ann ward on exchanges! This

time I was with Elder Degraw who I haven't served around much, so it

was fun to get to meet someone new! We had a goal of finding two new

investigators together. I felt like we tried our best but it didn't

end up happening. :( But we had a lesson with the Hernandez family and

it was awesome! Hna. Hernandez finally got baptized on Saturday and I

got to go! It was a super spiritual experience, just like Hno.

Hernandez and the kids' baptism. And it was super fun to reunite with

everyone! Elder Tanner was there as well so it felt just like the good

old days. It was awesome!

Saturday before the Baptism we did tons of service. It was good! But

we didn't have time for ANYTHING else. After we got back from the

baptism we had our first lesson with this guy who randomly texted and

wanted to meet us and talk about the church. It was awesome! We gave

him a tour of the chapel and then taught him the restoration. He said

it made it a lot of sense but he wanted to read the Book of Mormon

first which is exactly what he needs to do to find out if it's true so

we're pretty excited for him.

Sunday we spent biking ALL OVER. And it was pretty hot. But we enjoyed

it! We were pretty tired at the end of the day. And today we're just

chilling at a members house playing ping-pong, foosball and air hockey!

It's been pretty relaxed. My type of p-day :)

Love you all! Everything here is going great! Time is still flying and

I'm loving the mission more and more every day! Thanks for all the

love and support!

Love,

Elder Baxter

A baby camelion!

The service project we did on Saturday! It was a giant forest before and we got it down to a dead grass :) should've taken that before pic...

Zone Conference!

My pants are getting pretty beat!