December 19th Letter

Monday - my last day with Elder Rodriguez! We did our shopping in the morning with Brother Young, a member of one of the English wards here. I've gotten pretty close to him over the 6 months that I was in Magna. He's a funny guy :) We went to lunch with him and then came home so I could get packing. I'm still a slow packer hahaha. At around 4 we went to the zone activity and played some games. Someone in the zone made a zone video with different footage and pictures throughout the transfer so that was pretty fun. That night we had one last lesson with the Flores family before I left. We played red light green light and applied it to agency and the atonement. It was super fun. I stayed up late packing so that I would be ready to go in the morning, but I had a good time talking with my son Elder Rodriguez :) Tuesday - transfer day! It's always kind of a crazy day. Elder Espinoza came to pick us up at around 8 then we went to drop off Espinoza's old companion, Elder Hurtado, and Elder Rodriguez. At ten we went to a church building where everyone in the zone met up to switch companions. After transfer stuff was done Elder Espinoza took me around to meet the bishop and some other people in the ward. We also had a temple square appointment with one of our investigators Vanessa, but she cancelled on us! It was disappointing. Wednesday we spent most of the morning helping people move stuff (bikes, beds, desks). The after quake of transfer day is also pretty crazy haha. We got to take the mission's F-150 pickup, which is the best ride in the mission though, so it was alright :) After that was done we did some daily planning, and then made some visits that night. Thursday we spent most of the day in meetings...MLC was from 10-3:30 and then we had a meeting with the Sister training leaders to plan zone conference. In MLC each companionship was assigned a different person or object involved in the nativity scene to study and share some of the symbolism behind each topic. It was pretty neat! There is some really neat symbolism there. We talked about gold and it went pretty well. After planning zone conference with the sisters We went to dinner and finally got to go out and work that night. Friday - we had zone training! It went really well. We started off doing something really similar to what we did in MLC and we assigned some other missionaries to talk about the symbolism behind the different people and objects involved in the birth of Jesus Christ. It was really nice to focus on Christ and talk about the symbolism involved in the nativity scene. After that we showed a cool video about the importance of having a "why" behind all of our actions and talking about making Jesus Christ our "why" by using his atonement. Everything went really well! We all went out to buy lunch afterward and brought it back to the church. I officially ran out of money for the month :) You definitely spend more money when you have a car haha. After that we had to drop off our car at a car shop to get its inspections done. We asked some other elders to take us to the mission office so we could grab the van and make it to a baptismal interview in time. The interview was with Gloria Grajeda!! She was getting baptized the next day :) It was good to see her and her kids again. We found out that we had been saying her name wrong the whole time. Instead of Grajeda we had been saying Trajera hahaha. It sounds pretty similar though with a Spanish pronunciation. She thought that we just couldn't pronounce it the whole time :) Elder Espinoza did the interview since I had taught her, so Elder Rodriguez, Elder Simpson and I all chilled in the van with some hot chocolate while the interview took place on the front porch (the people that Gloria is living with still don't want missionaries in the house). She has the coolest story. Her husband was very abusive and she had been married to him for a long time. She had some friends come and tell her that they would kill him for her if she would just tell him where he lived. Instead of doing that she chose to abandon all she had and flee Mexico to the US illegally. I don't remember exactly how but she passed through some kind of checkpoint and was let through despite super low odds of her being allowed to pass. She arrived here to Utah and came to church which is where we met her. She told us she had been to church twice in Chihuahua and asked us to teach her (this was when I was with Elder Page). We set up some appointments but then she never showed up and we lost track of her for about two weeks since she still didn't have a phone. She also couldn't give us her address because the people in her house where slightly hostile towards missionaries and mormons in general. Then she showed up at church again and had a phone! We were super excited to see her and to know that we would be able to communicate with her haha. And so to see her getting baptized now is awesome :) we're going to the baptism on Saturday. Anyway, after the interview we went back to pick up the car and went to dinner. We were pretty late because we had to take Simpson and Rodriguez so we could get the van back to he office and then go all the back to Magna to drop them off again. Then after dinner we made a couple visits to and had a short lesson with a recent convert. Saturday - we had a nice little ward Christmas breakfast today. Then we went to the Hna Grajeda's baptism! It was great. I forgot that I was speaking on baptism, so I got to wing it and it went really well! Haha it's a little easier to give a talk when you teach that stuff all the time. It was fun to be in Pleasant green 2nd again :) After the baptism we went back to our area and did some work. That night we had planned to go to luz de las naciones with Vanessa but she cancelled again at the last moment!! We were scrambling to try and find someone else to take because the ward had front row tickets but our attempts were unsuccessful :( it was super disappointing cuz it only happens once a year. But oh well. We ended up making some good visits instead. Sunday was good! I was just trying to meet as many people as I could and try to remember their names. We didn't have any investigators come but a less active family did make it to sacrament. Church here is at eleven which is a nice change. We visited a family after church and found out that they wanted to go to luz de las naciones! We were upset that we didn't know about it hahaha. We had a delicious dinner called Navajo tacos. Best thing in the world. Then that night we had some good visits with 2 different families, and then went home for numbers. It's been a good week! I'm still trying to get to know the area, which is pretty big, but I'm hoping it will come quick. :) Merry Christmas everyone! Family, I'll see you on Sunday! :) I'm so grateful for this time of year and for the extra opportunity to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Love you all! Elder Baxter My new companion and I at temple square! Elder Andersons of the twelve apostle's car! We ran into him on the way in and then we took a picture on the way out.