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!

Happy Dia de los pioneros! 7/24/2017

Hey family!

Wow, last week's letter was a disaster! Haha. We had a great week this

week! Monday we had a pretty chill morning just cleaning and doing

some other chores. Then it got crazy when we had to go out and shop,

help some other people shop, etc. we had a zone activity too, so that

didn't help my email writing time. It was the last day before the new

transfer so we all just went to a church building and hung out/played

soccer. Afterwards it was crazy because there was a bunch of traffic

and we had to drop off some missionaries and pick up some stuff that

we had left at a different chapel previously. Somehow p-day always

gets loco.

Tuesday was transfer day and we lost the car!!! We went with our

roommate Elder Perdomo (who's companion had gone home) to pick up his

new companion from the zone building. It's elder Galo! We served

around each other toward the beginning of my mission and he's awesome!

He's always laughing and joking around so it's fun to have him in the

apartment :) We spent a large portion of the day before dinner trying

to fix up our bikes and make them functional (and safe). It was

frustrating, but it's in decent working order now. I'm thinking of

buying my own though because the bike I have now has to be constantly

adjusted.

Wednesday we had a bunch of lessons, it was awesome! One of them was

pretty miraculous. Stephanie, who we've been teaching since we got

here, but has cancelled all of our lessons the past couple weeks,

texted us and told us she didn't want us to come by any more. We tried

to figure out why over text and it turns out she was just frustrated

"at the world" (she was upset about some family stuff). So we stopped

by and had an awesome lesson! The spirit softened her heart and we

were able to talk for a long time about things that that were going

on, and committed her to read! That's what she's been struggling the

most with. We also met and started working with a less active lady

that we met! She's awesome, her name is Hermana (Sister) Barrera and she's been

through some hard stuff recently. But we had an awesome lesson, she

said she wants to start coming back, and we were able to give her a

priesthood blessing! She's awesome.

Thursday was weekly planning! It was really hard to focus with two

companionships in the house, it wasn't our best weekly planning haha.

We're gonna have to figure out something different for next week :/.

But neither companionship had a dinner, so we went out to dinner at

Cafe Rio! We had more than one person offer to pay. #utahblessings! We

had a lesson with the Piñon family that night and stayed out too late.

We were those two guys in white shirts frantically pedaling home as

fast as we could. Good times! The Piñon family is super prepared for

the gospel. BUT, they have super crazy busy lives, so it's been really

hard to have good lessons with them. A lot of times we get there and

they're halfway through a big house project because 8pm at night is

the only time they can do that sort of thing. So it's kinda complicated,

but we're doing our best nonetheless! I know Sister Piñons dad who's a

member from  another ward so we're planning on making a joint trip

down to temple square with hem pretty soon.

Friday was just District meeting and stuff. Our district is super

awesome! So district meeting is pretty smooth and there's more

participation than there was last transfer. So that was nice! We

talked about faith. Nothing too exciting happened on Friday. But

Saturday we had service all morning and then a hike with the ward at

night. It was awesome! Stephanie and some less active members came,

and it was a great activity. It was in memory of the pioneers, and it

was way longer than we had expected. But it was good!

Sunday a lot of weird stuff happened and some things that were kinda

sad in the area. But surprisingly it was easy to be happy and positive

despite all of it! Ivan, our 11 year old investigator asked to talked

to us after church, and when we did, he told us he didn't want to be

baptized anymore and that he didn't want us to come by. It's pretty

weird because the week before he had told his dad he wanted to be

baptized but wanted to make sure it was okay with them. We think that

his dad told him to tell us that, which is pretty sad. But we can't do

too much about it except to pray for them!

Today we have an all day p-day because of Pioneer Day. It's been

pretty good! All day p-days seem to go even faster than normal p-days.

Right now we're just playing soccer with the zone and we'll probably

eat a little bit later. But that sums up my week pretty well! It's

been a little hard because we feel like we're working hard but not

harvesting right now. But he and I are loving life and the area and

everything! We're hoping to find some more people to teach next week,

so I'll update you on that next week!

Love you all! Thanks for your prayers and support. Everyday my

testimony Jesus Christ is strengthened. I'm so grateful for all He has

done and is doing for us! I know he lives.

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Baxter

Elder Lavea is behind there...he fell asleep during studies haha and I finally got him :):)

We ate dinner in the garage of a member this week :):)

I got no words for this one...

July 17, 2017

Hey Family!

It's funny how throughout your mission, week by week, you have to try

and think of a new way to start your letter, not to mention think up a

new subject line. The longer you've been out, the fewer ideas you

have. And even though it doesn't matter too much it always seems to be

a barrier to actually getting started on giving an update about the

week.

Speaking of my week, it was awesome! Time is still flying! The biggest

news of the week is that Ivan, one of our investigators accepted the

invitation to be baptized and is preparing to get baptized on the 5th

of August! Ivan is 11 and has been wanting to get baptized for a while

now. His dad is a less active brother from Mexico, but Ivan is just

starting to learn Spanish, having grown up with his mom in Russia. So,

we teach him in Spanglish. :) he's amazing. He prays and reads every

day and has spiritual experiences doing it! It's awesome!

Anndddd, Im out of time. But I love all of you! Everything is going

great here! I'll write more next week!

Love,

Elder Baxter

We taught a primary class about missionary work this week!

Service, helping a member clean her walls for painting!

We went golfing last week! Almost a year ago that day I forgot to put the foot brake on the golf cart and it rolled backward into his bridge and knocked off this stone :) good memories!

At service waiting for transfer calls :)

Posting Again!

I'll be putting Joshua's letters back onto this blog again! My apologies for the long gap! I'll start posting the most recent ones, but I'll try to go back and put up some of the older ones at some point.

March 6, 2017

Hey family!

So Monday we had a pretty nice p-day. We spent the morning doing our

house/laundry/shopping stuff and also just chilaxin a little bit.

Elder Espinoza came back into the valley from Wendover as well so we

spent some time just relaxin with him. At two we had a zone activity

and played some capture the flag! It was nice to change info up and

not play futbol for once haha. We had a good time! Later on we went to

the Castro family's house for dinner and ate some mojarras! I sent

pictures last week. Also, the Castros have a traditional prank they

like to play on the missionaries, so I'll send some videos of that. It

was pretty fun! Then we found out that someone in our zone left their

phone and our church keys in elder Espinoza's car, so we ended up

having to drive out to Stansbury Park to pick it up for them. That

ended up taking most of the night. Once we got home we finished making

preparations for zone conference and hit the sack!

Tuesday was the first day we didn't go to the gym all transfer!

Honestly it felt so nice haha, elder Tanner likes the gym way to much

😂 Zone conference usually tends to take up most of the day, so we

were at the mission office from 9:30 to around 4! Yikes! It was a

really good zone conference though. It was kind of a chastisement for

not being obedient. I guess the whole mission has been in need of a

little chastening, so everyone's zone conference was based around the

white handbook. It was really good though. We also talked about the

atonement, and President did his usual rant with a chain of scriptures

he's got on his mind. Good stuff! Everyone sits up a little when he

talks. One of the things he told us was that when we are disobedient,

thinking that no one will see or hear about it, we are just showing

that we don't have faith in a living, all seeing God. Ouch... That

night we found a less active that we've been trying to contact for a

while! He got baptized with his family a couple years ago, but his

parents both died and so, now living with his aunt, he went less

active over time. We shared the restoration with him and told him we'd

get him an English BoM from the car but then we forgot and drove away!

Ugh. We haven't been able to get a hold of him since.

Wednesday we started off the day doing some service for someone in our

ward. It was good! It was kinda funny...there were two other guys that

the member had asked to come and help and so I though I would try and

talk to one of them. Well we got to be pretty good friends and so I

asked if he had ever met with missionaries before to see if he would

be interested in having us come over. But it turned out he was a

member. Oops! Haha. We did some baptismal interviews that night and

had some lessons cancel, as usual.

Thursday, every missionary's favorite day, weekly planning day! ....

We had a lesson with Javier though! This brother knows how to talk!

It's crazy! He almost doesn't breathe, so it's hard to get our word

in! He's working on getting his marriage license so he can get married

and then he'll pretty much be ready for baptism. He's a stud! He's

going through tons of problems, yet he's super positive and he has so

much trust in Gods plan for him. It's truly impressive. One thing that

I've really learned, especially this past week is that God truly only

desires our happiness and growth. We always think we'll be happier

doing our own thing but it doesn't compare to the joy and happiness we

would have by just following the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've really

understood that more this week. We did another baptismal interview in

Magna on Thursday--it was really fun! I got to interview someone that

was about the same age as my grandparents! So that was kind of unique

and interesting to do. He was a golden find though.

Friday we went on exchanges with the APs. It was really fun! I went

with Elder Maldarizzi to their area. Elder Maldarizzi is from Italy,

so I got to learn a little bit of Italian :) we went out to Tooele for

a district meeting in another zone to start of the day...it was weird,

cuz ever since they split the mission into Spanish and English zones I

hardly know any of the English Elders which is kinda sad. After that

we came back into the valley and visited a couple of people. We taught

one guy about repentance. We read the Book of Mormon with him and

invited him to talk to his bishop for help. It was something he wanted

to but he didn't feel like he had the strength to do it. It was a

really good lesson. In the end he said he would do it and so hopefully

that's something that will help him.

Saturday we had a member baptism during which the bishop asked us to

share the message of the restoration. It went really well! We took

some time to help them clean up afterward as well. The dad of the

child that got baptized isn't a member so we've been trying to

develope a good relationship with him and we feel like that helped a

lot! We had a lot of lessons planned that day but most of them got

cancelled. :(

Sunday we had lots of people at church again it was awesome! But they

all left after the first hour. We ate some bomb Chilean empanadas with

a family in the ward for lunch, had a stake meeting, taught some

lessons, saw green lightning (a snow storm came in and blew up some

transformers) and then drove home in the snow! It was a solid day. We

came home and our landlords invited us to come upstairs and see some

pictures form their daughters mission en Armenia..it was super cool!

Love you all! Thanks for all the love and support. Talk to you next week!

Elder Baxter

We did a carne asada today with the zone :)

Top golf this morning. The elder with the golden tie is elder Maldarizzi from the exchange on Friday.

After the storm