Week 49

Hi!!! Well, this week was good:) I am now in an area called Molino. its in the center of Santa Ana!!! So, it’s the most city I’ve seen my entire mission. I like it. Its been a little hard. Right now the area has 0 progressing investigatores, and 0 baptism dates. So, I just feel a little stressed because I am still zone leader and so I have the aps calling all the time asking about the area and why its not doing so well. But, I’ve been praying like crazy asking for personal revelation of how I can change the area!! So we have lots of work to do!! 

My comps name is Elder Hernandez. He is from Guatemala!! Haha... I went from having a white comp and always speaking English, to living with three Latinos! Haha, so its a little bit of a change!! But, I like it!! They are really funny and we get along.  Something else super cool about my ward… I dont know if you guys remember, but in the mtc I lived with an elder from Santa Ana!! I had told you guys about him and that he was telling us all about Santa Ana and stuff!! Well he is from the ward I am serving in!! I saw his picture on the wall and I was just like... I know him!!! Haha!! So I went and found his mom and just said, "hi are you Elder Florez’s mom??”... and she just said, “Yes!! He’s my baby boy!!" with a big smile!! I told her that I lived with him in the mtc and she just got so excited and called over her husband and other son and they invited us to dinner tomorropw night!!! So thats pretty cool.  

I also can't believe you guys got to know Elder Sutton!!!! He was like my best friend here in the mission. I love that guy!!! I was gonna tell you to go get to know him too! Haha so that makes me happy. Well thanks for the email. I am doing good!! I miss you all like crazy. Love you!!!! elder baker

Week 48

Hello!! :) Well... I guess Ill start with the bad news, I freaking have changes!!!! I can’t believe I am already leaving this area… it's gonna be hard. There are lots of people I just dont really want to leave. But, I guess thats just part of the mission. So I am not gonna be with Elder Griffin anymore! But, you guys need to stay friends with his family. Ok!? 

Anyway... We did have a good week!! Sunday we ended up putting 3 more baptism dates (part of the reason I am so sad to leave) and we got some more help from the members this week! Daniel still hasnt gotten baptized... because he had surgery on his eye and he can’t go under the water! But, he says it’s the first thing he will do when he can!! So I’ll be happy to hear when he does get baptized!! :) 

I am doing good! We’ve been working out everyday! We switch off every other day with one day running and the next is weights!! I like it! 

Oh and something crazy!! Last night when I was sleeping, my bed started shaking and it woke me up... haha there was totally an earthquake!! It was pretty cool. It honestly feels like someone is shaking your bed! Haha!

Lets see what else... right now we have a really positive investigator named Celeste. She loves more than anything reading the Book of Mormon and when we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation she told us her dad had died when she was younger, so she loved learning about that and how she can see him again. She is an amazing person. She is one of the ones that has the date.

Well I am doing good!! Sad for the changes… but, good!  I love you all so much and I will talk to you soon!!!

elder baker

Week 47

Hello!!! Well I'm glad to hear that you guys finally got together with Elder Griffin's fam, and that you guys had so much fun!! We are a little jealous of you guys... but not too jealous, cuz we are the ones in El Salvador ;) 

I can't beleive how much older Jace is looking!!! He looks great! I am also excited for his football games to start up again!!! 

I'll be honest, I don't feel like too much happened this week. So the email might be a little boring... haha sorry!! 

I will start with the questions you asked me... 

Daniel is good! His baptism is this Thursday and he has asked me to baptize him! 

Yanira... she didn't go to church so she cant be baptized before the temple trip!! She is just having trouble with work! 

Haha i havnt been teaching in my sleep lately, so thats good! I think I've just been very, very tired lately so I'm just out!! 

Yes, we stil walk EVERYWHERE!! and we cook for our selves!! haha so I hope that answered most of your questions!! 

I'm doing good!  We have found some really positive people during the week!  I don't have pics this week, but next week I will because we are going on a cool hike today!  So, I promise I will take pics.  

Me and Elder Griffin are getting along great, but we are getting close to the end of the changes.  So we are just curious to see what will happen! 

Ah!  We had our interviews with the Mission President this week!!  As we started, he just asked if we could do it in English cuz he wanted a break from Spanish!!  Haha and his poor wife can't even speak Spanish yet...she still has to learn!!

Well, sorry the email is not that great... but I love you all and will talk to you soon!!

elder baker

Week 46

Hello! Well this week was good!! 4th of July was a little weird... cuz nobody here even knows what it is! Me and my comp both wore blue pants, white shirt, and red ties!! haha

We are doing good! We had a pretty good week! The new president is super cool. He really is a lot different than pres cordon, but he is cool and a hard worker! He relies a lot on the spirit. We had a mission meeting with him, and the whole mission went. Then two days later we had the leadership meeting with just him and the zone leaders, so I got know him a little more! He has some great ideas and it has really helped us out this week!!

Lets see, we have some very positive investigators right now. Daniel still has his date for this Sunday, and we have 1 later named Yanira that is working for the 27th of July! She said she wants to be baptized that day, its just that for her to do it she cant miss a single Sunday before!! But, what would be really cool is that if she gets baptized the 27th of July... the 6th of August we have another trip to the temple for investigadores and new members and all the new members get to go in and do baptisms for their family members! So the 27th would be her baptism and the 6th she could go to the temple!!!! BUT the coolest part is that the 6th is the 2 year mark of her mom's death, so she could go do it for her!! So, that would be a cool experience!

Lets see... really everything is going well!!! Haha funny story... For the last couple of months I have had trouble sleeping because I will wake up in the night thinking I am teaching a lesson and I'll really just be sitting up in my bed teaching! It has gotten so bad that the other night I even got out of bed and on my knees to close the lesson with a prayer!! haha It sucks cuz I am always soooo tired! But I am all right... I guess that means I just think about the work a lot!!;)

As for you guys, I am glad that you all had a good week!! Cali looked fun and one question... who is the blonde kid!? I cant believe that Perry is already leaving for football camp! I feel like that was yesterday!!!

Haha and I love Gage... he is such a funny guy and he is gonna be such a stud!! Well I love you all so much!! Talk to you soon. 

elder baker

Week 45

Hello!! Well, I’m glad you all had fun in California, and that everything went well, except for the fraud problem!! I’m sure it was all fun though:)

That is awesome that Elder Neilson went over to our house! I’m a little jealous of the food he got to eat. He emailed me and said that it was super good! I am happy you all had fun and got to meet some of his family!! His brother is going to Taiwan!! Isn’t that crazy!? Haha who knows if I spelt Taiwan right... but, whatever!

Anyways, I am doing good! We had a baptism yesterday! Cecilia got baptized, it was super cool and me and Elder Griffin gave the musical number. It was a cool experience!! I definitely saw her make a lot of changes in her life to get to that point. Anyways we have another bap date for the 13th of July now, his name is Daniel! When he showed up at church, yesterday, he had on a Nike shirt that said... "Every damn day" Hahaha luckily no one speaks English!! So they don't know.

Lets see what else!? Haha I cant believe that Gage broke his arm!! He is just like me!!! ;)

OH! haha Mayce emailed me a picture this week that is super cool!! She is in Cali right now and she went to a store, on the beach, and there is a big picture of us and all our friends from when we went last year!! It is on the wall of the store!! haha I thought that was awesome!!!

Well, I love you all lots and I am glad you got the present mom:) I am doing good! I get to meet the new mission president tomorrow. Saying by to Pres Cordon was pretty hard and it will be weird now. But, I am excited to see what the new one does for the mission!!! Well love you and will talk to you soon!:)

elder baker

Week 44

Hello!!  Well, once again I am glad to hear that everyone is doing so well!! I still am not very happy to hear Haley is in a singles ward..hahaha it just weird!! I am also happy that Jace is still doing so good in football.

It is freaking crazy that Elder Nielson is going to be in my house tonight!! haha he was just with me... and now he is going to be with my family! I hope he likes the food... cuz, I wish I could eat it!!  

I absolutely love the fact that Gage is just skating, building boards, and just being awesome!!

I am doing great! I am happy to hear that my package got sent out! i cant wait to get that. Me and my comp are having fun still!! That’s so cool that the Loves know him and his family! We are working hard together. We ended up getting 6 to church this week, which is better than normal for the area!! Our goal is to get 10! This Sunday I had a huge testimony builder... so we are teaching a family named the Ramos family, and they said they would be coming to church! They are an awesome family, super nice, humble, really don’t have a lot, and really want more of God in their lives! Sunday came along and we called them in the morning and they said they were not going to be able to come... so we walked over to their house to see why and try to change there minds!! When we started talking to them this is what the dad said... "Elders, I can't go to church today... I need to try to find a way to get some money for my family. Last week we had 20 dollars to live off of but this week we don't even have 5. I don’t know how we will be able to make it through the week. I have to go find something to help my family make it through the week." So we started talking to him and promised him that if he went to church, with his wife, the lord would provide for him. We read Mathew 6: 31-33 and we really just testified to him that we knew that the week would be provided for if he went! We then left, went to church and as the meetings were starting we saw them walking in!!! I cant tell you how it felt, we just ran up and gave him a hug and helped him to their classes with his wife!! It was a very cool experience to see how they put God first. I know they will have a great week now!!!  

Well, other than that, it was a good week in general!! I’m having fun and loving it!! I can't believe Spencer has been out a year...that’s crazy!! I love you all so much and will talk to you soon. 

elder baker

Week 43

Hello!! Well... this week was good! The changes went good. I now have my new comp. I will tell you about him in a little bit... but the week was good!! We still have our baptism date for the 21 with Cecilia!! I’m super excited for that!! It's now President Cordon and Hermana Cordon's last week!! It is gonna be so weird getting a new president. We all have interviews with them this week before they leave and I cannot wait to be able to talk to them!! It will for sure be a little weird at first without them here. But I am sure I will love the new one just as much!!! 

Well about my new comp!! Haha this is probably gonna be the fastest changes of my mission cause we have so much fun together!! He was my zone leader before I came here...and now we are together!! His name is Elder Griffin and he is from Arizona!!! I think he lives like 20 or 30 minutes from our house!! Haha I remember when we would do inter changes when I was a district leader in his zone! We had so much fun... haha and now we are comps!! It's gonna be sick!! But he likes to work hard and he is a good zone leader. I will learn a lot from him!! He has like 3 months more than me in the mission, so he wont be going home super fast... hahaha!!

Anyways we had a good week!!! We have some goals we want to reach this change and we are working super hard!! Haha I don't think before the mission I would ever think about waking up at 5:30, to leave by 6:30, to walk around the entire area getting people to come to church!! Haha... at one point we were even running so we wouldn't be late!! Hahaha I just love this mission! 

Well Elder Neilson is now with his fam!! Haha... that is so weird to me... but they should be passing by Gilbert! He has a letter for mom and a little something else for mom too!! But that will be a surprise! :) 

But anyways I am good!! I am glad everyone is doing good!! That is awesome that Jace is going to football camp now! Is dad a coach still!? 

I love you all!!! And miss you tons. Love you!!!

elder baker