Monday, December 29, 2014

Ok, I am going to start off with Christmas.  I forgot to tell you something.  Ok so I told you all how they shoot off the fireworks at midnight and all that.  But during all of that the sky lit up and it was seriously like almost daytime.  It was so bright.  The whole sky lit up.  Anyway, I think some electrical tower got hit by a firework or something and it exploded and there was a big flash.  I am telling you this story because it is funny.  People after were saying that it was the end of the world or that it was from aliens.  And there are all these pictures of the flash and people say that there is a figure in the flash and all this stuff but it is just funny because they think ET is here or something.  

It was so great to talk to all of you on Christmas!  It was weird, kind of like a dream.  Like this is my life here in Perù and to see all that and the snow and everything it was kind of like this is real?  Like you just get focused here in the mission field and kind of forget about your bed at home and cars and snow and all that stuff.  But it was great to talk to you all.  If you can, send me some snow because it is only getting hotter here.  At about 10 in the morning, or 930, it is already burning hot.  but hopefully I get a nice tan.  

This week teaching was kind of slow. and I am expecting the same type of thing this week.  Everyone is either out of town or they are buying gifts or they are "busy".  So we didn't get in a lot of houses this week.  And these past couple days we have been trying to make appointments with people and they all say oh ya, after the parties.  So I am thinking that it will be difficult to get in the houses.  but hopefully we can get in some.  

Yesterday though we had a great lesson.  We went in the house and one of our investigators, who is 27, was sad.  Like normally she is all happy to see us but we could tell something was wrong.  And then I remembered what mom told me at the start of my mission.  I just need to smile.  (that was back then because I couldn't speak spanish.)  Now I can speak spanish but I just started smiling like really big.  And I kept it the whole time.  And every time she would look at me she would start smiling.  Smiles are contagious.  The spirit was really strong in this lesson.  We talked about the Book of Mormon.  And when we left she was a lot happier.  You could see it in her face.  It was awesome.  

And last night I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time.  Afterwards I did what Moroni tells us to do.  I prayed to know if it was true.  And bam, my chest just caught fire.  I already knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that it is the word of God.  But this is part of enduring to the end.  We always need to ask and read and pray and go to church because this is what builds our testimonies.  Knowing that the Book of Mormon is true changes everything for everyone because it means that everything is true.  This gospel really is for everyone.  And I am glad that I can be an instrument in the Lord's hands for these two years to help people find the truth.  

I hope you all have a wonderful week and a happy new year!!

Monday, December 22, 2014

Hola familia!!  How is everybody doing!  First thing first, I got fried.  So I will be tan and beautiful for skype on Thursday.  Yes, skype on Chirstmas at about 3 o clock.  3 o clock my time so I believe that is about 1 o clock your time.  It will be weird talking to white people in English haha.  That was not supposed to be a rude comment but ya...  

It was a lot harder to find people in their houses this week.  They are all running around buying stuff, out of town or working more because it is Christmas time.  So hopefully this week they will all be in their houses.  

Tuesday we went to the temple with the ward.  It was awesome.  We helped in the baptistry.  Just as witnesses.  We can't do baptisms or baptize in the temple as missionaries.  It was awesome though because we brought a recent convert from this area.  It was her first time at the temple and so it was cool to see.  The spirit was so strong.  And she loved it so that was cool. Seriously the peace inside the temple is unreal.  You step inside and BAM everything from the outside world is gone.  You can relax, pray, think and it is just the best.  But ya, we went and we probably had about 20 people that went.  Not as many as the other ward but I think just about everybody went in so it was a good experience.   

Thursday we had our Christmas activity of the mission.  It was with half of the mission because our mission is too big so we had to split it in half.  But we got there and I PLAYED BASKETBALL!!  I was rusty.  I was still dropping threes but not at the highest rate haha.  It was a little rough.  I am going to put the blame on the fact that the hoops were about 9 and a half feet.  But after that we watched all these little videos.  Then we had dinner and then we had our skits.  Each zone had to perform a skit and so we did ours and it was pretty good.  I am going to try to send it and mayble Blake can translate or something.  And my voice isn't really that high, I had to talk like that for the skit so don't judge.  

Really this is the best time of the year.  Before the mission it wasn't as easy to focus on Jesus Christ during the Christmas season.  But now as a missionary I have his name on my chest every day.  I can't think of anything better to do than to be his missionary in this time.  Also it is the best time of the year because everyone comes together.  Like here, a ton of people have their displays of the birth of Jesus Christ.  Maybe not everyone has the same beliefs about him but everyone recognizes how important He is.  The first and best gift of Christmas from our Heavenly Father.  He is the reason why we celebrate Christmas and I love being a missionary and being able to testify that He lives and is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.  

I hope you all have a wonderful and Merry Christmas this Thursday.  Remember to do something for someone else in this time.  I love you all.  Talk to you on Thursday.

Monday, December 15, 2014

This week was good, we found a couple of new people that seem like they are really interested.  One lady was walking past us in the street with her aunt and her aunt comes up to us and tells us that she got baptized a month ago.  So we started talking to her niece and she was really excited and wants us to come to her house and teach her so hopefully that goes well.  We have an appointment later on in the week.  

Then this one day we were walking in the street and there were these ladies pushing a cart with a bunch of chairs and struggling so I went and asked if they needed help and they said yes so we took there cart really far for them and it was really hot.  But they have family members that are members of the church and the one lady told us that we can come back and visit her in her house.  Everytime we passed by she wasn't home but one day we found her husband at home.  And he is funny.  And he started talking to us and told us how he changed his life and how he is open to listening to us.  So that was cool.  And we play soccer every Thursday and he is going to come and play soccer with us.  So hopefully that family can progress and we can help them. 

Then one more person.  Her name is Alexandra and she is 22 and has a little baby.  She has a fecha in January to be baptized and so she came to church this week and she said that she really liked it a lot.  She was going to leave after sacrament and go home because she said that her baby has to eat because she has a schedule so she was leaving and we were kind of like noooo because to count as an asistencia you have to stay all three hours.  So I kind of looked at the relief society president and she ran over and was like I can take care of your baby!!  And bam that was that and she stayed at church and said that she really liked it a lot.  It was awesome.  And the ward is going to the temple on Tuesday and she might come with us so that would be super awesome.  

Perú has Christmas trees in their house.  Some of the people at least.  But everyone has a little display of the manger and the birth of Jesus.  Well at least all the people we visit.  But all the little cribs in the manger are empty right now.  No baby.  On Christmas eve when it turns Christmas, they all put the baby in the manger because "that is when he was born."  So that is pretty cool.  

On Christmas here I guess Santa doesn't know when you are awake.  Everyone here stays up and parties and at midnight they drink hot chocolate and eat food and everything.  I think they eat turkey for Christmas so hey, I might get my Thanksgiving turkey.  

Haha, that is my report for this week.  We have our christmas party this week with the mission.  Well, half of the mission.  We have too many people to have everyone there at one time so there are two days.  But Elder Bean and I have it the same day so we get to ball together.  I am going to dunk on somebody.  

Love you all, choose the right.

Love, Elder Baker

Monday, December 8, 2014

Wow, I have no time so i will try to write super fast.  I got changed and I am in la zona la libertad.  My sector is Bella Vista 2 and I am in the city of Callao.  It is like the nicest part of Callao though so don't worry mom.  My companion is Elder Fuentes and he is from Ecuador.  I am older than him by a couple months but he has 9 months in the mission.  He is a hard worker so it is good.  His last companion is going home soon so he was kind of trunky which means that you miss home and want to go home so we don't have a ton of new people to teach so we are doing a lot of finding right now.  But really, I love this sector.  The members here are really cool.  

There is one lady that is awesome.  She is probably about in the fifties.  Her husband doesn't like the missionaries very much.  But she loves them.  They live above her and they live super close to us because the other missionaries in our district live in our sector so we are always over there and she always gives us food.  And anyway the other night her husband was home but we didn't have any food because it was fast Sunday and she knew we didn't have any so she called us and told us to come over and she snuck food out to us.  She is awesome and she cooks really good.  She told me I was going to get fatter in this sector so I hope she is a liar too haha.  

We had a cool experience this week.  We were teaching a less active lady who is reactivating and her husband who is less active comes in the room.  We were teaching lesson 1 and at the end I was talking about the Book of Mormon and I just went off.  Like stuff I had never thought of and when I finished I looked over and the wife was crying and the husband was like wow.  He said, I haven't been taught in a long time.  Always it is just little things like oh hey, read your scriptures, we will visit you soon but wow, this is incredible.  I know this church is true and he is going to start coming back to church and it was so awesome.  The spirit was so strong.  It is crazy, in lessons it feels like your chest is going to explode- it is wonderful.  But sometimes I worry that it actually will burst haha.  

Congratulations Blake!!  Wow, that is crazy, I don't know my sister in law but hey, welcome to the family!!  Tell her to come on Christmas so I can skype and meet her.  

I don't have any time left really but next week I will have a lot more details and everything.  Oh, the room is a lot smaller.  And the bathroom is tiny I can barely fit in it but hey, we have a hot shower.  But the first day I was showering and I finished and all this burning hot water shot out and SMOKE.  The heater thing burned and so we didn't have hot water the next day.  But we called the guy and he fixed it and we have hot water now, so I can enjoy a shower now!  It is awesome.  

I said bye to Elder Apaza this last change meeting and it was actually really sad.  He was awesome and taught me so many good things.  He goes home in January.  

I love you all.  Have a great week.  

Monday, December 1, 2014

This week was good.  But I am afraid, it was my last in Bello Horizonte.  We have cambios tomorrow and I basically already know I am getting changed.  To Callao I think.  It is always good to have changes because it is where the Lord wants us to be but it is sad because you grow to love the people in your area.  

Thanksgiving was awesome!  I didn't even remember it was Thanksgiving until partway through the day and I was like oh wow.  it is Thanksgiving.  Because literally nothing happened here for it.  People would ask me why we have it and I am just like, the indians and the pilgrims and ya.  And then they are like and what do you do for it?  And then I just say, we eat... A LOT.  Haha it is funny.  

___ didn't get baptized.  All of our appointments with him fell through this week.  He wants to get baptized and all but we don't really know what happened.  We are going to meet with him today to see what's up.  Hopefully all is well.  

But, two cool things this week.  We found this kid and he accepted everything.  And then we found his family after and they are all super cool!  Seriously I am sad that I have to go because from the first moment they were so friendly and wanted us to come and wanted to eat lunch with us and everything haha.  It is super cool and they are an awesome family.  Another experience that we had was we were at a house where they are all recent converts.  Everyone except for the dad.  I have heard that the dad is kind of hard hearted and mean.  We went in and he was sitting there and I was kind of just like uh oh.  This should be interesting.  But we started teaching and you could literally see him changing right in front of you.  He just started thinking and nodding his head and everything.  And I asked him what was stopping him from being united with his family in the church and he was just like I know it will happen soon.  One day my inside will just tell me that I have to do it.  I know that I am going to and I know that i am going to do it sooner than I thought.  And wow, the spirit was super strong that whole entire time.  It is literally like someone lights a fire inside of your chest.  It is awesome. 

And speaking of fire.  It is sad, this house got burned.  They are less actives I think.  It is not in my sector but it is in the ward.  We went over to help and it is one small room and everything burned and now they don't have anything.  The houses are all bricks and cement so the house didn't burn just everything inside of it.  We asked for help from the ward members but we didn't really receive any.  so hopefully the family is all right.   Anyways that is about it for this week.