March 18, 2013

Hi everyone :)

I'm doing pretty good myself here. Salida is crazy! It's hippie-ville haha and I LOVE IT. Like, it's unreal how hippie this town is. But everyone here is super friendly.

My new girls name is SIster Hansen. She is 19! Super crazy. She is from Pleasant Grove, Utah.  Yesterday we were both sick.. I think the elevation and weather change is killing us. She has a great testimony and talks a ton for being a new missionary. 

We live in an apt. It's pretty nice, but freezing!!! Like we woke up and our place was 50 degrees even though I had it set to 70. So we need to figure that out haha.

Salida is super small with tons of antique stores and little downtown shops. The branch is crazy haha the average age in the branch is 60.. and there are only 3 active youth. It's weird hah.  But I already love it here. :)

I'm kind of struggling. Opening a new area has been rough. But the branch has been really nice to us! We are super far away from everyone, too, which is hard. THe closest elders to us are about an hour away. Our district meeetings are an hour and 15 minutes away haha. It's crazy! So I just feel kind of lost right now, but I know in due time it will all get better! I know I am supposed to be here, so that is comforting. We also have a senior couple here with us, they are Elder and SIster Chandler.. and they are great! They have helped me not feel so alone.

As for the ------'s baptism.. IT was wonderful :)  When they got baptized, we walked behind the doors with them to put their hair up and stuff before they went into the water, so we got to be watching from the side when they got baptized. -------- went first and when she came out of the water, her and her dad embraced and she started to cry. The spirit was so strong! Then she came and stood by us as -------- went down to the font. When she came out of the water, same thing, her dad and her embraced and she began to cry. It was so wonderful. It was amazing to see it finally happen.  I know that our fast. It was great.  I am so happy I got to witness them finally be baptized. What a great way to leave the area.

I miss Sister Kartchner a lot! We got along so well, it's sad that it only lasted for 5 weeks!

I also got to see Toi which was fun! I love her! It was good to see some people from Pueblo that I love so much. We have a meeting in Pueblo tomorrow and the ------s are coming to see me in town! I'm so excited! They have been baptized for almost a year! It's crazy!!! They can get sealed in May! LOVE IT!

So, that is all the updates. I can't believe how fast my mission is flying by. It makes me want to cry!! I hit my year mark on the 28th. Unreal. What a blessing it has been to serve.

Also, I was reading the other day in Ether about the Brother of Jared. I love that he asks the Lord how to get light and how to breathe. The Lord answers how to breathe in the barges. So, then the Brother of Jared takes the question of how to get light a second time to Lord and the Lord asks him what he thinks he should do. I was thinking about my mission and how I got an answer that I needed to be out here, and now the Lord puts a lot of faith in me to know what to do! I was thinking about how important prayer is and that when we really pray, that is when we build that relationship with Heavenly Father. Then when we follow the revelation He gives us, He puts more faith in us. I just love the scriptures. I am just about done reading the Book of Mormon a second time through out here. I'm learning so much from it.

I LOVE YOU ALL :)

there are signs like this all over town

March 11, 2013

Hi everyone :)

I'm doing so good right now :)

I"M GOING TO SALIDA :) I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!! It just feels right, ya know? Sister K is staying here in both wards and training two new girls. I will go to Salida and have one new girl. We are opening up the area, too. No missionaries were there this last transfer, so should be exciting. Training, flushing, and opening the area. Too crazy! It is kind of stressful, but pretty exciting. We looked up pictures of it and it looks so pretty. Looks like my kind of town. I hear it's kind of a hippie-ville. Can't wait. :) Hahaha. Salida has been requesting sisters for awhile now so I know the branch is really excited for us to come. I pray my new girl is great and that we find success there.

-----'s baptism was AMAZING. So amazing. SO MANY PEOPLE CAME. We have a huge relief society room and it was FULL. When he was baptized the spirit was so dang strong. After, while he was changing, I got to share the first lesson with everyone in the room. I was crying the whole time. I was just so overcome with the spirit. It was such a great moment for me to talk at his baptism.  He told his conversion story and the whole room was just silent. The spirit was so strong. Then, a member in the ward got up and started to cry as he presented the LDS artwork of "fishers of men." The ward pitched in to get it for him. The member read from the talk by Elder Holland called "the first great commandment".. He told ------ that he was now a disciple. It was truly amazing. The spirit was so strong.

The best part of the whole baptism, was seeing how happy he was. He looked different. He looked happy. I asked him if he was happy afterwards, he smiled, and said he was so happy.

I just can't get over how much the Lord is truly blessing me. We are seeing so much less active work done, investigators baptized, the ward becoming more unified, etc. It's just so great.

I have such a testimony of this gospel. I have a testimony of the power of prayer. I've truly come to understand that Heavenly Father is my Father. I know Jesus Christ died so that each one of us could live again. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that obedience is so important in this work. I love that each one of us have different personalities. Through our different personalities we can change peoples lives. What a blessing.

I love this gospel.

LOVE YOU ALL :)
MISS YOU, TOO.

-Sister Baker :)

Feb 11, 2013

So, this week was SOOOOOOO good. Oh My Gosh. Seriously. So good. Dangit, I forgot my planner, so lets hope I can remember everything haha.

Monday, as you know was pday and I found out I would be staying and getting a new comp. Tuesday, we spent saying goodbye to a lot of people and then Sister T packed up. Wednesday, we woke up, packed up the car, and went to transfer meeting. 21 new missionaries came to our mission, with 7 of them being sisters. AMAZING. The meeting was really long due to the amount of missionaries, but it was fun to see so many missionaries that I have served around. Then after the meeting, Sister Kartchner and I left and went back to our place.

Sister K is from Maryland. Well, she grew up in Utah, and moved to the East when she was 14. She has been out 1 transfer longer than me, so she is about to hit her year mark. She is seriously like my favorite companion thus far, and we have only been together for not even a week. I LOVE HER! We are so much alike, yet so different that it just works. She is so cool, and such a good missionary. She has a strong desire to be obedient and to work hard, just like I do, so we compliment each other well! Wednesday night I took her to meet the Arnolds because they are my favorite family and then we had correlation meeting so she got to meet the ward mission leader in Gleneagle ward. Wednesday night we stayed up talking for a little bit about how we both have felt that we were going to serve with each other since we met earlier in our missions. We know that we will only be together for this transfer because we are both training this upcoming transfer from what president has told us and so we talked about the work we have to do here. We both feel like so many miracles are on there way to us. We are excited to see the work move forward. Even Brother Sherwood, the member we live with, said that we are the dream companionship and that so much work will be done!

Thursday, we met with the ------. They are getting baptized March 2 at 630. I can't wait :) They are the cutest. Sister K already loves them! So it's just great! Then we had a lesson with ---- that night. AND OUR LESSON WENT SO WELL!  We watched the restoration with him, and talked about how before Joseph Smith prayed he experienced opposition.  I also talked about obedience. And that's what this is really about(thanks mom;)) So overall, great lesson.  The Lord is truly working through us.

We also went to the soup kitchen Thursday and it was so much fun! It was crazy... we got hit on a lot.. but it was fun! 

Friday was zone meeting and my new zone is awesome. We now have 6 sisters in my zone!!! How cool :) And my new zl's are SO cool. I'm just so excited about this transfer. After, Sister K and I called Sister Anderson, Presidents wife. And we went and saw her. She showed us all the new sisters, and told us how 7 are coming this next transfer and that she thinks a couple of the sisters who are available to train want train. We only have 8 sisters right now that could train. So she said some sisters who train will maybe train 2 people at once!!!! OH my gosh. Scary hahah.

Saturday we got up and a member had us over for breakffast.. then we went to the ------ and helped sister ------- out with the kids because she is pregnant and feeling sick! Then we had our sister missionary class which went so well!

The work is already moving forward with Sister K and I. And... I'm feeling so MUCH better. I feel like I have a sinus cold right now.. but that's nothing. I don't know what Sister T and I had to learn from each other from me being sick.. But I do know that things are getting better and I'm so excited about it. I feel good, I love the gospel, and I'm just happy. :)

Church yesterday was great! We were asked to share our testimonies in sacrament so that was fun to do!

OH man.... you guys have to watch this video on youtube. It's olympus highschool in utah... 80 kids have recieved mission calls. It's so touching. WATCH IT :)

Well, that is the updates.

I love you all :)

-Sister Baker

Dec 3 2012

Hello family :)

How are you all? I hope great! Sounds like everyones week was good.

So this week was pretty good! We did a lot of service and I felt like I had a really successful week. I have been exhausted all week... So I must be doing something right, right? hahah.

So get this........ ----- SAID HE WOULD BE BAPTIZED. How cool is that?!! He has been learning for like 4 months now and his wife, like I said, is a member. He hasn't wanted to commit to anything. But Thursday, we went and taught him. We originally planned to teach Plan of Salvation. BUT.. We changed it halfway through the day and decided we should talk on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have been praying really hard to know how to help him because I felt like I got transferred here to help him. Well, I had left him a talk last week to read.. The one by Elder Holland on the Book of Mormon and he told me that he loved the talk and gave me kudos for giving it to him. He said he wished the Sisters would of shown him the talk sooner. He said he almost cried because he felt the spirit so strong. Then we told him that we wanted to go over the pamphlet on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we opened it up, he said, "can we just go over one principle in this pamphlet? I want to talk about BAPTISM" WOOOOT! We were so happy. We started to talk about it and then he asked why his infant baptism didn't count. We then read Moroni 8 with him and he loved it. He said it made sense. Then he asked what all he needed to do to be baptized!!!! We told him we had like 3 more commandments to teach and that was all he needed before baptism. He said to teach him the rest and he would be baptized. He said he can't see himself going any other path now. I just sat there smiling. He asked me why I was smiling so big and I just proceeded to tell him how happy I am for him! Gosh, the spirit was so strong. Best thing ever knowing that you were supposed to teach someone and that they are going to get baptized. AWESOME! I love it. So we are excited for him. He should be baptized in a couple of weeks! :)

Then, a member in Northgate ward  referred a lady to us. She is about 70 and recently lost 3 important people to her. We taught her on Thursday as well and we taught the Plan of Salvation. She really enjoyed it and said she loved the part about the Spirit World. I told her that her family is hearing the same thing that we were teaching her right then. She liked the thought of that. :) So hopefully we see success with her.

This weekend we had the Creche activity at the church. There were hundreds of nativities set up and they also set up a live nativity outside of the church. Multiple singing groups came and performed and it was just awesome. I wish our stake did this activity. Almost everyone I met that came were not members. Fri and Sat night we were there from 5-9. We met a lot of people and got to enjoy the holiday spirit and show people around. The live nativity was amazing. Live animals and all. Then a slideshow after the performance. It was put together so well. While tracting the last couple of weeks we passed out a lot of flyers for it. We met a guy who went to New Life and wasn't interested but took a flyer. Well.. he totally showed up with his wife and even brought canned goods and stayed for awhile. We got to sit with him during the live nativity and I just pray they felt the spirit and come back. it was cool to see so many people from all over attend. 

This week we also set up the Christmas tree at the mission home with some other sisters. It was really fun to decorate a tree!

We also went to the cannery this week with our bishops wife and she brought 7 non-members!!!! It was so fun! Some of the people who went to the cannery also came to the Creche. Success! We got to talk a little about the church to some of them! The cannery was fun.. made me want to do food storage haha.

So that was pretty much the week! :)

Also, yesterday at church, we got to sit through two fast and testimony meetings which was awesome. First ward we went to they sang silent night and in the second ward I felt very prompted to bare my testimony on the song. When I went up I talked about how I love that the lyrics in the song say, "Silent Night, holy night, all is calm all is bright." I got to thinking about the glorious moment when the Savior was born and the true calmness that must of been there. At the Creche, watching it live... it was so peaceful and calm. Then I talked about being on my mission and how my relationship with the Savior has grown and it is making my life calm and bright. I testified that allowing the Savior in truly allows us to feel the beauty of who he is and the comfort he brings. I hope I helped somone because my heart was pounding like crazy hahah.

The Christmas Devotional was so good. I loved Pres. Uchtdorfs talk. It was great!

Anywho, that was my week.

Pretty sure we have somewhere for Christmas and Christmas Eve!

LOVE YOU ALL :)

MISS YOU ALL :)

Have a good week. Thanks for the letters.

-Sister Bake

Oct. 29, 2012

Welll hello family :)

HOW ARE YOU ALL?! Hope so great :) Hope your week was awesome.

P day was good this week thanks to all the birthday cards/money. :) We went shopping and had a blast. I was in need of a good shopping trip haha.

So in our mission we started a new program called ATM. This program has us set up appointments with members, have them pray to know of someone they can share the gospel with, we then share the story of Joseph Smith and bear our testimonies, and then ask the member to bear their testimony and then ask who came to mind. I was really kind of scared to start it. BUT this week we were given 5 names of people that members could talk to or that we could visit. It's been really cool.

Tuesday we went to the Hawkens and tried to program out on them. I began to cry as I shared the story of Joseph Smith. I don't usually get emotional as I share that story... but I couldn't help but keep crying. I just love the church and I'm so grateful it's been restored.

It's finally getting cold here! YAY! I've been wearing jackets and tights and scarves. I love it! :) We had a lesson with ------ this week. We didn't get to go to the temple Saturday but we should be going with him on Thursday! :) 

So we were tracting this week and as we were standing on this doorstep a car drove by and I made eye contact with the driver. Well, the people at the house didn't asnwer and we moved on. A couple minutes later that same car I made eye contact pulled into the driveway of the house that didn't answer. They had totally avoided us. hahah. SOOO, we went back and knocked on their door.. and now we have a return appointment with the lady who lives there and she is excited about the BoM... Persistence pays off :) hahah.

So this week, we have been feeling really down. We can't seem to find anyone to teach.. we have been all over the place and it's just been rough. BUT THE LORD PLACED MIRACLES IN OUR PATH YESTERDAY. Sis H and I have been trying to focus on making goals that are from the spirit and trusting that we can reach those goals. Well, yesterday morning we went to Westcliff to speak. I spoke on gaining our own testimonies and it went really well :) I talked about how I gained a testimony and the trials I faced. I used a lot of quotes from Elder Bednars talk this last conference called "Converted to the Lord." Westcliff is this crazy small town and the LDS church is literally a mobile home.... SO CRAZY haha. It was an hour away and we got to drive through the mtns. There was fire in the mtns. last week and we got to see the damage to some homes. SO sad. But anyways. It was fun to go to Westcliff. While speaking I bore my testimony on how the Lord places us in our families for a reason. I'm so grateful He gave me a family that would save me through my trials. Thanks fam bam :)

So once we got back to Pueblo we thought there would be no way we would reach our goals since the day was half way over. We had to go pick up our dinner calendar and I felt prompted to go tracting by the ladies house we picked our calendar up at. We needed 3 more baptismal invites and to find 2 people with date. We weren't finding much success but we decided to hit another street. We met a guy and we began to share about the BoM and then told him the story of Joseph Smith. He loved it and said he was searching for something like this :) MIRACLE. He accepted a date and is excited to have us come back. So that was one with a date, and we had gotten 2 invites out at this point. We needed one more invite and one more person with a date. It was getting pretty dark and we needed to get home. BUT we decided to talk to one person right when we were getting into the car. As we turned around a lady walked around the corner. We ran over to her and started to talk to her. She told us of her trials in life. I read Alma 7:11-12 with her and when I looked up tears were rolling down her face. She said she knew it was the word of God!!!!!!!! And we continued to testify. She said she recently became christian in Feb but doesn't have a church to attend. We bore testimony of ours and when we invited her to be baptized she looked down, paused, and said " I'm ready." OH MY GOSH. Such a miracle. She is having so many trials right now and is so excited to learn and be baptized now. The Lord truly provides when we are focused on His will, NOT ours. Happy Happy day :) What a great way to end the week. :)

Some crazy stories of the week. Some guy tried to bash with us for an hour. We just sat there testifying. Anyways, he asked what blessings I've seen since being a Mormon. I stated simply, "I'm happy" He said, "that's it?" I just smiled. Of course that is it!!!! That is all I need.  Adam fell that men might be, men are that they might have joy. It's sad that people don't understand that. So in talking to him, I gained a testimony of the fact that I'm happy and that my testimony has become more solid. I didn't feel any need to defend myself to him. I know what I know, and I love my testimony. :)

Needless to say, I'm so happy today. The church is true. I'm so blessed and I'm grateful I have a testimony. :)

I LOVE YOU ALL :)

MISS YOU ALL!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :) :) :)

-Sister Baker

Oct 22,2012

Hello familia :)

How are you all? I hope so great! :)

WOW.. This week was rough days.... Sis H got sick with my throw up sickness this week. And I had a cold all week.  But.. I do feel a lot better! I can't believe how sick I always am. It's probably because I'm so stressed out all of the time. But I guess it might just be the trial of my mission and I just get over it and move on.

For P-day.. there is a HUGE mural down by the river here. I kept singing "down by the river..."We took pictures down where all the artwork is. It was fun. The mural goes for sooo long. People just have drawn tons of stuff all over the place. It's like a huge graffiti wall. Pretty cool. So we had fun walking down there and talking about crazy missionary life hah.

Then Tuesday was interviews. They were really good. I had a good interview with President Anderson and then a good Interview with Sister Anderson.After interviews I have a deeper appreciation for them. President and I talked about training and how it's been going. I told him that I struggle sometimes with the aspect of perfection but that I truly loved Elder Uchtdorfs talk on happiness. We talked about how satan makes us feel discouraged and upset when we aren't perfect..and Heavenly Father just wants us to be our best. Perfection comes in the next life. It was really good to talk to him about it. We also talked about Willie and I started to cry because I'm just so happy that I got to teach Willie. President and I were both getting teary eyed talking about finding people we were meant to find on our missions. It was good. I'm grateful for him. We also have workshops on interview days and sis H was throwing up... she threw up like 5 times while at interviews sooo.. we left early and were in until Friday :( It was soooo aweful. I tell ya... missions are so hard and you are tired all the time.. and you just wish that you could stay in for a day and sleep... but then when you get to stay in.. it sucks. We were so dang bored. But so sick. Our district leader even asked us not to come to district meeting because he didn't want us to get others sick. I guess tons of people in our mission have been sick with the throw ups too. But like I said before.. staying in is hard.. but it's fun to get to know Sis H better. We played scrabble, phase 10, and life over and over again and just laughed as we layed there dying together. Toi took care of us too. She brought us dinner two nights and came and visited us haha. I love her so!

Friday we went out for a little bit. We saw ------- and I love her so much. I think I told you, but we had her write down 50 things that she loved about herself. She had a hard time doing it.. but finally got like 47 things or something like that. It was cool to read her list and see the talents that she has. She is awesome. I'm so excited to see her continue to progress. Hopefully we can get her to the temple again. We did some tracting too. So that was good. Then we went to the ------- and we had a birthday party celebration there too. We had cupcakes and everyone sang to me.. it was fun :) I love that family.

We went to the adult session of stake conference and it was really good! I sat with the Hamlers :) So that was fun. Then a guy named Constantine in my ward had us and the Elders over for another birthday party at his house. He bbq'd and had cake and ice cream. It was fun! I'm so grateful for all the people who celebrated my birthday with me!

Yesterday was regional stake conference.. did you guys have the same thing? It was pretty good. They talked about how we shouldn't be "usual". We need to be different as members of the church! Before stake conference.. there was a "new member meeting." The boyds and willie came. They all bore testimony and it was awesome :) Terrance.. who is 11.. got up and started to cry and said that Sis H and I were like his sisters. How dang cute. He is the sweetest kid. I love seeing the gospel change lives and feeling so much love for the people I get to teach.

Then we went to Toi's. You guys saw the pics :) It was a good day. I was so sad I didn't get to have you here for my bday... BUT..I'm so grateful I have Toi.. She made me feel right at home. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE GIFTS :) :) :) I loved them!!!!!!!

I miss you all so much. Love you all :)

-Sister Baker

Sept 24, 2012

Hello family :)

How are you all? I hope so great.

Well.. This week started out really rough. Sister Horrocks and I were beyond sick. lets just say having only one bathroom was rough. I think we had the flu. Along with that, we have still been super tired.. so It was a rough first few days of the week. We called our mission mother, sister anderson, and she advised to stay in until completely better because the sickness we had wasn't a good one! So we did stay in for awhile. But we do feel better. Still tired. But better. The doctors called and said that our results came back fine. Kind of disappointing because it would be nice to have something to cure us.. but oh well. :) I'm glad my body is doing better.
I was saying a prayer one morning and I thought.. "I'm actually grateful that I was sick with sister H." The reason? Because I love her more now. I feel like us being sick together allowed us to get to understand each other more and be able to serve one another. Our relationship became better from it. It's nice to look at the blessings that come in times of trial. :) So that's great.

Thursday we went out finally! I hated being stuck in our apt for so long. Oh my gosh it was aweful. As a missionary you get so tired and all you want to do is sleep.. but then when you are sick it's like you feel so bad for resting. Hahha. It's crazy. But Thursday we went and saw -----and we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ. She started to cry as we taught repentance. It was a good lesson. It made me look at the steps of repentance differently. I think sometimes we are repenting but if we make any sort of step backwards.. satan wants us to feel we haven't done any better. Repentance is simply striving to rid ourselves of the sin and not do it anymore. Too often we feel we have to be perfect in the process.. but we really dont. Then we saw ------- and also taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was also a good lesson. I am so excited for her to be baptized :) She is awesome. She gets baptized on sunday!!!!!!!! YAY!!!! :)

Friday we had district meeting on the subject of the atonement. It was really good! We also went to the Chile Festival with her and her boyfriend friday night! HOW FUN :) They close off a whole street downtown and set up booths and have green chile's burning and cooking and everyone is eating them and buying them! I tried jalepeno peanut brittle and chile frozen yogurt. The frozen yogurt was sick but the peanut brittle.. oh so good. It's crazy what they mix chile with at the festival. They have tons of booths and tons of food. Some members gave us some chile's and we are just loving eating them! So stinkin yummy. Everyone down here is proud that I love spicy food. Green chile is HUGE down here. So going to the festival was fun.

Saturday, We got to go to Springs to hear Elder Holland, Presidnt Gonzales, and Bishop Davies speak to us!!! HOLY GOOD.  It was soooooooooo coool. He was walking around the chapel we were in and just tearing it up! I love him. It really made me stop and think about my work. He talked about how this is a way of life. We never go back to normal. Sister Horrocks gave me a really good compliment. She told me that as Elder Holland talked about this being a way of life that she thought of me. She told me that I'm a missionary who is myself and how cool that is. I was grateful for her saying that! I have a lot of things I need to work on as a missionary and this week I'm working on being up and studying on time. So far.. the Lord is blessing me and I'm doing so much better. I love how much the Lord strengthens us when we ask. Elder Holland made me think about how we as missionaries get into routine. This isn't a routine. There is always so much to learn. I surely needed to have him come speak to me. I'm grateful for it.
While in springs we went to lunch with the sisters and went to this ice cream place with the biggest ice cream cones covered in cookies.  Also.. My hair is dark now. I hate it. But i'm trying to grow it out. And I thought I would maybe like dark short hair. But i seriously hate dark hair on me. I want blonde again. So hopefully I'll be dying it here soon. Haha. I can't wait for long hair again! Holy crap.
Then when we got home.. I felt prompted to go see a family. We had a really good visit with them and hopefully we can get them active in the church again!

Yesterday, we had stake conference and bishop davies came and spoke. ------- came and I think she liked it. We then gave her a church tour and showed her the baptismal font. SHe said how excited/nervous she is! I'm so happy for her :) I love her! Then we saw ----------  and he is good. We are planning to go to the temple with him here soon! I love the man! He reads his BoM all the time. It's so cool. Then I of course saw the Hamler family and cried when I saw them! It was so good to see someone I know! I chatted with them awhile. They are the coolest. I love them so!

Well that was about my week.
I love being a missionary. I love the work. I love the Lord.
THanks for everything everyone :)

Ps. I'm moving into a house on the 1st of OCTOBER :) YAY!!!!!!!!!!! CANT WAIT! IT's so cute.

LOVE YOU ALL!
-SIster Baker :)