Week 23: Busy Busy Busy

Transfers today! Hermana Browning and I are staying here in West Lake Houston South (which was kinda a given because I'm training her) and we are so excited! We didn't see a baptism this last transfer, but we have a lot of people with the potential to get baptized in the next six weeks. It's so crazy that by the time I do get transferred, I will have been in this area for 6 months of my mission!

The best word to describe this week is busy. We taught a lot of lessons, and found 10 new investigators! The Talavera Family, the Ramirez family, and then 3 other old, single Hispanic men (haha classic). All of them seem super interested and we're excited to have them meet the members and learn more of the gospel!

Hermana Browning is improving a lot in her Spanish, and it makes me so excited and happy to see her start to be more and more comfortable in the lessons and talking with members and contacting Hispanics in the streets. She even bore her testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday! The gift of tongues is real.

One of our new investigators we found yesterday night. His name is Julian, and we had contacted him a few weeks ago, but never got a hold of him again. After our appointment fell through, we walked past his trailer and the light was on! So we knocked, he let us right in, and said he'd been hoping we'd come by. Apparently, we had just been coming by at all the wrong times. Anyway, he had talked with missionaries in Mexico before. And although they had taught him and informed him a little bit about our church, they never invited him to do anything. So when we gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read it, and invited him to church, and then to baptism, he was so excited! He recently got divorced, and says he feels really alone. We found him at just the right time. Well, more like the Lord led us to him at just the right time.

Elder Knudsen, the district leader, is getting transferred today :( He always had the best district meetings! We would do scavenger hunts, FHE-type meetings where we brought all the couches in and had a Christmas tree and everything, act out the story of manna when talking about daily contact. And his district meeting on Friday was no exception. We were talking about the commitment pattern (Teach, Invite, Promise, Testify) and he pulls out this rotisserie chicken. Then, Elder Wright had to commit Hermana Browning to eat a piece of chicken. Remember, she has a really bad phobia of bones in her meat. Oh, it was so mean. And so funny. But hey! After enough explaining and persisting and testifying and promising, she did it! It was a perfect example of us as missionaries committing our investigators to do things. Sometimes, they won't want to do it, but if we are persistent and powerful, they will soon understand that we are doing this because of our love for them and because we know it will bless them.

I am learning so much every day. It's crazy to think of who I was before, to compare that with who I am now, and then to imagine who I can become. The Lord loves us so much, and I am so blessed to be able to feel a little part of that love for the people here in Houston.

Con amor,

Hermana Baker

For FHE we helped the Serrano family decorate their Christmas tree, and then taught piano lessons. So fun!

Hermana Ferreyra was trying to teach me how to cook... It was a struggle.

A few weeks ago when Hna Browning was sick, I made these visuals for teaching the Plan of Salvation. We had so much fun teaching it to the Perez family this week, and then having races to see who could put it together the fastest!

I have become the master planner-maker.