Week 21: Mormon Hispanic Time

First off, about the title. On Saturday was the ward fiesta for "el dia de accion de gracias" or Thanksgiving. It was scheduled to start at 5:00 pm but since Hna Browning and I were in a lesson we didn't get there until 5:45. We pull into the church parking lot and there are four cars. FOUR CARS. Slowly, people start to show up. We said the blessing on the food at 6:30, but it really wasn't until 7 that most of the people showed up. Two hours late! That is what we call Mormon Hispanic Time at its finest.

Hermana Browning was sick this past week, so we spent all of Tuesday in the apartment. The poor thing literally slept all day. Some days when I'm super tired or super discouraged all I want to do is go back to the apartment. But never again. It was sooooo boring to be there all day. But it was good we took the day off because the next day Hna Browning was up and running again and we kept the work moving forward.

This week was New Missionary Training where Hermana Browning finally got her driving privileges and iPad! Yay! Finally!! At the meeting they talked a lot about extending commitments and making goals. Those are two things that missionaries do every single day, so it's best to get into the habit of doing them (and doing them correctly!) as early in the mission as possible.

Hna Browning, two kids from the primary, and I did a musical number in church yesterday. I played piano, one kid on the violin, and Hna Browning and the other girl sang "Grande eres Tu" (How Great Thou Art). It went really well!

I think in my last email I mentioned Erika, a lady we knocked into who let us right in! We had a super awesome first lesson, but then later that week she texted us saying thanks for our time, but she was going to stay Catholic. And we were so sad! But this past week we went back over anyway, and she let us in again. We found out she had told us to stop coming by because her husband is very Catholic and doesn't want their family changing religions. But Erika and her son Christian still were interested! So we taught her the story of Esther, and then fasted and prayed with her one day. She went to talk to her husband again at the end of the fast and..... He still hadn't changed his mind :( But we are not giving up! No way!

Welp, we don't have any investigators at the moment who are really progressing towards a baptismal date. The two progressing investigators we do have have some special circumstances where we can't set a date with them yet. But they are still doing great! And I hope that this upcoming week we can get a couple more people to start progressing in their knowledge and understanding of the gospel.

My ponderizing scripture this week is D&C 98:1 "Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks."

Isn't that the perfect Thanksgiving scripture?! There is so much to be grateful for, yet so much that we take for granted. So here's my little simple gratitude list for the day:

-The Book of Mormon and how simple it lays out the true doctrines of Christ

-The pleasant weather outside. It's perfect out there!

-The package from my family :)

-The Chick-Fil-A down the street and the workers who know us by name

-And most importantly the chance that I have to share the gospel, which has brought me so many blessings, with everyone that I see!

We are entering into one of my favorite times of the year. The holidays seem to bring out the best in everyone :) I hope you all have a great week! Love you so much!

Hermana Baker

This is Luis's cat. He let us missionaries name her! The elders tried to give her the name Adolf because of her mustache, so we ended up compromising and calling her "Addie"

This was the best smile I could get out of Luis.

I sure am grateful for these two and at how much they've continued to progress after their baptism! And also for Hermana Browning. She's so cute. :)

Week 20

Another week come and gone! I can't believe we're already halfway through this transfer!

Zone Conference was this past week. The whole meeting was focused on teaching more simply, boldly, and directly. We practiced teaching each other the lessons in under 5 minutes. It was a good eye-opener because when you have such a short amount of time, you're only going to say the most important things! Cut the fluff! It reminded me of what David A. Bednar said in conference... "When you can't do what you've always done, you only do what matters most." He was talking specifically about getting old, but I think it can apply here as well!

So Hna Browning has this phobia of not being able to eat meat if it's still on the bone. It grosses her out and she won't even touch it with a fork and knife. When she first told me that, my first thought was "It's going to be a long 18 months, Hermana!" That's basically all the members feed us! I don't know how, but somehow she went her first two weeks here without getting fed meat on the bone. BUT this week we went to eat with Hna Juarez and *duh duh duhhhhh* she dished us up plates full of chicken legs and chicken wings. There was no way out of it. I was nervous Hna Browning would offend the Hermana.. But she ate it! I was so proud!! And she didn't even look that nervous. Haha she said it was super hard though. To put it simply, missionaries can't be picky eaters. (Nathan, you better learn to eat your tomatoes and onions!)

Yesterday was la programa de la primaria. We have been going to primary these past couple Sundays to practice with them, because they needed me to play the piano. At all the practices we had, only 15 kids or so would show up. One week when it was raining, there were only 8 kids at church. But yesterday for the program I bet we had around 30 primary kids there, and they did so awesome! One kid got stage fright and started crying, but other than that I would call it a success! These sweet kids brought the Spirit so strong, and I don't know why but when the little 3 and 4 year olds speak Spanish I can't help but smile :)

Unfortunately, our most progressing investigator Israel didn't show up to church :( His baptism was scheduled for next week, but we are going to have to push it back. We have a lot of faith that it will happen soon, though! Just gotta keep working with him until something clicks!

One night this week we had an extra hour of no one to see, so we went knocking in a neighborhood and we knocked at this one house that had it's porch light on. Nothing. We knock again, and this time the porch light starts turning on and off really fast a whole bunch of times. Haha took us totally by surprise! I have never had that happen to me before! We knock one more time, just for kicks, and then they start knocking back on the door to us. Man, we couldn't hold it together after that. We were walking away laughing our heads off. Although I never met the person who lives there, I hope one day I will be able to thank them for making us laugh on a rather hard day. And then give them a pass-along card :)

On a spiritual note, this week as a mission we finished reading the Book of Mormon! President Drake gave us a reading chart so that as a mission we are all reading the Book of Mormon together. When I arrived we were in Alma. After reading Moroni 10 I took Moroni's challenge again, and prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. And, like always, Heavenly Father answered my prayer. Just because you've already prayed once about the Book of Mormon doesn't mean you can't pray about it again! And just because you've received an answer that it's true doesn't mean that you can't receive that answer again!

So I would like to encourage everyone to pray about the Book of Mormon, whether it be for the first time or the 100th :) Everything in the gospel relies on the fact that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, so if you want to strengthen your testimony, I would suggest starting there. I have felt my testimony grow so much, and I know that a lot of that is because of the time I've spent pondering and studying the Book of Mormon.

Have a great week!

Love always,

Hermana Baker

It was Sister Thayne's birthday last P-Day so we threw her a surprise party!

 Wouldn't she make a cute missionary?!

Aaaaaaand we really took no pictures this week so here's a selfie of us emailing :)

Week 19

What a good week! (I know I say that every week, but it's true!) We saw a lot of miracles, met a lot of new people, and received a lot of inspiration.

Last Tuesday, it was only 2 and all of our appointments for the afternoon had already cancelled. So we had nothing set until dinner that night at 7. We had no idea what we were going to do all afternoon! We found a trailer park to knock, said a specific prayer to find someone new to start teaching, and Heavenly Father poured out the blessings. We found 5 new investigators in that trailer park Tuesday afternoon! First was a 16-year-old boy, then a mom and her son, then another family who had been meeting with missionaries two years ago and decided they were interested again! So we could have had a miserable afternoon knocking trailers in the rain, but instead we taught three really good first lessons about the restoration. We are really excited to continue meeting with these people to bring them closer to their Savior and making the covenant of baptism.

Hermana Browning and I made a transfer goal that we want to find a family who is super prepared for the gospel that we can baptize next transfer. Thursday we found a family that we thought was it! They had just moved here from Mexico a month ago and know zero English, and they haven't found a church to go to yet. The spirit was so strong during the first lesson about the restoration of the gospel, and they accepted a baptism date for in December! But then, just this morning we got a text from them saying that they aren't interested anymore. Nooooooooooooo. We will try to keep being persistent, but at the same time we have to respect their agency. And hopefully the Lord is preparing another family for us to find and baptize!

For exchanges this past week, I got to go to Dayton again! Sister Casas is the new STL, so she came to my area with Hna Browning, and I went to Dayton with her greenie, Sister Melton. We had so much fun! I love getting to meet other members and investigators, and hearing their stories about meeting with the missionaries. So many members here are converts!

Yesterday, instead of normal church services, we had regional conference for the southwest United States. (I don't really think of Houston as southwest, pero lo que sea..) It was super awesome! First of all, because our investigator Israel came! This was his first time coming to church in over 3 years, and he said he really liked it! Second of all, we received some really good counsel from those who spoke. We heard from Lynn G. Robbins, Linda S. Reeves, Lawrence E. Corbridge, and then Dallin H. Oaks. I learned about the power of simplifying, both the things of the gospel, and the things in our every day life. We might have to give up some good things to fill our lives with things that are better or best.Then Dallin H. Oaks talked about the difference between being active in the church and being active in the gospel. Being active in church basically means you go to the meetings. But being active in the gospel means you're continually growing, studying, learning, repenting, and meaningfully taking the sacrament. We need to be active in the gospel, not just active in the church!

I think that about sums up the week!  Me encanta estar aqui en mi mision y se que hay personas aqui que necesitan este Evangelio! Me encanta compartir mi testimonio con todos los que conozco, y puedo sentir mi testimonio fortalecido mas y mas cada dia. Les amo!

Mateo 16:25

Hermana Baker

All of these birds reminded me of the short story/movie "The Birds." So creepy....

A member, Fernando Torres, takes us to Panda Express every Saturday. This week he bought us the cutest panda stuffed animals!

Service! The second councilor in the bishopric had his house flood last weekend, so us missionaries got together and spent a day helping him out. We found a box in his garage full of these matching hats so he let us keep them :)

(Hna Browning, me, Elder Wright, Elder Edward, Elder Knudsen, Elder Barrett)

Week 18

Well, I guess first I'll start off by telling about my new companion! Her name is Hermana Browning, she's from Kennewick, WA. She just graduated last June and did a summer at BYU. She's really good at playing the piano (yay! Now the ward has two piano players!) and she also can play the organ so hopefully she will teach me! We have already become really good friends, so I'm excited to spend these next two transfers together!

It's so weird being the "older companion" because I really don't have that much experience. But that being said, I have been able to see how much I've learned since coming into the field 3 months ago! Man, especially in my Spanish. From day-to-day I really haven't noticed an improvement, but when I step back and think about it, I can speak Spanish! I'm not fluent by any means, or even close. That will take time. But I can speak Spanish well enough to communicate and teach the Gospel, which means I can speak it well enough to fulfill my purpose as a missionary.

This week was a really good one! We taught a total of 19 lessons, which is about average for here, but the crazy thing was that we never taught the same person twice! We taught 19 DIFFERENT people! So we have a lot of people to work with, we just need to focus on helping them progress and keep their commitments.

Rosa finally came to church! She started being taught way back in June, and had gone to a session of General Conference in beginning of October, but yesterday was the first time she actually came to church. We had a really great testimony meeting, and she said she liked hearing the testimonies of all the members. Now that she's come once, I think it will be easier for her to come again next week.

Halloween as a missionary really isn't that exciting.. We had the ward Halloween party Friday night and that was fun! It was set up in the gym because of bad weather, but we had a bouncy house and lots of games and candy and food and everyone was in their costumes and such. Hermana Browining and I dressed up as missionaries. Classic. On Halloween, Saturday, we were required to be in by 7:00 instead of 9:00, so no trick-or-treating for us. But we still had fun and had our own little Halloween party, just us two :)

I think that about covers the week! We are enjoying the nice fall weather (which is actually only nice some of the time...).  And we are so excited that it's officially the holiday season! We may or may not have started listening to Christmas music back in September. Haha.

Thank you Nana for the package, and thanks Dad and the kids for the letters! Made my day :)

Moroni 7:45

I love y'all so much. Have a happy week!

Hermana Baker

Say hello to Hermana Browning! So excited she's here!!

Week 17

Thank you thank you thank you for the package! I loved it soooo much!! I already hung up the halloween decorations and I'm excited to listen to the CDs you sent :) This week was 105841384 times more interesting than last week, that's for sure! Where do I even start?

Monday was Zone P-Day we went to Art Rascon's house and all hung out there. He is in the mission presidency, and also is the main news anchor for ABC News, so he's pretty much famous! And he has a super nice house and the most beautiful family. And at the same time, he is the most generous person I have ever met. His life = my life goal.

Tuesday I went to Dayton on exchanges with Sister Wilson. We had such a fun time! At the dinner appointment, we had finished up eating and I was about to throw away my cheap Styrofoam plate, when the Sister looks at me and says, "Oh, actually we wash those." And I kinda laughed, but then Sister Wilson was like, "No, she's serious." Oh shoot! Okay! They told me it was Sister Casas' turn to do the dishes, and since I was there instead, that it was my turn. So I start washing all these Styrofoam plates, and when I look over at the family and Sister Wilson they just start busting up laughing. They were all playing a prank on me. Man, it was a good prank too. I totally fell for it. So that was funny, and embarrassing!!

Friday we went to the temple to do baptisms with Geronimo and Luis!! Suuuuuper special and spiritual experience. It was really difficult to figure out a ride to the temple, but everything finally ended up working out. I was talking to Luis after and he said that when he was being confirmed he felt a firm and gentle power that started at his head and just flowed down through his whole body. How cool! They both did 12 names. Luis was even confirmed for someone named William Baker! Who knows, it could be one of my ancestors!! This is an experience that I know both of them will always remember, and I will always remember it, too. Next step: help them find their own names so they can do the work for their own family.

The whole week we had soooooo much foooooooood. Because it was Hermana Bonar's last week, everyone was all of a sudden willing to feed us. Even some of her recent converts from her other areas came up and took us to eat. Saturday was definitely the worst day though. We had a brunch, two lunches, and a dinner. We thought we were going to explode we were so full. But Heavenly Father definitely helped us out with that one, and we're still alive, so no worries there!

As missionaries, we don't get to watch the news and we hardly know what's going on with the weather. But we were given a whole bunch of flood/hurricane warnings this weekend because of HURRICANE PATRICIA. Apparently, it's one of the biggest hurricanes the world has ever seen... We got a lot of rain, but no flooding or anything so that's good. The rainiest day was Saturday, which also happened to be what's called Spoke N Pedal, where we can't use the car until 5:00 pm. Oh, the joy, of riding bikes in the pouring rain.

Yesterday I received some of the most scary/nervous/exciting/mostly-scary news I have every received in my whole life...... I'M GOING TO BE A TRAINER. Aaaaahhhhhhhhh. Don't try to think about it logically, because it doesn't make sense! There are only two new hermanas coming out, and plenty of other hermanas who have much more experience than I do. I mean, I literally just got done being trained myself yesterday. But that being said, I have a lot of trust in the mission president. So today at transfer meeting I will pick up my greenie and the adventure will begin! Neither of us will know what we're doing, neither of us really speak the language, but we're going to do all we know how and let the Lord do the rest.

Through pure inspiration, one of the APs, Elder Mitchell, called me last night just to check up on me and see how I was feeling. He shared something that has stuck with me that I would like to share with y'all. Ether 12:27 says the Lord has given us weakness. Not weaknesses (plural), but weakness. In other words, he has allowed us to be weak. How lucky are we to have the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ, so that this weakness in us will be made strong! And all we have to do is turn to Him. It really is that simple.

This next week is going to be a challenging one that's for sure. But I feel your prayers strengthening me every day, and I know everything is going to work out the way the Lord has planned.

Love you so much!

Hermana Baker

We love love love the Houston Temple.

The Pine Trails ZLs were so awesome and came and helped us do service for one of our investigators this week!

Zone P-day!

Saying goodbye to Hermana Bonar! I'm going to miss her SO MUCH!

A package was JUST WHAT I NEEDED after biking around all day in "Hurricane Patricia". Best family ever!!

Week 16

Buenooooo.

So, being honest, this week was not a super exciting one. All of our investigators that could be progressing didn't come to church and we have had appointments cancelled left and right.

But that being said, my own personal testimony has been strengthened a lot! On Thursday we had President Interviews/Training. President Drake is one smart man. He was able to answer all my questions that I had and gave some really good advice. This interview that I had with him confirmed my testimony that he is a man called of God and that he is presiding over this mission with authority and revelation. After the interviews, the Assistants had us pray for 10 minutes that we would have a open mind about what we were going to do next, and then we sat down and wrote ourselves a letter from Heavenly Father. It was such a cool experience! Part of prayer is listening to receive revelation, and when we actually took a minute to write down those revelations, I really noticed how much Heavenly Father has to say to us!

Well I wish I had more to say! This upcoming week is Hna Bonar's last, meaning transfers next Monday and a new companion! I have learned so much from Hna Bonar and its gonna be hard and weird to have her go.

I will make sure to have some super experience to share next time to make up for this week's letter :)

Love, Hermana Baker

We eat dinner with Hna Villareal every Thursday and every time we drive through the gate her 3 HUGE dogs come charging at us. The first time this happened I was terrified, but they're nice so it's all good :)

Week 15

At the beginning of this week Hugo calls us saying that he never wants to see us again, that he's done taking the lessons, that he doesn't want to go to church, that he's giving up. Hna Bonar and I were so confused! He bore his testimony in sacrament testimony meeting the week before conference and now he never wants to see us again?! So we were super worried, but then we go over to Luis's house a few days later and Hugo was there. And he's all happy to see us and said he just was tired and depressed that day, but that actually he's ready to be baptized. Haha okay.

President Drake has asked that the missionaries start doing 10 hours of service week. Hna Bonar and I had no idea how we were going to find 10 hours worth of service to do!! Saturday we were riding our bikes and passed a senior center and decided to stop in and ask if they took volunteers. And turns out we came just in time for.... BINGO!! Wooohoooo! They let Hna Bonar and I be in charge of bingo -- one of us would call out the numbers and hte other would translate for these two old Hispanic ladies who were sitting in the back. It got pretty intense in there, these people take their bingo very seriously. Hopefully this becomes a weekly thing because it was super fun! :)

Other than that this week was pretty normal. The familia Muniz, Carlos, and Rosa are all progressing towards baptism, slowly but surely. The members are always so kind in feeding us and coming with us to lessons. Luis got the priesthood yesterday. Good week!

The scripture I will be ponderizing this upcoming week is Matthew 7:21 about how we can't just say "Lord, Lord" and get into the kingdom. We have to DO the will of the Father. That's something a lot of people don't understand. Or they do understand it, but still don't do it! And as a missionary, my purpose is to help people understand the importance of following the example of Jesus Christ and doing the will of the Father.

That's all for this week! I hope y'all have a good one :) LOVE YOU!

Hermana Baker

On exchanges we saw this sign above the phone booth: CALL GOD. So of course we had to take a picture. Haha we're such missionaries. (Sister Boyd, me, Sister Thayne) 

BINGO!

After church yesterday, Hermano Fernando Torres held a spontaneous class we called "How to Tie a Tie 101". Carlos, Geronimo, Hna Bonar, and I all learned how to tie a tie, although we clearly need a little more practice haha.

Nothing beats a Texas sunrise.