Bring a raincoat!!

One thing I've learned in Florida this week. If it looks like it's
going to rain- bring a rain coat. If it doesn't look like it's going
to rain- bring a raincoat. Flash floods on bikes are pretty fun haha.
While riding along the side of the road it was fun waiting for the
wave of water to hit us as each car passed by- I felt like we were in
the splash zone at sea world world waiting for shamu as it goes around the tank splashing everyone.

Alright....drumroll please.....this week we had....TWO BAPTISMS AND CONFIRMATIONS!! Sooo pretty much this week was amazing but also super hard haha it was not easy getting these baptisms!

We felt inspired to set a goal of one baptism and confirmation and put all of our missionary superpowers into getting at least one of our investigators ready for baptism, either Alfredo or Magaly. It was weird going into the week just knowing that somehow we were going to have a baptism but not being sure who it was going to be. But it was because we had set that goal and prayed about it that we knew that we had to work as hard as we possibly could to get it. And let me tell you we did. it took a long hard week of lessons and preparing and working and praying and more praying with a little prayer in between but we did it with a ton of help from The Lord and the good old Espiritu Santo!! Magaly was baptized on Sunday and Justin (yeah Justin who kind of came up from behind and surprised us all because we didn't even have a reset date with him) was baptized on Saturday! Because getting that baptism was our entire focus of this week we were helped in so many ways to not only reach our goal but to go beyond it.

We also had intercambios or exchanges this week for a day and I was kind of looking forward to going to a different area, meeting the other sisters investigators and not really having to plan anything buuuut apparently Heavenly Father had other plans because instead of the trainee leaving their area to go do exchanges with the sister training leader In their area like they usually do they told us that I would be staying in our area amd Newbill would be leaving. Hahahaha I was like yaaaayyy I get to take care of our area all by myself for a day this should be great. I was nervous but  I'd like to let you all know that I survived, Bradenton didn't burn down, our investigators didn't dump us, I'm not being transferred, and that I haven't been fired as a missionary so i guess it was pretty successful. I have like a phobia of talking to people on the phone in Spanish though so that was probably the worst part of it all was having to be in charge of doing that all day. Usually Hna Newbill will force me to do it sometimes and I'll call them...start asking them a question then they will answer and I won't know what they're saying panic and throw the phone back at Newbill and not having her there for me to do that was hard but I learned that I can manage if I pretty much just say what I called to say then hang up haha.

One other thing that happened this week was that we had a lesson with a referral from the missionaries in another area with a lady named Marcella. So we go to her house and we taught her about the restoration and she loved it and the spirit was so strong that we even

got her to cry like 3 times during the lesson. Then we asked her if she would end the lesson with a prayer and if in it she would ask to know that Joseph smith really was a prophet for her self and she was like oh yeah of course I'll do it! Then she right away just bows her head and closed her eyes and we were like oh wow ok she's starting guess she doesn't want to be taught how to pray so we closed our eyes and waited for her to start....and then she didn't and we were sitting there like ok is she confused about how to pray? is she just feeling the spirit? did she pass out? Should we check for a pulse? So we look up and she's like whispering to herself so we're like ok ok she's alive she's just praying to herself this is cool we can go with this so we kind of just sit there to wait till she finishes. A minute goes by...then another...then five...and she's STILL PRAYING. At this point it's been like 10 minutes of us sitting in silence with me and Hna Newbill passing looks at each other like what the heck are we supposed to do how long is this gonna last while trying not to laugh in case she suddenly stopped praying and saw us. I felt like Ammon when he went to the King Lamont and it says "14 Therefore Ammon turned himself unto the king, and said unto him: What wilt thou that I should do for thee, O king? And the king answered him not for the space of AN HOUR, according to their time, for he knew not what he should say unto him." I've always wondered how that went down...Ammon and the King just sitting in silence for am hour and now more than ever I wonder how they did it because we were dying after like 10 minutes. After moving around and coughing didn't stop her, at about minute 13 I was just like ok this needs to end and was like Hermana...como se siente? And she stopped and was like I feel so peaceful  and calm right now...it's beautiful. Thank you so much for this. Then we invited her to be baptized and she didn't even hesitate before answering "Ok WHEN??" we were like woah there now that's the kind of answer we've been looking for. I was like how about October 25? She said What time?? Hahaha she's awesome! Definitely worth the 13 minutes of awkward silence!!

Well that's about all for this week and officially the end of my first transfer out in the mission field and the baptism yesterday was a great way to end it. , I'll talk about the investigators who were baptized more when I send pics of it later! Love you all amd hope youhave a great week!

Hermana Baugh

This is Magaly! She's been investigating the church for like a yr and a half and has gone through probably 20 missionaries but has come to church like every Sunday so everyone thinks that her and her kids are members so they were kind of like undercover investigators. But she had to get married before she could get baptized so that's what took her awhile but her and her husband got married a few weeks before I got here. Then she still wasn't sure if she wanted to get baptized because she was scared because she would be breaking the traditions of all her family which are super catholic. But she knows this church is true she has such a strong testimony of it. So after our discussion with her on Sunday we asked her to pray about being baptized this weekend and she said she'd tell us her decision on Tuesday. We went over to her house on tues and read 3 ne 27 together and talked about why baptism is so important and how it's the gate we need to enter through to the path that leads to eternal life and she was like Hermanas I'm ready to enter that gate and inside we were screaming and jumping and crying tears of joy and fist pumping and shouting hurrah for Israel but we kept our cool on the outside  but ah man we were just soo happy for her to finally realize that she was ready for herself. We had the baptism after church on Sunday and the branch pretty much made it like a party because they've been waiting for this day for so long. There was so much love in that room! Haha And also food so that was good too! The other picture is of her family and we are teaching her daughter who will be baptized soon. And her husband I'm sure will too all in due time haha.

So this is Justin. The missionaries found Justin like 2 weeks before I got here. They had been trying walking up to people and asking them the question "have you been baptized?" And had been getting a lot of blank stares until they met Justin who was taking out the trash and said " hey you know that's funny you ask that because I just baptized myself in my hottub last night" in all seriousness haha. So they offered to teach him how there was a proper way through proper authority that we needed to be baptized...bc I've got a feeling baptism by hottub doesn't quite cut it. But anyways Justin was supposed to get baptized 2 or 3 weeks ago but wasn't ready bc he said he didn't have a testimony about prophets or Joseph Smith yet. So we taught him more about that and gave him lots of stuff to read and watch and then this week we went by to teach him on Wednesday and he was super happy to see us and in a super good mood and he proudly showed us a stack of all the pamphlets we'd given him and the restoration movie saying he'd watched it twice and read everything and he understood and knew it was true now! He was like alright I'm ready now when can I get baptized?? 3 days lata....waabaam baptism! There was a lot of ward members there at the baptism bc there had been a wedding at the church right before for one of the English elders investigators (it was so weird it was like 10 minutes long we got to see it) so everyone just stayed for Justin's baptism after. Then one of the members took everyone out to dinner but we couldn't go because we had a teaching appt so we were like "fly little bird fly" and Justin went out with his new ward family and will hopefully live happily ever after. He's so great though and it's amazing to see how much his faith and testimony has grown these past 6 weeks. That's our district leader who baptized him.

 

 

An Epic Week!!

 Our First Baptism--Hilario

Well this week has been pretty epic. Started off on Monday with a big combined district/zone meeting about how we can hasten the work more in our areas. We were challenged to make a goal of how many baptisms we think we could get in our area before the end of the year and compy and I each prayed and thought for a minute then turned to each other and both said 10 at the same time! It's like that thing we'd do where you say "what's the probability that I'm going to do this" and if you both say the same number at the same time you have to do it so yeah now we have to do it! And I truly honestly believe we can with the help of the branch and of course The Lord! We're calling them Los Cortez Díez (we are in the Cortez Spanish branch) -and  I thought that was pretty clever if I do say so myself. President wants us to eat, sleep and breathe baptism. So no more distractions! Every time we think of home or of things we used to do, movies we used to see or songs we used to sing it takes us out of the missionary mindset, it takes us away from thinking about our purpose as missionaries. Even if it is for just a few seconds. I re read DC 4 this week and verse 5 which says "And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work." Really stuck out to me. I need to have an eye single to the glory of God if I want to be a successful missionary and do the work that I have set my life aside to do for 18 months right.  

So something that we did this week was called Metro where a few new trainees at a time will go to Tampa for 2 days and practice street contacting people all day in the city. So basically it's like a mini boot camp where all the greenies walk around a big city nonstop talking to people to remind us how awkward we are just in case we forgot.  So I've come to learn a few things about people. Hispanics are the ones you want to talk to. They're so nice and accepting about everything and just want to invite you to their homes and feed you amd talk about Jesus Christ. You say " want to be baptized?"" Oh yeah yeah" " we have a living prophet who leads and guides us today"  " Que bueno que bueno" " you know we've got this book of scripture about Jesus Christ when he came to visit the people in the ancient Americas" "ohh si sí.." But I feel like nothing phases them though haha like they don't really realize how important and real the things we're telling them are. But after being in the city for a few days I've realized that white people on the other hand are just plain mean. You even mention the words Jesus Christ or baptism and the flight or fight response kicks in and they either bolt or start yelling at you. One cool thing that happened though was that we stopped this guy walking across the street and asked him if he had been baptized (because asking bold questions like that is the only way to get people to stop) and it turns out this guy had been taking the missionary lessons from some sisters here and had a baptismal date but then both those sisters ended their missions and no one had been able to contact him since then because of problems with his phone. He said that he's still been reading the Book of Mormon and definitely still wants to get baptized though! So we got his new information and he'll be able to meet with the missionaries again now! There was a big storm and it was pouring for like the rest of the night so we didn't really talk to any one else because no sane person wanted to be walking around in that rain with us but it didn't bother us because we were just happy that we'd found that one person. - so after not being in our area for almost 3 days and a baptism on Saturday we were feeling pretty anxious to get back and get back to work. 

We had a lesson with Alfredo- the 40 yr old guy who doesn't have a leg- who has a baptismal date set for next Saturday. We talked about his baptism and he said he's afraid to get baptized because he's still confused and doesn't think that god has answered his prayers to know which church he wants him to join yet. He prayed to end the lesson (in English) and it was probably one of the most sincere prayers I've ever heard...he just wants to know the truth and which direction god want a him to go so bad! But it was cool because after the prayer he was like wow...I didn't even mean to say that in English it just happened! He said that I have been an inspiration to him and that ever since the first lesson I came to when I said I had prayed and fasted to learn Spanish better he has been doing that to learn English. And he said he's seen it working for me because every time we have a lesson my Spanish is better and he was like and I guess God is helping me now too! 

Later that night.....HILARIO WAS BAPTIZED!! wooh first baptism!!! Hilario is in his 40s and was a media referral that we've been teaching for a few months. He has a lot of medical problems with his head and getting migraines and was really nervous about the actual baptism part but he was like "I know that this is the only path that leads to salvation so I'm gonna do it". He's awesome. We were planning on giving a presentation and singing at the baptism so I was pretty nervous too but I prayed right before not to be and everything went really smoothly haha and I remembered all my Spanish! Two people even started crying during our song! Not sure if it was because of the sprit or because they wanted us to stop but we're going to go with the spirit. Hilario said we sounded like angels...I think that's because he's used to hearing our ward of Hispanics sing and let's just say that Hispanics aren't the best of singers in the world haha so anything  in comparison sounds like the Mormon tabernacle choir. But the spirit was so strong during the baptism. And Alfredo was there too so we were praying so so hard that he would feel it and change his mind and want to be baptized next Saturday. 

Sunday is called Gameday in our mission because it's the most important day of the week. It's when we suit up (more than we usually suit up) and go and make stuff happen because we've got our members and our investigators all together stuck in the same building together for 3 hours. I'm gonna be honest, talking to members kind of scares me and I've kind of been trying to avoid it these past few weeks. But one of the AP's promised me during a training we had that if I personally would talk to every person I came across at church on Sunday, we would have more work to do. Phew so I was like ok shoot guess I've got to do this now. And I did! I talked to everyone I could on Sunday and one member said he's going to brings us a list of his friends for us to teach, one member said she's going to start coming with us to lessons on Wed. mornings and another set us up to teach her friend she had brought to church that day. MILAGROS. Then we got a text from Alfredo talking about the baptism saying "Hermanas...I loved the baptism!! I WANT THE HOLY GHOST WITH ME FOREVER!!" Then during church we were meeting with the ward mission leaders and one felt inspired to pull out Magali (a lady who has been investigating for a yr and a half and has had like 50 baptismal dates and has one for this next Saturday too) and we had a super spiritual surprise lesson and she says she knows she needs to get baptized she's just really scared because all of her family since like the beginning of time has been catholic. They gave her a blessing and she said she would pray and decide if she will be baptized on Saturday and tell us at our lesson with her on Tuesday. Ahh!! One way or another I really believe that we can have another baptism next Saturday....just not entirely sure who it's going to be yet! -

Sorry last one... but remember justin? He's the English guy we're teaching who was supposed to be baptized 2 weeks ago but didn't believe in Joseph smith or prophets and then we weren't able to get a hold of him for a week and a half. Well we were able to have a lesson with him about prophets and the restoration this week and gave him a lot of material about Joseph smith and he said alright I'm gonna study up on this! And he told us he finally got a job as a carpenter (and not as a wine expert which is what he was trying to get) and didn't have to work Sundays so basically an answer to all of our prayers. He said now that I got a job I need something new to pray about so I guess I can pray about this stuff! We were like hahah yeah that would probs be a good idea. But anyways he came to church on Sunday too and was probably the happiest I've seem him in a while. He said he woke up with a really good feeling about going to church today and he felt like it was destiny or fate or something  how all the talks were about something he needed. I know it's not destiny or fate but that it is God preparing his children little by little, giving them just enough to build their faith until they are ready take the next step. Miracles are happening every day here and I feel so blessed that we have so many people to teach here and so many who are progressing towards baptism. I feel so blessed that I get to be a part of the work that is happening here.  Pray for Magali and Alfredo this week that their prayers will be answered.Paz y bendiciones de su Hermana en Florida

Love Hermana Baugh

Miracles on the mission!

 Me and Hermana Newbill enjoying our favorite corn on the cob

So this was just another week full of lots of Milagros, espanol, y saduro so I'll just give you guys some if the highlights of my week- experience number one: we were running kind of late for an appointment but we had to stop by the church really quick to pick something up for the elders in our district. We walked into the family history center and walked by the door to the computer room and the phone started ringing. So we unlocked it and answered it and turns out it was this lady from virginia who's non member daughter had just moved to Bradenton and she wanted to find someone to give her daughter a ride to church and to teach her about it. We were like hey what do you know that's kind of exactly what we gave up our lives to do for 18 months so I mean we can help you with that! We ended up going over to her daughters house that night and they live in a really African American neighborhood. Like seriously every single person was African American haha and man they were giving us looks. But she answered the door and we had a really good lesson about the restoration with her and her three kids! And all of them came to church and loved it! We couldn't get over how amazing it was that we happened to be in the church at the same exact moment that this lady's mom called. And what's even weirder is that she called the family history center room, pretty much the only room that we have a key to open! I know God is preparing people to hear about the restored gospel and receive it's blessings and if we as missionaries are doing everything we can to be obedient and hard working, we will be able to find them.- 

There was another day this week where we were on bikes and I had worn the wrong skirt and it kept getting stuck in my wheel ever 5 minutes and something was wrong with my seat and it wouldn't stay up haha so there was that to deal with too and the first two people we biked out to see weren't at their houses soo to say the least I was not in the best of moods. But then we decided to go and visit this referral that we'd received for a friend that was in the hospital who had just miscarried their baby of 5 months. It took us forever to bike there and then actually finding her room was a whole other story. But when we finally got there and walked in this lady was so happy to see us. Like her face just lit up. She said I never get visitors, please stay! We didn't have much time but we did get to show her Because of Him ( again I command you to watch it if you haven't already) and talk a little about the plan of salvation and testified to her that Christ not only suffered for our sins, but had felt all of our sorrow and that she's not alone. We testified that she would see her baby again...and at this point she just broke down crying and I got pretty close but I was like nope I'm not gonna do this I'm not gonna do this. We asked her if we could come back and visit her again and she said yes come every day if you can! I walked out of that hospital room with a completely different attitude. Like I can't even describe it...I just felt so genuinely happy. Like all I wanted to do was just to go to every single room in the that building and tell them that they have a Heavenly Father that loves them. A Savior who has felt every single pain and sorrow that they have and knows us and how to comfort us completely. That God really does have a plan for us. That we really can live in a state of never ending happiness with our families. I've kind if been asking myself why we need to do missionary work. I'd ask myself...why do we need to share the gospel if everyone is just going to have the opportunity to accept it after they die too? Why don't we just burn everything and do baptisms for the dead? Haha I mean yeah this would be the easy way, but God wants us to have the opportunity now. There are people who are suffering from guilt, from losing loved ones, from depression and hopelessness and loneliness. Yeah everyone's going to find out eventually that this really is the true church and that this stuff is real, but God doesn't want to make his children wait for happiness. He didn't send us here to torture us...we came here to learn and to grow and to have joy. That's why he sent his son to atone for us. So that we can get back up on our feet and be happy. And that's why we need to share the gospel now because people need it now. Alright enough of the monologue where was I... - 

So I've talked a lot about Gino, the guy with the drinking problem who asked us to help him " change his life" and he's been making so many improvements. He hasn't drank in almost two weeks and has come to church every Sunday since we started teaching him and reads in the BoM every day! We've been praying to find him a good fellowshipper and member to come to lessons with us and I wanted to try and find someone who had had a problem with alcohol In the past. But the only one who is usually able to come is Hermano calvillo who's in the presidency and is always really busy so we feel bad asking him to come all the time. But he says he loves coming and helping us... He says he loves feeling the spirit and seeing people change. But anyways so we were having a lesson about the plan of salvation and Hermano calvillo shared like his life story about how he used to be an alcoholic but met his wife who was a member and wanted to change. He got baptized 2 years after they got married and it changed his life and he's never been happier. I'm butchering the story and can't really convey in words how strong the spirit was while he was bearing his testimony but yeah Gino was really moved by his story. And they like love each other now. Like every lesson we have they just stay after and talk for a long time or go to dinner and it's so cool I feel like we gave birth to this friendship. Working with members really is the way to do missionary work though. Like I'm serious everyone at home needs to go find their missionaries and tell them you want to help and to come to lessons because if really makes a huge difference. Not helping the missionaries and going to lessons before my mission is now one of my biggest regrets. - alright last thing: Spanish update. I CAN ROLL MY Rs NOW PEOPLE I CAN ROLL MY Rs. Anyone who knows me knows that this is probably like the biggest miracle of the week. I'm not very good at it but it's there. Haha i just randomly tried to say the word jarro (pitcher) and it just happened! We were walking through a park and I started yelling and jumping around I was so excited haha. It was like a baby saying their first word. But alright so that's about it for this week:) Paz y bendiciones to you all, love and miss you! Go and teach a lesson with your missionaries this week!!

Love Hermana baugh

2 months!!

Maddi and her bike

Today we are having a zone p day all day in Sarasota so I don't have as much time to write but I'm really excited because we get to play sports and eat food and kind of be normal people with all the other missionaries in our zone for a few hours haha so I'm looking forward

to that.

Well this week wasn't quite as busy as last week. I think most of that was because our miles for our car got cut down so I got to experience the life of a biking missionary for a few days. Sooo much fun. Especially when you ride through forests of gnats that get literally everywhere or when you run over innocent geckos every five minutes or your skirt keeps blowing up for all the world to see or the clouds decide that when we are on bikes would be a good time to start pouring rain. Yup you gotta love it. I also learned the hard way several times that it takes a surprising amount of skill to successfully dismount a bike without getting your skirt caught on the seat. I'm still trying to decide if people think it's weirder to see guys in white shirts and ties or girls struggling to ride in dresses and skirts on bikes. I keep telling myself that If we aren't able to teach everyone we see about the gospel at least we are able to provide everyone who sees us with some comic relief during day.

Haha a few days ago Hermana Newbill heard what does the fox say playing from someone's phone for the first time and I kindly explained to her that that song is a witness of what society has come to while she's been gone and one of the reasons I decided to serve a mission. She's been singing it like non stop though and is right now which is what reminded me of it. I thought I'd left that song behind...but somehow it's still found me. I'm just scared for what's going to come out next during these next 18 months.

So we were planning on having Justin's baptism next week and I was really excited for it. I thought that Justin was so ready... He's been coming to church and he even surprised us and said he really listened to the talks last week about prayer and liked what one of them said about fasting and had fasted all day to help him find a new job. He said "fasting isn't that bad...I've already fasted so many times for wrestling and I didn't even know it!" But anyways so we kind of went over the baptismal interview questions with him before church because he was getting it afterwards but he kind of freaked out when we asked if he believed Joseph smith was a prophet and that Thomas s Monson is our prophet today. He just didn't understand anything about prophets...even though we've taught him about them a lot. I guess he hadn't felt like it was necessary to pray to know if they were real because he just likes facts and that's the way that he wants to know that they are real soo yeah we've got some more teaching to do and the baptism is a no go:( hopefully we can help him come to realize that knowledge about spiritual truths needs to come in a spiritual way- through prayer and through the Holy Ghost- and not just from hearing facts and stories. He looked really uncomfortable in fast and testimony meeting though...haha I never thought that I'd feel stressed during sacrament meeting but I was honestly kind of scared for what the members would say in their testimonies because I knew how big of an impact it would have on Justin. I just hope he doesn't give up on learning more about the church.

So I think I kind of explained a little about Gino last week but he's the guy that came up to us and asked to be taught because he has an alcohol problem and really wants to change his life. I think he thinks we're like his best friends or his counselors now though..he literally texts or calls us every day. We met with him on Saturday night and he was feeling so bad because he'd drank again a little bit. We showed him the Hope of Christ's Light ( go watch it if you can it's really amazing) and taught a little bit but at the end of the lesson as we

were starting to leave he took out his wallet and pulled out some cash and gave it to us saying please just keep this for me and give it to me tomorrow at church...I don't want to spend it on alcohol! Then closed the door. We went to the car and looked at the money and saw that he had given us like 500!! Haha we were like yeah there's no way we're doing this so we sealed it in an envelope and went back and made him put it in his Book of Mormon and told him to just read instead. He thinks wayy to much of us...he won't stop going on about us being angels and beacons of light and yeahh it's weird teaching him now so

we decided were just going to make sure we have members there too when we teach him from now on. But it was amazing to see how fast he felt the spirit. On our first lesson with him a week ago we asked him to close it with a prayer. He was too scared to do it alone so he just repeated after us. But right afterwards he looked at us and was like I don't know what it is but I feel so peaceful right now and inside of me...my hear feels so full and I've got goosebumps everywhere. This just feels so right! Haha we were kind of shocked at how perfectly he described feeling the Holy Ghost but that was a really cool experience! I know that God is preparing people to learn about and accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ every day!

Well like I said I dont have much time today and could only share a few things but missionary work is pretty cool. It's definitely hard...but I'm learning to love it. Something that's been helping me is realizing that miracles happen everyday, we just have to look for them and recognize them when they happen and that they come from The Lord. So I started a "milagro log" and have been looking for and writing down at least one miracle that happens each day and it's already helped me so much to see blessings that I have because i feel like sometimes we just have so much that they're pretty easy to miss.

But anyways I gots to go...have a maravillosa week!

Love Hermana baugh`

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Hermana Newbill and I barely realized that it was a holiday today haha. WWIII could start and we probably wouldn't even know about it. And even then an investigator would probably tell us about it but I probably still wouldn't even know about it because you know, Spanish. I have an announcement though: last Wednesday, on the 27 of August, 2014, I woke up to myself sleep talking in Spanish. I mean I've only wanted to dream in Spanish for the last 8 weeks of my life sooo pretty big deal.

Well this week felt infinitely better than the last. My first week I kind of felt like a deer in the headlights but this week I felt like a deer in maybe only one headlight.  Haha maybe next week ill just feel like a deer.

This week was even busier than the last! We taught 41 lessons...my comp said that's the most she's ever taught in her mission! She keeps telling me that eventually when I get transferred to another area I'm like not going to know what to do with myself. We pretty much teach half our lessons in Spanish and the other half in English but everyone

has a Latin American background. Most of the lessons we teach in English are with kids who are 2nd generation Spanish speakers so they just know the Spanish that their parents yell at them when they're in trouble haha.  I'm able to understand and talk about gospel principles in Spanish pretty well but when the people we teach actually start opening up and telling us their whole life story that's when I go into what I like to call the " just smile and wave boys, smile and wave"mode and pretend I'm understanding.

But anyways I'm loving missionary work and meeting all these new people from all over am am learning about their cultures and traditions. Ive even gotten used to kissing all the

Spanish speaking women on the cheek whenever you say hello or goodbye.I was so awkward the first time a lady tried to kiss me on the cheek haha. I'm learning that it's important to talk to everyone that we canand that we pass by on the street about the gospel. Even if it's just inviting them to church or giving them a little pass along card. We

don't have much time for finding people since we usually just drive from appt to appt but when an appt falls through it's fun just seeing who we can find around the area. It's made me really grateful that we have a car though... There's been a lot of neighborhoods where we'll be walking around then have to just go back to our car because men are

just weird and creepy and rude. Haha except this one time we were walking down this street and this guys rides by on his bike and was like "hey there pretty ladies" and Hermana Newbill goes "um ya keep on going" and he was like " weeooooowwww......" Haha I guess I can't really describe it but it was pretty funny.

I also learned that, in Hna newbills words, " when you lose investigators, it's okay because God always puts new people in your path if you look for them." There were two people we were teaching who had baptismal dates set that suddenly decided that this church wasn't

for them and didn't want to be taught anymore. But later that night we went to go contact this referral we got for like the 7th time but as usual she wasn't there. But there was this guy who was waiting by a tree on his bike and when we turned around he came up to us and was

like I want to talk to you guys about your church, will you teach me? HE asked US to teach him. Haha it was a nice change. We haven't been able to meet with him yet but I'm really looking forward to it. Then again last night we went to go contact this same lady and again she wasn't there. But this man came up to us and kind of hurriedly gave us a card with his number on it and said I just really need someone to talk about church with and to help me change my life. Again we were like woah! This is too easy! We ended up walking with this man back to his house and he explained to us that he had a drinking problem and realized that he didn't like where his life was heading and needs to stop but it's really hard for him. He said that he was actually on his way to go get a drink right then but them he saw us and felt like he should talk to us instead. It was really cool. We showed him the Because of Him video ( which EVERYONE needs to look up and watch really quick if you haven't because it's amazing) and bore our testimonies of Jesus Christ and his atonement and set up a return appt with him. Ahh he just wants to change his life so bad and this is the

way to do it! I'm so excited to teach him again! Haha we have met so many people while knocking on this referrals door though...and I plan to just keep knocking on it whether she opens or not because it's been like a magnet so far for other people.

So we've got 4 baptismal dates set for this month. One is with a guy named Justin, the only white person we're teaching haha. He's awesome and came to church for the 2nd time this Sunday and really liked it...hes had a hard life though and is kind of awkward and is like 33

and still at home living with his parents. I can tell he's really looking for a change for the better in his life though. The next is Hilario. Hilario is like 45 yrs old and is a spiritual

stud. Like seriously he's so ready for baptism, even though he doesn't really feel like he is because he doesn't understand everything perfectly yet. But he comes to church every week and always reads and prays and loves learning more about Christ and this gospel in our lessons. And there's joe who I've only met twice but has been being taught with

some members of the ward and is in his 20s And Alfredo. Alfredo is so amazing! He lost his leg recently because of a blood clot and has been having a lot of problems with it and had

to leave his job and move in with his brother recently. He does so much though and wants to get back to work so bad. He said that ever since we started teaching him and he's been praying more that he's been a lot happier and has seem Gods miracles in his life more.

I think the thing that's helped me the most this week was remembering that by "small  and simple things are great things come to pass. There's a scripture in DC 1 that says "that the fullness of my gospel may be proclaimed by the weak and simple unto the ends of the world" When I got here all I could think was wow I am so bad at this. I can't speak Spanish and I am so bad at explaining and teaching things why did I even do this? What was I thinking? There are so many people out there who are so much more qualified and cut out for this than me. But then I read that and just realized that I need to trust God a lot more

than I have been. I need to trust him more than I trust myself and I need to trust that he knows what he's doing with me. Out of all of his children, God has chosen the weak and the simple( aka me and every other immature and inexperienced 18-21 yr old who decided to serve  a mission) to do his work. To do his most important work. DC 3:3 says that "remember that it is not the work of god that is frustrated, but the work of man." Yeah I might (and already have several times) mess up while I'm teaching and being a missionary, but it's okay as long as I'm trying my best bc God has a plan and a work and I can't frustrate

that, I can only do what I can to help bring it to pass. And I feel so blessed that I get to be a part of that.

Well I hope that everyone has a great week. There's so much more I wanted to share but it takes so long to write everything out! Paz y bendiciones though, Paz y bendiciones

Love,

Hermana Baugh