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`