Life Gets in the Way of Eternal Life

Hello everybody!! 

So alligator update... no luck yet but we are embarking on another safari soon. This week we went on exchanges again because Hermana Gibson is in training and we are just super awesome and get special attention like that. I went to Sarasota again and guess what! I got to teach Eugene! The old guy that was a member of the rLDS church that me and hna paulsen found on the last exchange and pushed in his wheelchair back to his apartment! He has been coming to church and praying about baptism. So that was pretty cool! 

So both Ricardo, Leslie and Silvia were doing really well at the beginning of the week but recently they've fallen off the face of florida. We taught Ricardo in the middle of the week and committed him to praying about being baptized next week but then our last few lessons with him have been cancelled last minute because he keeps having to work. Then we didn't hear anything from him on Sunday and he didn't come to church...we've been trying to contact him but haven't had any luck yet.  Leslie and Silvia have been doing really well but went to Tampa again this weekend last minute and didn't come to church:( I really hope we can keep teaching them but if we aren't able to meet very much this week and if Leslie and Silvia don't come to church again for a good reason then we will probably have to drop them for a little bit:( Thats probably the hardest thing about the mission, is seeing all the progress and changes that people make, but a lot of the time Satan gets in the way and tries to stop that, usually when they are having the most success. Family or money problems happen, work schedules change, school projects, sports... thinks that don't even seem bad but just fill up our time and prevent us from doing something better. I came up with a phrase a while back that Ive been using a lot and its that a lot of times, its life that gets in the way of eternal life. And the longer Ive been on my mission, the more plainly Ive been able to see that. Its pretty ironic but its true!

MIRACLE OF THE WEEK. So the english ward had a baptism this saturday and we get a call from our zone leaders saying that we needed to come and meet this guy visiting from Mexico there that only speaks spanish. His name is Abdi and he is visiting his aunt for a few weeks and he is golden. Apparently he has been asking his aunt a lot about the church lately and really wants to learn more. When we were talking to him and his aunt about the baptism I said that hey you could be baptized before you went back to Mexico on february 15th if you wanted and he looked at his aunt and was like yes Id love to! I was like woah I was kind of joking but yeah lets do it! So we taught him right then and there at the church a little bit, went over later that day to teach him some more, he came to BOTH the english and spanish meetings yesterday at church (that is not a typo he literally went to both), THEN we taught him after church too. He loves everything he's learning and he wants to get baptized on the 7th! Seriously so awesome!! Pray that we will be able to see him every day until then and that he keeps feeling the spirit!

So this is the last week of transfers, Saturday I will find out if Im staying or leaving this next transfer! These past few weeks, Ive really realized how truly blessed I am to be here in this area, with these investigators and these members and I really hope I get to stay here for another transfer. Not a lot of other areas are as blessed with such a large spanish speaking population as this one. I love you all and hope everyone has a great week!!!

love Hermana Baugh

Off With Your Head

Id like to welcome everyone to todays weekly email coming from yours truly in Bradenton, Florida. I will be conducting today. Alright so first on the agenda is all the new changes that have been happening in the Florida Tampa Mission this week. We had a zone training meeting this week  in Tampa all day with the entire mission. Well I actually didnt even realize it was the entire mission at first because there wasnt that many people there until a little into the meeting when President Cusick announced that the entire Fort Myers zone and all the missionaries with it had been taken from our mission and given to the Ft lauderdale mission!! This is pretty much like the entire southern half of my mission that is gone now!! I had some friends down there so that was pretty sad news. This was also kind of depressing to me because that zone was pretty much where all the spanish work was. There is like nothing north of me!! There are only 7 hermanas in the mission now, 3 of which are already in english ward. We are a dying breed people a dying breed. So I will most likely be staying in Bradenton for half my mission now by the looks of it. It was just weird though that whole day because already in my head I had imagined spending pretty much the rest of my mission down south but now I definitely wont be! I feel like the head of our mission just got cut off haha. But its all good, I know that God has a plan to hasten His work so this just must be part of it. And as long as Im doing missionary work somewhere, it doesnt matter to me where that is or who Im with. I just really hope I get to stay spanish speaking my whole mission though, I love it so much. Also a big change that was made was that we are now down to sharing one ipad per companionship sooo my ipad as I like to say it "se fued". Or left. Its been kind of a hard change learning how to completely share one and work a little differently but I dont know I kind of like it. Im definitely more focused and we are more unified as a companionship now. But now we have to use computers to do emails like all the other normal missionaries and I have to get used to only having 90 minutes to read and write emails and write president. Ive been spoiled for so long so its kind of a hard change but its worth it because it means we are all being more obedient and will have the spirit to be with us even more!! 

This week I just though I would share what my favorite part of the mission so far is. It is hearing people describe the Holy Ghost for the first time. This week while teaching Leslie (the 8 yr old daughter of silvia) she told us about how she got her answer that joseph smith was a prophet. She said that a little bit after she prayed she was thinking about it and then all of a sudden she just got the feeling that If she said the words outloud- I know Joseph Smith was a prophet- she would know that he was. So thats why she ran out and told us all that she knew he was a true prophet! She said that after she said it she knew. This was a really touching thing she shared with us...this is coming from an 8 yr old that has never been to church, never learned about God. I have always learned in church that a way that we can find and strengthen our own testimonies is in the bearing of them. I now know how true this is from what I learned from Leslie this week. 

Silvia came to a baptism in the english ward with her kids this week. She was really nervous to go but we encouraged her it would be worth it haha. I had to translate for her so I think she understood at least a little bit of it hahaha. But she and the kids loved it. The next day when we talked to her about it she told us that she just felt so peaceful when she saw how happy the girl was after she got baptized. she just kept saying I don't know what it is... Ive been to so many other churches but I have never felt or seen as many good changes in my life and in my kids life as I have since you have been teaching me. I feel like I have so much more confidence in myself and in god now. 

We were only able to see Ricardo once this week but it was a really good lesson. We asked him how he knew the book of mormon was true and he said I don't know... theres just something that compels me to learn more about this church. I know that if it wasn't true that that desire wouldn't be there. He said he feels like he could just flip open to any part of the book of mormon and it would give him an answer to a question. Then he flipped open my book of mormon then randomly just to prove his point and what do you know...opened right to 3 Ne 11 to my highlighted verses on the ordinance of baptism. He was like woah. I was like woah--- thats exactly what Ive been trying to guide this conversation towards!! It was really cool. I was like well if thats not a sign that you should be baptized then I don't know what is.

I truly am so grateful to have the opportunity to witness the changes that this gospel can bring to individuals in their lives. 'Yeah the mission is hard. Its the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But its by far the most rewarding. Its moments like these that make up for all the setbacks, canceled appts, language failures, awkward conversations, exhaustion, and challenges. It reminds me that I am in the right place and I am doing the right thing. I hope everyone has a great week...and if you would excuse me Im planning on using the rest of my pday riding around the marshes around here trying to find an alligator. Ive been in florida for 5 months now I think I deserve to see one. I think Ive learned enough from Steve Erwin the Crocodile hunter too to be able to wrestle it when I find it. Stay tuned. 

Love 

Herbaughna

A little child, a little childish

Woooohh 6 mesaversary!!! I went to bed 6 minutes early on January 9 to celebrate, hope you all did too. Half a year! I've been gone half a year! That's just crazy. I can't believe I'm already a third done with my mission. It's exciting and scary at the same time!!

Life changing event of the week----an investigator fed us arroz con chocolate. Like arroz con leche but con chocolate and a life time supply of happiness guaranteed.

I also had the great opportunity to attend a catholic funeral on Sunday. A family member of an investigator passed away like a week ago and they wanted us to come to the funeral...it was in this little trailer park and we were the only white people there. And the only ones not wearing black. So an added level of whiteness to my usual. But it was so interesting...we stood up for an hour straight (and we had to leave early and they were still standing when we left) while everyone chanted this prayer thing over and over. it made me so grateful for what I know to be true about the great plan of happiness God has for His children, and that death doesn't need to be mourned or feared. L did learn some catchy new Hispanic worship songs though that I've been singing to Hna gibson that I'm sure she enjoys very much.

Other matters of business for the week...Hna Gibson let it slip to our little band of recent converts and a few other young bystanders that I was ticklish. so now I cannot walk into a branch activity or church meeting without getting attacked by a herd of little girls trying to tickle me. And what's worse is I can't even do anything back so I just have to take it. It's horrible.

Ricardo's doing pretty well...except he didn't come to church on Sunday. Something came up. We might have to move his date back a few days but we'll see, hopefully we get to teach him a lot this week.

So I didn't really get to talk about them in my last email but the other week we started teaching this family that actually lives across the street from Roberto! Kind of awkward...haven't seen him since we gave him to the elders and just waiting for the day when we run into him again. But anyways this lady's name is Silvia and she has three kids Leslie, angel, and Bela. She also has an  esposo that works 6 days straight that I haven't seen yet. But Silvia is awesome she is learning so much. We get to see her almost every day and she reads the Book of Mormon every day and even all the pamphlets we gave her! She really wants to get baptized and has a date set for the 14 of February. Her only problem is...is that her husbands only day off is Sunday and that's always been their day they just stay home and spend time as a family. And her husband does not like church. She's talked to him about it but he's like nope I'm not going to go to church, I want you to spend time with me. So then she feels bad and didn't come to church on Sunday:( I just can't get over how sad this is! Missing church to spend more time with your husband while really missing out on the opportunity to spend time with him for eternity! Kind of ironic if you ask me. So just pray that his heart will be softened and she'll come with her kids and maybe even him next week. But her daughter Leslie is 8 and wants her and her mom to get baptized on her birthday,

the 14 of February. And she's so excited. Leslie is literally the most precious thing. And the things we are teaching make so much sense to her. Prophets- "So basically a prophet is kind of like a bridge between us and God so we can know what he wants us to do?" Nailed it. Book of Mormon- "ohhh so the prophets wrote on golden plates bc what they were writing was important and they wanted it to stay forever. And moroni had to put the plates in the ground so no one would steal them or ruin them!" Bingo. When we taught her how to pray and we're talking about how God always answers our prayers, her eyes welled up with tears and she was like " I just feel so much joy and happiness that God has given me such a beautiful and loving family and that me and my wonderful siblings still get to stay here together". She now VOLUNTEERS to say both the opening AND closing prayers to our lessons. When we invited her to pray and ask God if Joseph smith really was a prophet she was like ok! I'm going to do it right now. Then she just started praying right away and was like " God? Could you please tell me if Joseph smith was a prophet? I'm wondering and I really want to know...please tell me?" A few minutes later while we were talking with her mom she ran in all excited saying I got my answer! I got my answer! I just felt something right here in my heart...Joseph smith was a prophet. I'm going to go do the same thing and pray to see if Jesus Christ really was the son of God and a prophet too! Then ran off. As we've been teaching her I've been reminded of the scripture in Mosiah 3:19 that says ------19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. -- little children are literally so close to God. They have no pride, no prejudice, no doubt...complete humility. Just as pride is the gateway to all other sin, it's opposite, humility, is the gateway to righteousness. To being able to communicate with God. I like to think of God just being so all powerful and omnipotent, that if we want Him to be with us, there's no room for us to have any of our own pride. Like a container of oil and water- they don't mix. The forces between them repel each other. But the less water you have in the bottle, the more oil there can be. If we are completely 100% humble then there will be nothing keeping God, or the Holy Ghost, from being 100% with us. It's our personal pride that repels the presence of the spirit. But it's our humility that allows us to receive revelation and answers to prayers. I've learned a lot about this so far on the mish. But anyways Well that's about it that I can think of...go run free and be like little children this week. Haha God wants us to! Love you all so much! Over and out

Love

Herbaughna

BREAKING NEWS: SNOW IN BRADENTON FLORIDA

EVERYONE GUESS WHAT IT SNOWED IN BRADENTON THIS WEEK. It was crazy...It had been raining a lot that whole day and night but when we woke up to exercise in the morning I opened the door and sure enough there was a thin layer of snow all over the ground!! Ok Just kidding. Thought I would at least attempt to try and make you guys jealous for maybe like half a second to experience what Im feeling right now while reading your emails. I CANT BELIEVE IT SNOWED IN TEMECULA FOR LIKE THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY THE ONE WINTER IM NOT THERE. But really though! Like it couldn't have waited one more? Or maybe last year that would have been good too? It's alright though Id still rather be snow busy saving souls.

- Spanish lesson of the week:  A way to say what's up or what's happening in Spanish is¿Que pasa? I was eating some natilla (Columbian dessert with raisins) this week and had some personal revelation: raisin in Spanish is pasa. So really when you say ¿que pasa? You're never going to know if someone's trying to say hey! What's happening! Or hey! What raisin! So I'm telling you guys this so that if you ever in your life have a Hispanic come up to you and hey! What raisin!? Just stay calm they are probably just confused and trying to say what's up. So you're all welcome for that.

- Lets see...what happened this week....I got peed on by a dog? Hahaha like all over my skirt.  I walked straight through a giant anthill and got attacked? I caught a alligator and am now keeping it as a pet? Ok maybe not the last one. Still waiting for the day I see an alligator. But yeah I feel like everything this week pretty much stayed the same. We were only able to see Ricardo once this week because he's been having to work so much and that's why he wasn't able to come to church on Sunday so that was a little sad. But he's doing pretty well and we will hopefully be able to see him more this week. We went on exchanges this week and Hna Paulsen(my MTC companion) is my sister training leader so I went on exchanges with her in her area in Sarasota! Haha it was awesome! Like seriously though it was amazing to see how much we have both learned and progressed these last few months. And teaching together in Spanish? So much better than our attempts to read through our poorly prewritten notes in the MTC. I have read through some of my notes and talks from the MTC and they just make my eyes burn! There like isn't even one sentence that doesn't have something wrong! Haha I honestly don't know how my MTC teachers could keep straight faces when we talked to them. I'm not sure I have what it takes to be an MTC teacher bc I'm pretty sure I would just be dying all the time. But it was really neat just talking with Hna Paulsen about all of the things that we have learned about Spanish, missionary work, the gospel and life in general. They didn't really have anyone to teach and so we pretty much just spent the whole day walking around her area asking every single person for referrals. I've been wanting to get better at asking people for referrals for a long time and this exchange was just what I needed. Even though we didn't really have any lessons planned, we ended up teaching 11- the most lessons I've taught in a single day so far in my mission. And this was just because we asked everybody for referrals! At one point we were walking down this road and there was an old man trying to push himself down the street in his wheelchair( doesn't really work so well). I asked if we could help him and he let me push him all the way back to his house. After talking to him, we found out that he had already read the Book of Mormon and when I asked if he believed it he was like yes of course I believe it! It helps support the bible and the bible helps support the BOM! The only reason I'm not mormon is because they believe in polygamy! Well you know sir, now that you mention it, Mormons actually DONT believe in polygamy soooo you should come to church and get baptized haha. We were able to set him up with a ride to church so idk maybe he will end up getting baptized soon! But anywho I learned so much this day and had like a whole list of things I wanted to bring back to our area to improve on. I hope one day that Paulsen and I can be companions again because we'd do work!

- So we have been teaching a couple named Catherine and Chris, the daughter of a member and her boyfriend, a few times and the last time we were finally able to teach them about the Book of Mormon. They are both super religious and love the bible and have soooo many questions about our religion and Joseph smith and prophets and everything else and as we have been teaching them my gratitude for the Book of Mormon has increased so so much. Heavenly Father knew we would have concerns and questions and doubts so He gave us the Book of Mormon. A true testimony of the Book of Mormon really can answer every single question that someone could have about this church. How is it possible that Joseph Smith saw God? Read and pray about the Book of Mormon and you'll know. How can I believe that your church is the only one with the authority to baptize? Read and pray about the Book of Mormon and you'll know. It really is my first answer to everything. It is the key to everything. If someone knows that the Book of Mormon is true, then they will also know God is our Heavenly Father, Christ is our savior, and that His church in its fullness has been restored through the prophet Joseph smith and we are led and guided by a living prophet today. It's like a package deal! There's no need for argument, for bible bashing or any of that because we can always just invite people to read about the Book of Mormon to answer any questions someone could ask us. I am so grateful for this inspired book and my testimony and gratitude for it grow every day.

-Hope everyone had a good New Years! I had a great one...I set my alarm for 11:59, watched it turn 12 and shouted WOOH 2015 BRING IT ON to myself then went back to bed haha it was pretty epic. So excited for what this new year holds! Everyone go out and live the best year of your life okay because that's my game plan! Love you all and hope you have a great week-- hope you all don't get snowed in our anything!

��

Love,

Herbaughna (new year new name yes it's happening)

Two Times Devoured

I can't believe Christmas week has already come and gone...Time in the mission is so weird. I don't know whether to go from Monday to monday, Sunday to Sunday, Thursday to Thursday (the day we do our weekly planning), month to month, or transfer to transfer. And since I can't

decide it all just goes by even faster. So if you find yourself wanting time to go by faster in life...just live your life on a missionary schedule and you'll be done before you know it. I feel like the rest of my life is going to be lived in 6 week periods though because that's what I'm becoming used to here haha.

So turns out that Christmas on the mission is pretty great. It's Hispanic culture ( or at least Mexican, not sure about the rest) to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. They stay up all night then eat dinner and open presents at midnight then fall asleep when we would usually wake up on Christmas morning. Seems to make more sense to me, that way all the kids can actually see Santa delivering their presents. I've heard it's a pretty cool experience. Buuut being as I'm a missionary and having to be at home by 9pm I didn't get to meet Santa with everyone else but on Christmas Eve we did spend a few hours helping the Sedillos make their famous tamales! And I say helping for lack of a better word...it was more like we provided the entertainment for them while they made the tamales hahah I'm sure it was pretty funny for them watching us try to imitate their innate tamale making skills. But I feel like I can officially say I'm like at least 5.7% Mexican now because I can say I've made tamales. So don't mind me if I put that on my next resume. But really though making tamales is hard...they woke up at 3 am that morning and said they wouldn't finish making all of them till after midnight Christmas morning. But they are so worth it because they're pretty much the best thing I've ever tasted...I might have had 9 in a row but I mean who's counting. Also on Christmas Eve we went over to President Gonzalez house! It was a lot different from the crazy kid filled sedillo house...they are so proper and fancy haha and all their kids are older than me and aren't married yet. They were going to eat at midnight so Hna Gonzalez was so nice and just made us our own dinner and talked to us while we ate. I love her she's seriously the sweetest person ever. Then president showed us like a thousand pictures from their trip to Mexico and we finally had to be like I'm sorry president but we've got to go now! Haha they were so nice though. On Christmas we were able to teach a few lessons, do some service for our dear friend Mrs Digman and her fat Pomeranian Romeo and she gave us each a cute Christmas blanket! You know for when it gets all cold in Florida! Then we walked around showing people He's the Gift and spreading Christmas cheer....but just a side note most people put walking around Christmas Eve night and on Christmas don't believe in it haha...it's pretty fun meeting JW's ( Jehovah witnesses) and being like hi! Could we show you this video our church published about The nativity and Christmas? "I don't believe in Christmas." oh ok. well then. Awkward. Later on Christmas we went over to the Turners who's dad is the member of high council in our Ward and had invited us over for dinner! We've been teaching his non member son in law and daughter a few times. But it was a nice dinner and we got some good southern food! Afterwards we left and enjoyed the sunset and wrote in our journals ( IVE BEEN BEHIND FOR LIKE TWO MONTHS AND I FINALLY CAUGHT UP SO IM BACK FROM THE PAST EVERYONE HALLELUJAH) and were given some time to "ponder our relationship with the savior" as president had put it. It was a perfect day. I will always remember this Christmas!

So robertos baptism didn't happen this week. Actually, we aren't even teaching Roberto any more. So he called me on Christmas after our lesson and pretty much professed his love for me. Ok not love but I'll just say he's confusing feeling the spirit when we teach him for other things. That was really awkward and weird. Soooo yeah haven't seen him since then and there's an elder in the Bradenton Ward who speaks Spanish so we sent his records to them and they are going to keep teaching him and help him get his feelings straight!

So Ricardo is the referral from the other Hermanas that we met last week...he is doing so awesome. Our second lesson with him we asked if he'd prayed about Joseph smith and he said yes and also I went and searched the Internet ( my first thought: oh gosh here we go)  and found this video about what your were telling me about and I loved it! HE WENT AND WATCHED THE ENTIRE RESTORATION VIDEO HOW COOL IS THAT? And he found the right website haha that was such a relief! I asked him if he believed he really was a prophet and he said, well if this wasn't true I feel like I would not have kept wanting to watch that video and would have turned it off after a few minutes. But I kept wanting to watch it and keep wanting to learn more so yes I do believe he was a prophet. So cool. And he was supposed to be working on Sunday and wouldn't have been able to come to church but he worked extra late Saturday night and Sunday morning so he could come! He's awesome!

Haha so frustration of the week. Every week we have to do weekly planning where we plan out the lessons for everybody we teach for the next week. It usually takes like 3 hours. Sups fun. And we plan it all on our iPads using the areabook planner app. Sooo we finish our planning and go about our day and find out later that night that when we had sunk, synced ( we still haven't figured out the real past tense of the word sync so if you do please let me know) that THE WIFI HAD EATEN OUR PLANS AND WERE GONE. haha I just laughed. I couldn't believe that happened. So the next day we just put on a smile and did planning

all over again. Of course we forgot to check to see if area book would delete our plans again and after finishing round two I sunk and AREABOOK DELETED OUR PLANS AGAIN. TWO TIMES DEVOURED (if you can name that movie I will send you a Book of Mormon as a reward). So yeah I just feel so blessed that I got so much time to learn patience this week. Be careful what you pray for! I have lots of pictures this week I'll be sending since I forgot to last week. I hope everyone had a holly jolly Christmas and a happy new year!

Hermana Baugh

'Mas Christ

Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve errybody! It's like finally hitting me that it's actually Christmas...this Christmas season hasnt really felt any different being that every day is focused on Christ.  Also the fact that I am in Florida where people run to escape the winter and the snow might play a factor too. But we've been allowed to listen to Christmas Music in the car this past week until January 2 (bring on the David Archuleta), everyone was decked out in their best Christmas apparel ( the bishopric in the White Ward wore Christmas ties, a red suit, a green suit and then the third a plaid one- try to compete with that) and I gave a talk in church on La Navidad so I'm officially all ready for Christmas! It was nice having a two day heads up about the talk instead of a 7 minutes one this time. I really am so grateful for this time that I have every day to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas. And I can tell that I have learned because I can honestly say I haven't really given any thought to what I'm going to receive on Christmas, but instead on how I can serve and do the will of the Lord better each day. What I need to do to show my savior my love and become the Missionary and individual that he needs me to be. I've always known that the meaning of Christmas is to remember the birth of our Savior, the Gift that Heavenly Father gave to us, to embrace this gift and then share the joy that we can find because of Him with everyone else. But I've never truly lived the meaning of Christmas until now.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about Roberto. So he has been doing really well with reading and praying but he still wasn't sure if he wanted to be baptized in this church because he hasn't received a confirmation from God yet. His baptismal date was set for 27 of December though. But on Wednesday, we decided that after our lesson with him, we were going to invite him to pray and to ask God specifically if being baptized on the 27 in this church was what God wanted him to do and then after we would have a minute of silence to listen. I invited him to do that and as he was praying I was praying so hard for him to be able to feel the spirit that I felt so strongly right then. That minute of silence was probably the most powerful minute I've ever had, I definitely felt the spirit testify to me. When I looked up at Roberto after, his eyes were all watery and he said he felt good. He said he believed that being baptized on that day was what Heavenly Father wanted him to do and that this was the correct path. I know that God is real and His spirit is real. We can all feel it if we just take a minute to be still. I'm praying that everything will go well setting up his baptism this week, please pray that he will be able to remember that answer he received and will have the faith to act on it when the day comes.

This week we also received a referral from the Sarasota Hermanas. It was for a man named Ricardo who had CALLED THEM (that's a miracle in itself) asking to be taught. He was in our area though so we said we would go and contact him ( this is yesterday). Turns out they had the wrong address and we were calling this poor guy trying to figure out where he lived and I felt so bad because I'm bad with directions in general in a place that I know but directions in Spanish over the phone in a part of our area where I'd never been before was something else haha. He even offered to come and meet us somewhere to show us the way to his house. He was willing to go out of his way for us to meet him so I knew he was someone special! I eventually figured it out and we met him in the parking lot of a Publix and taught him about the restoration. He is really prepared and recognized the spirit as we taught and after he prayed. He said he would be baptized when he knew this was true and he said he already felt good! God is preparing so ,any people, we just have to find them!

Adriana isn't doing so well. Since her fallen through baptism date her grandma has been talking to her and her dad about how her mom ( who passed away) wanted to have her kids baptized catholic amd to have them all baptized together. Adriana has kind of lost that fire and desire to learn more now because of that...it's amazing to me how fast we can fall sometimes once we let God fall out of our lives. It's sad, my heart hurts for her. I can only imagine how hard it must be for her to be surrounded by that opposition all the time. I think we are going to have to stop teaching her but keep praying for her and that she will remember and apply everything she has learned.

Heppy and Melanoa have been sick this week so we haven't been able to see them. Their mom has texted us a few times on her own so that was really good though. Theirs is a really hard situation, we have done everything we can possibly do to help them be baptized so now we are just waiting for their parents to decide their baptismal date. I never thought it would be this hard to help them be baptized haha.

Well to top it all off I survived my first week as a trainer! And not just survived, I've already learned so much and feel so blessed. I have been relying on Heavenly Father and my Savior more this week than I ever have in my life and I feel like I have been helped so so much and I have felt the Spirit work through me so much stronger than I ever have before. The gift of tongues must be real because I never had any problem understanding what someone was trying to tell me and I was able to say everything that the Spirit told me to say. I would say my Spanish has improved like 10 times more this week but I know that's not true because it hasn't been me. I have also felt like I have "become a better teacher" this week, meaning I have "become better at inviting the spirit" which does the teaching. Like I can't even express how much I felt the help of the Lord this week. I feel more bold. More loving. More faithful. More fearless. More trusting. More thankful. I keep trying to give back to the Savior but even during this process of me giving to him- He always, always gives me more. I hope everyone has a maravillosa Christmas, know that I'm thinking of and love you.

Hermana Baugh