Feliz dia de los caidos... I mean...not happy... you know what I mean.

This week we started out with zone conference in Tampa. As usual it was really good and I left with a lot of things to take back and apply in our area. One of the things that president has really been stressing and training on is how to become better planners. He sent us each a strict schedule depending on the type of missionary we were (us, new language missionary) that told us exactly when we were allowed to study, proselyte, eat, cosas asi. It was set up so as to give us the max possible proselyting time and as a result, it gave us like less than half of the normal time we usually would have had to study the language. Which we were a little worried about because hermana is still pretty new but we made the decision to follow the schedule exactly and we saw so many miracles this week as a result of our faith in God's leaders! One of which was that we more than doubled the amount of lessons that we taught to investigators from the week before! We did a ton of finding this week and something that we did differently that I really liked was that we walked and knocked and talked with the bible in the hand of hermana phillips and the book of mormon in my hand and just having both of those books out and visible really helped us to testify of our purpose and how we teach people how they can come unto Christ by teaching from the bible and another testament of christ called the book of mormon. Hahah there was one door though that for some reason instead of going up to knock it, I accidentally just went up and opened the front door without even thinking and this persons dogs started barking and going all crazy trying to get out at us and I realized the horrible thing I'd just done and we just got out of there before the person came out. I think the florida heat had gotten to me a little bit.

- So we have this investigator named axel that I have been talking about but I will just give a quick little background on him again to catch all you up. and by all of you... that is probably just my family if that that reads these haha. But Im going to pretend I have a big audience. anyways, Axel is 17 and moved here from honduras not too long ago. His mom was deported back to honduras though and the missionaries started teaching axel late last year as a referral. but his mom didn't want him to get baptized until she got back to the states, which could be in like two years. So they dropped him and since then we have just been keeping in contact with him, teaching him every so often and we would actually see him a lot because he is one of Celfia's neighbors. But we decided to just start teaching him again a few weeks ago because we felt like he had too much potential and desire to learn to just forget about. So we have been visiting him every week or so since about when Hermana Phillips got here and I have seen his faith grow so much, especially as he has been reading the book of mormon, learning about the commandments and about repentance. We invited him to talk with his mom about baptism again a few weeks ago, and the answer was the same. Wait till I get there. So we didn't want to push it too much but we have kept teaching him and trying to get him to church and this week a miracle happened! We were actually outside in a lesson with a different investigator that lives in Axel's neighborhood when he came up to me with a phone and said that his mom wanted to talk to me. So I talked with his mom, all the way in Honduras and she said that today Axel had asked her again about baptism. She said that from talking to him, she could tell that he has matured and really has a desire to follow Christ. She expressed to me how thankful she was for us and for all the things we were teaching him and that she really appreciated it so much, especially because she couldn't be there herself to teach him. She told me then that she had decided that Axel was old enough to make his own decisions, and that if he wanted to be baptized that he had her permission now. Ah man I was trying to hide how suprised and excited I was over the phone! Hermana Phillips was freaking out having to wait to see what was being said. I am so excited for this kid to be baptized soon!! I know that heavenly father blessed him and his mom for his constant efforts to keep learning. Pray that we can keep having contact with axel this week so we can get him ready for baptism possibly the next, it is always really hard to contact him because he doesn't have a phone and is a 17 year old boy and has never planned for anything or had a schedule in his life.

- Another little miracle this week that was almost not a miracle but then came back to be a miracle is Anthony Garcia. This guy just moved here from Chicago and started working with a member in the Cortez Branch. Apparently he was about to get baptized in the church in Chicago but suddenly moved right before he could. So this member calls the cortez sisters, they meet with him, go over the baptismal questions, set a date, and he is all set and ready to go for baptism. But, here's the catch...HE LIVES IN SARASOTA... swipe! They called us and told us this and we were so stoked! And this was the same night we got the call from Axel's mom so I guess you could say we were excited. We get in contact with him though and he is excited to meet with us, and then the next day we get a message and he says sorry, Im actually moving back to Chicago this weekend so I wont be living here. Fail. We were like well I mean that was almost really cool right? Fast forward to sunday and we get another text from him saying that moving back to Chicago was actually a false alarm and he would be staying here in Sarasota and was excited to meet us and be part of the church here! WOOH YAY FOR RESURRECTED MIRACLES.  So we are meeting with him tonight with some members and if it goes well we should be able to set a goal with him for getting baptized next week too.
- Sometimes I wonder why do I even care what time I leave and get back to the apartment? Or eat my dinner? Or go to bed? Or how hard I work out, how focused my studies are, how long I email? And it all goes back to my love for my Savior and my testimony that obedience brings miracles. It through our obedience that we can show our faith in our Lord and in the leaders through which He works with, it shows our love for Him and our desire to live with him again one day, it shows that we trust in his wisdom more than our own.
-Hope everyone has the best week ever, Im praying for you!
love
Hermana Baugh