El Templo

I feel so off having pday on a Thursday today...but it's because I got to go to the temple in Orlando this morning! Each missionary gets the opportunity to go once in their mission...in the past they have done it right before the missionary goes home but now they are trying to get it so that everyone goes at their half way mark. So we went today with a few other companionships of sisters that have been out for about a year or so. It was a nice redemption moment today. No one besides maybe my family and then Hermana Newbill will remember this story...but back when Hermana Gibson, Hermana Newbill and I were in a trio last November we received a call saying that we would be able to go to the temple (because Hermana Newbill was going to end her mission). So we get all dressed up and excited, make the trip up to Tampa to meet the group heading up together and I open the door to the van and there is only one seat--- the senior couple taking us turns around and looks at me and said "oh I'm so sorry....did I not tell you that only  sister Newbill would be going?" Haha so instead of going to the temple we hung around Tampa for a few hours just two lil newbees thrown out into the streets of Tampa until they got back. Well fast forward like 8 months and here we are again together, in Tampa, and we actually got to go together! So that was cool. Not going to lie, in the back of my mind I was still waiting to open the van door and have her look at us and say "oh I'm so sorry, I meant to invite the other sisters!" But luckily that didn't happen. The temple is such a sacred and beautiful place. It always amazes me the things that we can learn when we got there, no matter how many times we've been. I look forward to going many many times in the future and learning something new every time.

- This week was a busy one. We had zone conference on thursday. Sister Gibson and I gave a short training on how important it is that we "master the fundamentals" such as the book of mormon, preach my gospel, and other tools we have been given to do missionary work. We related it to 1 nefi 17 how the lord called nefi to build a ship, something that he had never done before. He didn't question his calling though but instead asked where he could find ore to make the tools to fulfill his calling and god provided it. God has called each and every one of us to a specific mission, and its something that we have never done before. He has also given us the materials, or "ore", that we need to do this work but its up to us to actually apply them and make them into tools. If we don't apply what we study, then its just words on a page. If nefi hadn't done his part, that ore would have just been rock on the ground instead of a tool to build a ship.

- We also went on two exchanges this week, back to back! Sister gibson went to one area on wednesday, then we switched back, talked for a few minutes and I went to a different area with some other sisters in Tampa. It was a really good experience, I learned things from both of the sisters I got to work with.

- So one of the older ladies that I mentioned we started teaching the other week, her name is Carmen. She is the sister of one of the members here. She is actually progressing really well (hahaha despite the fact that she still can't hear hermana Gibson's voice!) When we started teaching her, she said I was born a Pentacostal, and I'm going to die as one! But this week, we had a really spiritual lesson where her brother was there and he bore his testimony to her of the power of the priesthood and how he has the power and authority to baptize her. As he was saying this, Carmen couldn't stop smiling and had tears in her eyes and said "I just feel so happy, I don't know why!" We explained to her how the spirit speaks to us, and she was able to recognize that. We felt inspiried to invite her to be baptized again, on the 26 of september, by her brother, and she said yes and that she would prepare for that day. That lesson strengthened my testimony of the importance of members baring testimony to their friends and family, because that is what is going to touch their loved ones most. Also it taught me that the spirit can still be felt, even when we have to yell during a lesson so that our investigator can hear us haha:)

- alright well Im going to get going so I can send some pictures, talk to you again soon on monday, que les vaya bien,
con amor
-Hermana Va

La voluntad de Dios

So zone pday last week turned out pretty well. We played ultimate frizbee, some other games, had the most amazing dinner ever (hahah we didn't quite coordinate actually getting the spaghetti people had brought into the croc pots other people had brought well enough so dinner might have been a little colder than anticipated but hey it all tastes the same right? haha im learning) and then we watched the saratov approach. By the way, Saratov Russia is exactly 100% opposite from my mission. I liked the movie though because It reminded me of how special and important it is to be serving a mission. So special that people will kidnap us. Just kidding mom, that only happens in movies about real life stories.

This week 3 people, yes on THREE different occasions by new investigators, told us that they thought that I was "la mama' and hermana gibson "la hija". People are thinking that I am hermana Gibson's mom! Im not sure who this has been more insulting to haha But if I hear it from one more person this week Im taking my daughter and walking out.

We taught two really cute old hispanic ladies this week. One was a member referral and the other her neighbor. We discovered though that old people literally cannot hear hermana gibson when she speaks because of the frequency of her voice. It was slightly sad/hilarious because she would say something, they would look at me and say....what did she say? Then I would say the exact same thing hermana gibson did and they'd be like oooohhhh ok. Haha we might have to stay away from that teaching pool for a while.

Funny experience of the week- we were going with a member named hermana horn to visit  our ward mission leaders wife who is a recent convert. We missed the turn to their house so we had to do a uturn on the side of the road. We cleared it but hermana Horn's car got completely stuck in the mud on the side of the road. We took off our shoes and got down to about shin deep mud (this is at like 830 at night mind you) and were trying so hard to push it out...I mean we are pretty buff but two hermanas in skirts vs. car doesn't turn out too well. We called our WML who looks like a dominican hercules, and he came to the rescue and 45 minutes later and completely covered in nasty mud we finally got it out. Did I mention that this happened on the lawn of a lonely old 95 year old man? I know because he came out with his cane and said "You destroyed my lawn!! I am a 95 year old man!" That made us feel great.  Definitely one for the journal.

So. I'm getting a little...farther along in the life of a missionary...And I've been distracted a little bit about knowing when I should go home. My release date is January 5th and school at BYU starts up a few days before that and my brother will probably leave for his mission days after I get home. So i had this conflict...it would work out so beautifully for me to go home a few weeks early, spend some time with family, get everything organized for school and start on time...but I don't want to end early if Heavenly Father needed me here more. I fasted on Tuesday to know what I should do. And that day I had a really powerful, spiritually led study. I learned so much that helped me receive my answer. One thing was that I came to the very clear realization that Heavenly Father would not have called me when he did, if he did not expect me to cross the finish line when I'm planned to. He wouldn't call me on a mission that He didn't have the intention for me to finish all the way. That would show that He didn't have faith in me! And me finishing even one minute earlier than what He has already planned would show that I don't have faith in Him. As I was studying the atonement that day, I was really touched by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Before Christ performs the atonement, he asks Heavenly Father if there would be an easier way. If he could take the bitter cup away. But he said not my will, but yours, and then performed the single most important act in the history of the world. Christ lived a perfect life. He did a lot of good things. If he would have just lived, then not done the atonement because it was hard and uncomfortable, then died, he still would have accomplished a lot of great things. But He would have missed the point of His entire purpose of coming to earth. I have been able to do a lot of good things on my mission and have learned a lot. But if I went home early just because it's more convenient for me, I will have missed the point. i wouldn't have learned faith and the ability to completely submit my will to God's.I cant make decisions in my life, just based off of what seems best according to my own understanding. If I want to fulfill the potential and mission heavenly father has for me, I need to follow his will. I finished my fast telling Heavenly Father that I am completely, 100% His. I have faith that if I completely love the Lord and get rid of all distractions, that Heavenly Father will make sure that everything works out with the things that are important to me when I return. So January 5th it is.


another miracle I couldn't help but include- last night we had an hour to find. I prayed that we would be led to two people who would accept the baptismal invitation. The very first door we knocked, the woman let us in into her home where her family and friends were sitting on the couch and she said these missionaries were just telling me they believe that Christ restored his church through a prophet (this is in spanish). For the next 30 min or so, we stood in this room and testified of the restoration of the priesthood. It was probably one of the most heated discussions I've had...They were completely opposed to it and were throwing everything they had at us to tear us and our beliefs down. It was pretty brutal. We invited them to pray, then politely excused ourselves. We walked out of that first door knocked pretty roughed up. But we kept going and received rejection at the next few doors. The hour was up and we still hadn't found the two people. We looked at each other though and said it didn't matter because we weren't going to stop until we did. and what do you know? The next door, a cute hispanic couple opened up and immediately invited us in when I said we shared a message about how we teach families how they can become eternal. We taught them the restoration and I've never taught anyone so genuinely interested in what I had to say. They accepted the baptismal invitation with ease. My testimony of the reality of my savior and father in heaven grew yesterday. I know He answers prayers.

Love you all. Que Dios les bendiga.
Hermana Baugh

Hermana "Vaugh": B's and V's sound the same in spanish

Well I have approximately 6 minutes to write this...we are having a zone pday today that is starting pretty soon and we have to get there to set things up. Hermana Gibson and I had to get the dinner together hahaha I feel like a relief society president.... I'm too young for this!! I'm excited though,  I get to play ultimate frisbee again! Promise I wont give myself heat exhaustion again mom, don't worry. Weekly highlights weekly highlights....ahh I dont even know what happened now that I'm writing this!

- I biked up a HILL! I had to change my gears on my bike for the first time in my entire mission. It was glorious.
- Ive realized that there is actually a very large population of people from the middle east here in Tampa. Over the past year, I have attained the instinct of just naturally starting to speak in spanish the minute I meet someone who is a little darker, and has an accent.  Usually Im right and they are hispanic. I have had to change that since being here hahah too many times have I started to speak to some innocent person in spanish here that just stares at me, waits for me to stop then says- Im from Iraq. Oh. Im so sorry.

- So the area that we had spent the majority of our time finding in last week is turning out to be too far to travel to... so basically we started our whole teaching pool over again this week. We discovered 15th street, this street that is right by us that is LLENO  of people who speak spanish!! There are a ton of apartments, in one of them we have yet to knock on a door and speak english. There have been so many nights where I don't want to stop talking to people because I just love how many people we are finding that are so willing to learn! We found 19 new investigators this week, I was able to share my testimony about the restoration with every single one of them. I have been praying to be able to strengthen my testimony of the restoration, and I know being moved here was an answer to that prayer because I have been able to share the message of the restoration I feel like at least 40 times since being here. How better way to grow your testimony than by sharing it? Im so grateful for the knowledge that I have of the gospel truths that have been restored and feel so blessed for the opportunity I have had this week to share that message with so many.

- Update on Ambar, John and Bryan. Not good----- all of them are moving this week!! Ambar is going back to the dominican republic a month earlier than she had been planning, and john and bryan are moving out of tampa. Haha hopefully these other people we have found will actually stay in Tampa!

- Cool story of the week. There is a high councilman that came to our ward this week. He is from cuba, is a doctor and I was talking to him and said I liked his tie. It had a scripture on it. He said he had a ton of them and he wears his scriputre ties to work every day, just as a simple way to do misisonary work. I turned around during sacrament meeting and behind me there was a lady who had never been to church before. I went and sat next to her and turns out she was one of these high concilman's patients, and because of one of his ties they had started talking about church and she came today to visit! She ended up loving church, and said we could come teach her this week. So cool how doing simple things like wearing a scripture tie is missionary work! Challenge of the week: Everyone get a tie with a scriputre on it and that is where the true hastening of the work will come from. Welp ended up taking more than 6 minutes to write this. oops. better go now, love you all have a great week!!!!
love
hermana vaugh
*funny side note, this is actually how the ward spells my name in the sacrament meeting programs. I find it pretty funny and love it. Vs and Bs sound the same in spanish.

"Not Much has changed but We Live Underwater"

Jonas brothers anyone? Please tell me you know that song. Haha because I feel like thats how my life has been this past week, the rain is crazy here! We've already gotten 3 flood warnings just this morning! But despite getting soaked a few times, we were on fire this week! But before I get on with the weekly update I can't believe I forgot to tell you the single most important thing that happened to me last week...my first sunday in Tampa 5 when we were greeting all the members coming in, I MET MY VERY FIRST PERSON FROM URUGUAY. She is an older lady in the ward and when she told me where she was from I probably scared the poor thing so bad. Why is this such a big deal? I have met a person from every single spanish speaking country in my mission so far, except for Uruguay. I have been seaching for this Uruguayan for so long... Ive even got desperate enough to start asking random people on the street for referrals of people from uruguay. So that was a life event that happened.

Alright so last week we were finding basically 100% of the time since we are a 3rd set of missionaries they added us into this ward and so there wasn't any investigators or information or anything to go off of because we didn't exist before. It has been fun getting to know the area and trying to figure out where the best places to find spanish speakers are... we have gotten really good at using google maps on our ipads and zooming in all over our area and skoping out places like trailer parks or tiendas...technology is pretty cool.  We had a TON of success this week. I can't tell you how much my testimony of saying specific prayers has grown. Every time before we would go out finding, we would pray and tell heavenly father exactly how much time we would spend in the area, and what we wanted to accomplish. Whether it was "find 2 new investigators, and get 3 peoples information" or " teach 2 lessons and receive a referral" I'm not lying we achieved every single thing we set out to do every day. We ended up finding 13 new investigators and teaching 29 lessons, I haven't taught that many lessons since I was in Bradenton! And we started this week with 3 people in our area book!  Ambar is doing really well, we were able to set a baptismal date with her this week. 2 other of the new investigators we found came to church on sunday named john and brian. Ill keep you updated on them!

 Our first training we gave in district meeting went well this week, we have zone meeting tomorrow and will be training and president cusick will be there hahah so pray it goes well! Real quick I just want to share a thought about something I was studying this week. I was reading in the book of mormon and about the Liahona. So the liahona has two needles, not one. It says that one points the way they should go, so what does the other do? I was thinking about that, how one needle must represent the will of god and the direction he wanted them to go, and the other must be the will of man. The only possible way that they would be able to know which needle is the will of god would be if both needles were lined up, or rather that both the will of god and the will of nephi and his family were the same.  It is only when we sacrifice our will to that of god that we will be able to progress and find our way through life. We will never know which direction he needs us to go if our will is not aligned with his. Giving god back our time, our talents, our strength and energy is just giving him back what is already his. We can only truly give to him when we give or our heart and our mind---our will. Its the only thing that is not His. Think about what you can do and change in your own life to make sure that your will is aligned with gods:) love you all, have a great week!!
love hermana va

"Im in the Lightning Capitol of the World...Hey!"

Basically this week has been a roller coaster. Hna Gibson and I went up to transfer meeting on wednesday, and after anxiously waiting for so long I finally got called up and President at the pulpit looked at me and asked "Hermana Baugh, where do want to go?" "....Whereever the Lord needs me to." "no really, where would you like to go?" ...."Tampa cinco" "Does that mean 5? Because thats where your going with Hermana Gibson to serve as Sister training leaders in the tampa zone." ahh I can't tell you how happy we both were. WE ARE IN A SPANISH WARD PEOPLE. WARD, DID YOU HEAR THAT? And we are in Tampa!! sister training leaders are like zone leaders but you know, girls so we are in charge of training in district meetings every week and helping the sisters in the zone. It is also really weird because Elder Andrew Knowlton is one of the zone leaders so we are working with him!  ayayay I have like zero time today, so I will just give some highlights of these past two crazy days

- Beneva now has two sets of missionaries, elders and sister phillips actually got to stay! And is with an english sister but im sure they will continue to do great work:)

- There are 3 sets of missionaries in my ward. One is a new elder named elder Walton...Sister walton his sister was in my district at the CCM and is the tall one with brown hair I was always with!

- The rest of the mission went to a rays baseball game this week in tampa but hna gibson and I went to a baptism they had in cortez that night instead with the other hermanas, it was cool going back again and seeing the branch.

-It has rained almost non stop since I got here, it really is the lightning captial of the world and is living up to its name!

-hna gibson and I are opening up a new area in this ward so we started out with absolutely no investigators or anything, we prayed and asked heavenly father to help us set some goals when we got here of lessons we were going to teach, investigators we were going to find and those who would come to church--- we hit every single one of them!! We had an investigator at church on sunday named Ambar, she is from the dominican republic and absolutlely lvoed church. We had found her and two of her friends she lives with the day before.

- The ward is so great. We were able to meet with both the bishop (BISHOP)  and WARD mission leader personally and show them we are here to work and help support the missionary work of the ward. The bishop is from Ecuador and WML from Dominican Republic, all the leaders here are so young!

- the two biggest groups of hispanics we have been finding here are puerto rican and dominican republican

-I am going to write more next week but I really just feel like ammon right now, boasting of my God this week and how great He is. We started on Thursday with absolutely no one to teach but saw so many miracles these past few days and now things have already picked up! I love the ward here and love that I get to work with hna gibson again. We have both grown so much these past 6 months since I was training her, barely more than a trainee myself. We have been able to get right to work here and put everything we have learned into practice and I feel like we work with such unity its amazing.  God really does lead His work. love you
love hermana baugh

Nos vemos...nos vamos

 So we got the transfer email on saturday night and we were totally shocked to see that both hermana phillips and I are being transferred. I couldn't believe that when I saw it, especially because our area is doing so well. For example in the past month we have found 24 investigators, and even had 7 at church on Sunday! We have been working really well with the members and have built really strong relationships and trust with them. My automatic feeling when we found out we were going was one of dread, because I just love these people and this area so much that the last thing I want to happen is for the work here to slow down. But after praying a lot, Heavenly Father reminded me that this isn't my work nor my mission, it is His. Things might not go according to my plan, but they also do according to His. And His is just a little bit more perfect than mine. Okay maybe a lot more perfect than mine. We came to the realization as well that we are teaching a lot of men right now, and they will probably be able to progress a lot better with the elders that will be coming in. I think that was the main factor in the revelation that president received about our area. A little miracle that happened this week was that we met every single one of our proselyting goals this week (goals for lessons taught, people at church, progressing investigators, new investigators found, etc.) . I can't even remember the last time that has happened to me. We always pray to know what goal to set and then try our best to achieve it during the week but a lot of times it doesn't happen. But this week, I think Heavenly Father knew we would be a little down knowing this would be our last week here and wanted to let us know He was proud of the work we had done so he helped us to reach every single one.Sunday was rough saying goodbye to all the members.  Everyone was devastated that they were taking us away. Our branch president, his wife, branch mission leader and his family and a few others even started tearing up when they were talking to us. I might have shed a few too hahah. Ima bebe. Branch council was also slightly panicking during our meeting because they realized that they won't have anyone to play the piano now that I am leaving! Ahh man I love the beneva branch so much. It's definitely hard to go. The assistants already called and told us that hermana phillips will be going to cortez (IM SO PUMPED ABOUT THIS SHE IS GOING TO MY OLD AREA) to be with hermana jahnel and hermana bryan (who hermana gibson was training). I am so grateful for these past 3 transfers I've had with hermana phillips and for having the priviledge to be her trainer. I have learned so many things from her, a lot more than Im sure she has learned from me. We have a lot of great memories together here in Beneva, and I have to say it is kind of nice that we are going out together. Im excited to hear about her progress and success in Bradenton.  Me and hermana gibson will be going up to transfer meeting together on wednesday to find out where we will be going. We are the only two hermanas being transferred so I am really anxious to know if we will both be going english, or will be opening a new area together. Two elders were just taken out of the tampa 5th ward which is the only spanish ward in the mission and Im hoping I go there! but ive been praying to have the mindset that it doesn't matter to me where I go or what language, because wherever I do it is where Im needed.

- A few updates on the most golden investigators we have been teaching here before I leave, so that you guys will know who Im talking about when I share the news when they get baptized. There is Omar- whos girlfriend is a member in mexico and was an online referral from her. When we started teaching him, he had no faith, had never prayed, and had never even seen a bible. Since then, he has been praying and reading in the book of mormon every day- little bits and pieces between his two jobs he has as a cook. He stopped drinking coffee and smoking within a week after learning the word of wisdom and said he has never felt better in his life. He did a full 24 hour fast with us last week to be able to get work off for sundays, and wouldn't break it until it had been exactly 24 hours, and that was while he was at his job all day working with food! And guess what? He got work off for Sunday yesterday!! But ofcourse, right when we are about to take a big step satan is always right there. His alarm didnt go off and he slept in until 130 and was even late to his second job!! ahh that was frusterating. But he is determined to be there next week. He even picked his own baptismal date of August 22 and he's working on earning enough money to go back to mexico to marry his girlfriend, so they can get married in the temple one day. Im excited to hear how he continues to progress

-there is also Waldo. He is a man who just moved here from Cuba two months ago that I stopped and talked to while we were on bikes about a week and a half ago. He loves to study history and already knew quite a bit about the history of the church. He came to church the day after we street contacted him without teaching him anything, which like hardly ever happens. And of course it was the sunday that we had a big meeting and talked about all the same  sex marriage legislation and it got kind of heated haha. So we were worried but we taught him quite a bit last week and he came to church again! He has a lot of potential. It was really cool, the day we taught him about the book of mormon I had just finished it again in spanish that morning and prayed about it so I was able to share my newly strengthened testimony with him of it. He calls me Vietnam for some reason because apparently when I first introduced myself as hermana baugh on the street, he thinks my name sounds like Vietnam. hahah Ill miss him and all my cubans here.

-ah man there are so many more that i've never even told you about. one more is marta, a friend of celfia (one of my recent converts) that she brought to church on sunday. She just moved here from mexico and she absolutely loved church, we taught her later that day with celfia about the book of mormon and she loved it and us and was so sad that we wouldnt be able to keep teaching her!

--man theres so much more I wanted to write about. I love this work so much I could talk about all the miracles I see every day for ages. I hope everyone has a good week, please pray that the work and the people here in sarasota can continue to progress.
love hermana va

525.600 Minutes

So this past week on July 9th I turned a whole one years old. 525,600 minutes if i remember correctly from that rent song. didnt want to do the actual math haha. To celebrate we went to souplantation and then I had frozen yogurt for the first time in a whole year. Oh and also I TAUGHT AN AMISH COUPLE. Ok so we knocked on their door and I told them a little bit about our church and they accpeted me saying a prayer for them so Im counting it. And they weren't just any amish couple, they were mr. and mrs. yoder. Yoder's is the big amish restaurant out here. Mission success? I think yes.

- This week we worked hard like usually and we taught the most lessons that I have taught in like 7 months! If I get transferred this next transfer, I would feel pretty proud of the work that has been done here in Beneva. We have really built up the area here. This week I wanted to focus on trying to help get the members even more involved with missionary work and I thought of this idea called "prayer-grams" to help them you know, "get with the prayer-gram" more. Its like deliviring a candygram but instead of delivering candy we asked the members to think of someone we could go to and say a prayer with that was going through a hard time or something. I thought it was pretty clever until I realized that I am in a spanish branch so that name wouldn't even make sense to them haha. It's all good, made up a spanish one. We are calling them una "secreta oracion" and since I play piano in sacrament meeting, I've got some power when it comes to choosing the sacrament hymns so we sang "secreta oracion." It turned out pretty well and we got a few referrals from it and will hopefully get some more this week!

- Something cool that happened this week was one day we prayed to find two new investigators, and we ended up finding 2 new long lost members that day. One was a 92 year old lady from Honduras named Marie. We knocked on a door and a nurse opened it and it was an old persons home for old hispanic ladies. Jackpot. She welcomed us right in and led us straight to Marie because she likes to listen to la palabra de dios. I invited her to be baptized our second lesson and turns out that she was baptized into the mormon church when she was like 40, one of the four baptisms she has had in her life. Tiny detail she forgot to mention when she met us haha. I told her, well I mean one of those baptisms has to count right?

-the other was a man we talked to outside and offered a prayer to and he was from Chile and was like wait are you mormons? I am too! he and his wife had stopped going to church here because there hadnt been a spanish branch in sarasota a few years ago. but now there is! His name is juan and when I told him my name he swears that it was an elder baugh that baptized him in chicago in 1992 so dad a little homework for you, do we have any relatives that went there??

-Sorry going to have to cut it a little short this week. Basically alls well and the work is great. Que les vaya bien!
Hermana Va