Miracles Frosties, and a Baja Freeze

 ITS NOT A TRICK...ITS A TREAT

- we had exchanges with our sister training leaders this week! I was expecting to be the one leaving our area this time since I stayed last transfer but NOOPEE God has other plans and once again I was told I would be staying in our area and Newbill would leave for the day. Oh and also tiny detail I should mention...our STLs are English speaking missionaries now so I didn't get to enjoy the conveniency of having a leader that spoke Spanish and could actually help me with the lessons. So I was kind of scared the day of exchanges because I'm not too confident in my Spanish yet and we had mostly Spanish lessons planned for the day which basically means me teaching by myself. But then I just needed to remember that I don't need to be confident in myself, I just need to have confidence in the Lord. I don't know, I kind of just look at things like ok God loves his children too much-these people that we are teaching- to let ME mess up THEIR eternal progression. He's not going to leave me alone to teach them about this really important stuff because He'd knows I'd fail without his help. So He's going to help me by letting me teach by the spirit. Because that's all we really are as missionaries is tools. Yup I said it I'm a tool. And I'm proud of it. I'm just the tool that the spirit can work through to touch the hearts of these people we are teaching. So reminding myself of that really helped as we went through the day and you know what? Everything actually went really well. I was able to understand the majority of what others were saying to me and it seemed like everyone I taught understood the things I (the spirit) was teaching them. It was really cool. I know God was with me this day helping me constantly and I know I wouldn't have been able to do it without him.

- another "gift of tongues" experience happened this week. So approximately 7 minutes before church president Gonzalez told us that our sacrament meeting speakers hadn't showed up and Newbill immediately said " it's ok we can speak!" *meanwhile I'm  nonchalantly bracing myself against the wall to keep myself from passing out* presidente said great! The topic is home teaching and visiting teaching! *i grasp the wall a little tighter as my face goes white* So yeah we walked up to the stand and sat up there and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say..,let alone in Spanish. I prayed so hard up there hahah you have no idea. I just had faith though that somehow God was going to let me know what to say! I'm not even quite sure what I ended up really saying but I spoke for ten minutes on something about Moroni 7 and trying to become more like our savior and charity and missionary work and then I bore my testimony and was done! Ah probably the scariest thing of my life but I did it! And I defs know that it was the spirit helping me know what to say because I still have no idea what I said!

-well here's another pretty cool thing that happened. And it's about food. And missionary work. So doubly as cool. So there's this potential investigator named Cecilia that we have been trying to contact for a few months but haven't been able to really get a hold of because she's always working. But the other day we had been planning on getting dinner from a member and when it didn't end up working out we were on our own-- which meant fast food. We had a free frosty coupon so were going to go to Wendy's but were slightly ( ok extremely) disappointed to find out we couldn't use it for another week. So we decided to go to Taco Bell instead! And while we were eating one of the workers comes up to us and says "hey you're the church girls! I've been feeling so bad that I can never call you guys back! This is such a coincidence that I finally get to meet you guys!" It was her! Cecelia! The lady we'd been trying to contact since I got here! She said " let me go get you some Baja freezes and we can talk!" Haha I was like ah yes! Caffeine and the spirit this is gonna be one powerful lesson! So we were able to teach her a lesson about the restoration right then and there in Taco Bell and were able to get more info from her to set up our next appointment. During the lesson when she read the part about Joseph smiths first vision she finished and she was like" wooaah...I felt that, I've got chills all over". Then a little after that I may or may not have knocked over a cup of water all over the table possibly killing the mood a little bit haha but Gods pretty amazing sometimes. Ok No all the time. ..and inspired eating is a real thing!

-well We were supposed to have a baptism this Sunday with Gino, he had been interviewed and everything.  Everything had gone according to plan except right last minute he didn't show up to church, even though we had called 20 minutes before and he said he was on his way. Turns out he had a huge family emergency and his cousin had been shot and killed here in Bradenton right before church so instead of being baptized he was trying to sort all that out and even had a relapse and drank again after not drinking for a month. So that was our hardest thing to have to go through during the week. And obviously for Gino too. It was weird though, we both felt inspired to set a goal of 0 baptisms for this week and something felt kind of off the whole time we were preparing Gino for baptism this week. I just know God really does have a plan and that if he wasn't baptized this weekend it was for a reason and because we need to help him prepare a little more.

- well those were some of the highlights this week. We're getting ready to go on a bike ride to Anna Marie island which is kind of like a touristy place around here right now for our pday so I'm excited for that and will send pictures tomorrow! And we have a sisters conference tomorrow in St Petersburg AT THE BEACH!!!! I REPEAT IM GOING TO THE BEACH AND IM GONNA BE ABLE TO TOUCH SOME SAND. I've never been more excited to touch a bunch of microscopic rocks in my life. Hope everyone has a great week! Love you!
Paz y bendiciones
Hermana Baugh

Daily Life As a Missionary

 

The Branch children passing out pass a long cards.

-Well first item of business is that Gino's baptism didn't work out for this weekend:( We told him at the beginning of the week that Satan was going to work extra hard on him this week to try and keep him from getting baptized and to remember to put God first. We tried to meet with him almost every day but last minute he would call us and say I'm so sorry I'm still at work I have to finish this job! ( he works on cars) he's like I don't know where all these jobs have been coming from but I need to do them so that I can make the money to pay my rent and help my family. Meanwhile I'm like �� I know where they're coming from! This is the adversary at work here! Ah that sly dog. He kept Gino so busy doing something "good" this week to prevent him from doing something way better. And the day that we had planned for him to get his baptismal interview of course his phone wasn't working so we couldn't get a hold of him. So we just had to hope and pray that he would show up that night. We felt so bad though because the elders had to meet us at his house and had gotten a ride from one of their investigators since they don't have a car. We waited out by our car for a while and when he wasn't showing up the elders went over and knocked on his door but they did this before we could warn them about Gino's evil roommate/landlord who threatened to call the cops on us one time while we were waiting for Gino to come home. They actually didn't even make it to the door...they just walked past this guys window but it was enough to wake the beast and he came storming out and started yelling at them in angry Cuban Spanish saying "get off my property! Get off! Who do you church people think you are! This is not a public place get out! Who is your pastor?! Who is your pastor?! Give me his number I'm calling him after I call the cops!" Yeah it got pretty heated. And the poor elders and their investigator are just standing in the middle of this like what the heck is going on?? So yeah that was a fun night! Hopefully this week will go better though and Gino will be able to finish work so we can meet with him and can be baptized this next weekend!

- Marcela is doing good! She actually hated her new job! She said they made her work 14 hours straight with no break for her first day last weekend and she was like Ya no that's not going to happen again she is trying to get out of that now and will hopefully be able to go to church soon. Man I love Marcela. She's kind of like our grandma. She's pretty young but she actually is a grandma and is pretty much raising two of her grand babies right now. They are so cute! The whole not being allowed to hold babies and kids rule is probably one of the hardest rules for me,especially with Marcela. There have been a few times when Marcela will just hand me a crying baby and will be like here take him for a second and I'm like ahh what do I do I just want to comfort you but I can't ...I feel like I'm holding a bomb because Hermana Newbill gives me a look like "put it down! Put it down!" And I'm like "ahh I don't know what to do with it" hahah it's actually pretty funny.

- A cool thing that happened this week was that one of the members came and told us that she wants her granddaughter  to be baptized the same day that we are preparing 3 other 9yr olds to be baptized which is in 2 weeks! We were like yes! Baptism! Our favorite word! Our favorite color! Our favorite food! Our favorite pastime activity! We went to her house this week to teach her granddaughter Sheila and her cousin was there too. I asked her if she had been baptized and she said no but I really really want to! And I want to be baptized on the same day as my cousin! So now we are teaching her too and are preparing FIVE 9/10yr olds to be baptized on the same day in 2 weeks. The Ward is so excited...it's gonna be a fiesta!

- speaking of the Ward, we had our primary program this week and oh my goshhh little kids singing primary songs in Spanish is pretty much the cutest thing ever I was dying. There was one song I've never heard before called "la familia es de dios" that I've been trying to find but its not in the primary book but I love it! I make the primary kids sing it to me every time I see some of them haha

- Everyday is full of different people and different experiences that I learn different things every day. And I love it. I love being a missionary...it's something I can't really describe. Before I left I thought I'd have a problem with being home sick or something but I don't. When you are just so involved in doing missionary work and putting everything you have into it you don't really have time to think about anything else. And I'm not just forcing myself to only think about missionary work- it's all I want to do! It literally makes me so happy! Yeah it's hard sometimes and I'm awkward and mess things up and don't know what to say a lot of the time but I know it's okay because I know Heavenly Father knows I'm trying my best! And I'm just happy because I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing! I've got to go but I'll share more about the area I'm in next week. Love you all!!

Love Hermana baugh 

Trying to See the Sunshine Through the Clouds

Well not gonna lie this week was pretty hard. It started off pretty good though. We had a mini zone conference in port Charlotte and got some training, were told flu shots were mandatory for us (bad thing number uno) and we got to watch Meet the Mormons....with a bunch of

Mormons. Haha all the missionaries looked like they were about to cry when the movie started since a lot of them haven't seen a movie in almost a yr and a half or two years. But I thought it was really good and they did a good job with it! I saw Andrew knowlton there...he's

alive and doing well! Haha president actually told him to stand up during the meeting and was like "alright, raise your hand if you have ever seen this elder not smiling" and everyone was quiet and he's like "everyone needs to be a little happier..people don't want to talk to you if you don't at least look happy!". 

- we had a lot of lessons fall through this week...I guess people have work and family and lives and other things to do besides learn about the gospel or something? One interesting lesson we had was with an old lady named Sandra from Puerto Rico who was a member referral. She is probably the most stubborn, prideful, loud person I've ever met. She let us in to give her a lesson but she probably talked for 95% of it...and not because we didn't know what to say, because every single time we started to say something she would butt in in her loud Puerto Rican Spanish voice and not let us finish our sentence. I was getting so frustrated because if I even paused for half a second for my slow little brain to catch up and try to put my thoughts into semi-comprehensible Spanish she would seize the opportunity and go off again about how there is no way that any church could help her strengthen her relation ship with God because "tengo una fe taaaangrande". Yup not going back there - 

Alright so the two of our new investigators that I have been talking about, Marcela and her sister Maria. We had a really great lesson with Marcela about the law of chastity early in the week because Marcela is living with her boyfriend so in other words no baptism until we can fix that no no. But we had been praying so hard all week that she would have the faith and desire to keep the commandments, specifically this one and she took the lesson really well and said that she and Grant want to get married soon!! We were like yes yes yes marriage baptism combo for the win! Then the next day we found out that both Marcela and Maria both finally the jobs they've been looking for! They kept saying oh it's because of you guys and God that my prayers have finally been answered and we both found jobs the same day that you visited us. And we're like yeah it's because you're doing the things that God wants you to do that he's blessing you so much! So we were on a pretty high high because we're like yeah this is so good, they're getting answers to their prayers, they're recognizing these blessings are from God, we're on a roll  , hallelujah hurrah for Israel. Then of course we find out that BOTH of them have to work Sunday's and aren't able to come to church and all of our hopes and dreams came crashing down. They need to come to church!! Ahhh Newbill and I were so sad because now we're gonna have to tell them that "hey actually remember how we were talking about those miracle jobs you guys finally got after not having work since you left Mexico...yeahh those might have to go...". Man so pray for us and pray for them this week that they will be able to work something out so that they will be able to come to church!

- Gino got a new job this week too so it's been pretty hard to see him. I guess Satans new thing is giving these poor jobless Mexicans who just want to work jobs that don't let them meet with the missionaries or go to church. Because Gino is ready and wants to get baptized this next weekend but he wasn't able to cometo church to get his interview this Sunday and we have only been able to see him like once or twice this week so pray for him too that we will be able to work everything out for his baptism this weekend!!

 

- One of our investigators named Joe was supposed to get baptized this weekend but that fell through since he doesn't feel he's quite ready to make that commitment yet...we are really trying to help him though to gain his own testimony but he needs to do his part and actually read the Book of Mormon and pray and come to church so we are hoping this time it will finally click and he will realize that he needs to act to build his faith and can't just wait around for God to answer him.

- NONE of our investigators were able to come to church this Sunday. So my heart kinda broke but then it was put back together a little bit because all of our recent converts were there and going strong and Hilario got the priesthood so that made things a little better.

- but to put the cherry on top of this week...we had one of our English investigators pass away on Thursday. And it was a really horrible experience that I've been struggling with this week and am not going to talk about very much but yeah so that may have put a little bit of a damper on this week. - but we are just praying that these things happened this week because that just means something really good is going to happen this week. We're GOING to have at least one baptism this week. Gino is ready and also Alfredo is ready....he is still just trying to receive a confirmation for himself that this church is true. It's kind of killing me because he just wants to know the truth soooo sooo bad but I know that God answers prayers in his own way and his own time but I'm hoping that His own way and His own time will be this week so that Alfredo will feel ready to be baptized this weekend. -Spanish update. Score is still currently me:�� Spanish language:��. It's kind of frustrating I thought I'd be way better by now at it than I actually am but guess God is trying to teach me patience and humility. Wish he was trying to teach me intelligence and bilingualism pero, así es. - please pray for the people I mentioned in my letter today...for Marcela and Maria and Gino and Joe and Alfredo. They need the prayers more than I do! Love you guys and hope everyone has a great week! ������ -boo yah thought I'd have to leave these bad boys behind but guess who's got emojis on her iPad ����

Hermana Baugh

Almost got arrested...for being "white" girls.

Well for starters one day we almost got arrested! For being white! We were walking around a neighborhood that I'm just gonna say is prime for contacting Spanish speakers and this cop pulls up to us and gets out and is like "excuse me ladies do you know where you are? What are you guys doing here?" and we're like you know bringing people eternal salvation and never ending happiness so nothing too important ( visiting someone we met here last week)  He says well we have been having a lot of break ins around here and you two match the suspects' descriptions of being "two white females", so I'm going to have to run your IDs. And we're like, yes of course the two white Mormon missionaries walking around THIS neighborhood are the two most likely suspects. I mean it only makes sense. Because I'm gonna rob someone when I have pamphlets and cards about Christ and our church spilling out of my bag as I hand him my ID.  But anyways after about 5 more minutes he finally let us go after feeling convinced we were innocent even though he still insisted on writing down all our information. We invited him to church though so idk maybe we'll see him again haha. 

Marcela, the referral we contacted last week and had the 13 minute silent prayer experience with is doing so well. We saw her a few times this week and she's been reading in the BOM, and praying out loud and a lot shorter *fistpump. She shared what she is learning with her sister who lives in her apt complex and we are actually teaching her too now! They're awesome! -

General conference was this week and I've never been more excited for it in my life. It's like the Super Bowl for missionaries. We went around telling everyone about it this week, inviting everyone to our "super bowl party" at the church. We're like yeah we're gonna have this big screen TV and air conditioning and long cushioned chairs and maybe some old stale sacrament bread it's going to be great you've gotta be there. But really though that's all I could think about this week was how excited I was for conference. Every morning Newbill and I would wake up and say "ONLY 96 HOURS TILL CONFERENCE" "ONLY 37 HOURS TILL CONFERENCE" "ONLY 3 HOURS TILL CONFERENCE" . I remember always thinking that conference was the longest and most boring thing ever and would keep checking the time hoping it was almost over so I could go back to doing what ever unimportant thing I was doing before. Now I kept checking my watch dreading the time when it would be over and wishing it would go on forever. I'm not sure when or how my attitude about conference changed but it's definitely done a 180.Conference is so so much more than a Sunday where we get to stay home from church and eat cinnamon rolls and watch BYU TV in our pajamas instead. It's the time when we get to hear direct revelation from God through his living prophets and apostles that is specifically for us. Its amazing. I think what really was making me so excited for conference this time though was because I knew how many people we are teaching have been praying and trying to know for themselves that this really is Christ's restored church. I feel like we've been doing everything we can to try and help them to receive and recognize their answer but we kind of came to the point this week and we're like ok we've done all we can do it's the prophets turn now. 

I find it really hard to believe that if someone watches conference with an open heart, real intent and sincere desire to know truth that you can't watch the prophet speak and not know that he is a true prophet of God. -Our turnout for conference wasn't as great as we wanted it to be but we did have a few investigators who came. Justin came for the Sunday morning session ( was baptized last week) and it was hilarious sitting next to him. He thinks he knows like everything there is to know about the church now that he's baptized and has been reading and studying his scriptures more. During the talks he'd be like " oh that scriptures in 1 Nephi chapter 10 I know that one" or " psh all this stuff is in The gospel principles". Wish I knew as much as Justin does.- there were so many good talks that I can't even decide which was my favorite. The one that Uchtdorf gave though about gaining a testimony and recognizing spiritual truth was really powerful though. There are so many people I can't wait to show that talk to this week. But my overall testimony was strengthened so much this weekend. I feel like I just got recharged and am ready to go teach every single person in Bradenton that I can. I know that we have a Heavenly Father that loves and knows us individually. I know that he sent his son Jesus Christ so that we would be able to overcome our shortcomings, our trials, our sorrows and our weaknesses so that we can make it back to live with Him again. He wants us to live with him again. but we need to do our part with our time we have right now. I know that He has given us a living prophet to lead and guide us to know those things we need to do to live with Him again.- overall I'm just so thankful to be a missionary. I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to help God with his work and his glory " to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". I know that's what he wants for each and every one of His children! I hope everyone has a great week this week and doesn't forget the things we learned this weekend! I'm praying that I don't!

I find it really hard to believe that if someone watches conference with an open heart, real intent and sincere desire to know truth that you can't watch the prophet speak and not know that he is a true prophet of God. -Our turnout for conference wasn't as great as we wanted it to be but we did have a few investigators who came. Justin came for the Sunday morning session ( was baptized last week) and it was hilarious sitting next to him. He thinks he knows like everything there is to know about the church now that he's baptized and has been reading and studying his scriptures more. During the talks he'd be like " oh that scriptures in 1 Nephi chapter 10 I know that one" or " psh all this stuff is in The gospel principles". Wish I knew as much as Justin does.- there were so many good talks that I can't even decide which was my favorite. The one that Uchtdorf gave though about gaining a testimony and recognizing spiritual truth was really powerful though. There are so many people I can't wait to show that talk to this week. But my overall testimony was strengthened so much this weekend. I feel like I just got recharged and am ready to go teach every single person in Bradenton that I can. I know that we have a Heavenly Father that loves and knows us individually. I know that he sent his son Jesus Christ so that we would be able to overcome our shortcomings, our trials, our sorrows and our weaknesses so that we can make it back to live with Him again. He wants us to live with him again. but we need to do our part with our time we have right now. I know that He has given us a living prophet to lead and guide us to know those things we need to do to live with Him again.- overall I'm just so thankful to be a missionary. I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to help God with his work and his glory " to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". I know that's what he wants for each and every one of His children! I hope everyone has a great week this week and doesn't forget the things we learned this weekend! I'm praying that I don't! Love you!

Hermana Baugh

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