March 31, 2014 Last week in Takena = a bucket full of tears

Tchau tchau departing missionaries!

Yayy Lebanon Zone.

Green smoothies with Sister Mink

Sister Ordonez and Sister Sorto-Cruz. Aka the cuties from Temple Square. Carissa Simons probably knows them

Muh boy Sherm and his family

Marteeny Fam!

Salem Zone at Silver Falls

Hiking with Sister A!

Last week in Takena = a bucket full of tears.  Actually that's an exaggeration. I probably won't cry. I haven't cried ever when I've left an area/got a new companion. Now that I said that I'm going to bawl next week.

So this is my official last week in the one, the only, Takena ward. I thought I was getting kicked out to spend a week up in Newberg with those sisters, but alas. I'm wrong. Again. Not a big surprise there. I guess it's the Lord keeping me humble. So I get to have my last week in Oregon in this ward. It's pretty grand and I'm happy about it. I think it will throw the members for a loop when they see me at church on Sunday after goodbyes and whatnot.

And here's the sitch on what's happening with transfers/Brazil/my life. Transfers: I'm living the trio life again! This time it's Sister P, Sister T (tuh-leen), and I. Gotta have the phonetics. And Sister T was just called as an STL!! She's awesome. She's been out about as long as Sister P. In fact they were in the same MTC district. Pretty fun stuff. And they both have food allergies. Sister P can't eat meat, Sister T can't eat gluten. So it's all sorts of fun up here. Even with all that, they'll still probably get fed more than the elders. Ah, c'est la vie.

Brazil: as I'm sure you are aware, I'm going to Brazil. True story. I go up to the mission home next Monday, get to have my "departing interview" with Prezzy, call the fam, and spend the night at the mission home. The Samuelian's would take me to the airport except that Tuesday is the day of MLC. So clearly they are going to be busy calling us all the repentance. I think they're pretty sad they aren't taking me to the airport. I am too a bit, but the Christensens (from the office) will be taking me and they're the ones that have been working with my visa paperwork. Apparently there's a joke in the office that when someone else would get their visa,  they weren't allowed to tell me.  Bah!

As for my life: just living it up in the Takena ward. We're still a bit homeless, but it's all good because the M family have taken us stragglers in. I'm thinking that we're going to be moving to an apartment sometime this week. But considering my track record at predicting the future, who knows.

I got to go on the departing missionary temple trip! That was awesome! Bah I love the temple! It was awesome to just spend the day in the Lord's house and doing His redeeming work. It doesn't get much better than that, folks.

This week has definitely flown by. Friday we had a game night. That was pretty fun. There was this family there called the H. And they're amazing. Their son was baptized a few months ago and is a priest. His family comes with him to church every week, but they aren't meeting with us or the elders. I think they initially thought that meeting with us was like a commitment to get baptized. And that's not the case. But they are super nice and we talk to them all the time. They've had the elders over for dinner and they're on the calendar to feed us as well. Then last Sunday happened. We passed around a sign-up sheet for the relief society to put down their availability to come out to lessons with us. AND MAMA H SIGNED UP. Ok. We're not sure what that means. Either she wants to be taught the lessons or wants to help us teach the lessons. Either way involves her learning about the gospel. We haven't talked to her about it yet, but you'd best be sure we are! I'm so excited to see what happens!!

So that's the 411 in Takena. Basically I love this ward. I love Oregon. I love being a missionary. I love the gospel!

Remember who you are and what you stand for!

Sister Baker