January 20, 2014 Awesome Week!!

Hey there hey!

Hope everyone's had a good week over yonder. It's been a pretty awesome week over here in Salem YSA. Ok, for one: I LOVE YSA! It's great. The bomb-diggity. Awesome possum. It will be weird to be in a family ward after this.

So street contacting is fun. You meet some interesting people. Sister A hadn't been tracting or street contacting or anything the first week, and she definitely needed that experience. So we decided to go down this busy street called Commercial. We prayed beforehand and all got different promptings. I felt like we should turn right out of this gas station, Sister P felt like we should turn down a street and stop, and Sister A felt like we needed to walk back to the busy intersection. So we did all three! We walked back on the street and started talking to people at a bus stop. The first person I talked to was on his way home from work and when he saw my nametag asked if I know the Templin family. Uhhhh... YEAH I DO! What?! Crazy crazy! We would go over to the T Family's house on a regular basis! I didn't get a chance to ask him if he was interested in learning about the church, but he told me to add him on facebook. You betcha I did. Then I sent Rachel (the daughter) a message about him. So we'll see where that goes. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. There are no coincidences, folks. 

The YSA branch presidency got all shaken up the week before I got here, and now the presidency member over missionary work is totally on the ball. This past week we had a correlation meeting (apparently the first one in a long time) with all the ward missionaries. It went so well. We have a big list of less-actives and so the ward missionaries have an assignment to go out in pairs and visit two people a week. Seems like a great idea to me. We'll see how it goes!

We helped out a less active in moving and that sure was an interesting experience. It was like half of the house was packed and the other half was just sitting out. So that was a little bit awkward. But we helped them out the best we could. I also may or may not have played a mini-prank on her boyfriend. I hid in our trunk and Sister P asked him to get something out of the car. And I freaked him out. Good times, good times. Who says you can't have fun on a mission? In a dignified way, of course. I also hit my shin on the trailer hitch and got scraped up pretty well. Battle wounds.

So we've been working with this less-active member. He's really good friends with a ward missionary named C who just got back from her mission in St. George. They're super opposite and it's funny to see them interact. But he is pretty reserved and quite sarcastic, so lessons are always interesting. This past week we had an amazing, totally Spirit-led lesson. We read through Alma 32 together and talked about it every few verses. It was the first time he really opened up and we got to understand his concerns. We were talking about having a particle of a desire to believe and C asked him if he had that desire. B just looks at her, blinks a few times, and says, "No... I just meet with missionaries for fun." I just about peed my pants! So funny!

We also went up to the Portland temple visitor's center!! It was so awesome! Let's just say we had a 12 passanger van full of ward missionaries, recent converts, less actives, and investigators. We even got a new gator out of it! Righteous! Righteous!

Also we went to visit a potential investigator and met his pretty cool roommates. And one of them looks like the lead singer from 1 Direction. It was weiiiiiiiird. Oh Lorenzo, I know your true identity... 

And Sister A committed one of our investigators to baptism!! YEAH BUDDY! Her name's E and she's a sweet heart. 

So that's what's going on over here in Salem. Never a dull moment!

Keep it real, folks!

Remember who you are and what you stand for!

Sister Baker

Happy 1 week Sister A!!

Chick-fil-a sauce! LIKE MANNA FROM HEAVEN

And Sister L at the visitor's center! Yay from MTC comps

Yay temple!

January 13, 2014 Goodbye Sweet Home, Hello Salemmmm!

Sister Strickler. Our bomb-diggity ward missionary. She comes out with us a few times a week. Love her!!

Olsen family.

 And Olivia. She's like my little sis.

WENDY!!!!  I love her so much!!!!!

Ray & Lawanda. Love them! Ray serenaded me with a song about me leaving that he made up on the spot. So. Great.

BELOW:  Teaching yaks about the Book of Mormon. Ya know, just normal, everyday mission stuff.

Tolman family. The bomb diggity. They have the yaks!

BELOW:  Robert and Debbie!!! And their dog, Oti.

The final goodbye with Jonsie. And Sister Basting. Seriously, Sister Basting is amazing. Any questions about the second coming? Ask her. She knows. She's the seminary teacher and the bomb.com

Heyoo!

Coming atcha live from Salem, Oregon!

Serving in YSA is stinking awesome. I love it. We get to teach our friends everyday. And it's not like friends that are 30 years older than us, it's friends that are our age. It's awesome. 

And I'm back in the trio liiiiiiife! Trios are the bomb.com. Seriously. 

Side note- didja know they added the definition "figuratively" to the word "literally". Like when people say, "I literally just died." Uh. No you didn't. You figuratively just died. 

But I love being in a trio with Sister A and Sister P. They're the bomb-diggity. 

Sister P is from Aiea, Hawaii and my kindred Hawaiian spirit. She's a legit islander and I'm just trying to get on her level. That will take a while. Ha! But she's a sister training leader and an amazing missionary. I've learned SO much from her this past week. She's almost like the head honcho sister training leader. If they had sisters as assistants to the president, she would be one. She's awesome. 

And Sister A is from Orem, Utah. She's already graduated from BYU with a degree in English Linguistics. So she's a smarty pants editor. And I love her a lot. Even though she's only been out a few days I'm amazed at how quickly she's caught on to everything. 

So we have a lot of fun together. I've figured out that my new motto is to play as hard as we work. And we work hard! So we've got to have fun!

I've realized that whenever I get comfortable somewhere, I always get moved! Pretty crazy, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I was finally getting my footing in Sweet Home and now I'm here in YSA. Never a dull moment on the mission. I love it. So now I'm getting to know the ward and we've been working to find the Lord's vision for the area. President Samuelian talks about vision alot and it blows my mind every time. He talks about Proverbs 29:18 that says, "where there is no vision, the people perish". It's our job as missionaries to find and establish the Lord's vision for the work in this particular section of the world. And when we figure out what it is specifically that we're working towards we establish tactics that get us there. So a few nights ago. Actually it might have been last night. Everything runs together. But anyway, we were talking about the work and praying together for a vision. And nothing was coming. Nada. Everything we talked about didn't feel right. And then we got a phone call from a random number - it was our new branch president! He wanted us to go visit someone, so we said we would. Then we asked him about establishing a vision for the work here and he told us the vision he has and it was so perfect!!! Seriously an answer to prayer. Goes to show that when we try our best and do all that we can, the Lord's grace makes up the rest. It's amazing. So now we have a clear idea of what we're working towards. Hurrah for Israel!

Yeah so the week before I got here we got an all new branch presidency and they're on fire. Not literally, figuratively. Ha. Sister A is rubbing off on me. We've been asking her if our speech is grammatically correct. It's not. Anyways. The branch presidency is awesome. They've all either been bishops or stake presidents or high councilmen and I'm so excited to get to work with them. The leader that is over missionary work has already scheduled to have a meeting with us, the ward missionaries, and our ward mission leader. Oh, we also got a new ward mission leader this Sunday. Some would think that all these changes would be a hindrance, but I see it as great progress being made. This transfer is gonna rock! 

I've made a breakthrough with myself. I've been trying to focus outward, but it's been a struggle. We've changed how we do our planning and our studies. Rather than saying, "What should we teach them tomorrow?" we say, "What do they need?" Maybe I've been oblivious the past 5 months, but that's really helped me change my way of thinking. President Samuelian always says, "It's not......... about.......... you." So true!! Love that man!

Also, Sister A said she felt like I was going to be her companion when we all met at the new missionary transfer meeting. Crazy awesome! Revelation for sure!

Let's see... everyone thinks I'm older than I am. They guess that I'm anywhere from 21-25. Right now I don't really care that I look older, but when I hit 40 it had better have the reverse effect. 

That's pretty much it for this week! It's been awesome and this upcoming week is gonna rock the socks off of Salem YSA!

Peace & blessins

Sister Baker

SUSHI!!!

SHOYU!!!!

NEW TRIO of SISTERS~!!!

January 6, 2014 New Year, New Area

Hello hello!

It feels like a year since the last time I emailed. Once again the Lord threw me for a loop and I've been transferred to Salem! I'm new serving in the Young Single Adult branch! Ahhh I'm so stoaked! And my new companion, Sister P, and I are training a new missionary! She gets in this Wednesday I think. Pretty crazy stuff. 

I think this computer is set in Spanish because about 75% of my words are underlined in red. It looks kind of weird. 

I'm going to be honest, I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened this week... I usually bring my journal and share the highlights, but my journal is in on of my suitcases. 

But I'm really going to miss Sweet Home. It's a weird feeling leaving the people I love a whole bunch. 

All the red is tripping out my eyes. I'll be sending pictures and captions :)

Love you!

 Sister Baker

 

 

True story. This one never gets old! Ha!

 

Yayy!! Splits with the Young Women

Oh hayy Tuttle family. I'm gonna miss them!!

 

 

 

 

December 30, 2013 Happy New Year!

Hello errybody!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas with friends and family! Or investigators and less-actives for you cool missionaries. Our Christmas season was full of two things: illness and miracles. After being sick for about a week straight, I got pink eye for Christmas! Yeah, so that was pretty fun. I'm currently on antibiotics and all is well in building up the kingdom. (when I spell kingdom I always have to say "king" in my mind or else I get the g and the d mixed up.)

This is how my pink eye went down. I'm pretty sure I caught it somewhere on Christmas Eve because I woke up on Christmas with nasty crusty eyes. I'm sure you wanted to know that. But I pretty much brushed it off because my eyes weren't bothering me. But by the end of the day one of my eyes was swollen and goopy. I'm sure you wanted to know that, too. So we went to our bishop's on Christmas and when he saw me the first thing he said was, "your eye is booger-y." Yeah bishop. Thanks. So he's a PA and wrote me a prescription right there. Except I couldn't fill it until the next day. You know, everything's closed on Christmas and whatnot. So that's fine. But I woke up with my eye swollen shut the next day. I looked ridiculous. And probably a bit freaky. It's definitely for the best that I was home-bound because I would have scared so many children. 

So I was in quarantine a lot of this week, but it was all honky dory because Sister J got to go on splits a few times and rock the work. Miracle there! 

My highlight of the week was, of course, W!!! AHH I just love her!! If you met W you would love her too. She's just the bomb.com. So Sister J and I made gingerbread cookie dough for our investigators, less-actives we're working with, and some members that help us out a lot. Sister C (the member we live with) helped out a lot too because I was sick. Don't want to be spreading those germs with the Christmas spirit! We were told to make visits on Christmas by invitation only and we figured if we showed up with cookie dough they would invite us in. Makes sense, right? Yeah, it totally worked. So we showed up at W's house on Christmas with our goodies and being the rockstar she is, invited us right in. It was awesome because her husband was there in the living room watching tv. And he stayed, turned off the tv, and talked with us! He's a football coach at the high school, so he loves to talk sports. I really don't know that much about football, but I'm a good listener and in high school I just kind of soaked a lot of stuff in even though I don't know what it means. So I talked to him a little about football, basically name-dropping my way through it. It was awesome. We got to show him that we're normal people, not just random missionaries that are trying to "Mormon-ize" his wife. Because that's not true. Anyway, he invited us to come back and talk to him again (meaning about football), but we'll totally get him talking about the gospel soon. :) Bahhhh I just love W. And she didn't even care that I was there with pink eye! Don't worry, I hand sanitized. 

And then yesterday was... interesting. We're working with a recent-ish convert/somewhat less-active named J and his mom. So J got engaged a few weeks ago and shocked us all. Then he told us that he's removing his records of the Church because his fiance A wants to marry a Christian. (Uhh... J?) And then yesterday they show up together at church. He's just full of surprises. A is such a sweetheart and just seemed kind of overwhelmed being there. We were planning on giving her a church tour a few days before, but she was sick so we didn't think she would come. But A doesn't understand that we're Christians and even though we've explained it multiple times, it hasn't clicked yet. And then J explains everything to her as, "the Mormons do this..." Not "we" but "the Mormons." Hey J, you're a Mormon too. Just in case you forgot. Oh bless his heart. I need to be more patient. But A is willing to learn about the Church while J is ready to abandon ship. Like he's already got his floaties ready. It's rough. But it's gonna be awesome.

So those are some of the highlights of this week. 

OH! I almost forgot. So we've been seeing a less-active named C and his living partner named R. She's the one that has interesting beliefs. We dropped off some cookie dough and chatted for a bit. Chatting with them basically consists of listening to her share and then discuss where our doctrine differs. We're kind of reminding C while teaching R. But C always suggests he say a closing prayer (yeahhhh!) and he starts talking about me getting my visa. It went a little bit like this: "And please bless ....... Sister ...... Chreest-oh that she'll get her visa soon." Sister J had opened her eyes during the prayer to see C a few inches away from my name tag, squinting in the dim lights to read my name. Hahaha I just about died. Seriously. 

So I'm excited for the new year and to make resolutions and goals and what not. It's gonna rock. And we also activated Facebooks on Saturday! Boo yah. We're convinced it's pretty much for W so we can show her Mormon Messages. Every video we've tried to have her look up, she hasn't been able to find. So it's like manna from heaven to just link it to her page. The Lord provides! Hurrah!!

But I love you all! I'm so proud off all the work you are all doing! 

Keep on keeping on and remember who you are and what you stand for!!

Sister Baker

December 23, 2013 Merry Christmas!!

Hello Hello and Merry Christmas!

This week has kind of been all over the place. In both a good and bad way I guess. 

Last week we went to this thrift store called Trash to Treasure and I found the COOLEST sweatshirt. Emma will be jealous, I just know it. When I saw it, I started freaking out. You know how I do. I'll attach a picture. But it's all 80s and says "Jazzercise" and "Oregon" on it!!! How sweet is that! Merry early Christmas to me!

Tuesday we got stuck in the mud on the way to visit a less active couple. Luckily they knew we were coming and helped us out. It was pretty embarrassing. Not for us really. Mostly for the car. I even got out to push and it just made the car shake. The picture looks pretty pathetic, but it really was stuck! No traction at all. Anyway, we got out of it fine. And it makes for a good story. You've got to get stuck in the mud at least once on your mission, right?

Wednesday we had a Mission Conference up in Salem with the Samuelians. So. Much. Fun. It wasn't the entire mission, just a third. But we listened to President and Sister Samuelian talk about Christ and Christmas. It was awesome!! They're just amazing. After the devotional part we had dinner, then each district had about ten minutes to come up with a Christmas-y skit that would last a few minutes. A few elders had the idea to have a "silent night" and just stand there silently for a few minutes. Uhhh. No thanks. But we couldn't really think of anything else and everything kept coming back to the fact (sort of) that Sister Baker knows how to rap. So this is how our skit went down. It's a "new tracting techniques" video introduced by one of the elders wearing a santa beard and a hat. Four elders knock on a mans door and start singing Christmas carols. The guy is totally bored and uninterested, and this is where the sistas step in. We see this all from a few yards away and come in with a beat and rapping and pure awesomeness. The guy at the door starts doing a happy dance and takes a Book of Mormon. And the crowd goes wild.

Yeah. That's what's up. It was pretty fun. The other three sisters pulled off a good beat and I rapped it up. Even though I couldn't really be heard, it was fun. President Samuelian was super impressed. He said "You can take the girl out of Charlotte, but you can't take Charlotte out of the girl!" Haha. What a hoot. 

President and Sister Samuelian also made up a Oregon Salem Mission version of the 12 Days of Christmas. I was grateful for the personal shout-out as one of the "7 visa-waiters". Good times, good times.

And the elder in my district that's going to Brazil too got his visa! I'm super excited for him. He's been waiting a transfer longer than I have. 

So then after that the week has kind of spiraled downward. 

One of our less active members takes care of one of our investigators because she's homebound to a wheelchair. Well the LA member had a mental breakdown and didn't go help our gator all day. That's a long time to be stuck in a chair. So we called around and had a member who does hospice care come help us figure things out. The member couldn't actually do anything to help without consent from the doctor or she would lose her license, and our investigator just couldn't understand that for some reason. We think the lack of medical care was effecting her brain functions. Anyways. It was just a whole lot of mess with a whole lot more details. We were so lucky that our Bishop's wife told us to call this member to help because otherwise we could have been in legal trouble if we tried to help our gator ourselves. 

That was Friday. Then Saturday I woke up with a fever and some other junk. So we stayed home all day. And our Bishop (who is a PA) told us not to come to church yesterday, too. So we were in quarantine this weekend and I'm still not feeling so hot so we're going back home to sleep today. I don't think I've ever slept this much during the day because of a sickness. It's kind of a weird feeling. It also feels really weird just to be home all day. I get the urge to go out and do something, then I walk to the living room and I'm worn out. It's a pain. Hopefully we'll be better after today because we've got some big plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas! We've got things to do! People to see! I can't have some stinkin' virus holding me back!

Random side note: I got a new journal a while back. It's pretty big. And I had the thought, I wonder which will come first: the end of the journal or my visa? 

It's like the tootsie roll commercial. The world may never know...

So that's all for this week! This upcoming week is going to be awesome, I just know it! Sister J and I are planning on spreading love and happiness and peace and all sorts of other goodies. We're making stuff to take to less-actives, investigators, and members. I'm so excited! Feel the Spirit of Christ this Christmas!

Remember who you are and what you stand for!

Keep on keepin' on!

Love you all,

Sister Baker

December 16, 2013 Still in Sweet Home

Heyoooo!

Life's rocking over here in the OSM.

 

This is Olivia, a girl in our ward and she looks so much like Emma I think! We've had a few members in the ward tell us we look like sisters. And I figure Emma looks like me and she looks like Emma so it all makes sense.

 

Then there's the biggest Christmas tree I've ever seen in someone's house. They live in this huge workshop type deal and have a massive tree!

 

This is us with Sister C at the Christmas fireside at the stake center

 

Last p-day we decorated the C's Christmas tree. It was fun to do a bit of fun Christmas-y stuff. We talk about Christmas about twelve times a day, but never have time to do fun things (I mean, other than change people's lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ). But ya know, like baking cookies and whatnot. Oh, and we've gotten about 3 dozen cookies/brownies/brittle/whatever this past week from members and less actives. So. Much. Sugar. I feel bad regifting food, but I'd rather not have "diabeetus" in my 20's.

We tracted in the snow this past week. It was pretty sweet because:

1- We found a few solid potential investigators

2- I know my husband gets exponentially hotter the longer I tract in poopy weather. 

^ That's a fact, folks. 

We also helped put up Christmas lights for a less active! That was sah-weet. I guess we do more fun things that I realize. I'm just in an Oregon blah right now because the sky's always gray. Anywhoo. We helped Sister R with her lights while it was raining and there was snow on the ground. At one point Sister J was climbing a tree (not in a skirt. don't worry), but I'm sure from a neighbor's perspective it looked pretty funny. Sister R then proceeded to give us a plate piled full of goodies. We've learned to stop protesting because she just piles on more sweets.

Like I said, there are about 400-500 less-actives in Sweet Home (I feel like the number changes every time I talk to the Bishop). We've been seeing a less-active and his mom is an investigator. His stepdad just sits and listens. Oh and asks us to pray for him to win the lottery. J has some sort of learning disability and still lives with his parents. But they're all so great and I love them. We had the privilege of teaching them all how to make hot chocolate last week, too. (How they've managed to last this long without it blows my mind.) So we went over for our lesson and come to find out that J's engaged. Uhh... what??! He's been dating this girl he met at the mall and they've been on 3 dates. She already has a dress and they have a date set. I'm still a bit in shock and don't really know what to think. So we're trying to be supportive there.

Another interesting experience. There's a less active named C and his non-member living partner R that's we've been visiting pretty frequently. We never know what to expect when we walk in there. R has some very interesting beliefs and is interesting to talk to. She told us how Christ was beamed down to earth from a space station and all about conversations that humans have had with humanoids. She says that Christ has been reincarnated into other people because he had more to do. Or something like that. Honestly it just makes my heart ache to hear someone talk about the Savior like that. But we are respectful and share our beliefs. We're helping C remember what he used to know and we can tell he's progressing. I'm careful what I say around her because I offended her in October by inviting her to our ward Trunk-or-Treat twice. And she's brought it up every time since. So Sister J invited them to the Christmas activities. 

This week I've just felt kind of blah. Ya know? I feel like I'm working harder every week and at the same time it seems like we haven't gotten much accomplished these past three weeks. We're really trying to work with the ward and help them understand that we're here to help them with their missionary work. It's tough, but it's so worth it. I hope the members feel our excitement and our energy for the work, because we're doing all that we can. We're not perfect, but the Lord is on our side and makes up for our imperfections. He gives us weaknesses so through Him we can become strong. It's what He does. It's awesome. 

I also realized this week how important a solid foundation of faith is. We have a less-active family that we're working with. They're the ones that call us their "missionettes". Love them. Anyways, Brother and Sister T have both been members a long time and know a lot of church doctrine, but they didn't have a solid grasp of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It helped me understand that we must center our testimonies on Jesus Christ or the world will knock us down like it says in Helaman 5:12. 

Seeing people's lives change is amazing! 

Random story. We're teaching C, the woman that the Ts are caregivers for. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom and gave her a pamphlet. R was standing in the back and saw that she has a pamphlet that he doesn't have. So he came over and jokingly chastised us saying, "I might have to call the Bishop on you two...Hmm... I'll just pray for you." Ha! Love it! I'll take all the prayers I can get!

Christmas is next week?!!? Ahh! We're singing the song "Guard Him, Joseph" at our ward's Christmas devotional and it's gonna rock everyone's socks off. 

I love you all! 

Keep on keeping on! Remember who you are and what you stand for! Have the day you have!

Sister Baker OUT

Another thing I realized. People are always watching me. How creepy/flattering is that? I did my hair in an upside down french braid in the back to a bun (not gonna lie, it looked good) and at the stake Christmas fireside I saw one of the young women in the ward with her hair like that. She said she got the idea from me. I'm such a trendsetter! Jokes. That would be Pinterest. Can't even try to take credit there. But people are always watching. 

Name that movie!

"Always watching, Mike Wazowski." (awh man that one's not even hard!)

Name the person speaking!

December 9, 2013 It's Snowing!!! Brrr...

Thank goodness for coats, gloves and boots!

The family history center here is pretty chilly so I'm writing emails in gloves today. Call me a baby, I don't care. Time is bizarre. I think it's been about 6 months since last p-day but at the same time it could have been yesterday. The beginning of last week we drove out to Crawfordsville, a little town outside of this little town. It's the kind of tow

n where people live who don't want neighbors. So we drove out yonder to track down some less actives. That was pretty fun. We talked to a few and are planning on going back soon. We had a pretty sweet lesson with our investigators R and L. They haven't really been progressing because they won't pray about the Book of Mormon, but agree with most of it. They won't bring up their issues though because they don't want to hurt their feelings. Ray said he doesn't want me to beat him up. I'm like WHAT?! Ray, you're just ridiculous. But we left 3 Nephi chapter 12 with them last week and they just loved it. I mean it's probably because it's almost identical to the chapter in Matthew, but whatevs. It's amazing that Ray actually listens to what I say! He's said he always thinks of me now when he reads the scriptures and prays because I'm always asking if he prayed about it. Haha. He knows I'm persistent. And when he said that Christ could return at any moment I lovingly corrected him and he listened! That was nice that he didn't brush it all aside. Baby steps! And if you're wondering, L sits in the corner and listens while we talk with R. He's hard of hearing so it's always an adventure. We spoke at Young Women in excellence this week. That was pretty sweet. All the speakers were to pick their topics and almost all of us spoke about divine nature. The Spirit works! W! We had a lesson with our 'gator W and she is straight up golden. We weren't able to meet for the past few weeks and she told us that she missed us coming, but we were like, oh no Wendy. WE missed you. She's awesome!! BAHHH! According to the chiropractor, I'm a yellow on the color scale therapy thing. Not entirely sure what that means, but he said I'm motivated by fun. He sure hit the nail on the head. My motto is: "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." Gordon B. Hinckley. (can't take credit for that one!) We had a mission conference scheduled for Friday. Like the whole mission. Yeah. Big deal. So we drove to Lebanon (they pronounce in like lebanin here) just to be told that our zone wouldn't be going because of the snow. Then we turned around and drove home and didn't drive for the rest of the day. We ended up walking about halfway to one of our appointments in the snow until a member picked us up. I sure did feel like a pioneer. Except a super duper spoiled pioneer. One of our 75-year old investigators called Sister J and I foxy. Yeah. I don't like that. And he touched my hand! I don't like people touching my hands! Shaking hands is fine, but no lingering. Gives me the heebee geebees. But bless his heart he's just old. We've been visiting the P family about once a week for the past month or so. They're less active and the mom seems very interested in coming back to church as do the kiddos. At the beginning when we would come over, Brother Phister would pretty much ignore us the whole time. Slowly but surely he's started talking to us more. So his wife needed a priesthood blessing and we asked our assistant ward mission leader to do that. He suggested that we also ask him to participate (they were married in the temple, the works.) and J and I were really unsure how that would go over. But we all went over that night, chatted for a bit, then Brother X (assistant WML) asked if Brother P could help with the blessing. We were all praying that he would say yes, and he did! He looked pretty nervous, but anointed the oil for her blessing. Afterwards he said that it felt good to use the priesthood. Yeah buddy!!! I know Sister P really enjoyed seeing her husband do that for the first time in a long time. So that was awesome. Then on Sunday we were asked at the very end of Sunday School if we could teach Relief Society. I said we could before I even could think about it. So yeah. We had barely looked over the lesson before we taught. Thank goodness for the Spirit, otherwise that lesson would have been so rough. But it was really great! We had a lot of participation from the sisters and I think we were pretty funny. You've got to keep things lively, ya know? That's pretty much what's going on over here in Sweet Home. Oh and the First Presidency Christmas Devotional rocked my socks off. Keep it real. Remember who you are and what you stand for. I love you all! Sister Baker Once upon a time Sister J made a snow angel in the skirt and because I'm not crazy I just stole the credit for it by putting my name tag. :)

Sister Missionary Snow Angel