Hello Family!!
Last Monday after P-day we went to see the family we have been
teaching. The mom and son are SO ready to get baptized but the parents need to
get married first. She doesn't have her birth certificate so she has been
calling the Mexican consulate every single day. We left Monday telling her to
keep praying for a miracle to happen.
Tuesday was super busy! We went to teach the seminary kids in
the morning. We talked about the importance of scripture study and
shared D&C 11:21 with them. It's something I've really come to learn here
on the mission. You have to obtain the word, aka study, before you can declare
the word, aka teach. AS we study each morning, we do our part and then when we
are teaching we are given the words we need to say. If we didn't do our part in
the morning by studying, we wouldn't be given that blessing of knowing exactly
what to say. We were able to visit several less-active members of the ward Tuesday
afternoon and help them to regain their faith and have a desire to come to
church. That night we spent a lot of time finding. We were talking to everyone
we saw and really focusing on finding new investigators. It was really
successful and we made appointments with a couple of new people for this week.
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| Sister Baker and Companions at Zone Conference |
On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference all day. It was absolutely
incredible! President and Sister Ashton are such amazing people and I learned
so much from them. We talked a lot about how we can increase our faith and
reach our goals. THSM (Texas Houston South Mission) has a goal to baptize 1000
people this year. For the first couple of weeks that I was here we were
encouraged to pray to be able to baptize monthly. Then President Ashton met
with Elder Nelson and a couple of Seventies and they promised him that as we
increase our faith and pray to see miracles that each companionship can baptize
weekly. It's been a big change and requires us to exercise a lot of faith but
we are seeing the Lord put people into our paths and we are beginning to see
things happen. I know that it will take a little bit of time for this change to
really take effect but I know that soon we will be baptizing every week. At
Zone Conference we talked a lot about faith vs. doubt and about things we can do
that will help us to baptize weekly. It was an incredible day and we were very
spiritually fed.
Thursday morning we had our weekly planning session in the
morning. Then we were able to go out and try to contact referrals. That night
we met with Ronesha. We told her that we had really been praying about her
baptismal date and we knew that she could be prepared to be baptized on May
18th. She quickly agreed and the spirit was really strong as we taught her The
Gospel of Jesus Christ and talked about the baptismal covenants with her.
Friday was a REALLY long day because my companion was sick so we
were home basically all day. It was really hard. I didn't know what to do with
myself. I hated not being out teaching. I spent a lot of time just studying the
scriptures. I am really loving reading the Book of Mormon and I learn so much
from it every day!
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| The car after the crash. |
Saturday one of my companions went to another area on exchanges
so it was just two of us. We were able to teach a lot in the afternoon and we
met a new family that is interested in the gospel. We get to teach them this
Wednesday and I am really excited about it. After dinner we were on our way to
an appointment when a truck backed into our car and crunched in the front. So
instead of going to our other two appointments that night we had to spend a
couple of hours filling out forms and getting a police report. Fun, right? I'm
just glad that no one got hurt.
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| Just a peacock wandering around the neighborhood |
Sunday was Mother's Day and it was great! Church was really
great. Unfortunately Ruth and Daniel were our only investigators that ended up
coming. We don't know why Ronesha didn't come. A sister in the ward went to
pick her up and she won't answer. We tried calling her and we tried stopping by
last night but we never got a hold of her so I have no idea what happened. It's
really frustrating to not be able to get her to come to church. We’re pushing
her baptism back a few weeks now until she can come to church a couple more
times and show that she really has a desire to be there. After we called home
and had dinner we felt like we needed to go see the Ruth and her family.
Saturday we had fasted for them and prayed that there would be a miracle. Well,
Sunday night we found out that we did get a miracle. Ruth told us that someone
from the consulate called her and said someone had canceled their appointment
so she will be able to take her spot so now she only has to wait 3 months to
get her papers instead of 12 months! And she found out Sunday that she got a
job so now she will be able to pay for her papers! Miracles!! Heavenly Father
really does answer our prayers!
So I'm pretty sure my visa came and that I'm flying out next
Monday (the 20th). I'm kind of freaking out! When I got on the computer today I
got on my missionary portal and my flag was changed back to Australia! Just
yesterday it was still the Texas flag! Then I got an email from Elder Mitchell
(one of the Elders from the MTC) and he said that all the visa waiters in
Oklahoma got their visas and that they are flying out next Monday, the 20th.
Then I just got an email from Sister Adams saying that her flag changed too! So
yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm leaving soon! I'll let you know more as soon as I
can! Ah! I'm really excited but at the same time I am sad to be leaving
Houston! So yeah, that's that.
Thank you so much for your love and prayers. It means the world
to me!
All my love,
Sister Lauren Baker
P.S. So the lady that was driving the truck that ran into us on
Saturday, guess what her t shirt said? "Ain't Nobody Got Time for
That." It was awesome. I loved it. :)
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