WEEK 17

WELLL WELLL WELLL I've got some news for you guys!!! I'll start with a Tagalog scripture that I memorized this last week...

bilang nattasan ni jesucristo bibinyagan kita sa pangalan ng ama at ng anak at ng espiritu santo, amen. WELLLL, since none of you know Tagalog lol it is the baptismal prayer.... why would I, ELDER BAKER need to memorize the baptismal prayer?  hmmmm wait maybe I got my first baptism.... BUT MAYBE THERE'S MORE!!!  NOT ONLY DID I DO MY FIRST BAPTISM... BUT I DID IT IN THE OCEAN!!!  WHAT!!!?!??? That has literally been a life time goal of mine!!  Ever since I was a kid I dreamed of the day I would baptize in the ocean!!  Little did I know it would be in the Philippines 3 months into my mission!!

WELL, remember when I ate that chicken intestines!!!! well I continued my journey to the rest of the chicken!!  Next I ate the chicken DUGO... BLOOD!!!  hahahaa it's masarap!!  or delicious!!  Then my next part of the chicken, of course, would have to be the FEET!!  Ya that one actually wasn't good!! lol 

"Fried chicken BLOOD on a stick"

"the chicket FEET" ewwww

Well, we had 2 family home evenings this week and those are soooo fun.  I love those!!!  I'll send pics next week.  Sorry for the short letter internet is bad today... I LOVE YOU ALL AND REMEMBER, PRAY ALWAYS AND HAKUNA MATATA!!

   

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

In case you were wondering:  One week Elder Baker wrote to me from the MTC........he told me that he had a lot on his mind and he was wondering how he would be able to do it all.  The teaching, the language, the culture/food in the Philippines, the homesickness feelings, etc......... He had been praying for help with all of this and he said that he knew Heavenly Father would help him and he did feel better, also he had a song come to his mind....he's a lover of disney songs!!!  He thought of the song "Hakuna Matata" from the Lion King.  He decided then and there to "WORK HARD AND DO ALL HE CAN and leave it up to the Lord to do the rest".  Hakuna Matata, it means no worries for the rest of your days................Dillon's Mission Motto.

Hakuna matata

What a wonderful phrase

Hakuna matata

Ain't no passin' craze

It means no worries

For the rest of your days

And it's a problem-free philosophy

HAKUNA MATATA!

"MOTHER I LOVE YOU, MOTHER I DO"

A hand written letter I received from Dillon Thanksgiving weekend!!!  Made my day❤

Dear, my beloved mother!

"Mother I love you, Mother I Do" I think that's a primary song, di ba?  I've just been thinking about you and the fam lately, I was in our interview with the president and we were talking about if anything has been bothering me and I said no, not really about the mish.....I've just been a little homesick lol!  Who isn't homesick on the mission right?  Well, we talked about how I just need to remember that my family will be more blessed if I'm here serving than if I was home!  So to help you guys receive maraming blessings I'm gonna stay here lol!

Well, me and president Guanzon were talking about how much more I'm gonna love my family after the mission and how awesome that day is gonna be at the airport when I come home!!  ahhhh!  I'm so excited for that.  That's always been one of my fav things is seeing missionaries coming home!  (side note...I made predictions for who changes the most out of the cousins, I'm guessing Maggie and Max/Luke.)  Well, I love you so much and I pray for you specifically and the whole fam every day.  It's cool at night when I pray usually around 10:30 pm here, it's 7:30 am there so it's around the time everyone is waking up, so it's like we're praying at the same time for each other!  cool huh?

Well, Mahal na mahal kita!  Magandang Gabie for every night for the next 2 years!  LOL!

Love,

your over-weight lover heavy D!

aka Elder Baker

akaka Dillon Christopher Baker your Baby!




p.s.  I miss your tacos

p.s.s  I miss you Jammin out to Bon Jovi!

p.s.s.s. I miss morning breakfast you made me!

p.s.s.s.s I really miss our washing machine and you washing my clothes LOL!

p.s.s.s.s.s.  I miss you getting mad at me for not doing my homework and I wish I would have listened to you!  I've realized that I'm actually pretty good at studying LOL!  And I actually kind of enjoy reading now!

I ATE WHAT?! -WEEK 16

soooo.... I ate CHICKEN INTESTINES THIS WEEK!!!  I have a picture for proof!!  But computer is being dumb so probably no pics... but next week maybe!!!

I don't have alot of time because the dang pictures broke my computer!!  But I just wanted to share a quick story.  So on Sundays we do exchanges and while on exchanges I'm with a member in our ward and then I become the senior companion... man it's pretty scary being the one in charge while teaching, but I also love it, it's soo fun!!  I teach wayyy better too, because I actually have to be more focused and can't just rely on my comp to teach them!!  But yesterday, we were teaching a less active during our exchanges and we were teaching about repentance!!  And then at the end of the lesson we were talking about her coming back to church and she said she was just too lazy and stuff and then the weirdest thing happened... I started talking to her in almost perfect Tagalog ( k maybe not almost perfect, but really good) but while I was talking to her, I was feeling the spirit soo strong as a taught her and testified to her about attending church and the benefits and blessings of church, and I know she was feeling the spirit.  I could see it in her face!!  And after, she said ok ill do it!!  Because earlier she said I'll try and then we said "dont try just do!!"  And then she decided she would start coming back to church!!  We'll see if she attends this week.. hopefully!!

Also funny story!!  There's an American guy that lives like 30 minutes away from our apartment and I see him sometimes riding around on jeepneys and he always yells at me lol!!  But today I saw him at a restaurant for lunch and he came and talked to me and said " hey I was thinking about you the other day, I really was!  I was upstairs in my room praying and I started thinking about you!" (you know why he thought about me.. the spirit was reminding him of me so that we the missionaries could teach him the gospel!!)  But after that he said " I wonder if I'll ever see him again and if I do I'm gonna talk to him!"  Well, he did and we were just talking about where we were from and weirdly he has family in Scottsdale lol!!  But after, I asked him if he would be interested in listening to our message!  And well, he said no... but I know that we are supposed to teach him!!  That's not just a coincidence that he thought about me while praying!!  So next time I see him I'm gonna try to teach him!! 

Time to go.. but I love you all... ALL OF YOU!!  We might not talk but I see all the people that get this email and I literally love you all!!  And your support, whether it's helping me or my family!  I'm so grateful for it!!  And everyone that reads this, if you see my mom this week you better give her a hug this week and tell her that her son in the PPINES loves her sooo much!!  Because it's Thanksgiving week and I realized how much I didn't thank her for everything she did for me growing up so this will be my way of kinda making up for it!!

ps. "don't try just do!!" whatever your trying to do better in your life stop trying and just DO IT!! 

pss. don't forget to pray! there is power in prayer! - did you think to pray hymn!

psss. if your having a bad day listen to or read some hymns!!  They are amazing!!  They help me alot!!

pssss. I LOVE YOU ALL AND DON'T FORGET 👇

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

"Chicken INTESTINES"

Oh, how praying rests the weary!

Prayer will change the night to day.

So, when life gets dark and dreary,

Don't forget to pray.

ALAM KO TAGALOG!! -WEEK 15

Translation: I know Tagalog!! lol Slowly but surely I'm starting to know more and more!! But this week I felt like my Tagalog had gotten wayyy better it's the craziest thing that I'm literally teaching people in a different language!! The other day I was sitting in a lesson and I wasn't understanding anything!!  And I was thinking like how really weird it was that I was speaking a different language I was like focusing on her mouth and the noises coming out and it was the weirdest thing, thinking about how some random noises were coming out of her mouth and although I couldn't understand... it blew my mind that I make those same noises and words when I'm speaking!! And pretty soon  (k maybe not soon) I'll be speaking that language fluently!!  Well at least I hope I can!!  I have faith and pray for the help to learn Tagalog better everyday!!  I study hard and I'm just trying to focus on being able to teach lessons in depth and good!  Then I'll work on the whole fluent thing lol!!

Well this week one of our investigators that has been gone for a week in Manila returned and we got to start teaching him again!! And he's soo close to being ready for baptism!!  And guess what!? I MIGHT BAPTIZE HIM!! YEET!! I hope he chooses me it's either me or his friends brother!

Another investigator we have has been saying that she believes what we have taught her and believes Joseph Smith is a true prophet and she even attends church!  One little, kinda big, actually it's a huge problem... she won't pray to really KNOW for herself that all the things we have taught are true!!  And we want her to have a SURE KNOWLEDGE that the gospel is true and not just believe so that she wont fall away!!  And so we had taught her a whole lesson on how to gain a strong testimony and then we both bared our testimonies of how we came to know and we had a member with us so he told his conversion story and we invited her to pray that night!  The next day we went back to see how her prayer was... and she didn't pray!!  So we taught the same lesson again just a lil different and we told her straight up she needs to KNOW IT'S TRUE FOR HERSELF!!  And I've never felt the spirit more strong than in that lesson when I was testifying to her at the end of the lesson!! And I know that the Holy Ghost was helping me cause I bore a strong heart felt testimony in really good Tagalog!! Not perfect but it was pretty good!!  We haven't been back yet I think tonight we will go by so next week I'll let you guys know how it goes hehe!!  So that was some cool parts of my week!  Now some interesting/funny stuff!! 

Well first of all I have a challenge for everyone that reads this! To find a scripture that has a winky face on it!!  Second of all look up Jacob 6:12!! It's words to live by!!

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

When Christ was on the earth,

He promised he would send

The Holy Ghost to comfort us,

Our true, eternal friend.

The Holy Spirit whispers

With a still small voice.

He testifies of God and Christ

And makes our hearts rejoice.

100 DAY'S SAY WHAT!?? -WEEK 14

Well I'm getting close to 100 days holy cow it's gone by soo fast!!  Time flys when your having fun right!? YES I'M DEFINITELY HAVING FUN!!  I love the mission!!  Although I'm a little jealous of Tanner jumping in the snow!!  That looked like fun!  But its ok I love my random humid rain storms lol!! 

So this week was funn!! IT STARTED OUT TEACHING A PASTOR...  lol so we were teaching this family and then out of nowhere their grandpa comes up and starts telling us everything we're teaching is a lie!!  Ya it was pretty sad but instead of arguing, we just wrapped up the lesson and left!  That pastor is lucky I don't speak Tagalog or I would spit straight fire at him!!  GOSPEL FIRE!! 

And then another cool story.  So Friday we went to go to one of our investigators who is an old man and when we got there he was like worried about something and we got talking and he said his sister had escaped out of her room and he didn't know where she was.  She is a 30 yr old lady but she has a little mental problem so he was scared about where she was!  So we started driving in a trike towards the city looking for her!  It was kinda fun.  As we were going we would ask people if they had seen her walking and the first guy said ya she walked by about an hour ago!  Then the next guy said she passed by 30 minutes ago!  Then 10 minutes and then we got into the city where it was gonna be really difficult to find her.  I was sitting in the trike and said a quick little prayer to find her and then like 1 minute later we saw her on the side of the road!!  So we picked her up and went back to his house!  Then we were teaching the investigator and she came out and started to listen.  Part way thru the lesson we asked our investigator if his sister knew how to read and he said no she never went to school.  Well we grabed the Book of Mormon and took it over to her and asked if she could read it and she read it perfectly! (in Tagalog of course) and the guy was soo confused he had no idea she could read!!  But she did so we gave her the Book of Mormon and asked her to read it!  Then on Sunday guess who showed up at church!!?? The INVESTIGATOR!!  Sadly not his sister because she was to shy to go but it was great that he came!! 

So to end this letter I want to quote my boy Nate Garry! "I know little... but the little I know is big!" I was thinking about that and for me it's very true for 2 reasons! 1. I'm not the smartest when it comes to teaching stuff about the gospel!!  But I know it's important and the little I know is VERY BIG!  2.  I know VERY LITTLE Tagalog, but the Tagalog that I do know... IS VERY BIG  and the most important thing any American could say to these Filipinos!!

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

ps. Don't forget you have Heavenly Father that can help you through anything!!

 Elder Baker LOVES the little kids...and they love him right back!

 A sample of his meals.  Elder Baker totally happy to eat it!

 Karaoke.....It's HUGE in the Philippines!  Elder Baker had fun pretending : )

Monster butterflies?

I am a child of God.

His promises are sure;

Celestial glory shall be mine

If I can but endure.

PRIESTHOOD POWER! -WEEK 13

Note from Mom:  I'm attaching a picture to this email.  It has two ladies in it.  Dillon "Elder Baker" says they are his new Filipino moms!!  They feed him literally EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!  My heart is full of gratitude for these ladies.  They don't need appointments...........they just show up every night and they get fed.  Makes me want to try to be more like these ladies.  When we see missionaries in our area, please BE NICE!  Give them a SMILE!!  And offer to FEED THEM!  ok, now enjoy Dillon's email:

SIGE, so this week was a pretty normal week in the mission field without any crazy accidents or anything!! 

BUTTT COOL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE YAYYYY 

So on Wednesday this family in our ward that is recent converts came over to the Gambas house while we were eating dinner and one of the little girls was sick! (this is the single moms family with 3 girls, so no dad aka priesthood holder) soo she asked Elder Irabon to give her daughter a blessing and Elder Irabon looked at me and said will you give her a blessing... I was like HUH!? I don't even know the language!! And the mom said its ok just do taglish!! I was like ya ok I can do that!! ... ya that didn't happen lol I used tagalog to bless her to get healthy but then after that when I was listening to the spirit guiding me what to say I couldn't keep up with trying to translate!! lol it's okay lang because the spirit only has one language and we all understand it! Well I finished the blessing and didn't even remember what I said but I felt GREAT!!! And then the next day she was completely fine and even did a jump rope competition and was perfectly healthy!! It was such a cool experience for me to see me actually blessing someones life!! And I know I'm gonna bless the people of the Legazpi mission muuuuch more in 2 years!! 

So every Sunday me and my comp do a split with Mark Jade and Justin Gamba and I go out to Uson which is like an hour away and do a special sacrament and then teach a couple people out there and it's wayy funn hahhaa yesterday it was me and MJ and I was showing him pics from back home and halloween last year and if you saw the pics from last halloween you would know how confused he must have been lol!! But it was a weird halloween here because here it is araw ng mga patay or day of the dead and there was no-one dressed up or anything. kinda boring!! 

I JUST REMEMBERED!! I ATE CAT THIS WEEK!! LOL it was suprisingly really good!!!  haha as long as you cook it good! Also anyone that knows me really well knows I don't really eat fruits or vegetables but now I eat pretty much anything lol!! 

Soo cool little thing I noticed this week.  So I was thinking about learning Tagalog and some words just have a familiar ring to them and I was wondering why and I was thinking we already knew the language that we are learning in heaven!! That's why we can learn them soo fast and it sounds familiar!! I don't know about other missionaries but it does sound familiar to me lol! 

well thats my report lol! 

ps.; always remember to HAKUNA MATATA!!

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

 Cute Baby goat friend!

Looks like they did some serious clearing work here!  Good job Elders!  

 So, I'm (mom) just guessing.....but I think this is Mark Jade (MJ)

who Elder Baker refers to in his letters.  He is awaiting his mission call

and goes out teaching with the Elders all the time!  He's getting very prepared!

The Priesthood is restored,

The truth made known to man,

That God has spoken to the earth,

His pow'r is here again!