CONQUERING TYPHOONS SPREADING GOOD TIDINGS!! -WEEK 62

Well this week was EXCITING like always hahaha!! Never a dull moment out here!!

This week was great we had a typhoon on Saturday but it was nothing really, we were told to stay inside and be ready for anything bad to happen, but I was "lucky" (my mom says lucky I say unlucky) to be here in the main land not really close to any of the coast right now so we didn't get anything too bad. It actually hit pretty bad in one of our zones out on Catanduanes island! There was a lot of rain!!! And a lot of flooding and some people may have died! So please give your prayers to those people that may have been affected by the typhoon! But like our mission hymn says, "whether rain comes down in torrents or the sun is there instead we always share the gospel word we show no fear no dread!" We were still able to get a lesson that night that we had promised one of our investigators we would go to so we made our way to her house and she was surprised and happy that even though there was a typhoon we still made it to the lesson! 

ONE GREAT THING I LOVE ABOUT TYPHOONS!! can you guess???    SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES!! 

I made sure that Sunday at church we could find someone who needed service after the typhoon and we got a project tomorrow cleaning up a yard! 

Other than that lil typical problem we still had normal work all week! It’s been a struggle here! Tracting is HARD! Well it’s easy for me BUT THE PEOPLE ARE HARD! hahaha but no matter how hard it is to keep going from house to house until you find that person that is waiting for you we keep going and pushing forward!! I guess we weren't diligent enough, cause we still didn't find the person that is ready for us...BUT I DID MAKE SOME GOOD FRIENDS!! haha  I'll tell a quick story of our tracting that I thought was fun! 

So while walking from yet another house that rejected us.. a guy yells at me in English "hey where you going" hahaha he wasn't expecting me to answer that I was coming over to become his friend inTagalog! His reply... "oh hey he speaks Tagalog" haha! Well we started talking and then he introduced me to all his friends that were sitting by us and then I was able to bear a quick testimony of our message to them and they said we could come back and teach them another day because they were leaving! hahaha It was one of those times that even though tracting is hard and stressful sometimes that it’s still SO FUN TALKING TO AND MEETING NEW PEOPLE!! 

Mom to answer your questions 1. Biggest challenge this week? Finding new investigators   2. Biggest sucess this week?  ALWAYS STAYING POSITIVE and making new friends!  3. Who was my favorite person I met this week? Either that guy I talked about earlier or the guy that rejected us right before that guy hahaha even though he rejected us, we had a funny interaction! 4. What’s the weirdest thing i ate this week? PIZZA! hahaha I had pizza for the first time earlier today! yummiest! DIY BURGER it’s this place you make your own burger hence the "DIY" and it was like real BEEF  AND CHEESE AND MEAT AHHHH!! SOOOOOOOO GOOD!!  

Love you all thanks for the support and prayers palagi! 

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

TYPHOON KAREN

a letter from the Mission President regarding an incoming TYPHOON:

15 October 2016

Dear Brother and Sister Baker,

I am writing to inform you that we are currently being impacted by a moderate typhoon named Karen. The Church has been observing this storm for days and has made numerous preparations for its arrival. The main track of the storm is north of our mainland mission, but headed close to our Island of Catanduanes. We are experiencing high winds and heavy rains as the outer edges of this typhoon are currently being felt. I have asked for the missionaries to stay in their apartments—particularly in Catanduanes—and not be out during the worst of the storm. All our missionaries are in safe, secure locations and prepared for the impact of the storm.

We alerted all of our missionaries to purchase enough water and food to last them through next Tuesday. They have also been instructed to keep their cell phones charged. We have a calling tree in place for rapid communication across the mission. Each missionary also has cash to use, if needed, in an emergency.

If the storm compromises our electrical or Internet infrastructure, you may receive your email late next week form your missionary. Be assured, I will be constantly monitoring the situation, and my first concern will always be the safety of the missionaries. We love each of them!

Join us as we pray for any in the Philippines who may be impacted by this typhoon. We pray for their safety and protection. If there are any further developments that would impact our missionaries, I will let you know.

Sincerely,

President Dale Kotter

GUINOBATAN! -WEEK 61

AYOOO it’s your boy Elder Baker hittin you up from Guinobatan! haha I didn't give a heads up last week, but this last week I got transferred to Guinobatan! I was sad to leave Malilipot after only being there for 1 transfer, but I got done what I needed to do there now I'm here trying to find what I need to do now!! 

Well my new compo is ELDER AYSON!  Well he’s a great guy!!  He and his comp last transfer got transferred here in week 3 of the transfer, so they didn't really have very many people to teach.. and up until now they still didn't have much. So this last week we've been going around, I kinda found out the area and now this week is gonna be just straight TRACTING!! hahaha we NEED to find some investigators!! hahaha We did find 3 last week that were referrals, and they look like they are gonna be pretty good... hopefully we will see the gospel affect their lives!! 

Something cool that happened last week is sister Mercy, one of our new investigators, after the first lesson we set a return appointment and then when Saturday came at the time for our appointment we walked up to her like apartment complex kinda thing and she was waiting outside her house on the bench for us to come hahaha!! I was like what are you doing out here and she's like I was waiting for you!! HAHAHA it was so cool like to see how excited she was for us to come back and teach her again!! She had some questions about the apostasy and our lesson was perfect! We taught about the Book of Mormon and how it helped to end the apostasy!! She was really interested and ready to read the Book of Mormon! BUT she doesn't have glasses. She said she was gonna buy some! Hopefully she finds some haha!! So that was really cool but we also had some problems this week with my comp and the ward mission leader, they kinda had a lil argument... but it got fixed and we got everything figured out!! 

Something that I shared while we were trying to fix the problem is something I read once it says "be thou humble and the Lord shall lead thee by thy hand”.  I shared how the ward has been struggling with missionary work here the last year, and my comp was being hard hearted and didn't want to take some suggestions from the members, BUT if we will humble ourselves, the Lord will guide us in this work and THIS WARD AND THIS WORK WILL PROGRESS!!

I JOIN WITH SOME OF MY FRIENDS IN TESTIFYING THAT THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!! THE BOOK OF MORMON IS THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR QUESTIONS AND I AM SOO BLESSED TO BE IN THIS WORK.  I LOVE THE LORD AND I KNOW HE LOVES ME MORE!! 

I love you all soo much!! 

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.   --Ether 12:27

BI....BI....BINYAG -WEEK 60

AYYOOOO so first of all sorry to all 5 of you that expect my emails every week I didn’t send one last week hahaha! But it just added to the suspense of this week with the great news of THE BIO FAMILY GETTING BAPTIZED! wait.. what... OH YA IN THE OCEAN AHHH!! Nothing I love better than helping a family come closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and seeing them in white all ready for the baptism!! AND IT JUST MAKES IT THAT MUCH BETTER TO BE ON THE BEACH HAHA!! 

So that was on Saturday we had the baptism and it was soo great!! So funny cause we thought the branch president was gonna stand on the beach and my comp and a branch missionary would do the witnessing, but he walked straight into the ocean and was like RIGHT HERE WE WILL DO THE BAPTISM HAHAHA!! He told me when I asked him why he went into the water and he simply said “it's my duty!" and I didn’t really think about what he said until later but it kinda made me think... do we as individual members realize our duty?? EACH AND EVERYONE OF US HAVE A DUTY to do everyday! It’s no coincidence the people you see everyday and the things you’re doing… it's all part of God’s plan!! You just need to find out your duty in that very moment!  There’s also a verse in Ecclesiastes about our duty "fear God and obey his commandments this is the whole duty of men”. 

Also just want to add a little bit about something that a member talked about yesterday at district conference it was a great talk about the power of the Book Of Mormon!!  She talked about the power of reading the Book of Mormon everyday and promised that if you read it everyday, you will come closer to God!! NO DOUBT!! And you will gain a greater testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church!! AND I PROMISE IF YOU READ IT EVERYDAY YOU WILL NEVER FALL AWAY FROM THE CHURCH!!  YOU WILL NEVER QUESTION WHY YOU HAVE SOO MANY PROBLEMS IN YOUR LIFE!!  YOU WILL KNOW YOU HAVE A LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER!! 

I know these things are true!! Because I tried it!! And I know the same feelings will come to you that have come to me!! THE BOOK OF MORMON is a powerful TRUE book!! 

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth.  Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.  --Alma 26:37

I'M ALIVE!! -WEEK 58

HEHEHE JK I NEVER DIED BUT MY EMAIL IS ALIVE!! 

haha well finally my email got fixed so feel free to let me know how your doing hehe!! 

Well this week was GREAT!! Not really that much happened, but I learned that everything is always great as long as nothing bad happened!! hehe 

Well this week we had exchanges in Sto Domingo!! So that was fun and we had some really good food hehehe!! Then when we came back to our area we had a good couple days. We are working alot with our part member family, and the one girl to be ready for their baptism on the 1st of October, so we are gonna be going to them everyday this week to see if they're ready for baptism!! We think we might hold off one of them.. actually kinda sure we will push it back! But the family is looking really good!! He really changed his life!! He completely stopped using stuff like alchohol and cigarettes and coffee in like an instant hahaha he was like "ya i guess it’s a good reason to stop" haha!! He’s really cool he’s in one of my pics I sent. He’s the one holding the baby in the pic with the old guy haha!! The old guy is tatay bueno!! Which was disappointing he didn’t come to church!! 

But something else that was fun is we had a one day mission on Saturday... the bad part was that only 6 people showed up... we were kinda mad about what happened there!! None of the leaders of the branch came.. it was really annoying but we were still able to get some work done!! We got to visit some less active families!! Well sorry for the short email power keeps going out!! 

WELL I LOVE YOU ALLL SOO MUCH KEEP DOING GREAT!! 

LOOK AT LIFE WITH A GLASS HALF FULL PERSPECTIVE!!

LOVE ELDER BAKER

HAKUNA MATATA!!

Sto Domingo exchanges

 "missionary for a day"

"Tatay Bueno" and a family they are working with.

I am a child of God.

His promises are sure;

Celestial glory shall be mine

If I can but endure.

Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,

Help me find the way.

Teach me all that I must do

To live with him someday.

BLESSED! -WEEK 57

SOOOO this week was one of the best weeks ever so I'll tell you a lil story about this guy I met!! 

So it starts wayy back last week hehe...

So we were out tracting in one of our areas right, and no one wanted to listen haha and then we were walking past this one gate with a tree house in the back and my comp walked right past, cause the house was far away and probably wouldn’t answer... but I wanted to try so I walked up to the gate and yelled tao po as loud as I could hahaha for them to come out!  And some old lady looks around the corner at us and then looks away... then some old guy comes crawling out of his house and starts walking to the gate! (5 mins later) he gets to the gate haha and starts opening it immediately to let us in!  We start talking and his name is tatay Bueno well tatay is just like father in Tagalog but we call him tatay Bueno and bueno is Spanish right? So he tries telling us he’s from Mexico and like joking around haha he’s hilarious for an 83 year old!! And then we are talking and we get to his house and meet his wife who is really nice too, really old can’t really walk... and eventually started teaching them.  Well, we taught them about 3 times that week and the last lesson was on Saturday we really were expecting him to come to church.  Well he didn’t come.. but he had cut his foot and couldn’t walk so he said next week!! So we kept teaching him and he’s doing great and then one day we’re teaching and see he has a tatoo on his chest. We ask him what it is, and he says you know I told you I love the Lord right?? And then pulls up his shirt and… HAHAHA!!  HE HAS A FULL CHEST TATTOO OF JESUS'S FACE HAHAHA!! (we’re gonna try and get a pic with his tattoo this week) so cool and then the week ended sooo great with us walking into church at 8:30.  30 minutes before starting and he’s sitting in the sacrament hall talking with the members hahaha!! He says to us I beat you here haha turns out he beat everyone there, even the branch president haha he showed up 10 minutes before the branch president haha! 

It probably doesn’t seem that interesting of a story to you guys, but this is the cool part... he is the first investigator that I have tracted that actually came to church!! 

I’ve tracted alot of people, and alot have progressed and read the Book of Mormon and prayed but none!! None! Have came to church!!  Every baptism or other investigator coming to church have either been referrals or part member families!! Soo it was really cool for me and my comp and we just love this guy soo much!! 

Well little update on our other investigators.  We still have the part member family coming to church working for the baptismal date of Oct 1 so that’s looking good and we have one other girl coming to church, a part member also that is working for Oct 1, but might get moved back a little, we’ll see what happens!! But I’M LOVING THIS AREA AND THIS MISSION AND JUST WAYYY HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!  SO HAPPY I DECIDED TO SERVE A MISSION AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND FELLOW MEMBERS FOR PUSHING ME TO BE WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW!! 

Elder Baker

HAKUNA MATATA!!

ps.  Elder Baker’s ldsmail account is STILL giving him fits!!  He wanted to apologize to everyone if you’ve written him and he has not been able to actually see it!  He hasn’t been able to log into his actual account for about a month now!  He’s hoping it will be fixed this week!  prayers for his emails account!!!  

MALILIPOT!! -WEEK 56

WELL IT WAS ANOTHER GREAT WEEK OUT HERE IN MALILIPOT!! 

So just a couple things I wanted to talk about with you guys and also get some feedback from those who read these!! So this last week we have 2 part member families who are progressing towards baptism, but one thing me and my companion were talking about, is one guy said how he was expecting to get an answer about if the church was true. And what he was looking for was way wrong, so of course we talked to him about how we get answers, but I want to hear from you guys about how you asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon or the church was true and what was your experience... what did you have to do to be ready to receive an answer and what did you do?? And how can you be sure that’s an answer from   the holy ghost not just your conscience??  Also what are some challenges that you converts went thru during your conversion?? How did you overcome them?? How did you overcome challenges with the word of wisdom or other commandments??

I’M ASKING ALL THESE QUESTIONS because these are some things our investigators are struggling with right now!!  We have a great area here right now and I want to help them gain a REAL STRONG TESTIMONY!! BEFORE BAPTISM!! 

This last week we had 9 investigators come to church, the problem is that only a couple of them have somewhat of a testimony right now, so I want to help them be READY FOR BAPTISM!!

I LOVE THIS NEW AREA and can’t wait to see what more work we can do here!! Please if you have any experiences about those things, please share!! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SOO MUCH AND HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEK!! 

Elder Baker

HAKUNA MATATA!!

 He says this is the story of the traveling teeth...
they were there on the desk, when he got there!!  ewww

 His new of Mount Mayon!

 Elder Baker says this guy is the best member in the ward he's in now!

I love to read the holy scriptures,

And every time I do,

I feel the Spirit start to grow within my heart -

a testimony that they're true.

Search, ponder, and pray

Are the things that I must do.

The spirit will guide, and deep inside,

I'll know the scriptures are true.