Monday, June 3, 2013

Hey Mom and Dad!
   Alright so I’ll clear it up. The new mission hasn’t started yet but this is the transfer that it will start. It starts July 1st. So, as long as there is no emergency transfer, when the new mission officially starts I will be a part of it. My mission president will not go with me, I will get a completely new one. But that's fine. I have learned so much from my current one, and I will only be one month away from him with a new one. My only regret is that I won’t have my final interview with him. You would like him a lot dad, if you could talk to him. He writes a letter every week to the mission and this week he wrote about the difference between the members loving you and trusting you. He said if they ask you to stay more than one hour at lunch, and you do, they will love you. But if you politely decline, and go and work, they will trust you, and he said that trust is worth even more than gold. Hmmm.... where have I heard that one before?  I love you Dad and thank you so much for helping prepare me for a mission, so long before I served one.

   I wrote Tanner and told him he should at least study the lessons. That's the part I wish I had studied more before the mission. Once that’s down, the rest of his mission will be a breeze.

   The relationship with the sisters is going alright. It’s so hard but we are doing everything we can to only talk positive with them. We hope that with time they will start picking it up. It’s tough because some of them are going home this transfer and so the trunkiness will start to set in. But that happens with any missionary. I will also do a division with their district leader this week and read that letter you sent me a few weeks ago about the sisters, and help him understand how to do it as well. I hope from then on everything will be good. This week just one of our district leaders baptized, but at least the zone did not zero the week. We had a few people in church that the members have been preparing for us and so we will visit them this week and prepare them for baptism.

My new companion, Elder Silva, is awesome! He is a power house and loves to just get things done. This first week he almost tore the house apart cleaning it. Even though Elder Ramos and I had cleaned pretty good, it still was lacking. Now, the house will be as clean as yours mom lol. Lots of sweat blood and tears, but it will be clean. We found 11 new investigators, including a new family that we will be helping. Oh! And a miracle happened this week. Do you remember that Sonia woman, who had the incredible experience with the spirit and the book of Mormon? Well we visited them for the first time after we had cut them this week. It had been about 3 weeks since we had visited them. We got there and just read a part out of 3 Nephi 11 about baptism and the fore of baptism and stuff, and she turned to us and said that she was feeling the spirit really strong. She said that in her life she had always considered herself a servant of God. She said to us, "If I am supposedly a servant of his, then why am I not doing what he is telling me to do? Can I still be baptized Elder?"

 It was a really good moment where the spirit testified to everyone in the room. She said she didn’t care anymore what her husband said, cuz he had not wanted her to previously because of her health problems. She said she wanted to serve the Lord. So we are helping her to be baptized this month! I am so happy because I cannot imagine what the condemnation would be if she just rejected the witness she had her whole life.

   Alright, well I love you guys. This week is the going away party for an elder here in the ward. It’s so weird thinking he is going to go and start his two years, and here I am completing them. I’m gonna give him a tie as a present. Alright I love you and hope you guys have a good week.
Elder Baldwin

Monday, May 27, 2013

Hey Mom and Dad!!
  Alright, I am very happy this week. We got three baptisms!! All three of Marcos and Denise’s kids were baptized yesterday. It was a tough fight until the end. One of the kids got an infected leg and
almost had surgery, and he was scared to be baptized, but we helped
him through it. Actually, it was his parents who said he needed to be
baptized! I think they understand better than their kids. They
accepted our help to get married and then we will baptize them as
well. Today was transfers, last day with my current comp cuz he is
going home. I’m gonna miss him. My new comp is a really young
missionary. I saw him born when I was in Cabo Frio! He is a machine,
and works really hard and keeps all the rules. Really good missionary.
His name is Elder Silva. I’m excited to work with him. Oh, so my zone
baptized 13 this month!! We are leading the mission now, with the
highest number of baptisms than any other zone this month! So yeah,
I'm pretty excited.

  The Conference was really good. One area brought 33 people to
church! President came and said to me, Elder Baldwin, you gotta get on
top of this to baptize all these people, alright?  I said okey
dokey lol. Thats not gonna be too hard. In total I think the zone
must have brought around 70 people to watch the three sessions that
there were. There were three sessions because the stake is large
geographically, so they did it in 3 locations. President was very
happy.

  Well, I am officially on the new mission. Unless something major
gets changed around suddenly. But I don't think it will. Not much else
change in the zone, so we are gonna destroy again this month cuz we
have all the same people. It's good.

  That's so crazy Brother Adams was called as Patriarch! That's so
cool. He will be an incredible Patriarch. I don't remember if I gave
you congrats dad last week on your new calling, but congrats. Looks
like you still haven't terminated all your scouting activities yet. Thought it would all end with Tanner, hunh? lol. But that's good. It will keep you active. Will you go to Wolfeboro? Matt has been
writing me and this year he will work there, so you might see him. If
you do tell him hi for me.

In the MTC they give us training on how to deal with stress. That's been one of my fears as well is lose my memory, cuz the time passes so fast and there is so much to do. I understand what Jacob said in the Book of Mormon now when he said the time passed as if it were a dream(Jacob 7 I think). i testify to that.
 
Save that book for me to read when i get back, ok Dad? It sounds
really interesting. And yes we are changing how we talk to the
sisters. In fact, they baptized this week so that is good. We are
pretty happy with them.

  Alright well have fun hanging doors there. I am bummed that I
couldn't see Uncle Tim and Aunt Karen and Mie. Tell them hi for me
when they are there. ok, I love you Family and hope that everyone is
doing good. I pray for you all every day. Until Next week!
Elder Baldwin

Monday, May 20, 2013

Hey Dad and Mom,

   Thanks for the tips Dad. They really will help. I will print out your email and use it. You are right we were taking a totally different route with them. I hope this gets better. It's just cuz they have a new calling, right? Sister Leader Trainer, and President Lima said that they were on the same level as level as Zone Leaders. So the thing is, they need to be examples in their areas. That is what President Lima said. Well, they haven't been, and whenever we follow up on their numbers or the District Leader they lash out, they say that he can't follow up on them like that and stuff like that. Lots of pride. This is only one group of sisters though. The other group are angels. But thank you Dad, I am sure that putting into practice what you gave me will help a lot. It's true, we just need to have more patience and love with them.

   That's really interesting what you said about grandpa. My Patriarchal Blessing says that my noble ancestors are my ministering angels. I have always that that Mofa died before I was born to be my ministering angel. I could be wrong but I always thought that that would be cool. In terms of being protected from dying, there are always moments when things could go wrong and such occurrences. For example, crossing the street and crazy people don't stop for you, and things like that. Or walking down a hill in rain that makes it feel like you are walking in a river. And the road full of potholes. I can't think of any specific occurrence where I have felt divine interference, but I am sure that many happen without me being aware of them. One thing that I have noticed the other day is the fact that my knee has not given me any problem whatsoever on the mission. Lots of missionaries complain about knee pain, and they have never had any problem with their knees, and I’m in an area especially now where there are lots of hills and walking that I do every day, and I have not felt at all much pain. Just slightly but it’s almost always just leg pain normal from walking so much. So I feel greatly blessed and I know that they are up there looking out for me too

     So this week was much better than last, we really focused in our area and did lots of stuff better, and the lord blessed us. There is a family that we are working with, Marcos and Denise, that they are starting to get interested, but they aren't married. But, their children are all able to get baptized, and have all been to church multiple times and love it. We marked dates for them for this next Sunday. We are so excited! Oh, and this next Sunday is our stake conference. Cool stuff. Alright, I love you and I hope I answered all of your questions. I love you and thank you for everything again that you guys have done and are doing for me. Congrats dad on the new calling, and the new bathroom. Until next week!
Elder Baldwin

Monday, May 13, 2013

Elder Baldwin did not write this week because the day before he called his parents for Mother's Day.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Hey Mom and Dad,
   I'm gonna respond to you both in this letter to save time. Almost everyone emailed me today. I totally forgot it was cinco de mayo this week. We don't celebrate that here so it was just normal. This week was really good, our district leader here is on fire in his new area and marked four baptismal dates and brought 6 people to church. He will baptize next week. Our other District Leader is training (again) his third missionary and is on fire as well. They just baptized two people yesterday. It's funny, I call him father Jacob cuz he has trained so much, and I call this new missionary Joseph, the favorite, cuz he will probably be the last of the missionaries that he trains. Other than that the Zone is moving forward. I have a good relationship with my companion, I think because we knew each other before and we have a lot of the same interests. Also, we serve each other, making each other’s beds and ironing each other’s shirts and stuff so that helps us like each other. I found out it is the secret to a good relationship.

     My companion lacks 7 baptisms for him to hit his goal on his mission, and ironically enough I lack 7 as well. We already baptized together last week but we will work hard to get this goal in the next few weeks.
   In our area we found a couple people that we are really happy about, they are progressing a lot, but not too many people went to church. That was heart breaking. Everything happened so that they didn't come to church. We will try and do our best to fix that this week. But we have not been getting real luck in our area, because every week there is something that we have to do. Last week was council, this week will be zone conference, etc. But these are just excuses, and we need to do better. We made plans to do much better.
   I don't have a return date yet! I have suspicions of a date, but I don't know yet. I'll let you know when I find out.

   Dad, could you give some advice on when you were leader of sisters? How did you incentive them to work? Cuz the other day we called to simply say that we were there to help them do better and they said they felt burned. Shoot. That was the farthest thing from a burning lol. So what did you do? That would be great.

   I can't wait to talk to you mom. Remember I only have 40 min and I have a few things that I need to do, like bear my testimony and stuff like that. It's my last call! But I want to keep the rules. We will have lots of time to talk when I get home :) And we are sealed, so that's like eternity. Ok I love you all and I hope as always that this week is good too :)
Lots of Love,
Elder Baldwin