Fozen Toes that #lighttheworld

Helloooooo friends and family!

I hope that you all had a fantabulous week, cuz I sure did! ☺️

On Tuesday we had girls day for PDay with one of the members. Man, that was a blast! We got foot massages basically, and boy, do your feet get mangled as a missionary! Then we had yummy dinner there and they had cake for our birthdays that turned all of our mouths blue! That was fun!

On Wednesday we saw a bundle of people and helped out with Santa's village in the back of our favourite cafe! That was fun! They have so much cute stuff there.  It was a tad distracting at times! :P We stopped by a ton of people today and helped out another referral with her shop windows. Gotta love tiny towns! She was so sweet.  We went there to print off the branch Christmas dinner invitations and gave her the first one! We had dinner at crazy Sister Christian's! Haha! Her stories are the best. She was struck by lightning when she was 8.  She's told me like, 10 times! She's fun though! And she has a king German Shepard named Buttons.  She's HUGE! Also, this was my last
day being 20. I've spent an entire age on my mission now....  Crazy!

Thursday was all birthday shenanigans! Well, kind of... We had a district meeting in Camrose and we brought cake instead of doughnuts because I epically wiped out last week... so that was delicious! Side note for non CEM people- if we fall on ice, we owe the district doughnuts. It's like an unwritten rule. Anyways, after district meeting, we drove all the way back to play bingo with the folks at Points West. They're adorable! I love helping little blind Flo. After that, we got to go downtown to help with the Light Up the Street festival on Main Street! We got to chill with Santa... Sorry! I didn't get pics, but I definitely sat beside him on the hay ride! We were his helpers and sang carols with all the families on the hay bale ride! It was a blast, but our toes froze! We got to meet and see half the town though, so it was a SUPER good thing! Then we got to go tell funny stories from the night over free hot chocolate in guess where, our favourite café! One funny story- we overfilled one of the first loads and I fell off the bale I was sitting on because it was too tight. I think I got super abs from air sitting the second half of the ride!

Friday, we did our weekly planning and started doing some P90x. Ouchhhhh! :) Then we stopped by a lot of people and we had a good lesson with Michael (our investigator) about temples. He's been smoking again though, so we need to move his baptism date. :( Addictions are so hard to bust out of. Man!

On Saturday, we finally got to see the church's new Christmas video.  But it's awesome! The initiative is so great. 25 days of serving as Christ did!  I hope I can make that the focus of my Christmas season this year.

We went on a little road trip today to see some people in far away part of our area! We went to Provost and contacted a ton of people and invited some less actives to the
Christmas dinner. Then we drove to Chauvin to invite another less active, and then went down to Consort to stop by some potentials. :) It was a long day! ...And a foggy drive. It was a little scary sometimes! Glad there were no deer out! Oh!... We got all of our mail today from the branch president's wife who picked it up when she went to Edmonton! including scriptures we got for Devon, and scriptures I got rebound for me too! They're the coolest.  Be jealous!

On Sunday we got to give Devon his new scriptures and he loves them! Devon, I'm not sure if I've told y'all about him! He's the coolest kid with a heart of gold and an awesome testimony.  We are just waiting for moms approval for him to be baptized! Which hopefully is soon! After an awesome church meeting where we challenged all the Primary kids to invite a friend to the branch Christmas dinner after choir practice.

Oh! In choir we are singing this song called "Long Awaited One." I love this Christmas song. Check it out. The piece is beautiful!

On the topic of songs, have you ever heard Gentri's "Oh Holy Night"? You're insides will melt.

Also, the piano guys "It's gonna To Be Okay" is so happy! Prayers still going to the Schmitt family for the loss of their daughter Annie Schmitt.  Annie's last song with her brother is too sweet "Don't worry darling". Okay. That's enough songs, I think! I just love music so much though! Haha!

So we had an awesome lesson with Devon after church at the branch president's house on family history and temples. "Any questions, Devon?" "I just want to go to the temple!" He's so awesome! He loves his family so much and just wants the best for them!

On Monday, we volunteered at the library and part of that was sharpening like, 100 pencil crayons with an electric sharpener. Hehe! That was fun! Then we had a couple good lessons and helped a lady with her family history! I am learning to love family history so much! After dinner we did a few more bus stops but I sort of had a fever so we came home and worked on some paperwork stuff. It was a good day though! Every day I learn so much!

Transfers are coming up next week though, so who knows what'll happen! I think I might leave Wainwright for my last 12 weeks. We'll see. 😊

Love you all so much! Have a good week! Keep your heads up and remember how many people love you!

Sister Baker 🇨🇦🍁❤️

Happy Birthday "Deer" Companion!

Hello friends and family!

Well what a crazy week its been!

Man, apparently we decided to do all three exchanges in one week, so last week you got the first one. This week Sister Jarman and I got to go on exchanges with the STLs (Sister Training Leaders) and that was crazy! Sister Hanks and I had a nice, peaceful time in little old Wainwright, until about 7pm, when we got a frantic call from Sister Jarman and Sister Christensen informing us that we had to go get them from the side of the road because they hit a deer on their way back to meet us. Craziness! So we swiftly traveled to little tiny Viking, hoping they aren't dead or traumatized or something like that, only to find that the damage was not nearly as bad as they made it seem. It was certainly an interesting night though! Moral of the story...don't say the rearview mirror is destroyed when it's actually the side mirror! It kind of scares people. Haha!

 On Thursday, we had a bit more of a solemn day. I forgot to mention last week but on Monday while we were exchanging back, Sister Jarman told me that a member of the congregation that we had been working with had passed away on Sunday. She had MS and had lived in the auxiliary at the hospital for the past 10 years. So Thursday was her funeral. We sang "Amazing Grace" with the branch president and another brother and we helped serve the food as well. It was a really nice funeral.

 Mission tour got cancelled so we didn't drive into Edmonton or get to go to the temple, but we did get to see a few progressing investigators. Our one investigator, Michael is progressing really well towards baptism and he's quit smoking! It's super awesome!

On Friday we had district meeting because of the craziness of the mission tour cancellation. And then I went on exchanges with Sister Gambler! I got to train her last year... and this exact date was when we first met a year ago! So that was really cool! I love her so much! She's an incredible missionary! We got to do some finding together and we got to see some awesome investigators together... and yeah, it was a really fun day!

 The next day we went to two Super Saturdays, one in Wetaskiwin and one in Camrose and I'm surprised I knew so many people! Exchanges are awesome! You get to meet sooo many people! Then we exchanged back and I got to be with my actual companion for the first time in like, forever! Haha!  We had a good rest of the day and did some tracting (contacting people) in a teeny tiny hamlet place.

On Sunday, after an awesome time at church and a yummy food Sunday, we got to see a few investigators and check in on some people. Sunday night we got to do something pretty cool! We got to teach Santa Claus!!! 🎅🏼 And he gave us yummy hot chocolate and cookies! No... seriously!
Someone we are trying to teach more is a professional Santa. He went to Santa school and everything and he's world renown. He's the coolest, and he's Santa, and he's in little ol' Wainwright!

Yesterday was way fun! It was Sister Jarman's birthday! So we went out for breakfast, and may have gotten a new investigator out of the cute Filipino waitress there! So that's exciting! Then we decorated Christmas trees at the library. Man, I love doing that! That was wayyy fun! Then we had a lesson with an investigator and she made Sister Jarman a cake! Yum! After cake we went to this little cafe to help Santa decorate his Santa village in the back. That was fun! Then we got to go to the library and have an awesome lesson with our awesome investigator, Devon! He is now on date to be baptized! Sooo that's pretty sweet! Then we ate dinner with this cute part member family and they made us tacos and baklava and gave us cute gifts! :) They're so sweet! Then I got to get some school essays get looked over by a school teacher, so that was handy! It was just an awesome, event
filled day! Today should be good too!

Well, I better be leaving but stay awesome! Check out the Christmas website too! It's such a cool initiative!
https://www.mormon.org/christmas/light-the-world

 Love you all so much!

Sister Baker

Dry Bones Come Alive!

Hello friends and family! 

 

It's crazy to think that I will only send 15 more of these emails!

 

This week has been super good! On Wednesday, we were casually walking down the street when we saw this guy hauling a bunch of corn stalks out of the old hotel. He looked like he was taking down the community haunted house. I love haunted houses, so I asked him if he needed help. He expressed that he needed lots of help because only one other person had been helping him take down and they needed to be out by Tuesday. So we went in and met this sweet young girl and helped her take apart the spider room! Pictures are included. It was pretty sweet! There was even a glass floor piece!  We also got to help with the body room and they had one of those wheel of torture things in there, so obviously we got on it a spun around a few times!

 

Then, that night, we were invited to mutual with the young women, and they would not tell us what was going on! Well, it was a cute little surprise birthday party for the two of us! Sister Jarman's birthday is the 21st and mine is the 24th of November, so that was adorable! They made "pin the tag on the sister" and we played a game that I was really good at. It's something about saying the word that the person in the middle choses, except when you get the word right you get splashed in the face with water. My face was wet. It was so cute though. The young women are awesome! I love them bundles! They gave us bouquets and little coupons too! We are excited to use them! 
 

 

On Thursday we drove into Edmonton for a ZedTM, that was way fun! When we got there and got all settled in the gym, the power in the Stake centre went out. So we grabbed all of our chairs and moved into the Relief Society room because it had more windows, and just as we got settled there, the power turned back on -.-  We stayed in the Relief Society room though! We talked about a lot of things! One is a way good quote that I'll have to remember to share next week about being motivated and dedicated. Man, I need to share that next week! Another cool thing we talked about is last impressions. We talked about how last impressions are lasting impressions and how we always need to be polite and courteous no matter how people act towards us. We are trying to leave a positive influence on everyone we meet. So that was a fun discussion. Random thing from ZedTM, the Elders had an ugly tie contest, maybe you can tell from the zone pictures! One of the departing Elders gave an awesome testimony at the end of the meeting, these are some things he said: 

There is a song, it says, 

"we call out to dry bones come alive, come alive. 

we call out to dead souls, come alive, come alive."

I know that my heart would be dead without the gospel. 

There was a long time I lived with the knowledge of the gospel, but not the conviction of it. 

You don't know how lost you are until you found. 

People don't know the capacity their heart has, it has a lot. 

 

His testimony was just awesome, and impacted me personally. Maybe you can get something out of that too! 

 

That night, before interviews with the President, we got to eat dinner with the Pattison's, the mission President and his wife and youngest son. It was neat to talk to them and get to know them a tad better! Plus they served amazing food! Then we took a long drive back home! 

 

On Friday, it was Remembrance Day, which, unlike back home, is a stat holiday here. So we went in the morning to the communiplex for the ceremony and we got to lay a wreath, which was pretty neat! It was awesome to see all the people in uniform, since there's an army base, Denwood, just outside of Wainwright. Afterwards, we had a few appointments, helped someone clean their garage, and did some tracting before we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators, Michael. We were pretty bold with Michael, we've been trying to get him back on baptismal date for a while, but he had some things he needed to stop doing before he can be baptized. So in our lesson, we nag him a bit, and he admits we are right. Sister Jarman goes over to his wall, takes his colander down and tells me to write a baptismal date on it. So we literally wrote in his baptism and confirmation date before even asking him if he'd be baptized. When we gave him the calendrer back we asked him if he'd be baptized on December 10th and he accepted. Michael is smoke free 4 days today! He's one step closer to his date! It was awesome! 
 

 

On Saturday we got to meet with Devon, this sweet kid we are teaching, at the branch Presidents house! He has such an incredible testimony! We taught a bunch of the commandments in one lesson, and he readily accepted them all! He even asked when he could start paying tithing! He's a champ! Hopefully he can be baptized soon! 

 

On Sunday, Sister Jarman spoke on tithing and a young girl spoke on Sabbath Day observance and man, she laid it down! Devon, at the end, told us that he felt a lot of conviction to take the whole day off work, not just the morning! It was really cool! Then, we had dinner with this sweet lady who gave us delicious key lime pie! It was sooo good! Then, we drove out to exchange with the Wetaskiwin Sisters. I got to hang out with sister Nipko, Sister Jarman's trainer all day and we had a blast! She's from Utah and is super adorable! We did some service at a thrift shop, went out to a reserve and raked some leaves with the three huge German Shepards I took a picture of,... and had an awesome lesson with a couple I met last time I went to Wetaskiwin. They are getting married this month and baptized next month. It's way cool! Then we had yummy dinner and yummy yummy Christmas cookies! They were called cherry winks. They are dang good! If you want the recipe, I definitely have it! Then we drove forever and exchanged back! I love exchanges, I love getting to know other missionaries, and their teaching skills and excetra.
 

 

Something I've read a ton is the Book of Enos. It's just so good! Enos is such a champ! But it made me reflect, what are my "wrestles before God"? How am I praying for the people around me? Does my soul hunger with a desire to have a remission of sins? When I pray, do I "cry to God" in faith? Is my faith unshaken in the Lord? I'm sure you could ask yourself all of these questions too!  

 

More exchanges in Edmonton today, and mission tour on Friday! I'm excited to learn from an apostle of God! Talk to you all next week! Have a great day!  

Sister Baker ️🇨🇦

 

New Companion and School Applications

I AM SO SORRY BUT SCHOOL APPLICATIONS ARE AWFUL AND TIME CONSUMING AND SO IS DOING LAUNDRY!!!

But I have a new companion and she's cool!! I hope y'all had a fantastic Halloween and ate lots of candy!

Love y'all dearly!

Sister Baker
XO