Transfered?? Well yes! ...but actually no.

Let me just say, I apologize to everyone (a little) because this is going to be a chunky email. But y'all want to know what I'm up to. 

So first of all, these last two weeks have honestly been a blur of teaching and finding and emotions and grinding (Hehe rhymes). But thankfully I took some notes as I went along. 

 

So, first things first. Two weeks ago, I knew something was going to change because Elder Xanthos was going home. And I made a guess that I was going to combine areas and work Louisville French North & West with Elder Shumate. It seemed like the most logical solution because 4 missionaries were going home and 2 came in, and it turns out I was right ha-ha. So, I've now moved 4 times in 4 months but only had 1 teaching area so far haha. I'm now living in the West Elders apartment, and we drive around the whole city to teach our peeps (oh and I'm designated driver woot woot). It's fun but we lose a lot of time driving... oh well c'est la vie. 

There's a lot to talk about so I'll make it somewhat brief

So, to start off two weeks ago, we had a charcuterie picnic in the park for district p-day and we played pickleball with President and Sister Alder. They're seriously the coolest! Sadly, they go home this week but I'm very excited to meet the new mission president! 

We've met with Marine again and shared a song, and Ether 12:27, then we asked how she thinks God could help her with her weaknesses. To that she replies, "Oh no, I don't have any of those". Which reminded me of Hades and Meg from Hercules, "He has no weaknesses, and he's going to destr..." "Oh I think he does; I think he does". 

We've had some great member meals lately and it's been really wonderful to meet with these people. They have a special light about them, and I absolutely love the additional thoughts they bring to the table. 

 We met a new family, they're from Rwanda and moved in like 3 weeks before we knocked on their door.  My initial count when we first walked in was 8 kids and 2 parents. As we were teaching another family of their friends walked in which made to around 15 people that we taught in one room. And only about 3 of them spoke Swahili, 1 of those knew French and another knew English. The rest was translated to the kids through them. Elder Xanthos said that was the most people he'd ever taught in one lesson!!

We had some miracles the last week in direct relation to Elder Xanthos going home. We stopped by some friends who had been too busy in the past and stopped teaching, and they were both available! I loved sitting down and talking with people who had learned a lot in the past but had fallen off. Hopefully we can reignite the flame again!

 Justin and Massan are still really cool! They have a great desire to learn more and love what we are teaching them. The hard part is that Justin has a position in his church and wants to come and try ours but just needs some kind of push over the hill. 

 

Akili and Paulina are still cool also. They haven't fed us more nasty food yet, just regular food ha-ha. We did help them move ha-ha, the video of the car with the couch inside and cabinet on top was them. They're great though and I love their family. I don't think they quite realize the gravity of what we teach them. But I'm hoping it clicks soon and we start to see some improvement. 

And Christian is still awesome, he got arrested for trespassing and then drug tested. He said that he's never used drugs before, but he would like to one day, we told him no ha-ha. Hopefully we can meet with him soon and get him to church again!!

 There were a lot of goodbyes, and it was hard to see Elder Xanthos leave, but it's ok because my new comp Elder Shumate is so cool!! I'm super excited to work with him on this transfer! 

It's been a great two weeks and I'm going to echo what a lot of other missionaries are saying right now. NEW PMG!! It's great and for use by members and missionaries alike. God's work continues for every one of us. I love you all and so does he. Have a great week. 

Elder Baird 

 

P.S. the English elder's DL came over for a sleepover the night before transfers, and we played cards and talked until past like 2am. That was a party, but I was very sleepy ha-ha. 

Someone get me a tootsie roll right now!

Jambo everyone! How are you all doing? Good I hope since I haven't heard otherwise ha-ha. 

 My week has been quite good. Tuesday, we met with Christian again. I think I forgot to mention but we offered him a baptism date a couple of weeks ago which he sadly declined, saying it's a big commitment and he needs to learn more. BUT he didn't ask about second baptism which means (hopefully) he's interested in getting baptized. But we met again on Tuesday, which was awesome. We taught the Joseph smith's story and he wanted to know everything about him. Especially the story of his martyrdom.

 Zone conference was amazing. Too many good things than I have time for. I'll probably elaborate next week. But needless to say, I want to feast on the scriptures and find more joy and peace in them as I do so. Oh, and also my president is leaving in 3 weeks which is exceedingly triste. 

 We met again for just a few minutes with Erike and Aline. And a MOUSE ran from under a couch across the room to under my feet and back. And it was SO FAST. Straight up like Turbo the snail movie in that home. 

We met with Daniel Bolenge which is fun as always. He is full of great questions and likes our members we call in. We read the testimony of Joseph Smith in the BoM explaining how he received the plates. 

 On Friday we met with Akili and Paulina. We've discovered their work schedules, so we have regular lessons now. We watched the Ask of God video, and we translated it that morning for Elder Xanthos to read while they watched the video. Then they fed us cow stomach. It was not good. It had the essence of beef but was wet and had what felt like moss on it. Then when Elder Xanthos got out to the car he goes "someone get me a tootsie roll Right Now" (my parents had mailed me a big bag). And I just started laughing because we were both kind of scarred ha-ha. 

 On Saturday there was a "single adult" dinner, and we invited Christian. He seemed very confused and uncomfortable because it was kind of a church meeting but just a social get together with like 8 members and they invited the missionaries.

 

Sunday, we went and knocked on some of our friends' doors to remind about church. And Akili said, an hour before church, "I'll see you there." And STILL nobody showed up 😭

So that was very disappointing. But our district leader says success is measured by our efforts.  So, if that's the case we're very successful. 

 

So very full week. I hope everyone is doing well. God loves you! Also, I discovered that James 1:6 is awesome too and is like a perfect supplementary verse to James 1:5. Go read it and see why!!

 

Elder Baird

ER Visit

 

Haha don't worry, it wasn't for me. One of my roommates needed a couple stitches on his shin because he got cut while ice skating at a YSA activity. He's all good now. 

 So it has been a good week as usual, although it started out a little disappointing. We had a lesson Monday night with Chenga, and basically he just said that every church that talks about Jesus is the Church of Jesus Christ. Which of course leaves us pretty much unable to teach him because he's not interested in coming to our church. I have a new understanding of the word "exhort" now, because I was testifying with everything I had that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is the true word of God, but he remained hard in his heart. In the end we told him to, "pray about the Book of Mormon and you will receive your answer. Give us a call when you do." I had hopes for him and his son Luenda, but we did our part by sharing, testifying, and inviting. I have the faith that one day something will change and they will be ready to accept the gospel. Although it was disappointing, I walked out of that lesson filled with the spirit because I testified calmly but powerfully with all the energy of my soul of the truthfulness of what we shared. In the end I am grateful for the opportunity I had, because it was one of those moments where I didn't have to question if the other person was "ready" to hear everything about the church. So to me it was a powerful faith building experience because there was no doubt in my mind that everything I said was 100% true. 

 Last Monday was memorial day and I had the opportunity to call my siblings while they visited the graves of my Grandparents. There's these trees near their graves that have berries growing on them which are quite fun to toss/throw at each other, which my mom says is fitting because her father loved things like that. God has a way of reminding all of us that we are known personally to him, and he showed me that on Wednesday. We were biking through the University of Louisville to go home and I saw a bush with some incredibly similar berries. It was a very simple but powerful reminder that God, and through some extension my grandparents, are thinking about me out here. I know that he loves me personally and I cherish the opportunity I have right now to bring that love to others. 

Oh and we've locked ourselves out of our apartment a couple of times because the locks are always locked. So we left a window open haha. There's a photo of Elder Xanthos climbing through two weeks ago. 

There's also the complex I talked about the week before that was pretty sketchy. We had a miracle there. We had a feeling to go visit some people one afternoon and nothing really came of it. But then we were going to visit our boy Tangente before he left. He wasn't home and we left a stack of pamphlets with his wife. But because we were at a different part in the city we passed by the sketchy complex. So we took that as a sign to go visit the family we had met there. And turns out the parents were home! We taught them the restoration and it was really awesome. Their names are Erike and Aline and they both speak French and Swahili. 

Then another day we went to teach a mother named Aisha. She's really cool but we got through a small lesson and learned that she can't read, anything. So Elder Xanthos goes "well I've taught a few people how to read English but never Swahili" and proceeded to show her all the letters. Turns out q and x don't exist in Swahili so that's cool.  

So, finally we have Justin and Massan. They are so cool! They moved here from Togo and love the scriptures. Justin is very interested in everything we share and Massan seems to love the added knowledge about God. We were also able to have them talk with a member who just moved from Togo, and I think was a branch president there! The lesson was so good, and they were just super interested! And then we came back the next day because Justin felt bad, he couldn't read yet, so we went back with another member and taught the restoration, and they loved it too!! I definitely have high hopes for these two. They're awesome. 

 Pretty great week everyone. I hope you enjoy hearing about my adventures in African infused Kentucky. Have a great week!

 Elder Baird