Thursday, I loaded everything up to move for most likely the last time before getting on that plane. It's weird to feel the end be near, but I am excited to see what these next 3months have in store.
Friday started a blur that was the last week and a half. We were working 2 areas in a trio with a previous companion Elder Arscott until his trainee arrived. We met a lot of friends and members who had been found and baptized since I had been here in Lex, as well as some of the old ones I remembered. A few highlights are:
-A new member family in my area (north). Sango and Mauwa. They are literally the best. They love the missionaries so much that they feed us twice a week when we go to teach. They have 5 kids: Sela, Machozi, Tereza, Munga, and Mimi. (Mimi is the missionary fan favorite baby, she's adorable.)
-The dunia family is a very large family we have named after the first man who was baptized. Dunia is also the friend that got Alenge and Mwaliasha interested in the church. This family is chaos ha-ha. There are 3 apartments in the same complex. One is Dunia and his family, another is his sister Binwa and her family, and the third is their brother Sadi and he lives with another brother. The grandma and another couple siblings also live in the first two apartments as well as a couple of Binwa's adult sons. (Hats off to elder Lundgreen a while back for sitting down with them and learning what their family tree actually is.) Currently, like 5 or 6 of the adults in this family have been baptized in the last year, with 2 more having been baptized I the last 2 years. We visit them a few times a week for new member lessons and because one of Binwa's sons, Bitazo, is preparing to be baptized in January as well as another woman named Deborah is progressing quite well.
-Shebani is another man who has a baptismal date for January that we are working with. It's hard because we're not super sure what his interest or commitment level is yet, but we will keep working with him because we trust the previous elders.
-And lastly Albert. He pulled up to church for the first time a week before Christmas. He had just flown into Kentucky from Maine that morning to live with another of our new members named Henry. We have been over a few times to teach him and he's really cool!! We have high hopes for Albert.
For the most part these last two weeks have been trying to figure out who everyone is and inviting people to the Christmas party this week and Christmas church yesterday. It has been a good time and I'm really excited to serve here.
To end we had a zone gathering for Christmas and I'd like to talk about what I learned there. We were invited to read the whole Book of Mormon before April 30th as a mission. I return home on March 14th. During the meeting I was faced with a choice, continue floating until i finish my mission or did deep and open myself to learning something before I return home. I've learned many things on my mission, and I could return home now feeling accomplished, but the spirit reminded me through President McGinn that I still have something to learn and there are people prepared here for me to help. I'm excited to see the hand of the Lord!!
Elder Baird
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