Monday, November 26, 2012

November 26




November 26, 2012

Hey everyone,

Good to hear from everybody! Life out here is pretty sweet no complaints if I have a spare second I'll attach a photo of my companion and I. Well for starters it was a pretty strange week we had a lot of things keeping us from doing a lot of missionary work haha kinda strange. For example on the 21st we had a lot of tracting and teaching planned but the office called and we spent the whole day picking up a washer and dryer and driving them across the state in the big van and installing them in an apartment for a senior couple up in rogersville. that pretty much took up the whole day. oh boy and then came thanksgiving... hahaha i gained 7 pounds on thanksgiving ( i didnt keep it haha) but we had 3 full thanksgiving meals and double deserts and seconds at each one.... wow that was a hard day, but i guess its a good problem to have as far as that goes, at least we are getting fed. Ok so a little more about my companion.... Elder Christensen, he has been out just over 6 months and he plays Rugby and football and basketball. He also was a body builder before he came out (sounds just like me huh? haha) and he plays guitar piano and trumpet. He is from Farmington and he is a pretty swell guy, we get along really well, I just have to get used to the idea of going to the gym a lot on P-days... haha not my favorite thing. Oh and Dear morgan the Sonic's here are open 24/7 (not that i can benefit from that anyways but still...) I was in the car with a member families (the S's) parents who we are teaching, and the man said the word "twiced" a few times (as in "yeah, I heard that he scored a touchdown twiced in that game") haha i got a real kick out of that. But anyways one of our investigators we tracted into "by accident" his name is Johnny. He has been taught by the missionaries before then he got anti'd hard core by his preacher. But he welcomed us in and now we are teaching him again, we have been clearing up his Anti questions and helping him the best we can. We helped him understand when we tracted into him that maybe we were there giving him a second chance to come unto the gospel for a reason, he really responded to that.  We have a lunch appointment with him on wednesday, I hear he cooks a mean venison steak. Also he has a sweet garden he gave us fresh tomatoes home grown/made salsa and home grown pickled beets. real stellar guy! But anyways thats a little bit about how its going here! write me.
Love Elder Bakker

Monday, November 19, 2012

November 19


November 13th, being picked up at the airport in Tennessee


The mission home with President and Sister Irion




Elder Bakker with Sister and President Irion



Elder Bakker and Elder Christensen will be serving in the Farragut area


November 19


November 19, 2012
Hey yall!
Sounds like all is well at home! Well glad to hear from yall. Life in Tennessee is stellar! my new companion, as you saw, is Elder Christensen way awesome missionary and I get along with him super well.  I'm serving in the Farragut area so both the mission office and mission home are in my area, we actually went to a dinner appointment at the Irion's ("erie-un") home, super good! My area is definitely the most effluent area in the mission, for example my ward mission leader brother R took us to the gym this morning in his vintage yellow Land Cruiser and then took us to lunch and then bought us some food at Costco.... apparently this is a regular occurrence. The members are wealthy to say the least. So the area is hard to get people to talk to you when we are out tracting, let’s just say humility isn’t the #1 Christ-like attribute around here. But the people are a polite rude, haha, they like to say thank you a lot as they politely slam the door in your face, ha cracks me up. And every one is baptist. We live across the street from the great and spacious building ( First Concord Baptist Church). It has like 10,000 members and is roughly the size of a very large high school. That’s the classic baptist church everyone goes to, and the funniest thing is none of them quite understand what they believe other than saying they have " accepted Christ" and by doing that they have "been saved." Its bogus, haha, no lie the baptists are insane. I've definitely got to become more well versed in my Bible skills too. As far as my apartment goes its small and dirty but it gets the job done.  I like it. As far as our current investigators go our two heavy hitters right now are both named Josh. We have a goal of baptizing three people this companionship. That’s one every month. Elder Christensen, being my trainer, is with me for three solid months. I’m pretty stoked about it, he is an awesome dude. Well anyways, the work is great I love being a missionary. The south is sweet and the people are generally way nice. Its beautiful around here, cold nights and mornings with a nice mid day. We already have like 4 dinner appointments for Thanksgiving... We are fed pretty well, at least in Farragut. The Church is true and Christ truly suffered for each of us individually. He loves his children and as his servant we help find his lost sheep, one lamb at a time.

Talk to yall next monday!
Love all Elder Bakker