Monday, March 25, 2013


Hola madre
So it's so awesome here. Tennesseeism of the week- kept/keep: to babysit or tend children. "... boy that ole' lady kept us for years growing up"
We recently had a zone training meeting and the zone leaders challanged the whole zone to find 7 new investigators this week, and it seemed like a really tough goal. We worked really hard this week to try and work through the members to find new investigators and we did a little tracting, and by Saturday we had 4 new investigators. 4 is good, thats actually a lot for a week, but we really wanted to achieve the zone goal of 7 so Elder Arnold and I fasted and prayed that Sunday, in our 2 hours we had to go find people, we would be able to get 3 new investigators. We set up to go out tracting with a priest from the ward and we were praying and I knew we needed to get one more priest and do splits tracting to find heavenly fathers children that we were promised we could find. So we called up one more priest and "luckily" he was able to come out with us. We prayed about where to go tracting and we had the priests pick where to go and they picked a couple streets so Elder Arnold took one and I took one and we went off to find. We ended up finding those 3 new investigators and taught 9 lessons between us in those 2 hours. Boy the priests had an awesome time super spiritual and boy my faith has sure strengthened in the power of prayer and fasting.
The S parents came to church on their own yesterday and no body was speaking or invited them! We called to set up a time to do lunch and a spiritual message and Jane said "Alrighty boys, I'll see you at church tomorrow." They are doing so awesome! They are doing family home evening every monday with the S and everything. This week FHE is at the S parents house. ha imagine that. I love them, and Elder Arnold is going to start getting to know them and I'm sure they will love him too. He is a sweet guy.
We are teaching a lady tonight named Cheryl.  She really likes us and is cooking us her famous pizza tonight and has said she will let us teach her the restoration, and is actually way excited.
Well Elder Arnold and I are tearing it up here in Farragut all is going well and we have a bunch of solid investigators now its just time to get them to have a date for baptism. That's this weeks focus so any extra prayers for our investigators would be awesome! Love you and talk to you soon! Happy Easter!
Love elder bakker

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

E Lynn S Bowman Day E Anderson; S Cady Sloan Neil Horkley Weirich Gotchy Whatcott Thiriot Preston Malloy Jones Hollis S&P Irion; Kesler Lutu Becker Mills Pierce Grabinger Bakker Eckery Chell; Shumway Southard Ward Snow Pectol Babbitt LeSueur

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

March 18


March 18, 2013
hey madre and fam
The work here is wonderful. Tennessee-ism for the week is Maryville, which is a city here in Knoxville. (now say it in your head) you pronounced is like mary-ville. Yup you're not from the south. The correct way to pronounce it is murrvull. Haha well like I said all is well here across the country!
Sad to see Elder Christensen go, but Elder Arnold is awesome, he hails from San Diego and even played a year or two of water polo, so that’s cool. If there was a mission wide water polo tournament our district would win, my district leader played in cali too, and I believe that’s everyone in the whole mission who played.
Well anyways there’s not a whole lot more changing around here. We are really locking arms with the members and striving to be better missionaries together with the ward and they are pretty excited for it. Almost every family in the ward has a couple, if not more, families they are working with in helping share the gospel with them. We even got to meet one family this week that was found by a family in the ward from the ask in faith program. The P family, and they invited us to dinner.
Kind of a cool story there in the making. We were out tracting and offering blessings on peoples homes and we decided that the street we were on was the wrong street, but we felt like we shouldn't move on quite yet, so we knocked on a few more houses, got told off by a couple people and decided well I guess now its time to leave. So we hopped on our bikes and felt like we should go the long way back to the apartment and I felt like, hey we need to set up an appointment with the B family so we can go over their "Ask in Faith" program with them a little more. So we rode up their drive way and who should be playing basketball in their drive way? The P family, who we've been trying to meet with along with the B's forever. They said that the B family would be back shortly they just went to pick something up from the store. We chatted for a little bit and they invited us to dinner! ha the Lords hand is in his holy work. We are meeting with the B family tonight and Wednesday to talk about what we can do for the P's and next week I believe we will meet with the P's for dinner.
Little miracles that help you know that the Lord is intimately involved in our lives. He has a plan for all of us, and we have to have the faith that if we can follow the spirit and do the right thing he will in fact lead us in the way that is right for us. It may not seem right at first (ex: getting cussed off a porch) but the destination is where you want to end up (meeting the P's at the perfect time). I love the mission and don’t ever want to leave the people of Farragut haha even though I'll probably get booted end of April. Love you, and it's real simple. One of the most common (if not the most common) promise in the Book of Mormon is for the first time found in 1 Nephi 2:20 "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper..." until next time.
Love you,
Elder Bakker

Monday, March 11, 2013

March 18


hey hey mom
so its been one of the coolest weeks of my mission. hands down. So Elder Christensen and I have really been working our tails off here in farragut. We strive for exact obedience and don’t settle for less than our best efforts here. Jeanne and Mackenzies baptism was the first baptism here in a solid year. The ward is on fire now. We have been in almost every home helping them with their missionary work with the "Ask in Faith" program, and now just about every family in the ward has specific goals to help their friends come to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel. We honestly have more work here than we have time and for the first time we probably are going to soon need another set of missionaries in the Farragut ward.
Miracles are happening here and soon there is going to be a huge increase of member work and excitement, from one catalyst in particular. So Brother S (I've mentioned that we are teaching his parents) has really been working with us with his parents. We have grown a relationship with them and consider them to be family as well as they consider us to be their sons or grandsons. However I don’t know if I've ever really relayed the miracle behind this relationship. So, roughly 20 years ago when brother S joined the church his parents disowned him. In fact I don’t know if they spoke to him for like a solid year. Also they turned the whole family against them. He told us he couldn’t go to any family gathering with out someone pulling him aside  and trying to save him. long story short, it was a very bad situation. Now their relationship is pretty good and his parents are close with brother s and his family. And now it is the perfect storm. Brother s’s son Trey is on a mission in Australia, and that has really opened them up. And every missionary in the past that has gone through the area wasn’t right, but everything worked out and brother s felt that he should have us teach his parents. And well they have done like a complete 180 and yesterday we went over to their house and talked a bit bore testimony brought the spirit and I'll tell you there was not a dry eye in the room, and then brother s invited his parents to be baptized. it was a truly incredible experience. There is nothing happier than missionary work. The whole ward pretty much knows the situation with the s's and once they see the miracle of the s's being baptized the missionary excitement is going to explode.
oh also borther s and his dad took us to the last UT basketball game and we sat 6th row at half court and got to see them with their last regular season game! (president gave us special permission to go) it was so sick! haha weird though everyone got a good stare at the mormons! haha but anyways i love the mission and wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.
until next week! 
Love ya! ELDER BAKKER

March 18


Johnny H (where most of the Tennessee-isms come from)

The H's (the couple from France)

Robert B

Stake and Lobster Dinner

Leah, Josh and Hannah (Hannah is now 1 and best friends w/Elder Bakker)

Brother S's Dad in front of the UT basketball stadium (note the Orange ties, go Volunteers!)

Elder Bakker, Brother S, Elder Christensen at the UT campus

Monday, March 4, 2013

March 11


hey momoson
Sounds like its really kickin' back in the land of Zion. So the Tennesseeism of the week is going to have to be futher. Futher: could mean further, but quite honestly I’m not really sure haha it was used out of context and I'm not even sure if I could organize a sentence using it correctly.
But anyways its been a super good week! Jeanne and Mackenzie were finally baptized this Thursday! It's taken ages but Farragut for the first time in a year had a couple of baptisms this week! man the work is going just great.
I found out from President that I’ll be staying here in Farragut another transfer but Elder Christensen is leaving. Sad time but I think its ready for a change up here, I’m excited to see the changes taking place in the mission. Lots of good here.  President really trusts us and I can’t say much more because I gotta split outta here but I absolutely love my mission and can’t get enough! Thanks for all the love and support and I promise I’ll write more next week but adios for now! 
Love Elder Bakker

March 4

Elder Bakker with the P family.  Sister P sent this photo with a really nice e-mail saying basically that their family like Elders Bakker and Christensen.  

Jeanne and Mackenzie's baptism February 28, 2013.


Watching the Elder Bednar  CES broadcast Sunday March 3, 2013  E Morrill, P Irion, E Bakker, M Christensen, Shumway, S Weirich, Cady & Emma

Farragut District Meeting: E Grabinger, Chell, S Weirich, E Shumway, Snow; S&P Irion, E LeSueur, MIlls, Huffaker, M Christensen, Bakker, Morrill