Marion VA

elder hart

dearest mom!

Well theres some news I’m sure you’re all waiting for, and its some big changes! haha well I’m now emailing you from the library here in beautiful backwoods Marion, VA! haha this is where Elder Christensen was trained. It’s as far away as you can be in the mission and it's been named outer darkness for a reason. I went to a zone training meeting friday and drove about 160 miles round trip to get there, where as my stake center in Knoxville was less than 4 miles. It’s a small branch and small town. 

prison view from our window

There's so much work to be done here that’s one thing that is certain. The Lord has decided to white-wash the area so I'm here with my new companion and neither of us have been here previously and we have to start with a handful of names from previous missionaries, essentially from scratch right at ground one. My new companion is a greenie fresh from the MTC named Elder Hart from Cave Junction, Oregon population roughly 2400. So that's even a bit smaller than Marion! Our apartment is above a clothing store of one of the most popular gentleman in the whole town, plus he loves the missionaries. Across the street from our apartment is a prison. But not just any prison... its a prison for the mentally-insane... haha so like crazy serial killers and stuff! also there was a break out like 10 years ago.. I’ll attach a picture of the view out our bedroom window. The branch is small, like 80-90 people at church. Its also pretty sketchy I feel like I always have to correct false doctrine. In fact theres a whole section of gospel doctrine at the beginning of class devoted to "go backs" correcting false doctrine from the week previous... haha Its a blast. We already have a few promising investigators out here one Elder Christensen found named Laura and she is committed to being baptized on the 22nd of June. She has cut from 3 packs of cigarettes a day to half a pack a day so a lot of progress there. She wants to just quit it cold turkey now that she has made it this far though. So yeah all is well thanks for the love and support! love you 

Elder Bakker's new address is:

Elder Bakker

540 South Commerce Street #2

Marion, VA 24354

This is great for packages and stuff because its really hard to get me packages where I am because I’m 2.5-3 hours from the mission office. This is great for packages and stuff because its really hard to get to me.  Letters can still go to the main address: 
11320 Station West Dr. Ste. 101
Farragut, TN 37934

Me and Brother C

Me, E McNeil and E Arnold with the M family

me elder mcneil and elder arnold

me elder christensen and Brother S before transfers

 lineage picture of people who trained people who trained people 

brother r with his bonsi trees

Me and Tom R