Jan 6

Hey!

It's cold out here in Tennessee! We are having a cold front come through and everyone is losing their minds and cancelling school and everything and there's not even snow really. Oh life in Tennessee! It’s 13 degrees outside and you would swear there is a zombie apocalypse outside so everyone has decided to bunker down and load up on milk and bread!  Other than that there's not a whole lot new to report.

Elder Williams and I are really striving to find the ones the Lord has sent us here to find. We are trying to use our time as wisely as we can and be faithful that the Lord will provide us someone to teach. (that's really all we want) This is sure going to be a busy quick transfer though! We have a zone meeting, a bi-zone conference, 2 mission leadership coucils, 2 stake correlation meetings with the stake president and president Irion, as well as our meeting with Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder Ulisses S. Soares on the 1st of Feb. Busy busy busy!

Our Focus for the zone is to become TRUE preach my gospel missionaries and be successful missionaries. In other words not just doing preach my gospel "missionary activities" but to have the gospel " ^awritten not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in ^btables of stone, but in ^cfleshy tables of the ^dheart." (thanks Paul [2 Cor. 3:3]) And to be able to go through your mission with a continuous focus on making sure you are always striving to be successful and not waiting for that scary moment to look back at the end of your mission to reflect when there is no time to change.

Once again with the beard from their Christmas parade float

As far as people we are working with we recently found a new investigator named Mike. We have another appointment with him later this week. And to answer your question Cody is doing great. He has been attending the Young Single Adult branch in Knoxville with his girlfriend Marissa. He has also said that if she goes on a mission he would go too. And she is really thinking about it! How cool would it be if he goes on a mission? Way cool! Speaking of converts going on a mission when I was in my first area we were teaching the P family, I’m sure you remember and all Jackson their 14 year old son would talk about is going on a mission. Well anyways we are going into Farragut for a meeting on Tuesday and Elder Williams and I are going out to lunch with the P’s before the meeting so that is exciting news!

Well all's well in Zion!

Love Elder R.A. Bakker