April 7

Wow! conference was amazing wasn’t it!? I enjoyed so many of the talks! I felt a personal theme through the whole conference on priorities, submitting to the will of the Lord, and importance of good communication. Really it was such a powerful conference for me. I couldn’t seem to unglue my eyes from the screen. Another cool part of it was I got to hear from Elder Zwick and Elder Corbridge and Elder Rasband the three of which I’ve heard here locally and they have a special place in my heart. I have been listening to the 2013 new mission president seminar and elder Zwick speaks on there quite a bit and is really something else. I also enjoyed hearing from the apostles I have met personally as well, it seems to me that their words are more piercing when I have had the opportunity to meet the person in real life and try the virtue of their character so to speak. They really are special witnesses of the resurrected Lord.  I greatly look forward to being able to revisit some of these talks that made such an impact on me later. I hope as always that I will be able to be a "doer of the word and not [ a hearer] only", thus we are applying some of the things we learned already in hopes that these subtle changes will make great impact (d&c 123:16). I also enjoyed the testimony-talks especially from Elder Packer. Another thing that interests me greatly is the mastery of the English language these men of God have. There is a certain beauty of being able to say exactly what you mean no matter how you look at it. Deliberate speech is enthralling to me I have been observing the speech and language of others, especially the brethren, when they speak the words that come out of their mouth are divinely sent. I guess it’s a motive for obtaining a quality education of my own.

So we were able to see one person show up to conference from all the invitations we made and fliers and pass-along cards and posters and everything. His name is Monty and he is an artist living "off the grid" here locally. Interesting fellow, but we hope to see some kind of progress with him in the near future. Other than that everything seems to be the same. Life is good and Asheville is lively!

Love ya

ELder R.A. Bakker

ps the house is still haunted... we walk out of the church and walk to our house and the attic light is on in our house! (see the picture) you can only get that light on from inside the attic and we go upstairs and the padlock is still secured and there is even a chair we left in front of the door still in its properly place... there was also some newly discovered bird skeletons and other creepy things up there when we went up to turn the lights off again....