May 27

Hey not really much time to email but i love you ill send you a better email when i can. lots to do out here! yeah we teach a little its real tough for 2 reasons we are over the ysa so all of our investigators have to be ysa, so we rely heavily on referrals which are decent here actually and we are doing so much for president we have hardly any time to work our own area so whatever time we have has to be really well spent, its tough but its alright! love ya happy memorial day! sorry i dont have much time this week. 

Love ya

Elder B

May 19

Hey! The office is nutty, we are busy out of our minds! We get very little time to find and teach in our own area. It’s tough in that regards for me because its been slow for me as far as teaching solid investigators for the last year or so. I believe though that the Lord will bless us with people to teach for our efforts. My companions as you know by now are Elder Garber from Wyoming (he goes home on the 18th of June) and Elder Mumm from Boise ID. We get along swimmingly and are really enjoying the work.  It’s got a different spin on it but its a good change I think. We have zone conferences this last week and this coming week and we train at each of those. We also have 10 companion exchanges with the zone leaders this transfer as well as 2 mission leadership councils to run (one happened last week and the other is in a couple weeks) and all the zone meetings as well. Its crazy, I don’t know how we are going to be able to do it! Plus Elder Mumm and I have to be fully prepared to great the new mission president, and a large part of that responsibility is going to be helping make the first couple transfers of all the missionaries. That will be interesting.

Anyways all I can say is I’ve strapped on the firehose and its still pumping water plenty fast. The daily routine is different everyday. Planning is a big part of a missionary’s life, and we have a hard time doing it, because it literally changes everyday.

The apartment is allright, nothing special, it is however the only shared apartment in the mission, we share with another set of missionaries. They are interesting but keep the place lively. All mail should go to the office, its easier, plus we are here 5-6 days a week.

Oh also there is a zone leader Elder Dutch (Elder Roberts) in Kingsport here in the mission that spent the first 13 years of his life in Holland! Super rad! I was on exchange with him this week and he taught me some Dutch and we made pannekoeken for breakfast! it was fantastic! And then this morning we went to have our weekly meeting in the mission home with President Irion about affairs of the mission over breakfast and Sister Irion was cooking aebleskievers! talk about blast from the past X2! the foreign ancestral breakfasts of my traditional childhood!  Life is good!

love ya! 

Elder Bakker

Taking Elder Christensen (Andrew's trainer) to the airport

 

May 5

So here I am back home in Knoxville, I like Knoxville. I’m serving in the young single adults branch right now in downtown Knoxville which is pretty sweet, we actually cover 2 whole zones/stakes worth of YSA's. I also bought an Asheville "locals" t-shirt from a GUY wearing a hat with a feather in it and studded spikey high heels before I left... that’s Asheville for ya.

I had a stake conference today in Knoxville and I was able to see tons of people from Farragut, my first area, it was fantastic. I could live in that ward. We took a big van around and delivered beds around the mission for like 8 hours and I guess that’s a regular thing. We are crazy with transfer stuff right now, the decisions behind transfers is a really cool and inspired process. We will be picking up the new missionaries on Tuesday and transfers are Wednesday and then we take the departing missionaries to the airport on Thursday morning. The last part is especially going to be weird because ill be driving my trainer to his flight... it'll be poetic, but not in the cute Shel Silverstien type way more like a sad Edger Allen Poe kind of poetic... I might cry I’ll miss having him around. I think we are supposed to be hitting up the cereal bar (yeah a restaurant that only serves cereal---whatt??!!!) before he goes.

As far as the preaching at the Baptist church went, the spirit constrained us and we didn’t go. It was a trap, unfortunate but true. Oh my companions are Elders Garber and Mumm. Elder Garber is training Elder Mumm and I to be the new assistants for the transition for the new mission president (didn’t you do something like that on your mission dad?). So yeah I’ll be here at least 4.5 months then my last transfer I’ll either stay or go into the field again (whatever the new president decides.) But its pretty cool to work closely with president and see a new side of the work. Feels like my lips are fastened around the end of a fire hose right now and the chief just turned it on full blast, but hey it’ll be fine!  Life’s good the gospel is true!

Love ya!

Elder bakker