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

April 28

Norwegian Kick ball (he's in a blue shirt/white shorts)

Spring is in the air here. Today we are actually going to hike to some waterfalls where they filmed Hunger Games at, so that will be cool I suppose. We dyed Easter eggs this week with Ash and Jen. They are both 19 and are making some major improvements in their lives.

As far as our teaching pool goes, the member we have been teaching the lessons too again to help her strengthen her conversion is doing swimmingly. She made amends with the person that offended her yesterday at church and is still reading and praying which is good. We have really been able to see her heart soften over the short time we have been working with her. So yeah she is doing pretty good.

Hmm oh Monty who came to general conference, well we were able to locate his home (he told us 43 instead of 34 on his address, but no matter we found him!) and invite him out to church again and he came! So that was good we will be teaching him this week.

Easter eggs w/Ash and Jenn

Oh boy we went on like 3 exchanges this week and I slept on either a couch or a floor 3 nights in a row with nothing remotely healthy to eat, needless to say I’m glad to be back in the mansion again sleeping like a baby. On one exchange I ate nothing but scones with maple glaze and cheerwine for 24 hours because they spent all their money on ingredients for that and cheerwine, that was rough. Oh and too bad they don’t have cheerwine in Utah because its fantastic. Many southerners consider it to be the nectar of the gods, ambrosia from heaven.

Ricky Boone the magician (check him out on Google)

We are preaching and possibly doing a question and answer at a Baptist church here in Asheville Tuesday or Thursday.... so pray for us please! worried about walking into an anti-Mormon trap of some kind or another so we are hoping for the power of Paul or Aaron in our tounge, and the courage and conviction of Captain Moroni... so here goes nothing #putitupforthemormonpreachers

Well that’s all for this week! love ya take care!

Love ya!

E Woolums and E Bakker

E Woolums, Bakker, Garber, Dreeson

Asheville Zone w/Pres and Sister Irion

ELder R.A. Bakker

April 21

On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 10:51 AM, Robert Bakker ‪<robert.bakker@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Wow what a great Easter week! It was quite interesting to note the symbolism of our weather. It was cold, gloomy and rainy Thursday, Friday and Saturday (with a grim story to follow soon about this rain) and then out of no where Easter Sunday its a beautiful sunny 74 degrees!  Ah! the hope that rises with the resurrected Lord. Bible Dictionary: " The Resurrection of Jesus is the most glorious of all messages to mankind." It is an awe inspiring time of year for sure.

Things are going really well with sister R. Her heart softens and testimony strengthens daily, amazing what happens when you humble yourself and put in the work. It’s like MAGIC!

Speaking of, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this to you but when I was on exchange with some other elders nearby we met a magician in his magic shop . He is disabled and does some magic shows for churches based around gospel messages and he taught me some cool tricks, so lately we have been teaching the gospel through magic. Highly effective. I love to teach with variety. Also we are trying to put together a plan of salvation chalk art thing in downtown Asheville, (its totally an Asheville thing to do) and we are hoping to get some of the local branch artists out to help us with it. Should be good, its like the missionaries in Russia and New York you mentioned to me earlier mom. We will keep you updated. That’s about all that is going on around here now, so life is good.

Thanks for the Easter goodies everyone that sent things! graciously enjoyed!

Love ya!

Elder R.A. Bakker

oh forgot to tell the story of the rain! so I was in Hendersonville on exchange on Friday and they didn’t have the car that week so we were on bikes.... it was raining, anyways after dinner we had an appointment with a recent convert family. We were to bike over there, the appointment was a 45 min bike ride.... in the rain… and anyone who knows me knows I really don’t like being wet when I don’t have to be. 3 years of early morning swimming to wake you up is the catalyst. So we are biking and I’m soaked... and we have to pass over this over pass and there isn’t much traffic so its alright, and in the middle of the over pass is this large puddle about 8 inches deep that we have to sneak through so as to not completely splash our selves... well out of know where I see this car start to speed up from behind me, he switches over into the lane where the puddle is and speeds through it sending a mountainous tidal wave down on me RE-soaking me from head to toe... then he proceeded to reenter the lane in which he was previously with no apparent need to actually be in the lane with the big puddle right as I happened to be moving slowly through it... times like these make me thankful for cars. my shoes just dried out fully today.

planking" happy easters from the elders of the haunted mansion!

random earth day concert we happened upon downtown, never know what youll find in Asheville...

April 14

Hey!

So pretty good week! Spring is in the air and the flowers are blooming and the trees are a variety of hues of pink and white. We are really loving the weather. No updates on Monty , the address he gave us was a bad address, I’m pretty sure it was a mistake but who's to say? We also had a random lady named Beverly come to church this week on a whim just because she was passing by! Pretty cool! She is supposed to get in touch with us this week to learn some more. Other than that we are really trying to find some more people. No luck from our own efforts we keep getting rejected over and over, but we do have a few members with some referrals in the works for us which we are excited about. Especially the B's, their friend Steve is a water polo player and I’m going to see if I can get permission to go play in a masters game with him. (its a fat chance but hey you never know unless you ask right?) We also started teaching a person who’s testimony was just shaken because of some offense here at the branch, we went over and taught her yesterday and will be back today. She never read the Book of Mormon or really did anything to sure up her conversion her whole life and had a plethora of questions and concerns. We taught her the Doctrine of Christ and really helped her understand what’s important and what’s not, (I feel that is one thing my mission has instilled in me) and she is committed to change and strengthen her conversion. It really is true that the small and simple things to strengthen your testimony are the large monumental things that keep you from falling away... the Book of Mormon, understanding the gospel of Christ (faith repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost , and enduring to the end) coming to partake of the sacrament weekly, saying prayers. Its not rocket science but for some reason its so difficult. D&C 123 16 " You know, brethren, that a very large ship is abenefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves." Oh I also finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants this week, that was pretty cool. Cruised right through it, it has a way of keeping you hooked till the end it seems.

On other notes the attic is the attic.. the assistants came to do a power up in our area (two sets that double the work for the day in one area) with us before our zone meeting this week, and while they where here we decided to get to the bottom of the mysterious lights in the attic. We go up and the lights don’t work and are even unplugged... creepy right? how did they go on in the first place last week? further more when entering the attic the first time one of the flash lights completely stopped working... coincidence? probably? and we get up there and there is a blanket and old musty pillow spread out up there from what appears to be someone sleeping there... not there last time we went up there... and all the windows are nearly impossible to get up into so creepy times in the haunted branchion!

well love yall have a great week! if you’re going to pray for us pray for our members to find people for us to teach!

Elder R.A. Bakker