August 15

It has been another week of miracles here in Toto! First of all, I went to my first Consejo de Líderes and it was amazing. Its where all of the Zone Leaders and Hermana Leaders go and listen to our mission President. It was so amazing, the spirit was so strong, and I learned SO much. We learned a lot about our desires, and if we put our desires in line with the desires of the Lord, we will find out that we can have a lot more success. We also talked a lot about faith. And how in order to reach our desires we need to have faith and hope that the Lord will help us. He has promised to help us as long as we are always trying to keep his commandments. Our mission president talked a lot about obedience. For those of you who have served a mission, you know that obedience is one of the most, if not the most, important thing. We need to be obedient so that the Holy Spirit can be with us. If we do one thing wrong, we are offending the Spirit, and its hard to have it with us when we teach. After consejo, my companion and I made the commitment to be exactly obedient in everything! I have truly seen and felt the difference this week because of this. We saw so many miracles, and were truly led by the Spirit in our lesson, and while trying to find new people to teach. I had a very special experience on Friday. We went to a lesson with an investigator who we had just started teaching. We had only taught him one time and really didn't know too much about him still. We got to his house planning on teaching a lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we started talking to him we felt quickly that we should not talk about that, but that we needed to talk about repentance and baptism. A scripture came to my mind, it was a scripture about the final judgement. I opened up my Book of Mormon and I knew exactly what verses he needed to read. I asked him to please read the 4 verses, and as he began reading I realized those were not the scriptures about the topic I was thinking. It was a scripture that talked exactly about Repentance, and was a scripture that was absolutely perfect for the situation. I was in complete shock. This scripture came very clearly to my mind, and I didn't even realize it was different than what I had been thinking. The Lord truly helps us in life if we are worthy to have the Spirit to be with us. This experience testified that to me. The spirit puts the exact words in our mouths, and the exact ideas that we need to share in our minds. The mission is so amazing, and I know I always say this, but I have learned so much, and am so excited to keep on learning. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

xoxoxo
Hermana Baird

August 8

Okay so this week was just amazing and full of so many exciting and joyful things! First of all on Thursday we got to go to the temple. This is something so special because we only get to go every 6 months. When we got there one of the first people I saw was a Sister named Paty Socop. She was one of my favorite people in my other ward, Baúl, so I was so exciting to see her! Then the next person I saw was the Bishop´s wife from Baúl too! Another one of my all time favorite people. As we were in the temple I was pondering a lot about my mission up to this point, and was just filled with love and gratitude because Heavenly Father has put so many amazing people in my path that have made it so much fun to work hard with. As we left the temple, Bishop Willy, from Baúl was outside waiting for his wife!! We took some pictures and were able to catch up some. It was such a great day to be able to go to the House of the Lord and to see so many people that I love so much. 

Yesterday we had an experiencia that I would like to share also. On Saturday, we had a day where we just kind of felt down. But something that I have learned is when you start feeling like that, the only thing to help you out is to just keep working, but harder! Yesterday we were working and we felt a ton better. We stopped by this place that sells tortillas to talk with the people there. There were two girls who started talking to us, Graciela and Sandra. We asked if we could share a video about Jesus Christ with them and the gladly accepted. The invited us in and we starting to share a message with them. At the end of the lesson we felt the spirit so strong. We invited them to be baptized, and they both said that they wanted to be. We asked Graciela why she would like to be, and she told us that she felt like what we had talked about was true and that she felt that we were sent to her house because she needed help. She told us that she has been feeling really sad lately and really alone:her family all lives about 2 hours away, and she just lives with her sister and cousin to sell tortillas. She told us she knew that we were there to help her and that she felt so happy that we came to visit her. We know that the gospel is going to bless her life so much and we are so happy that our Heavenly Father placed them in our path.

Today was an amazing day too! We had a zone activity which is always fun. But then, my favorite family ever came to visit us! THE FAMILIA SANCHEZ! They came all the way to Toto from Xela to take us out to lunch and to visit with us. Jaime Sanchez, actually traveled to the states a couple of weeks ago and was able to meet my mom, stepdad, and our horses so he was able to show me all the pics they took and catch me up on everything. It was such a great day! 

I love the mission so so much. Although there are times where it can be the hardest thing that I have ever done, the miracles, and the tender mercies make up for it all! This week my heart has been filled with so much love and so much happiness. I love Guatemala and I love the people here. This place truly feels like my home and I am just so grateful for all of the experiences I have had in these past 10 months. 

Thanks for all the support! 

xoxoxox

Una hermana de nuestro barrio quien es la mejor! 

Y mi querida compañera :)

July 18

Well this last week has been a pretty exciting one. I had transfers! I was so sad to leave my area because I really have a lot of love for those people in theat ward, but I know that they are my family now and I will see them all again soon! The sadness passed quickly though, because my new area and new comp are super awesome! Its actually funny because my comp is Hermana Compton again! She was my comp in the MTC so we already know basically everything about each other and are learning quickly how to work together here in the field. 

My new area is amazing! I am in a part of guatemala called Totonicapan. This place is way different than anything I have ever seen. Almost everyone is dressed in the typical clothing here called ´corte´. They also speak another language which is called K´iche. Its nothing like spanish! Luckily almost everyone speaks both languages so we can still comunicate with them, but some of the older people dont understand spanish very well so we will have to bring translators with us. Its super fun, we are trying to learn a little bit of it, but holy cow its so hard. I have never heard anything like it before. We have about 5 aldeas (I think that means village in English) in our area. They are little villages up in the mountains that are super far from centro, where we live. Its so awesome because so many people have never even heard of the church, so there is just so much work to be done here! 

I love this work and I love being a missionary. I am so grateful for the oportunity to serve the people here in Toto! Amo a toto! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Baird

Hermana Compton and I! 

 Hermanas in our district! 

 An aldea in our beautiful area!

 The view from my desk! So pretty!