Feb 13

Happy Valentines Day! I hope everyone has a great day. :) This past week has been a really good one. We worked really hard this last week and I am pretty sure every day when we got to the house we just threw our stuff down and then threw ourselves on our beds! But hard work always pays off because we were able to find some new familys to teach. Something that the mission has taught me is that we should always do things the best that we can and put as much effort into everything that we do. We may end the day tired, but we feel good about what we have done, and we see results later on. If we just do things with half the effort, we may feel less tired, but we dont feel good about what we have done throughout the day, and there are half as many results. 

Yesterday we had a super funny experience. We went to a village that is about 40 minutes walking. This week they celebrate something here called "Carnaval," where all of the kids and teenagers smash eggs on heads and throw flour at you afterwards. Well, first off, we never thought that they would do it to us because normally they respect the missionaries.. Second, we thought that in a little village they definately wouldnt be doing it. Well, we were wrong about both things. As we entered into the village there were two kids. We passed them and then one came running towards us. I thought he was going to ask us for a pamphlet or something, but nope, he ran up to Hermana Mornuna and smashed an egg on her head hahaha she just stood there in shock for a second. We continuted walking and then they came back! And they threw flour all over her hahaha she was covered.. I think I got lucky cuz I am tall and they couldnt reach my head. So anyways we kept walking for a few minutes so we were out of the danger zone, and we cleaned up Hermana Moruna. Right after we finished getting the flour off her and geting some of the egg out of her hair, 5 MORE KIDS came running after us! They all had bags of flour and were throwing it all over us hahaha. We were literally covered in flour our faces were pure white and we were just laughing so hard. But the sad part about all of it, is that neither of us had our cameras to take a picture. However, tomorrow is the real day of Carnaval so I am sure we will be gettting more tomorrow, I hope not, but we will be prepared with the camera this time if something happens haha. 

One more experience from this week I would like to share. So at the beginning of the week we were in a village and we stopped and talked to someone in the street. As we begin talking to us they wanted a Book of Mormon, and we told them we would like to visit them to explain it a little to them so they understood better what it was. They said okay but that they were Sabaticas (I dont know how to say it in English but its when they go to church on Saturdays). So we go to their house, and it turns out that the father of the family is a pastor! I think I went into shock for just a second, and then thought, "ughhh he just wants to fight with us and that is why they were okay with us coming to visit..". So we began to explain a little bit about the Book of Mormon to them, and then the pastor began to read us things from the Sabbatical Bible to try to fight with us. We just bore our testimony and invited them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We explained to them that we werent here as missionaries to convince anyone that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church on the Earth today, but that we were there to invite all to read the Book of Mormon and pray to God to know if the church is true. We promised them if they humbled themselves, and prayed with real intention, that God would respond to them the truth. As we finished talking the pastor told us that he would be waiting for us another day. It was a pretty cool experience. At first I felt a little scared, but the Spirit truly worked through my companion and I and we were able to present our message in a effective and respectful way. It was an appointment that I will never forget!

Well, I hope everyone has a great day and a great week!

Nos vemos en 5 semanas!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Baird

Feb 6

Today has been a rather bittersweet day. It is the first day of the last change of my mission. How? I have no idea! The time has literally flown by. I am so grateful for this time I have had to serve the Lord. And it is truly incredible how much I have learned in these last 17 months , and also how much I have been molded into the person the Lord wants me to become. I am grateful that I still have 6 weeks to work hard. Many times at the end of someones mission, they start to think a lot about home, they start to lose a bit of their desire to work, and maybe stop doing the things with the diligence that they have before. Well, ever since the beginning of my mission I have had to goal to never become like that. I have such a strong desire to work the hardest that I have worked for these last 6 weeks. I know that Hermana Moruna and I are going to see miracles, and that we are going to have success. When we do our part, the Lord blesses us and always keeps his promises. 

One of my best friends from the ward I am in, Sara, left for her mission in Mexico today. She always came out and visited investigators with us. She is so great and I am so excited for her to go on a mission! The mission truly changes lives, not only those who we teach, but our own. My companion always tells me, "Hermana Baird, you aren't finishing any mission, you are just finishing your training that has trained you for the rest of your life." Its so true. The mission is the best place to learn, and to become more like Christ. I still have so much to learn and to grow, I know that with the Lord's help we can become exactly who he wants us to be. 

Love you all!

Hermana Baird

So excited for my tortilla iron that I bought!! For less than $5. So the tortillas here are freshly made from corn, or from corn flour. But you have to cook them on a certain type of iron, called "comal". So I bought one! And I bought some corn flour so that we could make tortillas in the house. I think I am just a wannabe chapina.

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The Alvarez Family. Some of my favorite people ever! This is Sara who left on her mission to Mexico.