El Baul

El Baul

Wooo I am now in my second area! I am slowly getting adjusted, it feels a little like I am restarting my mission because I don't know anyone and never know where I am, but little by little I'm getting used to it! I am now in Quetzaltenango and am in area that is called Baul because Mt. Baul is right next to us. Its super pretty. Its actually super cold here and has rained everyday since I have gotten here. But I am loving it! 

The members in this ward are superrrr awesome and love missionary work which is great great news for us! There is a family in this ward who the dad was a mission president, the temple President here in Xela, and a 70. And this last general conference one of his sons was just called as a 70! Its awesome to see how strong the members are here in Quetzaltenango. Well yesterday was my first Sunday and my companion told me that I would be sharing my testimony during sacrament. I was fine with that until we were sitting in sacrament before church and a 70 walked in! I got super nervous because I was going to have to talk in front of a 70 haha but it was all good, and I don't think I slaughtered my Spanish too bad. It was a great opportunity to be able to hear from on of the leaders of the church and increase my faith a little more. 

My new comp is awesome! Her name is Hermana Ruiz and she is from Honduras. She reminds me in some ways of my first comp Hermana Rodriguez which is great. :) She has 3 months in the mission, and is already a super awesome missionary. I feel blessed to have her as my companion! 

Love you all so much! And just a reminder, I love hearing from you guys so write me! anastasia.baird@myldsmail.net. 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Baird

The Best Way to End my Time in Cerrito del Maiz

April 18

Well, tomorrow I will be heading to a new area! I have loved my time here in Cerrito del Maiz, and I am already looking forward to coming back and visiting all of the members and converts here in this awesome area. We had the best weekend to end this change. Faustina got baptized!!!! And one of the niños who I talked about in another email (the ones who are in extreme poverty). It was such an amazing day.  It has been such a priceless experience to see the change in Hermana Faustina.  She shone with brightness after her baptism and we could just see the happiness in her eyes! Saturday we bought Dominos and had a little celebration with her and her two grandkids in the church. I am going to miss them SO MUCH! 

It was a miracle with Faustina from the start. We recieved a reference from other missionaries that had been teaching her for a couple of weeks because she moved to our area. We talked with her daughter over the phone and put an appointment with them, but the day of the appointment we couldnt get ahold of them and we didnt know where they lived, we just knew it was up in the mountains far from our house. So we tried calling a couple of times more but got nothing. So the next week we were contacting in the street, there was a lady with two kids that we stopped to talk with. As we got to talking the little girl said that they are members of the church, but there grandma, who they were with at the time wasnt. We then realized that their grandma was Faustina and that she was the reference we had recieved! We set up another appointment and the next Sunday when we went they were in their house and we taught them. Well, this first day we were able to put a baptismal date with Faustina. It was for the 6th of February. As you can see, this date fell through many times.  There were a lot of times that we thought maybe this isnt her time, maybe we should stop teaching her. There were a lot of times when our leaders asked us the same thing, "Maybe you guys should think about not visiting her for awhile and see if in a few months she is ready..." There were a lot of times we were sad because she told us she would come to church and didnt come, that she was going to pray, and didnt pray. But everytime we had the thought or recieved the advice or felt the disappointment, Hermana Godoy and I both felt the Spirit telling us that we couldnt stop teaching her. That we had to be patient and that we had to keep helping this hermana. After 3 months of teaching her and the last month visiting her almost everyday, we could see the difference and the change that happened in her. She wanted to come to chuch, she understood what we were teaching better, and we could tell that she really had the desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized. I have learned so so much from this little lady. Patience, love, and humilty are a few of the things she has taught me. I am so extremely grateful that I had this amazing experience with this hermana. 

I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I know the Jesus Christ lives, and that as a missionary, I am only acting as an instrument in his hands. I know that through the gospel of Jesus Christ, one day we will be able to be in His presence, and that we will be able to be in the presence of our families for eternity. 

I love you all so much, and am so thankful for the support that you give me.

xoxoxoxo

Hermana Baird

April 11

Hey Everyone! So I don't have a ton of time to write this week but I am going to attach some pics and write as much as I can. :)

A huge problem in our area is that there isn't water! No one has running water. The only people who actually have water, is those who have wells. So the city passes by every week and gives each house two garbage cans of water. It is seriously a miracle that in our house we have never not had water. Heavenly Father truly looks out for his missionaries! Anyways there is a tank where people can go and fill up containers of water to bring to there house but it is super far from the houses. Well, we wanted to help Faustina, our investigator who is getting baptized Friday!!!!!, bring water to her house. And oh my goodness I just about died of heat and my arms almost fell off! These people live hard lives, we are so blessed to have everything that we have in the states!

We had so many miracles this week! I have been in the same area for all of mission so at times it feels like I know everyone here haha. But this week we found so many new people to teach! We visited a man named Adam last night for the first time and we were able to put a baptismal date with him! We are finding those people who are truly ready to receive the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is all thanks to the guidance we have everyday from our Heavenly Father! 

I hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Hermana Baird

P.S. the other picture is a cake of our zone that one of the sisters in our stake made for us!

April 4

Weird food of the week... This could be why I am sick a lot. 

My Chilena daughter and I

Huehuetenango, Guatemala

The Sisters in our Zone at General Conference

Staci and Faustina

March 28,

Title: Semana Santa 

Happy Easter everyone! I hope everyone had a good one. Here in Guatemala traditions are huuuggeee, especially in holidays that have a religious background. So Easter was a big deal here! But here, its not just something that is celebrated on Sunday, it is for an entire week. Its called "Semana Santa" which means Holy Week. The catholics have a tradition of putting alfombres (there isnt a work for it in english) but what it is is a ton of dust from wood that they color and then decorate the streets with it. They put designs in it like crosses, or write scriptures, or basically anything that has to do with Christ! I wish I had pictures, but we didnt have the chance to go to one because it was out of our area. Anyways, Friday is when all the streets are decorated and no one is allowed to drive around there or anything. Catholics then carry a cross with a Jesus figure on it and carry it for hours during the day. Anyways, that is the Friday of Semana Santa, then on Sunday they start doing fireworks at like 5 in the morning and there are a ton of people in the streets singing Hallelujah. Its pretty cool all the traditions they have, but its not very fun to be a missionary during these days because there is absolutely no one home! Everyone goes on vacation or they are in Huehue central where all the alfombras are. But we visted members and ended up having a great Easter. :) 

Saturday we went to the Stake Center to watch the General Women's conference, and oh my gosh it was so amazing! It was super cool because one of our investigators came with us and she loved it too, and after talked about how happy she felt listening to it. Her name is Faustina, I think I have talked about her before, but she is going to get baptized on April 9th. We are so excited for her! Anyways one of the greatest blessings about the conference was that I was able to watch it in english haha. When we got to the church they hadnt set up a room for us gringos to watch it in english so we hunted them down so that we could. I am finally to the point that I can understand mostly everything in spanish, but the conference just isnt quite the same when you can't here the actual voice of the speakers. My favorite talk of the womens conference was by Cheryl A. Esplin. She talked a lot about serving. She said that when we serve we need to through away our mirrors and look through the window. If we are thinking about ourselves when serving others, they are not our focal point and we are not truly serving them with all of our strength, with all of our love. But if we truly focus on them, they will be able to feel the love that we, and that Jesus Christ has for them. 

We are so excited for this weekend to have the great opportunity to listen the prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and the twelve apostles, speak to each and every one of us. It is such a priviledge that we have to hear them speak every six months. I invite EVERYONE reading this to watch it! It doesn't matter if you are a member of the church or not, the prophet is the prophet of the world, not just the prophet of members of the church. He recieves revelation for the world. The speakers who will talk this weekend have prayerfully prepared talks so that they can give us the message that our Heavenly Father knows that we need to hear. We live in a world where there are many temptations and a whole lot of evil, but if we humble ourselves, and follow the direction of the prophet, who is an instrument in the hands of the Lord, we can resist these temptations, and we can find our purpose and happiness in this life. 

I hope everyone has an amazing week! Thanks for all of your prayers and your support. :) 

Con mucho amor de Guatemala,

Hermana Baird 

Car Seat Guatemala Style

Baptism of Mercy!!! We are so happy for her. :)

A cute little duck of one of our investigators.. That pooped on me 2 seconds after this was taken... 

Part of our area--Huehuetenango Guatemala

Buenos Tardes! Wow, the mission is so fast. I cant believe how fast the time is going by. I have been here in Guatemala for 6 months now! I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be serving the Lord here in Guatemala. I am learning so so much (I know I say that like every post but its so true). Something i have learned in the last couple of weeks is the power in serving others. When we serve others, it doesnt matter if it is our worst enemy or our best friend, we will feel a lot of love and charity for these people. During the mission the relationship that you have with your companion is one of the most important things. We have to have unity, or we cant teach effectively, we cant teach with the Spirit which is the most important. Sometimes being with the same person for 24 hours a day for three months straight isnt the easiest. One learns a lot of patience and how to build good relationships with everyone no matter what is the circumstance. My companion is awesome! I am super grateful to have her. But I felt that maybe we could strengthen our companionship a little bit. I decided to make a goal that I was going to do a random act of service for her everyday the past week (make her breakfast, make her bed, write notes of motivation, etc.) I was amazed to see how much stronger and better our companionship has gotten in the past two weeks! I started to feel a lot more charity for Hermana Godoy. I feel like our lessons are going a lot smoother and that we can teach with the Spirit a lot easier. The next week Hermana Godoy returned the service to me. Serving others is so important in any relationship. When you feel angry, annoyed, frustrated, anything! with someone, I have learned that the best way to fix it is serve them. As we serve others we serve our Heavenly Father. We can feel the love He has for us, and the love He has for them. The people we serve can feel charity, the pure love of Christ, through the service we do for them. 

This weekend we will be having a baptism! It is a girl who just turned 18 years old. Her name is Mercy. She is AWESOME! I am so grateful for the opportunity that we have had to teach her. Her story is super similar to mine so it has been a lot of fun teaching and sharing experiences with each other. She was 16 when she started to go to church and meet with the missionaries. She had a testimony of the Gospel at this time and wanted to be baptized but she didnt have permision from her family. Mercy is SO strong-her family was extremely hard on her for having this great desire to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ. Her family wanted to kick her our of the house, she would always say super negative things to Mercy, and sometimes she would be physical with her. Mercy continued in the church for awhile, but after some time she stopped going. About 2 months ago she came to church and told us that she would like to meet with us again. She turned 18 last week and wanted to prepare for her baptism that is going to be this Saturday! We are so excited for her! 

I am still in my first area, and I love it so much! I love the members here and I dont ever want to leave. I am scared that in 5 weeks I am going to have transfers.. I hope not! This week we went to a members house for dinner. The last time we ate with this member we were talking about all the weird things that people eat here in Guate. I told them that I want to try the weird food but only if they dont tell me what it is until after I eat it. Sooo we got to there house this day and they said, okay we are going to eat sometime weird tonight, but we arent going to tell you what. There was a HUGE plate of meat, some was steak, some was chicken, and some was that weird thing. I tried it and it wasnt bad at all. I actually thought it was just chicken. Well turns out, it was COW UTTER! Haha and I actually liked it! The  next time we eat with them they are going to have something different. i dont know if I am scared or excited.

I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share this wonderful gospel with everyone here. I want everyone to know of the joy that it can bring. Many people we teach tell us that they are happy, that the feel good in the church they are in, or the feel good with how they are living there life. But when they accept the gospel, it is amazing how there opinons about there life before changes. They can see that there is more happiness that they can feel. That when they are following the example that Christ gave each and every one of us, the can feel what the meaning of happiness really is. It is something super special to see the joy that the Gospel brings to people. 

I hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Con mucho mucho amor,

Hermana Baird

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my mission family! my "daughter", "sister", and "niece".

 our bishops dog! i am in love!

 one of my best friends in the mission! we have been in the same district since the MTC

 All of the "parents" in our district.

This week we had an extremely humbling experience. I have never felt my heart break like it did.

A couple of weeks ago we were visiting an investigator. Part of our area is up in the mountains and that is were she lives. Well on our way there we passed a lady and her two kids. The lady was laying in the middle of the dirt path, and the kids were just sitting very patiently. We got to the house of the investigator and she still hadnt gotten home so we had to wait for about 15 minutes. The lady who was laying on the ground starting to yell that she wanted to die. We decided that we were going to go and talk to her and her kids. As we began talking we realized quickly that she had been drinking, and drinking a lot because she couldnt stand up. As we were talking to her kids who were 10 and 6 years old they said that they were actually members of the church, but they attend a different ward.  We got the number of their mom so that we could give it to the missionaries in their ward. 

The next week we saw them in the street in our area. We started talking with them and they told us that they met a member in our ward and it turns out that they actually live in our area and should attend our ward. We were surprised because they live about 45 minutes walking, from our house. They told us that the primary presidency was going to pick them up for church on Sunday to go to our ward. We were excited because we wanted to help their mom reactivate herself in the church. We talked to the primary president about them the next day and we learned a lot about this family. She told us the following...The mom is a single mom with 4 kids who are 12, 10, 8, and 6. They are very poor and live in extremely poor conditions. And that this Saturday she wanted us to come with them to the house. When I heard this I felt a lot of sympathy for this family, but when we went to the house is when my heart broke for them.

They live about 20 minutes walking from the main road, and they live in the middle of the mountains, there are very few houses close to them. Their house is made up of 5 pieces of metal, 4 walls and one piece for the roof, and it is held up by logs from trees. The house is about as big as 2 queen size beds. They dont have electricity, they dont have running water, they dont have a bathroom, they dont have hardly anything. There is a well where they get water, but this water is extremely dirty. If we were to drink it we would be in the hospital in less than 1 hour. But this is the water that they drink. When it is in a glass it isnt clear, it is a yellowish color. There is a big hole in the way to there house and the kids call it there pool and it is where they take baths when it rains a lot. On the way to there house there is an area where all of the trash is dumped. They told us that they sometimes they look for food there because sometimes there is ¨delicious bread¨ or ¨some left over chips in the bag.¨ We got to the house and brought food and clothes for them. When we got there the mom had been drinking a lot again, and she feel asleep after we had been there for 5 minutes. She fell asleep with an open fire because she had been cooking, and the 10 year old was then in charge of finishing the cooking. My heart literally broke for this family. We are continuing to go to their house and helpinh the mom remember the blessings that she received when she was going to church. We want to help her so that she can help her kids. As a relief society we are going to do service at their house frequently and are continuing to bring food and clothes to the family. Every sunday afternoon a member in our ward is feeding the kids and the mom. 

As sad as this situation is, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to see something like this. It has made me relize truly how blessed I am. It made me realize how this gospel truly blesses people. These kids have nothing but are always wanted to go to church and talk about the scriptures because that is where they can find joy. What a grand example this is for each one of us--to always look to the gospel for joy. When we think we have nothing, when we are going through a hard time, if we rely on the gospel we truly can find happiness. I am grateful for the example of this little kids, please keep this family in your prayers!!!

I love guatemala. I love the humilty of the people here. They are teaching me how to find joy in every circumstance. They are teaching me that if we truly center our lives in Jesus Christ we will find the positive in every experience, trial, affliction that we have. I know this church is true, and I know that our Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us.

MUCHAS GRACIAS for all of your prayers and support!

LES AMO!!!

Hermana Baird