Teaching a 91 Year Old Women in California

Well Hello family,

It has of course been another great week here in Ohio. So update on the visa. So Salt Lake another document of some sort for me to sign and send back. Needless to say I got it and sent it back the same day. But 2 sisters that were in the MTC with me just got there visa. Sister Bergloff sent in some sort of papers about 2 months ago so there is a possibility that this coming transfer could be my last here in Ohio. But who cares I am loving Ohio?!

So this week has been an awesome week! The highlight of the week I would have to say was district meeting. I got to teach on my favorite topic: the Doctrine of Christ. Also the assistants came to my district meeting so that was fun. I love them! The Doctrine of Christ is so important! I could study 2 Nephi 31, 3 Nephi 27 and 3 Nephi 11 for days and still learn things every time and not learn everything. It is so plain and precious yet so profound and life changing. If you have not study the Doctrine of Christ in sometime go and do it! You will learn so much! I love it!

We finally were blessed with investigators at church here in Zanesville. They are pretty awesome! It is a mother(Mary) and a daughter (De). They are pretty awesome! So they decided to come to church with us. They were picked up for church by Santa Claus. No joke! There is a guy in our ward that is a professional Santa and the whole year he grows out his white hair and beard. Then on Christmas he shaves it and starts all over again. But on Saturday we went over to there house and made sure they were still planning on coming to church. Well they were having crap from their family. So I taught a 91 year old lady the first lesson on the phone! She lives in California! She is Mary's mom. It was definitely a first time I have taught a 91 year old and the first time I taught a lesson to someone in a different state. Needless to say we helped her understand so Mary and De came to church. But they are still having problems with Mary's sister who is a minister. She won't talk to me either! I was so ready to talk to another person on the phone in California. I think she is just afraid of some 19 year old snot nose kid from Oklahoma. Oh well!

The last lesson that I realized this week was unconditional love. I used to not have this unconditional love but I am so glad I do now. As a missionary you truly love everyone no matter who they are or what their circumstances are. There is definitely people here that I talk to and have friendships with that I would never image being friends with if I was not a missionary. It is truly amazing to see people as Christ sees them and I love it! Try this week to love a little bit more and give every one and chance.

Well I love you all! Thanks for all you do for me!

Love,

Elder Baird

Never Giving Up on the Spirit

Well hello my dear beautiful family,

Well this week was another great week here in the GREAT Columbus Ohio mission. It was full of ups and downs but what is life if it does not change. I would hate a constant life. The trials and sorrows of this life make the blessings and joys even better.

Well I learned some important lessons this week. The lessons were don't give up, following the Spirit, and a combination of the two. Don't give up following the Spirit.

Lately we have been really focusing on what are mission president calls the Lists. Basically part member families, perspective elders, unbaptized children of record, and less active. We have seen some great success with these people. But there were 2 families in particular from these lists that we and the ward council have been focusing on for the past 3 weeks. And we have not been able to see any of them till this past week. One was a member that we have been trying to see. We would go there about every other day to every three days. Each time she was not home or said try later or was sick. Well we tried this week and she let us in and we talked to her. She then signed up on the meal calendar and wanted us to come back again. Another family is a recent convert family that we have been working on as a ward council. Well we have tried them a lot as well. They finally answered and talked to us in their home. Then she too signed up for feeding us! It was so nice to see them! I learned that we can never give up and till them tell you to leave them alone! The Lord never gives up on the one. Giving up shows weakness. 

Next I learned the importance of the Spirit. There have been a few times on my mission where I have felt led to certain places for certain people. Which has been so cool! But I have also been really trying to focus on teaching by the Spirit. I believe there is a difference between, teaching, teaching with the Spirit, and teaching by the spirit. It is a good, better, best pattern. It is good to teach and inform others. It is better to teach with the Spirit so that the investigator can feel the Spirit and it can testify to them of the truthfulness. But teaching by the Spirit is the best way. Teaching by the Spirit means that your words are directly from the Spirit. That not only is your investigator feeling the Spirit, but that through the Spirit you can discern their thoughts and desires as Ammon did. That you can, by the Spirit, say exactly what they need to hear. There is a slight difference between teaching with the Spirit and teaching by the Spirit, but this difference is so important. I had two experiences with teaching by the Spirit. One was I gave a few blessings this past week and one was to a sister in our mission. As I finished the blessing I knew that none of those words I spoke were mine but were all from the Spirit. Well the sister told right after that she was a little freaked out cause she felt like I knew her whole entire life just by the words I spoke by the Spirit. She heard what she needed to hear from her Father in Heaven through me by the Spirit. The second experience was while teaching an investigator, the Spirit prompted me to speak. Well I did not know what I was suppose to speak about, but I trusted in the Lord and I spoke by the Spirit and said things I would have not thought to say.Sure I started off sounding crazy and it sounded a little bit like a ramble but when I focused on what the Spirit wanted me to say I was able to speak by the Spirit. We always need to be living life by the Spirit. 

Lasting is not giving up on the Spirit. There are many difficulties that each missionary personally goes through. One of those difficulties is finding out how the Spirit works through them. Now with this one question many more questions follow. We as missionaries ask ourselves, "was that the spirit or just my own thought?" "Am I worthy/good enough of a missionary to have the Spirit with me?" and many more questions. But we can not give up on trying to find the Spirit in our daily lives. We need to trust in the Lord and continue. The Spirit is just a taste of the joy of eternal life and we cannot give up on finding out how to recognize that Spirit. We need to be able to receive revelation for ourselves and others we have stewardship over. Revelation is needed for salvation. Don't give up! 

Well life is so good here! I am loving Ohio! It is getting a little chilly here every now and then which means only one thing. FALL!! Well you guys are awesome and I love yall!!

Love,

Elder Baird 

Zanesville

Well hello family! 

So it has been another great week here in the Ohio. It is pretty awesome here! It has rained a lot which is AWESOME! I love the rain. Also we were chased by a few dogs but that is Ohio for ya! We are consistently increasing the missionary work here in Zanesville. It has been so much fun to start from the very bottom! I can still remember walking into our apartment with nothing. I went upstairs to pray for direction cause believe you me I needed it! I remember thinking where do we even begin? Well I picked up the phone and called the mission office to get the assistants numbers and it went from there. It just 2 short weeks the Lord has blessed us with investigators to teach and people to see. It is usually not till my weekly email to the family and the mission president that I realize the grandeur of the blessings the Lord has blessed me with each week. 

So here is the gospel insight of the day. So I was studying the good ole' topic of prayer and boy did I learn a lot! I swear as a missionary the Lord gives a little more information then when you are not a missionary! So I was doing all that study stuff and I was reading in True to the Faith where it talks about praying with sincerity. Well I decide to look up what sincerity means in the dictionary. (By the way I have a dictionary cause it is pretty much impossible to read Jesus the Christ without a dictionary) I have been told all my life that sincerity is being passionate or having a great desire. Well sincerity means to not act in hypocrisy. Which I thought was interesting. How can I pray in hypocrisy? Well I decided to look up the word hypocrisy which I know means saying something and doing the opposite. Well another definition is to pretend to believe in something when we truly don't. That was the answer to my question. When I pray am I truly believing that the Lord hears me? Do I truly believe I will receive an answer? And when my investigators pray do they truly believe in the Book of Mormon? You must believe! It all starts out with a belief! If you have no belief while you are praying why are you praying? It reminds me of Elder Hollland's last general conference talk. As Christ said, "All things are possible to those that believe."  The road to a testimony is belief. But that is not where the road ends. A testimony is just the beginning. We want to be converted. A testimony is different then a conversion. A testimony is believing; conversion is becoming. I can believe all I want and have a testimony of this gospel. BUT if I do not act upon this testimony and utilize the Atonement to become more like our Savior, the testimony is wasted. We need to act! The doctrine of Christ is not a passive portal to heaven. It is an active adventure to eternal life. Christ let us know this when he told us, that all that say Lord, Lord will not enter into the kingdom of Heaven. But those that do the will of the Father will enter into the kingdom of Heaven. If we are truly aligning our will with God's will we will become better. We will become strong.We will become disciples of Jesus Christ. 

I love hearing from each and everyone of you. Sorry that I don't get back to y'all in a timely manner! It is pretty crazy here in Ohio! I promise that I am going to do better! Your letters and emails no matter how big or small help me. But what truly uplifts me even more is your prayers. The power of prayer is grand and unique. So thank you for all the prayers on my behalf. They are felt.

Well family you are pretty awesome! Go do some missionary work! Go invite a friend to church, or invite a friend to go on mormon.org.

Love,

Elder Baird 

Areas Are Different!

Hey Family,

So it is definitely been a crazy week! Good news is my fingerprints have been SENT! I was able to get them on Wednesday and they are now off to Salt Lake. So here is the miracle for the week:

So we have been dying for new investigators! We need them so bad and every referral we have tried is a dead end. All I could and was doing was fasting and praying for the guidance of the Lord to find new investigators. Well lately we have been tracking in places that seems have been tracked by Jehovah Witnesses. Let me tell you it is pretty annoying to hear that Jehovah Witnesses had just tracked there a few days prior to us. And usually it is not a positive thing for us because people just look annoyed that is another person wanting to discuss religion. So every time this past week we have driven by a street called Eppley and every time I felt like we needed to track that street. So on Tuesday night I felt very impressed to tracked Eppley on Wednesday! Well we did. So we started tracking and run into a girl and asked if she wanted to hear a message about Jesus Christ. And she said yes! Which totally took me by surprise! Well we shared the message of the restoration which was awesome! So we continued tracking this same street and we left to go track another street and then came back to Eppley with only having found 1 investigator. Well we got to the second to last house and nothing. So as we were walking to the last house I was praying that the people here would be accepting of the message we had to share and they were!! It was a daughter and a mom and we taught they the restoration as well! I love how the Lord works. When we give all we have a put forth all our efforts He makes it happen! And I swear when it comes to tracking it is ALWAYS the last house where someone will accept a message.

Well Zanesville is a pretty cool place a lot different then Xenia but I love it here! We are doing our best to increase the work here in Zanesville! We just have to go forward in faith and trust in the Lord and the work here will progress! Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Baird