Elder Braden Baker: God's Plan

Hello family and friends, another P-day rolls around and I feel like just yesterday I was here telling you about my week!! Well, this week was so awesome. Even more miracles happened this week. We met some great new people and I even got played by one guy this week. What I learned is that we should never give up and always have faith and trust in the Lord. The miracles will come after the trial of our faith. We experienced some awesome stuff this week, let me tell you about it.

First story is pretty funny. I got played by a man named Arun Kumar. So, I met him a while ago on a train and he really really wanted me to come to his church and preach. I had to explain to him what we do and that we are not allowed to preach in other churches. He really wouldn't accept that answer and kept asking me to come preach in his church! I told him that we would love to come to his home and share a message or he could visit our church. He finally agreed and said he would call me. Well, that he did. He called this week and asked us to come meet him and come to his home! I made sure to ask him that we were coming to his home and not his church? and he said "Yes! My home, come!!" Well, you won't believe what Arun Kumar did next. We found his home and I kid you not, he brought his whole church to his home!!! HAHA I will give it to him, he wins. Arun Kumar: 1 Elder Baker: 0. I was shocked when we showed up and literally his whole church was there!! I just had to laugh. They fed some pretty good food so it wasn't a waste of time. Plus it's a story, right?

Alright, now to update everyone on Yasmine! The lady we met last week. So, she came to church with her mom and they loved it. She is always super super happy to see us and visit the church. We went to her home to teach her again this week and went in planning to teach the Restoration of the Gospel and talk about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She had a lot of questions concerning faith, repentance, and even baptism so we changed our whole lesson plan on the spot and followed the spirit. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and talked about Jesus Christ's baptism and Yasmine and her mom asked us when they can be baptized. So, Yasmine and her mom are now preparing to be baptized on February 2nd!! They came to church again this week and they are awesome, I can't wait for them.

Now the story about miracles after the trial of your faith!! So, on Tuesday a member invited us to go visit his relatives in the hospital. One lady named Joyce was really sick and had been in the hospital for awhile. We went and visited with her and met her family. We then gave her a blessing right there in the room she is in. It is not a hospital room like in America by the way. It was a big room with about 40 little beds with tons of other sick women. Elder Rajendran and Brother Meshack(the member in out branch), and I all huddled around her bed and layed our hands on her head to offer her a priesthood blessing. With Joyce's family around us to hear the blessing, the spirit was really strong. They all thanked us a lot for coming to visit and give the blessing. It was a great experience. Elder Rajendran and I left that day with a lot of hope and faith that Joyce would feel better and go home soon. The week goes on like normal and on Friday, we received a call from Daniel. He said that the doctor said he is not sure when she will be discharged and that now all of their family is sick now and has a fever. Great... We went and gave a blessing and no progress and in fact, now they are all sick. What did we do wrong?? We could've been mad and decided that God didn't answer our prayers and that our faith and hope was no good and given up. Instead, Elder Rajendran and I immediately went and prayed for their family. The next day on Saturday night, we had a feeling to call them. So, we call and Daniel answers the phone and just says, "Brother! How did you know to call us?! We just reached our home. The doctor said that Joyce is better and can go home." Miracle, but it doesn't end there. We invited their family to come to church in the morning and they all came even though they were a little sick still. After the meeting they came up to us and asked us what they had to do to be baptized. So, we sat down with them and taught them about baptism and now Joyce and her family members are on date to be baptized on February 2nd!!

I love you all so much!! I hope you have a great week.

Love, Elder Baker