Elder Braden Baker: Baptism and 100 friends!!

I can't believe another week is gone and we are halfway through December! It's almost Christmas and it's almost 2020. Time flies when you're having fun. This week, Elder Datla left and it's just Elder McGuire and I. We are an awesome companionship. We both are here for the same reason and we both want to work hard and we both want to have fun. We both work out together and we are having fun together. I'm excited for the rest of the transfer. This week was good, we had a baptism service for Thanesha!! Finally, he was baptized which was so awesome. All of the other people that we are teaching that are planning to get baptized came to see the baptism and also came to church. So, that helped them a lot to get excited about their own baptisms coming up. We are planning with the ward for a good Christmas, I'm so excited!

Sandeep is amazing! Wow, we taught Sandeep this week and it was just totally led by the spirit. We planned to teach him more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and focus on baptism and invite him to be baptized. But, as we were talking to him before the lesson we found out that both of his parents have passed away and felt that we needed to teach about the plan of Salvation and especially temples. We already knew pretty much that he wanted to be baptized but when we taught him about the plan of salvation, he understood how much more important it is to be baptized. What was so awesome was when we taught about the temples and baptisms for the dead. We taught how God still loves his parents even though they never had the opportunity to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ and they never had the chance to be baptized while they were on earth. Because of temples and the work we do inside, Sandeep can live with his parents again as a family. We showed him a video about the temple and he saw a picture of the Rome, Italy temple and his jaw just dropped. He couldn't believe how beautiful it was. He actually asked us if it was real or just a picture! That night he posted pictures of the temple on his story on WhatsApp and told us he will invite all of his friends to our church. He said, "I have 100 friends that also need to come to this church!" It was really special. He is awesome.

We had a baptism was this week and it was so spiritual. He was found by the missionaries last year during the Light The World program. The missionaries were walking by his house and showed him a video about Light The World. He loved the service and wanted to help so he came to church. The missionaries have taught him for awhile but he never really progressed that much because of some family struggles. When I started teaching him, I showed him the Book of Mormon videos and he loved them so much. They gave him interest to start reading the Book of Mormon. So, he started reading and watching the videos every week. He was loving it so much! So, I asked if he now knew for sure that it was true and he was hesitant. I invited him to pray sincerely and ask God if it is true. That is the only thing holding him back is he didn't ask God yet. Two days later, he called me and said, "Elder!! You gotta come to my home tonight!" We went and he was ecstatic and told me, "Elder, I did it. I prayed, and I got my answer!! It's yes, it's true. The Book of Mormon is true, and the church is true!!" Now, yesterday he was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Today, we are doing a zone activity with all the missionaries to go see some cool stuff and explore the city. We are going to a big statue of Jesus which sounds exciting. It looks like the Vegas version of the famous one in Brazil haha but it should be fun with all the other missionaries. That's it for this week, I'll send pictures next week of the activity because I gotta go now!

I love you all, have a great week and light some else's day this Christmas season. I promise by making someone else happy, you will be more happy and have a good Christmas season. I know I'm always happy when I make others happy. Even making someone smile makes me smile. I love it. Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Baker