Tuesday, September 13, 2016

On Top of the World!

Hello everyone!
Hope everyone is doing well.
This week has been super fun!
Started it off by going to downtown Toronto to see the CN Tower! super cool. For everyone that doesn't know what the CN Tower is, its pretty much the space needle but like 5x the size, its 1500 feet tall and the 7th tallest free standing building in the world. Also its the tower that Drake is sitting on on his album cover "views." So that was a super cool experience, also I'm super scared of heights and there is a glass floor. that was nuts.
We were also able to go get some Poutine from Smokes Poutinerie. That was super good. Poutine is a Canadian food, it is essentially French Fries, Gravy, and Cheese Curds. It was super good. I got the Philly Cheese steak.
We were also able to see the Blue Jays Stadium!!!

We reconnected with an investigator this week and we went in with the plan to teach more about the restoration and Joseph Smith but that is not what happened at all. He pulled out all of his notes and was going off on the stories from the Quraan and just kept slamming us with different views of the Muslim religion. Goodness gracious, he is extremely steadfast in his faith.

We were also able to find a new investigator! I cant give a name for security reasons but we found her through tracting and we ran into her again Sunday night! gave her a Book of Mormon and we will be seeing her soon!

Dustet Daram!!!!!
(love you!!!!)

ارشد باکر

Elder Bakker























Basketball and Conversion

To keep us from going insane from 4 hours of study every morning, our companionship plays a basketball game on a little nerf hoop in our apartment called "If I make this shot". Pretty much we shoot the ball from various points in the room. Every time you make a shot the other person has to do what you said. For example, the other night I said "If I make this shot Elder Atkinson has to make me pancakes". Long story short, my companions have to make me a full breakfast.

This week we had a super cool experience to hear the conversion story of one of our recent converts. I won’t share his name for security purposes, but its a pretty amazing story.

Some background information: In the country of Iran you are either Muslim or you are Christian. The government of Iran is an Islamic state. That basically means that if you are born into a Muslim home, then you MUST follow the laws and customs of the religion of Islam or be put to death (If you are born into a Christian home, you may join Islam whenever you would like or stay Christian). However, if you ever decide at any point that you want to convert to Christianity if you are a Muslim then you are immediately killed or locked up in jail for a long time.

Well, our investigator found the light of Christ while he was in Iran and sought after the gospel of Jesus Christ. The government found out and left him a small note slid underneath his front door saying “we know you have intentions of becoming Christian even though you have practiced Islam during your life. Stop now or we will have you killed.”

He and his other friends who were in the same situation and had converted to Christianity got together and devised a plan to go into the mountains of Iran by night and escape to Iraq where they would be free to go to church and receive baptism.

Long story short, he made it to Canada after many long years of waiting to receive legal residency in Canada, and one night he got into an elevator with 2 Farsi speaking Mormon missionaries. He saw them, read their name tags, and was overcome with joy.

He was baptized 3 months ago and is one of the most devout Christians and examples of Christ's love and devotion that I have ever seen. This is a man that gave up everything to follow Christ and I got to sit next to him at church yesterday. I feel like we don't realize how good a lot of us have it.

Not much else has happened this week.

Dustet daram!! (I love you!!)

ارشد باکر
Elder Bakker






Winter coat purchased in Canada in preparation for a cold winter.

Salom Sept 6

Hey Hey

So this week has gone by pretty slowly because pretty much all of our investigators decided to go on vacations so we haven’t been able to teach our normal amount. That’s ok though because it allows us to go out and find new people to teach! We were able to find 2 new people on Tuesday!!! The missionaries here in Richmond Hill run an ESL program (English as a Second Language) and we use it as a way to find new people to teach. Unfortunately there are only like 3 Persian people that come so we usually get put into the Mandarin classes. So for the whole hour we're teaching a lesson in all English about how to find a job to these people that speak only Chinese.. It’s nuts.

It seems like everyone in Toronto drives a nice car. Every family has a Porsche, Mercedes, or a BMW.

So last P day my companions and I went to Niagara Falls which was extremely fun but it also meant that we didn't have time to shop for the week so we have been rationing or food everyday for the past 8 days. It’s been a rough couple of days... lol

On Monday we had an exchange so we had a Cantonese elder come work in the Farsi area. Elder Mak is a super cool guy and speaks little English. It was great. Throughout the day we did our normal amount of studies and service and missionary work and whatnot until about 8 o'clock. We have this Chinese man that lives down the street from us and we see him every once in a while, he always wants to have us over at his house but we've never been able to go due to the lack of speaking Mandarin and all that. So on Monday he waves down our car and has us come into his house, lucky for us we had en elder from Hong Kong to teach him!! His name is Wong Wei.

Farsi is still going good here, I understand like 5% of what is happening in lessons but hey that’s more than last week.

I would love to hear from you guys!

love you all!

ارشد باکر
Elder Bakker