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Welp,

This week we have been zippin around getting from appointment to appointment. not much to say, really.
We were able to see some of the members I have served around for the past 2 years.

Sunday was really the finale of it all. We had a very missionary focused church service. A member gave his farewell talk and the 3 of us missionaries that are going home from Don valley ward also bore testimony. The ward held a farewell party/munch and mingle after the meetings where we were able to say goodbye to all the members.
That night we had dinner with sister Barbara Ann and dessert with the Dyquiangco family who fed us halo halo (beans, sweet corn, Jack fruit, jelly, coconut, shaved ice, ube ice cream, condensed milk, milk), ube ice cream, queso ice cream and balut. Filipino Ice cream is A1.

It's been real here in the Canada Toronto Mission.
I truly cannot express the love I have for this place and the people here. My testimony of the Savior and his church has grown so much and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve the Lord here for the past 2 years.
Some major mixed emotions coming to the surface this week as I am excited to come home and see everyone again and as I am leaving Toronto.

I guess I'll be seeing you all soon!

-Elder Bakker

Final Korean BBQ at the Parks home.

Balut (duck egg)

Dyquiangco family

Halo halo

9 Days

Friends and Family,

I'm moving right along into my last week!
Time has just flown by.

This last week we were able to meet with a lot of good people, found some new and lost new as well. you win some you lose some I guess.

We got a referral from some YSA sisters nearby and we set up an appointment with the lady. Met up with her in a park, shared the restoration and the Book of Mormon with her and everything went super good! She seemed to be taken back and excited to come to church. She also was eager to read from and pray about the Book of Mormon. We left the appointment and 2 days later we messaged her asking how she was doing and how she felt about the message, she replied later that day and basically just said, "I didn't get what I asked for, I'm not interested anymore." Unfortunately instant gratification in a our world today is so obtainable, the whispering of the spirit are pushed aside by those who wont listen. Curious question, are we too focused on the here, now and getting what we want that we aren't receptive to what God wants for us?

The rest of the week went well and we were able to meet with some of our investigators.

We had a really great experience with one who at the beginning of our lesson was talking to us about shrooms help us receive revelation and promptly suggested that we try some. Ha. We then promptly went into the Word of Wisdom and shut him down which he understood. but we also were able to teach all of the restoration and he told us, "If I ever actually become a Mormon, it will be solely grounded in what you taught me the first time we met that I can receive my answers directly from God."
What a guy.

Exciting times are coming.
see you all soon!

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Too Close for Comfort

Life has been good.

We have been grinding and pushing along. Been pretty heavy hitting week. We had a bunch of lessons and zone conference!

Our zone conference was pretty heavy. The North America North East missions all received new instruction and there is a HUGE focus on obedience and there are quite a few changes happening. Mainly focusing on us missionaries not seeing each other throughout the week and gathering in groups. Oof, hard task in the city.

It was also my last zone conference so President Shields asked all the departing missionaries to bear their testimony. Usually there are like 3 or 4 people going home per zone conference, but the group going home with me is massive so we had 16 missionaries bear testimony. It took  45 minutes, and that's with all of us sticking to 2-4 minutes. yikes. In total I think there are somewhere around 27 missionaries going home with me. That is a hefty turnover.

We met with S during our English class and she is as happy go luck as ever. We were helping her with her pronunciation and somehow we ended up teaching the word of wisdom and committing her to keep it, she said she will do it too!

D and M are also doing great, we have met with them twice now and they are great. we taught them the plan of salvation and it seemed to really make sense to M so as D had questions she would answer them for him! Unfortunately they will be going back home for 2 weeks and I wont be able to see them again... they will come back and Elder Brown will continue the process here.

The last thing that happened this week was saying goodbye to Bishop Holdaway, his wife and kids. I have been serving in the Don Valley ward for a good 15 months now so I have been able to see the progression in the ward and I have seen all the hard work he has done. He accepted a job in Delaware as CEO of Barclays US. sooooo ya. He will be missed.

hope you all have a good week!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Brother Park and brother De Vera and LDB cookies

Bishop Shane Holdaway, Alissa Holdaway and the missionaries

Lobster Fest

Heyo

Super good week this week!

Started off with some good coordination meetings in Don Valley and Don Mills!
I've never been to the one in Don Mills, but it's run by Bro. Lim. He works at a place called Castle Loma, and he was telling us about all of the times he hosted Drake for parties... ha, yikes.
We were planning an event, for our investigator to go tour the temple, but unfortunately he is going back home this week.... he messaged us and said that he won't forget what he has learned and that he will follow the gospel! Gonna miss him.

Other than that we were able to go to Hamilton (which is a about an hour away) met up with some potentials, and dropped by some good people. And then we were able to go to FedEx and pick up a package........ Shout out to little Dutch Boy Bakeries for making specialized Canada Toronto Mission cookies! That was a huge surprise from the fam. Thank you much!

Also shout out to Andrew for finding the Fisherman Lobster Clubhouse! We just got back from a lobster tower feast. They come out show you the lobster you are going to eat (live) then let you take pictures with it and then they bring it out to you Hong Kong style. 5.12 lbs of lobster later.... oof.

Hope you all have a great week!


Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Week 100

How goes fam?

Life is going well here in Toronto!
Elder Brown and I are doing well and things are moving forward!

We have enjoyed some sweet music from Marvin Goldstein, heard about Iran almost having a draw with Spain, moved some friends out of their apartment and had some great interviews with President and Sister Shields!

It has been a a weird week to say the least. Now all missionaries around me know that I am going home in a couple weeks so its a constant reminder that time is running out.. and then talking to President Shields knowing that my next interview will be my departing interview....

The highlight of the week was definitely teaching M. He has to go back to Iran in the next couple weeks but he is one of my favorite people I have taught on my entire mission. I would dare to say that if the permanent residency policy wasn't a thing he would be baptized and be a great member.

Hope you are all tuning into the Iran-Portugal game!

Time is closing in but there is plenty of time here and work to do and I plan to squeeze every bit out of it!

Have a great week.

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Iran vs Toronto Police

Hi
Quick shout out to Pops, Happy Fathers Day!

Been a pretty crazy week with the World Cup and all. I didn't think it would be that crazy here but Iran beat Morocco and everyone flipped, at least the Persians did. We went over to Yonge street and people had parked their cars sideways across the road and blocked it off completely to traffic. There was music blaring, bike cops chasing people down, just the works. Also, it was surprisingly good contacting! Happy people make soft hearts!

Other than that we have just been blessed. Jdub stands on Yonge, Home cooked Korean BBQ and Sunday Grub at the Rollins. Can't complain here!

Transfer news came last night with a bang!

I'm staying in the Don Valley Ward AGAIN! ha I don't know exactly how long it will be but by the time I go home it will be roughly 15/24 months spent in this ward! Gotta love it. To be honest, pretty surprised they never gave me a calling....

Welp hope you all have a good week!

Smile, God Loves You!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Shout Out to Lewis

Kinfolk,

Shout out to Alyssa and Bren Durfee for having a kid. Welcome to the world Lew.

Things are good here! Tender mercies are everywhere!

Last Sunday we had a random person walk into the Don Mills chapel and stay for all three hours. He is pretty new to Canada and has been attending the English class there as well. But anyways we taught our boy the restoration on Sunday and he was LOVING IT. He just at it up. Elder Dixon was on exchange on Saturday when he wanted to meet again and they talked about his Book of Mormon reading and his understanding/questions thus far. Turns out he read a huge chunk of 1 Nephi and had a solid understanding. Then they taught the plan of salvation and he absolutely loved it and was so impressed by how much it makes sense compared to others beliefs. He thought it really showed the mercy and love of God.

That same day 3 Iranian friends came to English class and also became new investigators. BLESSED.

The Final Tender mercy we saw was when another man came church. A sister member met him playing Pickle ball a few weeks back and decided to invite him to church. He is a Chemical Engineer and is awesome. We were able to share the Book of Mormon with him and set a little meeting to see him on Thursday. In case you were curious, he is A1.

The lord has been blessing us.

His hand is present.

Have a great week!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر



Shout our to Toronto sunsets

Tim Hortons Coming in the Clutch

HELLO

Everything is good here. Just another week of skype teaching, meetings and whatnot.

Just a quick shout out to the Cleveland Ohio Mission and my sis Dani, we are now teaching a sister there!

Some goodies that happened this week was on exchange! We didn't find any new investigators or anything but I had a great time with Elders Auerbach and Brown, the youngest Farsi missionaries. We were able to go around contacting and checking out some Persian book stores and trying to slide in our message with their owners. Unfortunately they weren't having it. But since I hadn't had lunch yet I asked to stop at the gas station and they had a Tim Hortons inside (typical Canada) so I shot some Farsi with the ladies and they ended up giving us 4 free pastries :) yeeeeeees

We also had a great experience with a member and her friend. She brought a friend of hers and was kinda getting on us to help him with all of his temporal problems and was saying "he will be baptized next week, then he can get help from the church." If you didn't know, we don't do that. But we talked to him more and found his deep love for his family, and how he misses them as they were recently taken from him by his ex wife. We were able to talk to him more about the gospel and we are going to be meeting with him this week :).

We had another 2 miracles on Sunday, we had a potential investigator come to Brampton Ward, and another man walk into Don Mills ward!! Both are excited about the gospel and are excited to meet with us this week!

We ended the week by having an open fire pit barbecue with a member and enjoyed some good Jujeh Kabab.

Hope you all have a good week!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

FSU D1 ball and the Antichrist

Hey Fam, how goes?

Happy Memorial Day to all. Eat some good BBQ for me.

Weeks seem to be flying by and its a hard realization that I won't be here forever. But we have been making the most out of it and have been having a good time!
Some cool experiences for ya:
We met with an investigator of ours who is atheist, and every time we bring him up to our ward mission leader he calls him the Antichrist, but this was Elders Dixons first time meeting him and in the past we have joked about reading Alma 30 with him about Korihor. So we get there and it turns out that we actually used that scripture with him... as we were reading what Korihor taught, he was super supportive and sympathizing with him, he thinks what Korihor taught is exactly right.... so basically without going into a huge amount of detail, our Ward mission leader wasn't to far off when calling him Antichrist.... yikes

But on the bright side we also met a kid that was landscaping our church and he was 6' 7" getting ready to play D1 basketball at FSU. So there ya go.

And we also contacted a couple more G-Wagons and Maseratis in the church parking lot. Another summer day in Toronto.

Hope you all have a good week
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Turkish Blessin's - Plain Banksy

Hey Fam,
Also happy Victoria Day, I hope you all celebrated.

Well things are good, Elder Dixon and I are having a blast. Suns out, guns out amiright?

Well we have been hitting the pavement pretty good the last little bit and have been blessed to teach some great people.

Had a super weird day on Saturday.... I was on Exchange with Elder Heppler and we had a stellar day planned. 3 lessons, service for a member and all. But as the day went on, every one of those things fell through by 3 o'clock, hahaha typical. So we ended up going home to finish up our studies... mid prayer I remembered that some random guy in Turkey got our number from another person that I met on the street some 4 odd weeks ago and said that he needs to be sponsored to come to Canada... another typical situation. But I decided to shoot him a message anyways and he said he could Skype in 5 minutes. Yikes. So we hustled our behinds to the church and Skyped him. We had talked for like 5 minutes when he basically said "so you gonna help more or not?" and like so many times in the past I had to decline, but he asked which kind of Christians we were if we aren't Catholic or Protestant. BINGO ha we then had a good 40 minute restoration lesson and he downloaded the gospel library app, committed to read, and committed to go to church which is 3 HOURS from where he lives. God is good.

Also, Banksy is coming to town. I'll let you all know who he actually is when I meet him.

Stay tuned.
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Plains of Toronto

Mums Day Shout Out

Happy Moms Day to my Mom, Grandma Peterson, and Grandma Bakker!

All is good here,
Super good to talk to you all last night! Glad everyone is doing good!

I am officially back in action with Elder Dixon! By the end of this transfer, over a quarter of my mission will have been spent with this guy haha.

Last tuesday we had a pretty sweet miracle! We went to our English class and no Persians showed up unfortunately, but at the end the church phone rang and some guy on the other end told me that he wants to come to church. I talked to him a bit and turns out the he is from "Persia"! We met with him and he basically laid out a spiritual out of body experience that he had, he told the police about it earlier this week and they basically just told him to go to a church and find a Father or Priest. So he googled "church near me" and found our phone number. We have met with him now and he is super keen on living the Gospel of Jesus Christ! He wants to be baptized! Woohoo! And the cherry on top, He was born in DALLAS. Amen to teaching American citizens, no permanent resident worry at all.

We were also invited over to a Persian member's home for dinner, this time she fed us some A1 qorme sabzi. It was good stuff! So shout out to her for hooking us up.

The rest of the week we had a couple meet ups with other investigators. Same old same old, the work is good!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Kyle Lowry and Southern Lovin

Pretty nutty week,

Southern Lovin is a reference to me staying in Farsi South...., AGAIN ha this will be my 9th transfer here! And I'll be serving with one of my previous companions, Elder Dixon!

Started off with Tuesday night when we went to ESL. We pulled up a bit early and idk why but our church parking lot is notorious for loitering, not by kids or anything but by super rich people that like to park their G wagons, Bentleys, Royces, you name it. So this time we roll up and there is this massive 14 passenger van (Mercedes Sprinter) that was blacked out, tinted windows, black rims, everything. So we just thought it was some goober loitering and we didn't pay much attention to it, so we went inside and came back out to take the trash to the dumpster and I saw the guy in the front seat just chilling and reading a book so I decided to talk to him and see whats up. I started off the conversation asking about his van and he says "oh ya its nice, but its not mine. It's KYLE LOWRY'S." My jaw just dropped and I'm like you're kidding right and he just says nope, I'm his body guard, Robin. I about lost my crap and he is like here let me show you inside. So he gets out and opens up the door and lets us go in and sit in his van, heat/cooling seats, flat screen TV, all Leather. goodness, I know I'm not supposed to focus on that kind of stuff but it was niiiiiiice. Then he casually said "ok, well I have to go pick up his wife and kid. I have to take them downtown for the first game against the Cavs." Wow. what an experience.

Earlier in the week, an elder bought our entire zone all you can eat sushi as well, so idk what's going on but I've been spoiled.

Our mission was also very blessed to have President Ballard, Elder Gay and Elder Homer come to our mission. Leading up to their visit we had a challenge as a mission to talk to 5,000 people in 4 days, we succeeded with 5,333 and it was a bunch of fun.

My Companionship didn't have a lot of time to go contacting this week so on Friday we set aside 2 hours to go to Yonge Street and talk to literally every person we could. So we did and it was nuts hahahaha During this window of time was crazy storm, winds were clocked at like 110 km/h and a rainstorm hit that flooded the street in like 5 minutes.  The rain cleared and we kept contacting and we ended up talking to 102 people. Good stuff, we had a guy tell us he was Jesus, said a prayer with a guy from Cairo, saved an old man from the wind (he was holding onto a pole so he wouldn't blow away), saw pretty much every advertisement on the road break and fly into the traffic, saw another sign fall and puncture a hole into the hood of a Mercedes right in front of us. It was nuts. The whole city lost power for couple hours and all the stoplights were out for about 3 days.

Elder Ballard then came in and basically told us that work is the key to success, big surprise there, but hearing it from an apostle hit us all from a different angle. It was great, President Ballard shook my hand and looked straight into my sole. He is an Apostle of the Lord.

love you all!

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Bass Pro Shop

Morning Folks!

How goes things?

Things are good here! It's the last week of the transfer and its warm! 7 months of winter is a drag. seriously. But things are going good! We have been enjoying the weather.

This week was a bunch of exchanges and meetings for us so I just give a quick rundown on the goodies:

Mission Leadership Conference
We had our MLC meeting on Wednesday and it's very likely that 6+ of the 20 Zone Leaders won't be zone leaders next transfer.... too bad. The reason is is that 10/20 of them go home with me in the coming months, so president is putting us in other areas to help those areas. but since we all know it was likely going to be our last hurrah together we decided to take a picture with all our Bass Pro Shop hats (another joke from the MLC elders), our mission vehicle coordinator took the picture and said "none of you are smiling, do you know what makes me smile? my favorite store, BASS PRO SHOP" then we all whipped out our hats and President and Sister Shields were just like "wait whats going on?!". it sounds a lot more lame when I type it out but I promise it was funny.

We then went on exchange with Elder Johnson and Elder Cruz. Elder Johnson came to our area with me and Elder Auerbach and we decided to contact Ryerson university. The University is right on Dundas Square (Toronto Times Square) on a Friday... not our best idea. It was seriously so crowded that it was almost impossible to contact people... There was a guy trying to anti us with "Manufactured Terrorism by the government", idk he was nuts.... and while that was going on there was another guy juggling fire while standing on a 10 foot pole..... should have taken a picture but there was too much going on and I didn't get the chance.... sorry....

Those are the main highlights of the week, the only other good thing is that we have finally gotten our eternigator to come to church! If you were reading my emails about a year ago, I talked about an investigator that "Loves being Burned" and couldn't come to church because he plays tennis on Sundays, he is a very wealthy and well off man. But he has been to church that last 2 Sundays and will be coming to see President Ballard speak this week! 1 year later and a lot of progress made. woo hoo!

Thanks for tuning in,

Have a good week!

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Safe

Hey mom, not sure if you heard but there was a vehicle rampage deal, not sure what to call it, on Yonge and Finch which is where the majority of my missionary work is done. But I wanted to let you know that I'm safe and that all is well with me :)

Yellow Vests

Things are WARM here! Crazy, last pday (1 week ago) we were fighting an ice storm that put like 4 inches of snow/ice on everything. Now I'm rocking a short sleeve with no jacket. lol.

Things are good.

Been moving trees all weekend for the "10,000 trees for Rouge" annual service project. Its pretty weird to say that I did the exact same service project last year around this time in the same place...

We went on exchange with the AP's, Elder Kimball and Elder Ballard, yes they are related To Heber C. and M. Russell. It was a super good time. Elder McBeth stayed in the area with Elder Ballard while Elder Auerbach and I went to Brampton. Elder Auerbach and I have a a common companion, Elder Ward, that is living in the Brampton and he didn't know that Elder Auerbach was coming with me on the exchange so we played a prank on him. Basically made the elders in the house think that someone broke in... one of the elders was freaking out and ready to call the cops and the other (Elder Ward) put on his Bass pro hat and grabbed a bat and went down ready to fight whoever it was. lol. We stopped him before he could.
Elder Ward is easily the closest companion I had to being a dad. What a good guy.
The next morning we went to the church played some ball, came back and had a nice breakfast.
Life is different in the mansion (basically a frat house lol).

Other than that I also went on exchange with Elder Smith, a Chinese speaking elder and we went contacting almost all day on the subways and outside in the cold. We were able to find a couple Pi's and whatnot so it was a good day.

The work is also moving along, eternigators (eternal investigators) are starting to come to church, people are wanting to meet. I can't complain at all, Missionary life is simple and sweet.

Hope you all have a good week!

Your boy,
Elder Bakker


ارشد جک باکر

PBUH

Top of the morning fam!

PBUH is an Islamic term that means Peace Be Upon Him. Talking about prophets that have passed. So this week we have been using it a bit when talking about missionaries dying. EX do you remember how elder Bakker(pbuh), did....

I'm still here in Don Valley Ward (Farsi South) coming up on 12 months!

Things are cold here ha, massive ice storm hit Ontario and cancelled church for almost everyone!
The weather has been up and down this week. Started off in the 50-60 range and we were able to go proselyte downtown Toronto in a light jacket.... then Thursday hit and it got colder and started to rain... then Saturday got even colder and turned into ice rain... the entire city was covered in a sheet of ice.... then it warmed up a bit last night and flooded Toronto... ugh. Gotta love Springtime in Ontario...

But anyways things have been good. Mission life is treating us well.

Interviews were also this week, President shields making comments about me going home and whatnot.... ugh x2. too weird.

Not much to report on but enjoy the pics!

Enjoy the week :)

--
Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Halal at ya

Heyo
Pretty good week.


This week has been crazy and we have been all over the map.

We have used the car maybe 3 times in total this week for necessary things. The rest of the time we have been subwaying around. The majority of our time has been spent downtown as well, dropping by less actives and referrals. Its been good. We were able to go to Krispy Kreme as well! There are only like 2 in Ontario.
This week we were going to have a Halal (meat prepared as prescribed by Muslim law) only week, so we started off by going to a place called TopGun Burger. It's a super good burger place downtown that's 100% Halal. Super good.
But turns out Halal is pricey soooooo ya, we bagged that idea but it was still a good burger.

The other exciting thing that happened this week is that Elder S Gifford Nielsen of the 70 came to speak to us! If you don't know who he is look him up. BYU allstar quarterback, 6 years in the NFL. he is a GIANT, spiritually and physically. He came to our zone conference and really lit the place up, super funny guy, very smart and extremely spiritual.

Nothing else to really report on....

Life's good.

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

This is what the burgers look like.

Stop Selling Diabetes!

Hey folks

What a conference, am I right?
Hope you all enjoyed it while it lasted!

Elder McBeth, Auerbach, and I have been doing some classic grinding this week!
Classic missionary work mixed with meetings, the temple, and conference. oof.

It's been pretty funny teaching this week, we had 2 lessons come down to the same concern in different ways. One of them I was giving a life example relating to the cookie business and our investigator flipped and was saying that we shouldn't be selling cookies because they were unhealthy and that we were basically selling diabetes..... and the other was a similar concern but our other investigator was asking us about the Word of Wisdom and if we could sell products as long as we don't partake ourselves. His example was owning a hotel that sold alcohol, and it escalated from that to "if cocaine was legal, would we be able to sell it as long as we didn't use it ourselves." ha ya...... idk....

Other than that we were able to enjoy the temple, what a blessing it is to have temples on the earth where we can go and find peace and comfort in the Lord's house.

Conference was bumping with spiritual talks and administrative stuff. What a weekend. If you haven't watched, watch.

Well hope you all have a good week!

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Top of the CN Tower

Some juicy stuff this week.

Day 1 we went to CN tower for lunch.... in the top.... in a revolving restaurant.... holy cow that was awesome. Just in case you were wondering CN Tower is the tallest/highest observation deck in North America :)
What a party.

Secondly, we have been building up the area, A LOT. This week we picked up three new investigators. And we have been traveling to Brampton(45 min away) Mississauga( 40 minutes away) and Kitchener(1hr 20min away) so we've had a lot of driving time but its been worth it.

We were also able to go to the temple this week to do baptisms and confirmations with a recent convert :).

Then on Sunday a guy came to church that we have never met before. He met the missionaries in London, UK and went to church with them twice. Now he came here and came on his own free will. He tells us he wants to join the church, I guess we will see.

The last bit of juicy info is our transfer call. Elder McBeth and I are staying here! and we are getting Elder Auerbach, gonna be an interesting trio.....

Well there's the scoop in a nutshell!
Hope you all have a good week!

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

bizarre bazaar

Ni hao ma?

Things are nuts here.
This whole week has been full of Persian parties and bazaars.
During last week and this week every year the Persian community goes nuts because it is their new year so we have been doing our best to be immersed in the culture by attending these things and contacting people there.
The first was on Tuesday and it was basically just a party, its called Chahar Shanbe Soori. They do it on the last Tuesday night of the Persian calendar and they have tons of music going on outside and they have fire jumping where you basically throw all of the bad from last year into the fire as you jump over it and land in the new year clean. It's definitely an interesting tradition but its fun.
The next couple of days we had a Mormon Booth at the Bazaar they have. Everyone comes and sells different Persian stuff and then we are just there giving out Bibles and copies of the Book of Mormon to a large crowd of people that mainly classify themselves as part of the Islam faith. It was an interesting 2 days. But over all a lot came from it, we found multiple new investigators and loads of potentials and had a couple good sit down lessons with people on the spot.
On the 2nd day of the booth I was actually giving out materials and explaining the Book of Mormon to a group of people, and in the moment one lone lady caught my attention and I ended up talking just to her. The crowd noticed and a bunch of people ended up leaving (oops) but I know the spirit prompted me to have a one on one conversation with this woman. She ended up asking me if we could sit in the chairs in the booth, we did and ended up having about a 2 hour conversation where she talked a lot about her life and I was able to console her, by sharing the message of the plan of salvation and about modern day prophets. She lives in the north area so she isn't my investigator but that was definitely a highlight of the week for me.

And the last 2 cool things we were able to do was go to KITCHENER! ha my old stomping grounds. We got a referral for a guy there and we had a good lesson with him, he is awesome.
While we were there we stopped by some friends. The whole time I was there I tried to meet with them and teach them, but it never really worked out... but last night we stopped by and He let us into his house and asked us to stay until his wife got home. We basically had a good chat, got to see their newborn and about 5 minutes into the good to see you conversation she asks "so what happens after we die?" OOF that was it, we ended up getting into a super long conversation about the plan of salvation. So they have become investigators! Its been a long time coming.

Well that about sums up my week... ha my words can't describe what it was actually like. Good week.
Hope you have a good one as well!

--
Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Tasty Persian treats

TIRGAN pt. 2

Time is flying. Can't seem to grab hold of it.

This week came and left faster than I could think.
We had Zone Conference this week in Oshawa and the whole mission has been approved to use Facebook. So the last couple of days my phone has been blowing up with other missionaries adding me on social media. annoying, but it is also good. The anticipation for a social media has had the mission in some sort of stand still and now that it is here I hope to see everyone realize how much missionary work is the same. And we just have a new medium to do it through. We still walk and talk, knock doors and meet people face to face. The work moves on with or with out you. It's better to be on the team working than on the sideline watching the winners win without you.

That being said, it's also an exciting time to see how Facebook can be used to find, teach, and baptize.

This is also a huge season for the Persian community because its NOWRUZ! Woohoo Persian new year. Elder McBeth and I have made plans to go to all the Persian celebrations in our area and to advertise the church to as many as possible, so this week we went to Tirgan's Nowruz. Last summer Elder Dixon and I went to a huge Persian party called Tirgan on the harbor front downtown Toronto, and this year the same people threw a new year party so we decided it was fitting to go where ALL of the Persian comuntiy would be.

So its been a crazy week, fun stuff.

Have a good one, see you same time next week.
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Elder McBeth with RD's barbecue mammoth brisket poutine, 10/10 recommended!

Tirgan Nowruz

Tirgan Nowruz (way bigger than it looks!)