I'm Baaaackkkk!

Whats good?!

Its been a good transfer, but I'm sad to say goodbye to London so soon. 6 weeks is too short.
But on the bright side of things, I AM GOING BACK TO DON VALLEY! This will be my 7th transfer there (10.5 months).  Just a little time here left here to serve, so I'm glad I'll be able to do it in T-Dot.

Its been a pretty weird weeks to be honest, not much happened except that we got to take the mission Silverado for the weekend :) The Tillsonburg sisters got bed bugs this transfer and we were finally able to bring them new furniture and buds and whatnot.
On Thursday we picked up the truck and expected it to be a 4 hour trip but due to weather and traffic and whatnot it ended up being about a 7 hour trip..... Then Friday we had district meeting out in the boonies, in a city called Chatham, and then had to drive to the opposite end of the zone to drop off the furniture.... that day took about 5 hours...... Then Saturday we had to take the truck back and pick up our car and the weather was pretty nasty so that day took about 5 hours as well... all in all we drove 17 hours and put about 800 kilometers on the truck.... fun little road trip to end off my time here.

The work is going good, Laura and Cynthia and Esther are all preparing to go to the temple on the 17th!

London has treated me well and I will miss Elder Ward!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Baby Blessings and Baptisms

Laura's baptism

Moose skull

What's up fam
Another week another email
We are coming up on week 6 of our 13th transfer. Pretty weird. 4 transfers left. Yikes.
We had MLC and the church has authorized Facebook in our mission! Weird, we set it up and have been figuring it out. The weirdest thing is that we don't use Elder in our names.... so I'm just Jack on social media and now all the members know hahahaha.
For the past 3 Saturdays we have been filling the baptismal and I'll tell you what we are pros at getting the water the right temperature now. The water heater in the church is pretty much garbage and won't keep the water warm hahahah. We have to boil around 8 big pots of water to make sure it's the right temperature..... but it's all good. This past Saturday Laura was baptized!!!!! Woohoo! Elder Ward baptized her and it was awesome.
The next day (Sunday) I was able to confirm her a member. And about 5 minutes after that, a member walked up to the stand to give his baby a name and a blessing, he went up alone and talked to the bishop then looked directly at me and called me out of the congregation. So I went up expecting to just assist and as we were about to start he looks at me and says "ok you are going to be the voice". WHAT. So this guy has me give his baby a name and a blessing....... what. Ha I had to ask Bishop Stitt what to say and whatnot so it was an interesting sacrament meeting...
It was a super spiritual fast and testimony meeting.
So those are the highlights of the week! Hope you all have a good week!
-Elder Bakker

18 Months and Cynthia

Elder Martin, me and the States!

What's up fam?
This week came and went too fast.
Every Pday we have a standing dinner appointment with the Puddicombe family for dinner, this week the parents went on a cruise so we joked about coming over anyways and making dinner for the kids. Turns out they were serious about it and we actually did make some mean pulled pork and fed their family last Monday!
The next day I was able to go see the good ol' U.S. of A.! I was on exchange in Sarnia with Elder Martin from England, and he took me contacting on the river overlooking Michigan, shout out to my dad for serving his 2 there. That was one of the few days I have seen a good amount of success from tracting.
Those were some highlights of the week but Saturday and Sunday were the best.
Saturday I was on exchange with my boy ELDER MCBETH, fellow Farsi Elder in English work. We were together all day Saturday which means he was able to help me fill the font for Cynthia's baptism!
She was baptized that night and it was awesome.
Then Sunday morning Elder Ward confirmed her. :)
Then to top it off, we finished teaching Laura! And she is 99% ready for this Saturday! All she needs is her baptismal interview which will be on Tuesday. It'll be great.
To end off Sunday night we found a cool Nigerian family that we will see this week and got cussed out of the apartment building. Just a day in the life :)
Happy 18 months!
Hope you all have a good week!

-Elder Bakker 

Elder McBeth and I filling the font

Cynthia's baptism

Grind All Day

First things first.
Sorry I didn't write last week!
All is good. London is great.
Elder Ward and I have had a pretty interesting week. Everything from disarming gunman and calling 911.... don't worry though everything is good.
So we started the week off pretty good on Tuesday and we were able to watch the worldwide broadcast from President Nelson! We are also able to watch the press conference. If you had the opportunity to ask the prophet one question what would it be?
The next day we had a sweet lesson with our investigator Alexander, we are pretty surprised that he is progressing so well after being pranked by his friends to have the Mormons come over.
That same night we went to dinner at Brother Lafrance's House, and as we were leaving he stops us at the door, walked in his office and put an airsoft gun in my hand. He told me not to put my finger on the trigger or he would break it. And in less than a second took the gun from me and had it pointed in my face. This guy is crazy.
The rest of the week was pretty steady until Saturday, we had to go to the church to help the Chinese elders prepare for their baptism. On the same day President and Sister Shields came to do interviews with our zone. So all in all we were at the church for about 7 hours... it was good though we were able to fill up the font for LiLang's baptism, unfortunately the water heater in the church is weak so the water is freezing. The last crazy thing that happened was on Sunday. It was Ward conference and the stake president threw a curve ball and just didn't show up... after church we were helping Cynthia pick out her baptismal dress when she started to not feel good and we ended up having to call the ambulance who came and picked her up right out of the church... She checked out ok though.
It was a good week.
Hope you all have a good week!

-Elder Bakker

 some Chinese guy makes the Chinese zodiac every year out of snow, this year it was a dog

serving at the all Saints Anglican church! Serving breakfast to the homeless