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!)

 

Salaam alaykum, alaykum asalaam

Things are pretty alright here.

Things are looking up right now, the past 3 weeks have been slower than I would like but we had a couple good days this week. :)

A cool experience this week with finding new investigators. We have had like no time to actually find this transfer with all the administrative stuff but we had about 3 hours to go out and put up English class fliers so we went out and got to work. I have been thinking a lot about my own faith, and how to recognize the spirit so I really was trying to be receptive. We were walking down the street and we weren't having to much luck with talking to people so I just had a random desire to go into the Tim Hortons and get a $1.77 small hot chocolate, lo and behold, there was about 20ish Persian people in there just hanging out. HA! We snagged our hot cocoa and went over to talk to them. Elder McBeth and I have been doing some translation for some of the 1 minute Mormon videos so I say how are you to one of the guys and then Elder McBeth just goes in asking if they would proof read what he had translated thus far. The guy lost it, hahahahahha. He then called his like 6 buddies over and they were all just listening to Elder McBeth explain what we were doing and about the Book of Mormon. We continued to talk with them, got a phone number and set up a meeting for this Thursday! So as of now we have found 1 new out of them but all of that guy's buddies should be coming to the meeting as well! Gang gang.

Another highlight of this week was my exchange with Elder Tetauru. He is a stud and a half. Right before we started our exchange Elder McBeth and I grabbed some 5 dollar Jamaican Jerk Pork, the guy gave us a huge serving and it seriously filled me up. Then the first thing we do on the exchange was go to a lunch/dinner appointment with a member, ha Elder Tetauru didn't know it was a meal appointment till we got there and this lady fed us something called Rotti.. idk how to spell it.. but its an Indian bread and she gave us some mac and cheese and dressed salad and some corned beef with potatoes and has us make a wrap with all these things inside the bread... I was super full by the end of the night!

I love being a missionary. you'll never have experiences like this ever again in your life.
have a good week!--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

156 Left

pretty weird week.

I'll just give you a run down of the main two things.

Work has been slow but I was able to go on exchange with Elder Callister! He is currently serving in Scarborough (low key one of my fav areas) and we had a good time... in the hospital...
He unfortunately broke his toe and we had to go get a bunch of xrays done and whatnot which took the majority of our exchange. Pretty funny/ridiculous story came from it though! So here is the scoop on Canadian health care: We went in and first thing is is that it takes about 2 hours to get 2 xrays done... second thing is when we went to get them looked at the lady at the front desk tells us, "I don't think this doctor can read X-Rays..... but I'll go ask just to make sure." She comes back and tells us that apparently he does read X-Rays! So we go back and he tells us that the toe is just bruised and that it will get better in a week! Woohoo what a miracle right? Wrong. We took the x-ray disc back to the church and looked at it and there is a huge crack in the joint of his toe. I may have only taken anatomy in high school but I can read X-Rays better than a Canadian doctor. We sent the pictures to our mission doctor and he tells us that it is definitely broken. hhahahahahahahahah gotta love it up here in the great white north where medical treatment is free!
But hey on the bright side I made Elder Callister some pannekoek!

The other thing that happened this week is that we have had to help one of the Chinese elders pack up his stuff and send him off to the airport.... he has had some major medical issues come up and needs to go get them resolved back in California. Sad day saying goodbye to elders that you served around for a good portion of your mission...

other than that not much has happened...
hope you all have a good week!

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Fire!!

Not lots to report this week...

Elder McBeth and I are finally companions and life is good!
It has warmed up here a bit and I love it.

This week we've been purging our apartment of all garbage left by past missionaries and we are starting anew.
While cleaning the apartment one of the days our fire alarm went off, and it had already been a pretty long day... I was sick.... the apartment was a mess..... and elder McBeth just says "nooooooo, be quietttttttt" we thought it was just a test but I opened the door and it was decently smoky... lol so apparently our apartment building caught on fire or something cause we went downstairs and there were 3 fire engines and like 5 police cars..... what a day :).

Other than that it has been a bitter sweet week. Had to say bye to my Trainer Elder Casdorph but I finally got put with McBeth. So ya its been just a weird week coming back to Farsi work.

Sorry if this email makes no sense.
have a good week!

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر