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

Got any Games?

Things are good here in London!
Elder ward and I are killing it right now.; Having a blast.

First things first, it has been snowing here like crazy. It snowed 6 inches last night and it has been snowing all week. The sisters got stuck in the church parking lot....... ha had to dig em out.

Second thing. WE GOT SMART PHONES. It's super weird and kinda annoying.. we have to put every record we have in our apartment onto a "digital area book" and it takes like an hour per record...... Its rough. But we will be getting facebook soon and whatnot. So its getting real.

We were also able to meet with some of our investigators Laura and Cynthia. Laura now has a date for Feb 3rd!!! She is super excited. And Cynthia is now praying for what day will be best for her to be baptized.

The funny experience of the week:
We got a referral for a guy and set up an appointment with him Sunday night. We went over and his mom answered the door and called him down, when he saw us he was super confused and didn't know who we were. We asked him if he requested anything off of mormon.org and he told us no. We then told him that we were the ones that have been texting him the past day, and he looked at his phone and our texts weren't on there. Turns out his buddies pulled a prank on him and sent us over. his mom let us in anyways and we taught the restoration and we are going back this Sunday!

The recent convert family in the ward has an 8 year old and a 3 year old. They are from Nigeria and CRAZY cute. They were climbing all over us at church and we pretty much just babysat them because they didn't want to go to primary and nursery. ha gotta love it.

It's been real.
love you all!!!--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Elder Ward

So things are good here in LONDON!!!! I got my transfer call and am now here with my boy Elder WARD! I roomed with him in the MTC and never thought I would get to serve with him!

Elder Ward and Elder Bakker

Not much to tell but I've only been here for like 20 hours.... but its been good so far.
He has this little cow in the apartment that he is teaching me how to rope. Oh and he is a total farm boy. He is from a little town called Clifton, Idaho where the cows outnumber the people like 50:1. Super cool!

Also unfortunately my last comp slipped on some ice last transfer and crashed our car into a tree....... totaled. ugh. Not the best week hahahah all that matters is that we are both safe and sound.

Not much else going on right now, see you next week when we are pro team ropers.

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Before transfers with Elder Thieme

It's Chilly Here

hey its cold
just thought I'd let you know!
Skyping was good. Loved to see the fam.
We were able to go to a couple members houses and the president of our branch's wife made us all homemade wool scarves which was super nice :)
We were also able to go to the Inces which was super fun to have dinner with them. It is pretty dang cold here. Just fyi Canada is cold.
Sorry for the short email.
Love you all
happy new year :) my next pday will be next Wednesday as well.

--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

ایسوع المسیح

 It's been a fun week! 

Found some new investigators this week so that was cool :)

We also went on exchange with 2 companionships, Elders Hafen and Hansen and Cruz and Stephens. Suuuuuper good time!

With Elder Hafen had some good times, we made some homemade sushi and we went to see a guy named Steven. He was in a mental hospital for some things and the guy right next to us pretty much crapped his pants while we were trying to read from the scriptures...... Elder Hafen and I were keen to get out ASAP but Steven didn't even flinch. I don't know if he is just used to it or can't smell but either way it was a rough situation.... memories nonetheless.

Elder Stephens and I had some good times as well! We went to The Rustic Slice and got our missionary free slices of pizza cause the owner loves us and the staff knows us ;) and then had to go move a fridge into the attic of a 160 year old house........ ugh.

After the exchanges we went to help out at Bishops Store House and got some shawarma while there. Some lady from Iraq came up to me and got in my face a bit about how I shouldn't have Isah Masih on my tag and that it should be Isu' Almasih'. haha not the first time that some people freak out about my tag. All in all she was just trying to help a brother out as she was actually Christian!

Well its been a good week, sorry if this email doesn't make any sense, not much time to write!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

Sleeping, as usual

It's been a cold week

Traded ties with Chap here.  He hasn't traded a tie since his mission.

How About the D&C, eh?

Its been a cold week this week but we seen some cool miracles!

The one thing I want to share with you is what happened at soccer night the last 2 weeks!
SO. Starting 2 Fridays ago, we got a call from a guy named Phil about our soccer night and he came and had loads of fun with us. He is Nigerian but lived all over the place like Houston and Ottawa and what not. We talked to him a bit and invited him to come play again next Friday.
He came again and we start talking to him more about the Church and he starts telling Elder Thieme that he used to go to all kinds of churches with his family so naturally Elder Thieme asks if he has ever gone to a Mormon church before. Turns out that he says "ya! my family used to be members back in Houston!" He kept talking about it and said "ya I think I was even baptized too!" ha so he has been baptized in all kinds of churches and one of them happens to be ours! It'll be a little tough finding his records but we will get it done and he wants to come to church and institute!

Well thats our main miracle of the week!

Oh and a side note, just wanted to let everyone know that the Doctrine and Covenants sections 1-104 are on lds.org in Farsi :) the church never stops progressing.

have a good week!
--

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر

December 4

We had interviews this week with President and he is looking to call some new Farsi missionaries! I love getting fresh help in the work. Hopefully he will call them this coming transfer.

The only real thing I wanted to highlight this week happened on Saturday! GARRETT WAS BAPTIZED woohoo!!!! It was a really good service, his family came to support him and he bore a really powerfully testimony on baptism and prayer in fast and testimony meeting. It's been a good week :)

I gotta go but have a good week and #LightTheWorld

Elder Jack Bakker
ارشد جک باکر