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

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