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