Wagwan

On Tuesday of last week, Elder Casdorph and I got a new investigator from Alberta! He is a young adult and has a western Untied States accent. He wears cowboy boots and wants to live in a small town a own a farm. He is awesome. Seriously the opposite of what anyone would expect from someone from the middle east. AND he wants to be Baptized!!!!! He has been going to church for the past couple months in Alberta with all of his high school buddies (Alberta is loaded with Mormons) and is now living here with his family. The only catch is that he is worried how his family will take it.... and he is scared to tell them about his conversion and desire to be baptized. If you have ever heard the Bill Carpenter conversion story, I imagine it to be something like that.

Well in other news. I was on exchange with Elder Holden in Scarborough and it is a completely different world over there. So much so that they have their own Scarborough slang, hence the title of my email "Wagwan" which is a greeting in Jamaican I think. We spent the day contacting every different ethnicity you could imagine. I <3 Toronto.

One of the blessings of being a missionary that speaks a weird language is that we get to teach people from all over the world over Skype! While I was on exchange Elder Casdorph received a referral for a lady in California! We don't know much about her other than she has enough desire to want to speak to us over Skype.


Hope you all have an amazing week!
ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

I Love Vitamin D

For P day we went to a car show

Hey hey!

We have been having a pretty good week this week!
At the beginning of the week we got a referral from Alberta for a man that has been taught and seems very close to being ready for Baptism!
For some reason all of our investigators right now are extremely smart. The couple we are teaching have Ph D's and know multiple languages. The man that "Loves being burned" is a really successful business man. The 18 year old is a chess master and our newest investigator knows multiple languages as well. Weird.

Well we had Stake Conference this week and it was extremely spiritual. Talked a lot about temples and Family history, which then brought up a lot of questions for our investigators! I love it.

Well the weather here has been amazing this last week and it looks like it will be picking up more this week! We have been having loads of sun and the temperature has been around 14 degrees Celsius. I'm pretty done with this temperamental winter. I'm super excited for spring.

Hope you all have a great week!


ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

Meet Celeste

"Whats it gonna be Bob?"

"Its aaaaaaaaaaaaa.... NEW CAR!!!!!"

Well at zone conference this week we were happily surprised by Elder Youngberg, The CTM's Vehicle manager. He walks in and say we have a new car for whoever drives the silver Chevy Cruze. Which was for sure Elder Casdoprh and I because it was the second oldest car in the mission. He hands us the keys and drives our old car away.

Her Name is Celeste, and she is a white 2017 RAV4. When we got it it only had been driven like 140 km, which is about the distance from the dealership in Brampton to Oshawa, which is where our zone conference was.

The RAV4 couldn't have come at a better time. The weekend after we got it it snowed about a foot and the snowplows here don't go out until about 3 or 4 pm.

In other news, we have had a pretty slow week, but our investigators had us over for some good Persian eats with their friends and we shared a lot about baptism and what it means and then the next day they were at church for their 5th time and came to a baptism! They love the family that had the baptism and loved the whole experience.

Sorry for the short letter...
Hope you all have a good week!

ارشد جک باکر
Elder Jack Bakker

Immigration Anger

P-day game of Bow and Arrow Dodge Ball from a few weeks ago

So as missionaries we don't watch the news or read the news or anything like that but I feel like I have a pretty good idea on what's been happening in the states. Everyone we meet with is pretty angry about what Trump did and we hear about a 15 minute rant every time we meet with someone.

In other news, nothing much has changed! Elder Casdorph and I are pushing along! We have some awesome investigators that have really enjoyed coming to church and they can see the blessings it brings into their lives!

We have been successfully finding new every week which helps us find those elect people waiting for the gospel! 

I've heard that the western United States is getting buckets of snow right now and I am kinda jealous.... I came to Canada expecting feet of snow every winter and to actually be in the "Great White North" but as I've been here all I've seen is a skiff of snow here and there....

No new news other than that. sorry for the super short email.... 

love you all!

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ارشد باکر

Elder Bakker

6 Mth Mark & Cocaine

Lots of crazy things happened this week!

First things first we had FHE with our investigators! A family in the ward has fellow shipped them and they are BFF's now, its great.

We found a new investigator this week and when we walked into his house the first thing he says is, "what would you like to drink? I have every kind of alcohol!" So ya that was a rough start... he then offered us cocaine.... ha not actual cocaine but he gave us some Persian treat called Gaz, he loves it so much that he calls it cocaine.. its a work in progress...
He is nuts. He apparently has been looking for the truth about religion and why we aren't supposed to drink alcohol or tea or coffee. He told us he has been looking for years.
He said that we were the last people he was going to bring into his home to find the answers to his questions, he has a lot more than Word of Wisdom questions. So we taught him about the word of wisdom and he said something along the lines of how those drinks aren't bad for everyone so not everyone should have to follow those rules. Then we showed him a couple scriptures going over how he could really know if what we are saying is true and he read them and told us that he loved the Book Of Mormon and that the scriptures were amazing. One of the scriptures we read was about him asking God if what we taught was true and that if he really wanted to know then he would get an answer and the scripture says "burning in the bosom" and he looks up at us and says "this is amazing. if I ask God, then he will burn me and give me an answer. I LOVE BEING BURNED!" We then went into the different ways he could feel an answer come and he just loved that he would feel the "burn".

We had transfer calls last night, Elder Casdorph and I are both staying! and Elder C is the new district leader! ya nothing really changes for Persian speaking missionaries here.

Thats about all the news I have for you guys!

love you all!

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ارشد باکر

Elder Bakker

Gaz candy, a nougat type candy with pistachios or other fillings

Translation Squad

Things here are really good! Its weirdly warm right now.... its been like 7 degrees Celsius (mid 40's), its super foggy, and has been raining a lot. This whole transfer we have been sifting through the wheat and the tares and trying to find the people who are really prepared for the gospel. We have been getting more and more successful as we have just worked our tails off.

We have a couple that we met in Pizza Pizza (Canada's knock off of Little Caesars) about a month ago, that we have just recently been able to get in contact with. They are super cool!  When we first talked to them they wanted to volunteer in our church and help out in whatever way they could and they even offered to help us translate for the others who don't understand English. The funny thing is is that only one of them can translate... the other needs translation himself hahahahha, But that's ok because his wife can help and we have an investigator right now that is a legit translator so that would be awesome.

The couple is also finding out what religion is for themselves and our ward mission leader (Brother Andrei Ardelean from Romania) laid down the law on how they will never find out what religion is for themselves and what our services mean unless they read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
Elder Casdorph and I thought that was a little over the top but he responded very well and is like BFF's with bother Ardelean! And his wife is making so many friends with out us inviting the members to do so! We told them afterwards "if you have any questions just to feel free to ask us", and they said "ok thanks! but to be honest I have so many friends here I'll probably just ask one of them!"
They are so great and they love coming to church!!

This was just one of the major tender mercies we have seen from the Lord.

Love you all and hope you are all doing well :)

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ارشد باکر

Elder Bakker

Not a real Email

This week has been good.

I hope everyone is good! I don't have a lot of time.

We have been hit with heaps of referrals lately and it has been a huge blessing.

We got 3 new investigators this week and expected around 10 investigators at church! sadly we only had 2... but hey that's still good, 2 souls progressing is enough :) We also had some of our less active members come to church! Pretty good day over all.

The 2 people that came are extremely educated and want to serve in the church! so Bishop Holdaway is thinking and praying of something that they can do, they offered to do translation for sacrament meeting and I think that would be awesome! They would preach the gospel before they know it.

nothing else really happened this week.

love you all!!!!!
ارشد باکر
Elder Bakker