Week 42: Mother's Day

Hey Hey!!!
Happy Mothers day!!

This week was great!!!!!

Had interviews with President and Sister Shields and talked about the things happening in the mission for us as Farsi elders. a lot may be happening soon but I can't really say now cause I could be wrong.... :/

Zone conference was long as usual but a lot was learned from all the instructions.

Also apparently we are getting new Car Monitors for all the cars.

Went on exchange to Scarborough (Drake's hometown), with Elder Holden!!! super funny Elder. Had a small lesson through the door of a ladies apartment because she was tending to her baby and contacted some in Mandarin!

Not a lot else to say other than that it was super good to see you all yesterday!!!!

Love you all and hope you have a good week!




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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

Week 41: Rains Came Down

so its been a pretty wet week.
rained like 99% of the time.
its been great.

Well here's the story about how my area got turned upside down.

On March 26th a famine of investigators came over Farsi South. Day in and day out we tracted, street contacted, asked for referrals, did service, everything we could think of to bring investigators, but nothing came of it. 40 days came and went with no change of effort or success. Then the miraculous day came when I was on exchange with my zone leader, Elder Carroll.
At the beginning he prayed that all Canadians would be put in the path of the English elders and that we would only see Mandarin and Persian people, and that is exactly what happened! We contacted for hours and talked to 2 Canadians but the rest for the time Elder Carroll stunned those around us with his Mandarin and I did my best with my Farsi. The day came and went with a lot of potential investigators but no new. The last door we knocked on was stunned that a white guy spoke Persian, accepted a Book of Mormon and wants us to come back on Tuesday.
Day 41: 1 new investigator. Thus ending the famine. And since then we have found 5 more investigators, in the span of 4 days. 1 of which was about an hour ago when we stared emailing. :)

We have seen so many miracles come in the last 4 days. It's been wonderful, we are truly blessed.

The rest of the week has just been a lot of contacting and tracting. so not much to report there.

Love you all, and I hope you have a good week!
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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

May 1

Not much to report on this week....Been a kinda slow week, and not really anything has happened.

Monday we went to the zoo with Elder Holden and my MTC buddy Elder Ward! Super fun. It was a bit chilly so like no one was there and we had the place to ourselves!

The next day we had a member take us out to a place called The Dragon Pearl. Pretty good all you can eat Chinese food.

After that we OYM'd or GQ'd or whatever you want to call it on York Mills Rd for about an hour and in that time I had about 100 people say no. 50 just ignored me. and 1 guy with some gorgeously crooked teeth try to convert me to the Church of Scotland. Pretty awesome day!

We met with our two investigators this week. Both progressing decently well.

One wants us to bring over some of the sisters in the ward to his house so that they can play piano and violin together. ha.

He loves the church and everything in it. He told us that it is the closest thing he has seen to a perfect community. The only problem is that he has other obligations on Sundays so he can't come to church.

I hope that everyone has had a good week!

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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

North York 4 Life....

Elder Milad

Transfers are here! and I'm going.......... NOWHERE!  I am staying in the same area with Elder Milad!!!!  This will be my 6th transfer here in Farsi South/North York. I've already been here for 7.5 months and I will stay for at least 9 months.  They can't move me.

Well Things here are moving along, the work is slow but the days are fast and the weeks even faster.

We have been meeting with the same people this week and they are still continuing to progress!

And one finally came to church!! We have been meeting with him for about 3 months now but he has had tennis every Sunday with his buddies but this last Sunday he finally came with his dad!

Other than that we were able to have a good talk with someone in SLC about how to teach people with a Muslim background. Talked for about 45 minutes and just told them everything we know about it. Hopefully we helped in some way.

Elder Bakker & Elder Yeung at A& W

Last thing of the week was my exchange with elder YEUNG! He is a Cantonese Elder and LOVES speaking Farsi. He doesn't know a lot but thinks it's way fun and he's pretty good. He can contact people on the street and ask them if they have been to church or not and if they want to come. Super impressive since he is from Hong Kong. He also taught me how to contact people in Mandarin. Hahha the things you learn in the Canada Toronto Mission.


love you all!!!

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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

Easter

This week flewwwwwwwwwwww by. Idk what happened but time doesn't wait for anyone.

Met with our investigator a couple times and he is working towards his baptism on May 14th! He still hasn't gotten a sure answer but he is doing everything he can to get one so it should come soon! He also came to church on Sunday. I got to go on a 5 hour exchange with Elder Holden and I was able to be in the circle for 3 confirmations.

We met with our other investigtor this week and some how it came up that Glen Beck is a Mormon and he started going off about how great Glen Beck is and now he wants us to show him his conversion story.... that so next time we meet he just wants to listen to Glen Beck. Ha, we will see how that goes.

We also met with our other investigator, he has been out of town for about 2.5 weeks but we were able to get in contact! We met up and to our surprise he actually read the Book of Mormon between our discussions! He read the testimonies of the witnesses and the introduction. He liked them but still has some basic questions. We are meeting with him weekly now and we are excited to see his progression!

Sorry but there is not much else to report.

I'm so grateful for our savior and the sacrifice he made for us.

Happy Easter!

also sorry that I can't include names....

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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

K Limits

So this week just flew by! The mission is going by so fast, wish it would slow down for a bit.
"I wish someone would tell you that you are in the 'Good ol' Days' before you left them." -Andy (the office)  Thank you Andy for the nugget of inspiration. I've been trying to suck out every moment so far and it is still going by too quickly.  Don't let the good times pass without even noticing them.

This week we saw a miracle! Our investigator is super cool he has honest desire and true intent to find the truth. He doesn't have a witness of the Book of Mormon yet and doesn't know that the things we teach are true but he has made the step of faith by setting a baptismal date for the middle of May!! Super excited to help him learn more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to be able to see the change in him!

The mission has been cracking down on how much we drive.... an average month as Farsi missionaries we drive about 2200 Kilometers and the mission has brought our limit down to 1400....... I know that this is for the good of the mission but there is no way we are going to be able to stay under 1400.... we have tried our best for the past 2 weeks and we have driven about 60-80 K's per day.... if we want to be under 1400 we have to drive around 46...... sorry CTM... we are trying.....

Some Members in Germany were able to translate the new Prince of Peace video into Persian!!!! as Elder Holland would say "What a blessing."



Love you all and I hope that you have a great week!!!!!!!!



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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker

Temple, Noruz and Conference

Pretty awesome week this week!

The whole week led to the weekend and that is where everything happened!

Friday morning and 7:20 AM the mission had the temple reserved and we were able to go through and feel the spirit before conference started on Saturday.

The temple was also really helpful as we were going into Friday night and as we were getting ready for our NORUZ PARTY!!! That was super crazy, we cooked up like 70+ lbs of beef and chicken kebab aka koobideh and jujeh kebab. It took about 4-5 hours of grilling and setting up to get ready for the night but it was all worth it when we had about 145 people show up!

The next day we had the wonderful privilege of watching General Conference. So many great things were talked about but I especially liked S. Mark Palmer's talk about "Beholding people and loving them". That is something I have felt like I have needed to do. I also really enjoyed all the talks on listening to the spirit and acting on the first impression we receive. The Living Christ was also a big topic so go home and read it! Such and blessing to have a living prophet and to be able to hear him speak.

Sorry for the short email, I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!


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ارشد جک باکر

Elder Jack Bakker