Happy New Year!

My companion and I, ha ha. Happy New Year!

Well, I hope you guys had a great New Years day and that you celebrated big on my birthday!!! :)

Man! New Years Day here was loud, ha ha. It's bigger than Christmas to be honest! They light off fireworks all night long. The clubs are blasting there music all night long, man it was crazy! Then all the churches were having their end of year meetings, ha ha. It's kind of interesting hearing so many churches speaking in tongues all at once (speaking in tongues here means you speak gibberish and that you can only understand through the spirit, which pretty much it's nonsense, ha ha).

Norkplim wanted to join in, ha ha!

These are some of my favorite kids to play with. :)

The kids enjoyed the New Years Day as well. :)

On Friday of last week, we got to go to a branch Christmas party for the Dzodze branch. At first it started out kind of slow and seemed like it was going to be boring, ha ha, but it ended up actually being a blast! While we were there Sister Norkplim gave Elder Sebuliba and I matching African shirts and so it was a pretty good party! :)

Here is my first African shirt :) I honestly love it!

So I have a new companion and his name is Elder Bidi and he is from the Ivory Coast. Let me just say that he is way cool! He loves soccer with a passion, he knows the scriptures like no one I have ever seen, and he is just a super fun and a happy guy. I love teaching with him and am so glad I have the chance to serve with him!

I rubbed my thumb raw peeling the corn seeds of the dried corn, ha ha.

Me grinding the pepe.

On Sunday, since it was my birthday, sister Norkplim, her sister, her niece and a bunch of the nieces friends put together a birthday party for me. :) They made me fufu and some really good cake! Man! It was just so much fun! All the people here are just so kind and accepting and it just makes me feel at home. :)

My birthday dinner, fufu and light soup with fresh tilapia on top. :)

My mom sent me with some remote control cars to open on my birthday. It just shows you how much my mom loves me. :)

So my spiritual experience that happened this week was one you have probably all heard before from different missionaries, but I feel as though I should share mine with you. We were biking around on Saturday and we were just looking for people to teach. We went down a road called Tobacco block (ha ha interesting name). We passed by a guy who was sitting on his porch just looking at his phone. I had a thought to talk to him but then I just said to myself "nah I won't bother him." Then we biked down that road for a minute, found no one, then we came back. So we had passed the same guy again and I waved to him and then rode for about another 30 feet. I just had a strong feeling to stop. So I did. I told my companion that I had a feeling to stop. He asked what I wanted to do. I then had the impression to go back to that guy. Bear in mind, I had already passed him twice and I am stopped pretty close to him and he is just staring at me. So we turned around and rode towards him to talk.I introduced myself to him and told him what we do. He said he was glad to meet us because he sees us almost every day while he is working. So I gave him our number and a pamphlet and left.

I don't know why I had such a strong prompting to meet the guy, but I feel as if something may come out of it. So my small message to you all is that you should act on all your promptings. Sometimes we have to stop and stand still to listen to what the Lord wants us to do. It's what I did and I know that if we stop and listen carefully, we will hear that still small voice directing us. It is my firm testimony that God helps us all by giving us the gift of the Holy Ghost. I know that the Holy Ghost guides and directs us all. We just have to be listening to it. I love you all and hope you have a good week! :)

Sincerely,

Elder Baird

Oh man, my mom sent me Jiffy Pop and it is honestly the best thing ever!

Mom's notes:

Elder Baird loves his new companion "so much!" His name is Elder Bidi. He said, "He is just super fun. He loves to just have a good time and teaching with him is one of the coolest things because him and I just work so well together."

His baptism that was scheduled for this past Sunday didn't work out. They are hoping to be able to do it this coming Sunday, if it works out.

Elder Baird said that the party was really fun! "I had a really good time! We just ate a ton of food and danced to music and took a bunch of pictures. ha ha (His pictures of the party wouldn't load, hopefully, he can do it next week.)

This week he will still be showing Elder Bidi around Akatsi. He said that he didn't have any travel plans so they will just be teaching. Which he said would be really good. He said that he has seen many different sides of missionary work.

Finally, I asked how he is doing with homesickness and he said, "I am doing really well. The homesickness just comes in at random times. When I look at my pictures I get pretty sad, but it's OK. :) My spirits are very high. :) (This Mom can be very happy with that!)

Lastly, here are some pictures that I found on Facebook:

 From Sister Keye's: "2nd Multi Zone Conference today ..."

From Dian Elom, "He is very worrisome but I like him a lot cause he is fun to be with. It was his bday @31dec" (Wondering what he did to be so worrisome? :) )

Elder Bidi and Elder Baird celebrating the New Year and his 19 birthday! :)

This one by Sister Keye's, "The Elves are hard at work at the Mission Home!"

Piece of our precious phone call! :)