Well....Sunday was awesome! 2-26-2019

Samuel's Baptism

This last week was a pretty good week and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

On Wednesday, we had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Elder Dube of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He came and he did a multi-zone conference with us to help us to know how to be more effective missionaries. Man, I thought I was enthusiastic about the work, but this man is way more enthusiastic! All the missionaries were so amazed as too how excited he is about the work! He was smiling and was just so kind and encouraging. We were worried he was going to come and chastise us, but we were all wrong. He just came and told us how much he loved us and that he wanted to really help us. The Spirit was so powerful and strong. I can tell you that when we left we were all edified and inspired to do even better than what we were doing.

Here are the girls that I talked about last week. They were my converts from Batsonaa 

and I ran into them at the temple. :)

Here is an interesting story for you guys! There is a fried rice place that I usually go to and I eat there once or twice a week (I am their most valued customer because I eat there so much, ha ha). Next to the shop there is a women in another shop selling that sells sodas and water and stuff. Usually when we pass by, I say hi and talk to her a little bit. Well two weeks ago, I told her that we would love to teach her. She agreed and said to come next Friday. So we did. We came on Friday and we had the chance to teach her. Near the end of the lesson, we were asking her where she stays and if we could come and teach her family. She said that would be a great idea. Well right after that a man walked behind us and said, "So you are teaching my daughter now too??" I turned around to meet a man named Redeemer. So the funny thing is, we have been teaching him for about three weeks now and he is progressing and he is reading the Book of Mormon! I looked at the girl we were teaching, (her name is Sarah by the way) and I said, "That's your dad??" She said "Yep!" I was completely shocked but was so happy to find out that we had been teaching her dad. :)

Cleaning the baptism font, ha ha.

We finally baptized Samuel on Sunday! On Saturday we came and taught him about temple and family history work and we were telling him how important it is too do temple work for our ancestors. His first question was, "Can I do it for all of my ancestors???" We said "Yep! Why not??" He was so excited. He told us that a lot of his family members were not Christian at all and that they were traditionalists and what not. So he was super excited to give them that same opportunity to let them live with Heavenly Father again. After the lesson, we invited him to pray and I want to share with you something he said in his prayer. He said, "Heavenly father, thank you for this restored gospel which I know too be true." I haven't heard anyone say that in a prayer before they were baptized. Samuel is one of a kind. He just wants to learn and grow in the church so bad. After he was baptized, he just smiled. The bishopric gave a short talk after the baptism to encourage him as he continues learning. The whole time he was just smiling. When I went to shake his hand after the service he just gave me a huge hug and said thank you. I am so lucky to have had the chance to teach  him. 

And to make Sunday even better, we were planning on having two or three investigators at church. Well, to our great surprise, we had seven! One of them was the women we taught on Friday for the first time and we had invited her to church. She came and said she loved it! Another guy just walked in and he said that he wants to learn and join the church because he has heard so much about it! Well I want you all to know, the Lord does miracles especially when we don't expect it. Keep searching for those experiences. That is my invitation to you all. Search for those spiritual experiences and I know it will become a habit for you and you will start to see miracles every day in your lives.

Sincerely,

Elder Baird