HEY HEY HEYYY!!!!!

Why hello there everyone.

This week has been mega cray cray! Sooo busy! Sooo good though! It is amazing how God will never let you fail when you are on His errand. AHH I want to tell you everything I have been learning!!! But that would take like 87 years and we all know that when I start talking about what I am learning about the Gospel, I take up a half an hour in my farewell talk.

So George didn't get baptized. But we are still going to be working on him! It probably wasn't very good of us to be cramming everything into him that we had to teach him this week, because I don't think he really had time to gain a testimony of it. We met with him every day to go over the commandments with him, but for whatever reason, he never told us he had a problem with drinking coffee! Even when we were practicing the baptismal questions! That means we probably did something bad on our end because it shows he may not fully trust us... which makes me sad. But we will work on that. So when George came out of the interview, he was kinda bummed, but there is no whey in the protein that we are going to let him give up! He is so amazing, and I just love him so much! Did I mention that He is a WWII vet? Its true! He was in the marine corps and his brother was in the navy! He is just the best.

So Guess WHAT?! A miracle happened! Even though that shouldn't be much of a surprise, it is still just so amazing the things that Heavenly Father sees and plans for His children. So every Thursday is our walking day right? So we basically fast from using our car. Well last Thursday we had an appointment that we thought might not be that far away to walk to, so we started walking... Well it turned out to be WHEY farther than we thought, but there wasn't really much else we could do at that moment but keep walking. So we did. As we were walking, we met this super wonderful woman at a cross-walk named Alexis. We started talking with her a little bit, and she was super open and sweet, and almost one of the first questions she asked was "what is the difference between your temples and your churches?" WHAT? Like the perfect question ever to lead into all sorts of awesome gospel conversations! So we invited her to come to church with us on Sunday! She accepted, and we exchanged numbers so we could keep in contact. We said goodbye, and then we turned around to keep walking and what do we realize? We are right in front of one of the housing complexes that a family in our ward lives in. So we go knock on the door and ask desperately for a ride. Sis Allen (the member mom) says that of course she can give us a ride to our appointment. She said that we had come at exactly the right time because she was just about to take her young (CUTE) son to kindergarten. As we were driving she mentioned to us that she was really grateful that we stopped by because she hadn't been feeling the greatest and really needed to do that service for us. It was such a blessing!!!

Well, Alexis texted us and told us she was sorry that she couldn't come to church with us like she had planned, but then she asked if there was a time that we could set up to meet! WHAT? So we have already taught her two lessons, and she came to the Womens Conference, AND she came to church the next day, AND she is praying about a baptismal date (she told us that she wants to be on the "fast track" for baptism), AND we have another appointment with her this week. WWHHAATTT?!?!?!? MIRACLESSS!!!!!! There are even so many more miracles that I can't even describe... just kidding I'll describe one more. So on our way to our first appointment with Alexis, we got caught in traffic, and we were already running a few minutes late, so we ended up being a HALF AN HOUR LATE to her appointment... we are terrible missionaries. BUT! The member that we had as a team up to go with us got there right on time, and they were able to talk and discuss things until we got there! All the members of our ward are SO NICE!!!! They seriously save us on Sundays because we have so many investigators coming with us to church that its like a mad house, and I my companion and I can't split up! So it is such a blessing that whenever we ditch one investigator to take a different one to class, the members always pick up the slack and talk to them or lead them in the direction of where to go. ALWAYS BE THAT KIND OF MEMBER!!!!!!! ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS!!! Talk to the new people at church and love them and befriend them! If for no other reason but to help the missionaries out! But if you start doing that, the rest will come.

But the Women's Conference though!!!!!! IT WAS MAGNIFICENT!!!! It was honestly just what I needed! Just what all of us sisters needed apparently, because the spirit was SO strong! Everything was just SO inspired! I can't wait to listen to it over and over again and get more and more out of Elder Uchtdorf's parable. I just love the word of the Lord. God is just the best, isn't He?!

Anyways... Umm well I guess something else that you might find interesting is that I got a free pair of Nike tennis shoes. Seriously, a pair of brand- new, white and blue Nike tennis shoes were left in our apartment when we moved in. And I was like, "sweet! If no one claims them and asks for them back I am totally going to wash them and wear them." And so I did! ...I should have taken a picture... I'll send you one next week.

So we are doing a Family History booth this Saturday! Im super excited!!! I will probably be talking all about it in my next email.

I love you all SO SO SO SO much!!!!! I love your letters and emails and especially your prayers. You are all fabulous and PRECIOUS children of Heavenly Father, and He loves you SOOOOO much more than  even your mother could. Not even joking. Keep being such great examples! And remember: Once a member, always a missionary!!! (that's the new slogan we made up for our ward )

LOVE

Sister Baine! :)

 fall is coming to NJ!!!!! this is the view of the yard from our back porch! :)

IM BACK!

EVERYONE! HELLO!

So this week has been kinda weird... and yes I am sorry I am writing so late.... Like I said it has been kind of a weird week... But we have someone on date to be baptized!!! He is a 92 year- old man named George! Actually, almost all of our investigators have accepted a baptismal invitation, but we just have to set a date we can work for! I guess that is the beauty of committing to baptism in the first lesson...

Anyways! Fun fact, we got to help out in a soup kitchen for the first time this week! We will be doing it as a service project every Friday from now on... The homeless people in this fancy part of Jersey are not at all like the homeless people I've ever seen anywhere else though haha. They are pretty nicely kept hobos... Funny story though... so last week on Thursday we were riding the train home from an appointment, and we met a man named Nique at the station and talked to him a little about the Gospel, you know gave him a card and everything. Well he was actually one of the people that came in to the soup kitchen to get food on Friday! It was cool to get to talk to him again... but he barely even remembered us haha, thats ok.

So on Saturday we did a value color run with the Young Women because we had an investigator there named Stephanie, and it was so fun!!! I didn't get as colored as I wanted to, but thats ok, because it was still awesome. I wish I were still in Young Womens sometimes haha. They had some cool Taylor Swift music playing though, and it was SO hard for me not to dance! The funniest part though was that we did the color run in the parking lot of the church right? Well, we didnt know that there was apparently a big huge meeting going on that day with some missionaries and even an area 70 for some service thing!! So while we are all out there covered in colored chalk watching these beehives dance their hearts out, Elders from the mission are walking up in their nice white shirts and suits asking us what was going on haha. We are just glad that the area seventy didn't see us! It was a blast though. 

 

We have still been seeing tons of miracles this week! God is so good, and He loves us so much. I love hearing from all of you!!! Please keep me posted on everything that has been going on! I love you so much! Sorry this letter is kind of short... But I will make it up to you next week haha!

Week of Miracles

THIS HAS BEEN A WEEK OF COMPLETELY NOTHING BUT MIRACLESSSS!!!!!!!!! It has honestly been so amazing. I didn't even know that there could possibly be so many miracles in 1 week. So as I attempt to describe all of the awesome, crazy things that have been happening, you prolly won't have any idea who I am talking about, but I'll do my best to explain.

So on Monday it was almost time to go home for the night, but we had like 15 more minutes, so we walked downtown a couple blocks to do some street contacting. Well right when we came out of our driveway, there was a guy up the street from us taking out his garbage. I wanted to go talk to him, but I had kind of a funny feeling, so we stood there awkwardly in the street debating of whether we should go talk to him or not, but then Sis Roundy said he might be drunk because he was kind of singing to himself and then he went inside. So we decided to just go down to main street and contact. Well, almost right when we walked into town we passed a lady and said hi to her, and then she turned around and asked what organization we were from because she saw our nametags. We found out her name was Melissa, and we talked with her for nearly a half an hour. We attempted to set up an appointment with her, but we had to just leave her with a Book of Mormon and our number. When we walked back we realized that we would have missed her if we hadn't waffled in the street for 5 minutes haha.

Then you'll never guess what happened on Tuesday. We had gotten a call FROM A MEMBER that he wanted us to come over at a certain time so we could go visit his neighbor and teach her. Well we were running a little bit late that day, and went over there and she wasn't home. So we talked for a while with the member and then went back over to try again, and she was there! We didn't get a return appointment, but we definitely had a good discussion with her. We would have missed her completely if we hadn't been running late, because we would have probably missed her again and just gone home. Later that day we visited with a 92 year old man named George and had a WONDERFUL lesson with him about the plan of salvation. The Spirit was so strong, and he was also a member referral with the member present, and he has been really progressing. Then later we met with another one of our investigators named Chris (who was also a former investigator and member referral with the member present for the lesson). One of the first things he said to us was "So you know how last time when we met I said I didn't have any problems for Christ to help me with? Well I got one yesterday." He then told us of a trial that had just popped up that was really serious, and how he had been keeping his commitments to read and pray. We talked with him about what he had been reading, and he took notes through the whole lesson!

On Wednesday we met a young man named Lukas. He had been a former investigator, but had been dropped a year or so ago. Our bishop mentioned him to us and we found him, gave him a call and set a time to meet! The only problem was, we didn't have a member yet to go with us. We called and texted a couple of people, but then literally a half an hour before the appointment a Bother Hockenjos said he could go with us! IT WAS SUCH A BLESSING!!!! The lesson was awesome and Lukas connected with the him so well! Honestly, Brother Hockenjos probably did 3/4ths of our job that day. They just talked and got to know each other and discussed the Gospel and their histories with it and everything, and then us sisters had some time at the end to ask some questions, and committed him to be baptized. WHAT?! Then we had dinner with a member, and at the end she took a picture of us to send to our parents (hopefully you got it Mom).

So Thursday was crazy. We had to schedule in two dinners. One was a member (which was sooooooo good! and she made us the best chocolate cake I have ever had) and then right afterwards we were going to meet at a diner with another member and less active. Well the first dinner wasn't that far away, so we were going to walk, but then it ended up raining alllll dayyy lonnng. But it was ok cuz it was my first NJ rainy day so it was cool. But anyways, Thursday is our walking day where basically the mission has a car fast and can't drive. So she was kind enough to pick us up and then afterwards she was so nice as to drive us to the diner. Which was a miracle, because if we hadn't had dinner with her before, we would have had to walk an hour in the rain to get to the diner which was in a different city. So we get to the diner, and guess what? The less active (which we found out later wasn't really a less active per say) had brought her niece with her who was not a member! We found out that her name was Tracy and she was part of a different church where she really liked it, but mentioned a couple of times that she didn't always feel all the way filled up with the Spirit when she would study the Bible sometimes, like she knew that there was more that she could be experiencing. So (as I ate my dinner appetizer of fried zucchini spears) we had the BEST discussion about the sacrament! the spirit was so strong as we read from the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 18 about how the people were filled when they took the sacrament. At the end of the night we had an appointment set up to go and see Tracy again and give her a big Book of Mormon! And her aunt is going to be there!

Friday we had a loooong training meeting that was SO AWESOME!!!! I am learning so much here! And they feed us good lunches at those meetings, so that's good. But then we went to the doctor for Sis Roundy and ended up missing one of our appointments with Chris because they took so long. But the awesome thing is that the member that was going to go with us is named Brother LaConte, and he is a recent convert. He still went to the appointment and got to talk a little bit with Chris even though we weren't there! When we finally got out of the doc, it was too late to meet with Chris, but we did get to go visit a handicapped member with Brother LaConte, and then he took us out to dinner and we got to talk about some gospel principles with him.

Saturday we had the best comp inventory ever! I love having problems come up, because then after being able to work them out Sis Roundy and I are even closer than we were before and have the spirit even stronger! We also had an appointment scheduled with a new investigator named James, but just when we arrived we got a call from a referral we had been trying to contact. So we stayed in the car and talked to him for a minute, and even though he didn't want to meet with us, we got to bear our testimony to him and invite him to keep searching. Right when we were ending the conversation, James pulled up in to his driveway! If we hadn't gotten that call when we did, we probably would have just left when he didn't answer the door! Also, when the member pulled up, we watched her get out of her car and then see her friend from the ward and go talk to her and give her a hug. We didn't get much time with him, but the sister member we brought with us knew James' grandmother who was a member! The spirit was present and we had a great lesson! Then right after that we went over to Chris' house and got to meet his little 3-year old boy named John. He was so cute! We had Brother LaConte with us again, and had felt prompted to center the lesson on Sabbath day observance and then invite him to come to church. The lesson was a little bit rough between John being loud with his toys and going off on random tangents, but it was still good. We discovered another miracle in that lesson though! So Chris told us that he had been a smoker like a week before we had first met, but with the money problems he had been having, he didn't have enough money to buy them, so he had just stopped smoking!!!! Its so amazing that not only did these trials bring Him closer to Christ, but they also helped him stop smoking! WHAT?! After that we went to another RC who lived in a really sketchy hotel, so it was a miracle that we got out of that place alive haha.

Sunday we had ward counsel at 7:30am, then church at 9, then coordination meeting for an hour right after that, we were there for a while, but it was worth it. We also had George and Stephanie (another one of our AWESOME investigators) come to church! Lukas and Chris were supposed to come to, but they didn't show up. But its ok, because the Lord blessed us with two new investigators at church! A mother and her handicapped daughter just SHOWED UP in sacrament meeting! The mom's name is Ann and her daughter is Kristin, and they had apparently been former investigators, but they connected really well with the members, and we have an appointment with them! After all that crazy church, we went home and stuffed ourselves full of top ramen, and then got a call from a member in our family saying that if we didn't have anyone scheduled to feed us that day to come over and eat with them. So we had two lunch/dinners. I have never been so stuffed. But then we went over to Stephanie's house to talk with her about church and teach her about the plan of salvation, and she said that Sis Cummings (a member mom she is close to who gave her a ride to church) said that their family likes to keep the Sabbath Day holy by keeping their church clothes on, and Stephanie really like that. So guess what. She kept her church clothes on all day to keep the Sabbath day and she said she felt really good all day long. She loved church, and when we taught her the POS, she said she felt like she was understanding everything way easier than she had been before. It was AWSOME!

OK!!! Well I'm sorry I practically barfed up my entire week to you all, but it is such a testimony to me that this is the Lord's time that I am borrowing. He perfectly orchestrates everything to help His children. He truly is in the details of our lives and this is His work!!! I love you all so much! Keep being so awesome! and thank you SO MUCH for your prayers!

Sis Baine :)

Ellis Island

HOLA!!!!!!

So...... I am officially a month and two days old!!!!!!!!!! I entered

the MTC on August 5th! And now I'm pretty much pro... Just kidding I'm

pretty much no. All your emails are so awesome!!!!! It is awesome to

hear from youuuu! I can seriously feel your prayers!

Well this is pretty much the best area in the whole entire world. Never

in my whole entire life have I ever been in a ward that was so

awesome. The bishop is so cool, and introduced us to the ward as the

best missionaries ever. Our ward mission leader is a former stake

president and high council member. Everyone that got up for fast and

testimony meeting talked about how they had been doing missionary work

and loved the gospel. We have some recent converts who are literally

setting up appointments with less actives and inviting us to go to

them! We are getting meals at least twice a week and Bishop says that

he wants every family in the Ward, especially less actives to have us

over for dinner at least once a month. (I am never going to eat

anything but dinner until I leave....) and they are all so nice!!! I

prolly already said this once before in my letters, but I feel so

spoiled!!!! I already know I am going to be so sad when I leave

here...

Do you know how important it is to talk? It is SO important to talk.
Especially to your companion. Sis Roundy and I had the best experience
with comp inventory this week. Honestly it felt like the process of
repentance for me. I was so unwilling to talk, and because of that it
was impairing our ability to work together and have the spirit. I was
prideful and didn't want to admit that some things were bothering me
and I was having a hard time. But the Lords promises are real! He gave
me the impression that I needed to talk things out with her, and as I
relied on the Atonement to give me the ability to do so, it was such a
rewarding experience. I feel so light and happy now!!! The Atonement
TRULY does heal all pain and discomfort and Christ keeps His promises.
He will never leave you comfortless. I PROMISE YOU!!! If you humble
yourself to allow your Savior to help you, HE WILL! AHH!!! I just love
the Atonement so much! I could talk and testify about it all day!
...but I won't cuz that's not practical.

So we got to go to Ellis Island this week! It was so cool! And I
promise you will all get souvenirs :-) We work at the National Museum
of Immigration and help people find their family members that came
through Ellis Island. It is super cool, and is an awesome way to
practice family history!

So the mission president and his wife live in our area and go to our Ward, and the other day Sis Taggart came to work with us for a couple hours in the evening... She is so funny hahaha literally she is the best. I thought I would be super nervous, but she is so cute and awesome.

Uhhh.... So I don't really know what to talk about.... Except that it is so cool when investigators finally begin to trust you. There is such a difference between those who trust you and those who don't because the ones who don't can't understand anything you try to teach them! They ask questions not to understand but to challenge. I love these people though. It is hard to really find who is poor in spirit here though. Everyone is usually so wealthy. That we have to dig a little bit to learn people's hearts, but it's so great. I love it here and the leaves are finally starting to change color!

Ok, well I love you all so much!!!!! You are the BEST!!!!!! 😘

-sis Baine :)