You're just jealous...

Hola Mi Familia y Amigos!!!!

Do you gusta my Espanol? Haha We here in Jersey call it Spanglish. 

But HOLY TOLITO this week has been JAM PACKEDDDD!!!!!! But since I don't want to take 82 years telling you every little detail (which would probably be a little TMI) I wanted to tell you about the most important thing that happened this week! I GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE!!! It was our zone's turn to go to the temple this Wednesday, and it was one of the coolest experiences of my wee life! The day before I  felt like I needed to fast to prepare myself, and it was such a miracle, because a lot of times I have trouble keeping my thoughts focused on missionary work 24/7. But as I looked back that night, I realized that Heavenly Father had truly blessed me with that ability to keep my thoughts in check, on Jesus Christ and the work, and the Spirit with me. What better way for Heavenly Father to help prepare me? 

Anyways, it became apparent that morning throughout our journeys and adventures on the way to the temple that we were going to be very pressed for time before the session started. Through a series of events we barely made it to the temple with an hour to spare. However, my Angel Mother had sent me some family names to do while I am out here on my mission, but they still needed to be printed and have their inititories done! So I went and talked to one of the temple workers, and she said that there should be enough time to get it all done, but then she disappeared to go do the names for the session! In that moment, I realized that the names that I wad holding were just as important and special as anyone else that I could help on my mission. Helping them make covenants is just as crucial as helping Chris and Alexis make covenants! So I went back down and begged one of the workers who was doing clothing if she would be willing to help and do just the two inititories before the session! And she did! She and one of the other Senior Sisters did the work and we were able to make the session with five minutes to spare! It was such a miracle!!!! The session was AMAZING!!! I learned more and made more connections in that session than I ever have before! Sister Roundy and I were the last ones to leave the Celestial Room, and it was so special. I am so thankful for temples. They are without a doubt, Holy Places of God. 

The next day we went to Ellis Island again, which is always fun. However, because it was miserable and rainy outside and also because of all the scary things that have been going on lately on the News about New York and other things in the world, there wasn't a lot of activity there... but it was still fun. 

It has been such a busy week... But it will always be that way. This is a busy world. There will always be things to do and places to go and people to see. There will always be a list of things to check off and responsibilities to follow through with. Appointments to make and time to spend is always going to be a struggle. The clock is merciless. We live our lives from time to time and o'clock to o'clock. And then what happens? We have no time left! We look back and say "What in the freak just happened? WHERE DID THE TIME GO???" That is how i have already been feeling! I only have like 14 months left on my mission!!!!!!!! WHAT?!?!?! It is going by so fast and i don't even remember what I did! I have been looking for a cure for this problem. I have seriously been searching for something to make this time more meaningful. AND GUESS WHAT? HEAVENLY FATHER ANSWERED MY PRAYER! We went to a mini training this week before our interviews, they talked about this exact thing. You know what they said could be a solution? Do the hard things. Out here sometimes we missionaries tend to avoid doing the things that are hard for us, like knocking doors, or comp inventory, or weekly planning, or role plays. They aren't always fun! They are awkward and lame! Yet that is what I am called to do! When we do the hard things, we are making our mission more memorable. The clock will keep ticking, but we will look back and see at all the fears we faced. Maybe the hard thing is to stop for a time. Be with the family. Maybe the hard thing is to trust someone. Maybe the hard thing is to take time to read your scriptures. I don't know what your hard thing is.... but I know that God knows. And he will show you how you can make every minute of your life meaningful, so that you can look back at a time saturated with faith. And then when you don't do the hard things, that will be meaningful too! :)

Ok, well I will get off my soap box now. What is a soap box? Anyways, I hope that you are all doing well, even though there are some scary things going on in the world. I love you all so much and I am so thankful for your prayers and letters! You are all amazing and make sure that you love your family for rmeeeee!!!!!!!!

Sister Baine




P.S. It was also Sister Roundy's birthday this Sunday!!!!! Happy Birthdayyyyy!!!!! She is 21 and now legal to drink!!! yippeeee!!!!!! We had a party... But anyways... I love her so much, so please pray for her too.... even though she is a silly girl.

We went over to a member's house for dinner and she had TWO birthday cakes!!! We had a right jolly time!!! 

Hello Errybody!!!!

So you'll never guess what happened this weekend! Well you probably can because I told you what it was last week, but CHRIS GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!! YESS!!!!!!!!! I have never been so happy in my life! It was so amazing and so special! It was a completely booked week, and an even busier weekend! We were stressing Friday night because we didn't know how many people were going to be there and who was setting up and no one was bringing any treats and we were like AHH! Some of the members from the ward and the Elders Quorum were over at Alexis' house at 9 that morning to finally help her move out (FINALLY!), and then we had to book it home to get changed and finish getting cupcakes frosted for the baptism, then we booked it over to the church where our ward mission leader was filling the font, and Chris was already there too with his son. We started setting up the room for the baptism and we were so worried that he would feel bad because it wasn't going to be as nice or well attended as Alexis' was.. but everything worked out great! Quite a few people showed up that had helped Chris and there was such a sweet spirit! When he came up out of the water there was just a minute where he looked up at his 3 year-old son John and just smiled the biggest smile ever! It was so touching! Then we went back and finished the rest of the ceremony, and the spirit was truly present! The next day he was confirmed and it was just as amazing! During the sacrament he was able to renew his covenants for the first time! Yesterday was also the primary program and it was soooo good! Seriously the most spiritual primary program ever! And hilarious because that is just how little kids are. 

Here are the tree stooges! Larry, Mo, and Curly!!! 

 

I don't want to compare Chis' baptism to Alexis' because they are both different people that took different journeys and they were different experiences, but Chirs' baptism was so much more of a relief! I think it is because we had to work so much harder with him and it took him a lot longer to take this step that made it that much more rewarding. Honestly, when he went in for his interview I was scared out of my mind! I don't know why or what I was afraid of, but it was such an amazing feeling when he came out and was ready to go! I love this work so much!

Lets see.... what else has happened this week.... well the area book app on our ipads crashed, so we got to use paper planners for a couple of days! That was super fun actually haha I might just do that from now on. Oh yeah! And guess what else was a miracle at the baptism?! Stephanie came! She is one of our investigators, only we have been really sad because she hasn't really contacted us or let us come and see her in a long time. We have dropped by a couple of times, but she has never been home. Apparently she has been really stressed with some things in her life lately, but we invited her to the baptism and she came!!! It was such a blessing, and the fact that she came and still loves the gospel and talked to us after such a long time tells me that she is prepared and elect. The only problem is that because she is still in high school, her parents wont let her get baptized until she moves out, so that is really hard and we aren't quite sure what to do about that... but the Lord knows!

Anyways, the weather here is off and on cold and warm. Last week it got pretty cold, but then today it is super beautiful again! So I don't even know what to do... Oh yeah! funny story, so last P-day after I wrote you guys, we went over to a chapel to play some sports and stuff, and when we got there all the other missionaries were running out of the building! We were like 'what?' and then we heard the smoke alarm going off and saw smoke billowing out of the building!!! then we were like "WHAT?!" And we asked what had happened and apparently one of the elders thought it would be funny to put an explosive in a pumpkin. So they made it and put it in the oven to bake and it caught the pan on fire and they had to use the fire extinguisher to put it out! Everything was fine, but two huge fire trucks showed up and that's when we decided to cha cha out of there real fast.... Hahahaha it was super hilarious though. Not for the elder though.... As the white handbook says "In all ways be wise and mature in your conduct."

The Holy Ghost is an amazing gift. It really is. I never thought I would have one of these experiences, but last night we had an hour to go contacting, so we prayed before we left, then got in the car and just started driving. Literally the spirit LED us to where we needed to be. We had driven on the road a thousand times, but we parked and started walking to the houses to knock, and then there was a girl walking out of her house named Kellyn! It was awesome! We talked to her and gave her a Book of Mormon, and got her information, and it was awesome! That whole street was just a miracle!! We placed like 5 other copies and had lessons with them! It was an amazing thing. And the coolest thing was that it wasn't as if the Holy Ghost said "you need to go here" or "talk to that person." I wouldn't even say that it was big or strong or noticeable enough to be called a feeling or thought or prompting, but it was! It was the most subtle thing in the world, like a soft nagging picture in my mind of where we needed to be, but when we talked to those people, it was undeniable that we were led there. I love being obedient!! I am so thankful for the gift of the Holy Ghost! If it is a good thought, DO IT! That is what I have learned is a prompting!

Well, I guess I should probably cha cha.... but can I just say that I have never seen so many huge piles of leaves in my life? There are so many trees here in Jersey that shed so many leaves that it is ridiculous!! There are so many that people don't even bother raking them up or bagging them. They just blow them all onto the street into HUGE piles and then street sweepers come and vacuum them up. It blows my mind... just like leaves blow in the wind...

Love you all a boatload!!!!

Sister Baine!

Dear Loved Ones!

I can't BELIEVE I didn't send you any of the pictures of Alexis' baptism! I repent, and will do better at that!

Well, guess what? This whole week I have been anxious out of my mind because transfers are on Tuesday and Sister Roundy and I had no idea what was happening! Thursday they said that if you were going to be training, they would call you, but neither of us got a call, so obviously we weren't training. So we had to wait until last night to get the transfer text, which tells who is getting transferred out of the area. Sister Roundy and I were both praying that we could stay together, and saying how we both felt like we weren't done here yet! Well last night I was in the middle of saying my prayer our phone vibrated saying that we got the transfer text! ....I really couldn't focus on my prayer after that haha... But guess what???? WE ARE STAYING TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER 6 MONTHS HERE!!!!! Heavenly Father definitely answers prayers!!!!!

....Well not much else exciting has happened this week... We had some YSA invitations to hand out, but the list they gave us to go off of was over a year old, so half of the people on it weren't even living there anymore haha, but at the very last house we visited we knocked on the door, and a lady answered and immediately she was just like "Oh come on in!" and so we went in, and she sat us down, and we found out that she was a less active! Her son was gone to California for school, but we had a really wonderful conversation with her and talked with her for a long time! It was really sad when she said she wasn't sure if she would ever come back to church, but we have a plan and we can't wait to go back and see her! When we were leaving, she gave us her number and invited us to come over for lunch sometime so we could talk more! When we were in Ward Council the next morning, we found out that no one had been able to see that less active in a long time, and we were able to talk to them about her! It was a miracle, and we are so thankful that we got to take part in that!

I love it here in New Jersey! It is so exciting to be here! Can I tell you of a revelation I had this week? So I have been really stressed out about how to enjoy being a missionary but not get comfortable to the point where I am just content with the work that I am doing. So the other night I was thinking about what to write in my journal about, and the spirit prompted me to start writing about mothers. So I did. I began to write about how mothers sacrifice of not only their physical energy, but also their emotional energy to truly help their children. About how they epitomize keeping their baptismal covenants to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. They truly do represent Christ and His witness of His name as they expend all their energies to give their love. Then I related this to myself and how as a missionary, it takes a lot of effort to love the people here, especially when those you teach and spend half of your week with use their agency to make bad decisions. It hurts! It takes a LOT to feel so much and open your heart to hurt! But I realized that that is exactly what a missionary is called to do. As a representative of Jesus Christ we are especially called to mourn and comfort and uplift and strengthen, but that also implies that we know how to do that, which means that we must know how they feel. Sometimes I have no idea what it feels like to be an investigator, but Jesus Christ does, and He knows how to succor them. He has the ability to enlarge hearts to have the capacity to feel. That is what a successful missionary is! If I want to find the most joy in the work here, it must needs be that I feel the sorrow too! Oh yeah.... its all comin together. I could go on and on and on.... but I should probably get off my high horse now before I get bucked haha, next week I will talk more about the scriptures that came to mind as well.

Anyways, I love you all so much! Heavenly Father loves you even more though.

Love, Sister Baine!

P.S. So last transfer I got an award for being a green dot driver!!! Aren't you so proud of me, Mom?! You can put this on the fridge. That was before I got 2 aggressive driving marks in the last couple of weeks.... oops haha sorry, Mom... hopefully I can still drive and they don't kick me out...  

P.P.S. Chris is scheduled to get baptized this Saturday!!! Hopefully He makes it!!!

BOO!!!!

How was everyone's Halloween?! Hope you all got boatloads of candy so that you get super fat and all of your teeth rot out!!! Just kidding that is probably going to be me because Sister Roundy's family sent us a package FULL of candy and popcorn and goodies and fun Halloween stuff! And we didn't get to do any trick or treating or anything because on both Friday and Saturday our whole mission had to be inside their apartments by 6. Apparently New Jersey has this thing on the night before Halloween called Mischief Night where a lot of people cause trouble and pull pranks, and in the sketchier areas it can get pretty bad. So we watched a ton of The District training videos and did weekly planning in that time... It was pretty rad.

But guess what the HIGHLIGHT of the week was? ALEXIS GOT BAPTIZED AND CONFIRMED!!!!!! Wednesday night was her baptism and it was absolutely just soooo beautiful! Her parents both came to support her and the spirit was sooo strong! Everything went so well and so many people came for it! Then Sunday was her confirmation, and even though it was a little bit harder to feel the Spirit and stuff because of all the CRYING BABAIES it was still awesome. And an added bonus was that our other investigator Chris came to both the Baptism and Confirmation too!! It was so funny because the Bishop was teasing him after the baptism and said that if he wanted to jump in to, there was still some water in the font! But then Chris told us later that afterwards when he was driving home he remembered that and almost turned around to take up the offer!!!! THE FRUMPY?! Heavenly Father blessed me with a really special experience though, because when we went to see Alexis a couple days after her baptism and talk about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the craziest feeling came over me. She was just sitting there talking to us about the experiences she had at the baptism, and I just started to leak tears out of my eyes!!! It kept happening the whole lesson every time she would start to talk!! At one point she even asked if  I needed a Benadryl for allergies or anything, but the spirit was touching me so strongly! It was as if Heavenly Father was giving me a glimpse of how precious she was to Him, and how much He loved her. He has some truly wonderful and honorable things planned for her in His kingdom, and He was so overjoyed that she was able to get baptized and access the blessings He has for her. I cannot wait to see  how she continues to progress, because I know that she is one of His elect and chosen daughters. It was so amazing!!! I don't know what I am going to do when I leave this area... hopefully that will never happen haha

Oh! And btw I forgot to tell you about an amazing miracle we had last week! So it was our walking day where we can't use our car, and we couldn't get a ride home from one of our appointments, so we were walking for days back to our apartment. Well, we were probably only a few minutes from home when we passed this lady with two young children. We kept walking, but then I felt the nagging!! So I knew we had to go back, but I should have followed that prompting earlier, because right then we crossed the cross walk and then had to wait for the little white walking man to light up again before we could go back to find her. BUT SHE WAS GONE!!!! She had disappeared from off the face of the earth! And I started panicking because this had happened before where I didn't heed the prompting right away, and then we could never find the people again! So we started walking and looking, and we ended up at the crossroads of a couple stores, and we had no idea where she would have gone, but standing there wouldn't do anything, so we decided to go in the biggest store right in front of us, and we were just PRAYING that we would somehow find her. So we walk in, and start walking and looking down the isles, and then she was there right in front of us with the two kids!!! We went right up to her and started talking. Her name is Barbara and she is a nanny for those two little kids. She was raised Catholic, but was really receptive when we told her who we were and about what we believed. Meanwhile, this random lady passes us having this conversation in the store and says "Hi, Sisters!" And we were like WHAT??? Because unless you are a member, no one in Jersey calls us "sisters" like that. But we were like oh hi whatever and kept talking to Barbara. The spirit prompted us to tell her that we passed her on the street a while ago (and she nodded like she remembered) and that we felt like we needed to come back to find her and talk to her because Heavenly Father wanted us to tell her that He loves her very much and He is aware of her. At that point her face kind of turned red, and she said that was amazing and really meant a lot to her because she had been having a really hard time lately. Just then, that lady that passed us came back up behind us and handed Sister Roundy and I both $20 bills, and said have lunch on me tomorrow and then walked away!!!! WHAT?!?!?! WHAT IN THE FRUMPY JUST HAPPENED?!?!?! We were like wait what what do we do? We didn't want to chase after her and leave Barbara, but what just happened? We had never seen her before, and have never seen her since, but it was a miracle. We turned back to Barbara and she was just like woah... what was that.... we have no idea.... But then we left a Book of Mormon with her, our phone number, and the address to the church, and invited her to come to church on Sunday. She seemed really positive about it all, but I had the prompting to do more and ask for her contact information so that we could set up a time to go and see her.... but guess what... I didn't.... For some reason I kept telling myself that we had done enough and that was good.... But NO!!!! We left the store to look for that one lady who gave us the money and couldn't find her, but decided to kneel down on the grass and say a prayer of gratitude. When we looked up, I saw Barbara and the two kids walking again, and AGAIN I go the prompting to get her information, but AGAIN I ignored it. WHY??? WHY DID I IGNORE IT?! I don't even know... I have no excuse... I guess I thought that I had followed enough promptings for the day, and we had seen enough miracles... but we haven't seen her or heard from her since... she said the street she lives on... but we contacted half of it and no one knew her... hopefully the other half will allow us to find her. Moral of the story: NEVER go halfway!!! Heavenly Father knows what you are capable of, and that is why He guides you in what to do in His work. ALWAYS follow through with whatever you start, and never tell yourself the lie that you have done enough to be satisfied with, because in the end, you will know that you could have given more. It is like running a race, when you finish with energy still in you, you will always regret that you didn't give more to run faster.  Believe me, I know exactly how that feels... It is scary to give all, but when we do, we find the greatest rewards. Moral of the story number 2: Your desires to follow promptings will always be satisfied as you practice acting on them. Even though I had a delayed reaction to following the prompting, He still blessed us to find Barbara again. It is never too late to start following the promptings of the Spirit!

Anyways, sorry I have taken up 8 hours again, but I am loving the work here!!! It is great and I am learning so much! Thank you for all of you who have written me and prayed for me! I truly feel it, and Heaven knows I definitely need it! I love you all sooooooooooOOOOOO much and pray for you too! But I mostly pray that you are all spiritually safe and close to the Lord. Now I know how Alma felt when He saw the sons of Mosiah again when he was most joyful when he found out that they were all still his brothers in Christ. PLEASE DONT EVER LEAVE CHRIST!!!!!! Or else I will be really sad and have to beat you with the Iron Rod. Ok anyways I love you so much and hope everything is well!

BT THE WAY!!! In 3 days I will be 3 months old!!!! WHAT?!?!?! when did this happen!??!?! Time is going WHEY to fast.... I am going to start getting wrinkles...

Love you alllllll!!!!!!!