So tell me what you want, what you really really want! (1/26/17)

It is so weird that this time last year we had a blizzard, and now a
year later is it almost warm here haha. I am not joking, we have been
going running in the mornings for exercise because it hasn't even been
very cold! We have gotten a little bit of rain, but not a ton. It was
foggy yesterday, which was cool, and it is SUPER windy today... but i
know that you just LOVE hearing all about the weather here in Jersey
haha. I always say that when people start talking about the weather
its because it's awkward and the conversation needs to end...

So this week was like a rollercoaster... One day was good, then the
next day was bad... etc... We got like 3 new investigators and lost
them all in the same week... We have actually been getting some good
referrals! Both media referrals from Salt Lake, and member
referrals... and I guess I always just thought that any referrals we
got from members to teach their friends or family would automatically
be prepared and get baptized, and it would be great. Well I am
beginning to find out that that is not true haha. I have gotten more
referrals from members in this area than I ever have before, and the
only baptism has been Melvin... But its ok, because this is the Lords
work, and I know that things will get better, and we have been
promised baptisms!

One thing I have learned is that I LOVE Chinese people!!! I just adore
them! We taught Shawn's family again this week, and they are so sweet!
Shawn is getting ready to go back to China with them though, and it
makes me so sad! He has been here the whole time I have been here! I
think that between church and lessons and English class, I have seen
Shawn at least once a week every week since I got here! I love him so
much!! I seriously want to go to China and visit him and his family! I
am going to open up the China mission haha! It is crazy how much
freedom they DONT have in China... I never realized how controlling
they are there until Shawn was telling us about it. They dont even get
to decide what they want to do in life! Their careers are chosen for
them! Its crazy... but I love them all so much.

Oh yeah! And I dont remember if I have mentioned Alex and Ruth at all,
but they are the major animal lovers. Alex is Ruth's daughter, and she
just had her baby! We went over there the other night, and she was
having contractions already, and asked us to say a prayer with them,
so we did, and then got pictures of her little baby boy a day later!
So cute!!

So yesterday we went with Brother Marcel to finish the Branch Mission
Plan, and it took us all 4 HOURS yesterday! And that wasnt even the
first meeting we have had! Marcel thinks that in total it probably
took us about 20 hours to finish the plan... it is a DARN solid branch
(ward) mission plan though!

Anyway... I love you all a boatload.. sorry I dont have anything else
to tell you... for this week... wasnt too exciting... but It will be
next weeek!!!! :D Le quiero!!!!! MUAH!

Sister Baine :)

Yo Ho A Pirate's Life for Me (1/16/17)

Well this week has been exciting! Sister Hall is so awesome and SO
cute! This transfer has gotten off to a pretty great start! We are
working hard, and things are going well! We served at Ellis Island on
Saturday, and it was fun because we got to go with Sister Phillips and
her new companion, Sister Altidor. It was a blast, and afterwards we
went out to ice cream :)

Our people are being REALLY frustrating right now though, because
either it has been really hard to get in contact with them and see
them, or they just dont want to do anything -_- Our branch mission
leader says to just lay off them for a while and not worry about
pushing them to progress, but it is so hard! We are so afraid that if
we dont, they wont move at all... but I guess we have to trust our
leaders.

It is so crazy, but even though I am in my last transfer, i feel like
I still dont know ANYTHING!  I need an extension haha. But honestly
nothing too exciting has happened this week. We are feeling like we
need to do something different than what we have been doing in our
area thus far, because we dont have as many people to teach as we want
to... And we know that we need to focus on the less actives and part
member families and recent converts to find, but so far that hasnt
been working out so fabulously... so If you have any suggestions, let
me know!

Something fun happened this week though, so Justin Artiga, Melvin's
son, had a birthday party this last week and we stopped by for a
while. We partied and danced a whole bunch... JUST KIDDING!!!!! No it
was a dance party, but we didnt dance. We just stopped in to talk to
Melvin a little and give him his red Book of Mormon (which was a
regular BOM that we covered with cool red wallpaper), and talk to some
of the other people that came. So that was fun.

Well I dont know what else to say about this week, but I love you all
and I hope that all is going well!! :) MUAH!

Sister Baine

Oh yeah, and Shawn's wife and daughter came from China to visit him
before they all go back home! He brought them all to church on Sunday,
and it was SO COOL! I love Chinese people! I am going to live in China
when I grow up. It is so cool, and the people there are always so
nice! :D

RIP Sister Phil (1/9/17)

So this week was fair... we got a boatload of snow, which was kinda
fun.... but not to walk in. That was a pain. It was fun the first day,
but after that it all turned to slush and it wasn't very fun anymore.
-_- nothing too crazy or cool has happened this week though. Bummer :/

But yes, Sister Phillips is finally getting rid of me, and will be
moving to Maplewood. I am SUPER excited for her, because that area is
great! We will still be in the same zone, so we will still get to see
each other on P-days, which is super nice! My new companion will be
Sister Hall! I don't know her super well, but she is super sweet!

Well I think I am out of things to say... we threw a party for our
Branch Mission Leader, burned grapes in the microwave, talked to a guy
whose face was all beat up, and made another rap. Sister Phillips was
also kind of such, and now she gave me her stuffy nose -_- Esta bien.
Oh! We also finally got to eat at Tops Diner... this really nice lance
that we have been wanting to go to since we got here! And Melvin and
Justin took us out to go eat there :) happy day. Ok well I love you
all SO MUCHO!!! :) 😁😄❤️❤️😘😊😎te quiero MUCHO

Ciao
Hermana Baine


The big black guy with dreads is our BML haha

Strange things are happenin (1/2/17)

This week was nutso... we have had so many lessons, but still no one
is progressing haha. Mostly because they are all crazy. That miracle
guy, Dwayne, texted us after the first lesson that we had with him
saying that he had this huge crush on Sister Phillips and couldnt stop
thinking about her, so he didnt know if it was going to work out
meeting with us. We did our best to salvage the situation, but he
stopped responding to us, and wouldnt answer the door when we stopped
by... thats what I get for having a gorgeous companion haha.

Then we have Maria. She was a member referral, and one of the only
ones we have actually been able to meet with a lot. But she has her
own challenges! She has a really hard life, and is raising 3 REALLY
hard boys on her own in a crummy apartment. It has been so hard to
help these people... but I know that God does! So we will trust in
Him, and have faith that He will magnify our efforts.

We also met with these two brothers from Gambia! they are so cool...
even though they are Muslim haha. I dont know how that is going to
work out, but the spirit was really strong when we taught them the
restoration, and they said that they would read and pray about the
Book of Mormon! So thats awesome!

Shawn, our Chinese investigator is pretty much dropped... :( We have
worked so hard with him, and done everything that we know how to be
able to help him... But he still wont accept a date to be baptized
before he goes to China... We are so sad, and worried that he won't
actually come back and be baptized in two years... There are so many
complications... but literally all we can do now is leave it in the
Lords hands.

We also met with this lady named Ruth and her daughter Alex. She was a
media referral, and Sister Phillips met with her once before on
exchange with one of our members named Sister German. So we stopped by
again this week, and they were SO nice, and just let us right in! We
met Alex, and it was so funny, because right off the bat, Alex said
that she knew that we were Mormon missionaries and that our end goal
was baptism, but that she was Catholic and wasn't going to be
baptized. So we were like thats totally fine! We just want to talk
with you and your mom for a little bit! All the while this
conversation was going on, Ruth was bringing in orange juice and flan
for each of us on a giant platter haha. And then Ruth started going
off on animal cruelty and how horrible humans are to animals and how
we shouldnt eat meat etc... And it was so funny because Ada was
like... yes I agree, but i cant help it, I just love me a big ol'
steak! hahahaha it was hilarious! Then we got to talking about Jesus
and read some scriptures with them, and Alex started asking us all
these great questions, and we kept bringing up more and more
scriptures, and by the end they were both like "yes when is the next
time you can come over! Lets do tuesdays and thursdays! and where is
your church? We will be there!" Haha it was so awesome and the spirit
was so strong!! :D

New years eve was kind of fun... we went to Sister Germans house and
ate delicious food, and then went home and went to bed haha. But the
next day at church there were like 5 people that showed up in the
morning at the new time... its ok, because a lot of people were there
by the last hour!

Love you all so much! Hope you all have a wonderful new year!!! :)))
Sister Baine

Christmas Milagros!!! (12/26/16)

So this week Christmas threw up again, but this time for reals because
it was Christmas. But it still didn't feel like Christmas... it was
almost warm out, and we were just working all day and not having much
success because we didn't have anywhere to go haha, but it was still
good :) We went caroling Christmas Eve with the Spanish hermanas and
got two meal appointments out of it. Haha it is a good thing that I am
not in the Spanish program or I would be like 100 lbs heavier. It was
fun though. We went and saw the Pepe family (where the dad is a
member, but the wife and His 4 kids aren't) and that was fun.... they
are nut so though.... literally crazy haha but thats ok we still love
them.

So we had kind of a fun miracle this week. We got a media referral to
contact named Dwayne, so we called him, and he said he couldn't meet
with us yet because of work, but that he really wanted to. So we asked
him to read John 6 before we met with him. Well he texted us a few
minutes later and said "I read it." And we were like... wait.... did
we interpret that wrong? So we asked him, and he said "yeah I read it
right after you sent it to me" and we were like WHAT?! That's awesome!
Then we called him the next day and he asked us if we had any other
material for him to read, so we told him about the gospel library app,
and invited him to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Then
he texted a whole later and was like "oh that's cool that the
Lamanites are the ancestors of the American Indians... my grandma was
an Indian." WHAT?!?! We were like "this guy is already keeping
commitments and we haven't even met him!" Then he called us later and
told us about how much of a miracle it is that we had been introducing
him to all of this. He said that a few days earlier he had gotten ROKU
on his tv and downloaded the Mormon Channel. He started watching a
show about missionaries that was on there, and we were like
 .....what??? What was it called?
"Oh I don't remember the name of it, but it is about these
missionaries that go and teach people..."
 ....was it called The District?
 Yeah that was it! It's called the District!
 WHAT???? You're watching The District?!
Yeah it's super good I think I'll get my friends hooked on it haha but
then I called about a Book of Mormon, and you called me the next day
and gave me those scriptures, and I just feel like this is all meant
to be! I am so into this!
.......so yeah that's how the conversation went. Then the next day he
called us because he was confused about something in chapter 4 of 1
Nephi. He is SO AWESOME and we haven't even met him yet! :D
#miraclesstillhappen

So yeah! Anyways, I love you all and I hope you all had a very merry
Christmas! :) MUAH!




Ahhhh Newark....

Rap it up! (12/19/16)

Ok, well this week Christmas threw up... and Christmas hasnt even come yet...
So on Tuesday we had Traditions with the Taggarts, which is where our
whole zone went over to the mission home for breakfast and did some
others fun songs and games, etc. Then on Friday we had our All Mission
Christmas party which was super fun. Then Sunday was a mess haha.

So our lovely branch council thought that it would be a great idea to
put the missionaries in charge of an entire sacrament meeting... so we
arranged musical numbers and had practices, and put together talks etc
and it took about 3 weeks up until literally sacrament meeting started
to pull it off.... but we did it and it wasnt a disaster... BUT then
right afterwards we got asked to teach the youth, and then we had to
drive right to Morristown to rehearse for a musical number for the
missionary Christmas fireside, which took the entire rest of the
day... and then after all of that I found out that our branch council
liked our sacrament meeting so much that they want us to do the same
thing next week for Christmas. Joy. So yes, this week has been super
fun.

But last night actually was a blast, because I got to see a ton of
people from when I served in Morristown, including my recent convert,
Chris! :) And people from Scotch Plains and Plainsboro were there too!
It was so much fun.

Well, other than that we had a bunch of good lessons this week, even
though since Melvin got baptized, it seems like we have lost all of
our investigators... we either dropped them, they dropped us, or they
dropped off the face of the planet and we cant get in contact with
them... super depressing. But that's ok. That just means that we gotta
work harder! :D

Something really cool that we all did at Traditions with the Taggarts
was they gave us all a little red box and a piece of paper, and they
told us to take a few minutes to ponder and write down a gift that we
want to give Jesus Christ this next year. So I took that time, and I
really pondered on what He might want from me, and as soon as I
committed to give that gift to Him, I have been working on it every
day, and I have already started feeling different. Sister Taggart
showed us her Christmas gift box, and said that she has been keeping
records of the gifts she has given to Jesus since 1983. I invite you
to do the same if you feel like that would be good for you!

Well I am sorry that I dont have enough money to send all of you a
wonderful Christmas present this year... but know that I love all of
you and I wish you all a merry, MERRY Christmas! :D

SSSAAANNNNTTTAAAAA!!! (12/12/16)

Well in these last two weeks I think I have done more service than I have my entire mission combined! Not really, but we have done a LOT of service! Especially for He members and less actives in our area.... I think I mentioned last week that we raked a less actives leaves, and we helped some more youth rake a referrals leaves, and we helped a less active put up Christmas decorations and rearrange her furniture, and we made dinner for our branch president's fam too.... So hopefully they will give us more referrals! We have already been getting some, so that is exciting.... oh and we did community service in Newark... and I got these sweet 70s pants. 

What else happened this week? Mmmmm not much.... it snowed last night!!!! It was so fun, but we didn't get any videos or pics of it, which I am sad about :/ but other than that it has been a lot of rain... and when it isn't rainy it has been cold and windy... but the snow makes everything magical! Proof: last night when it started snowing we walked to our bus stop and started talking to this girl and then the elders walked up and we sang her Silent Night, and they showed her the video, and we got on our bus. But then on the bus we started talking to people, and this lady was getting on the bus with a big red shirt and a Santa hat... and the bus driver started flipping out like "What?! Mrs. Clause! I know just what I want for Christmas! I want a million dollars and a BMW, and a hot girlfriend who is really nice, and then I want..." and he just kept going on and on and on... and we were all laughing so hard at this dude... and the lady was laughing and her face was all red... and then we asked the bus driver his name, and He said it was Papi Churro.... HAHAHA. And THEN I made Sister Phillips stand up with me, and we sand Silent night for the whole bus, and the bus diver stopped, and wouldnt let anyone on or off until we finished hahaha... then we handed out cards to everyone, and Papi Churro invited us to his Christmas party haha. 

We had the primary program too and that was a mess/party. 

So anyways... Thats about it... I love you all!