Good, Better, Best.

We All have them. Weeks that are good, weeks that are better, and weeks that are best. This bast week was better. Better than last week at least. It was still stressful, but not as bad as before. I feel like I am getting back to normal. A lot of crazy things have happened these past 2 weeks or so and I'm not the only one in the mission who is just ready for this transfer to be over.

The transfer ends a week from tomorrow.

So those of you who have been sending letters to the address on Ferina Street don't send them there anymore!!!!

I don't know if I will be staying or going, but I don't want to miss any of your letters so just go back to sending them to the mission office address, which is:

Sister Jacqueline Bauer

6500 E. Atherton St.

Long Beach, CA 90815

This week was rough number wise. We didn't get very many lessons plus we had to drop Cecilia and Danielle. They just aren't progressing to Baptism. They enjoy our visits and stuff, but they said they aren't ready to "switch religions" yet. But we feel that all hope has not been lost yet. They will get baptized, just maybe not right now. But we will see how this week goes. They said they would still come to church and stuff, but they didn't come yesterday. So who knows what will happen.

We do have a new Investigator though. His name is Antoine King! He is a Gospel Rapper, He was in Jail for a while, he used to sell dope but wouldn't sell to pregnant women (He is a man of integrity), and got shot in an ally and almost died a couple of times... Then he found Jesus and has been a "follower" ever since! He's funny. We taught him the restoration and watched the 20 min. Rest. DVD. He said he liked it and believed that Joseph Smith really did see God and Jesus Christ. He said he liked the concept of our church being "Jesus Christ's Chruch". But he is very devout in "The Christian Liberty somethin or other..." I don't remember what it's called exactly. He just kept saying, "but you and I believe the same thing" with like everything we taught him. The only difference is the priesthood and that we have a prophet on the earth today. We will try to clarify that for him next time. But anyways. He is genuinly interested and wants to learn. So we will see what happens.

Well Anyways, that's about it for this week. I love all of you dearly! Make this week a good one! Happy Valentines day! Here's a video about the best kind of love there is!

Love Your Favorite Missionary Girl,

Sister Bauer

Pictures of the Van.

Crazy Week!!!!

Well, This week was incredibly crazy. It started out with my zone leader (Elder George) getting super sick and having to be rushed to the emergency room and ended with a baptism and a trip to the temple...

First things first, Elder George is my Zone Leader and he got rushed to the Emergency room. He started to lose his vision after a few days of the flu and they decided that was not a good sign. they took him there and he was there for about 3 days. Long story short, they thought it was viral, then bacterial, then back to viral meningitis, then ruled it out completely. Yesterday they moved him to a hospital at UCLA. They still don't know what is wrong, his parents are here and they have been for about a week. It was suuuuper scary and was really hard for me this week. I never knew how much I loved my obnoxious elders until they get sick and almost die!! (But really...)

That kinda threw the whole week off... and made it hard to concentrate on the work and stuff. Lots of other emotional things happened too... but that's besides the point!

But then we had a BAPTISM on Saturday!!! Yeah!!! Little Monique Obando! She is our 9 year old little ray of sunshine that we have been teaching. She cracks me uppp!!!! haha I love her!

There are some people I have met that I know God intended for me to meet and she is one of them. Along with her 13 year old sister Mia and her 5 year old sister Mariah. Those girls have some crazy bright futures and I fully intend on making sure they reach their full potential in life. (Facebook for liiiiife! :)

But of course sticking to the theme of the week, the baptism couldnt just go smoothly... no that would make too much sense.

So there was a car fire before. Sister Lindsey and I had to go outside to get something and we notice that a VAN WAS ON FIRE!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE...... So we did what any logical person would do and we ran inside and yelled, "SOMEONE'S CAR IS ON FIRE!!!!!!" haha....

So we ran in to grab our phone and call 911 and we told the elders that someones car was on fire. Elder Bengtzen was in the process of filling up the baptismal font with no shoes and didn't want to miss anything so he hurried out of the font and ran outside with a fire extinguisher with no shoes.... and starts to put out the fire. Well it didn't work and the fire department had to come and finish putting it out! It was CRAZY!!! The elders are just being elders and taking pictures and videos of the whole thing. Ugh! It was nuts! But I got to check "call 911" off my bucket list so that was a thrill!! :) haha

But then this morning we went to the temple... and the temple is ALWAYS amazing. God knows how to solve everyone's problems. We couldn't have been assigned to a better week to attend the temple. The whole zone just REALLY needed it. IN the picture below is

Elder Brock, Elder Begtzen, Elder Schooff, Sister Bauer, Sister Lindsey.

We have kinda been together a lot this week because of everything that has happened, but I couldn't imagine any better missionaries to experience the craziness with. Elder Schooff and Elder Brock are Elder Begtzen's temporary companions right now. Elder Schooff is our District Leader and he is THE BOMMMBBB!!! .com :)

Me and Sis Lindsey at the temple.

Also, something else cool that happened. CA has been having a SUPER bad drought. So on Sunday they had a state wide fast for rain... and guess what? Sunday night it poured!!!!

The church is so true it's ridiculous!!!

I love you all!!! Have a fantastic week.... I will try!!!! Pray for Elder George.

Much love!

Love, Your Favorite Missionary Girl!

Sister Bauer

The Miracle of the Atonement.

So this week was good.... in a weird way.

So, something that you all should know is that the Norwalk ward has a reputation for being full of crazy people! haha! And it definitely lives up to that reputation every Sunday! :) I love every second of it!

This past week we taught Monique twice, Danielle and Cecilia (Separately), but we didn't feel super great about the lessons we taught Danielle and Cecilia, they were kind of last minute and the things we had planned didn't work out.

There are 2 church buildings close to where we live, the stake center, and the Bloomfield building which is our building. But the stake center is closer, so often times we have lessons there. Anyways, so we had a last minute lesson with Danielle at the stake center and we were going to show her the Restoration dvd. We don't have a key to the library because it's not our building. So we called the other elders in our zone who's building it IS and they said they would come open it for us. We got to the building and went to find the elders... well they didn't tell us that they didn't actually have a key and theat they BREAK IN!!!! So they were in the process of breaking into the library when we brought our investigator in. They were using knives from the kitchen and when we told them that the girl with us was our investigator, the both froze and dropped what they were doing and said... "Well that's embarressing..." it was pretty hilarious. They didn't get it open and we didn't get to show her the DVD so we were kinda bummed. After that our lesson was just kinda thrown together and we didn't feel super good about it afterwards. Plus we were kind of off our games because of something that had happened the day before.

We have been working with this less active named Patrick. He is like 47 and hasn't been to church in years, plus he works on Sundays. So we have kind of been meeting with him and trying to help him get back on the right path a little bit. Well, the last time we met with him was like the week before Christmas and he texted us this past week and said he was sorry for avoiding us and that he wanted to meet this week. So we said ok and set up a time. We have to have someone with us because we can't be alone with him, but we couldn't find anyone to come with us to save our lives!!! So we met at the stake center outside so we were in public. He then proceeded to tell us that the reason that he had been avoiding us was because he had an "Impure thought" about us last time we met. Then continued and said that he was battling a "demon" in his head. He kept talking and flat out told us that he has a problem with pornography and that he objectifies women. Needless to say me and sister Lindsey were very disturbed and pretty much just ended the lesson right there and called our Zone Leaders. They met us at the church and gave us blessings. I felt so gross and I felt like the spirit had just left me!!!! The rest of that day and the next I still felt really gross!!! It was like the worst thing of my life!!!! I forget that there are creeps out there. We went ahead and passed him right along to the elders.... I think that would be for the best.

We had our lesson with Cecilia that same night, but we were both off of our game so we didn't feel like the lesson was that great. But she is continuing to read the Book of Mormon and told us that she felt peace when she reads it!  I think Cecilia is more interested than Danielle. Danielle told us that anyone who talks about God they let in their house. Danielle was meeting with J-Dubs not long ago. But Cecilia seems to have a real desire to know. We told her to pray before she reads and after she reads and she has! She's so great! The only thing that is hard is that she is SOOOO super busy it's so hard to meet with her. We don't see her nearly often enough.

Ok... story time!!!

So, the life of a missionary is ridiculous and we find the dumbest things funny... But the funniest things happened the other week so I thought I would share! :)

So like 2 and 1/2 weeks or so ago we were sitting outside our house in our crappy 2012 Chevy Malibu (or MaliBOAT as we call it...) and it started freaking out. the instruments all turned on and the lights started blinking and you seriously would have thought our car was possessed!!! So we turned it off and then it wouldn't start... so we did what any sister missionaries would do... and we called our zone leaders and told them to come fix our car. they are boys they are supposed to know how to do that stuff! They came over in their Shiny new 2013 Ford Fusion and started to boast about their car and how cool it was. (It is pretty cool...) Well they couldn't get our car fixed and so Elder Barlow, the vehicle coordinator came over the next morning and tried to fix it. He charged the battery and then took it into the dealership and got it working. But they said they wouldn't replace anything unless it happened again. (LAME!) so Elder Barlow decided that it would be best if we traded cars with the elders (the zone leaders) so that if it happened again, they would be stranded and not us. (Oh it's good to be a sister! :)!) Needless to say their boasting really made us happy that we got to switch cars with them. haha. They had our car for a week... not even a week. 4 days. And they couldn't handle it. So they went into the office last Monday and said they needed a new car.... oh my spoiled elders....

AND THEY GOT ONE!!!!

Can you believe that??? Ridiculous!!! haha it was pretty funny though! They got a brand new just off the lot 2014 Toyota Corolla. Back up camera and everything. Super nice!  But we are happy because we have a nice car that talks to us when we talk to it. And it has a Bluetooth phone system. It's nice! :) I also Loaded up my USB flash drive with music from LDS.org and we can plug that in and listen to it! It's great!!! (Hint go to the Youth page and go to music. It's a gold mine!)

K well that's it for this week! But I love all of you! Have a happy week!!!

Love Sister Bauer

It's Hot!!!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. day!

 

I hate it... because today we are stuck emailing in the Family History Center instead of the Library because the Library in closed... Boo. So we only got a little bit of time to email today.

 

But anyways!

This week was actually really good as far as my own personal growth goes. I  am really working to have the desire to be here. I am working to just be motivated. One of my goals this week was to "just do it" because that is something that I think would solve a lot of my problems. I need to realize that my companion is not always going to be someone to motivate me and that I have to be able to motivate myself and "just do it". I really good on Saturday. We worked super hard and talked to everyone we saw. I actually really enjoy contacting people. I mean it depends on the day, but on good days, I really love it.
 
I also went on Exchanges this week with Sister Folsom. My Sister Training Leader. She is really sweet and nice. She reminds me of a princess because she is very poised and just very proper. I went into her area. She is serving in Whittier, and Whittier is like Utah! HILLSS GALORE! and we biked... I wanted to die. but I'm pretty sure I lost like 5 pounds. I sweated so much. And it was like 90 Degrees! It was horrible. But also I really loved it because I felt super good afterwards! I really liked whittier and I would love to serve there one day. Except not in the summer because everyone says whittier is KILLER hot during the summer... and that would suck...
 
It's been really hot here lately. There's been a drought here in California and so on the 1st Sunday in Feb, there is a state wide fast for rain. The smog is getting really bad and CA is starting to cath on fire. This past week, Glendora (A neighboring city out of our mission) caught on fire and it was raining ash... it was all over our car. It was nasty!
 
Well we picked up a new investigator. Her name is Danielle. She is Cecilia's 19 year old daughter. I wasn't there for the lesson because it was when I was on exchanges, but Sister Lindsey said it was pretty well. Danielle said, She didn't want to convert, but learn" But the spirit has a way of working when people read the Book of Mormon and Pray.
 
Monique is getting baptized next week on Feb. 1st! It's her 9th Bday. She is so cute and she has such a thirst for the gospel. That will be really awesome! I am excited for her.
 
We are really working on finding more people to teach. We neeeeed to find more investigators to progress the work forward. So if any of you wise Return Missionaries have any ideas at how to find more investigators.... please share! :)

 

Ok, well have a wonderful week and I will talk to you all next week! Adios Amigos!!!

 

Love, Sister Bauer

Over the Hill!

Mia Familia y Mis Amigos!

This week was pretty good. We had 2 lessons with one of our investigators. Her name is Cecilia. She is so amazing! I love her so much! We found her contacting. She wasn't progressing and she wasn't keeping her commitments and kept dodging our lessons. So we planned to drop her, but when we went into the lesson to drop her, she had kept all her commitments and said she would be at church this week. Then, we had another lesson with her later in the week and she was at church! It was great! So we have another lesson with her today. She is so awesome! She has 4 kids all from ages 19-23. Her 19 year old daughter Danielle is also interested in the church and we are hoping to pick her up as an investigator tonight. Cecilia told us she wants all of her kids to follow her example in seeing her come to church and invites them every week to come with her. She invites them in to our lessons also. We tried to set a baptismal date with her, but she said she wasn't ready but that she knew she needed to be baptized and knew how important it was.

We also have a baptism coming up on Feb. 1. She is 8 and is getting baptized on her 9th bday. So, she is a convert baptism. Her mom is a less active coming back into activity, and so it's been a little difficult to teach her. She's 8... so her attention span isn't the longest, and my the "creative" teacher in me has had to come out with her. I guess its good that I know how to teach kids. It's a skill that I have realized not everyone has. So I guess I am thankful for all the elementary Education classes that I took the past 3 years! :)

We are also teaching a part member family. There names are Jose and Lisa Garcia. Jose is a member. Lisa is not. She grew up Christian, but she doesn't really have a specific religion right now. She said she is kind of the black sheep of her family because they all are super staunch Christians. Jose is less active because he works on Sunday... Which I think is just an excuse because he didn't come to church even before he worked on Sundays. But He still has a testimony and told Lisa that  she needed to do this for her and nobody else. So we asked her if she would take the lessons. She said it didn't hurt to learn more. But we told her that she really needed to have a desire to know if this was true in order to get answers to her prayers. They are a really great family. They have an ADORABLE little girl named bella. She is seriously so cute I can't even stand it.... It's ridiculous! She's like 15 months old and bilingual... I'm 21 and I'm not bilingual. Those kids and their moldable brains!!!

Well, I love you all! Continue to pray for Missionary opportunities and witness the blessings that come because of them. Let us all work together in the Lord's work!!!

God Bless you all and have a great week this week!

All my love,

Sister Bauer

I Almost Forgot!

Wow!! This is the first time I almost forgot to send out a weekly email!!! That's weird!

So this week was not super good. I had the flu and didn't feel well most of the week. :( There's nothing worse then being a sick missionary! It was rough!

We had a lesson yesterday with a part memeber family. Jose and Lisa. Jose is a LA member, but has a testimony. Lisa is not a member. The spirit was strong and we felt like the lesson went pretty well.

Our other investigator Cecilia is ok. We struggle to meet with her. She is very busy and it is often hard to get a hold of, but she is so prepared and has a desire to learn. So I can't bring myself to drop her. We have a lesson with her tonight, so we will see how that goes.

Well I have to go! but I will talk to you all next week! I love you all!!

Love Sister Bauer