Elder Baldwin at the Zoo in Virginia April 2012

April 2012

Elder Cook

Elders Cook and Powell

Marcus in the suit Elder Baldwin gave him

Rhino at the Zoo on P-day

Email # 16

> Good Day!!
> I love Manchester! I want to serve here the rest of my mission no joke
> haha. This place is pretty awesome. We got 3 new investigators this
> week. the Armstrongs, and Alex. The armstrongs were tracted into a few
> weeks ago and were given a book of mormon to read. We decided to stop
> by yesterday to see how they were doing and to follow up on their
> reading. We had a long discussion just about religion and we cleared
> up some beliefs of ours. I also shared my favorite verse with them,
> Ether 12:27 and they immediately recognized it from their reading. it
> was awesome. at the end of our visit we invited them to continue to
> read and pray, and Mr. Armstrong asked if we could pray about it right
> then. It kind of caught me by surprise!! We all stood up, joined hands
> and Mr. Armstrong gave an excellent prayer asking for an answer if the
> book is true. In the prayer he even said that they were confident it
> was, but they wanted a true answer. It was an experience to die for as
> a missionary. He asked if we could come back again sometime so we set
> up to go have a lesson with them next sunday.
> Alex has been an investigator that was dropped. we were finally able to

   meet with him again, and
> committed to meet with us again and to come to church. he is going
> through some rough times in his life and really needs the gospel. i
> told him that the gospel will change his life around and promised him
> some specific blessings. He appreciated it and got his desire back to
> learn more. he came to church with us this week and stayed for the
> whole 3 hours including our linger longer Super Spud Sunday
> Spectacular Supper, that was definitely in the wrong order, but you
> get the point. The ward put together this linger longer to invite
> friends to. we had a pretty good turnout and i was able to introduce
> myself to a lot of the members in the ward. After the Linger Longer,
> Bishop Sorensons daughter was baptized and another investigator of
> ours, Yuan was able to stay and watch that. I really think he is going
> to be baptized soon.
> So we went to the zoo last pday. it was so fun. i got to feed
> giraffes! it was so cool! Ill send you pictures in this email. i dont
> know what we are going to do today. probably just go do some grocery
> shopping and then sleep. I am wiped out. the past couple of nights ive
> been gettting up at 3 and staying awake for an hour- an hour and a
> half. i dont know why im doing it but its getting frustrating. Other than the

   sleeping issue, I'm feeling great. 
> This past weeks personal goal was to pick one verse from a gospel
> principle to study and teach about during companionship study. I was
> having a hard time remembering scriptures during lessons so i thought
> that doing this during my study would help. I really enjoy digging
> into the scriptures, and Elder Cook helps out a lot. He is a
> scriptorian. i really enjoy serving with him. Elder Powell, i learned a couple nights
> ago flew to Georgia for a national Rubiks Cube competition. i
> guess hes on the Rubiks cube association for his solving time or
> something.
> Im still in a car and will be my whole mission i think. I try to workout
> every night, that helps me sleep. That is good that everyone is doing well in school!
> Ian got bumped up to Var? thats pretty sweet! let me know if he stays
> up for playoffs. and kennady is doing well in softball? that is so
> good! keep up the good work!
> ill have to take a picture of me for addys wedding. ill hopefully
> get it to you next monday. June sent me a package last week! had a 4lb
> tub of twizzlers in it :) haha. along with 4 packs of black socks! it
> was perfect!!!! it was like christmas! i needed black socks so bad! i
> need her address though so i can write her a thank you note. send it
> to me next week! my time is up, so i have to go! take care and have an
> amazing week!
> love,
> Elder Baldwin
> 

Email #15

> 

> Manchester is GREAT!
> 
> How are you all doing? I am doing so well here in the Manchester area!
> so many miracles are waiting to happen here. Transfers was no biggy, I
> said goodbye to everyone and i was on my way! My Companions are Elder
> Cook, former AP, and Elder Powell, fresh out of the MTC waiting to go
> to Bulgaria. He will only be here for a couple weeks. I guess the
> Bulgarian missionaries get their Visas pretty quick. In his free time back at home in Texas he enjoyed
> catching Frogs, Snakes, Lizards, and writing computer programs. Elder
> Cook and I are just being an example to him so he can grow to be an
> excellent missionary.  I dont know what
> Bulgarian is supposed to sound like, but i guess he can speak it
> pretty well. i only know how to say "elder" in it because they use a
> different alphabet and its difficult to learn. We get an extra hour of
> study time because he has to study the language, so i usually just
> read an ensign or something or read the Color Code. Elder Cook is from
> Seattle, Washington and is going home in 5 weeks!! Im killing him off!
> hahah He is a great elder and works super hard! Ive tracted more in
> the last 4 days ive been here than i have my whole mission. Tracting
> with him makes it fun because he is really good at asking inspired
> questions to get people thinking about religion.
> We dont have too many investigators right now, but we have a lot
> of potentials that appear to be pretty solid. One of them is a lady
> named Lina. Brother Barr (a less
> active) went to china on a trip or something and found a woman that he
> wanted to marry (Lina). Lina knew no english. anyways... bro barr brought Lina back to the
> states, married her, and is trying to teach her english. i guess its
> come a long way since shes been here, but it is still super hard to
> understand what she is saying. I guess bro barr takes her to a chinese
> baptist church where she is able to communicate with the congregation
> which doesnt help because now she has a solid group of chinese friends
> that are baptist and are able to communicate with her and teach her
> about their church. Too bad we dont have any chinese missionaries in
> our mission to help us out.
> another investigator, Chase, was tracted into. it was the perfect
> time to tract intno him because he had been asking himself a lot of
> questions about religion. he had never read any of the bible before
> and showed great desire to learn more. we gave him a bible and a book
> of mormon and he commited to read the both of them. we taught him the
> first half of the plan of salvation and were able to answer a lot of
> his questions about pre-earth life, our purpose, and what happens
> after we die. everytime we meet with him he shows more and more desire
> to learn. he is golden and i am so excited to help him in his
> conversion. he is about 21 and works part time, but looking for a full
> time job so he doesnt have to work weekends. please pray for him! he
> was out of town this weekend, so we are going to call him today to
> schedule an appointment. :)
> Church yesterday was awesome. The ward is so cool! the people in
> it are great. the bishop really trusts us with anything which is so
> huge!!! we have a great ward mission leader, Nate Eaton who is the
> channel 8 news anchor. we call him channel 8 nate. he is legit. he's
> probably in his mid 20's and got married a year ago. he has a lot of
> enthusiasm towards missionary work and helps us out a ton. im really
> looking forward to working with him to further the work in this area.
> so there is a zoo in our area :) and a member in the ward owns it
> which means we get in for free!!! we are going there today so i will
> take pictures of me feeding the giraffes or something ahha. Im running
> into a bit of a problem though. this area we wear our suit coats
> everyday and i only have 2 pairs of pants that match my coats. my
> brown suit pants tore in the crotch, yes, im gaining weight!! i cant
> stand it. i run a mile in the morning and a mile at night but its not
> helping. i guess i need to bump it up, or lesson the chow. but, i'm
> going to need to purchase a couple pairs of black slacks to go with my
> black coat. we have every store imaginable here. theres a mall across
> the street with target, best buy, kohls, wal mart, many many
> resteraunts, and i think there is a tj maxx. could you transfer some
> money so i could buy a pair...like today? the suit pants im wearing
> now cant be thrown in the wash, theyre dry clean only and they stink!
> Sounds like you are going to get pretty busy with wedding plans!!!
> that is so crazy that you are planning for a wedding! I will get you a picture of me full length

 this week sometime. i'll have elder cook take it. ill take multiple so you have some to choose from.

>
> 
> love you all!!
> elder baldwin
> 

More pictures April 2012

Cooking out with Marcus

Elder Baldwin giving a haircut

rounding up the escaped pigs

mama pig and her babies

feeding the calves

Larane's baptism
April 14, 2012
Elders Buckley & Baldwin
1st Baptism

chopping block for harvesting Rooster

Harvesting a Rooster April 2012

Feeding the calves

Email #14 Awesome Week!!!!!

Greetings from Virginia!!!

 

Man, this week has been full of great stuff!!!!!! First thing is first, CONGRATULATIONS ADDY!!!! That is pretty sweet and i am way stoked for you and your FIANCE. haha. that is crazy, im gonna be a brother in law! So August 3rd could be the big day huh? Good luck fitting everyone into the Newport Beach Sealing room. haha. It is one of the smallest temples in the church, but a beautiful one. You made a good choice to be married in that one. All i gotta say is that i better be in those pics! ill have to take a good picture of myself for you guys to blow up into a lifesize poster. What pose do you want me in? I have a variety to choose from ;) haha

    We have been getting feed so much lately! Ever since members heard that i was leaving, we have been getting fed left and right. Friday night the Dolls cooked out for us (Brats, Veggies, Cole Slaw, cake and ice cream), Saturday for lunch, the Dolls cooked out for us again before the baptism (Burgers and hot dogs, cole slaw, and cake and ice cream), Saturday night the Kings cooked out for us (burgers, brats, hot dogs, brownies), Sunday for lunch Marcus cooked out for us (steak and ribs) and last night the Andrews cooked out for us (lu'au style with pork and beef, potatoes, root beer floats, and all that good stuff). I am stuffed and looking a bit too healthy around the hips haha. Last Thursday the Jones cooked some good southern food for us. She cooked some baked macaroni, fried chicken, collared greens, sweet potatoes and some potato salad. It was prety good except for the collared greens. I almost puked while eating those things. i dont even know what exactly they are, but i never had them before so i tried them. I think i drank like 4 glasses of water while trying to eat them.

    Last night at the Andrews was so much fun. right when we got there bro andrews told us that the pigs got out and we had to go wrangle them up and throw them back over the fence. 9 of them were loose, so elder buckley and i had to go chase them around the farm and grab them by their hind legs, pick them up, take them to the fence and throw them over. That was hilarious! Those pigs squeeled so much when we picked them up and hucked them over the fence. after catching the pigs, we had to try and catch the rooster that we were going to harvest. We were trying to catch that thing for 2 hours before finally cornering it to grab it. Whoever says that chickens arent smart, theyre wrong. They are the dumbest smart animals out there. when we caught it we put it into a cage where it waited to be slaughtered. and mom, dont edit any of this out please...i saw the last letter that you edited and you edited out the best part...court! after the rooster chasing, we went and fed the baby calves with bottles. they are like a week old and as cute as can be. I have pics of all of these events too... so after wrangling pigs, chasing roosters, and feeding cows, we went to slaughter the rooster. We had 2 of them, and i got the bigger one. i put that things head on the stump and chopped away. it was a bloody mess. got my shoes all bloody, and my pants all bloody. they didnt even run around though, they just flapped their wings and then died. When they stopped flapping around, we had to go dip them in boiling water to soften the feathers so they would come off easier. after plucking them, we took them inside the kitchen to clean them out. Everyone thought that i was a natural because i had no problem doing it. I just told them that i hunt and clean birds all the time. That was the most fun i have had since ive been in Lawrenceville.

    Last night i got my transfer call. I am going to Manchester with Elder Cook. Elder Biscocho is being transferred (thats a good thing) and we are getting a visa waiter going to Bulgaria. Hopefully i can learn some bulgarian :) that would be legit. I am so excited to go to Manchester Ward. They have everything there. It is a very nice part of the City and i am in the same stake as Pres. Perry. The midlothian stake has a lot of the wealth of virginia. i dont think i will have a problem with not getting fed. I dont know exactly what restaurants are there, but im sure they have a lot. 

 

    We had a great turnout at Lorraines Baptism this saturday. She had a lot of support and it went very smoothly! I baptized her on Saturday and Confirmed her on Sunday. I think the baptism font is still full because i forgot to pull the plug before i got out haha. we have to go in tonight to unplug it. Lorraine was so excited! She told us that Satan was working with her before because her arthritis was irritating her, and she was having some doubts. however, she still knew what she was doing was the right thing to do so she went on with it. It was cool to hear that from her because she already has a great understanding of how satan works, and how the spirit can testify to her that what she did was the right thing. Lorraine is such a nice lady and i am going to miss her. She was prety bummed when she heard that i was leaving. The Young men are going over to her house tomorrow to clean up her yard, so we are going to go over there with them to say my goodbyes. Yesterday at church was hilarious. After i confirmed her, she said out loud, "well that was harmless!" hahahahahhaha everyone gave a little laugh. i dont think she quite understood what was going to happen, but she was glad that we didnt do any harm to her. haha. The hymns we sang were hilarious too. Our branch CANNOT sing for beans. it sounded like a bunch of cats and dogs howling. i was trying not to laugh during the hymns. it was so bad that i couldn't even sing on tune because i had nothing to compare to. The pianist was missing notes, speeding up, and slowing down, and the congregation couldnt keep up...it was a train wreck. only in Lawrenceville...... (thats the phrase elder buckley and i like to use).

    I have been feeling a lot better and sleeping better.  My health is improving! :D

     So ian has a job huh? and is taking after his brother with the big spending? haha no biggy, he will learn on his mission to not spend as much money. even though i just bought sunglasses today. Marcus wanted to buy my old ones from me at full price, so i used that money to buy me new oakleys. they are oakley batwolfs, the root beer color. they are pretty nice. whats it like working at the ball fields? do the chalk lines look straight or what? Take some pride in making that field look good.

   How is everything else back at home? any plans for going to cali next? how is kennadys softball team doing? volleyball sounds like they are improving a little bit. Hey, i gotta go now, sis pearce is taking us out fishing at the pnd out back. gonna get me some catfish :) later tonight, the edmonds are cooking out for us. its marshalls birthday and i think they are cooking us steak. yummm!!!!!!!!!!! Tuesday night the Harpers(Relief society pres) are cooking out for us, and wednesday Bro Dilworth is having us over for dinner. I shouldve told them that i was leaving a long time ago!!!!!! hhaha. Yall take care. I love you all and miss you!!! let me know what happens this week!

Love,

Elder Baldwin

Easter April 8, 2012 Milking a Cow at the Andrews

squirting the milk in his mouth

milk all over face

Email #13 He is Risen!

Happy Easter!!!!

 

    Easter was pretty good! We had a good Sacrament meeting here in good ol Lawrenceville and Larane was able to make it to church again which means she meets all the requirements for Baptism! She got interviewed last week from our District Leader and passed it. She is getting very excited for Saturday, so if ya'll want to come to it it will be at 3pm on Saturday the 14th at the Lawrenceville Branch Meetinghouse :) hahah Just kidding! I will be Baptizing her on Saturday and will be confirming her on Sunday if she wants me to do it also. We've been teaching her for 11 weeks and she is now ready! It has been so cool to watch her testimony grow and see her become more interested in learning more about the Gospel. She participates in Sunday School and also participates in Relief Society and has made many friends in the branch. Im so excited for her!!!!

    I got the Easter Package from you guys! Thank you so much for the iPod touch!! I love it and you put some pretty good music on there! I don't know about the music from like 1994 though, that is kinda weird! haha but I enjoy listening to everything on it! Thank you so so much Steve!!! I also got the package from Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday :) Thank you! Had a lot of goodies in there! and thank you Paulette for all the skottie dogs :) delicious! and they are already gone! hahahahah. Yesterday after church we went over to a members house for Easter lunch/early dinner. They gave us little Easter baskets with candy in it, so that was nice of them. After we ate, Bro. Andrews took us out to see all his animals. He has horses, cows, goats, bunch of chickens, pigs, donkeys, and dogs. He told us that every night he goes out there to call the cows in to milk them. I said "I wanna milk a cow!" So he called them in, and about 5 minutes later, here they came walking in to get milked. It was so cool! He let me manually milk them for a little bit and then he put the machine on them! It was hard to get the technique down at first, but once I got it, I had no problem milking that thing! My hand is sore today from milking it though and Elder Buckley was able to take some sweet pictures of me doing it. When I was milking it, I pointed the nipple towards me and squirted some in my mouth. It didnt even taste that bad, just a little warm and creamy, thats it. haha Most of it got all over my face, pants, tie, and shirt. It was a lot of fun out at the Andrews yesterday for Easter. They are also feeding us next sunday and hopefuly we can harvest some chickens :)I want to cut a chickens head off before I leave the country area :)

    At zone meeting on Friday, my Zone Leader accidently broke the news to me that I will be getting transferred to Manchester Ward. That's where I was at during Leadership Training a couple weeks ago and I am so excited!!!! I will be with Elder Cook (former AP) and Elder Biscocho. Threesome!!! It will be so much fun! I will be in Petersburg on Thursday, so tell Tenneal to let her cousin know, or give me his/her phone number or something. That would be cool to meet her/him! Petersburg is definitely the rougher part of Virginia, and Bryce Ricks told me to stay away from it before I came out. hhaha go figure I would be serving in the same District that Petersburg is in. I love it there though. Petersburg is a really cool area with a lot of history.

  Did you like the bunny pictures? hah I thought you'd like them! I'm still waiting from Bro. Van Winkle to get the CD with them on it. It was funny! Elder Buckley and I had a good time. We went over there to take the pics after the Elders Quorum breakfast. We had a lot of non members there and we ended up giving a church tour to a couple of them. It was pretty cool! I had never done a Church tour before. We cooked pancakes, waffles, hashbrowns, eggs and biscuits. We had about 35 people there and had a good time with everyone.

    We havent met with the Edmonds for a couple weeks. They had some family stuff going on and we havent been able to set a time to go over there. We plan on stopping by tonight though on our way home. Hopefully they will be there. No progress with Marcus' wife. But Marcus blessed the sacrament for the first time yesterday. I sat up there with him to walk him through it and he did great!!! It was awesome! Marcus is so awesome and he is bummed that I'm leaving. I will definitely miss him, but I am definietley going to stay in contact with him!

    This morning I had to go to the Dentist again! Last week during exchanges, I was playing my jaw harp (look it up on youtube or something) and Elder Pickup was like "arent you supposed to pull it out and flik it inward? And I said no and tried to prove him wrong. well, I pulled it out and flicked it in and the stupid thing hit my front tooth! It hurt so bad and I  chipped off a little piece of it! I called President Evans up who is the dentist in the Lawrenceville Branch and he said that I could come in on Monday to get it fixed. That thing was so sensitive all weekend and it hurt to eat anything. I went in this morning to get it fixed, and he put a little bit of filling stuff on there and went on my way! It's nice to know a Dentist out here that does missionary dental work for free. I'm sure it would've easily been a couple hundred dollars or something. 

    Well I gotta go for now!! I hope ya'll have a good safe week!!  Love you all!!!

 Love, Elder Baldwin

more pics

Elders Baldwin & Buckley

Manchester, VA Leadership Training March 27-29, 2012

Elders Baldwin, Biscocho, Smith and Cook in Manchester, VA(leadership training)

Elder Baldwin holding a snake they found

Elder Baldwin holding snake

Elder Baldwin made Elder Biscocho pankcakes!!!

Email #12 WE ARE BLESSED!!!!

Buenos Dias!

 

    Miracles, Miracles, Miracles! General Conference was amazing. We were able to watch all sessions at our church building via satelllite broadcast. I felt that almost all of the talks were directed towards me! haha. Priesthood session was so good. We need to use the authority we have!! General Conference is like the missionary super bowl, I was so bummed that it went by so fast! Lets just say that I cannot wait til October! Larane was able to watch conference with us on Saturday and she watched the rest at her house. When we asked her if she enjoyed it she responded "I'm just taking it all in" haha. She is getting excited for her baptism on the 14th and we are super excited for her.

    Exciting news that we received during leadership training was that Russell M. Nelson is coming in May to speak to the whole mission. I was so stoked to hear that! That means I will be able to hear him at least twice while on my mission, once in the MTC and once in the field. Pretty cool huh?

    On Tuesday, we did some yardwork for Bro Dilworth's mom. We spent a good 2 hours over there and she made us some good fried chicken afterwards. Southern cooking is putting some weight on me. It's whatevs though, I'm on a mission. While we were doing the yardwork, we came accross a nest of baby snakes. Not even thinking, I picked one of them up by the tail and then Marcus (Bro. Dilworth's son) told me that I was holding a Copperhead and I threw that thing down right quick. There were 4 of them in that area and we threw them in the street to get run over. Crazy, crazy,crazy. I guess I should be careful before handling snakes on the East Coast. Moccossins and Copperheads I guess heavily poulate this area and people get bit frequently. I'll try not to pick up anymore snakes without knowing first what kind they are. I need Cade out here to help me identify what kind they are. haha.

    Yesterday before Conference we went to the Lawrenceville First Baptist church for breakfast. They had a service first and then served the men breakfast. I talked to this one guy "Doc" and asked him if he would be interested in learning more about our church and he accepted the offer to have us come over and teach him. He is a super nice guy, and he has been around for while. He's 87 years old :) He knows Bro. Dilworth so hopefully we can get him to come with us when we go over to have a lesson.

    Last monday I got my teeth cleaned. President Evans is the local dentist here and he charges the missionaries the same amount for a teeth clean as if the Savior were to come in and get his teeth cleaned. President Evans is a great guy.  

    Elder Buckley's mom sent us a package with my blanket in it, so hopefully we get that sometime this week. I will be looking forward to your package later on in the week :) Thank you for all of the letters and prayers. I love you all and hope yall have a great, safe week!!

 

Love, Elder Baldwin