Powhatan District

Correlation meeting

Elders Powell & Baldwin with Darnell

The Crowders

Elder & Sister Johnson--ran into a Church light post

Elders Johnson & Baldwin

FHE

FHE Group

Elders Cook & Baldwin in a 1090 Cadillac

Elders Powell, Cook & Baldwin with The Whites

Last day together.  Elder Cook goes home and Elder Powell goes to Bulgaria

Transfer Board in Mission Office

Transfer day at Mission Office

New Companionship/ Elder Baldwin was made New District Leader for Manchester

Email # 20

Dear Family,

    Thank you so much for emailing me! sorry i am emailing you back a day late, but the libraries were closed yesterday and our schedule was packed full of visits for elder cook. We visited a bunch of people from the Clover Hill ward because he served there for 8 months as an AP. So some exciting news came in Sunday night...President Perry gave me a phone call and asked if i would be the district leader for the new manchester district. haha. he also gave me a new companion ...all i know is that its elder mclellan and he came out with me. so the manchester district has my companionship, elder and sister johnson, and the midlothian sisters and the bon air sisters. so 4 sister missionaries i have to take care of! ahahha it will be interesting for sure! the bon air sisters are in President Perrys ward which means they are pretty good. Im excited to be the DL and to learn from everyone in my district! 

    WE finally found a chinese translator! his name is Bro Mitchell from the clover hill ward and he is going to start translating for us next sunday! what a miracle! I'm so excited for that! this email might be a little scrawny because i don't have much to talk about. last p day i went mountain biking with elder marriott(ZL) and elder Farr (AP) we biked 10.2 miles and i found 6 ticks on me! the ticks love me out here! it was crazy! so much fun though, we had a good time together. i went on another exchange with the district leader and ate at this old couples house. they were so cool! they had a piano there that never got played, so i asked if i could play a couple hymns and that made them so happy! 

      i did get my pants fixed and my suit is out of the dry cleaners.  our dinner calendar is starting to look bum bum again. we only have like 6 appointments for the month. i guess other wards have a specific calling for someone to make sure the dinner calendar is filled up. we need that in our ward! 

    I'm praying for you! y'all have a great safe week! i love you! 

love elder baldwin

Tram ride at Zoo

Old Richmond Water Building on James River

Lemonade Stand on VCU campus

Elder & Sister Johnson on Skyride at Zoo

Email #19

> Hey Y'all!

> 
> Sounds like you have quite the busy schedule coming up!! That sounds
> like a lot of fun! Kennady sounds like she is having an awesome time
> playing softball and it sounds like the team is doing pretty well
> also! What is Ian up to these days besides getting pumped up to go surf
> and hang out with all the cali kids? When does Kennady and Ian get out
> of school? it should be in a couple weeks right? I think schools out
> here are ending the first week of june or something...not too sure.
> Dang, the weather is already getting crazy in AZ? that is horrible!
> The weather here is the best, but i hear it wont be like this for too
> much longer. We got some rain yesterday that carried over to this
> morning. During the days the highest its been is probably 85 with a
> little humidity. not too bad though. I guess in the summer it will get
> up to 100 degrees with like 95% - 110% humidity haha. it will be
> crazy!!!!!! time to shed some weight :) i cant wait! we have been
> trying to exercise every night. 
> That is crazy that you ran into the andreasens and the mcilhaneys!
> haha. next time i see elder mcilhaney i will be sure to take a picture
> with him! maybe ill see him at transfer meeting next week... i think
> he is serving in the waynseboro zone?? dont know for sure but i think
> thats where he is. Its crazy that we got sent to the same mission.
> people get confused though because i say im from california and then
> they find out that i played on the same baseball team as somebody from
> az, so i have to explain the whole situation....its funny watching
> people get confused about where im actually from. i still tell
> everyone that im from California though. One of the members in the
> manchester ward goes to Irvine every once-in-a-while for a business
> trip and i told him that the next time he goes, he should meet up with
> dad for lunch or something. He is a pretty cool guy, we play
> basketball with him and a bunch of other people in the ward on tuesday
> nights and saturday mornings.
> so this past week was a rough one for us. we didnt have too much
> going on so we did a bunch of service. it was pretty cool what we did.
> we picked a neighborhood to do service in and we went over to the
> midlothian elders house to borrow their lawn mower. we took it all
> apart to fit it in the trunk of our subaru and then went and borrowed
> a members weed wacker and had that sticking out of the window also
> with a rake. it looked pretty ho-dunk. haha so we went to the
> neighborhood, parked the car took the mower, wacker, and rake out and
> just walked down the street asking people if we could mow their lawn
> for them for free. we mowed about 4 lawns on one street. we have been
> having a hard time finding people to teach so we thought that would be
> a good way to get a good rep for ourselves so that people would be
> more likely to invite us in. we havent seen any potentials from it
> yet, but i feel some coming along the more we do it. we did that on
> friday and the mower and rake are still in our car and it smells
> horrible. i think we all get a little queezy everytime we get into the
> car because of all the gas fumes. haha its crazy what we will do to
> get some service done!
> I went on exchanges with the zone leaders this week! it was so
> much fun! they are in the singles ward and their area covers VCU.
> Elder Marriott (ZL) was a firefighter for Cal Fire so we had some fun
> conversations about that. we get along very well together. so on the
> exchanges we went to VCU and did a lemonade stand in the middle of the
> quad as a finding activity. I talked to some cool people! I talked to
> a Buddhist for about 20 minutes just talking about her religion and
> then ours, comparing and then i invited her to learn more and to read
> the book of mormon, but she wasnt interested.  i also talked to a
> few otheres who accepted the invitation to read and learn more. so
> hopefully they can set up a time to meet with the ones i talked to. i
> think we placed about 10 books within an hour span. The campus was
> dead too because they are in their break before summer classes start
> tomorrow. i want to go back their during school time to find. that
> would be som much fun. i guess in the past they will hand out a full
> box of BoM's within a half hour. crazy! Finding on a college campus is
> a great experience! it was a lot easier for me to talk about the
> gospel there for some reason. it was like the one time i actually felt
> comfortable talking to people about religion. our other lesson was with

   a recent convert. we read
> chapter 19 with him out of Jesus the Christ and had a lesson on
> allegories and parables.  my goal this week is to start reading it and 

   to not stop reading it until i
> have finished it. crazy! but im excited! it was so cool serving in
> downtown richmond for a day! we played soccer in a park with some
> former investigators, and biked some sweet trails along the james
> river for my workouts. haha it was like moountain biking, but in the
> pitch black and the only lights we had on our bikes were elder
> marriotts, who was infront of me, and elder Dotson, who was behind
> me... i got stuck without a light which made it very difficult to bike
> on the trails! it was a great exchange and i learned a lot!
> Our investigators are doing well. we are still searching for a
> chinese translator for Lina and Yuan. and our boy darnell still wants
> to go to BYU. i think we are going to show him the honor code. he is hilarious and
> isnt afraid to tell us about his past!!! :o keep them in your prayers!
> especially Yuan. he is so close to getting baptized, we just have to
> get his dads approval to set him with a date! This week looks a lot
> better. we have a lot of appointments already scheduled, and its elder
> cooks and elder powells last week before they leave so we have to make
> it a good one!!!   i love you all and miss you. it
> was good hearing from you and i will be keeping my eyes open for a
> package!! :) love you!

      Elder Baldwin

May 2012

Elders Cook & Baldwin making a paper macho man
May 2012

Elder Baldwin--Capital bldg

At the River  May 2012

Email # 18

> hello!
> it was great talking to you guys yesterday and better yet, seeing you!
> this email is going to be a short one....we got stuff to do and
> people to see! i left something out yesterday.....remember josh
> mcilhaney? <----thats definitely not how you spell it, but i think you
> got it...anyways, i saw him at mission conference! we are in the same
> mission together! pretty crazy huh? he came up to me and asked where i
> was from and my answer was "josh??"" hahaha. it was cool seeing him
> and talking to him for a few. he came out in 2010 and goes home this
> december. who knows, maybe we will be companions in the future. im
> sending some pics in the email from our pday last week and from our
> paper mache project last night.
> we decided to paper mache last night before we went to bed, so
> elder cook made a little guy out of a trash bag, sealed it up, and
> blew it up to make a balloon type thingy.  so we put the newspaper all over it
> and realized that it had to stay blown up throughout the night to dry
> so it doesnt lose its form. elder cook rigged a fan to blow into it
> all night long. we put a trash bag over the fan to funnel the air to
> our "dude" and then put straws from the fan to the dude to keep the
> air going in it. that didnt work so we had to make a paper funnel
> going from the fan to the guy and that kept it up all night. its
> actually still drying now. it was hilarious how rigged-up that thing was.
> elder powell  leaves on the 29th for Bulgaria. I'm bummed that elder cook has

   to leave to go home.

> ill get those pants fixed soon. ill ask around the ward to see if
> anyone can do them for me. if not, i will just have to take them to
> the cleaners. i hope you have a great week! ill send you pics from the
> zoo next week :) love you all!
> love,
> elder baldwin
>
> 

Email # 17

> Buenos Dias!!!
> 
>> We had a pretty good week. We were able to get a new investigator
> who is hilarious. his name is Darnell and he has investigated the
> church before. he texted us yesterday and told us that we need to help
> him get into BYU hahha. He really appreciates the "mormons" and what
> we do for each other. so we will see how the BYU thing goes. we are
> going to have to convince him to go to a JC first and then try to
> transfer in. Hopefully when we meet with him this week we can set him
> with a solid date for baptism. we set him for the first weekend in
> June and agreed to it, so now we just need to set an actual date for
> him to work towards. Another one of our investigators, Yuan, is
> probably going to get set this week for May 26th. He really wants to
> get baptized but also wants to learn english better first so he
> understands the doctrine. His first language is Chinese and we don't
> know anyone to translate for us. we teach him one principle at a time
> and it seems to be working out for him. he goes to church every week,
> goes to mutual, and plays basketball with us on tuesday nights and we
> are going to play tennis with him today. it should be fun!!!
> we have such a solid ward here. every week we have a member of the
> high priest group go out with us on exchanges. the bishop wants the
> members to get more involved in missionary work because the members
> have all of the solid referrals. we really have earned the trust of
> our bishopric and members here. on tuesday night we went out with the
> bishopric on splits and visited a few less active families. it went
> really well. i just love this ward! it feels like home here.
> This weekend was amazing!!!! We were visited by Elder Russell M
> Nelson, Elder Jay E. Jenson, and Elder Lansing (area 70). it was
> legit!! we all got to shake each of their hands before the meeting
> started which was pretty cool. They gave some pretty darn good
> training on how we can become more effective missionaries. Elder
> Nelson is a jokester.... At the close of his training, he left us with an

 apostolic blessing. in my
> next email ill have to write what he said in it. it was pretty
> amazing. i dont have my backpack with me right now or else id put it
> in this week. he did bless all of my family and friends though. that
> should give you some comfort being blessed by an apostle. :) i loved
> it! all 200+ missionaries were there in the chapel being edified and
> trained by general authorities.
> Elder cook goes home in like 3 weeks!! that is crazy! he is starting to get sad about it,

   but still working hard! we are having a lot of success here. im learning
> so much from the people we talk to! people are definitely 
> knowledgable here which means im studying my
> scriptures a heck of a lot more. i love the scriptures!! i finished
> reading the book of mormon last week and am starting it again. i think
> im going to have to read it like 50 more times to understand what all
> happens in it haha. theres so much to learn from it! Elder Cook is
> teaching me a lot too as we have lessons with investigators, and even
> on door approaches. we teach a lot of doctrine on doorsteps. Elder
> Nelson gave us a suggestion to use family search to our advantage and
> it works!! people get pretty interested in doing family history and
> our building has a family history library in it.
> I was able to get 2 pairs of pants!  we go
> to walmart today to do more grocery shopping so i have to go now.

 i hope you all have a wonderful week!
> take care and ill be skyping you on sunday for Mothers' Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i dont know
> what time yet, but when i do, ill have a member call you or something.
> we will figure it out. :) i love you and miss you!!! talk to you
> soon!!!
> 
> love,
> elder Baldwin