Baker, Justin

   Magandang gabi sa inyong lahat! My email today is going to focus on a couple of the people that we have been teaching for the past month and a half that I've been here! I sincerely hope that you'll all sense how much the gospel has shaped and changed the lives of my friends Jovan and Ben!      Brother Jovan was one of the first people I met when I was transferred here to Burgos. He's 18 years old and has had a pretty rough life up until about 3 months ago. As we started to go back to him more, he started to open up more and more about his past life. It kind has gotten to the point that I feel like he's truly a brother. On of his trails he told us about is why he us only in 9th grade. When he was younger, his parents were to poor to send him to school. So, while is older brother was at school, Jovan would go with his father to work. They would fish all day. How long this went on, I do not know. I assume it was more than a few years before he finally got to sta...

  Hey ya'll. Today's just going to be a shorter email since there isn't a whole lot that needs to be said from this past week. Other than of course our friend Cielos Baptism! I'll just do a little gratitude section for today!     I truly have been changed by this mission. I don't want you to think I'm saying my life before the mission needed a lot of changing,  or that I needed to go all the way across the world to "find my self". I am just am super grateful for the environment I'm in right now. I'm surrounded by my brothers and sisters that I've never met, some are members of the church, and some aren't. Nevertheless, I have learned to love. Truly love. I just finished an interview with an older man who I'd never met. Whenever I said thank you, he would say, "no thank you. I'm thankful for you Elders who gave me this gospel.". He told me about breaking his arm, and how it turned him to God because he had no where else...

Okay, first of all, I'm very sorry to those of you who actually read my emails. I have been slacking! I think it's been a solid month since my last good update. I really needed to start up again. I feel it's another way for me to show the Lord I'm grateful for the experiences and challenges I've been having. The important thing is that I'm going to try to be more diligent in writing these updates for y'all! With that being said, let's get into the past couple weeks!! Recap • I was transferred to a new zone (Roxas Zone) • We're in "Typhoon Season" right now • My area is a biking area • I'm back on the Tagalog study grind This past week On Tuesday, we traveled a couple of hours to the mission home for MLC (Mission Leadership Council). It was fun to see the other Elders from my MTC days. Always good to see President Cobing, of course. The other Elders and I were talking during lunch about the fact that we are now the "old heads" ...