Week 87 - Keep the Faith!

Hey Everyone! 

First, I would like to apologize about last week, It was a pretty crazy day with our power at the church going out and we had some other things going on. But I'm back! So no worries.  This week was a good one. Not to much out of the ordinary. Just Lots of finding and a few sweet member meals! Our shining star right now, Rauno, was able to be interviewed for baptism this last Friday and he is more than ready! So we have been planning a baptismal service for this Saturday! Pretty exciting! :) We had the opportunity to have a few language studies with members which has been super sweet! They are so helpful. :) This week was pride week here in Jönköping. So lots of people out and about dancing and parades and such. lol fun stuff. and It was ''rush week'' here as well! Its like the welcome back to the people at the university. All the students come back but there are no classes for a week, so they have stuff going on in town like ALL week! Fun to watch it all. haha and Lots of drinking of course.. lol. Excited to have all the students back. It will be super cool when there aren't as many parties and we can actually talk to them. :) 

We were out walking around street contacting the other day and we were walking through the university, and we walked passed these 4 guys and they stopped us! and said, hey! how is is going? so we stopped and talked to them for probably 10 minutes. We got talked about what we are doing here and such and when we said we were missionaries with our church they got way excited! And before we would even ask they gave us their numbers and said we can meet up at the church yeah? I was shocked. haha it was super cool though. :) Going to try and met with them this week! Love being able to see the lords hand in our work. :)

This week I was prompted to read a talk by Elder Bednar from the April 2017 General Conference titled Called to the work. He said something that really stuck out to me that I thought to share with y'all. :) He was talking about preparing for a mission but it was apply yo us all, he said, ''Please learn to love being and remaining worthy. Be worthy. Stay worthy.'' Learn to enjoy to companionship of the holy ghost so much that you would never do anything to send him away. I know the Savior lives, and that he wants the best for each and every one of us. :) as long as we stay worthy, he promises to be with us on our right and on our left.

Well, that's all from me this week! I hope y'all have a fantastic week! I miss and love you guys so so much! Don't forget to keep the faith!

Love,

Elder Baggett

Week 86 - No Time :(

Hey sorry,

The power went out most of the day and we have a lot to do still, so I wasn't able to write up a group email... I will write an extra good one next week to make up for it. :) 

Love you!

Elder Baggett

Week 85 - Make sure your roots are deep!

Hello my friends!

Another week already in the books! Crazy. On the bring side, people it is finally cooling down here!! The past 2 days have been back to a "normal" Swedish summer. 20-23 degrees, cloudy and rainy. :) much rather take that over the blazing heat we have been having. Anyways! Enough about the weather. Haha this week has been a really good one! We had another pretty average week, not too much out of the ordinary. We had lots of time to find which has been really fun!! Love finding. :) We had exchanges with Skövde. Elder Wolff came here to Jönköping! Last time I was on exchanges with him was before last Christmas! Haha crazy. We had FHE with the YSA and played some games. :) actually got pretty heated. Haha did some service taking out some old bushes! Need help in the yard? Call the missionaries! Haha we had apartment checks and passed with flying colors. Aren't you proud mom? :) had a few lessons with the people we are working with. Had interviews with President! Remember that guy I told y'all about last week? The one that looks up everything about the church? Well, his name is Rauno! He is such a good guy. I love teaching him and getting to know him, but anyways, he has decided he wants to be baptized!! In his own words he said, "it is time for me to be baptized. There is work to be done" I felt like a such a proud father when he said that. Hahaha. :) Super exciting!! So I lied... I guess a lot did happen this week. Great week overall!!

We were out doing service the other day and the members home we were at, they had an apple tree. We guess it probably about 60 years old. It had rotted out and eventually collapsed and it's not much a tree anymore. Really sad actually. But because I have a missionary brain I relate everything to the gospel. And I related our testimony to that tree. At the beginning, it takes a lot of nourishment and help to get to a point where it can withstand the elements. It continues to grow stronger, roots grow deeper and it starts producing fruit! But then, we start neglecting our testimony a bit. Not much, just a little at a time. Our roots are deep right? We should be okay. But we allow something to get into us. Something that slowly separates us from the lord. We start to decay inside. And one day, as soon as the elements come, even though we, at one point in time, had a very strong testimony, we break. So do what you have to do now to prevent those things from coming in between you and the Lord. :) Your future self will thank you!

This week, I actually got some pretty sucky news. Not really what I wanted to hear, but we won't go into that right now. But I was down about it. And I sat down at my desk to read some scriptures to try and cheer myself up a bit and I look up to see a little picture with a quote I have. It says "don't you quit. You keep walking, you keep trying" - Elder Holland. And that gave me the comfort that I needed at that exact point of time. Made me feel that God truly knows me and he knows what I am going through right now. And I also love the council from that quote, Don't you quit! Never quit! Even when the odds are 100:1, keep grinding! You will be richly blessed for that. :)

Well thats all folks! Hope you all have a wonderful week! Much love sent to y'all from Sweden :) as always keep the Faith!

Love,

Elder Baggett 

Week 84 - The Worth of Souls is Great

Hey everyone!
Hope you have all had a great week! We sure have here in Jönköping! Finally starting to cool down a little bit, but hopefully I don't jinx it. Haha honestly, not a ton of things happened that were out of the ordinary. We did some finding, some service, some member meals, some swing bys, some lessons. Ya know all the good stuff. We actually did also go on exchanges with the elders in Borås! :) but we had a great time all week. Soaking up the time we have to serve the lord with all of our efforts!

Actually really cool experience this past week. So we had a "white day" this past Wednesday which means we had nothing planned. So finding!! What should we do? We picked an area, found some swing bys of members, less active members, people that were taught at one point, people with interest and planned finding around them. Sweet! Then we came to companion study, we were talking and got off track and elder Oldham said "I wonder if there's any Oldhams in Sweden?" Fancy that, there is this website called "hitta.se" that is like an online phone book with addresses and everything (pretty convenient missionary tool) so we looked it up there like 2 others. Cool! I said my turn. Not one other Baggett. Haha BUT there was lots of Bagge and even a Baghet! I was like what the heck. Look at her address, lived in Jönköping, look harder same building as one of our swing bys!! Like WHAT?! we have to go by! So we did! She was super excited when I showed her my name tag. :) and gets even crazier, she used to be taught by the sisters! Said she wants to meet with them again. :) the Lord works in mysterious ways!

We had this awesome guy we're teaching, he loves to look up "Mormons" on Google and read everything there is to read. Sketch. Haha but he has a super strong testimony and it doesn't even phase him. But he found this YouTube channel called "three Mormons" these 3 college students who make videos and talk about the church! Super cool. He showed us one of the videos called "Dusty the ex ex Mormon" it was a crazy story about this guy who was a convert, came across some anti, left the church, and was VERY against the church, then eventually found his way back. But it was so amazing to see how the gospel can change people's lives! I have seen that during my time as a missionary. Probably the most rewarding part of missionary work is to see others allow the gospel to change their lives. :)

I have been reading in the Doctrine and Covenants and came across one of my favorite verses. It's in section 18 verse 10. It says "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" its a great reminder that we are All gods children. No matter what we have done or how lonely we feel, you are worth while to God. On the other hand we need to see the person next to us with that same value. No one is better than another. Respect, love and serve those around you and you will be blessed. :)

Well folks, I hope you have another wonderful week! You all are amazing! Love you tons! Don't forget to keep the Faith!

Love,
Elder Baggett