Final Week in Oakridge

Hello Everyone,

This past week was my final week in Oakridge.  Honestly, there wasn't a whole bunch to say that was out of the normal.  We did a lot of Tracting, as well as contacting, with a bunch of lessons falling through on us.  One cool experience though came from teaching our next door neighbor De, who is on date for baptism.  As we taught the lesson she pointed out to us that she was feeling the Spirit and that it was giving her peace despite of all the trials she is going through.  She is awesome and is wholeheartedly accepting the Gospel.

Another good experience came from early in the week.  We ended up giving a blessing to a former member named Troy the week before because the doctors felt he had cancer.  A few days later the results came and they said it was gone and that he should be fine at least in that medical problem he had.  It was a miracle and it really shows that the priesthood is real and that God does love us.

Sunday was full of saying goodbyes, and at 6:30 this morning we left for the transfer spot in Eugene.  I was sent to the Roseburg zone, in the Winston area that includes the city of Green.  One of the Elders that was in my MTC district is my zone leader here which is fun, and my companion is Elder Smith and he is a fun, goofy guy.  Roseburg has a lot of potential and it should be a great transfer.

Thank you for all of the support!
Elder Baxter

Old companion

New companion

Goodbye to Oakridge

 This person is an investigator named Chuck who is on date for baptism

in Oakridge.

Week Full of Blessings

Hello everyone!  This past week was a fairly normal week.  On Tuesday we had a Zone Conference that was about repentance which was good.  The meeting allowed me to catch up with some of my MTC district who are currently serving in Corvallis.  The meeting ate up the majority of the day and not much else happened.  On Wednesday we did some more service with Poppy and had a lesson where we talked about how we receive answers to prayers.  This time we brought a member that managed to connect to her in a way that we have not been able to previously, which was nice to see.  The rest of the day was filled with other random lessons as well as Tracting and contacting.

Thursday we had a weekly planning where the AP's randomly showed up, as well as another exchange with Elder's McCleary and Anderyl.  We did some Tracting and contacting in Westfi,r as well as getting to teach our next door neighbor De, who accepted an invitation to be baptized on March 25th.  She is very excited for it and we are very happy for her and the area in general.  We are being blessed.  The day ended with giving a blessing to an investigator.  Friday was normal as well as Saturday, with lessons falling through and others happening.  On Sunday Poppy came to church and we managed to meet with another investigator (who we have had trouble meeting with recently) who is now progressing in the Gospel.  The week has been busy but full of blessings, and now as I move on to my last week of the transfer, and possibly my final week in Oakridge, I look forward to seeing what happens.

Thanks for reading and all the support!
Elder Baxter

Splits

Tree Lover

Finding and Teaching

Hello everyone, this past week has been a great week for finding new investigators as well as teaching.  To start off, on Monday we had three back to back lessons where we got to teach our next door neighbor who just recently moved in, as well as Dan who is on date, and a new young family.  All the lessons were nice and they went really well.  What we focused teaching people was "the why", which means eternal life.  It helped many people see why we ask them to do so much, as well as why we keep coming over.

On Tuesday we helped Poppy de-mold her home again and learn that she might move this year to avoid having to continue to repair her home.  We then taught the complete restoration lesson to an older lady and did a lot of Tracting and visiting formers.  Wednesday was more of the same.  Thursday we got to do the new kind of exchanges that Salt Lake has ordered, where all four of the missionaries on exchange come to the leaders area for the day and night.  The Elders that came over were the Spanish missionaries named Elder Ellis and Elder Elldredge.  One of us focused on Tracting Oakridge while the other did Westfir.  Because of it we found several new investigators, taught a bunch of lessons, and had a fun night at the apartment.

Friday I taught another district meeting and met with a less active couple, and Saturday was a regular day.  Finally, after two weeks of canceling, on Sunday we got to go to church again which was nice.  The final notable event that happened was a dinner appointment with a member who fed us his rabbits he killed the day before because they annoyed him.

Thanks for reading and for all of the support, and Elder Cluff says "Hi,"
Elder Baxter

Missionary Exchange

We built "Frosty" last week.  He is Elder Cluff's first snowman.

Winter weather

Seeing a Light

Hello everyone, this past week has been a weird week for missionary work out here in Oakridge.  To start off, on Tuesday I went to my first MLC which stands for mission leadership conference.  While we were there we took notes on the topics we would have to teach the zone at a meeting on Friday called ZTM (zone training meeting), as well we had a council that discussed goals for baptisms in the mission for President Russell's final six months.  The meeting lasted until around four pm, we had dinner with the other district leader, and then finished the night by making a long drive back to Oakridge.

Wednesday was a fairly normal day where we got back into our usual routine for missionary work, where we also had a lesson with Poppy.  We talked about baptism with her and found out some of her concerns, but it went down fairly well.  On Thursday we had interviews with the mission president that were nice, and then the rest of the day consisted of lessons falling through.  Friday was ZTM where I got to teach the zone a segment about the Book of Mormon, had a lesson with a less active family named the Drapers, and had a lesson with a guy who was very respectful but wasn't too sure about the church.

Saturday was a bipolar day.  The night before it snowed about six inches, and it continued to snow for the majority of the day.  We walked a mile to a lesson we had in the storm only for them to tell us it wasn't a good time.  After walking back, we had lunch and visited another investigator named Chuck and his less active grandson named Jacob.  We had met them many times in the past, and Chuck was opposed to the Book of Mormon and baptism, but when we visited this time something changed.  He told us he wanted to apologize for what he had said, and that recently he had been reading the Book of Mormon and wanted to be baptized!  Chuck has been taught by missionaries for years and somehow we said something that got through to him.  He will be baptized March 4th.  We then moved on to shoveling people's sidewalks and helping people out for the rest of the day.  Sunday nothing to note worthy happened.

The highlight of the week was seeing a light open up in Chuck and seeing how the Lord does his work and it is great to be apart of it.  Thank you for reading and all of the support!

Elder Baxter

A picture from last week

Snow this week

MLC

2017 The Year I Will Spend Completely on a Mission!

Hello everyone!  The final week of 2016 has come and gone and it has been a great week for us while tracting and teaching.  To start, the rest of last Monday was pretty standard, but the following day we began by searching for a referral that lived in a trailer park hidden in a nearby mountain.  He had recently visited a baptism and said that we could come on over and teach him more in the coming weeks, which was great for us to hear.  The rest of the day was then spent trying to tract a rich part of Westfir, located on the top of a large hill, as well as trying to contact various people.

Wednesday was more of the same, except near the end of the day.  We visited a potential named Mike, who had a large discussion with us about the Spirit and the need for a restored church that he said he has been looking for.  He is a very religious man and will either embrace what we say or drop us, but we are hopeful for future lessons that will be had with him.  On Thursday I went on exchange down to Springfield with Elder Finlinson, who is my zone leader, first AP, and mission "grandpa".  We spent a lot of time contacting various people and had several lessons fall through, but it was a fun time.  Then Friday came, we ended the exchange and had district meeting where we brought the rest of the homemade cookies we had made for Christmas for the district.

Saturday we spent trying to contact in a part of town that we have never went before, ate pizza at a nearby restaurant, and had to spend the rest of the evening inside due to mission rules for New Years Eve.  The following Sunday and first day of the New Year we got several inches of snow and church was cancelled because of it.  We then attempted to contact several less active members in the snow and slush, had dinner, and that about describes the day.  Overall, the week had a lot of tracting and contacting where we managed to find five new people who would like to meet us in the future.  Now onward to 2017, the year that I completely spend on the mission!

Thank you for reading and all of the support the past year and for the upcoming year,
Elder Baxter

Going artsy with the name tag

Oregon country

With Elder Finlinson

Christmas PJs 

Winter is here

Christmas on a Mission

This week was my first Christmas on the mission!  It began pretty normally with trying to meet and contact various people.  Early in the week we managed to have a great lesson with Poppy where we talked about several of her concerns and how to help her move past them.  We also got to talk to a lot of less active families, as well as bake chocolate rolo cookies that we delivered to the people we met with on Christmas Eve.  The work itself was a bit more slow this week, but that was because of several reasons including a zone conference and Christmas.

On Thursday we had to wake up early and drive about one hundred miles down to Roseburg for a zone conference.  The meeting talked about subjects like the Priesthood, temple marriage, and several other things.  We then got to come back around seven pm, and the day was already done, which threw a dent into our plans.  On Christmas Eve we delivered all of the cookies that we baked as well as had a nice dinner with a family whose son is also on a mission.  We then went to the church and participated in a zone testimony meeting through Skype.

Christmas itself was awesome.  We woke up, opened up our packages and got to read all of the various letters we had.  We then went to church where the branch presidency forgot their program so they improvised the meeting for awhile.  The branch had fun with it, and it was a good meeting in the end.  We then got to Skype our families, have dinner with the branch president, named President Allen, and that was the end of the day.  Then this morning we got to watch Finding Dory for an approved Christmas movie.  It was fun to see and a nice change of pace.

It has been a good week and hopefully we can help make 2016 end in a bang.  Next year is the year that I will spend completely on a mission.  Thank you for all of the support and merry Christmas and have a happy new year!

Elder Baxter

Christmas Eve present

Carlton with his companion 

Six Month Mark

This week was the start of a new transfer, my six month mark, as well as my first week as a district leader in the OEM.  It began with a long ride back to Oakridge with Elder Cluff who is from Arizona.  When we arrived we spent some time talking, unpacking, and getting ready for the upcoming week.  The following Tuesday we helped Poppy put up some emergency insulation into her home.  Condensation had been forming inside her mobile home as well as cold, so she called us in to help put in insulation to prevent it.  It was itchy and took awhile, but it payed off and she was very happy at the end.  Then the following Wednesday we did some contacting and tracting, as well as help an investigator make the final move over to the Philippians.  We moved a whole bunch of boxes through slush, mud, snow, and rain, but she was also very happy at the end and said she would try to come into contact with the missionaries in the Philippians.

Thursday we did our weekly planning and had a pretty normal day.  The big day was on Friday where I got to conduct my first district meeting as district leader.  The district said that it went very well in the end, and the meeting was about how to best help resolve the concerns of investigators as well as having charity for everyone we meet.  We then came back to Oakridge following a zone lunch, did some work, and that was the day.  Saturday was an interesting day.  It began with a new district leader training where we had to Skype into the mission home with several other Elders.  We got to see the first twenty minutes, but then the spotty connection gave up and I was booted from the meeting.  The AP's then told me to have my zone leaders train me, one of them is a former AP.  We then gave random service to members who kept calling us up, tracted, and contacted. We also had our branch Christmas party, which was a lot smaller and simpler than what is done at home.  We got a small dinner of subway sandwiches and other various things and watched a movie named the Nativity.  It was a nice break from the usual. The following Sunday was pretty normal and not too much out of the normal happened.

The time is going fast and I am already a quarter finished with the mission.  Thank you for everything that you all have done and have a merry Christmas!

Elder Baxter

Along the river

Feeling Boxed In

Oh Christmas Tree

 CARLTON HAVING FUN IN HONOR OF THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE