Tayler - July 28, 2014

its crazy that it has already been 5 months i think i finished 5 months yesterday so thats pretty crazy. i still feel like i need to learn a lot more to be able to help the people better sometimes people start telling us experiences and i have no idea how to respond and i just let my companion take control wich is not good i need to talk more but sometimes there are circumstances when i just dont know what to say. we were not able to find very many people this week but we did have 5 people come to church wich was a miracle so i think it was a successful week. i also attended a funeral on saturday a lady in the ward died. she was the wife of the man who leads the hymns, it was sad yesterday in church he was leading the hymns and he usually sings really loud and really off key but some of the hymns he was having a really hard time and wasnt singing and it was kind of strange to not hear him singing. and we also found out another man died to during the week that i didnt know about until sunday but im not sure who he is. also this week we had an activity in the church with all the youth of the ward there was like 80 youth there but only about 15 attend church. but we played soccer and basketball and ping pong and volleyball. but they all dont know how to play basketball at all so when we were playing i mad a three and they all thought that was awesome but after that one of the leaders on the other time kind of took me out cause they dont know how to play and i sprained my ankle so for the last few days my ankle has been swollen and bruised and has been hurting pretty bad but i have been working anyone. it was especially bad the other day when we really didnt have apointments so we spent the whole day walking at the end of that day my ankle was just about done. thats about all that was exciting this week. last monday we went to the pizza libre again to eat all you can eat pizza and i really like the pizza. the fried egg pizza is really good and the pizza with corn and the pizza with hotdogs and the pineapple and ham pizza is really good to. basically i like all the pizza except the ones with green olives wich they have a lot of and they have giant seeds and they taste gross. we ate milanesa every day this week so im kind of tired of that but we will probably eat a lot of it next week to. everyone eats milanesa here because it tastes good and you can basically feed a family of 5 for about 5 dollars and thats a lot of food so all of the poorer people eat milanesa. also i found the scripture that i want but i will still leave it up to you to decide of two. one is 3 nephi 5:13 or the other 2 nephi 31:20, either one is fine. i finished the book of mormon in english the other day so now i am going to start reading it in spanish wich i probably should have been doing earlier but i kind of forgot to do that so now that i understand spanish pretty well it shouldnt be to hard to read the book of mormon in spanish. well i hope you have a good week. i love you


love elder baer

Lexie - July 28, 2014

Wooo 5 weeks done in mexico! How crazy. This week I finally got some courage and contacted a bunch in the streets so we had a lot of new people to visit. My companion and I got to sing at 2 different baptisms this week. One for a convert of the elders in our Ward and one for an 8 year old that is in the Ward already. Goodness it´s been a long time since I´ve seen a baptism, it´s crazy the spirit that fills the room. Honestly if anyone is ever wondering if this church is true, attend a baptism. i can´t even explain what an amazing feeling it is. We started teaching three boys this week who are 8,12, and 15. There dad is a member and found us walking one day. He´s been inactive for a long time but said he knows the church is true and wants to come back and make sure his sons learn about it. He is really great. He was awesome about telling his kids that this was thier choice. If they want to be baptized that´s awesome and if they don´t feel it´s right for them that´s ok too. It´s cool to see a parent let their kids use their agency. Not going to lie. These kids are beautiful. And I feel totally fine saying that because they are 8 12 and 15 but oh my gosh I have never seen such beautiful people lol they belong on a magazine. They have the most insane awesome eyes i´ve ever seen. Anyways they came to an activity, a baptism, and church this week. So I´m excited for our next lesson with them! I have a new boyfriend (sorry to tyrel lol) but no worries he´s 2 and his name is Isac. Oh my gosh he is wonderful lol. He belongs to the family that we´re baptizing here in 2 weeks I believe. He knows my name it´s the best thing ever. His mom tells me that when we´re gone he talks about how he likes hermana baers eyes and her hair. How funny lol. The coolest thing that I think I´ve realized this week is that a missionary isn´t a salesman. I think that I was really worried about that before the misión. That I was going to be shoving information into people and I didn´t want to feel that way. But tha´t´s totally not how missionary work is. I love that in the scriptures it says that are many different churches that all say they are right. That´s true, I´´m, pretty sure everyone that participates in any religión believes to some extent that it´s true. The cool thing with missionary work is we´re not asking them to believe us. We´re asking them to ask God. He´s the only one that really knows. People are baptized not because they believe what the missionaries are saying but because they believe in what God tells them in their prayers. I have loved watching this. I´ve realy watched people change their lives in the last 5 weeks and it just gets better every week as I understand more and more! Oh I also had my second english class this week! It went very well, there were 3 investigators there and a member family came also. I´m excited to teach again on Tuesday! I hope everyone is doing great! Love you!

Lexie's Zone - July 2014

Lexie - July 21, 2014

Hola! The week flew again. It's crazy how fast they go when the days feel like eternity sometimes lol. This weeks hard day was Wednesday. I felt like I was melting I had no idea I could sweat that much! Teaching in the middle of the week is always harder because people are working. Weekends are way busy and filled with lessons. Alrighty, here's all my weird stuff this week. I decided to start a reward system for drinking water becuase I don't drink enough. So everytime I drank water I got an orange tic tac! Well... that didn't last long. Pretty soon I was just downing tic tacs like water. I think I have an addiction. Tuesday was really long but really great. We had our first conference with the new mission president, Presdient George. He's really great to listen to because his spanish isn't very good right now so I can actually understand him lol. I've done really good here with staying happy and not acting like I miss home to much but he started showing us pictures of his dairy farm and I was about going to cry looking at pictures of cows. I don't know what that means but it was way weird lol. His wife doesn't know any spanish and you can tell she feels really uncomfortable but it will come and I talked to her a lot. Oh so I recieved a dear elder from Tyrel at the conference! That's about the funnest thing ever to get mail here! It probably costs a little but if anyone wanted to send a dear elder my way I wouldn't mind a bit! I taught my first english class this week lol. It was with a kid in the ward named rodrigo. I taught colors, family, and how to say I like and I have with these things. It was really fun and he's really smart. Some of the teenagers at the church kind of observed and my companion talked to them about bringing a non member this week and some of our investigators are coming this week I think. So hopefully more people on Tuesday. It's pretty fun. Ok so Tuesday night I believe it rained like CRAZY. Oh my gosh it was a down pour lol. I'll send a picture. So much water. It hasn't rained at all except for a couple times at nigth while i've been here which is really weird for this time of year. So I guess the clouds just opened. The roads were like rivers! Oh and I was really tested with food this week as I ate a sub sandwhich with everything on it. Heavenly Father is blessing my taste buds of my gosh. I could never have done that at home. But all went well. I have a mosquito bite in my armpit and I don't even know how that happens so that's super comfortable! I taught my companion the frase "food baby" this week lol. Apparently "comida bebe" is not a frase in mexico. She was laughing so hard. But everytime we leave lunch with the members I feel like I'm going to explode. And then we walk in the 100 degree weather up a mountain. I feel so sick for abuot 20 minutes everyday I swear haha. Last but not least of the crazy things this week I had to speak in church! A whole stinking 8 minutes in spanish. I about died. But I decided not to be nervous because everyone knows my spanish is awful haha. So I smiled lots and talked and now it's over haha. I'm sure it won't be the last time! That's all the interesting things this week! It goes by so fast. I wanted to send a quote that I got from my teacher in the MTC that I read this week and have decided is really awesome. "Christianity if false is of no importance and if true is of infinate importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." -C.S. Lewis. Isn't he wonderful. I think this quote is amazing and every day I'm realizing more and more how lucky I am to get to focus on my Heavenly Father all day long. Without distraction. When I get home I'm going to make sure that the gospel is the center of my life because the time we have here on earth is so little. The really important thing is the eternities after. I've been listening to a song this week that says "It's not about a worldly climb, it's all about His design" I love this. And I'm so grateful to be here in Mexico learning and growning in the gospel and sharing that testimony with everyone that I can. Contacting is much easier now and I can just walk up to anyone, sounds more like me huh! Hope everyone is doing great! Love you all!

 

Tayler - July 21, 2014

hi mom this week has been good basically a normal week. we taught a lot and talked to a lot of people but we are having trouble finding new people to teach but we just need to continue talking to people especially the people in the streets and eventually we are going to find new people. right now we are working on reactivating some inactive members and this week a few of them went to church. one lady brought her whole family and she has a kid who is 9 so if they continue to attend the church we will be able to baptize him next month. and we were going to have a baptism this week but our investigator had to go to the baptism of her brother in the catholic church in a different area. but she will be here this week so hopefully we can get something planned and have her baptism this week. and the week after that we have a baptism for sure our investigator is going to get married the day before and is going to get baptized the day after that. those are the only 2 investigators that are really progressing right now so hopefully we can find new people in the week. i love you.

Elder Baer

Tayler - June, July 2014

Lexie in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico July 2014

Lexie - July 7, 2014

I can´t believe how quickly this week fly by! My companion says she can´t even believe she has been here a year. I´m sure once I get the langauage it will go even faster and I can´t even comprehend that! I totally woke up to my bed shaking this morning. That was a new experience! My companion says that tremors and earth quakes happen a lot here and I don´t know where this one origionated but I felt it that´s for sure! No damage where I´m at though. Who knows about other parts of the city! So I´m happy to announce that I think I¨m getting a handle on my sunburn and ridiculous amount of mosquitos. The mosquitos here think I taste like chocolate or something becuase my legs look I´m sick. And they are godzilla mosquitos because holy smokes. I´m just red. Twice now I´ve had a little old lady look at me and start rubbing my legs with stuff lol. The other day a member put her home made bug spray stuff on me and last night one of our investigators put vapor rub all over them lol. I looked really nice and slimey! I´m not sure what will actually help because I just constnatly itch! Ok now on to food lol, I am so pleasantly suprised by the food here. Wow. It´s actually been really good. The other day though, we had a member feed us like we weighed 600 pounds. Oh my gosh, the amount of food! The family wasn´t in the room while my compaion and I ate and we literally looked like the scene in the great outdoors when he eats the ridiculously huge steak. I was so physically ill it was like thanksgiving! But I would rather have too much than too little! I also ate tuna the other day and for anyone that knows me, that´s a pretty big accomplishment. Heavenly Father is blessing my taste buds that´s for sure! I started reading the Our Heritage book last week and have like 20 pages left. It´s so good. I think I was supposed to read it early on in my mission because the stories and trials of the saints in that book make me feel like 60 mosquito bites is a piece of cake. It´s also made me realize that these people that risked their lives and lost so many of their possesions and family members to settle in salt lake did this so I could have the gospel. And here I am only giving a year and a half so that others can have the same. My sacrifice of time seems so minimal compared to what the saints gave. I also found something or refound I guess something in preach my gospel that has helped me a lot this week. There was a part that said, Your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself. Rely on the spirit rather than your own talents and abilities. I like this a lot because right now I feel so unable to help this people. I can understand the main topic of what their saying and share my testimony but really helping is a different story. But I´m going to have confidence in Christ to put words into my mouth. I know the more I trust him and open my mouth the more I will be able to say. We had some great lessons this week especially with Michael who came to church again this Sunday and Glorias family who attended church yesterday also. I´m not sure if I told you about Glorias family but it´s a grandma, a mom, and a daughter and son. The son is 2 and the daughter is 11. They are soooo awesome. I honestly can´t even believe how prepared and ready the grandma. The first lesson she asked a lot of great questions one of them being what happened to her husband that had passed away and never been baptized. My companion talked about baptizims for the dead the opportunity to learn the gospel in the spirit world and she was just beaming. She was so happy. A couple days after this lesson we took this family too the temple to the grounds to walk around and sit in the waiting room. The elders in the area also brough lots of their investigators. The ward mission leader, the bishop, and the temple president all came and talked to the investigators about the temple. It was a really cool experience. How cool that there is a temple right here in Tuxtla! We also had another amazing experience that taught me more about me not being the judge. A man drove by us last week and asked for one of our books. My comp gave him a pamphlet and started walking away and I said wait and gave him a pass along card with our number on it. My companion looked irritated so I asked her what was up and she said he just stopped to talk to us because we´re girls. He´s not interested. I did not at all feel the same. Well, the guy saw us again yesterday and said he wants to meet with us. He said he has a book of mormon at his house that he´s been reading. Wow! Coolest part was the street he saw us on was totally not where we were supposed to be and we were standing there staring at our map. Heavenly Father put us there, no doubt in my mind and I´m excited to start teaching this man the gospel! It´s been a good week and everything gets better every day. Great news I haven´t seen another cocroach in the house! Whoo! So that´s been awesome. I think that´s about it for this week. We got permission to head into the central part of Tuxtla today and we´re going to eat burger king, apparently it´s my companions favorite lol. I hope everyone is doing great! Love you all tons! Oh! one last thing! I´m going to teach english at the church once a week starting on Tuesday haha. Should be interesting. We´ll see how it goes, but lots of our investigators are really excited about it! Let´s hope I can teach english better than I can speak spanish! PS! For all my tumblers out there that read this I would LOVE to see videos or pictures of new skills or skills you have been working on! Hint hint. That would be the best present ever. Have a great week everyone! Love, Hermana Baer


Ok I think that´s it lol, also I need taylers mailing address. For letters and packages if it´s different. My companion has a ton of music so I´m going to by a memory stick and put her music on it for him. So thank you thank you. Also I still need megans email if you would be so kind! Gracias! Hope you have an awesome week! Love you tons.

Te Extraño mucho!
Con mucho amor, Hermana Baer

Tayler - July 7, 2014

yeah you have to try out the chimichurri i dont know how to explain the taste so if its good you probably made it right, i think its basically just a combonation of spices and stuff so it should be pretty easy. well this week was a good one. we were able to figure some stuff out and we were able to get past some obstacles that we have been having with 2 of our investigators so one of them will be baptized in 2 weeks and the other in august. it was really exciting to know that finally we can help them all we can and they can get baptized now. also i think i have really learned to trust the lord more and more as i have had to lead the area. as long as we plan well and do all we can the lord helps us out and we have been able to finish our goals everyweek so far, the only thing we need to improve on is helping people to come to church. well nothing really exciting happened this week but our new mission president has given us permission to watch the argentina soccer game in the semi finals of the world cup this wednsday wich is super awesome, they play against the netherlands i think, so we are going to watch it at a members house this wednsday. other than that its all normal here in argentina, lots of crazy people, oh for example the other day we contacted a house and they guy came out and called us demons and basically comanded us to leave, but it was kind of funny really crazy guy, and the people drive crazy too, this week i saw 2 motorcycles get hit by cars but the people were ok both times. well have a good week, i love you.


love elder baer

Tayler - July 14, 2014

well thats crazy about the earthquake. hoperfully everyone is ok. well we watched the argentina game on wednsday and it was really fun to be able to watch in with the members and when they won everyone went crazy but argentina lost in the championship last night against germany but still there was a ton of people in the streets shooting of firewoks and doing crazy stuff i have never seen people celebrate so much for losing. but this week was a pretty hard we didnt have a full day to work until thursday friday and our only full days were friday andsaturday because of world cup games and meetings with our district and meeting with the new mission president. but we were able to get a lot done still, we are having trouble finding people and right now we basically only have two people that are actually progressing the rest of the people were like one timers. but we are going to keep working and find someone eventually. today we have a zone activity so that should be pretty fun i think we are going to make tacos and play games or something i dont know yet. well that was pretty much my week i will send you some pictures. also i bought a fake argentina jersey because i needed one for the game wednsday and there is no place here where you can buy a real jersey they are all replicas. i love you


love elder baer

Tayler - June 30, 2014

well this week was a lot better than last week and wasnt super stressed out and we were able to do a lot of good things. as for our investigators all of them have some sort of problem that we just cant get passed for some reason. one we couldnt find for 2 weeks but we found here this week and the only thing she needs to do is start to come to church every week, another has been coming to church for the past 8 weeks but she cant get baptized yet because we have to have her mom sign the baptism paper because she is only 13, and another has problems because he doesnt live in our ward but comes to our ward every week with his girlfriend so they have to get married first before he can get baptized in our ward. its all super complicated and makes it kind of hard but we are still working with them and we have faith in them. anyway, seafood is one thing that i have not really seen here, i know they have like a filet or something that you can buy in a lot of places but i havent eaten that yet, they just eat a ton of meat and noodles and bread, but its really good. last week on p day we decided to make asado, so we bought a whole bunch of beef and we cooked it on our roof with fire and everything, it was probably the best meat i have ever eaten. i will send some pictures. and my companion is really good, he is from chile but he knows a lot of english so he talks in english all the time. and i dont know why but he never smiles but thats ok. anyway all is going well here its really cold, oh and also after we made our asado on monday we cleaned up everything and went back inside our apartment and like 10 minutes later it started hailing and they were the biggest hail i have ever seen the were like fist sized it was super crazy. and every morning when its cold its super foggy and water sticks to your hair and all over. but yeah i am cold all the time, but i am haveing a great time here. i love you.


love elder baer

Lexie - June 21, 2014

I have a minute so I'll try and think of some more to say. We've been saying bye to our teachers yesterday and today. It's been really weird and it's so strange to not give them hugs. We've been making lots of cards for people. One of the guys that is here is a real investigator and his name is Javier. He's from spain. He's a professor at some school in Price. He's one of those people that is SO SMART that he'll never be convinced with facts. It would have to be something spiritual, but he also has a hard time with faith. We had to talk to him about why girls don't hold the priesthood and some other weird stuff. He just knows so much. But obviously isn't accepting at this point but since he is working at the MTC with missionaries hopefully that will change. He's a very nice very smart guy. Que mas, Uhm, I'm doing pretty good with my spanish this week. I think it all makes sense slowly but when I'm speaking I can't think quick enough for some of the conjugations it's crazy. I'm super stressed about packing. There is just literally no time in our days to accomplish anything. I know I'll be busy in the field but probably in a little bit different way. We had infield orientation all day on thursday which was just a blurr. It was ridiculous. I dont know how neccisary it was but I guess I learned lots. They talk A LOT about involving members. It's the way missionary work works. It's really kind of cool. So to everyone that's a member of the church, don't rely on the missionaries! Go find and share the gospel yourself! I think that's about it for this week. Lots of just running around and getting things done. Thank you again for the new skirt I love it and it's wonderfully stretchy! Oh so this is funny lol. My companions are weird. I love them but their weird. They are SO CONCERNED with laundry. Maybe that's normal? I don't know. I did 3 loads today and that's weird. I usually just do lights and darks but today I put some of that tide with bleach into my solid whites so I did 3. One of my companions did 6 loads of laundry! Because she is so concerned with mixing things together lol. It kindof cracks me up because I'm pretty sure most of my clothes are going to get destroyed down there or I'm going to give them away. I'm sure at some point. Who knows. Anyways, it makes me laugh. I think I'm ready for a change of scenery with companions. It's a dang good thing I get to marry a boy becuause I couldn't deal with a girl for the rest of my life. No way. I need the laid back thing. Oh dear and Mexico Is probably going to destroy my stomach becuase i think it's already been destroyed here.

Tayler - June 23, 2014

ok so this week was probably the haredest most stressful week ever. we had our transfers last week and my companion got transfered to another area so almost all of last week i had to lead the are and help my companion because i knew where the members and investigators lived, well sort of. it was so stressfull i realized that before with my trainer i probably could have done more to learn about the are and where people lived so i would be ready when i had to lead but i didnt. so this week has been a struggle the other day i was thinking about our key indicators and all the lessons we needed with members and other lessons and i couldnt think of any possible situation where we would be able to accomplish our goals for the week. but last night we were able to finish all of our indicators except we didnt have very many people come to church with us wich is the only thing we werent able to accomplish but it was a great learning experience for me. last night we had about 45 minutes left and we need to find one more lesson to teach so because i know the are better than my companion i had to find people to teach. first we went to visit a sister that is a member and we were going to talk with her grandchildren but they werent home so that didnt work, then we went to try and talk to some investigators that we talked to once last week but they couldnt talk because they were busy or something. after those two i had no idea who we could talk to, but i knew there was more investigators in a different part of the are so we starting heading that way but i chose to take a rode where i knew an investigator lived but the last few times we had passed by she wasnt home, so we passed by her house and she was home and we had a great lesson with her and we finished our goals for the week. for me that experience really strengthened my testimony of 1 nephi 3:7 that we can accomplish all the things the lord has asked us to do as long as we put our faith in him and follow the spirit the way is prepared. that was a really cool experience and i feel like this week i have learned a whole lot about faith and miracles. thats crazy that lexie already left for mexico i cant beleive that was six week ago that she entered the mtc.


well we had our last transfer meeting with our mission president last wednsday and it was really sad. i have only been here like 3 months but president carter is awesome and i am going to miss him, i wish he could have been my mission president the whole time. but we get our new president on the 28th so thats kind of exciting to.and the sister carter has been making a blog its something like buenosaireswest at blogspot i think. but i dont think the new mission president is going to do a blog. and the address is always to the mission office so i thin its in my mission packet or i sent you an email a few weeks ago with the addresss to. i love you


love elder baer

Lexie - June 30, 2014

oh my gosh. this week has been insane lol. i love your pictures. sorry for my gross typing. this keyboard is weird lol. alright heres whats going on in a nutshell. the driving here is crazy. i stayed right in tuxtla for my first area and live at the real de bosque. apparently i need a cord for my camera for the computers here. ugh. so ill try and figure that out and if not ill get you pictures next week. real de bosque is just house upon house upon house upon house all staked on this stinking mountain. i walk up and down hills all day long. im so happy and miserable at the same time its a little ridiculous lol. so our apartment was soooo gross. if i meet the elders that had it before us i might kill them. oh my gosh. i opened the microwave to a molding plate of who knows what. they left us 6 bags of trash and i saw my first cocraoches last night in the room i have all my clothes in. i screamed like a baby. so gross. there were like 3. ugh. so needless to say i didn{t sleep at all last night because i was so paranoid. we didnt have water until wednesday becasue we didnt know we had to pay for water in these huge tanks on top of the houses. so i was looking really special. theres a walmart here and a sams club so ill have everything ill need im pretty sure. ok so i wish i could send pictures ill try again soon but i literally have 60 mosquito bites. ive been gong through the bug spray like crazy and a member gave us some cream that helps them not itch. so their getting better and i ahvent gotten a ton more. so painful though lol. and oh my gosh hace calor. it is sooooo hot. so hot. im brown. well red brown already. ive been trying to carry an umbrella to keep the sun off but i have so much stuff it gets heavy. that and im literally pooping water. i dont think ill poop solid for a year and a half. not going to lie i had to change my g bottoms the other day. ew. so gross. bad bad bad. anyways. at least my stomache isnt bugging me. just struggling. we ride in these things called cambios everywhere and pay 7 pescos. just insane. and oh this is hilarious. my compainon loves singing but is so tone deaf i can hardly stand it. i want to die laughing everytime we sing. at first i though she just didnt know the tunes. but at church on sunday the lady in front of us was plugging an ear to hear herself and get the tune lol. it was so bad i started laughing so hard. oh and i caught a lizard thing in the house too the other day. they are everywhere. one more funny thing one of my investigators calls me hermana baer and thinks it is just the funniest thing in the whole world lol. anyways, i think thats in on the weird random stuff.. heres how the church stuff has gone


first, i dont know if ive ever told you to read the prayer section in the bible dictionary but do it! its soo good. go to the part that starts with, as soon as we learn the true realtionship.. its so good and it makes me think differently about how i pray. i really like my trainer. shes from tampico mexico. but i kind of feel like a salcker this week. contacting is hard when i dont know the language so ill report next week and hopefully ill be braver. we had one investigator come to church and hes really great. the best thing about him so far is that the first time we taught him my comp said, hes not interested. and i didnt feel the same way. in the second lesson he broke down crying and said we wants to believe in god but he doesnt know how. it was really cool. we watched the finding faith in christ video with him. it made me realize again that im not the judge and i dont know who is ready and who isnt to recieve the gospel. and if i dont contact and ask! the answer is always no. thats my modo this week. i also gave the baptism invite this week and the lady accepted so that was really cool too. i feel like we walk a ton and teach really little but my comp doesnt know this area so were learning where everything is and its taking a little bit of time. overall though im learning something everyday and except for those stinking roaches ive slept really good. i think thats all for today. ill send another if i think of anything. i love you tons! i cant even believe ive been here a week already. its flying by even though its hard. Love you, have an awesome week and thank you for the pictures!  Talk to you again soon. Love you,


Hermana Baer