natal who wander are lost: week 34 . just one of six

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Hey gang.

This week felt like freakishly long. But it was a really good week too. We had ZONE CONFERENCE. Which was a literal dream come true. I cried A LOT because the spirit was so strong. Sister Soares talked about Jesus Christ and who he really is and how we can relate to him more than we think. President Soares talked about using the spirit in our work. It was all genuinely so inspired and answered a lot of questions that I had asked Heavenly Father before the conference. We also had a devotional about missionary work so President Soares came back to Caicó and spoke again. Huge blessing for us here. His talk was awesome and I hope helps the members here understand what our goals are as missionaries. We all need to work together in this work!

The Zone Conference was great too because I got to see some missionaries who I knew from other zones and what-not. Including my "mom" Sister Garcia!!! So fun to see her! She is sister training leader now, what a babe. And as awesome as ever. She's going home in three transfers and I can't believe how fast the time passes. And at the conference I found out that there are only SIX American sisters in our entire mission. What? So weird to think that I'm just one of six here.

Sister Moraes, Sister Rios, Sister Hernandez and Sister Baker

Sister Pace, Sister Hernandez, Sister Baker, Sister Moraes

Sister Hernandez, Sister Baker, Sister Rios

Sister Baker and Sister Rios

Sister Baker and Sister Hernandez

Sister Baker Megan and her "mom" Sister Garcia

Elder Clark, Elder W. Silva, Sister Rios and Sister Baker

We're doing T25 (almost) every morning. Focus! And it's kicking our butts but we're loving it and Sister Rios and I have a bunch of goals to be healthier and stuff like that. (But I'm still eating obscene quantities of açaí because I'm weak and I think it's good for me, especially the sweetened condensed milk lol)

Sunday was a bit rough because we didn't have anyone at church. Francisco who got baptized a few weeks ago has had stuff happen every single week and hasn't been confirmed yet. This has been really hard for me. Sometimes I don't know if the problem is someone's agency or because I'm not doing my part. But I'm praying a lot for revelation to know how to help him and his family and we're not giving up on him. I love this family.

About the ATM withdrawal you asked about...I had to take out a bunch of money on Friday because the sisters in our house are in charge of the zone t-shirts so we had to pay for them and then everyone will pay us back. I was already planning on emailing you about it cuz I knew it would look sketchy. Thanks for putting money in, I'll get the money we spent on t-shirts back (hopefully everyone pays. fingers crossed), but until then I'm pretty broke. Thanks for paying attention to this stuff.

Other housecleaning:

+ If you haven't sent CDs yet, don't send them. the rules changed in the mission and we can only listen to motab [mom note: Mormon Tabernacle Choir] and classical (so you can send CDs of Schubert if you want to ;) ) [mom note: the Schubert comment is a nod to one of her favorite movies The Young Victoria.]

+ Do you have the setting apart notes from Leslie and Shelley? Last time you sent some but said there were more from those two

+ What was the name of the ancient city place we went to when we went to Mexico? Was it Tikal??

+ How much is a round trip ticket to Guatemala? Maybeee I'm planning a backpacking trip with Sister Rios haha

+ Can you post #becausehelives photos and stuff on my Facebook and Instagram? I love it! Because He Lives is perfect. I wanted to talk about it more in my email but I'm out of time. Sad.

Because He Lives - English

Because He Lives - Portuguese

I hope you guys all have a wonderful week.

Love you!

Sister Baker

[mom note: looks like there may be lots of camera "stealing" going on]

Sister Rios exchanging shoes with an Elder

Soaked from all the rain

Sister Rios celebrating "9 months" on the mission with fake pregnancy pictures. This seems to be a tradition amongst sister missionaries serving in South America.