November 21, 2011 Hallo!

Well hallo. So another week another week. Seriously these things fly by. Can you believe that it's almost december?? I left at the end of Feb.!! Time has been flying.

Well we got sister missionaries this past week. They are legit like usual. I always say that sisters do the work of 3 sets of elders. This is due to a variety of reasons which would take far too long to go into right now. So...

Sadly, the past few months have been full of the slow tedious side of missionary work. There really isn't anything new to report, except for one thing. And that is how much I love learning.

So I guess I will talk about what I have been learning because, for some reason, that seems (at least visually) all that I am doing here. I was listening to a Hugh Nibley talk that he gave at BYU some time ago on the subject of Brigham Young and how much he loved learning. (As an aside, I learned that Hugh Nibley can speak German) And I was inspired from that point on to take control of situations and search for things that I can learn from them. In the talk, he talked about how we need to seek knowledge from the best books available. How we need to learn the sciences, the arts, history, literature, languages, and so on and so forth. It was really cool. It made me miss college but at the same time I feel like when I get back, I will be better prepared for it.

I have been really searching the scriptures for new insights that I never before had, as well as using the teachings of people like Hugh Nibley, Cleon Skousen, Truman G.Madsen, and Bruce R. Mconkie. I have been loving it. I don't know whats happened to me! I have all of a sudden started to love reading! AHHH!

Well, we have had lately extra time of mission wide finding time. On Wedesndays we have stuff like "consecrated finding time" which to me personally sounds a little redundant because my time here is already consecrated.

Well we did it, and had some interesting people answer doors and such. One old lady was real nice to us but didn't have any interest. We talked with her for about 15 minutes. Then we talked to a woman who very violently slammed the door in our face. It was funny. I think she was being rude on purpose. Haha. Then we talked with a guy who said that Christ never existed. Then, Elder Jongejan said that he definitely did exist. Then there came the door. Haha. It was something that we just have to work with.

So, the weather here has been changing (why is the weather always a topic of discussion? haha...) and it has really been getting cold around here. I have busted out the heavy coats and stuff. Hopefully, it doesn't get too bad.

Last night we went by a member to drop off a Book of Mormon in Turkish and the members were like come on in! So we came in and talked with them for a while. (They are seriously like the coolest members here.) We even got a ton of ice cream and got some Christmas stuff to send back home! So be expecting something in the mail in a little bit. I love Christmas time!

So let's see... we moved the sisters in which was cool. I am way jealous they have an apartment overlooking the old city and it's a very nice one. We spent almost all day moving boxes of furniture up these stairs to an elevator. It was just crazy.

I also went to ward soccer night which was cool. I turned down the notch on the soccer though which was nice.

Thanks guys for sending me emails every week. Especially Grandma in Phoenix, Sean, Grammie, Mom, and Everyone back at the house. I know I don't really respond specifically, but I do read your emails every week.


So what's the status on that package? Is my birthday package supposed to turn into a Christmas package? Let me know what's up.

Thanks guys Love you all!

Elder Trevor Baker