I told them I knew how to cut hair!

 Well this week i turned one year old on the mission and i counted and i have 5 months left!!! WHAT! just 5 months? Yes that is correct because september is almost over and i will go home in the beginning of March so March doesn’t count either. so October, November, December, January February. and im home!!!! woah!!!! 

   This week was suuuper great. We found a family that is suuuper elect and ready for the gospel we marked their baptism date. They just have to get married. and also 2 beautiful young women who are ready and waiting for the gospel and who will be baptised this upcoming week. I am very excited for them. 

   Also this i told people that i knew how to cut hair! What a joke! So i cut an elders hair and a little boys hair and another kids hair. It turned out pretty good. not perfect, but pretty good. ha ha ha. It was suuper funny because they believed me and asked me to cut their hair and so i said sure of course i will and so i did. and i just winged it and prayed that it would turn out ok! ha ha. It did. It wasnt perfect but it was good. ha ha  (Momma note: I taught her how to cut hair before she left, but she has only cut one person's hair, her best friend Jake, now Elder McKee serving in the Santa Maria Brazil mission.  She cut his ear and her finger when she cut his hair!  Brave souls!)

  Well i love you all. Have a wonderful week and be good. 

Thank you for your love and support

love, sister j. baker 


Momma note: The next 2 parts are in response to Marks letter and my letter.  Mark asked her what a typical day in her life in Brazil looked like, what she eats, studies etc.   I asked Joci in my letter if she had any spiritual experiences this week that strengthened her testimony and if she could share them.    The first is her response to Mark's letter, the second is the beautiful experience she shared in response to my letter ~Momma Baker

Hey dad! Lemme tell ya. I am working a lot but I’m not working as much as i should. This area is known as the hole of the mission but surprisingly I am getting a lot of work done here, the only thing is, if i worked harder i could get a lot more work done. We wake up at 6:30 and then i drink a glass of juice (its really and honest and truely from the fruit. sometimes i make it directly from the fruit. its really good) and sometimes i make tapioca or bread and cheese and then we study for and hour. Personal study. Right now i am studying Jesus the Christ. I am almost done. It’s a wonderful book. I love it. Then we do companion study and share what we learned and stuff. I stopped doing language study at 6 months because our mission president said that if we felt like our language is good we need to leave the house and do work. So then we leave the house and do work. But sometimes if lunch is really far away we don’t have time to do work and we have to go straight to lunch. Then we work the whole day and return to our house at 9:00. We talk with everyone and we have about 40 or 50 lessons every week. It’s a lot of lessons. Sometimes we have less, like 25 but this week we had 43. You have to have at least 25. 

Well thats a typical day. It’s pretty great. i like it. ha ha

Of course i can share my testimony. It’s one of the things i like doing the most. You know i know that Heavenly Father loves every single one of us and that His plan is a perfect plan. This week something suuper cool happened. We met 2 young girls who are really ready for the gospel. You can tell when they are ready by the look in their eyes. They are very pure and ready and willing to follow what God tells them to do. I love it when i find people like that. We started to teach them the 1st lesson about the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith. We taught about Prophets and how God loves all of us so much that He sent prophets to help us and guide us. and how Jesus established His church on the earth and that it fell after Jesus and the 12 apostles died because no one had authority to lead the church and then how Joseph Smith asked God which church he should join. At this moment i told them about the first vision and i used the same words that Joseph Smith used. At this moment the spirit was so strong. like a blanket that fell over all of us and we couldn’t hear anything that happened outside of the four of us because the spirit was so strong. The two of them had tears in their eyes and they looked at me and said "why do i feel like i want to cry?" and i asked them if they felt something in their heart and they said that they felt something so strong in their heart and I said that that is the Holy Spirit and that they felt this because Heavenly Father wanted them to know that this really did happen and that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ really did appear to Joseph Smith and that all of this is true and i said do you believe this is true? and they said Yes i believe that it is all true. I know its true. All of this makes sense! It was a wonderful experience. and that helped my testimony grow because of that experience i know that Heavenly Father appeared to Joseph Smith and that THIS is the true church of Jesus Christ. I love this gospel. I am learning a lot about my Savior and my Brother Jesus. I don’t even have words or how to describe how I feel about him. Get closer to Him and you will be happier. The more you know about Him the better off you are. You have to know more about Him. I want to recognize Him when i see Him. I want to see Him and know who He is. I want to be able to feel His presence. I love you all. Please get to know your Savior a little bit more. This is very important. 

I love you

love, sister j. baker