New transfer! Barbados!

We'll after six months Colton is moving off the island of Puerto Rico. As you can see, he is over the top excited. One thing to note, but at this time do not send anything to the mission office as he directed as we received a letter from the office telling us not to send packages there as they can no longer deliver them to the Elders on the islands due to the increase in baggage cost on the airlines. If we learn anything different, we will let you know. Thanks to all for your support of him. Kathlyn(Colton's MOM)


Hola!!

So i will start out with what everybody wants to know.. What is going on this transfer with Elder Baines???... I am going to Barbados!!!!!! O man i am so super stoked i cant wait to get down there!! I might as well be going to a different mission. It is english speaking and like a totally different country!! So sweet i am super excited!!!! I will be companions with elder johnson who came into Puerto Rico with me last september and i am way exctied to work with him because he is awesome! So there is one down fall of this information. Mail is going to be really bad. It will be foreign rates and it will probably take forever, Barbaods is kind of off on its own from all the other islands. So no packages will be worth sending at all. Its really expensive to do so. SO this is what will need to happen. Send any packages to the MISSION OFFICE at this address..

Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamón, Puerto Rico 00959

So mom, please still send the package to the mission office, eventually it will make it down to me. The only other thing i can think of that you may need to include is another pair of shoe inserts from grandma and grandpa gogarty. I dont know how long i will be there for. I know i should be there for at LEast 6 months so i may need some more... I still have one more pair that i havent used and they seem to be lasting anywhere from about 4-6 months so we will see. But i am going to be in a walking area down there so shoes/inserts will stay at about the same rate of decay as they have been. But letters will still be able to come to me, however like i said it will be international rates and they could take a while. But if you want to send me some to barbados my address there is..

Lazare Residence Clapham Heights
Christ Church, Barbados.

I think that is the full address but i will let you know...



But i had a good thought to share with you all and i didnt write it down so i forgot it becasue i am just too excited that i am going to barbados!! So i will try to have one for you all next week!!! Thanks for all the support, have a great week!!

Love
Elder Baines

Please do not send packages to Colton via the mission office, however, you can send letters to the office if you would like to and they will eventually find there way down to Colton on Barbados. The address is:

SAN JUAN PUERTO RICO EAST MISSION

Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamón, Puerto Rico 00959

Thanks to all. Kathlyn

New Pictures! And last weeks letter!

Tons of new pictures from Colton this week! Take a look http://coltonbaines.shutterfly.com/
Also here is his letter from last week, sorry I have been so bad about putting them up. He is doing great we talked to him last week and he sounds fantastic. I am so proud of him, what an amazing thing that he is doing and I am grateful for the wonderful message he is spreading to those people. What a great brother I have, I am glad he is such a great example to so many. Have a wonderful week!




Hola!

Well this week is just racing by! I am sure that i say something to that extent every week but its true and it always amazes me how fast it goes. Elder Dye and i just say that the only days in the mission are Sunday and Wednesday (P-day) because it seems like we have always just passed one of them when the other is tomorrow. That might not make sense but oh well. But i had an awesome phone call with the family on sunday it was great to here from all of you!! I think i pretty much covered everything there is so there isnt much more. But for those that couldnt be at the phone call here is a quick update.

We have some really good investigators right now. One, Glorimar, has lupis and is going in to get a hip replacement becasue the disease ate her hip away. She came to church on sunday (even though she wasnt suppose to go anywhere under doctors orders) and sat through church in pain. She absolutley loved it and refused to leave early. Needless to say she wants to come back to church as soon as possible and get baptized. Problem is it could very well be up to 6 months (max) before she could get baptized due to the surgery. But she is awesome! Then on sunday we found a guy named Pablo. He has a baptismal date for June 6th! The lesson we had with him started out HORRIBLE. He told us the only reason he inveited us over was to be friendly and he cant read so he wanted us to read the pamphlet we gave him to him. So we started reading and it was just going nowhere. So we gave up on reading and did a really simple example and the light just flipped on. He said it felt as if god was talking directly to him when we shared the example with him. We moved on to the Joseph Smith story and asked him if he understood and he was like "yeah! i am looking for the right church just like he was!!" so he is coming to church this sunday and is preparing to get baptized! Awesome!!! Our other investigators are also progressing, slowly but surely.

That is about it as far as what has been going on. the work is moving forward and elder dye and i are having a blast! Something that i was thinking about while reading an email today, is how we always have a fresh slate, so to speak, at the the start of a new day. I have come to realize on my mission that by the end of the day i could be feeling really good, wanting to work hard, wanting to be obedient, just wanting to do everything right. Sadly, i wake up the next day and feel as if i have to start from ground zero and once again build myself up to that point again. WE can make the best of our day, but we have to find the things that will turn it from not so good to how we want it. For example; I have found that i start my day on a low. Waking up. This is not my favorite part of the day. So how do i make it better. Exercise. I love to work out it makes me fell better and i feel alert and awake after wards. When i dont work out i the morning, for me it is the start of a not so great day. Im sure we are all wondering where i am going with this. Well here is my point. Lets say we end the day with a grand desire to follow Jesus Christ and do all we can to live the commandments and be better than the natural man. This is our disposition at the end of a fantastic day. We say our nightly prayer and go to bed thinking of how great the next day is going to be. The problem enters here. Sleep. Sleep is something that we, as the natural man, fallen, and imperfect, need. So we wake up the next day having perhaps lost a little of our fire from the night before. Maybe we still have our desire, but how do we start the day? Do we jump out of bed shower, eat, race out the door to our daily duties? Or do we wake up say our prayers, read the scriptures, spend a few minutes with the family when possible and then execute our day according to the desire we have to follow Christ? It is easy to see the turning point in a day if i am having a bad one. It is when we find someone that is willing to talk to us. But what if i could be the turning point in someone else's day and be the one willing to talk to them? That was a lot of randomness all at once im not quite sure why i even wrote it, but enjoy the glimpse of what goes on periodically when my mind actually is turned on. Have a great week everyone!!

Love
Elder Baines

Colton meets Johnny Depp

So.... I have been bad about keeping Colton's letters updated on here..... sorry I will be better. He actually didnt send us one for about two weeks but we got one yesterday! AND he met Johnny Depp, he actually gave him a little pass a long card about the church haha. Oh Colton we love and miss you!



Hello Everyone!

Wow i am sorry that it has been so long since i have sent anything out! Last wednesday we had the coolest thing ever!!! SUPER P-DAY!!!! It was so sick! It was a whole mission activity where all the missionaries in puerto rico and president and sister dewsnup went to caguas and had a BBQ and played sports all day!! It was so awesome! So that is why i couldnt email last week because i had to help set up and clean up so i was running the entire day lifting tables and chairs and playing sports. Needless to say i was tired the next day. But that was probably the biggest highlight of this past week. The highlight of this week is that today we went to old san juan for p-day. They happen to be filming a movie there called The Rum Diary and guess who the main actor is... Johnny Depp! I have a pcture of him and we gave him a pass a long card!!!! We have a picture of him with the card in hand its so cool!!!!! So that was awesome, pictures of that will be coming for sure!
As far as people we are working with, we have one lady who is really cool named Milagros. We havent had a sit down lesson with her yet, that is coming on saturday, but her sister is a member in the Dominican Republic and she has been to church before! SO that is really what is going down in me and elder dye's world here. I dont have a lot to say... Actually i do, but it just doesnt work as far as typing it all.. Dont worry i get to call home again on mothers day which is coming SUPER fast so you can all get the low down from my family when i talk their ears off! But i guess my spiritual thought for this email is kind of stolen from a previous quote that is quite famous. It goes a little something like this.. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I thought it needed a little more to it so i added to it to say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but oh how much more is the beauty, when the beholder's eye is eternal." We are living in some very difficult times. Trials are coming from every front and as was the tone of conference, we have to be faithful and persevere. Although however difficult the world may become, what it contains and what lies within it doesn't have to become ugly. God has given us this life to have Joy. Everything that He has given us is so that we can "find joy in the journey" and the beauty that lies before our very eyes. We have the true and RESTORED church of Jesus Christ on the earth today, which only adds to our joy as it guides us through the journey. How many more families would not be broken apart, lives shattered and the cycle repeated, if within the family we understood the importance of the relationships we create with those we love? If we had an eternal perspective, how much harder would we work to resolve concerns before they become conflicts, knowing that it is NOT "til death do us part"? The thing i find amazing is that we have been given the things to help us gain this understanding all we have to do is be willing to receive them. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints truly is THE church of Jesus Christ. He guides us through a living prophet, Thomas S. Monson. There is no denying that He truly is the prophet of God on the earth today. I hope that we can all BEGIN to understand these simple concepts so we can come to an understanding of the beauty of the things that we have been given, in this life and forever. Thank you for all of your support i love you all i got letters from the markham family, elder langston, and grandpa baines, packages from home, emails from mom, dad, victoria, and grandpa gogarty. Thanks you so much for your words of encouragement, support and prayers. I pray that the Lord will continue to bless all of you and that everything will continue to go well.

Love
Elder Baines

New pictures!

Here are some pictures Colton sent from the past month or so and his first baptism!

http://coltonbaines.shutterfly.com

He is doing great, should be a letter tomorrow! Enjoy!

New letter.. sorry this has not been updated in a few weeks!

Sorry for the lack of updates, I need to be better about it! I have just been so busy!


Hola!

Well i am moving onto my third transfer already! HOly cow! I am staying here in Rio Piedras which i am very excited about because we have three baptisms for this next month, two of which are for the 14 and 15th of february so they are coming up soon, i cant wait!! This past week was a really good one, we got a lot of work done and finished off the last transfer well. I forgot to say in last week;s email that i got a little taste of puerto rico last week. One of our investigators fed and us a certain "delicacy" from the island... PIG FOOT! It was interesting, not gonna lie, i almost threw up. The rest of the food was good, but that was pretty hard to choke down. Apparently some people here really like it. Others dont so i dont feel too bad for not enjoying it. But as far as that, we didnt have to much happen this week. Just chuggin along, bien rapido-- very fast! This transfer i swear felt like a week or so, i cant believe i am already starting another one, and becuase im not moving i think its going to go even faster since i am already all settled in and know the area and people and everything! Ahh!
Since i dont have a lot to talk about, here is my fun little thought of the week. THis was actually from a talk from someone at church and i dont know where it came from but i really like this saying. In spanish it is "dolor es inevitable, sufrimiento es opcional"-- and in english this means, "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." There is no doubt that we are going to encounter some kind of pain daily for all of our time here on earth. Whether it be physical or spiritual, it is going to happen and we cant really do anything about it. What we do have a choice over is whether we suffer from the pains we experience. Simply put, we can either look at the scenario as an opportunity to grow or we can wallow in our sorrows. Wallowing is not very fun for ourselves and those around us. There is naturally an "opposition in all things" and were it not so we would never be able to taste of the sweet, if we havent ever experienced the bitter. HOw can we know what is good if we dont know what is bad? We cant because without the knowledge of both, we would be forever governed by one and never have an understanding of what we can acheive through the talents we have been given. But we cant "polish our talents" if we dont put them into use. You never know what talents you possess that may turn somebody's day, week or even life around. "When ye are in the service of your fellow being, ye are only in the service of your God." If you are serving our Father in Heaven by helping another of His children carry on through their struggles, why would He not carry us through our struggles? Turhn your frown upside down, give thanks for the things that teach us how to better ourselves, and then go help someone acheive their best.
Thanks for all of your support, you can all for sure write real letters if you want to at this address, ill be here for another 6 weeks at least..

Elder Baines
Extensión Villa Capri
Calle Turin #H-4
San Juan, Puerto Rico 00924

Hope to hear from you!

Elder Baines

Sorry for the Delay in Posting!

I apologize for my lack of posting recently, I was in Colorado for the holidays and school just started back up. Also we actually didn't hear from Colton last week because of the holiday, however we did get a letter this week.....AND.............. PICTURES!!!!! I have created a shutterfly account for everyone to view his pictures on, its much easier then posting them on here because there are so many. He is doing great! We talked to him for about 2 hours on the phone on Christmas day which was awesome! He has a funny accent thing going on because he has been speaking Spanish since he left, he informed us that sometimes he forgets how to say words in English. Sort of funny :) Goes to show the power which the lord has in guiding these missionaries... pretty impressive that he is fluent enough in a language after four months that he is forgetting how to speak English. Enjoy the letter, we will update when we have a new address but for now it sounds like everyone should stick to emails....Oh and below is his link to see pictures!

http://coltonbaines.shutterfly.com/


Happy NEw Year a Week late!

Well to start off i apologize for not writing last week. In my new area (Rio Piedras) we have to do email at the university and it was closed due to the holidays. I am actually lucky that i can email today because yesterday was yet another holiday here in Puerto Rico. THree Kings DAy. And for the next 8 days it is some other holiday and then another one right after that. They like to have holidays here. I believe they celebrate every holiday from the U.S., Brasil, Argentina, Venezuela and there own. (I may be wrong but thats what a member said.) So needless to say, they are always having holidays.
My new area is pretty awesome. It is a little less urban in areas compared to Guaynabo. It also has a lot of hills which is no fun considering i am on a bike now. Elder Markham i feel your pain. Also there are a lot of "Casa Rios" around my area. Generally speaking they are pretty much ghettos. Its a little bit sketchy because the fences and walls of the buildings have bullet holes all over and my companion has a fired bullet that he found on the ground near one. The weather has been quite cool here for the past couple weeks which has been great. The ward here is awesome, it has very strong members and it is easy to get members to help us which is a huge benefit. My spanish is improving imensely as my companion cannot speak or understand very well at all. He has only been out for two more transfers than me. It is wierd to think that i am already halfway through my third week of this transfer. The first week i was in my new area was very slow but it is flying by now and the next transfer is on February 4th. I honestly only feel like i have only been here for a few days. We have an investigator right now that has a baptismal date for the 25 of this month. Its a very wierd situation but basically she is waiting for divorce papers from the Dominican Republic so she can marry a member who she has a kid with. Kind of wierd but they are awesome. Other than that we are teaching a lot of lessons and talking to a lot of people but really dont have solid investigators right now.
Sorry i still dont have a house address to give you for letters so dont mail anything for a while until you hear from me because they will just keep going to my old area. I think we are moving soo so that is why i dont have an address. Our owner is a little crazy, for too many reasons than i can put and are worth writing about.
This email isnt the best i know i am racking my brain trying to think of something of spirtual value that i have read or studied in the past week or so but im not getting anything. It sounds like all of you are doing fantastic and im glad that you had a good holiday season. I got word that the colombian kid, Alvaro, that Elder Contreras and i were teaching went to church last week which is awesome!! I have been kinda really up and down these past couple weeks i think just adjusting to the new environment, but i have truly come to know the effect the mission is going to have on my life and how much the Savior guides us in every thing we do. I have concluded that no matter what the outcome of my mission is, whether i have one baptism or none, the "joy of saving but one soul" will come from saving my own. It is amaing the changes we will make in our lives when we truly have come to the knowledge and outlook of an eternal perspective. The changes we make might bring us outstanding grief and sorrow before we can experience the fullness of joy that truly comes from coming unto Christ. "Our disappointments are the straight and narrow path back to our Heavenly Father." I would rather pass through grief or shame in the short time we have here than have to bear the burden of grief or shame in the eternities to come, wouldn't you?
I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He lives and He as the power to carry us back to Him if we are willing to let him drive our lives. We all know that nobaody likes a backseat driver and i cant imagine He does either. He knows what is next in our lives and He will guide us through it. Nothing we experience here is too much to bear when we accept His outstretched hand.
Thank you for all of your love, prayers, and support. I pray that the Lord may continue to enrich all of our lives.

Love
Elder Baines