WEEK 64 TAIPEI: Miracles are reeaaaalllll

Well Goooood Moooorning Viieettaaaiwwwaannnn

lol

lol

What is up my peeps? Like literally. Tell me what is going on in your lives. Shout out to the people who read my email last week! It was a grand total of 6 people who read it and responded that they had. So I guess I can say the the page is not dead yet! 

Speaking of pages, if anyone has any experience with running a Facebook business page lmk. Cause I do that now. 

Wooooow what a week. Sit down. Grab some cocoa. A notepad. Cause Get ready here we gooooooo (vloom vloom vloom vlloooooooom) 

((supposed to be Peter Pan music for you true fans out there who know what I am talking about)) 

So we will start on Monday. P-day was so chill and that is okay. Did some dope things. Did some less dope things. 

So lets just move on to Tuesday. I was still feeling sick when I woke up, but sick doesn't = no spirit. Because that morning we have a lesson with Janet. Janet is getting baptized on the 12th. She is amazing. We taught her the law of chastity (and by we I mean my companion spoke in Tagalog while I sat there and bore testimony when he told me to) and may I just say the church is true? And the gospel changes lives? 

As we were talking about it I started to notice that something was up. Since I don't talk a lot in these lessons my main objective becomes to pray for my companion and the investigator as we teach, and then listen to the spirit. Because the gift of tongues is real I can still be prompted by the spirit to know what to say even if I have no clue what anyone else is saying. 

So we asked her about her thoughts because, like I said, we could tell something was up. 

And she just starts to tell us about how she already has a 7-year-old son. She's 24ish. And that she didn't get married to the father and how the father left her. And as she was telling this to us you could just see the weight settling on her shoulders. 7 years of pain because of what had happened. 7 years of doubt and trial. 7 years raising a child alone because her boyfriend left when she got pregnant. 

And then she looked at us and asked "Can I still get baptized?" 

And of course the answer was yes! We started to share about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of repentance. And she broke into tears. I literally watched this 7 year weight be lifted off her shoulders as she turned to God. She was just sitting there crying and we told her that she can be forgiven and that God will help her. And so she just sat there and cried as she felt God's love for her. 

And I just want to take some time here to say that God loves you. You. No not the other person that might be reading this email. But you. YOU. And he will work with you as long as you are willing to work with Him. And you will not be perfect. And you will mess up. And it will feel terrible. And there will be pain. I know that. I have felt that. The pain of addiction and sin is real and it is heavy. But somehow, Somehow, God still can reach in and help. And it takes time. It will take time for Janet to be completely healed from 7 years of pain. But she has felt God's love for her. And God loves all of us. In the darkest times of my life (my intermission for those of you not religiously following along with my emails (if you've missed them check out my blog (link down below))) God was there for me. Even though I sinned against the light he still brought me back and forgave me. I am so grateful for that. And I forever will be. God be thanked for the matchless gift of his divine son. 

So yah. Amazing Lesson. 

Then we went to a members house for a dinner and they made authentic Mexican food which I haven't eaten in a while and so that made me smile :)))) 

Yerp

Wednesday I forgot to write in my journal and have forgotten about it because we have been super busy. 

But one of our other friends, Helen, who is also getting baptized on the 12th, said rather emphatically that Jesus was her husband. Her husband left her and started another family while she was abroad making money for her family. Her life is incredibly hard. She has had employers that have beaten her because she didn't do her work right. There was one time that she walked across the mountains from Turkey to Syria to escape wars in the country. She walked for 10 days without food or water. And when she was about to die, she prayed to God and asked to see her children again. And immediately she had strength to keep going and found water so that she could survive. 

This woman has been through everything, and she is the most humble person I have ever met. When she only had 3USD she gave it away to a woman and her young baby because they needed it more than she did. I have never met anyone quite like this. She is an angle. 

We met with her again on Sunday and she told us that she was so excited to be baptized because she had finally found that truth. The true church. She has worshiped God her whole life, but she told us that this is the organization she was missing. This was the Restored truth of Jesus Christ. 

And I just sat there stunned listening to her testify about how the Book of Mormon had changed her life. She was testifying to me! It is incredible! I have no clue why I am so lucky to see this happening in my area. The Filipinos are such an amazing people. And wow. So amazing. 

Just jaw dropped and stuff. 

Then Thursday was transfer day so everyone was moving around and in the office. We said goodbye to Elder Zhang and Elder Cai. They will be missed. And we said hello to all the new missionaries. We do a lot of training with them which is kind eh. But at the same time it means that we get a lot of free food which is nice! 

Then another Filipino sister invited us over for a Thanksgiving dinner! What a miracle. A Fillipino woman, living in Taiwan, making an American Thanksgiving. The light that comes from these members is astounding. I had never seen anything like it until this night. As they just talked about there desire to share the gospel I was just amazed. Like, woah us white people arent' like this at all. We should learn how to be more humble. 

It is incredible. 

Friday was my first full day as an office elder so that was pretty lit. We took some missionaries to the train station that were going home. And put all the other missionaries on the bus to the airport. We lost 10 sisters this transfer and got 0 new ones.... So.... Yah our mission is struggling on the number of missionaries front.... Oh well. 

We then talked to a friend who we had asked to pray about if what we were talking to her about was true. She said she had and that she felt a ton of relief when she said the prayer. 

It really is relief when we find the truth. if you want to know what that's like, open the Book of Mormon. Yeeeeey

Then we met a guy on the street who seemed willing to talk. But then he just started to go off on Joseph Smith and stuff and just was quoting all these false things and it was kind of funny. First time experiencing that really. Man I just love only contacting foreigners. They are sooooooo nice. More on him later. 

Saturday we met with another Filipino sister named Marina. This was our first time meeting with her. We were also meeting with a friend of hers who is a member but hasn't been to church in over 30 years. 

And after we shared the first lesson they both just started to cry. They were both so touched by the spirit that they just could only cry. 

Marina set a Baptismal date for December 20th.

What message, other than the Restored Gospel of our Lord and Savior even Jesus Christ, could change a person this much? 

LET me know in the comments down below what else would do that? 

There aren't going to be a lot I can tell you that. 

Sunday we met a Russian guy at church. one of the members invited him. He is way cool and we will meet with him sometime next week. So yeeeee. I then put Chinese subtitles on the light the world video the church put out. 

Speaking of. If you haven't looked at light the world yet then repent and go look at it. 

comeuntochrist.org will have everything you need to get started on your advent calender of service! Wohoo! 

And that was basically my week. Let me think..... Yah that is about it. 

What a crazy amazing week. 

I love you all so much! Remember to light the world! 

Love, 

Elder Baird

Something about socks,

So remember that guy who I said I would talk about him later. Well. I'm not going to talk about him yet. 

I love to see the temple

I put Sriracha on my siracha

One spoon to clean

Okay now I will talk about him. So as he was talking with us he said that there was a verse in the Bible that was about breaking down strongholds. And he told us that he was here in Taiwan to break down strongholds. He then told us he was here to break down OUR strongholds (rude, I spent good money on the mortar around the outer perimeter) 

He then started talking about some anti stuff and just looked at us and was like, "I'm telling you things that should be destroying your faith, but you aren't listening!!!!!!" (he was pretty exasperated while saying that, I guess he thought that we were just little pillow forts) 

And I kind of just wanted to laugh. 

Not to be rude or anything. This was a good guy who believes in God and just wanted things to be his way. 

But I wanted to laugh because Satan thought it was that easy to destroy my faith. 

Ha

Think again. 

As he said that I was immediately reminded of a verse in the Book of Mormon (it's like it's the word of God or something) 

Helaman 5:12

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

My foundation was built on Jesus Christ and his true and restored gospel. And it didn't matter what words this guy said (whirlwinds) and what jabs he made (shafts) he could not make me fall. Because my foundation is sure. I am built on the rock of my redemption. 

And this rememinded me of a talk that our Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, gave recently. He talked about how 'it will not be possible to survive spiritually unless we learn to receive personal revelation' 

Friends and Family. The world is a crazy place. And our faith is gonna be tested. But we do not have to be worried. If our foundation is sure then our hope can be sure to. So do a structural integrity test of your personal spiritual foundation. How are your prayers. Your scriptures. Your church attendance? When was the last time you received personal revelation from God? What are you doing that is prohibiting you from recieving this revelation. 

Then after you've done this check. Change. You need to make your foundation sure or else you will be knocked off. I have seen so many people leave this amazing gospel because there foundations were not sure. Don't let that be you. Make the choice now. You can. Because God loves you he will help you to do it. So just do it. DO IT.

BREAKING NEWS:

There's a new way to hear all about Elder Baird time in Taiwan! No longer do you have to scroll back through all my emails during your daily "Have to read something that Elder Baird wrote" fix! 

Thanks to the hard work and countless hours of a mother who is too nice there is now a new way! 

https://elderspencerbaird.blogspot.com/

Click on the link above and you will be taken to an internet blogging platform that will have all my letters and pictures in one place! As well as added pictures and videos never before seen! So there you go! Invite all your friends as well! The more the merrier! 

If you'd like to support the blog please send all your love in the form of a package to the address listed on the blog! 

Pictures

WEEK 63 TAIPEI: Well... I guess this is my apology? Also... Don't steal peoples emails. Or else they happen to you.

Wow.

Soooooo. Yah it's been two weeks now since I've really been able to say anything. I am sorry that I didn't say anything last time, but I really didn't have time. So here is my email.

Honestly everything has been crazy. Last week I was still just trying to get used to everything new here because being in the office is weird. It is definitely something new. Everything is in English and basically we spend a ton of time doing work for other missionaries.

Which I really like. I get to serve every single missionary, and they don't even realize it, so I love that! We spend time on basically everything. Like there's no way to really explain all that I do. But I can try. We take care of housing contracts for the missionaries. We take care of all language study programs and tests. We take care of all reports that are published in the mission. We take care of all the transfer calls. We take care of all missionary bike movements. We take care of all the code that runs the mission. We take care of the Facebook pages and even planning. And any other little thing that someone would need to do, we do.

So it's really busy and we spend a lot of time in the office on the computers. And it has really changed my perspective on missionary work. Because everything is different. But I still get to serve and that is what is important.

Okay so the Fillipinos keep bringing their friends to church which is amazing. We have now 6 new friends that were brought by members in the past two weeks. Two of them will be baptized next week and this is just such an amazing miracle! Member work is so important! Make sure to always be reaching out to those around you.

What else happened last week... Honestly not a ton to be honest. And by that I mean there was a ton that happened but nothing that I particularly want to take the time to write down. But I will attach pictures cause a picture is worth a thousand words right?

So how many words is a video worth....? If you have a 10 second video at  60fps then that means you have a total of 600 pictures... So does that mean it is worth 600,000 words? I should just send videos.

Oh wait.

I do.

And then they just send  a voice recording back.

You know who you are.

-_-

So yeah that was it.

Then Monday happened. And we got a new companion. You may be asking yourself 'Elder Baird I thought you were in a trio? How could you get another companion??'

Well ladies and gents. We are in a quadro. I didn't know that was possible but it is. 

Introducing Elder Cai! I love this man! He is currently in the MTC and so he does that in the mornings and then goes out with us in the nights. He's incredibly prepared and I'm always amazed by his diligence and his desire.

But we are now 6 people in a 4 person house.... So that's undesirable... But it's been a huge miracle actually. 

So you know how I stole my friends email and she talked about sick comps and stuff?

And it's because I died this week. As in I have been sick the whole week. Which sucks. But it wasn't just me that got sick. Elder Costales got sick. So we were laid out this week but because Elder Cai was here we were able to do weird exchanges each day where people could be at home or switching around or something. So it was kinda crazy.

So anyway this week has been crazy. Because it was also transfer week (which we are in charge of) and so we had to just get everything together as we were sick and it was just crazy.

But I am staying in the office and on Thursday we will finally just have 4 people in our house. Very excited for that! Hopefully things will seem more normal after that. Honestly the past 3 weeks have kind of just been a little 'eh' which is rough on me. But things should be getting better! But it doesn't really matter what kind of situation we are in because men and women we have a living prophet! How great is that!!!!!

The church is true and it is led by a prophet my guys!!!! The message the President Nelson posted was amazing!!! Like wow. As I sat there and listened to it I was just in awe. I felt the power of his words and as I listened I was just filled by the spirit saying "this is what God wants to say" and so, like times of old, he said it through his prophet!

How grateful I am for continuing revelations and the fact that I know that God has not just left the world alone to rot. But that he is actively playing his hand and that is through his chosen servant, Russel M Nelson. We truly are blessed by the fact that we are led by God. I am incredibly grateful for that!

Anyways peeps. That's it for today. Keep up the gratitude and if you haven't seen the video from God's prophet, I'm posting it on Facebook so hit me up!

#givethanks

I am grateful for everyone who has read to here! Hit me with an email to let me know if you read to here ;) Love you all!

Elder Baird

Something about socks

I'm wearing halloween socks today. And I'm listening to Christmas music.

Love it.

Here are some pictures. I'm too lazy to organize. Sorry.

WEEK 62 TAIPEI: The other email was fake

I don't have time or energy to put thought into a missionary email. So I just sent one that my friend wrote instead. A missionary email is a missionary email right?

Anyways, love you all! Read your scriptures. Don't do drugs. Love one another.

Bye!

Elder Baird

WEEK 61 TAIPEI: It's beginning to look a lot like... sunscreen season? Feat. 'they change my mission language'

Wow.

I don't even know what to say about this week. Other than, wow.

So first, sunscreen. 

Apparently in Taiwan there are trees that smell like sunscreen. And Boi they be bloomin. Like as were biking it just suddenly smells like sunscreen. Overwhelmingly so. And sometimes it gets into the office and it just feels like every one is wearing sunscreen.

Speaking of the office. 

The office.

I've never felt more incompetent in my life than this past week. So gotta love that feeling. I've got no clue what's going on cause two things.

First. Everything in the office is new too me. Obviously. And since I'm in a trio rn I kind of just sit back and watch and I feel kind of useless. But I'm learning a lot. Like all our code broke down on Sunday and we had to fix it and so that was kind of fun. It's cool to be at the center of everything and back on a PC my ol' friend. But still. There's sooooo much to learn. 

Second. They changed my mission language. As most of you know I was called to teach in the Chinese language 我學習蛋糕。ㄋㄧㄏㄠ but the office elders are in charge of the English ward. So I'm now an English missionary. So I have to contact foreigners and Americans and that's it. And it's kind of terrifying cause they be meeeeean. But I'm working on getting over it. I haven't felt scared to talk to someone since back when I was in training so this is an adventure.

But that's not all. Cause turns out that when they say the office elders are in charge of the English ward they meant, the elders are in charge of the Tagalog ward.

Guys, half of the ward members are Philipeno. And over half the people we teach are Philipeno. So my companion (who is Philipeno) basically just teaches all of our lessons in Tagalog and I have no clue what's going on. Like nothing. It's very hard. 

So now I'm like... Do I need to learn Tagalog? If I'm here for 6 months then is this something that I'm going to need? And I'm just not sure and it's like stressful. Cause it's like back in training where I never knew what was going on.

Which takes us to one of our lessons. First off the lesson was in Xizhi. So that was awesome cause we got to drive the car there (office Elder privileges) and it was great cause I haven't been there in 7 months!!! 7 months! So loooong and it felt so nice to go back.

But anyways this lesson was something else. We show up at the house and start talking to the member that lives there (she lives with non members and invites us over to teach them) and so we're sitting outside of her house talking to her and then we walk in, and then her boss walks by the house and chews her out because apparently it's a company house and they aren't allowed to have males.

So we get kicked out. 

Then the boss leaves and the member is like, cool come back in. 

So we do and we proceed to teach 5 Philipeno woman. And by we I mean Elder Costales. So Elder Zhang and I just sat there as Elder Costales talked to these 5 women. 

It was pretty fun even though I had no clue what was going on. At one point in the conversation they all start touching their noses and laughing. I ask Elder Costales what's going on and he's like "they're telling about your nose and how pointy it is" 

So that was odd. 

Anyways life has just been way odd. 

But we had a baptism on Saturday for a Philipeno sister which was awesome! 

Anyways that's about it for the week. Don't have a ton of time. So lit bits my dips. 

Have a good week!! 

Love you all! 

Elder Baird 

Pictures:

My bed's the one in the middle (love the floor bois) 

Swag

Swagger

Zone Conference (oh yah I forgot that happened this week. It was really good) 

Zone Conference Thanksgiving lunch! 

HERE IT COMES

Baptism

WEEK 60 MUZHA: The week where I wasn't at my area at all... Also my bike got stolen.

Mostly because of exchanges

But also I moved.

Also it wasn't my bike

Just the bike I was using on exchanges. 

See video

So I still don't actually know what my situation is but I'm all packed up and still at the mission office. I will most likely be staying in the office for now which I am way excited for. Which means that right now I am using the office computer to type this! YAAY. Your boi is back on the computer. It feels a little foriegn but that's okay. It is a lot faster than my phone.

Anyway lets's start off with Tuesday. I had an exchange. It was lit.

Wednesday. Had an exchange. It was lit. Also had a super dope Halloween party.

Thursday. Had an exchange. It was lit. 

Friday. Finished my first exchange and then had a WPS and then went on another exchange. 

Saturday. Finished the exchange and then had dinner with a member! Love this family! 

And then Sunday we had church and I packed President told me on Saturday that I did have to pack cause we weren't sure so I just spent a lot of time doing that. 

Then we went to the fireside with the famous YouTuber and I played the piano and it is on Facebook if you want to watch it and it went very well! 

Until the last note. 

For my music theory friends out there (I think that's only the jazz peeps!) I was supposed go end on a C major chord. 1 in the bottom hand and 1351 in the top.

But instead of my beautiful fantastic C chord finale. I played a C/D chord  so yes technically it was a Csus2 chord and yes Csus2 chords do sound good if they revolve. But never would you ever want to play a C/D chord  especially as your final note. Becuase it can't resolve anywhere. 

And so as I hit that final note and was like 'yes that was pretty good' I heard the dissonance in the chord and looked down only to find that my left hand had landed solidly on the C. 

Oh well. 

Yah. Now I am with the office elders I think. Their house doesn't have room for 5 people though so I'm living out of my suitcases for the next 3 weeks. Liiiiiiiiiiit. It's whatever. I'm way hyped! 

Hm.... Yah that's about it. Don't have that much time either. 

Love you all! 

Elder Baird 

Something about socks 

So the spirit is pretty cool. It can make our weaknesses strengths. For example. After my spectacular ending of my song, I had people come up to me and want to take pictures  but one girl was like, "that gave me a testimony!" and I was like. Wow. That's pretty crazy. 

And it wasn't me or my song that did that. But it was the spirit. 

It's like that so much as a missionary. My Chinese is not very good, but for some reason people still meet with us. And it's because they feel the spirit. Not because of anything we do! 

Ether 12:27 says it the best! We've all got weaknesses because God gave them to us, but through his help and his spirit they can be used for good! I may be a dull tool, but as long as I'm in the Lord's hands he is still able to use me! And He can use you too! 

So let yourself be used by the Lord. Let Him turn your weaknesses into your strengths, cause that's what he does! 

Love you allllll! 

Pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UZ3uH7VgrmUQcvWSA