FELIZ NATAL!!!‏

WHAT IS UPPPPP FAMILIA?! 

So we were supposed to have a baptism yesterday... ya our guy has gone missing. That actually happens a lot more than you might think here. We call him and go to his house and we ask around and ya he is like just gone... so ya. Hopefully we can find him today and give him so garbage for skipping his baptism! How was Christmas?? After I skyped you all sister Phippen made us taco soup that was like American heaven in a bowl and then we went and taught some people who were all alone on Christmas. That was good, sad that we knew so many people alone on Christmas but good that we could go and see them. We brought a present to this one joven who is not active and I put a cosmic brownie in it and he just looked at it like what the heck is this gross American thing. It was funny! 

As far as the rest of the week, it was good. Long because no one wants to talk to you during the holiday, but it was ok! Sorry this email is kind of short there isn’t really a ton to report from the week. 

The only advise I have for you all comes from one of the coolest people I know, my dad. In his words `don´t step in any dog crap`  yup. that pretty sums it up! Love you all and hope that you had a great Christmas! and that the new year treats you all well! Set some good goals and then stick with them! Goals are awesome! 

Hugs and Kisses,

Sister Lyssa Bakker

P.S. I totally forgot to tell you! We got news today in our letter from the president that the Portugal Lisbon mission will be splitting in July! Yup that is right! Porto is becoming a mission yet again!!! Yay!! Both the new mission presidents are Brazilian and we are going to rock it! I cannot wait to see if I am going to be a Lisbon Missionary or if I will be a Porto Missionary!

Hey there USA!!!

December 22

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! wow cannot believe I am already saying those words! how is good old Utah? Is everyone getting super stoked for Christmas? Have you all seen the he is the gift video? ahh it is so good! and we totally have a way awesome investigator becuase of it! we contacted her in the road and asked her to watch the video and gave her a card and marked a time to come by and talk about it. So we went the first time and she like barely let us in and was really hesitant with us and didn’t really seem like she liked us very much but we asked to come back and she said yes. So we came back with a member and she had read the part in the Book of Mormon that we left for her and had lots of questions about it! So we retaught the first lesson and left her with more to read. Then she totally came to church the next day and she loved it! so we taught her again that night and she was so excited to see us and told us to come right in and had her Book of Mormon ready and she pulled it out and she had marked the chapter up that we left for her and she said the opening prayer and was so stoked about the 2nd lesson was all like I cannot wait for the celestial kingdom! She is sooo elect!! we love her so much! her name is S! She is on a trip right now to see her family for the holidays so we won’t see her until the 3rd but ya we are stoked to teach her again! she is sooo great! 

This week we had the Christmas conference with all the missionaries in Lisboa and President. That was sooo cool and so spiritual! I loved it so much!! then on Saturday we had the Christmas party at the church! that was fun...long...but great! We made these brownies but seeing as we are missionaries and we tend to just use what we have, they turned out a little interesting. We didn’t have coco so we used chocolate milk powder, and we used a recipe that a native gave us and the conversions weren’t right so we just kinda guessed on how much of everything was needed. and we don’t have measuring utinsils so ya. it was bad. But in the end we just made a less chocolatly version of cosmic brownies! They weren’t that bad!  then our district leader Elder Perreira was Pai Natal (Santa) for the little kids. He wore his own Santa suit, which was just a onsie PJ set thing with a beard and hat. The kids loved it! 

Also thank you ward! they sent me a little thing with little slipper socks and little photo books from everyone! and one primary girl said that she wanted to serve a mission in Portugal! ahhhhh that was so tender! it was one of the Lucas girls so that makes sense but still!! It was so great! and I loved it so much! so thank you ward for the Christmas package! It was great!

Thanks for all you do for me!! Merry Christmas! Talk to you in a few days!!!! yay!! Love you all!! and remember that the best way to spread Chirstmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. so this is my challenge for you this week. Sing like the Portuguese, off key, loud, and super super bad, but with all your heart and love every second of it!

Love,

Sister Bakker! 

What is that Smell?

Hi There,

So this week was good. Long, but super good! Povoa is super differnet than amial. we walk a ton in this area which is ok, except for it is all hills. like no joke i literally live at the top of a mountain! It is great! I like it ok. Sister cullimore and I get along swimmingly so that is good! She is a good trainer! Also I think that the accent in Lisbon is easier than in Porto so it is a little easier to understand people. So that is also good. as far as this week went nothing huge to report it was pretty average mission life. we walked and contacted like 100,000,000 people and we tried to talk to like everyone about Christmas! It was cool. We have one guy marked for baptism on the 28th so we are excited about that! his name is J and he is super elect and ready for the blessings of baptism!

So the grossest things happened this week... #1 our shower totally broke haha so ya we did not have a shower for like a week. but it was so bad that when you did anything in the bathroom using water the tub would start to fill up with gross brown nasty water that smelled like sewer. So it was really bad and we had to not use that bathroom at all, but luckily we have another bathroom but it does not have a shower or a working light so we were taking sink showers in the dark for a few days until we could get that fixed. #2. a rat ran aross our feet in the road last night. ya that was nasty.

     

So that is the current state of my life!  Cannot wait for Christmas to skype you!! That is going to be so awesome!  Love you all and thank you for all you do for me! Remember in the words of sponge bob... when in doubt pinky out.

Love one of the 2

Sister Bakker´s

Rabbits and Ducks and Chickens! Oh My!‏

Ola!! 

Hi there family soo L totally was baptized yesterday and it was sooo cool she was baptized by the ward mission leader S! The elders in the district also had a baptism and Elder Wiborny baptized him! It was sooo cool!!! My first baptism!! It was so cool and the spirit was soooo strong!! Loved it soooo much! She did not own a skirt so me and Sister Azevedo went through all our stuff and found the stretchest thing that either of us owned (L is a little bit taller and heavier than either of us) and we found one skirt of mine that we thought might work for her so we prayed with all our hearts that it would and brought it to her. The Lord answered our prayers and it barley fit but it did! So her first skirt was that blue one that grandma helped me hem and that I wore at my farewell...The baptism was soo awesome but was kind of bitter sweet because although we got to see her be baptized and it was sooooo awesome I also had to say good bye to her and her family because of course I got transferred....

So ya my area got shut down and the elders took it over. So please if you are trying to send me something do not send it to that address anymore I will probably never see it or it will take a few months for me to get it! But it’s all good!!! My new area is.................................................. POVOA! It is like right by Lisbon! so ya I served like in Porto and now I am like in Lisbon! My new Trainer is Sister Collimer! and she is awesome! She just hit 9 months and she is like the coolest person ever! I love her so much already! She is from Logan Utah and is 20! Love her! Also my new house is at the top of like the huge hill that might as well just be a mountain so I am going to have awesome legs at the end of being here! I am going to miss Amial sooooo much! I was really starting to love it there! the people were so great! They were just warming up to me and I was just starting to form good relationships with some of them. So ya I was really sad to leave. But its all good! There are going to be awesome things for me here in Povoa!

 

I said good bye to Sister Azevedo today and that was sad but good! luckily the week before she left lots of people wanted to feed us.. so we had some yummy duck (which I actually really did think wasn’t that bad) and some rabbit ( that was gross. I don’t like rabbit turns out). with the rabbit they served some over cooked spaghetti and black beans. luckily they did not feed us the rabbit head that was in that soup... hahaha oh Portugal!  Portuguese food is like the same no matter what you eat, rice, pasta, chicken, beef you name it and even when it is different it still tastes the same. hahaha and its neither good nor bad it just is... I am loving it! 

My new area is smaller than my first but still pretty big I am excited to get to work and to start getting stuff done here. Today was really long but it was good! We left Porto last night right after our baptism. We had to convince a member to take us because we missed the bus because of the baptism and then we took a 3 hour train to Lisbon stayed at the sisters house there and then went to the office and I waited there until about noon for my new comp we took the train again to my new area and now here I am at 4:30 pm finally getting to P day stuff! Love it!!

This week was good! we had lots of stuff that happened and lots of people that did awesome things! ohh also this was cool, I totally went to the beach this week! hahaha it was soo cool!!

Being a missionary is the best! There are things that make you want to just sit down and quit but there are also things that are sooo good that make up for every hard times! 

Peace out until next week!

Sister Bakker!

Why a Missionary? Why not a Badger or a Bald Eagle?‏

HELLO FAMILIA!!!!

How are ya´ll doing? Life here is moving right smartly along! We are starting to pick up the work a little bit more this week so that is good! We have like 5 new investigators and I think that 2 of them are really solid! L is still marked for baptism this Sunday and she is super elect and totally ready to go! We cannot find her teaching record and so we have to reteach all the lessons but is cool because as we talk to her she finishes our sentences and stuff and so we like totally know that she gets it all and actually believes it! She is so awesome!!! love her!! also her mom is less active and so we are hoping that because of her daughter’s example she will come back and then the little sister will be baptized and then they have this cool cousin and any way we are hoping for a cool domino effect! They are great!

As far as adventures of this last week! so Monday we randomly decided that we were going to have Thanksgiving so we called a few duplas and we had 3 sets of elders and 3 sets of sisters over to our chapel and we had Thanksgiving! Some of the elders made a chicken and we made mashed potatoes and there was a salad and this awesome banana cake for dessert! It was the most thrown together Thanksgiving of all time and I loved it so much! Then I went on my first division this week with Sister Larson! That was way cool! We started telling people about the “He is the Gift” vídeo that the church just released (if you haven’t yet watched it, go do that like literally right now). It was super cool! We got 2 new investigators that night and they are really cool! Then Wednesday we taught this lady who was a referral so we were stoked ‘cuase we literally never get referrals and so we went over there and we were like looking around and saw tons of pics of fatima (Mary) and we were like wow this lady is really Catholic she is not going to accept the gospel she is just nice. So we talked to her a little and turns out she is a nun! haha yes we are currently trying to convert a nun! She invited us back cause she said that she loved our message and she told us that we were beautiful flowers in Gods garden. Ohh the Portuguese and their super weird compliments! I love it! so then Saturday we had my first ward activity and it was a pancake night! hahahahaha ohhhhhh that was a little special. sooo pancake mix is not a thing here so we were like no probablem we will just make them from scratch. ya lesson of the day, don’t let 2 sister missionaries guess how to make pancakes. and then don’t let the ward mission leader get them toppings ‘cuase he will come back with tuna, cheese and weird smoked bacon, that to me just looks like raw bacon. haha that was quite the night!

Portugal is great and I am really starting to get the hang of being a missionary I think. I am really glad that God made me a person and not an animal like a dog or a cat or a bald eagle, becuase I am a person and we are all people we can make good decisions like going on a mission and accepting Chirst into our lives and it is super awesome! The field really is white and ready for the harvest! Missions are weird and missionaries are weird. We do strange stuff and we stand out like a green marker in a box of red crayons and yet it is super just ok with all of us! It is so cool being a missionary right now! It is hard and yet when we focus not on how much we have on our plates but just on inviting the spirit in that moment things seems to just work out and all the hard moments become easier and it is good!

Stay classy USA and citizens of the USA! 

Until next week, this is Sister Bakker signing off!