Baptism?

January 25, 2016

So family,

This week was one of the coolest weeks of my whole mission. Miracles happen. Put your faith in the lord. WORK HARD and never ever ever quit.



So this week on Tuesday the elders called us and asked if we had any appointments on Wednesday at 5. We were like "elders we don’t have ANYTHING" so they laugh and are like well you do now! So Wednesday comes and we were doing a division. So I was with Sister Donahoo who is now in my old area Povoa. So anyway me and her go to this appointment and the elders tell us what is happening. So we went to go see Ihita. She is a 33 year old lady from Bangladesh. She is Chirstian and so for that she and her husband Evan had to flee their country so that they could be safe from persecution. So they went to England. While there things were not going so well and they had to leave again and the only place that let them in was Portugal. Before leaving she told us that she had a dream that Christ came to her and said that there was a present waiting for her in Portugal. So the elders found her husband in the road. He said that he did not believe in God but that they could talk to his wife. So they talked to her a little but it was dangerous for them to go to her house because she was living in a very dangerous area that did not allow Christians to go there. So she was hiding her faith there and the elders were having a hard time finding her. Well 3 weeks ago she came to church. We translated it all for her and she liked it. Then a week later she moved to our area. So the Elders call us and tell us that we had an appointment. So we are now at the appointment and she tells us her story and her life. We teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she accepts everything! We marked her to baptized on the fallowing Sunday. During the week we went to see her everyday to help her and to teach her. And I will say this, she changed. It was the change in her as she accepted the gospel in her life. She was so ready! She only speaks English so that was a little challenging but we did ok! Then yesterday after church we had the chance to see her enter the waters of baptism! Ihita was baptized and after she came to us and she had the biggest smile and she told us that she felt so clean and so happy and she lost her words because the spirit was so strong! It was amazing! She is so great! Miracles really do come true! Sister Vanaquer and I are so happy for Ihita!



I know that through our trials and through our faith god works through us. I know that when people accept the gospel and take it into their hearts they are truly converted. I love the Lord. I love this church and I love my mission.



Love you all so much! thanks for all you do!

Love always

Sister Alyssa Bakker!

frenspaniportuglish

Sister Vanaquer making crêpes like a boss. This week she is going to teach me how to make tiramisu. toma folks, thats all the pics I got for the week... i will do better next time.

Yo yo yo! so there are a ton of Africans in my new area so I feel that I am aloud to say cool things like YO and SWAG and flash church related gang signs. We are rockin it here in Odivelas! 

So this week was good! We went to mission council and had zone meeting. So that was cool. Sister Vanaquer was so confused at Mission council. poor thing. I tried to explain zone leader and District leader and STL and all that. I think I just made her more confused. But she is figuring it out now! She is super cool! This week she taught me to make crepes. I feel so French! Also she speaks mostly Spanish instead of Portuguese and so I understand all of it but I am also learning Spanish now. Wahoo I am going to speak like 4 languages when I get home all thanks to her!! 

So I am in the sketchy internet cafe and there are like 3 cockroaches crawling on the tables around me. gross. haha I love Portugal! 

There is not really that much to report this week so sorry for the lame email. But wish us luck this week we have a lot to do and not a lot of time do it all! wish us luck! 

Love you all, fica fixe sempre! 

Sister Bakker

Odivelas is the Place for Me!

I came into Odivelas with a big American bang! Of course now that I have a super cool American flag jump suit I am with a French comp. It makes it that much better!

Hey there yall! this week was crazy! We are working really really hard and doing crazy stuff. My comp is cool. She is going to teach to make real French crepes and I am going to help her make cookies. Vida boa. Life is great! Love the mission. My area is crazy! we are literally opening it like brand new so we have like no investigators still but it is all good we just talk to EVERYONE! I like it ok. It rained ever day this week but the sun came out today! yay! Love you all! thanks for all the support and love!

LOVE always
sister bakker


Good bye Mem Martins!

Mariano making faces at me

Lili, she is the best!  Her mom won't let her get baptized yet, but she is totally going to be a missionary one day!

I am a Mom--Part 2

It looks like I am smoking sketch stuff, but it is lemonade with weird herbs.
Everyone just passes around the same cup.

New years at the Stake President's house

Hey there!
Well one more week has come and gone! Today is transfer day! So yesterday we were at our bishop's house and the mission presidente calls us. I saw his name on the phone and I knew that one of us was going to have to do something crazy this transfer. He only calls for transfers when you are getting a calling of some kind. So we all went real quiet and I answer the phone. He was all happy and was like "am I talking to Sister Bakker?" well he said my name right so I know that this was big. Like big enough that he actually learned to say my name right. I took a deep breath and cool as a cucumber I said "sim!" I dont think he knew I was really nervous. Well he goes on to tell me that I have been called to be the new TLT. I am not totally sure what that stands for but basically what that means that I am now the sister training leader over the sister training leaders. I will be over half the mission and Sister Alexander (my old comp) has the same calling and is over the other half. Then my presidente goes on to tell me that I will also be training a new sister, Sister Vanaquer. She is French. Wahoo. I hope that she speaks English or Portugese. If not this could be a little hard and we might play a lot of charades. Then as this gross sick feeling came into my stomach he went on. I will aslo be transfered to open a sister area in Lisboa. My area is called Lisboa 5 but I think that it is part of the Odivelas ward. There have not been sisters there in about a year or so. He then asked to speak to my comp and told here that she too will be training. Ya it was crazy! I am pretty scared. But it is going to be awesome! I don't think that there is a better way to end my mission than this! I am excited! I think we are going to have tons of fun and see tons of miracles!I hope that it is going to all go good! Wish me luck!

Mariano and me

I am going to miss mem martins I love it here so much! Last night to say good bye Mariano taught us how to make arroze doce in the church! haha he is such a weird dude but I love him! He is the coolest recent convert ever!

This week was full of fun and I am sure that this next one is going to be a crazy one! Wish me luck out here! love you all! thanks for all your love and support!

Com muito amor,

Lunch with Roberto (he's in the bishopric)

Sister Alyssa Bakker

the bread man

There's a Snake in my Boot!

Yo yo yo!

Sup y'all! How was Christmas? We partied pretty hard here in Mem Martins! It was awesome! The sisters in Mafra were with us for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We had a night with mega bed and the Polar Express (found the book in our house and we had to read it.) It was so great! Also it was really great to talk to you all! Crazy that that was the last time I will talk to you on skype. Next time will be in person! wow! I'm excited! So ya the rest of this week nothing too great happened. We did have a lady have a panic attack during a lesson and I had to watch her 2 kids and Sister Barron had to like wrestle a crazy lady and we had a member come help us. It was really intense but it all worked out!

Life here is good! I am glad that you are all doing great!

Also I have been thinking a lot about Toy Story this week. Don't know why. But that movie is really good. You all should watch it this week!

Love you all!

Sister Bakker

caroling in Mafra

Christmas Eve at our Bishop's house

Secret Santa Exchange

Pecan Pie and Peanut Butter Fudge
Thank you American Families!
Best thing I've eaten since I left the US!

Irma Lidias for lunch (she is at the head of the table, please note her cool purple hair!)

Christmas morning making Panakuk

This one goes out to Skipper

Sister Bakker and Sister Barron
we did not have time do do a Chirtmas card but if we did this is the pic we would use

Dear Skipper and everyone else but mostly Skipper,

This week was a good one! We had our Christmas party with our whole mission. It was really fun and really inspiring. Good old mission spirit that is even stronger around the time of Natal! It is good! We are getting excited for the big day! We are going to Christmas Eve with our bishops family and having a secret santa! and then on Christmas day we are going to lunch with a lady with purple hair named Lidia and then dinner with the Lees! It is going to be great! I am excited to see you but I have to give you a fair warning I am like really awkward and I don't know how to speak English without using Portuguese so ya... just go with it.

So funny story, yesterday at church our recent convert, Carlos, decided that he needed to tell us all the things that he used to do that were not good. Well we found out that he was a hippie coke addict and that his source of happiness was found in smoking strange drugs. That was the most off topic church class of all time. Thanks goodness for the gospel that the changes it makes in peoples lives!

Well the mission is good! Love you!

Skip you were the best dog ever! Love you buddy and I will see you in the reino celestial! Love you for ever buddy!


Com Muito amor!
Lyssa


FELIZ NATAL!!!!!

Sister Bakker and the case of the missing scissors‏

I literally don’t even know where to start this email. So I will just start on the beginning of the week. Monday, we made shirts and pie and it was crazy. Tuesday we had a sister meeting and all of the sister cried and I was just like ahh why are there so many tears going on and it got weird. But it was really good. Wednesday is where it gets good...

the big yellow house on the right is the back of the Duke's house.  I feel like I look at it and just think of the words to "I Love to See the Temple--I'll go inside one day , to feel the holy spirit, to listen and to pray--"

So I go on a division with the sister of Amadora. Sister Donahoo came and served with me in my area, Mem Martins. Well our first plan of the day was to go to Sintra to find this weird reference that we got from someone in Porto. So we go and we are walking along and asking people how to get to this weird road and they are all like "sempre em frente sempre em frente" or in English "always in front" So we are walking on this twisty mountain road in the middle of nowhere when we get to this random city. And we are like wow we made it!! So then we ask people for the next road that we are looking for and they are like what do you need on that road and we are like, we are looking for Duque. And people got so excited when we said that and we are like what the heck. What is Duque? So we get to the road and we are like ok I see no house named Duque. But we found the number and we ask this little old spanish lady "o que é Duque?" and she gets all excited and tells us in half Spanish half Portuguese that the duke is not home right now but that his brother is and that we needed to just touch the doorbell. She then showed us where the door was. In that moment Sister Donahoo and I look at each other and are like OH MY GOSH IT IS A DUKE!!!! So we walked like 1 hour to this HUGE house like soooo big we thought that it was like an old mansion that was turned into like rooms for tourists or something. BUT no it was a house that a duke lives in!!! So we talk to this lady and tell her that the duke wants to talk to us and she is like well you need an appointment. Call this number. And she gives us this weird number. So we leave and we call the number and this lady is talking to me and is really, really formal and is like who gave you this number and I am like uhhh Orlanda... and she goes "AHHHH SENHORA ORLADA!! ok ok we will make you an appointment and call back!" Soooo ya that is right we are totally going to teach a duke!!! And so we ask around a little and find out that if Portugal was a monarchy he would be in line for king!! WHAT!!!!!! SOOO COOLLLL!!!

Ok that was the coolest thing that happened this week. But the rest was still really good. Our bread friend is still giving us bread EVERDAY. Our freezer is really full of bread and cake and pastries and we are giving stuff away like we crazy! Hah it is great! For to love it!

We are getting excited for Christmas! It is going to be so fun!

Also I lost my scissors. Which is sad cause they are safety kids scissors that I found in my first transfer. I cut myself on the twice (yes even though they were safety ones for kids). I will find them though. I have faith.

Love you all so much!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Sister Bakker

This is a toucan we found on the way to the Duke's house

a weird fruit we found on the way to the Duke's house

Sister Barron with a man we found

a cool road in Sintra