Week 40 - Another Baptism!

First of all.... I´m soo excited I have a new baby neice!!!!!!  :) She looks tiny, adorable and perfect! I can´t wait to hold her!

This week has beeen one of the most exhausting weeks of my life!

I think I got a little tast of what it feels like to be a relief society president.. I have a lot of respect for those ladies! 

I just spent a lot of today trying to catch up on some sleep! Naps are thee best. 

This week we got to hear from one of the 70´s elders his name is Elder Kearon and is sooo great! He is from England and also lived in Sandy for 2 years.The conference we had with him was probably one of my favorite mission conferences that we´ve had so far.  He talked all about our recent converts and our goals and it was just what I needed to hear for that week. 

I´ve got a picture that I´ll send! 

Just this past week me and sister Miley have been facing a couple of new trials that we´ve never had before since we´ve gotten here. We are getting through it but will you all say just a little pray for us and for our recent converts Sol Amor and Amelia? Also for Antonio that he will be able to get over his addiction to wine and cigarettes and that he get his health back to normal! 

We had Natalias baptism yesterday! Woohoo!!! Hoorah

Even though a couple of things didn´t go exactly as planned. 

Our baptismal font wasn´t entirely full as we wanted it to be when the baptism program was starting so there were people going back and forth with buckets, with the faucet, running trying to get it full on time. 

I also did the talk on baptism and we waited for the other speaker to show up for a little but he never showed up!  So our bishop just told us not to worry and he did the talk. 

What would we do without those bishops. 

Regardless of some of the things that didn´t go exactly as planned, I was just beaming the whole time because of how happy her and her family looked. It was such a good day and afterwards all of the young women came over and all group hugged her and they all were so excited for Natalia that they would be seeing a lot more of her from then on. 

Okay I love you allll so much!!!!! I hope this week is good and full of happiness

Thank you for all your love and letters and pictures! 

Sister Baird

Week 39 - Allergies and the Bishop's Dentures

Famma ramma e Amigos! 

Hey cutie patooties. 

So this week was so wonderful! Marvilha! 

I´m soo stinkin grateful for the opportunity I had to talk with all y´all! man there is NOTHING that means more to me than hearing your beautiful voices! and speaking a lil´ pohrtaghesh. 

Story time this week cuz I haven´t written in a while.. (desculpa!)

I think this week started out with having dinner at our bishops house and towards the end bishop was trying to get something out of his tooth and all a sudden we heard a little click and a plop on the ground.. and our bishop just starts laughing a little bit. His daughter Felicia was sitting right across from me and Bishop goes "Felicia will you look in front of you under table and grab whats under there...." so she goes under the table and just busts up laughing and it was his tooth!! haha he lost one of his denture teeth trying to get food out of his teeth!! It wa awesome...  

This past month we´ve been having a lot more youth activities... I didn´t know this until the other day but Braga has the most youth and young adults than all of Portugal! It´s so fun getting so many youth investifators.. We´ve been finding so many open hearted youth here that really have a desire to find the truth! We have this fountain in the middle of there center here and I call it the fountain of youth because thats where everyone gets together to talk so it´s always a good place to go contacting!!  

Tomorrow we are having a Tour da missão and one of the elders from the 70 are coming to talk to us! I´m excited to get some more spiritual enlightenment and get some answers that I´ve been searching for with missionary work.  

We also get to stay with the sisters in Maia for a night. One of the sisters in Maia is Sister Prieto and she is one of my favorite people! She´s from Brazil and her dad is a mission president and also she will be going to Utah after the mission to do school at BYU. 

It is SNOWING here in Braga... there are little cotton balls everywhere! and all of them carry pollen.... I will die from Allergies here.. ha me and sister Miley have already tried 4 different kinds of Allergy medicine and all of em just don´t seem to cut it.! 

This past weekend Irmão James, Aka André AKA Andrew- one of my teachers from the MTC came back to visit Portugal so I got to see him this last weekend!!! It was so sweet to be able to have a conversation with him again in Portuguese where before in the MTC I could barely make out a sentence! 

Natalia is getting baptised this weekend on Sunday!!! Please all of you keep praying for her so that she may able to be all prepared for the 25th of May! I´m so proud of her!!!! 

Another person I hope that you can all pray for is Amelia... Our recent convert... she went to a funeral the other day this past week and going to the catholic church just brought back all of her past beliefs and everything.. she´s just having a hard time and lots of doubts all of a sudden! We are trying to help her remember her testimony. We will be seeing her this Wednesday to see what happened. Please pray for our sweet Amelia. 

Alright have an amazing week!!!! You don´t know how much it means to me that all of you are in my life!!!! :) I´m so grateful for the blessing and miracles I get to see everyday because of this gospel! 

Those tender little mercies of this week: Mothers day and Pday(today) where I get to hear from my loved ones or this week :)

Or when I got a big hug after a lesson from Natalia after a spiritual lesson because of the spirit that she felt.  Or  the little tears of happiness that we saw from Andreia because of asking Heavenly Father to bless her family in feverent prayer. 

I love this gospel and the hope and light it brings to everyones life. The feeling of being a literal tool for Heavenly Father is more than I could ever ask. I´m so grateful for him and I can bare testimony of the love he has for every single one of his children. I feel it everyday for you all and it has brought me to tears of happiness so many times! 

You are all amazing! 

Com Amor, Sister Baird

Week 38 - Samedu Cathedral

​ Soo here are some pictures! One is of my area... haha I guess it´s not super small but we share it with the elders! and the other one is of this popular Catholic Cathedral called Samedu that took us an hour to hike up to! anddd my sweet Portugal outfit... Portugal onseys are the best.

Week 37 - Book of Mormon to the Rescue

Fam :) 

Love my familia! 

Braga!!!! I love my Braga... 

It´s soo full of light! Every person here is really open to talking to us too which is a plus side. 

I can´t believe I get to talk to you all soo sooon!! eeeek!!! 

Things going on in my neck of the woods as the USA weather man would say are going pretty great! 

We have a couple of people that are progressing right now that I´m pretty stoked about! 

1 is a cute jovem... teenager and she is the niece of our recent convert Marta. She has heard from the sisters before but didn´t really want a lot to do with church. When I got to Braga I just loved her so stinkin much and she´s warmed up to us a little bit more now and wants to take lessons from us again and  she calls me her sister!

Our next one is Antonio. Antonio is great! and calls us for everything. He always tells us when he´s reading or if he has been doing his commitments we´ve asked him to do! He is great. Pray for his wife tho.. she´s in the hospital and she needs some prayers and he also wants his wife back. 

We had the Stake come and visit our ward this Sunday and our ward was HUGE this last Sunday. Big for Portugal we had about 100 people at church this Sunday! so we took a picture and then after our stake president complimented our ward during our Ward Counsel Meeting (Aka Jedi Council) that is held for all the leaders and the missionaries of the ward after church. He told the ward leaders and us that he was really impressed and that he can see the huge potential this ward holds. Which is very true! This area is elect and I´m so blessed to be here right now with my comp. 

Funnnny story of the week. We always have these beijinho stories. 

Here when you say goodbye or say hello to anyone you give one kiss on their right cheek and then another one on their left. 

I was SUPER awkward at this when I first got here but now it´s just normal. 

Anyway the sisters are not allowed to give beijinhos to men but a lot of the time when we contact a man they always go in to give us beijinhos which always follows a awkward leaning back of the head so that they miss our face and saying OHHH Não podemos!! that means "we can´t!!" 

so the other day sister Miley was saying goodbye to this man we just had met on the street and he leaned in to give her a beijinho and sister Miley did the awkward whole bend your back and lean your head back so they´ll miss your head thing BUT he continued following her head... so Sister Miley just yelled out a tiny little No and pulls up her Book of Mormon that she had in her hand and wacked him off. hahaha anywayyyy my favorite story of the week. 

LOVE you all so verryy much!

 I was reading Daniel 3 this morning and I want all of you to read it and to be thinking to yourself if there´s anything in the world that you are putting before God right now.. (Money, Jobs, etc...) and what were the blessings that the 3 men recieved by not allowing others to change their standards and what can we do so that we cannot be moved in a time of temptation? Also who was with them while they were amidst the flames in vs. 19. (Who will be there with us in the fire while we are facing a trial?)

love you all!! :) 

Irmã Baird :)

Week 36 - Easter in Braga

Ohana!!!

Hello! Happy EASTER(pascoa)! :) woot!

This week was Easter and was too good!!! Alright I live in the Cotholic capital of Portugal.. and Braga goes all out for Easter!

Yesterday there were cannons going off everywhere. ... bells ringing in every cathedral, a commemoration of Christ... During all of last week there were little parades and every day they would tell a different part of Christs life leading up to His crucifixtion.

Big purple Lights on this old Catholic Cathedral.

It´s a big thing in Europe I guess and it´s called “Holy week” here in Braga. There were 10,000 people in our central town square on Saturdaynight which isn´t really that capable of holding that many people.

You were all squished together and the only people that could see were those little girls and boys with their daddys with them to hop on top of their shoulders.

One interesting thing about their Easter is that they have a ton of men, about 30 or so, in all black with a black bag over there heads with two little eye holes carrying a pole with a box at the end of it.... I have no idea what this significance of them are but they did pass me and Sister Miley trying to speak english and shouting at sister Miley calling her pretty.

Me and my new Comp:

She´s been here a year already on the mission and I have been here for almost 9 months so, ..as seasoned missionaries we have been working our lil tail bones off! Talking to every person in site. We wanted this Easter to be special and wanted as many people as we could to come to church for Easter Sunday so, we made homemade easter egg pass along cards! We spent a good hour of our prep time to make those guys! And they paid off in a way unexpected. Not so many people made it to our Sacrament meeting even after the many cards we handed out but what did happen is that an elect man came to sacrament. He brought his little Bible with him and was looking up every scripture that the speaker would say. Afterwards he said that he really likes church and he´s excited for our next visit.

Another fun lil adventure.... because of all the thousands of tourists we ran into a lost latvian couple! It made me think of Ruta... and I just got so excited because they had her cute Latvian accent and the girl reminded me of her :) We walked with them to their bus stop all along the way telling the story of the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints and telling them to check it out when they get home and then running really quick back to our next appointment waiting for us!

I feel like I am a scultpure or something... há I am the “Loira com olhos azueis” which means the blonde with blue eyes. Since there´s noone here with blonde hair people just stare at you.. sometimes I feel like I am some weird creature that noone has ever seen before.

Alsooo.. Allergies here in Braga are taking over my LIFE. there are liquids coming out of every crevice of my head. I´m sneazing, my eyes water my nose is always runny! Springtime allergies have taken over my world and I sound like I´m plugging my nose to everyone I talk to. (Don´t worry tho mom! I bought the good allergy Portuguese med. and it´s been working pretty good) 

I hope you all had an amazing Easter!!! here´s a little video I want you all to watch on our Savior . :) /http://easter.mormon.org/ 

LOVE YOU ALL 

Me and sister Miley found these gems in the clothes sisters have left behind drawer and found a moo moo and this onsey squirrel footy pajamas

Week 34 - General Conference

Family!!!!! 

I´m sorry I don´t have very much time!!! 

I really just want to say how AMAZING this weekend was with conference. I felt the spirit so strongly, I want all of you to re-read the talks. First have questions and then seek answers. I know that through the words of our living prophet and apostles you may be able to find them. 

Next I want you to make goals or plans to do something with the answer you received. It´s not until after the trial of our faith that we receive a witness. When you get an answer or inspiration of what you know you should do, DO it. Just as is said in the scriptures :  whether by mine own ^cvoice or by the ^dvoice of my ^eservants, it is the ^fsame.  

When you receive an answer from a conference talk, act upon it as if God himself is speaking to you.

 I had so many incredible experiences this week with me and my comp sister Warburton. I love that girl. She only has one more week left of her mission and then she´s going back to England. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and love,

I do this for all of you, I love you so much!

Sister Baird

Come Unto Christ

To all, I´m a little obsessed with this video and this song so when you get a chance, watch it please :) 

Week 33 - Portuguese Charades

PORTUGAL PORTUGAL! 

Alrightyyy 

this week rocked! 

The beginning of the week our bishop invited us all over for a family night w/Amelia to get to know her better! It was so good! I love when I get to hear our bishops give lessons because they´re so insiteful and doctorinly powerful.

Then it came to the game part... and guess what we played?? We played portuguese charedes!! Remember home evening night with Disney Cherades Family?? ... think of me trying to figure out these portuguese culture phrases then trying to act them out! I looked like mom trying to pull an imitation of "Aladdin" they love it! and then Amelia started pulling out all these gifts for everyone and she got me and the sisters these egyptian paintings from when she visited egypt! it´s pretty cool. 

We´ve had some miracle of just simply opening our mouths and just talking an sharing the gospel whenever we can! more than 3 times other people have come up to US this week and asked for a pamphlet or asked us if we could talk to THEM! THIS AREA IS ELECTTT. I just can´t help but be so stinkin happy every second of everyday because of the gospel of Jesus Christ and because of Heavenly Father. and getting a chance to help other peope live it too and share this message that I love makes me even more happy. 

Another thing is serving with sister Warburton. I am laughing and smiling all the time because of my british companion! she is the best!  Yesterday was Englands Mothers day so I got to watch her skype her family and say hi to them! 

and made me think of my family and how excited to see you! There´s so many excited things going on at home right now and I´m so grateful for Heavenly Father taking care of you all! 

This week our elders also had 3 baptisms! 3 cutest litte kids! We had our 14 year old investigator there named Natalia there and I think it really strengthed her testimony and her desire to follow Christ! 

Thanks for stories about all the cute things my neices and nephews are starting to do and say!  

Please pray for, Ruei, Natalia, Antonio, Teresa, Conceição, and the Barbosa familia oh and Juan! 

I love you all so much! :) I pray for you all every night and I want you all to have a great week this week! 

Love Sister Baird

Week 32 - Soccer...Not a Strong Point

Bom Dia minhas Queridas :) 

Alright 411 updates of missão Portugal, Lisboa 

Man oh man... how I´m lovin my Braga!!! I love this city! It´s so clean and it´s more quiet than some of the other areas...

We just had a baptism on Saturday!!! Her name is Amélia and she is wonderful!!!! 

She is 69 and is an Arts Professor at a college around here... 

Did I mention that I´m serving in a college town area right now?? 

Since we have a lot more young adults here and youth we do a LOT more activities... 

We are doing an English Class for everyone here and also have a Night of Integration and every Saturday morning we get a huge group of pesquisadors and members and have a game of Futebol(soccer)! "Real" Futebol as they say here... not Soccer! 

and P.S. I am terrible at Soccer.. everyone is foreign except me and another American Elder Coombs and we are always the last ones to get picked for teams.. haha oh well I´ll learn! 

We also received a breakup  text from our dear Beth... She is from China and where she is from it is a huge dishonor to leave the religion of the goverment and be christian... so what happened was it took her 3 years to believe in God, after she went to a house every sunday to worship. Then her husband thought it was dangerous so he made her go back to the government religion. Then she got a job to teach english and chinese her in Portugal so now she´s looking for a church to go to!  She saw our chapel on Sunday and walked in and we had a first lesson with her and invited her for the baptism of Amelia on Saturday.... She felt good about the first lesson but talked to her family and friends back at home and they told her to not talk to us anymore..... So we called her back and told her to pray some more and that we would LOVE to just have 1 more lesson with her.... so please pray for her!! she is amazing and has incrdible faith! pray for her to receive an answer to her prayers and that she will open her heart more to our message! 

Sister Antunes is leaving us tomorrow :( She recieved her Visa and is off to Lisboa for an airplane to Brazil!  awe... It´s what we´ve been praying for but part of me doesn´t want her to go! 

We had our Zone Conference this last Tuesday and did a little bit of training!! it was too good... learned about Family History and a couple of other things for our investigators! I´ll send a pic of all of us at the conference. Pesident and Sister Fluckiger (flew.key.gurr) are right in the middle

Hokey Pokey.... I love You alll!!! So stinkin much!!! 

Love/Com Amor, Sister Baird

Week 31 - Singing Time

Week 30 - Beautiful Braga

MY FAMILY E MINHAS AMIGAS! 

OLá!!!

I have been TRANSFERED! I´m in Braga which is Porto North, Closer to France and Spain!!! 

Woot Woot! 

I have not one but TWO new Colegas. Yes I´m am in a tripla. More people more the fun! both from different countries. Sister Antunes is from Quembra, Portugal and Sister Warburton is from Nottingham, England. Both are Brilliant! - as sister Warburton would put it. 

This is Sister Wartburton´s  last transfer here on the mission! She is an AMAZING missionary. So is Sister Antunes. Sis Antunes is waiting for her Visa to serve her mission in São Paulo West, Brazil so she´s stickin with me and Sis Warburton until then. 

Alsooo. Sister Antunes doesn´t speak English so that means I´m speaking Portuguese all day everyday 24/7 with these two. I love it! 

I feel so blessed and am grateful for them everyday! They´ve help my language skills grow like wild fire! 

Also new area, Braga, Portugal.... It´s like my dream city. It doesn´t stink, people are really open, it has MOUNTAINS!!! whattt??? and my Ward here in Braga is UNreal. They are so strong and united with the missionaries. and it´s huge!!! 

This is a note for you all to take.... Help the missionaries. Be available to teach with them if you can,  it will be such a blessing I promise!

Weather here.... Summer has arrived!! One day it was freezing cold wool beanie, scarves and gloves to next day blazing!  I have never been so hot and it´s not even their real summer yet!! also we don´t have a bus pass here! I have to walk now. ha poor sister baird. but really I have never had so many new blisters and achy feet by the end of the night until I´ve arrived in this beautiful city. 

We have a motto that we have to earn our pillow every night and in this area I´m definitely learning the meaning of that. 

We have had so many wonderful experiences this week. With just opening our mouths and also having a native with us is such a blessing. I´m a little homesick for Lisboa, I just want to make sure everyone´s okay and keeping their covenants back there but I know that they´ll use their agency wisely and will continue to endure. I´ll also be calling them everynow and again just to check up on them :) 

alright first experience here in Braga.... 

We went to a members house to have pasta and the member warned me that she had a CRAZY dog but that I shouldn´t worry because she´s keep it locked up in a room... so I just said alright sure.. and then later on while we´re eating dinner the member had to get up and grab something from that room.... 

All I here when she opens the door is "Nossa Maeryo!" and a dog barreling down the hallway. 

and next thing I know this huge dog jumps on my lap, tongue stretched all the way out and licks all of my spaghetti off my plate! haha 

Tudo suave :) 

I LOVE MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS! you are all amazing!!!! Thank you for all of your emails and love and prayers!!! I´m going to work my very hardest for our savior and secondly for all of you. 

Always remember what your savior has done for you and repent Everyday!!! none of us are perfect but we can be perfected through the Atonement. Alma 7 11-12 

Please, please pray for these people when you get a chance :) 

Amelia, Sergio, Andreia, Elsa, Conseição, Das Barbosas, and Marta! 

Com tudo de minha coração, 

Sister Bairgey

New Area - Braga

Week 29 - Blown Away....Literally

Oi!!!!!  

Alright here was my week this week ya ready?

 In my very own brazilian opinion it was belleza 

This last week we started it off with me and Sister Call doing our Noite de Integração! Orr Family Activity night at the church kinda.. It was a blast... 

There´s this hospital here in Lisboa that me and sister call go and see at least 2 times a week.. It a bunch of immigrants from africa that need treatment and they can´t get it from where they live so they stay in this hostile/hospital place for months at a time. me and sister call had to plan our family night so we decided to have our ward make get well cards and fun bright pictures for us to put on the walls for the Hospital! 

It was fun all of us getting our arts and crafts skills together making cards and paintings for the people there! and they loved it so much when we brought it to them.. 

Last night (Sunday) While me and Sister Call were contacting a HUGE rain storm came! It was super winder and crazy and me and sister call were stuck right in the middle of it running for our lives to try and catch a bus to go to a members house to have dinner. We could not believe it! As we were trying to save ourselves from any more rain and realized that whatever we did it wasn´t working we just looked at eachother and burst into laughter!  It was perfect and sunny and 1 minute later we were getting blown away by the wind and the rain!! As me and Sister call were walking across the street, this big security man saw us and came and Here come under here!" and we still weren´t done contacting so in the middle of a storm under this man´s umbrella we asked him if we could share our message with him. and ya know what he said! Of course!!! woohoo! ha I´m so excited for us to meet up with our life saver! 

(Mom I´ll tell him thank you for helping us for you)

I´m soo happy here in my city of Lisboa! It´s so great and if I could I would stay here for my whole mish!! I just know I have other things to learn in other places... Our Elders did predict that I would be staying and as well as everyone in the ward here... who knows!! I think they maybe were just saying that just to say what I wanted to hear... but who knows we´ll find out this Sunday!! 

Ps Samuel 2:1-10 lit´s a good one ;)

I love you alll SO much! 

Keeppp being strong in the faith! Heavenly Father needs you! 

 Sister Baird

I Love my Peeps!

Week 28 - The More You Serve

Here´s some stories for this week. 

Today I´m going to a Castle with our District and a couple of other missionaries from our zone and I CANT wait!!! I love my old antiquish Lisboa, Portugal. 

I have some pics I want to send to you all of me and my comp. I love that girl so much. She´s such a great comp! 

I´ve been making a lot of changes with my missionary work and I´m lovin every second of it. Just trying more and more to be exactly obedient every day. I´ve realized that the more we are obedient to commandments and rules in our life the more fully we can feel the spirit... I know if we are as far away from sin or as close to the commandments the lord sets from us the more exact we will feel the power of the spirit in our lives. 

This last week was dia de namarados ... or translated in English Day of the Daters. ha Happy belated Love Day! I celebrated by making some gool ol american pancakes...because I love my country. Merica´! and learned more about how true love is actually charity.  I´ve learned this on the mission. The more you serve someone and put your heart into it, is when you can feel true love. The true love of Christ- Charity. I´ve learned this little trick out here... if I´m bugged by someone, serve them. It works everytime. 

I also want all of you to know how much I love all of you and how excited I am to serve you all when I get home!!! :) 

This week a wonderful thing happened... me and sister call were sitting on the bus talking to some jovens, teenagers. and we started talking about the gospel and they all gave us a little rejection BUT then we sat down and what do ya know the other joven I sat next to goes "You are missionaries" "Can I talk to you guys" You sure can!!!! ha it boosted my desire to talk to EVERYone about this gospel times 10 and made me realize how much of an example of a disciple I need to be. You never know who´s listening or is watching. 

We have a week full of new people we are anxiously excited to get to know and to help them come closer to our savior. 

We also have been trying with all our might to bring our less-active members back to the light.. I want to share one little experience that we had yesterday with a lady named Isabell. Yesterday she was giving us all these reasons why she couldn´t go to church and why she doesn´t read her scriptures... We cannot live in a celestial glory with our Father in heaven or families without first living a celestial life. 

That means obeying all of Gods commandments. If we can´t obey commandments that God´s sets than we are not ready to take upon us the other promises or celestial covenants that we make in the temple of God. God doesn´t look upon sin with the least bit of allowance. He will not be mocked. 

I challenge all of us to go over the commandments of God and strive to follow them in detail as well as our baptismal covenants we have made and our temple covenants and strive to magnify and continue in every moment to remember who we are as disciple of our savior and be exactly obedient towards these promises we have made. Whether we made this promise before earth... to always obey his commandments or when it was the day we decided to be baptised and to take the name of the savior upon us and always remember him. and then the sacrad covenants we have made in the temple to want to live with our father in Heaven in a celestial glory. 

I love all of you!!!! You´re in my thoughts ALWAYS

With all of my love. 

Sister Baird