Week 62 - It's a great day to be a missionary!

Bishop Soutas and Sister Soutas visiting the Liberty Jail!  Jenessa will be coming to this mission in a few months and I am so excited! :) I can't wait to serve with a childhood friend!

Hey y'all! Being a missionary is the greatest!! I heard my little bro put in his papers this week and I couldn't be more excited!!! A little thought for him and all the other soon to be missionaries out there,it feels like a sacrifice now, and it will be a sacrifice. But something that has really sunk in for me, especially this week, is how much we receive in return. Your mission will help you to change in ways you never imagined, it will make you in to a person you never thought you would be. But it also gives you this opportunity to be apart of miracles that you couldn't be a part of anywhere else. Everyday you get to be with people who are changing their lives. Every day you are guided by the spirit to change someone's life. I just can't explain how much I feel blessed to be a missionary. It is worth more than you could even imagine to sacrifice. I wish I could explain it but it's not explainable, so just get ready for the ride of your life:)
A little about my week! It was great! A huge miracle too!!:) so backstory, there is a family in the Ward that the husband is a member but his wife and none of his kids are. He doesn't come to church often because he doesn't want to ruin his marriage, which we agree with completely! But there has always been a prayer from the Ward that his wife's heart will soften so they can all come together and become an eternal family. Just a couple weeks ago, they all came to church because they were blessing their 5th daughter, and it was the first time his wife had ever been excited about something to do with church!The ward has been involved and actually did a service project for themtoo which was super awesome but the Ward didn't feel they were missionary ready yet so we hadn't gone over.
At ward council last week we discussed their family and talked about what we could do next to help them and couldn't come up with much of anything, so we decided to discuss it next week. But yesterday, we were on exchanges so I wasn't there but Sister Schiess felt they should go visit her and she is SO INSPIRED. She let them in and talked with them for like 30 minutes! She let us know something we could do for their family and she said we could come back!! She isn't investigating the church yet, but has shown so much progress it's incredible! It also shows how the combined effort of all these Ward members can change people's perspectives and lives:)
I was able to take some amazing groups thou the jail! 2 people actually knew my sister this week too so that was pretty crazy! One of the groups that touched me the most this week was a group of BYU Idaho dancers that have been on tour. As I began the tour the spirit was so strong right off the bat I knew they came ready to learn. It was such a powerful presentation to be a part of and one of the girls shared a thought that has stuck with me. I had asked, what are some things you do to find the light when you are struggling though a trial that feels dark. She explained that sometimes the light doesn't come immediately;sometimes it takes quite a bit of time. Like take Joseph for example,he was in the liberty jail for 4 and a-half months! The light didn't come immediately, but it came. Sometimes in those dark moments we need to have faith that the light will come, but patience if it doesn't come immediately. This was a perspective I needed to hear, it truly is amazing to see that even though sometimes trials are necessary, the light will come, and it's always more than worth it.
And I know I'm not serving in Olathe anymore but I have an amazing report on one of my favorite families:) I said a couple of weeks ago that Royce was baptized, which was amazing!:) their son wasn't very interested in the church but knew it was good for them. While we were teaching Royce months ago my companion and I felt like their son,Giuliano, would come around after his dad made the choice to be baptized. And it was so true!! Just a week after Royce's baptism,Giuliano made the decision to be baptized and Royce was able to baptize him after he received the priesthood:) they are planning to goto the temple to be sealed as a family next year! The miracles just never end:)
And one more random thought, on exchanges with Sister Durrans I plucked an old lady's chin hairs...add that to the things I never thought I would learn on my mission!

I hope everyone has a great week with miracles! I know we'll see miracles here!:) all is well and God is good:)
Love Hermana/Sister Courtney Baggett

Making a cookie log with our sisters!

This is a "Mancake"!  There is a challenge at one of the members houses to eat a whole "Mancake" that is bigger than a cookie sheet...Sister Schiess and I definitely failed!  But the elders won, so that's pretty sweet!

A giant goldfish!

Making homemade ice cream on pday! I'm glad most of these pictures are of us eating this week...haha it was a good week!