Birthday wish for Mom

I (Tamara) was lucky enough to get a birthday wish from Sister Baggett!

Week 32- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful, merry Christmas and a happy new year this week!  I love the holidays so I hope everyone is enjoying them too!  This week was awesome...as always ha-ha but especially good!:)

All of us in our Christmas jammies!

The wards in our area are SO LOVING and wanted to make sure that the missionaries had a good Christmas, so they definitely spoiled us!  One ward in the area had our whole district over on Christmas Eve morning to feed us breakfast and they gave all of us Christmas pajamas too!  It was the sweetest thing; I can't believe how kind people are!  We also heard of so many people bringing in others who don't have much family to celebrate with or many resources to their family parties or dinners!  That is something that I love so much about the church.  When you join, you automatically have way more family that you ever had before!:)

On Christmas day we went over with the elders in our ward to a family of one of the kids who was just baptized a 2 weeks ago.  They had a fire in the oven last month and it didn't burn anything down but the walls were still a little more black that usual!  So as a Christmas present we painted their house and it was super great!  They are such a stellar family, they have taught me so much already:) We skyped with our families later that night as well and it was awesome to be able to see my family and talk with them:) It was just a week full of blessings!

Painting party!

Another miracle from the week!  We are teaching a mom, her 14-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter and they are preparing to be baptized, we just hadn't set a date for when yet. So after praying about it we felt we should give them the options of the 16th of January, or the 23rd.  During our lesson, Sister Cuevas felt prompted to ask the 7 year old when her birthday was before we talked about the date and she said it's on January 22!:)  That answered our question right there ha-ha! So it worked out just right that they will be able to be baptized together, as a family on the 23rd:) Everything always works out just right in the Lord's work!

A little spiritual thought to close off the week!  The New Year is often a time to make goals and decide how you want to be better and I encourage you to keep the Lord involved in your goals.  My family and I this year are each going to pray about what we need to study from the Book of Mormon and then read 11 pages a week until i get home, sharing our thought and revelations along the way.  I hope you can all find something to study from the Book of Mormon this year and I know that as we study the Book of Mormon more regularly in our lives, we will be able to feel more of the spirit in our lives.

Merry Christmas from the Heritage Park District.

I love you all!  Thanks for everything and always remember, all is well and God is good:)

Sister/Hermana Baggett

And Merry Christmas from the #BangBangBaggettGang all together!

Christmas facetime call!

We had a wonderful facetime call with Hermana Baggett on Christmas Day.  Courtney does not break or bend rules so she made sure that we stuck to our time limit of 45 minutes.  We got 2 extra minutes out of her and ended the call at 47 minutes.  Towards the end she bore her testimony in Spanish for us.  I did really well until that moment!

Our 2015 Family Christmas Picture!

Hermana Baggett with Sister Lyons the member she lives with and Hermana Cuevas.

After we talked to Courtney, Sister Lyons sent me this picture with the text "They fit and she loves them!"

Week 31-What a week!

Christmas sweaters from Mama Lyons, the member we live with.

Baptism of the year!

This week was absolutely insane and I loved every minute of it!:)  The biggest thing to happen this week was on Saturday!  We had 6 baptisms in the ward:)  There is a big extended family, that I was talking about last week, but 5 of the kids (some were siblings and some cousins) and one of their aunts got baptized:)  It was so amazing to be there with the whole family and to join them in this incredible experience!

It's kind of funny what happens on a mission, you think you are going to go and teach people about the gospel and change their lives;  which is true!  But what you don't realize is that your life will be changed by them.  They will remind you what's important in life, they will remind you of your testimony, they will remind you to remember Christ.

I have learned something from all of my investigators and especially this family!  I'm just so humbled and grateful to be a part of all of this.

We also had our ward Christmas party that was a huge deal!  I've never been to a ward party that big, we had almost 500 people there! 11 of our investigators came to join us and it was so awesome for them to get to know ward members and start to build relationships with them!

As we are coming up on Christmas this week I have been so humbled to realize how blessed I am, how blessed we all are.  I know people around this time are always reminding everyone to remember Christ around this time of year because he is the reason for the season, which is so important, remember him!:)  But I wanted to invite a little further, a little deeper.  I invite you all to evaluate this past year and look for what you did to be closer to the savior, though maybe going to church, scripture study, prayer, what did you do last year?  And then look forward to this next year.  Of course there are probably a million things we could do better, but pick just one of them and set a goal to really be better at it this year.  I know as we set goals with the Lord in prayer, he will help us to know what we can do to be better and he will help us to get there because he wants us with him!

I love you all and hope you all have a Merry Christmas! And fam, I'll “see” you soon:)

And as always, all is well and God is good:)

Love Hermana/Sister Courtney Baggett

In the church parking lot with our investigator Jhonny!

Sister Training Leader

Week 30- Hello Kansas!

We call ourselves "The Ten".  We all came out together and have been at the VC.  This last transfer we are being split up.  It's hard!

Baking with a returning member in the 3rd ward.  We took goodies to her neighbors and sang to them.  It was such an awesome missionary tool!

Hey everyone!
We had transfers this past week and I have been transferred to KANSAS, Olathe to be exact, and I'm serving in the 1st ward!  It's just outside of Missouri, maybe 30 minutes away from where I was serving before but it's been pretty different adjusting to life not in the Visitors Center!  I miss it a lot but it is also SO AWESOME out here!  There is so much work going on out here it's incredible!  In my last area, when I first got there there were no investigators.  So we worked super hard and worked with the ward and saw so much progress and by the time I left there were like 8-10 investigators and the ward was really excited about missionary work so I know the area will continue to progress with the missionaries who are there:)


But then I get out here to Olathe and we have 60 investigators.  SIXTY.  It's gonna take me forever just to learn their names!!  Also, over 40 of them are spanish speakers!  There's so much Spanish!:)  There are a couple apartment complexes that we call "mini Mexico because everyone that lives there is from Mexico and speaks spanish!  I've only been here for a couple days but I can already tell that my spanish is getting a lot better!  Also, I am back with my trainer Sister Cuevas!  I usually doesn't happen that sisters are with companions more than once but we are together again so that's pretty crazy!

Liberty Jail with some of the Ramirez Family

Some of our beautiful investigators!  The two younger ones are getting baptized on Saturday and the older one was baptized in February.

Four investigators will be getting baptized this week and I am super excited for that!  They're all kids too!:)  They are a part of a huge part-member family, and a lot of their parents were baptized and then stopped coming to church so the kids weren't raised in the church.  But they are all returning members now and their whole family is coming to church!  The kids are so excited and I am so happy for them:)

 Something I learned this week is that Heavenly Father sometimes puts us in uncomfortable situations so we learn to trust in him.  Being a missionary, there have been so many times that I feel very uncomfortable because I'm doing something I've never done before!  But even though I feel uncomfortable, I know that I am never alone.  If you are ever feeling alone in a trial, pray for comfort!  Heavenly Father wants us to have those uncomfortable times, to learn and grow, but he never wants us to feel alone. I know he is aware of all of us and cares more than we could ever understand.

I love you all, and as always am so grateful for the incredible support I have! Thank you for all your prayers, all is well and God is good:)  God speed!
 Love Hermana/Sister Baggett

All mission conference before transfers.

I just love all these sisters!

Week 29- Christmas Is Here

Christmas at the VC with my beautiful companion.

Me, Sister Crockett and Sister Wilkey at the all mission conference we had for Christmas. 

Hey y'all, happy December!:)

This week has been fun of Christmas performances at the visitors
center, ward parties and getting the world excited about the saviors
birth!:) Sister Helmbold has especially helped me to step out of my
comfort zone and has me singing duets with her all the time, who knew
coming on a mission would make Sister Baggett sing!? Haha it sure is
fun though!

Some exciting moments from the field this week! We went to go visit a
less active member we are working with and we are starting over
teaching the lessons to her because she was baptized so long ago and
wasn't very active so she doesn't remember too much. So we went to
teach lesson 1 and her friend was there! We testified of the Book of
Mormon and the restoration and her friend said she has actually been
looking for a church so she wants to know more!:) So we will be
teaching them both together now and it was such a miracle!!

Also one of the sisters in the ward who is returning to activity and
we have been working with for a couple months now got her temple
recommend yesterday!!!! We are so excited for her! She will be going
to do baptisms with her daughter, both for their first time this week
and I can't express the joy! It's amazing to see how people change and
how much happier they become as they do what they know is right!


I hope everyone has been able to start feeling the Christmas spirit
and especially the feeling of joy, love and service that comes with
the holiday! I know I have been able to feel that spirit so much this
week and it has strengthened my testimony of Christ. The key to
helping my testimony of Christ grow this past week has been the church
Christmas video this year, "a savior is born." It's a very short
video, only 2 minutes, of strong testimony from youth of the church
about the savior. We try to show this video to everyone who comes into
the visitors center and share it with members with we eat with them
for dinner and with people we contact on the street, everyone!:) As I
have been able to watch the video over and over and bear my testimony
of Christ my testimony grows stronger every day:)

Us and our investigators son in the play area at the VC.

I truly know, that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. Not only
did he suffer for our sins but also he made it possible to overcome
weakness and challenges though his atonement. I have felt the power of
the atonement in my life and i know that this power is real. I know he
loves us more than we can comprehend. He is aware of our trials and I
am so grateful for this testimony that I have because it has changed
my life.

I encourage you all to watch, a savior is born, and follow the
invitation, DISCOVER WHY. Pray and study to find out why, find a way
to improve your relationship with the savior and how you can gain a
stronger testimony of him.

I hope you all continue to have a happy and safe holiday season and I
send all of my love from downtown independence!:)
And always remember, especially during this special holiday season,
all is well and God is good:)

Love Hermana/Sister Baggett

I made these cute pillowcases for the sisters that Courtney lives with.  I think they liked them :)