Welcome to Missouri

Week 7-Landed in Missour

You may think that I forgot the "I" on accident in the title, but it wasn't just a typo. More than not, the people who live here refer to the state as "Missour" and a lot of the missionaries refer to it at "misery".  When my companion says it with her accent it sounds like misery too, which in some definitions of the word could be true, but I love it here!!

After waking up at 3:30 in the morning to check in at the travel office they bused all 27 people in our travel group to the front runner.  We loaded 27 people, and around 70 pieces of luggage into the train and road off to the airport.  We were quite a sight to see if I do say so myself; 27 giddy missionaries excited to be in the real world again running on only a couple hours of sleep does make for an interesting bunch, but we made it safe and sound and landed in Missouri!  

Our mission president and his wife met us at the airport and took us to the Kansas City temple, then to Liberty Jail.  We were able to see the amazing exhibit they have and the spirit was incredible and I am so blessed to be able to serve in centers where the sprit is so strong all the time.  We spent the rest of the night at the mission home getting a lot of information and then meeting with the president.  My mission president and his wife are incredible!  I know already that I will be able to learn so much from them.

The next morning we got our new companions and trainers!  My companion is Hermana Cuevas and she is from Mexico, that's why she has an accent!  She has been here for about 8 months and her English is fantastic.  So we usually spend every other day, one on Spanish one on English, so we can both study our foreign languages.  Another opportunity I get because my companion is foreign is I get to drive for our companionship...for all of my friends at home who know how bad my sense of direction is, you'll probably get a good laugh thinking about me trying to drive in Missouri...  I almost never know which direction I'm driving because there aren't any mountains, and even with our GPS I still manage to take wrong turns at least twice every time we go somewhere.  But I know though God, weak things can be made strong, so I pray that he will help me to understand directions better!

After I met my companion we picked up my luggage, and she says, "are you excited to work in the Visitors Center?"  And I was like "Yeah of course I am!"  And she starts laughing, "That's good then, cause we're going up there right now and you're teaching!"  WHAT?  SO the first day on presentations I bore my testimony and smiled because I knew none of the history.  

Usually, if you come in the winter when there aren't as many people coming though, you'll teach with your companion for 2 weeks before you take presentations on your own.  In the summer when we have tons of visitors, you have no other choice but to learn fast.  The other new sisters and I learned as fast as we could and have already been giving presentations by ourselves!  It's a good thing this is the Lord's work and he helps us, because there is no way that I would be able to do this without a ton of divine help!

The schedules for our days depends on the day, but for 4 days a week we spend 6 hours in the Visitors Center, 4 hours studying and then whatever time we have left in our area.  Then we have one full proselyting day that we don't work in the visitors center.  I LOVE working in the Visitors Center.  We get to talk to so many people every day and help them to feel the spirit and come closer to Christ.  I love being able to take the stories from history and apply them to the lives of the people I teach.  I Iove teaching families the most because I love working with the little kids and learning from them.

We don't have much time in our area's right now due to the fact that new missionaries have an extra hour of study every day, but we work hard with the time that we have!  We don't have any investigators right now, but we know that there are people being prepared to hear the gospel somewhere in our area, we just need to find them!  If we are obedient and work hard, the Lord will help us to find the people He has prepared.

Just a couple random things about Missouri before I sign out for the week:

1. People don't wear clothes in the summer, it's totally normal to see old men, or anyone for that matter, driving around wearing the least amount of clothing possible.

2. The lightning bugs, or fireflies, are so fun!!  I hate all bugs always, but I like the lightning bugs when they're far away cause they're so pretty!

3.  The storms here are wicked cool!  My first night here there was a massive thunder storm.  No one could sleep because when the lightning would flash, it would light up the whole room.  Some houses are still without power, and the 70 to 80 mile an hour winds blew down massive trees, but everyone was safe so it was pretty cool!!

4. There are a surprising amount of Spanish speakers here.  Victory for me so I can speak!  A little less than half my ward are Spanish speakers so I'm so excited to learn more Spanish!

I love the mission so far and I'm so excited to be here!  Sorry this letter was longer than I planned...But I hope all is well for everyone at home!  

All is well, and God is good.

Love Hermana Baggett

Hermana Cuevas and I.  (She is from Mexico)

Right across the street from the VC is the temple for the Community of Christ or Reformed LDS Church.  It's a pretty cool building but a lot of people get us confused with them and we are very different!  HAHA...keeps it interesting!

Sister Jones and I sporting our mission t-shirts.

Week 6- VC training isn't for sissies

Before I left for my mission, I got a couple comments from people that said my mission would be easy because I didn't have to proselyte...but boy I learned this week that they are very wrong!  There is so much more to being a visitors' center sister than I ever imagined and I am so blessed to have been called to serve in a visitors' center!  

The beginning of the week I sent off my district to places all over the world.  All those fantastic missionaries are now serving in Argentina, California, Tennessee and Salt Lake. I'm so proud of them but miss them a lot!  Then starting they threw us right into our new training.  Monday morning we took trax up to salt lake where some of the sisters took us on a tour and told us a little bit of what it means to be a visitors' center sister and we also talked with a man who works to help manage all the visitors' centers for the church so we learned a lot from them!  

After we returned to the MTC they've been teaching us many of the different things that VC sisters do.  One thing we've been practicing the most is online proselyting.  If you go on LDS.org there is a place where if you have questions or anything you can chat with a representative of the church.  It's the VC sisters that answer those chats and phone calls and answer questions that people may have about the church.  I didn't even know that this was a thing before we got here, but they have told us stories about how a sister serving in Salt Lake helped investigators prepare for baptism from Germany, Chile, Canada and all over the world!!  How incredible is that?  

We have chatted and answered phone calls a couple times now and it's really fun!  Our first experience with a phone called came when a sister in my district answered the phone, asked what they could do to help and the man said, I read the book of Mormon and I want to be baptized, can you send the missionaries over before 2 today?  They were like, umm yeah we can definitely do that!! As you can guess, we all went a little bit nuts haha but it was incredible!!  Another of the phone calls the sisters answered and the man only spoke Spanish and my companion and I are the only ones who speak (speak for her, attempt to speak for me) Spanish!  So they handed off the phones and we were able to help a man in Spanish!  I didn't get all of it, he was speaking mighty fast, but my comp had my back and we were able to help him!  There are people out there who are so prepared and we see a lot of that here which is incredible, I can't wait to do more of it!

So I learned in my mission, I will be serving in the visitors center half of the day, giving tours, bearing testimony and online proselyting.  Then the other half of the day we will be out proselyting just like normal missionaries.  Our days will be busy, but I'm so excited for the chance that I have to have so many different opportunities to reach out to so many of God's children in different ways.  I've been here for only 6 weeks, but I feel like I'm a totally different person.  I have learned so much and can't wait to share what I have learned and the love of God with anyone who will listen.

I hope everyone is good at home and having a fun safe summer!  Thank you again for all your support and love.  Don't forget to keep the Lord in your mind this week, find ways to serve him and everyone around you.  "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." -Mosiah 2:17

All is well, and God is good!
Sister/Hermana Baggett

All of these wonderful sisters will be serving in a Visitors' Center.  This was our first training together.  It was also my first time out of the MTC in 6 weeks!

All of these missionaries are heading off to various places in the world and I am the only one left.

Week 5 - Not much new at the MTC

This week has been mostly the same, no super out of the ordinary things to report, but it's all been really good!  We have mostly just been doing the normal things of studying lots of Spanish, teaching a lot of lessons and eating a lot, I feel like we eat all the time haha.  I have been taking our extra study time to practice the piano and I play in sacrament meeting for my branch.  That should make my mom happy considering all the money and time she spent trying to get me to practice haha:)

One of the sisters in the other district in my zone and I have a little bit of a war going on, we keep playing little pranks on each other to keep things exciting here.  The latest one was I hid under her bed when she was getting ready for bed, planning to grab her ankles when she walked by the bed to scare her but I kept missing my chance!!  About 15- 20 minutes later, she found me under there because my hair got stuck and I couldn't hold still anymore...hahaha it's always an adventure and she's super fun so it's all good!

This week I know will probably be the hardest of my mission so far because my whole district is leaving starting Monday,and will all be gone and out into their missions by Wednesday.  I will be staying an extra week because I have a extra week of visitors center training.  I'm really excited for the new training and to meet more sisters who will be going to my mission, but it will be so hard to say goodbye to all these people I have come to be so close with.  It has been a blessing to know them, and to learn so much from them. They'll be great missionaries!

I hope everyone has a great week, God is good and all is well!

Con Amor, Hermana Baggett

Week 4- Success!

My Zone

This week we were so blessed to hear from another apostle at devotional! This week was Elder Christofferson and he brought out a list of frequently asked questions from missionaries and answered all of them for us! We talked about it after in my district and he answered a lot of questions we had all already been thinking about and praying for answers, so I know that God really does hear our prayers and works through his servants and though the scriptures to answer our questions.

The thing he said that stuck out to me the most was someone asked how we could feel the spirit more in our lives all the time and all he said was, PAY ATTENTION. He came to the conclusion of, the Lord's hand is always in your life, he is so much more involved than you realize. When we have a hard time feeling the spirit and seeing his hand in our lives, it's usually because we're not looking for it. This was a huge eye opener to me, and a reminder and I need to look for God's hand and I will feel his divine love more. So this week, I challenge all of you to look, with a sincere heart, for God's hand. A lot of the time it will be really small, but look for Him really wanting to know if He is there and I know He will show you that He is and that He loves you.

This week has been much like all the others when it comes to all the normal daily routines, lots of Spanish and lots of teaching! But some funny things did happen! My personal favorite is my companions and I were leaving for breakfast and forgot that the other 2 sisters that share a room with us were in the showers...and the door locked... So we sat enjoying our breakfast for a good 20 minutes when a sister in our zone came and was like Hermana Baggett I need you key right now! And I was like, umm why? And then it hit me...Hermana Craig and Jamison had no way to get in our room and had been sitting outside in their towels for a least 20 minutes...hahaha whoops, sorry sisters!! We got a tongue lashing for that one but we all laugh about it now! 

Another thing I loved from this week was my zone got to host the new missionaries coming in! Basically we pick them up at their cars, help them get checked in, take them to their rooms to drop off their stuff and then drop them off in their classrooms! It was really fun to see all the new faces and see where all these people are going! 5 sisters that are going to my mission, but English speaking came in that day and it made me so happy to meet all of them! I will do my visitors center training with them in 2 weeks! 

I forgot one of my favorite part of this week! Our other devotional was from Janice Kapp Perry. She has written some of the most popular children's primary songs like "army of helaman" "a child's prayer" "love at home" and more! She talked about the importance of music and how when you don't know what else to do when you need the spirit, SING. Music affects us more than we realize, so If we choose to listen to good, uplifting music, it can be a wonderful blessing in our lives.

I love it here and I love the work! I hope all is well, I send my prayer of health, safety and love for all of you! All is well and God is good, always.

Love Hermana Baggett

I ran into Sister Clark.  We were friends in middle school and high school.  She is serving in Los Angeles.

Hermana Jamison, Hermana Parris, ME, Hermana Craig and Hermana Bassett

My bookstore purchase!

This is Sister Kraig who is also serving in Independence speaking Spanish but not in the Visitor Center.  I was excited to meet her.  We will fly out together to Missouri.

Week 3 MTC and Elder Holland

Our district with our teacher Sister Avery

Another week down and everything is going great here!  The food is getting a little dull..hahaha but that was expected.  The greatest thing that happened this week was ELDER HOLLAND came to speak for devotional!!  For those of you who may not know, Elder Holland is one of the members of the presidency of the church.  They said they only get apostles here about every 6 to 8 weeks, but they haven't had one for 10, so it was a huge deal that we could be here when he came!  I sang in the MTC choir which is always fun and we sang his favorite hymn, more holiness give me.  Elder Holland taught that one of the ways the devil stops us is by making us not want to talk to others.  If he can just make us a little nervous to share, worried to talk to a random person, anything like that, he can keep us from helping people who may we may be able to help.  So this week I challenge all of you out there, to OPEN YOUR MOUTH.  Compliment someone, share a thought, talk to someone you haven't before, anything works, but open your mouth.  You will be amazed at what God can do through you!

Something else I wanted to talk about really quick, a couple weeks ago I mentioned something about sisters who served missions a long time ago and I needed to apologize, I fell into the stereotype that sisters only used to serve missions if they couldn't get married but I was so wrong and this week I realized I have so many examples in my life to prove otherwise.  I have so many amazing women in my life who chose to wait until they were older to serve missions because they wanted to serve him so badly, they love him and wanted to do his work!  So once again I apologize for falling into stereotypes and I wanted to express how grateful I am for all the amazing examples of women that I have in my life.  I hope to be as good of a missionary as they are!

Not much new has gone on here at the MTC this week, we study a lot and I feel like we're eating all the time cause the days go by so fast!  We have a lot of fun here though too, which is important!  Because even though we're supposed to be working, the Lord wants us to have fun while we do it, and we're doing a good job having fun with it too:)

Just a quick thought before I sign out for the week, in the hymn "we are all enlisted" there is a verse, verse 2 that says: 

Hark! the sound of battle sounding loudly and clear;

Come join the ranks! Come join the ranks!

We are waiting now for soldiers; who'll volunteer?

Rally round the standard of the cross.

Hark! 'tis our Captain calls you today;

Lose not a moment, make no delay!

Fight for our Savior; come, come away!

We're joyfully, joyfully marching to our home.

This just kind of goes a long the lines of what I said earlier of opening your mouth.  You don't have to be a missionary to join the ranks and to fight for our savior!  He fought for you, he fought to the death for you.  Will you now fight for him?

I hope everyone is doing well and love you all!  Have a good week and God speed.

Love Sister Courtney Baggett

   Temple Walk Sunday                
                       Elder Eller, Elder Wagner, Hermana Jamison, Hermana Parris, Hermana Bassett, Hermana Craig,  
Elder Westburg and Elder House

Week 2- MTC

May 22, 2015

This week was great here and time is actually starting to move, really fast actually!  The first week here felt like an eternity, but now we're on high speed and it's awesome!  Some funny stories from this week!  I have a lot but these are my favorite!

Story 1: We're sitting in class the other day and one of the elders goes, I have a confession to make, and it's going to be really embarrassing.  So we're like okay...worried it's gonna be some deep dark secret.. what is it?  And he starts, "the first day we got here I realized that I forgot tooth paste, but the store was already closed!  But I looked over and saw a tube sticking out of my companions closet, so I thought, awesome!  I'll just borrow a little and get some at the store!  So I put a little squirt on my tooth brush and went to go brush my teeth and have a bonding moment with my companion while we great ready for bed!  So Elder Westburg (his companion)  is talking about his flight and all this stuff and I'm brushing, and this does not taste like toothpaste, not at all.  But he was standing there and I couldn't admit I stole his weird toothpaste so I kept brushing...for the whole 2 minutes...After the nasty brushing I went back into our room and peeked to see what kind of toothpaste it was, and it wasn't toothpaste...it was ANTI ITCH CREAM."  So yes, Elder Wagner brushed his teeth, and tongue, with anti itch cream for a solid 2 minutes.  And that brothers and sisters is what you get for taking without asking!!

Story 2:  At lunch things tend to get a little crazy, we all get a little to excited and laugh a little too hard.  One of my companions, hermana Parris, was taking a drink when someone made her laugh and the next this I see is her face is dark purple and she was obviously choking.  I shot into life guard mode and don't even know how I got to the other side of the table but I got there and was like where's your belly button?!  (for those of you who know the Heimlich, it makes it much easier if they show you rather than finding it!!)  She points and I was about to go into action when she finally starting coughing.  It was like music to my ears!  And then I turned into that person from the red cross first aid video when they say "tell the victim to keep coughing"  I always made fun of that video but I rocked the "keep coughing" task!  So just in case anyone wanted to know, if there is an emergency, I've still got your back hahaha

Things like this is what makes the MTC so great, and the spirit too, but laughing is food for the soul!

The MTC is great and the people here are awesome.  I love how strong I can feel the spirit always and I feel so much love for the people of Missouri even though I haven't met them yet.  Just to leave you all with a spiritual thought, God hears your prayers. It's a simple thought, but it means the world to me and has changed my life.  Because I know he listens to me, I am willing to try a little harder, pray a little longer, and have a little bit more courage in all aspects of my life.  If anyone out there needs a little love, have a conversation with your heavenly father.  He has more love than you could ever imagine.

Love you all!

Love, Hermana Baggett

         Sister Baggett

         Courtney

Hermana Jamison, Hermana Craig, Hermana Parris, Me!, Hermana Bassett

My two companions at the Provo Temple

Things get pretty crazy in the MTC

Our entire district
Back: President Price, Elder Westberg, Hermana Craig, Hermana Jamison
Front: Brother Jeffs, Elder Wagner, Me, Hermana Parris, Hermana Bassett, Elder House, Elder Eller

Week 1- MTC

All the sisters in my district and our fantastic Presidents wife Hermana Price.
She lovingly refers to herself as our MTC Mom!

May 15, 2015

Here at the MTC we do a lot of one thing, waiting. Not waiting for lessons or teaching or anything, but waiting in line for the bathroom. You see, when the MTC was built, there weren't a lot of sister missionaries. It was mostly the sisters that didn't get married so they thought, oh I guess I'll go on a mission. So the MTC didn't plan for very many sisters and the girls bathroom is much smaller than the boys! Now that times have changed and the age has changed, there are so many more sisters here, and we're caught in a rut. In the large bathrooms there are two toilets for sisters, and seven toilets for the elders.....so there it leaves us sisters, waiting in line to use the bathroom. Always. When we're not waiting to use the bathroom we're usually in class studying either Spanish or ways to teach in Spanish! Like I said last week, we had our first lesson in Spanish and it was kinda bad...hahah. My companions and I planned our lesson in English, translated it into Spanish and basically read the whole thing. He would ask us a question, for example, why do we have to be baptized? And we would say, uhhh, God loves you! Cause we didn't really know what he said and that's the only thing we knew how to say...embarrassing. But we've been teaching all week and I'd like to report that we can semi hold a conversation about the gospel now! We probably sound like 4 year olds with our grammar, but hey as long as we're getting the point across! The nacho libre quotes keep the moral up in the place, and we've all nailed the accent; "So you want to get baptizzeed?!" Life is good in the MTC, talk to you all next week.

Love Hermana Baggett

Apparently Sister Missionaries still take "selfies".

All the sisters in my district with Hermana and President Price

Day 2-MTC

May 8, 2015

Hey everyone! Really fast I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who have been supportive of me thus far, I couldn't have made it to where I am without all you amazing people and you help me to stay motivated to keep going, so thank you! I've been a missionary for about 2 days now, so I'm basically a pro..hahaha just kidding I'm far from it, but I did get to take off my dork dot so life is good!! The dork dot is the bright orange sticker they put on your name tag the first day so everyone knows that your new, which was lovingly named by Elder Bednar haha. This means that every time you take a step someone is yelling, "Welcome to the MTC, sisters!" It's nice that they're welcoming...but the extra attention isn't missed haha. The first day of Spanish class was more acting than Spanish. My teacher only speaks spanish, and me and my classmates' Spanish is quite rusty from high school. One of the elders actually only took one year in high school and he failed it. Word for word his teacher told him, "I don't think you'll ever be able to learn Spanish, you should choose another language." Hahaha so obviously the Lord had another plan in mind! Because of this rustiness in all of us, my teacher acts out every word until we guess what she's trying to tell us. We're getting better at it as we remember Spanish and have the help of the Lord, but I still like the acting, it makes class more entertaining! Speaking of Spanish, we have our first "appointment" with Raymundo tonight and we will be teaching all in Spanish. Hermana Avery told us we would be speaking all in Spanish and the looks of shock on our faces were probably pretty priceless. One of the hermana's says, "But Hermana, nosotros sabemos Espanol poco" (We only know a little Spanish) in nice and broken spangish. Hermana Avery says, "Fe, Hermana, Fe!" (Faith, sister, Faith) hahaha so I'm depending on my faith to get us through this lesson!! We did learn how to pray in Spanish though, and I know the gift of tongues has been a blessing to us already, so it will help us now! I have 2 companions and there is one other companionship of sisters in our district. We all share a room, so I think that's good that we can be nice and close! Even if it means that we're in a room meant for four sisters...It's good bonding time:) This is the slow time in the MTC before all the graduating high schoolers come in in the summer, so our Zone president didn't have missionaries before us. That means our district and zone are all the same 9 people:) It also means that we all had to take leaderships positions sooner because we don't have zone leaders or a sister training leader. I have been called as the Sister Training Leader (which is like a Zone Leader for elders) and feel very inadequate, but the Lord qualities the called, so I'll work really hard. That's all for this week, welcome to the journey with me! Love to you all! Love Hermana Baggett

Left to Right: Hermana Parris going to Carlsbad, California; Hermana Bassett going to Salt Lake City South; Hermana Jamison and Hermana Craig going to Rosario Argentina and me! PS: I forgot to mention, my companion is going to serve in my home area in Salt Lake City! She's spanish so probably won't serve in our ward, but she'll be there in 6 weeks.

May 6, 2015 MTC

May 4, 2015 Setting Apart

Waiting in the Stake Presidents office waiting to be set apart.

Baggett Family 

Charlie, Annelise, Dad, Mom, Courtney, John Paul

Annelise and Sister Baggett

Mom and Sister Baggett

Grandpa Weenig and Sister Baggett

Warm welcome from President Vest

Mission Call

January 17, 2015 Mission call opening

Courtney didn't open her call for two long days!  Saturday was the earliest that everyone could get together.  Family, friends and neighbors came to support Sister Baggett!


Sister Baggett,
You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Missouri Independence Mission.  In addition to your calling to share the gospel, you will be assigned to serve in the Independence Visitors' Center.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.
You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, May 6, 2015.  You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language.