Dear Family!


This past week has been a week of miracles and blessings! I have felt the lords love in every moment and I feel humble that we have been blessed so richly. This past Monday we traveled to the capital and visited the Family of Thelma Endicott (she is a friend of Dad). Their family kindly gave us lunch and we ate some really tasty traditional Guatemalan food called Pepian and Revolcado. That evening we went and stayed in one of my old areas and I was able to visit recent converts and members to say goodbye! It was a great day!

The next day we woke up early and went to a conference where we were blessed to meet and listened to Elder Renlund of the quorum of the 12, His wife, and elder Alonzo of the 70 and his wife.

After several other meetings on Tuesday we made the 4 hour trip to our area in asuncion mita and we got to work. This week we focused on the Family of heribeto, Carolina, and Ruth. Heriberto dropped his work and rest and spare time and made a 3 day trip to El Salvador this week to obtain the paperwork to be married on Saturday. They were married on Saturday evening and after attending church yesterday almost all of our branch gathered for their baptism. It was a spiritual experience and we are so excited for them and their goal to be sealed in the temple as a family in one year!

Elder Renlund said ¨Even more than know about Jesus Christ... I have grown to know His personality... He is kind, loving,Patient, wise, firm, and more than anything He loves to heal.. He loves to take that which is broken and dysfunctional and to repair and to succor so that is may become whole.¨

During my mission I have witnessed the healing power of the Atonement. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He loves us. I know that each and every one of us is worthy of divine rescue and healing. It is a choice to allow our lives to be strengthened by the enabling power of the atonement. We can choose to accept it and we can choose to help and guide others so that they might choose happiness. I know that as we loose ourselves serving others we find true joy. We honor the Savior not only in word but in the way we live.

Although it is very hard to end the mission I know that these past two years have been the best two years for my life. I Love each of you and I am so very grateful for all of your prayers and support. I am Excited to see you this week!

Love,

Elder Baldwin

Well... this is very strange to think this is the last time I will write you as a missionary en la Guatemala. These two years will be a treasure for you to look back on throughout your life. You have learned a lot about who you are and who you want to be. You've gone through some incredibly tough times when you've missed the people, places, and things you grew up loving. You've gone through physical challenges that you never imagined a couple of years ago. You've mastered a foreign language and all of the challenges associated with that. You've lived most of these 2 years with companions from many different countries and overcome all of the associated cultural differences, yet managed to work together to focus on the things you had in common. You've dealt with some pretty major health challenges that seemed like would go on forever. You've learned a lot about leadership and seen first hand how all of your preparation as a deacon, teacher, and priest have prepared you as an Elder You've learned a lot about what you are capable of achieving and what you are capable of overcoming. In short,you've learned who you are and who you want to become. Now you have the confidence to conquer the world. Just think about the time you spent in the office and all of the interactions you had with officials. Additionally, think about the habits you have established. 

More than anything, think about the people you have come to know, come to love, and seen transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You have witnessed first hand some of the most important work being done on the earth! How incredible is it to think about the number of people you have come to love and serve. You can only imagine how much they cherish the message the you brought to them and how long would they have had to wait had you not chosen to serve??
Well done elder Baldwin. Well done. 

Know that mom and I are so very proud of you. We can't wait to see you in a few days. We love you. Dad.  

Dear family!

This week has been great! I will try to write all that I can but as usual I am in a race against time!

This past week was great! i was able to visit ixhuatan last week to say goodbye to converts and Friends! It was a great experience! One of the highlights was that I was able to see the chapel that they are building. I have had the blessing to see the área progress from a simple two hour meeting on sunday with around 10 poeple to a branch with almost all the organizations full of callings to new members of the church!

This week we also have been running around like crazy in our area to get to all of our appointments. I truly love this work! A few weeks ago I knocked a door and contacted a man named Eddy Berto. At first when I saw his reaction I was skeptical but he invited us in and we began to talk about the plan of salvation with him. He then told us that he is member of the church and after the lesson we planned to return and visit his wife and daughter as well. Their names are Carolina and Ruth.

Since then we have visited the family regularly and they are progressing very quickly! Yesterday we felt inspired to visit them when we had not placed an appointment. During the lesson we invited them to be married and baptized this weekend and They accepted. Today Eddy went to El Salvador to get the paperwork necessary and we made planes to help them get married on Saturday and baptize them this coming Sunday! We are hoping and praying that everything goes well!

Today we are going to travel to the capital and stay the night because we have a conference with Elder Dale G Renlund tomorrow morning! Its going to be a busy week and we are very excited to be able to work until the last hour!

I love this work! I am thankful for our Savior. I Know that He lives and that through his atonement we can change to become what Heavenly Father wants us to become. It requires a recognition of our nothingness, of Gods greatness and our best effort.

We can honor Him in the way we live!

Love

Elder Baldwin