Elder Brennan Baer: Singapore Mission: Worn out and happy

Dear Noelle,

How are you? Nervous? Excited? I would be, too, if I was going to Ecuador in two days! I hope you don't leave all of your packing to the last minute, and don't take scissors in your personal bag on accident, and you have an awersome time!

Love,
Brennan

okay,

Dear All of You,

This week has been great! I've never been so worn out! I feel like nothing has actually been accomplished toward saving souls, but I know that our house is almost ready for us to live in it like missionaries should, and that we have definitely not had time to do all the things we were invited to do. Oy. There has been a lot of busy-work going on, and "preaching the gospel" filling in the cracks. All in all, I'm very happy to be working with Elder Durrant. We sing a lot more than I did previously, and we just have a lot of fun together, whether it be making scones for breakfast and pasta for lunch and hand-mashed potatoes for dinner, or riding our bikes all over the city in 100 degrees of humidity, or having whistling wars while we sweep up a lot of dead stuff from under our sink, it's been great!

It's really disappointing when the only things I can possibly think to tell you about are our car ride to buy a new microwave (I got to sleep for about 10 minutes), or moving boxes until I can actually see the surface of furniture in my house, or feeling good after I talked to every member I could at church, trying to arrange appointments even though I was exhausted.

Wendy is still learning from us every weeknight that she has available. She really wants to know where she can find truth and peace in her life. Since she's the only investigator we have now, I'm always very happy to go to her lessons. Even though they are sometimes a little chaotic, because she meets us at a member-friend's house, I feel like these meetings are possibly the only things that I do during a week to fulfill my purpose. There's not really much to tell about these lessons, either, except that we have to fight a lot of distractions, and we are working very slowly through the pamphlets that accompany the lessons. We stop occasionally to answer questions like, "So why do you baptize by immersion if Jesus wasn't baptized like that?" After we read a verse of scripture that she didn't know was in her Bible, she may put in something like, "What? Who lied me?" I can see her learning more and more as she begins to pray and read little by little. It's encouraging to know that at least one person here wants to know more about Jesus Christ and what they should do now to prepare to live with Him again.

Thanks for all of your news from home, about grandparents and great-grandparents, about Girls camp, individual accomplishments, a trip to Ecuador, and other informational odds and ends. It's just what a missionary needs to keep him sane! Even though I have no way to adequately express all of my responses to the wonderful stuff you send to me, I love it, and I hope you know that I love YOU! Thank you all for being who you are - for being dedicated and determined to do what's right, even when things are hard or you are tired or people complain against you. The world needs more people like that. (Workers of righteousness, not whiners.)

Lots of Love,

Brennan!

Photos:

Elder Durrant steals my camera and takes pictures of me eating a gooey rice-stick out of a charred banana leaf at night.