Feliz Cumpleaños USA!

June 29 - July 5, 2026

We started off this week with Mission Leader Council on Monday. Our group of leaders is always changing with missionaries coming and going. This is the last transfer for six of the leaders, and then we have nine new members of MLC this transfer, including some who are just out of their 12-week training but are already stellar missionaries. We love learning from them as they share their testimonies and insights. We ended the meeting by signing the hymn, "This is the Christ" and Monica caught the eye of several missionaries who will be ending soon including Elder Kaufman who served in the office with us for about ten months. They were both tearing up and had a sweet moment feeling the spirit together. 

Back Row (L to R): Elders Bórquez, Dangl, Nance, Wilson, Hales, Fabrizio, Jackson, Kauffman, Spencer, Viana, Descalzi
Middle Row (L to R): Elders Smith, Brady, Hermanas Halls, Heap, Buer, Perez, Saraiva, Peterson, Joyner, Dorado, Elders Hassey, Kulbacki
Front Row (L to R): Hermanas Platt, Mercado, James, Zapata, President & Hermana Bartholomew, Hermanas Andersen, Sloane, Del Toro

Monica with Hermana Del Toro and Hermana James

Elder Fabrizio & Elder Dangl (he makes his own ties!)

Wednesday we had our new missionary orientation with those that arrived a couple weeks ago and it was great to see them again and help them understand more about how the mission works. Wednesday night, Monica went out teaching with Hermana Soelberg and Chowen, who just arrived in the mission. They visited multiple families, including some that are preparing for baptism soon. She also had the chance to go out teaching with some of our elders this week - Elders Dangl and Fabrizio. She's been able to teach with all the sisters except for one, so now she'll accompany some more elders moving forward too. It's an experience she really enjoys being in the homes of the people and seeing the love the missionaries and the Lord have for these children of God in Chile. 

New Missionary Orientation
Back row (L to R): Elders Marchena, Burgon, Vargas, Bastow, Walker, Sowards
Front (L to R): Lázaro, Bruno, Soelberg, Chowen, President & Hermana Bartholomew, Cranney, Michaelson, Ataucuri, Córdova 

Teaching with Hermanas Soelberg & Chowen

Saturday, was America's birthday! We sent out the following message to our missionaries in the morning: 

Good morning! Today is a very special day as the United States celebrates 250 years of freedom. What began with a declaration of independence in 1776 continues in 2026 with liberty and justice for all.

No matter where we are from, we can all celebrate this historic anniversary together because the freedoms established in the United States have blessed the lives of *all* of us.

The founding of the United States was not an accident of history. It was a necessary step in our Heavenly Father’s plan to have a place of religious freedom where the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ could safely take place.

President Dallin H. Oaks explained this important connection when he taught: “Without these great foundations of the Constitution, the United States could not have served as the host nation for the Restoration of the gospel, which began only 30 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified.”

The religious freedom that was born there allowed the restored Church to take root and eventually spread throughout the world, bringing the blessings of the gospel to each of our home nations.

In the spirit of this celebration of freedom and the blessings of the Restoration that we all share, EVERYONE can take 30 minutes tonight to call home and talk with their families. Happy July 4th!

We had our preparation day and had 2 gatherings/BBQs that day to celebrate the 4th of July! The first was in the early afternoon with our 5 office elders - Elder Koppa, Elder Espinosa, Elder Larson, Elder Olivera, Elder Crowfoot, and one senior missionary, Hermana Moore. I took the elders to play a sport called padel that is very popular here in Chile. It's a cross between tennis, pickleball and racketball. You play with a specialized racquet called a paddle, typically outdoors on a large court with glass walls on the back and along part of the sides that you can hit the ball off. We had a great time (we don't have any pictures of it, because Monica wasn't with us 😂) When we came back, we ate some hamburgers with Monica and Hermana Moore. 

That evening, we drove over to the Ellsworth's home - they are the mission leaders of the Santiago East Mission. They had invited all the mission leaders of the 4 missions in Santiago to their home for a party to celebrate the 4th of July, and to welcome the Bakers to Chile. President and Sister Baker (Santiago North Mission) just arrived here this last week. He and I served together in the Santiago North Mission when we were young, so it's fun being back here together years later (we won't say how many years though 😉). It felt a little weird having cooler weather and no fireworks on the 4th, but we had a great evening together still. It's great to swap mission stories with people who fully understand what we are experiencing in our callings. 

Back row: Ellsworths (Santiago East Mission) & Bakers (Santiago North Mission)
Front row: Kilgores (Santiago West Mission) & Bartholomews (Santiago South Mission)

We had the chance to attend two baptism services on Sunday. The first was for Dante who was taught by Hermanas Mercado, Anderson and James. His story is pretty remarkable. Years ago he was struggling with severe addictions to drugs and alcohol, leading to involvement in gang violence and even some near death experiences. After one particular night ending up in the hospital and waking up days later, he decided he needed to change his life. He got into therapy and has worked so hard to be sober for 3 years now, but he still felt like something was missing from his life. His brother passed away a year or so ago and he kept having dreams where his brother would just smile at him and it felt like he was inviting him to come to where he was. When the hermanas knocked on his door, he could feel his brother's influence and knew he needed to listen. He was quick to accept the gospel and was so excited to be baptized. Given Dante's past, I had the opportunity to interview him prior to his baptism to ensure he was ready for this step. I had a great experience with him and he ended up asking me if I would baptize him. I told him, of course! He is already excited to attend the temple and be baptized for his brother and grandpa who have passed away and invited us to come with him to do that - so we'll look forward to that opportunity soon. 

The other baptism we attended was for a girl named Fernanda. Her three brothers were baptized just 2 weeks ago in another ward, and one of the brothers, Vicente, was the one that was able to baptize her. He received the Aaronic priesthood earlier that day, and also gave a talk during the baptism service too. This young man will be ready to serve a mission in no time! It was a really special day to see all these siblings embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ together.

Blog Updates Coming Soon!

Hi all - this is Megan, Brent & Monica's daughter. I've been running their mission blog for them and life has been a little crazy to say the least, so we haven't been great at keeping up with their mission in real time. I'll be starting to post some more current weeks of photos/info, and eventually start filling in the missing months as well. Check back every so often to see updates! 

From One Generation to the Next

October 6th - 12th, 2025

For transfers this week our total number of missionaries didn’t change since we had 14 missionaries go home and we received 14 new missionaries!

Monday and Tuesday we took several trips out to the airport to drop off the missionaries going home. For one of the trips as we were about to leave our house we got a call from Elder Miles (one of the office elders) telling us to not come to the airport. Apparently the police were doing a check-point just outside the airport and were choosing random cars to pull over to check their licenses. Unfortunately, the missionaries had been selected and because they didn’t have a Chilean driver’s license the police decided to confiscate the mission van. It was a little hectic for the missionaries to have to unload and then flag down a bus that could take them the last kilometer or so with all their luggage to the airport entrance, but they all made it okay.

For a little bit of context, the previous mission leaders and any missionaries that have driven here in Chile have always had international drivers licenses and typically have been just fine. However, there technically is a requirement that if you have been here longer than 90 days and have a visa, you need to have a Chilean driver’s license to drive legally in Chile. The US Embassy is working with the government here to hopefully allow us to just use our international license, but until then we need to be cautious with driving. So needless to say, we were sad to not make it to say goodbye in person to some of our missionaries. Elder Miles video called Monica so we could see them one last time, which was nice. It’s definitely getting harder to say goodbye to these missionaries we have grown to know and love. 

FaceTime goodbye with Hermana Plasencia, one of Monica's favorites who helped translate for her often. 

The elders felt so bad that they had lost the van and were stressed not knowing what we were going to do. They took an Uber to the area office and got a different van to use temporarily. The next morning we were having transfers and typically these office elders are the ones who help drive missionaries around to their new areas. However, because we were nervous about the license situation, I had to scramble and make some last minute changes to a few companionships and pull Elder Borquez into the office since he is our only native Chilean missionary with a driver’s license. So he became the chauffeur for the rest of the week, taking the missionaries to their new areas and us to the airport.

Wednesday morning we picked up 12 of our new missionaries arriving from the Mexico MTC. We brought them back to the office and split them into groups, rotating between interviews with me, calling their families, getting their bank cards set up, and having a little orientation. We ended all together with our meeting to reveal who their trainers would be, followed by lunch. Later in the day, we went to pick up the last 2 missionaries that were coming from the Brazil MTC.  We brought their trainers with us in the car and took them out to dinner on our way back before dropping them off in their new areas.

Ran into the Kilgores at the airport this week.

Our exciting news from back home this week is that our 4th granddaughter was born! Our daughter Megan started having contractions at home on Friday morning and we ended up talking to her on FaceTime for a bit. While we were on the phone with her, her water broke! So she quickly hung up and rushed to the hospital. Everything went smoothly and we were so excited to meet little Maggie Kay Baker over the phone. Monica will have the chance to go visit and spend a week back home in November to see them, and as you can imagine she’s very anxious for that trip! We also spoke to Monica’s dad this week to celebrate his 98th birthday. Maggie is their 100th great-grandchild - what an incredible life and posterity! 

Our daughter Megan with her husband Austin and their two little girls!

FaceTiming with Jane and Maggie. 

Our 4 granddaughters!

This weekend we attended a Stake Conference in Los Aviadores where we spoke in all 3 sessions (leadership and adult sessions on Saturday, and general session on Sunday). The choir sang beautifully and we loved seeing our missionaries serving in that stake during the weekend as well. We also attended 2 baptism services on Sunday which is always a highlight for us. 

General Conference

Sep 29th - Oct 5th, 2025

To start out the week, we wanted to share a cute story from a video call with our family last Sunday night. At the end of our phone calls with our granddaughters, I always ask them, “who is your favorite person,” and they always reply “Babo,” which is the name they call me as their grandpa. I may or may not have brainwashed them into giving that response. Well, this time our 2-year old granddaughter, Jane (Megan’s daughter) answered that Jo (the name she calls her aunt Jessica) was her favorite person! I was a little sad to hear that and told her that just because I’m in Chile helping the missionaries and Jesus doesn’t mean I should be replaced as her favorite person. Well, upon hearing that we’re here helping Jesus, Jane said “I want to see Jesus!” It was really sweet, and we told her we could show her some paintings of Jesus throughout our house since he isn’t actually physically here with us. 

We had our missionary leadership council meeting on Monday to review our goals from September and set some goals for October. We ended up with 44 baptisms in the month of September, and our goal for October is 63, so it will be a significant increase if we can get there, but we’re ready to work! Tuesday I attended a combined district council meeting in Los Aviadores. Wednesday and Thursday we wrapped up interviews with the last two zones, Los Aviadores & La Cisterna. 

MLC

Friday we held our dia de honor (day of honor) for 14 of our missionaries who are heading home, and 1 senior missionary, Hermana Bensfield joined us too. We went to the Santiago temple with them first thing in the morning and did an endowment session together. We took some photos outside of the temple afterwards and then went back to our house so I could interview them. While they were waiting for their turn to be interviewed they visited with each other, played some games and just enjoyed their last Friday on the mission. We ended the day with a final testimony meeting with all of them which is always so powerful. It’s definitely getting harder to say goodbye to these missionaries as they go home since we’ve now spent more time with them and have really gotten to know each other well. One sister in particular, Hermana Plasencia, has done a lot of translating for Monica during the past few months and they’ve created a strong bond, so it will be hard to see her go next week. In this group we had missionaries from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Canada, Bolivia and the US. Chances are we might not see some of them ever again so as you can imagine, lots of tears were shed. 

Friday evening we also went to the airport to pick up a new missionary, Elder Jorge. He’s from Peru and was originally assigned to serve in Venezuela, but was having trouble getting his visa so he was temporarily reassigned to serve in Nicaragua. We’re not 100% sure why (possibly more visa issues), but we got notice on Thursday that he was being permanently reassigned to our mission. We dropped him off with his new companions and we’re hoping everything goes smoothly with him here. 

Saturday and Sunday were filled with listening to messages from our church leaders during General Conference. We both agree that General Conference takes on a whole new meaning when you’re serving a mission. All the messages shared were really powerful and centered on, obviously on Jesus Christ and on his gospel, but also many focused on missionary work which was neat. We ended up having the office staff come over to our house on Saturday to watch the first session (at 1pm Chile time) and eat some waffles. After they left I finally got to start working on our upcoming transfers. I used the time in between sessions, and then once the last session ended at 10:30pm I stayed up until 3am working on it. 

Conference with the office crew

On Sunday morning we attended a baptism service for 4 people in the Los Alerces stake. There were 5 others that got baptized in other parts of the mission during the weekend which was wonderful. We made it back home right in time for the first session of conference to start at 1pm. Afterwards, the APs came over and helped me review the upcoming transfers. It’s always helpful to get their insights and help making decisions. For whatever reason this time transfers felt particularly challenging and it took a lot of extra time, prayers and revelation to decide who was going to be with who, which missionaries would be training and who we would assign as district, zone and sister training leaders. It was great to be with the APs, especially Elder Sanchez who has been AP for 10 ½ months now and will be going back out to the field for his last transfer. We will miss him serving closely with us and are so grateful for all he’s done since we’ve been here. It was great to have dinner with them and watch the last session of conference together as well. We finished the evening with a mission wide devotional over zoom. 

Watching conference with the APs

This week also marks a year since the passing of Monica’s mom, LaVern. We miss her dearly and enjoyed being able to talk to her dad over the phone for a bit on Sunday. We’re grateful to know that we will get to see her again, and in the meantime, we’re grateful for the chance to be here in Chile helping the missionaries to share that same knowledge and peace with God’s children. 

We Thank Thee, O God for a Prophet

September 22nd - 28th, 2025

Monday morning we had our regular weekly meeting with Shane Littlefield. Afterwards we went to Cerro San Cristobal and climbed up the hill to the statue of the Virgin Mary. We went there with Brandon when he was with us in July, but it rained over the weekend leaving us with clear skies, so we went again to see the views. When we got to the top we stopped to buy some mote (dried peach & wheat drink), we were surprised when all of a sudden some of our missionaries came up behind us. There were about 16-18 missionaries there that were there for their p-day, so it was fun to run into them.  

Cerro San Cristobal from below

View from the top

There are many beautiful crosses like this one on the way up

That evening we took Hermana Perez to the airport. She got approval to go home for 3 weeks to care for her mom who is sick and needs surgery. She doesn’t really have anyone else that can help during her recovery, so we’re glad Hermana Perez can go be with her. That night I had a  mission presidency meeting followed by a meeting with our AP’s. 

Tuesday we joined a weekly district council meeting in San Miguel. Wednesday I had interviews with the missionaries in the San Miguel zone all day, followed by a meeting with the president of the San Miguel stake that evening. 

The missionaries enjoyed their Dunkin donuts this week during interviews. 

Physical evidence of a hard-working missionary.

Thursday we had interviews in San Bernardo, followed by a meeting with the stake president for me, so Monica got to join 2 of our sisters for the evening. We recently added sisters to that area - it had been 8 years since sister missionaries had served there. In that zone we typically only have elders serving there since it's the most dangerous part of our mission, however, there are a couple areas that are safe enough for sisters so we put them in this transfer and things are going great so far. Monica accompanied Hermana Jensen and Hermana Lobos for the evening and spent lots of time knocking on doors and chatting with a few people. They also visited a part-member family and had a brief message on their doorstep, and ended the night at the house of a recent convert who was baptized 6 months ago. She was going to have an interview the next day in English, so Monica got to help her practice her English a little bit in preparation for that. 

Friday I wrapped up interviews in Los Alerces. Afterward, President Sandoval’s daughter, Elisa turned 14 so we stopped by to celebrate her birthday with a little gift and our classic off-key rendition of happy birthday which they get a big kick out of every time! Later that night President Miranda’s ward was having a 18 de septiembre party, so we joined in on that. I somehow got roped into being a judge for a food competition to see who made the best salsa. We’ve been really impressed by all the ward parties we’ve attended here - the Chileans go all out!

Feliz cumple Elisa! (second from the left) Also, notice their youngest daughter, Pia who fell asleep on the couch during the celebration :)

Winner of the salsa competition!

On Saturday morning, I got a phone call from some Elders while I was working out and found out that one of them got bitten by a rat. They were participating in a service project with their ward in connection to the church celebrating 100 years in South America. They were cleaning up the banks of a river in a super dirty area where people just dump all their trash. The ward members told the missionaries to avoid the rats, but one Elder decided that it would be “cute” and “cool” to catch one and take a picture with it. Luckily, one of the members there was a medical professional, so they immediately took him to the hospital to get a rabies shot. Moments like these just reminded me that these missionaries are still very young and don’t always make the smartest decisions. 

Saturday night we attended President Sandoval's ward party for 18 de septiembre and it was so impressive and very over the top. So many people wore their traditional clothing and performed dances from lots of different areas of Chile. At the end they opened it up to have everyone dance the national dance the cueca. It was a blast!

That night I also stayed up late to watch the BYU football game over zoom with Brandon, so by the time I was going to bed I got the news that our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson had passed away. We were obviously sad to hear the news, but we also felt peace and comfort to know where he is, and are joyful to think of his reunion with the Savior, his first wife, all the past prophets and other family members. I took the time to write a message to the missionaries to let them know when they woke up. President Nelson lived an incredible life and left behind quite the legacy. He passed away at age 101 and served as the Lord’s prophet for 7.5 years. During that time he announced the construction of 200 new temples, and overall did all he could to help us all focus more on Christ in our lives. At church on Sunday many tears were shed by us and the congregation as we sang “We Thank Thee, O God for a Prophet” and “God Be with You Till We Meet Again.” We love President Nelson and will miss him!

After church we attend baptisms in Hospital (the name of the ward, not the actual hospital), and Paine. Monica helped the sisters teach Maria a few weeks ago so it was great to attend her baptism today. As a mission we had over 20 baptisms this week which was incredible! We love being able to attend baptisms at the end of each week. It really reminds us why we’re here, to help God’s children come unto Him. 

This little friend wandered into the chapel - reminded us of the scripture about the hen gathering her chicks (Matthew 23:37)!