9/30/13 | Week 1 in Florida

I'm officially a Flo-Rida!  Florida's pretty cool i guess.  The humidity is not as bad as i thought it would be though.  And it's not even that hot, that could be because we have a car and nice AC.  But I don't think it's too hot.  

The first day we flew in, had dinner at the mission presidents home, which is really nice, had interviews, some training, then we stayed the night in a hotel.  

Next day had transfer meeting, had some training, testimony meeting, then met our comps.  My companion is Elder Wood from Las Vegas.  He's goes home in January so I'll be his second to last comp.  Im his first trainee and so far its been going pretty good! Instead of tracting here, we do what's called Harvesting, created by Pres. Anderson, which means we knock on people's doors, say that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and He sent us here to give them his peace and blessing!  Everyone loves Jesus here, except the grumpy white people and random asian budhists, so they are more than willing to have us say a prayer with them.  We make the prayers very personal then ask how they feel.  We explain that it's the Holy Ghost that they feel and invite them to be baptized so they can have that feeling always.  Most people have been baptized already so we explain you can be baptized again and we invite them to come to church and see if we can come teach them more.  It just depends on the people whether or not they accept, and how prepared they are.  So far we have been giving a lot of blessings, the most in our district, but we only have 2 new investigators.  Which isn't good, but we are kind of starting this area up, so by next week we should have a lot more.

We live in an apartment, cypress shores apartments, in Coconut Creek FL.  We live with 2 elders that speak creole, which is a very easy language, ive already picked up a little bit of it just from listening. It's a twisted version of French.  Pretty cool though.  Oh yeah, I'm serving in the Ghetto! it's awesome! I finally get to get in touch with my inner-black self.  The only people we teach are Haitian or Black, we've talked to 2 white people, and white people are very mean.  The Haitians and Blacks are very humble, thats why we harvest in the ghetto areas, we live in the nice area, but go to the ghetto areas, so mom you can sleep peacefully now knowing that i'm safe:)  it's so tight, it's like teleporting to a 3rd world country.  The Haitians live as if they are in Haiti so it's like walking down the streets of Haiti.  It's pretty awesome and humbling since we have so much.  

Also about 90% of the missionaries serving here are from Utah, super weird, alot graduated from LP a few years back.  Also an Elder Webb is my zone-leader, he's from the gublers ward, somehow related to them.  And i just remembered.  We stopped to talk to some lady who was smoking something, possibly marijuana.  She wasn't really receptive, but that was alright because Elder Wood and I felt pretty good after that, probably from the smoke.  Well this mission is truly amazing, since pres. Anderson created Harvesting the mission has boomed.  Just yesterday they had to split the ward twice because of the growth.  It's awesome!  I love being able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, because there are people just waiting to hear it, like this guy named Ontario.  We were walking past him and i just asked, "Hey hows it going? Will you be baptized?"  he said yes, which took me off guard, so we made a follow up visit and saw him last night and I think he will be baptized, we will see.

Well I love you guys! oh yeah, I am the tallest missionary in this mission, and Elder wood is 6 4 so we stick out since all the blacks and haitians are very, very short, its awesome!

Elder Bailey

ps thank uncle stuart for his email and forward this to him.  And thanks randon for the email as well!  I really enjoyed it!  

also don't send packages through UPS or i have to wait until transfer to get it because everything has to be forwarded from the mission home and you cant forward UPS or fedex. so go USPS.

Elder Bailey with President & Sister Anderson

9/23/13 | MTC

Wow! I´m exhausted to say the least!  Who knew that being a zone leader for a week in the MTC could be so hard?  I have spent many nights up till 11:30pm or later figuring out issues with missionaries and talking to the Branch President trying to resolve issues.  Elder B. had appendicitis on Wednesday, so Elder Smith and I were in charge of getting him to and from Main Campus on Thursday and Friday to chill in the sick bay.  Man what a week!  Elder B., we found out has some other medical issues that i wont expound on that affect how he behaves. So I´ve had to resolve physical fights, one including me and Elder B. and one including Elder M. and Elder B., both started by Elder B. and he´s a pretty big guy so it was frightening, but don´t worry, no one was critically or even minorly injured in these fights:).  I think it was the oxicoton he was taking that made him violent.  He has to stay an extra week or two until he is capable to serve.  Elder K. has had suicidal thoughts so ive been helping him to my best ability with the help of counselors and the Branch President.  And he mentally snapped the other day.  He was having conversations with a rubber duck...it freaked us out!  So we scheduled him an appointment with a counselor and they deemed him unfit for service.  So he will be flying home tomorrow.  It´s really sad because he was perfectly healthy one week ago, but the stress and pressures got to him and his mind couldnt handle it anymore.  So they will hopefully resolve these problems and he will be out serving in the next month or so. These are just some of the problems weve dealt with this week, I don´t want to sound like im complaining so I´ll just say that I´m grateful that the Lord gave me strength and knowledge to know how to deal with all these stressful situations.  It´s been a really hard week, but I´ve felt the Lord´s hand in my life that has given me the strength to continue in the work.  

Also there is a cough going around and everyone in my zone has it and we are all flying out tomorrow!  So much for a good first impression to the Mission President:)  We are all hoping that we will wake up better tomorrow morning.  Now on to the good news!  Elder Taylor´s and I committed our progressing investigator, Marcus, to baptism!  And we had TRC for 3 days and taught a guy named Gabriel who is Catholic.  But we taught him by the Spirit and he is now committed to baptism as well!  So a great week!  I have learned how to teach by the Spirit and listen to him and teach the lessons by his influence.  The lessons have been much better since I learned how to do that.  We also got 2 new districts this week into our zone.  They are from all over and seem pretty chill.  Oh yeah! Tomorrowmorning we wake up at 1:30 and catch a train at 2:30 headed for Florida.  It´s going to be a long ride!!  Just kidding, we take the train to the airport and out flights leaves at 6:25 for some location that i don´t remember, then we have a layover for a certain amount of time.  Then we fly from wherever we are to Florida landing approx. around 4:15ish.  I believe we are flying American Airlines.  Im so excited to get out of here and get to work.  I don´t know how missionaries stay here for 9 weeks or longer.  I thought 2 weeks was long!  We have a deep respect for the ones who are foreign speaking and are here for 9 weeks.  Well this is all the time i have this week!  So i´ll write next week whenever my pday is! 

Love

Elder Bailey

9/17/13 | MTC

Well, the first week has been crazy!  It's like drinking from a fire hydrant!  They teach us so much everyday that we have to really be on the ball to get as much as we can.  It is exhausting!  We are always tired no matter what we are doing.  But it's a good exhaustion.  haha, I have a funny story from last week.   So Brother Blatter acts like an investigator names Marcus.  So as companionship's we teach him a lesson everyday and role-play.  Elder Smith and Elder  Brown were teaching Marcus in the other room and Elder Smith told us this story later, while Elder Smith was teaching Elder Brown fell asleep!  He couldn't believe it!  So Marcus told Elder Brown that he could lie on the floor and take a nap, Elder Brown got up, laid on the floor and fell asleep!  Now Brother Blatter is playing Marcus so he has to stay in character, but Elder Smith says they were both trying so hard not to bust up laughing because of how ridiculous it was!  Our district couldn't believe what had happened.  That's unheard of!  Elder Brown has had a really rough week, he falls asleep during every lesson multiple times and doesn't go to bed until 11:30 or so and in doing so keeps us awake because he moans that he can't sleep and he gets up and walks around alot during the night.  But he has gotten a lot better since Sunday, so he's making progress!

On Sunday Elder Taylor and I were in meetings for most of the day, then we had a devotional that night by Ron Tanner who produced 17 Miracles, and Ephraims Rescue, so we watched some clips of the movie which was really good!  Then we had a video devotional by Elder Bednar called "Character of Christ", It is a life changer!  If you can get a hold of it online and read it I would highly recommend it, but I don't know if it will because it was a devotional held at the MTC on Christmas some years back.  It kind of got everyone pumped up to serve!  That is what helped Elder Brown I believe.  Everything gets better after Sunday, you kind of get over yourself and suck it up!  

Oh yeah, I just started laughing when I heard about Carly's mission call, she hates cold weather!!  And I love it, so she was super jealous that i get to be in the "Sunshine state" for 2 years while she freezes while speaking Russian.  But she is super excited!  Also thanks for the letters and the cookies, and the pics!  And Austin, I expect you to pay up when i get back because I will keep that trinket you sent me:)

Keep the letters coming!  I like getting mail:)  Also i have seen Alyssa multiple times a day since we are so close and have similar schedules!  That was cool while it lasted.  Well have a great week!  Oh yeah I almost forgot!  We just moved to West Campus and are the first missionaries living in Raintree instead of Wyview! And it is so much better so far, we feel so free instead confined to the brick and concrete of the MTC, we actually see Mountains and sunshine here, and we get Jamba Juice, In n' out and a BYU creamery, so it's pretty awesome, and I'll have the same address, they just send the mail to us later.  So don't worry:)

Love, 

Elder Bailey

1st Letter!

9/13/13

Hey Family!  How are you all doing?  These first few days have been really good! My district is made up of 6 elders, 3 going to Las Vegas West and the other 3 to Fort Lauderdale.  They are Elder Smith (Missouri), Elder Brown (Georgia), Elder Kirenko (Mississippi), Elder Melander (Idaho), Elder Taylor (West Jordan UT) and he is also my Companion.  Well the first day is crazy!!!  They literally throw you into missionary work, we had a class and took a orientation.  Then we did group teaching to a investigator with a class of 30+.  That was kinda weird because we all threw in random comments and just confused the investigator, I think they do that on purpose to show that we have no idea how to teach lessons.  The food is great! Except that the meal times are many hours apart so we are all always hungry because they don't allow snacking during class, which is pretty much all day.  Sorry I keep remembering random things so this letter will be very scatter brained.  Yesterday we went through a 3 hour class with our teachers Brother Blatter and Brother Frost, they are both really cool and Bro. Frost is like a Nick or Shandon Gubler kind of guy so he's pretty awesome.  My companion Elder Taylor is awesome, all 5' 5" of him, we kinda stick out since I'm one of the tallest Elders here and I have a short companion, so we get a lot of attention:)  He has really good insights and we get along really well.  Last night we had a meeting with our Branch President where we meet with our zone and introduce each other and bear our testimony.  That was pretty neat, the Spirit is really strong here and is easy to feel.  Elder Taylor and I were made Zone leaders for the whole 10 days we will be here next week!  We will go in action on Sunday when the other Zone leaders are released because they leave on Monday.  Oh yeah, next Tuesday we are being moved to West Campus.  We found out that they are starting to tear down buildings to redo them, so our building happens to be one of the first to go so they are kicking us out.  But it's not that bad, all of the teachers are saying how lucky we are to be able to leave the MTC and live on West Campus because they said the living conditions are better and the food is actually real, not just deep-fried.  So we will see how that works out:) I'm kinda excited now because our zone will be some of the only people in the world who can say they lived on both MTC Campuses.  Oh yeah, so you would think missionaries would be really tired and want to go to bed at 10:30 like we are supposed to, but we found that missionaries get kinda crazy at night because we are sitting all day so some rooms are up till midnight or later goofing off.  My district is luckily obedient so we go to bed on time, expect that Elder Brown takes FOREVER getting ready for bed, the last 2 nights he kept us up till 11:30 because he didn't want the lights turned off till he was ready, so we just sit in bed for an hour waiting for Elder Brown, it's ridiculous!  Well now we have to go to class for the next 6 hours with a little lunch break:)  I don't know when I'll be able to email next because our only p-day is Tuesday and that's when we are supposed to move and go to the Temple and do a million other things, so it'll be crazy!  So that's why I'm emailing today, we got special permission today because we have no idea what our Tuesday schedule will end up being.  Well I miss you guys! Oh yeah I almost forgot!  When I first got here I told Brother Frost that Alyssa was here and going to Philly, so he looked her up and found that she is in my area and her classroom was literally right down the hallway! So we've seen each other a lot! And we have the same meal times too so I see her 2-3 times a day for 30 seconds or so!  And tonight we do TRC, which will be our first teaching experience so we will see how that goes:)

Love,

Elder Bailey

Reporting to the MTC

9/11/13