10/7/13 | Coconut Creek, FL

This week flew by!  It was a pretty good week.  Although we still don't have any investigators, we are trying to build it up, so we harvest a lot and are still praying to find those who are ready.  Well a lot as happened this week.  First I accidentally got a super short haircut, I'm not familiar with the sized of hair razors, so a 5 sounded pretty good.  Turns out a 5 is really short, so my hair is extremely short now:)  Probably the shortest in my whole life(i'll send a pic later).  We also switched out our Chevy Malibu for a 2011 Toyota Corolla, the creole elders living with us got a 2014 Toyota Corolla!  It's really nice.  On Tuesday we had district training and the Mission President showed up.  We later did role-playing, and Elder Wood and I ended up being assigned to role-play with him, that was terrifying!  But he said we were doing good so that was a relief!  Later that day we went to one of our investigators and we caught her smoking weed, she was super high, so we said we would come by later.  The next lesson we taught was the Word of Wisdom:)  Hopefully she tries to stop her addiction.  

By the way I've never seen so many drugs, we see someone smoking weed everyday and see drug exchanges and such all over.  Those are the perks of serving in the ghetto I guess:)  But the people are very humble and very willing to listen.  They struggle with commitments though, so that's why we don't have many investigators. 

I went on an exchange with my old MTC comp, Elder Taylor on Thurs.  That was fun, but he's changed, in a different way.  He tries to talk like a black man from the ghetto and it just doesn't work since he's white and 5' 2.  He became kinda weird since the MTC.  But it was fun, I got to ride my bike for the first time, which was awesome!  All of his appointments fell through so we decided to Harvest. I offered a prayer and asked God to guide us and direct us to where we could find the elect.  As we started walking down this neighborhood that I had never been in, I felt like I was being gently tugged in the direction I needed to go.  After taking many turns and walking for a while I saw straight ahead of us some women unloading a car full of groceries.  I felt like that was what we were being guided to.  So we offered to help and unloaded the car and after talking for a minute we asked if we could say a prayer with them.  They accepted and while giving the prayer, my thoughts and what I said were coming straight from the Spirit, that has never happened to me before.  The ladies said that, that was what they had been looking for and they said it really put them at peace.  We invited them to be baptized and one accepted and then sent us to her daughters house down the street because she knew her daughter has been looking for a religion like this too.  

We went to the daughters home and she was very excited to see us and was very thankful for the prayer we offered.  She also accepted baptism and a return visit.  What a miracle day!  But that was all while I was on a transfer so I'm unable to follow up with them, but Elder Taylor said he will, so I'm very excited to hear what happens.

That was one of the most successful days I've ever had in the  mission field and I can't even follow-up on those people!  It's frustrating, so I thought maybe it was who I was with that made the difference.  Elder Taylor and I worked hard and it worked out.  Elder Wood is pretty layed back, we work but I know that we can work harder so I think that's one of the reasons why we don't have much success and why I had so much success with Elder Taylor in the hour I Harvested with him.

I can only try harder and keep working and I know the Lord will provide us with success.

Also this week, Elder and Sister Collins, in charge of housing, came by and gave us a new dresser.  Then he asked if the bed was long enough for me.  I told him it was a wee bit short:) thats an under exaggeration. He said that he will buy me an XL bed and whenever i'm transferred he will come pick it up and move it to my new place, so i'll have the bed the whole mission.  Super nice and kind of him, he says he does it for every tall missionary.  super nice!

Well i'm about out of time so I gotta go.  I love you guys! 

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

P.S. I am now able to invite Haitians to baptism in creole, it's a cool language!