11/18/13

This week was an interesting week. First off the 2 potential baptisms we had set up for Sunday fell through. Nate ended up having to go to Orlando for a family trip and Matt has to have his case brought before the First Presidency, so that could be months before he's baptized. But on the bright side, Nate is set up for this Sunday to be baptized, and Matt will be baptized in due time, so all is well:)

First cool thing that happened this week was while I was on an exchange with Elder Comstock. We were teaching a lady the plan of salvation, and her mom had died a few weeks ago. While teaching, she just started crying and told us that she believed that what we were teaching was true. She's catholic and the way that her mom died was by suicide, and the Catholic's belief is that if you commit suicide, you automatically go to hell. So she found great comfort knowing that she would see her mom again and the spirit was super strong in that lesson. The Spirit is super cool. Without it, lessons are very hollow and nothing gets done. The Spirit is what converts people to the gospel, all we do is talk a lot:)

And then we had a really interesting harvesting day. We were in this apartment complex knocking on doors, and this one guy answered and we asked if we could pray with him, he said "no, I worship Satan." We had never heard that one before, so my comp and I were caught off guard, and Elder wood replied, "that horrible!" then the guy slammed the door. We both started laughing because of Elder woods response:) Then promptly after that, we were walking down the street, when a guy called after us. We thought it was security, since we've been kicked out of places before, so we started walking towards whoever was calling us. when we got closer we saw it was a police! Then a police car came screeching around the corner and a another cop showed up. They asked what we were doing and we said we were just saying prayers with people. (come to think of it, that was probably one of the weirdest responses the police had heard) They said, "prayers? like you go around and pray with people?" I responded, "yep, basically all day everyday." They thought for a second, and said "wow, we respect that, but did you know it's against the law in Coconut Creek to solicit?" (turns out we didn't know that law existed until now) I said, "no sir, we didn't know we couldn't do that, I mean, all we do is say prayers with people." Then he explained how even though we just say prayers, knocking door to door is still considered soliciting and some ladies thought we were trying to break into their home so they called the cops on us. So they had to do a background check which took forever. luckily our records were clean:) In the end I ended up sweet talking our way out of getting fined a ridiculous amount of money! (ive had some practice with BYU police and R.A.'s over the summer) but overall I think it was the spirit that softened the hearts of the police men, again, all we do is talk a lot:)

I'm sorry this letter is bad, to say the least i'm very tired, so it's hard to remember anything significant this week and to write it down. I always believed the return missionaries when they said it was exhausting but now I know what it feels like to be exhausted 24/7. I always thought, "sweet! I'll be getting 8 hours of sleep every night on my mission, thats way more than what I usually get!" haha I forgot to take into consideration the physical work that we put forth. But it's always good when you lay down at night, and look back at the day and know that you put forth your whole effort and be delightfully exhausted:)

Well, sorry for the letter, it seems like it's boring and lacking spiritual things. I will write down cool experience to share in next weeks letter:)

I love all those random people who read this letter;)

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey