12/29/14 | "Ring out Wild Bells"

Dear Family!

First off I really dislike the hymn, "Ring out wild bells" we've had to sing it so many times this week because of the new year.  It reminds me of when Karl and I used to play it for opening exercises in Priesthood as a joke because Dad didn't like it:)  It's crazy how fast this year has flown by!  For all of 2014 I've been a missionary, that's weird to think.  But it's been one of the best years of my life, I've learned a lot and changed a lot and am very thankful for all the trials and hard things I went through.  I'm reminded of a quote by Elder Scott, 

"Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more (see Prov. 3:11–12). He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain."

Just thought I'd share that quote:)

It was so fun to talk with you on Christmas! That was the highlight of the week!  This week flew by so fast! We had a MBZLC (Miami Beach Zone Leadership Council) on Friday and discussed the needs of the Zone and some problems we need to address. We talked about overcoming complacency and negativity and made plans on how we will eliminate that in January. It went very well and it helped get all the leaders on the same page so now we can help uplift and inspire the rest of the zone. I didn't realize how much thought and effort goes into leading a zone! It's been a very good experience so far.  Even with all the crazy scheduling we saw some really amazing miracles.

My favorite miracle that occurred was yesterday. The YSA Branch was cancelled because of the holidays so we went to the Miami Beach Branch. Before Church we rounded-up our investigator, Adrielle, and he was super set on coming to Church. Church started and he didn't show up, (on a brighter note we had 2 LA's come back!) After Sacrament Elder Hutchison felt prompted to go stop by Adrielle's house. When Adrielle opened the door he started by saying, "I know I missed Church, but I was reading from your book and talked with my friend and I've decided to follow the Methodist Church." He was so elect when we visited with him previously so we weren't going to give up on him! We said, "well, we didn't really explain to much about the history of the Church so we'd love to share a little message with you for just 10 minutes." He agreed and let us in. We opened with a prayer and talked about his visit to his Grandma's over the weekend and emphasized how the Gospel blesses families and tied that into the Restoration. We shared the Restoration and the Spirit was so strong! Afterwards we asked him if he believed the message that we just shared and he said he did, so we asked, "What does it mean to you that this is the Church of Jesus Christ?" He thought for a second and said, "Well, it means that this is Jesus Christ's Church so I should follow it and join it." It was such an amazing lesson! We haven't felt the Spirit while teaching like that in a while so we know that the Spirit is the one who helped him come back into investigating. God is good!

Also this upcoming week Elder Zwick is coming to the mission!  We'll have a conference with him next friday and all the leaders are having a meeting with him next wednesday.  It'll be awesome! Also our i-pads will finally be coming within the next few weeks, we are super excited about that, it will help the work progress so much!

Also on a random note, we got to feed and play with a sugar glider on Saturday, they are the creepiest/coolest little animals ever!  Look them up on Google, I don't really know how to describe it, it's like a squirrel.  Also later that night we were walking back to our car and there were raccoon's all over it!  I had a box of Zours in my pocket so I took it out and starting throwing Zours to them and lured them to come closer to Elder Hutchison and I.  We got them to come within 2 feet of us, then we got bored and scared them off and went back to work.

It's been an awesome week and I hope you have an excellent week! I love you!

Elder Spencer Bailey

12/22/14 | Welcome to Miami

Merry Christmas!!!

This week has been awesome!!!!  I got transferred to Miami as a Zone leader!  My new comp is Elder Hutchison, he's from Vegas and goes home after this transfer.  He's super cool and we've been getting along great!  We cover the YSA for the stake so our area is huge! It covers 2 different zones!  I never thought I would get anywhere near Miami since It's all Spanish, so its been awesome!  

We've had a lot of fun working hard!  This week was super busy, we had 2 district trainings and an exchange with the AP's (where I got attacked by bedbugs) all within a few days as well this past week our area struggled and we definitely saw it directly correlate with the zone not seeing success.  We felt pretty bad and are making plans on how to improve this upcoming week and to help inspire and lift the zone to do the same so that we don't have a repeat of last week.  As we've worked hard to find YSA's we've seen a lot of miracles.

Last night we really struggled to find a YSA "hotspot" so we were harvesting in this neighborhood and couldn't find anyone.  We prayed that we would find 1 elect YSA to work with by the end of the night and we had a lot of faith that we would find.  As we finished harvesting we realized that we hadn't found anyone but as we were leaving the last house after praying with them we got a referral for a YSA named Johnny who was harvested earlier that day.  It was a miracle!!!  So we hurried over to see Johnny that night and he was surprised to see a different set of missionaries for the second time that day but was excited to see us.  We shared a message with him and set expectations and he is set to be baptized onJan. 4!  It was an amazing blessing and miracle from God!

I cant' wait to talk with you guys on Christmas, I'm super excited!  Oh yeah, I totally forgot, we get to go to the BYU game today at the Miami Beach Bowl!!!!!!!  President told us yesterday morning that we could go with a investigator if the ward invited us since they got a lot of free tickets, so we scrambled to find an investigator and got some tickets, so we'll be going today!  we are all in shock and awe that this is still happening!  It's going to be fun, and look for me on TV:)  

I love you!

Elder Spencer Bailey

pic of Miami and a cool sign in downtown

12/16/14 | Christmas Magic

Heyo Family!!!

This week has been really good and busy! We had Zone training on Tuesday, and the Christmas Conference on Wednesday, weekly planning on Thursday, then we went on exchanges on Friday and had a long work day on Saturday.   It was a rough week at the beginning, but it wrapped up nicely by the end.  We have 1 amazing investigator being baptizedthis Friday, and 2 more next weekend.  Boca East is also baptizing a family of 4 on the 28th!  It was a nice end to the week!  Also, I'm transferring! I've only been here for 1 transfer and Elder Mota and I get along great so we thought we'd be staying together especially since I just finished his training, but God has other plans, so I'm excited to see what will happen tomorrow.

One miracle we saw this week was when we felt prompted to visit with a former investigator, Ling Yi.  We called her up and she was excited to see us.  We felt prompted to really help her understand the need for baptism and help her understand the "why" of baptism, it was something that wasn't conveyed to her very well the first time she was taught.   The Spirit was with us and helped us convey this message to her in the way that she needed to hear it.  We shared a lot of scriptures and let the scriptures and the Spirit do the teaching.  We shared John 3:5 which shows the necessity of baptism, then 3 Nephi 27:16 which helps build a desire within the investigator, then Mosiah 18:10 which helped tie that desire back into baptism, then we shared 2 Nephi 31:5, 10-13 which ties the "why", "what" and "how all together.  It was an amazing to see and feel the Spirit teach her through the words of the Prophets and we invited her to be baptized on the28th of December and she accepted!!

The Scriptures are amazing!  I was working really hard to stay optimistic and joyful throughout the week so I again looked to the sons of Mosiah for an example of how to stay joyful through trials.  I read in Alma 26 and asked, "What made the sons of Mosiah so happy?"  As I studied I found so many reasons of what made them so happy and the majority of them had to do with being instruments in the hands of God and being able to bring thousands unto repentance.  In verse 22 Ammon gives the key to success and happiness, 

   "he that repenteth and exerciseth faith and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually   without ceasing- unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God... yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls unto repentance."

To have this success the sons of Mosiah did just that, they lived the gospel, humbled themselves, developed charity and they relied on God and didn't fear man.  I've been working at applying that this week, especially to be more charitable to fellow missionaries and our investigators.

I can't think of anything else that happened, it's all a blur, basically the last 6 months are a blur:)  It's hard to believe that Christmas is so close seeing how it's still sunny and a nice 80 degrees outside:)  But it helps me remember the true meaning of Christmas.  I hope you all have a great week! Love you lots! Jenna and Mike- you are so lucky to get to go to utah for Christmas! enjoy the snow and cool weather, have a fun time there with the fam:)  

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

#SharetheGift

p.s if you haven't shared the gift yet, please share it with all your friends!

12/8/14 | Becoming Golden

Tudo Bem Familia!

This week was really good!  We've been enjoying the nice 75-85 degree weather with plenty of sunshine with some nice rain storms:)  I've forgotten what it's like to have snow and cold weather, I'm really starting to enjoy and love the Sunshine State!  We also took a trip down to the Mission Office to stock up on supplies and to get a new bike rack for the car.  It was really good to see the senior couples and get to talk with them for a bit.  We had to drive Elder Houskeeper (the vehicle coordinator) to Home Depot to get some tools and ran into sister Bagget, she was one of my favorite members in Davie, she is single and was like a grandma away from home.  she was so happy to see me she tried to hug me, then remembered that we could only shake hands.  We chatted for a bit then she gave us money to go get lunch, so we went to Chick-fil-a and ran into another one of my favorite families from Davie!  It was a really good day!

Other than that this week was really good for Elder Mota and I to introspect and to become better.  We've been reading the talks "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary", "The Sacred Missionary", and "The Marks of a Man" in order for us to know what we need to do to become those consecrated missionaries, or I changed the name to become the "Golden" missionaries that God needs us to be.  We worked really hard last week but during nightly planning we didn't feel satisfied, our physical bodies were exhausted but our Spirits were telling us that we had a lot more spiritually to give to God.  We had an amazing planning session last night where we made plans to become the "Golden" missionaries this week. It won't just be a week long journey but we will be starting to make those changes this week.  We realized that we had raised the bar for ourselves and God, through his Spirit, told us that we just didn't quite reach the bar.  We are going to put forth more effort to put our heart and mind into the work,  not just our strength.  We started making these changes last week and one of the changes we made was to OYM more and to have more meaningful/purpose filled OYMs.  That's where we saw our AMAZING Miracle!!!

We were biking when we saw a lady ahead of us walking her dog.  We pulled over to let her pass on the sidewalk and gave her a "He is the Gift" card.  She (her name is Sue) saw the card and said, "Well, I'm Jewish, but I converted over to Christianity a few years ago in Arizona and I need to be baptized!" She then said, "I'm going to a church tomorrow to be baptized."  We told her that we could help her be baptized on the 14th into the true Church of Jesus Christ by someone holding His priesthood authority.  She found that very interesting and non-coincidental that we had crossed paths that afternoon at that precise time. We testified that it was no coincidence.  She asked "what makes your church different from all the other Christian churches I have been attending?" What an excellent question:)  We jumped into some H2BT points and went into the Restoration.  She really liked that and said, "well, I feel guilty for not knowing about that message until now!"  We continued to talk about her baptism and then she asked some of the greatest questions on earth, she said "I really like what we've been talking about, but there are 2 questions I've always wondered and I haven't found an answer yet.  I want to know why I'm here, and where I go after I die."  we opened up the BofM and shared some scriptures to help answer those questions, then we rescheduled to share the rest of the message that night.  It was an amazing miracle!!!!  My testimony grew so much more in the power of OYM'ing.  

This week I have been studying on how to be a better missionary and a better leader.  I looked at the Sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger for an example to follow and based my studies off of their experiences.  I read Mosiah chapters 26-28, about their conversion, then went to Alma chapters 17-19 so focus on Ammon.  I made a list of characteristics and attributes that they all had and tried to seek out what made them so great.  I came to find that they fit a lot of the characteristics of the "Golden" Missionary.  I noticed how much charity, faith and hope they had and how they were wholly converted to their purpose and put their trust in God.  They truly desired to help their brethren, Msh 28:3, "Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble. 

Because of them being so converted they "were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer.

 And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth." (Msh 27:36-37)

We've worked on applying that into our lives and into our district to help us achieve and to become "Golden"!  

I love you guys a lot and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

12/1/14 | Thanksgiving leftovers for days!!!

Dear Family!

This week was crazy! It flew by so fast! Thanksgiving was awesome, we had one meal but got a ton of leftovers!  It was an interesting week, from knocking doors for 2 hours on thanksgiving and no one answering to mistaking a woman for a man (yeah, that was awkward) we saw it all! But we kept on working with faith believing that we would find the elect.  We started using the "He is the Gift" pass along cards and using it in members homes and it's been an amazing tool to use!  Portuguese is a crazy language, it's like Spanish only a lot harder because of pronunciation.  But Elder Mota is doing great at helping me learn it.  Even though this week was rough and looked grim at the beginning, we finished strong and saw some miracles!

The best miracle we saw this week was last night.  We are teaching a Brazilian named Ingrid and she has been preparing for baptism for a long time.  The only thing holding her back was living the law of chastity, because she's been living with her boyfriend.  Well last week they broke up and  he had to go back to Brazil yesterday, so know Ingrid can fully live the Law of Chastity!  We went over last night with a couple of her member friends and had a great lesson, at the beginning she brought up her baptism and was telling us when she wanted it!  It was awesome! she is truly converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Her dad is a member from Brazil and he is coming up for the holidays so she wants to be baptized on the 19th!  As well our other investigator Priscila has been continually reading the Book of Mormon and praying about being baptized this Sunday.  We have very few investigators but  the ones we've been blessed to work with have been progressing!

As well we've been working with a family of 5 and they were all ready to come to church yesterday and they get in the car and it didn't start....the battery decided to die right before church.  Satan does whatever he can to stop the work from progressing, like killing car batteries or having people use their dogs as their excuse not to listen to the gospel because they are barking...

Last week I gave a training on how to combat Satan's tools.  I talked about being creative and innovative and making a playbook of different approaches and tools we can use in missionary work.  I compared it back to bball and how if the offense keeps running the same play, the defense will adjust and make it so the play is ineffective.  just like in missionary work if we keep using the same rote approaches or the same pass along cards or materials the defense, in this case Satan and his followers, adjust and recover and can prepare the hearts of man to reject the gospel.  That's why it's so essential to have the Spirit with us, so he can knock down the defense, and to follow every prompting and to "change the game" so that the defense never has time to recover. We applied that this week and caught a lot of people off guard and more people were interested in listening to us.  

I finished the Book of Mormon again this past week and Moroni chapters 7 and 10 still blow me away!  They are filled with tools and ways to become more like Christ.  They talk about how faith, hope and charity are essential to living with God again.  You have to have all three or else we are nothing!  I was contemplating that this past week and was figuring out ways to have more faith, hope and charity.  Moroni exhorts us to pray with all the energy of our heart to be filled with these gifts from God.  That is the way to true happiness, by living the gospel and striving to improve each day we can grow in confidence in God's sight and have his Spirit to be with us.  When we have the Spirit we are happy:)  As I read those chapters I felt the Spirit so strongly testify that the words which I was reading are true!  I know the Book of Mormon is true! 

 Our Bishop gave a great lesson about the BofM yesterday and how it is essential for every day life and he committed the ward to read the BofM 30 minutes every day.  I'd like to continue that commitment to everyone who reads this email, to read the BofM 30 minutes everyday!  No one is forced to do it.  I can promise to those who do this will gain a stronger testimony of the BofM and in return gain a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and the message of the Restoration.  The reason that I say these things is because last night we had a meal appt with a LA family and the father was a return missionary from Chile and now he wants nothing to do with the Church, his heart is hardened.  It made me so sad to see this RM like this.  He had obviously lost his testimony in something and thats what caused him to leave the church. half of his family followed him.   I don't want to see that happen to anyone, it's tragic!  So read the Book of Mormon, it helps with every phase of our everyday life!

I love you guys lots! have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

another pic of my comp and I, he's super awesome!

11/24/14 | No sun for 5 days!

Dear Family!!
This week was crazy!  It was cloudy and "cold" for a few days and then it warmed up but stayed cloudy, it was the longest elongated time that I haven't seen the sun in over a year!  Also we had a specialized training and we finally got to see "Meet the Mormons"!  It's a super good movie!  We also go to see the new Christmas video that the Church made to be like the Easter one, "Because of Him."  For Christmas they are starting a new launch called, "He is the Gift".  For New Years week they are posting an ad on the huge Billboard on Times Square! It's going to be awesome!  The video isn't released until Dec.1, so get excited!  Also I was talking with President during lunch and he told me that they are opening a Portuguese branch sometime in December, so he assigned me to learn Portuguese ... this will be a fun challenge:)
This week has taught us a lot as a district.  I'm reminded of the scripture in Job 23:10 when he says, "when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."  This past week I feel like the Lord was trying us to see how we would react next week, to see if we come out as Gold or if we come out as Bronze.   We will choose to come out as Gold!  
This past week we saw a huge miracle!  It started on Sunday when a Brazilian member decided to invite her step-sister, Priscila, to attend service with us.  She came and we set up a return appointment with her and visited with her 3 times this past week and had members with us each time and had some amazing lessons.  She went from not even knowing much about baptism to wanting to be baptized this Sunday!  Priscila was telling us how the messages we shared answered so many of her questions and made life make a lot more sense.  She is really prepared and truly desires to be cleansed and grow closer to Christ.
I was studying in the end of Mormon today and I love chapters 7-9.  It's when Mormon and Moroni each bear testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon in conversion. There is so much to take out of those chapters because they are true sincere testimony and as I was reading through those chapters my testimony was strengthened that this work is true!  I love how in Mormon chapter 9:21 Moroni tells us to pray "doubting nothing" and God will answer our prayers. It went along with a talk I read called, "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence" in it Elder Klebingat tells us that we can't allow ourselves to have any self-doubt because if chisels away at our faith.  I've been working on praying with real intent and with faith and not allow fear or self-doubt enter my heart.  As we apply this, this upcoming week, we will see miracles and we will be able to baptize our investigators on Sunday!
It's been a very good week overall! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving! I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey

P.S.
actually the new christmas video is out! go to mormon.org/christmas and watch it!

11/17/14 | 4 Minutes

Dear Family!!

First off I am so excited to be in Boca Raton! It's been an awesome week!  I'm with Elder Mota now, he's halfway through training, so I'll be finishing his training and he's Brazilian but lived in London for half his life! We've been getting along really well and have been getting a lot of work done.  We live in a house now, the first one I've ever lived in on my mission, it's been really weird having so much open space, we even have a backyard with an avocado tree!  Also I'm serving as DL now, and that's been a really good growing experience, I realized I need to rely a lot more on the Lord and on the Spirit.  Elder Ruiz and Rice are the other elders in the District, yeah it's just the four of us.  The Member work is pretty good here, there is a lady in the ward who makes sure we get fed almost everyday by members!!  Hopefully I'll be able to put on weight in this area:)  It was a crazy week! Tuesday we had District training, Wednesday-exchange with the ZL's, Thursdayweekly planning, Friday-full day to work, Saturday-exchange with the other elders, Sunday-Church then the other elders baptism.  But we still saw a lot of miracles as we went out and worked hard.

The first miracle was on Friday.  At district training I left the commitment to OYM at least 20 times each day.  Elder Mota and I made sure we talked to EVERYONE we saw.  As we did that we met a lot of awesome people.  While biking on Friday we were on our way to drop in and see a member when we saw this lady getting out of her car with a baby, so we stopped and asked if we could help out with anything, like bringing in the groceries, but she didn't need any help so we asked if we could share a prayer with her.  She, Tatyana, accepted and we left the Harvest Blessing and she felt the Spirit super strongly, so we testified that Christ truly had sent us to cross paths with her and she knew that was true because she was saying how she had stopped attending church 2 weeks ago and has lost direction in her life.  She's 19 with a 1 year old son so she's had a lot of pressure to show the world that she can make it through and be successful.  We testified how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help her do that and that this truly is His church, we then taught a 5 minute restoration lesson and invited her to be baptized.  She accepted and said this is exactly what she needed at exactly the right time!  It was amazing to see how God works, if we hadn't been working on OYM'ing we would have biked right past her!  It strengthened our testimony that God has commanded us to open our mouths for a reason and that He will bless us when we do.  

This week I was studying for District training and felt prompted from the Spirit to study urgency.  It seems like there was a lack of urgency last transfer in this district, so I want to change that.  I was really struggling to make a training on urgency so I prayed and instantly the talk, "Your 4 minutes" came to mind so I studied that talk and received so much insight and revelation on how to help this district have more urgency to help our investigators progress and to be baptized.  I was looking in the Book of Mormon at the examples of Ammon and Alma and how they were so quick and urgent to preach the gospel at all times; Ammon when he was amongst the Lamanites jumped on the perfect opportunity to preach the gospel to Lamoni without delay; Alma always preached repentance and exhorted his brethren to not delay the day of their repentance.  It's been a really good study this week!

I'm out of time, but I love you guys lots and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

Oh yeah, happy Birthday Jenna this weekend! Ill be sending you a card this week,

And Happy bday Austin, last weekend, I'll be sending you a card today as well

My new comp and I

The front of our house

11/10/14 | Just another day in paradise

Dear Family!

Wow, this week was crazy!  Elder Garrett got sent home Wednesday morning because of his depression, so I got stuck with the other elders I live with so we were in charge of 2 areas for a few days.  Also we have transfers tomorrow and I'll be transferring:(  Super sad about that, the member work here has skyrocketed since I came here 4 months ago. The members came to trust and love the missionaries, like yesterday a couple came up to us and told us they were pregnant and that we were the first to know because Elder D'Addabbo and I had gone over there about 3 months ago and they wanted us to pray that they could become pregnant, so they wanted to thank us for doing that.  I was super happy for them, theyre an awesome couple (they remind me alot of Jenna and Mike).  

As well yesterday after sacrament, Bro. Poetz came up to us and asked if we could teach the Restoration during High Priests and talk about missionary member work.  The other elders had to be at sacrament, so I went on a split with my friend Elder Houskeeper (he's a senior couple in our ward) and we taught the Restoration to the High Priests and they loved it so much they told the Seminary teacher and asked us to go to early morning seminary and teach it today.  So we woke up at 5:15 and went and taught the restoration to them.  It was awesome!  I respect kids that go to early morning seminary now, just like alyssa was saying a couple weeks ago.  

One miracle that we saw this past week was being able to cover both areas as a trio.  As we worked diligently each day to work effectively things just worked out.  We were able to see a lot of people and teach a lot of people in both areas.  We really applied Zone training and we had some of the most spiritual lessons I've ever had on my mission.  We saw hearts change and things start to click in investigators minds as we applied being bold and loving and teaching by the Spirit.  It was amazing to see the Lord's hand in the work!

This week I was studying in Helaman and noticed a scripture I hadn't noticed before.  In Helaman 14:12 Samuel says that God gives signs unto the children of men so that they "might believe on His name."  It all kind of clicked as I read that. I always thought it was weird that we had so many signs, like the signs of His second coming and wondered why all the Prophets had given us signs to look for.  As I read that it all made sense.  God gives signs so that we can believe.  If the Nephites didn't have the signs of the Saviors birth, they wouldn't have been able to exercise faith in Christ.  If we didn't have signs of His second coming, we wouldn't know what to look for and how to prepare.  That's why God has given us signs.  I don't know how much of this made sense, it was just a cool thing I found while studying.

But I have to go now, really short on time.  I love you guys lots and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

11/3/14 | "Change the Game, Don't let the Game Change you!"

Dear Family!!

What a week it has been!  it's been from helping my comp who had a complete breakdown to having one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission! This week has been crazy! But when weeks like this happen, the most growth happens too.  I won't go into detail about my comp, I'll just say he's battling super hard with depression and a bunch of other stuff, but on the bright side thanks to advice from Brother Oaks, we are going to beat his depression!  

Real quick since I ran out of time. We had a awesome lesson with Judith (yes i've been teaching her for over 2 months now) at the Temple, we were able to go inside to the waiting room and we look on the wall and " The Family" and "The Living Christ" are posted on the wall, so we had her read them and the Spirit came in SOOOO strong!!! I invited her to pray and ask God if this Church true and if she should be baptized.  She prayed and again the Spirit was sooo strong and we invited her to be baptized for the billionth time and she said, "I believe this Church is true, however if I didn't already have my church I would've been baptized into Jesus Christ's church months ago."  What?!?!  She admitted that this is Jesus Christ's Church yet she didn't want to be baptized.  she said she still needs time, which is perfectly fine but  totally hardened her heart to the Spirit.  Good news though, I don't give up, so we have an FHE with her tonight with the 2nd Counselor of the Stake Presidency and his family tonight.  She knows it's true, she just needs to get over her concerns and get baptized.  she will open her heart to the Spirit one of these days and the Spirit will convert her, no doubt about that.

Another great miracle occurred just last night.  We got a referral from the Hollywood sisters and went over last week and found the referrals sister, Fatima, so we said a prayer with her and she loved it and accepted baptism.  We came back the next day and found the actual referral, Francis and continued where the sisters left off.  She wanted to be baptized and was really interested in the Church, so we taught the Restoration and she loved it!  As a district we have been really working on being innovative and trying new things, that day we decided to hand out "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlets, so we gave Francis one and she really liked it and said it will help her out a lot.  We went by yesterday to see Fatima and Francis since they didn't come to Church, but we met the Mom and found out they had been called into work last minute Sunday morning. The Mom had just gotten home for a quick lunch break from work so we caught her at just the right time.  We shared a prayer with her and informed her that we were helping Fatima and Francis to prepare for baptism, we also gave her a "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet and she loved that and gave permission for us to continue teaching her daughters and that she would support them.  This all occurred after she read through the table of contents and saw what the Church had standards for.  It would've been a lot different if we hadn't been thinking creatively.  It was amazing!  This week we will continue to be innovative and think of new things to try, we saw so many other miracles from handing out "Word of Wisdom" pamphlets and other material that isn't frequently used.  

I was studying in the war chapters in Alma this past week and was really focusing on becoming a creator of circumstance rather than a creature of circumstance, hence the email title, choose to act, not be acted upon.  In Alma 46:8 it shows an excellent example of the Nephites being acted upon by the flatteries of Amalikiah. Moroni on the other hand was a creator of circumstance, he creates the "Title of Liberty" and helps others covenant to fight for the cause of Christians or in other words to be creators of circumstance and to act.  Shortly after, Amalikiah is preparing the Lamanites for battle, whereas Moroni is "preparing the minds of the people".  The mind has so much power!  There is a quote Dad shared with me a few weeks ago that goes along with this, "THINK(leads to what we) DO (leads to what we) BECOME."  That's exactly what Moroni was doing, he was preparing the minds of the people to think, then to act and then to become the people God wanted them to be.  When we control the mind, we control ourselves and Satan doesn't have power to do whatever he pleases with us. 

quick little story, on Halloween during lunch we decided to go get pumpkins to carve because we had to be home at 7pm.  so we go out and cant find any pumpkins, finally our lunch was about over and we stop by a Winn-Dixie and find some pumpkins! but they were only about 5 inches big, but hey we still got to carve pumpkins:)

I love you lots and hope you have a great week!

Love,

elder Spencer Bailey

the Temple the other night

10/27/14

Hey family!!

Had another excellent week this past week!  We worked hard each day and we saw the Lord's hand in the work once more!  

The biggest miracle we saw this week was during Stake Conference yesterday when President Acevedo came up to us and said there was a guy in the very back and it was his first time coming here.  So we went back and introduced ourselves, found out his name is Steve, turns out he was running late to Calvary Chapel and saw all these cars coming into our parking lot so he thought he'd come check it out.  He asked a lot of really good questions during the conference and he was also sitting next to Sister Gardner who gave him a Book of Mormon during the conference.  He started reading it and flipped to passages that the speakers were quoting. He found it very intriguing and wanted to know more.  We talked with him after and shared a message right there in the gym and found more of his desires.  He wants to make a bigger change in the life of his daughter and wife because they aren't very interested in religion.  We invited him to be baptized and testified that by being baptized he would be able to be that example to his family.  He was really interested then to be baptized even though we were "Mormons", at Calvary they have anti-Mormon sermons once a month, but they always respect that we love everyone and work hard and dedicate our lives to God.  Steve said that after witnessing the conference his false ideas of who we are were gone and that he was genuinely interested in learning more. We set a return appt with him and will help him prepare to be baptized on the 9th!

On Saturday my hair was getting too long and we had stake conference on Sunday, and my zone leader friend elder mendenhall was on exchanges with the other elders in our apartment.  So he said he could cut my hair in a few minutes since he was in a hurry and he promised to do a good job... yeah, it all went well until he got the wrong length and also buzzed a good 1 square inch off right behind my ear by "accident". it was probably the worst haircut i've ever received but hey, it'll grow back.  Luckily i'm tall enough that people won't notice the patch thats missing:)

Also we have these annoying monitors on the car that check our speed and give us warnings when we turn to sharply or are speeding and they are really annoying!  The one in our car has been malfunctioning so we took it to the mission office to have it checked and Elder Houskeeper (the driving coordinator) just took it out because he likes us and then said he needed a ride to an auto repair shop to pick up his car.  So I had to drive the vehicle coordinator!!!  That was the scariest driving experience of my life, it was worse than the road test back home!!! Hopefully I never have to do that again.  

One more story.  On Friday we were harvesting and knocked into a guy named Tino.  We said a prayer with him and invited him to be baptized and he said "yes, I've never been baptized before." so we set up a return appt and continued.  We didn't make it 10 steps when the Spirit hit me and told me to go back and teach him the restoration.  I thought, "well, this is going to be awkward, but what do we have to lose?"  I told my companion the impression I received and he said it was crazy but we should do it if the Spirit told me to.  So we went back and talked with Tino again, he was surprised to see us, go figure.  and we explained how the Spirit told us to come back and share this message with him. That caught his attention and he listened intently the entire time.  At the end we gave him a BofM and testified of it.  He thought it was awesome and immediately asked which section he wanted us to have him read. It was awesome!!  I learned that no matter what the Spirit tells you to do, just do it!

Well, I love you lots and hope you have  a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey 

oh yeah, we also washed a members car in proselyting clothes, interesting experience:)  

a sweet cloud with sunbeams we saw the other day

saw these the other night, I love Florida! 

10/20/14 | Faith is the Key!

Heyo Family!!

What a week this has been!  We got so close to standards again and I can honestly say we gave our all last week.  We did everything within our control to reach standards and circumstances, such as our investigator getting hungover (we need to go over the WofW), and other investigators getting called into work last minute or a grandson getting terribly sick or sleeping through the alarm, prevented them from coming to church.  But we were able to visit with them and things will work out right this week!  We also had interviews with President Richardson, I look up to him a lot! It took me a little while to switch over from President Anderson to him since they are so different, but I really like President Richardson, he gave me a ton of tips on how to continue helping Elder Garrett, he said he was glad he was with me so we could get him sorted out this transfer so he can progress and not be depressed.  It was a very awesome interview! I could talk about it for a long time, so i'll end it here and get to the miracles.  

The biggest miracle we saw this week was while we were biking to our harvesting spot wednesday afternoon.  We biked past this neighborhood and the Spirit prompted us very strongly to stop and harvest there.  So we did and at first I didn't have much faith.  The thoughts, "we're going to knock for an hour and not find anyone", "this neighborhood doesn't look too great", were going through my mind.  That was the natural man speaking within me.  Then the spiritual side spoke up and said, "of course you won't find anyone if you dont believe you will, change your attitude and believe that you will find someone."  It was as if a light switched in my head and I recalled all of the many studies I've done about how faith precedes miracles and how for any miracle to occur you HAVE to have faith.  So I shut down my natural man thoughts and truly believed that we would find someone in that harvesting time we had.  I instantly became happier and more optimistic and knew that we were going to find elect souls, for God had led us to this spot, so there must be people that He was preparing.  Within a few doors we found Brandon and he was partially elect, so I won't focus on him, but it increased my faith more that there were people in this neighborhood.  We came to the point where we had time to knock one more door, half-way up the drive way to the house we were at, the Spirit again stopped us and without thinking I looked to the left and saw 4 doors down a house with a red car and the Spirit told us we needed to knock that door.  We knocked it and found Terri and Joan.  We said a prayer with them, got to know them and the Spirit told us to share the message of the PofS with them, so we did and they loved it!  They wanted to be baptized again, even though they were Catholic, and wanted us to come back.  I knew that that was why God had sent us to that neighborhood and If we hadn't have had the faith, we would've missed the spiritual prompting to knock on their door. 

This past week I was studying in Alma and the stories of Ammon.  He had prayed the God would pour out his spirit upon the Lamanites and soften their hearts so they would hear the message Ammon and his brethren had to share.  At the end of their mission, Ammon looks back and marvels at the goodness of God, he states that God truly had poured His Spirit upon the land and prepared the Lamanites to hear the Gospel.  That strengthened my faith that God will do the same if we pray with faith.  As we saw from our miracle this week, God does prepare His children to receive His Gospel, that's why we must always heed to the promptings of the Spirit.

Elder Garrett is doing much better.  We've found that work is the secret, just as it says in PMG, to overcome any problem.  We've worked so hard this week, we didn't allow any time for Elder Garrett to be depressed or anxious.  We've really been working at teaching and working in unity, we get along great, we just work and teach at much different levels.  Sometimes it feels like 2 oxen pulling a wagon and one of the oxen decides to unhitch and get up in the wagon and let the other oxen pull the team.  Its been exhausting, so last night I shared the scripture in Alma when he had just finished preaching to the Ammonihahites and they were about to throw him into prison, that's when Amulek speaks up and testifies and "the people were astonished" that there was 2 people testifying of the same thing.  He stressed his concern that he was afraid he would start teaching and go off on a tangent that didn't pertain to the lesson, I told him if he listened to  and followed the Spirit it wouldn't be possible to teach contrary to what needed to be taught.  We read teaching with the spirit and teaching with your comp in unity in PMG and had a really good chat.  We made plans to role-play how to switch of frequently and how to build off what the previous comp had said.  I also gave him the talk, "the Atonement and the Journey of Mortality" by Elder Bednar and had him study it this morning, it seems to have helped a lot.  (thanks Alyssa for sending me that talk:)   I'm very thankful for this opportunity though, its taught me a lot and has helped me grow alot, I've seen the growth in Elder Garrett too.  This week is going to be great and we will hit standards!

also random story: we've been driving to our area then biking to preserve miles. We started doing this on Wednesday and while biking Elder Garrett realized he hadn't pumped up his tires for 4 months (yes, he hasn't had to use his bike in 4 months)  so he was going antagonizingly slow because he barely had any air and no offense he's a wee bit out of shape from not exercising, so we switched bikes and I rode his bike the rest of the day, what a ride that was!  the tire finally gave out as we got back to the car as the stem valve snapped, thankfully the spokes didn't break or bend.  So we learned our lesson to always check the tire pressure, kind of like the 10 virgins with the oil lamps and how 5 were prepared and 5 weren't, from now on we want to be apart of the prepared group:)

Well, I love you guys lots!  Have a great week!

love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

10/14/14 | Delightfully Exhausted

Dear Family!

First off, Happy Birthday to the best mom in the world!!!!! I hope you have a fantastic day!

What a turn around week this has been!  I've never felt so much faith and encouragement as we went out and worked this week.  God truly does answer prayers.  We were greatly blessed with success this past week, the most success I've ever seen here in Davie!  It was amazing!  We had so many miracles as we were exactly obedient and worked really, really hard!  We hit standards in every KI except I@s, Dates and Progressing investigators.  soooo close!! But this week we will reach standards!

The best miracle we saw this week was when we met Stacy.  Actually we first met Stacy's sister, Teresa, who was a long-time LA and isn't interested, but she told us to go try her sister Stacy who lived across the street. We went over and met with Stacy and offered to say a prayer with her, she loved it!  She has a son in prison and another son who is always in trouble with the law and she said we were truly sent from God to help her at this time.  We testified that God had sent us and we shared the message of the Plan of Salvation because that's what the Spirit told us to do.  We got to the part of the Spirit world and the Spirit again prompted us to wait and finish the message later.  Stacy was on the edge of her seat, she loved the message, so when I said, "well, Stacy, we would love to come back tomorrow to finish this message and to continue to help you prepare for baptism so that you can be an even greater example to your sons."  Before I could ask for a return visit, she said, "I would love that!!! come back at 6 tomorrow! I want to be baptized and I want my sons to be baptized too!"  The Spirit was sooo strong!!  We left a copy of the BofM and had her read Alma 36 and see the great change that had come upon Alma and a lot of it is contributed to the prayers of his father.  So we told her to keep praying for her son because the power of prayer goes a long ways.  

This week I was studying in Alma and my mind was blown!  I was really having troubles focusing at the beginning of the week but I kept praying that I would be able to focus and learn what God would have me learn.  The last few days have been amazing! The scriptures are awesome!  Today something in particular stuck out to me, it's in Alma 17:11, God tells Ammon and his brethren to be patient in all afflictions and long-suffering and to be a good example to those around them and God would then make them instruments in His hands to bring the Lamanites to the truth.  Also that He pours out His Spirit to prepare the hearts of His children to receive the Gospel.  The Scriptures are AWESOME!!! If you aren't reading them everyday, then get into the habit of reading everyday, they literally blow my mind everyday during studies.  I've lost track of how many times i've read through the BofM, but I've been through it at least 5 times since starting my mission and each time I read it, I find something new in every chapter. I love the scriptures!

Quick funny story:  This actually happened 2 weeks ago, but the member just reminded me last night.  Elder D'Addabbo and I were knocking doors and we had been rained on earlier in the day, then the sun came out and the humidity went up to 110% (don't think that's possible, but it felt like it) so we were soaked while knocking doors.  We knocked on one door and a lady answered and so I said, "Hey, how are you today ma'am?"  and she said, "Ma'am!?!  who are you calling ma'am?!"  I thought, "crap, what'd I say wrong?"  My comp looked like a deer in headlights, he's never seen someone react like that either.  Then she said "I'm sister Kennington, elders!"  ooohhh, that's why she reacted that way.  Then she invited us in and we chatted with her and her husband. On our defense she had been pregnant and wasn't at church the entire time I've been in this area, so I didn't recognize her.  We had FHE at their house last night and she brought it up again just to make fun of us:)  Shes full of a lot of sass.

This week was a really good week though, we worked so hard and are so delightfully exhausted!  It's been great though.

I love you guys lots!

Elder Spencer Bailey

home-made pumpkin cookies as my bedtime snack thanks to mom:)

pic of what happens when we get member meals to go, pic is blurry cause my comp doesnt know how to function a camera

10/6/14 | "When your'e going through [heck], keep going!"-Winston Churchill

Dear Family!

Wow, this week put me through the ringers!  But I've come out of this past week changed and I've learned a lot, it was a miracle to watch conference at the end of this past week.  I don't know why but earlier this week I just got hit with depression and discouragement like I've never felt in my entire life.  Taking over the area plus taking over the rest of Davie was a huge test for me this past week.  When I was at my lowest I called the Zone leaders, which are 2 of my really good friends, and they gave me excellent advice! I prayed a lot and got a blessing and everything turned around from there.  It still wasn't easy but I felt the support form God until I got my feet firmly planted on the ground again.  Thankfully God helped me get through this week and the work is now continuing to go forth!

I got a new companion, his name is Elder Garrett and he's an interesting fellow. He's from Portland, Oregon and has been out for 4.5 months. It's been really hard to get to know him, it's been like trying to get to know a wall... But it'll be a good transfer!  Also at transfers they were going through the areas and I realized they didn't call out a Davie South, and I realized that we would be taking over the entire ward which covers 4 cities!  It's one of the largest areas in the mission, so this is going to be fun.  

Conference weekend was amazing! I loved the talks especially Elder Robbins talk on Saturday, it was super direct, to the point and bold. also I got to go to a different chapel for conference since where we were working was closer to the Hollywood chapel than driving all the way back up to Plantation.  So I got to be with a lot of my really good missionary friends so conference weekend was really good!

We also saw some miracles this past week.

The first miracle we saw was after I received a blessing from Elder Madson and we went out and harvested in the new area we acquired.  While harvesting we both felt great faith and determination to find someone who was willing to receive the gospel.  After knocking for quite some time we found Eric.  After we said the harvest blessing with Eric we invited him to be baptized and he said, "Yes, why not?"  I love hearing that question!  He went on to say that his family was looking for a church and he and his wife were looking to be baptized again!  So we testified that Jesus had truly sent us to him and shared a simple restoration lesson and bore testimony.  He wanted us to come back to help him and his family prepare for baptism, we will be seeing them tonight.

Another miracle was with our long-time investigator, Judith, who is still waiting to receive answers through prayer on some questions she's had.  We invited her to write down her questions and bring them to conference and we promised that God would answer her questions through the Spirit and through the words of the Prophets.  She was unable to come to the Church due to her work schedule, but she watched it from her house and recorded the sessions she missed and watched them later.  I loved how in conference they talked so much about Prophets and Joseph Smith and receiving revelation because she had huge questions on each of those points.  She texted us later and said "[conference] was very very nice. No real hard questions. Many positive comments. It was nice."  

Well, that's about all that happened this past week, it was a really trying week, but I'm glad I experienced it so that I can learn and grow.  Also with the new area came a brand new 2015 Toyota Corolla:)  There are perks to living right next to the mission office and becoming really good friends with the senior couples:)

Well I love you guys a lot and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey