7/28/14 | "Everything is Gold"

Hi Family!

This week has been really good and tiring!  We have been working very hard and diligently to find the elect and the Lord has blessed us!  It's also been raining everyday, so we are soaked with sweat or rain everyday, it's been a blast!

The first miracle that occurred was on Thursday night right after interviews with you.  We were running late to our lesson with Robert and Jen but we were still able to visit with them for about 20-30 minutes.  We went in and taught the Sabbath Day and the Word of Wisdom.  During the lesson, their wayward daughter, Nicole, came home and was walking past us and I felt inspired to invite her to listen, so we invited her and she said, "sure!"  After teaching the lesson and committing Jen and Robert to live the Word of Wisdom and to stop smoking, I asked Nicole how she felt during the lesson, she said, "I felt really good, it's been a while since I've talked about Jesus and Heavenly Father and it feels really good and peaceful." We testified that it was the Spirit that she was feeling and invited her to be baptized with her parents, she promptly accepted! Her dad's face went into shock because it was the last thing he expected her to agree to.  Then after that spiritual experience Jen spoke up and shared a story of how earlier that day she went to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes like she does everyday, but for some reason she decided to call Robert up first and ask if there were any at the house, Robert said that there were so Jen didn't buy any.  As she walked out of the store she said she felt really good and that she was feeling the same way during the lesson.  She told us that she knew God was a step ahead of us and was already working with her to stop smoking.  It  was an incredible experience to see that God truly is in the work and that He is always ahead of us!

One more miracle that occurred was on Saturday night when we went to see a Recent Convert.  She has a son who was baptized with her but her 16 year old daughter, Britney, was not baptized.  She was there during the lesson, and after we chatted for a while, we said that we would like to teach a lesson, immediately Britney exclaimed, "Oh please, not another lesson about baptism!"  She has been pressured a lot by previous missionaries and family to the point where she didn't want to hear about it, but we continued and taught the Restoration.  During the lesson I was wondering on how to help her progress towards baptism without explicitly bringing up baptism.  I thought of the story of Alma when he returned to the city of Ammonihah through a different passage, he went about the work a different way while being just as effective.  After we taught the lesson, we bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how you can come to know of all truth by reading it.  I turned to Britney and said, "Britney, today we will leave a simple commitment.  We won't push you to be baptized, we just want you to read from the Book of Mormon and  to come to Church so you can find the answer on your own. so will you read from the Book of Mormon and come to Church and pray and ask if this is all true?"  She looked really shocked that I hadn't pushed her to be baptized, and she said, "yes I will read and come to Church and pray about it."  After the lesson Elder D'Addabbo was stunned, he has been working with her for about 3 months and she had never committed to come to church or to read from the Book of Mormon, she had always completely rejected.  The Spirit is real, and the Spirit is truly what guided us to know how to help Britney progress without pushing, but still being effective. It was amazing to see!

I have been studying in Alma this week and this morning I came to Alma chapter 5. In verse 14 he asks, "have you received His image in your countenance?"  I really pondered on that and wondered exactly what that meant.  As I was thinking, it came to me that when others recognize us as representatives of Christ it must mean that we have His countenance.  Others will see Christ within us.  Just last night we were harvesting and shared a brief restoration lesson after the prayer, we testified that it was true and that God had truly sent us to them.  The wife looked up and said, "I believe that, there is something in your eyes that tells me it's true."  she recognized the light of Christ or His countenance.  As I furthered my study in that chapter, we can receive that countenance by being diligent and by being obedient.  

I love you guys a lot and hope you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

p.s happy birthday Mike!  Hope you had a great one and that you got my bday card:)

7/21/14 | Bed Bugs are the Bane of my Existence

Dear Family!

First off, so I don't ruin the miracles later, our apartment is invested with bed bugs...they are nasty little creatures.  Theyve been in this apartment for months, but no one ever tried to get rid of them so finally during weekly planning as I was itching and covered with bed bug bites, we came to the consensus that we needed to get rid of these bugs!  So we got the steamer and tore our room apart and steamed everything, the beds, the baseboard, the carpet, the ceiling, etc.  We lost track of how many we killed.  That night, the remaining bed bugs were out for revenge and we got bit even more!  But we killed some more and since then we've been sleeping peacefully.  I have never taken the phrase "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" so seriously. Now on to the miracles:)

What a week! It was amazing!  On Wednesday night we were looking at our KI's and they were very far below standard and we decided that we needed to change that and have more faith in this area, we went out the rest of the week and worked with faith and diligence.  

By Sunday we were still struggling to find elect people though, but we both kept the faith and believed that we would still find the elect. We implemented using the "if, then" statements and made one up yesterday evening right before harvesting.  We said "If we knock every door and talk to everyone we see and testify boldly of Christ and don't back down so easy, then we will find someone who is ready to receive us."  We brought that to God in prayer and both felt good so we started knocking.

At first no one was answering but we OYM'ed this lady and she accepted to be baptized, but she lives out of our area so we had to pass her.  We continue knocking for about an hour with no success, but our faith was still high.  We get to the end of the street and there are 3 doors left, I feel like knocking the first and the last because it looked like people were home, but then the thought crossed my mind, "what if the people we are looking for live in that middle house and we just passed them by?"  We hastily went and knocked on the middle house and a young couple answered the door and were very happy to have us pray with them.  We later found out that they have been to our church 5-6 times and that they are best friends with a member.  I testify that God sent us to them to invite them to follow His Son, and I invited them to be baptized and they said, "yes, we would love to be baptized!"  It was an amazing miracle and it also reconfirmed my testimony in listening to the Spirit.   

I have just one more amazing miracle that occurred Sunday night as well.  We had an hour left in the day and we felt like trying this couple names Jen and Robert.  Robert had met the missionaries 3 months ago, but had never been able to have a lesson with us.  We just found Jen on Friday because Elder D'Addabbo felt prompted to try Robert even though it had been about a month since their last contact, and we shared a prayer with her and she had desires to be baptized as well.  We went over last night randomly and they were both home! We were able to get to know them and share the message of the Restoration. After explaining the Book of Mormon, Robert shared a story that he just remembered of when he was 13 his friend invited him to his house to listen to the Elders share a message. He went home that night and told his mom that he wanted to be a Mormon, but his mom is a devote Roman Catholic, so nothing was done.  But he still remembered that night and how the Elders talked about the Book of Mormon. He then exclaimed to us, "If I had known that you worked through the Book of Mormon, I would have let you in years ago!"  We go on to testify that God had sent us there and we shared the many experiences that kept bringing us back even though we never got to share a message.  The Spirit was so strong it was tangible, I then testified to them that "God sent us to find you and to prepare you to live with Him again. That is why we are here, we are here to prepare you for baptism so you can live with Him forever!" I then invited them to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized, I felt confident that Robert would agree, even though he's Catholic, but I was unsure for Jen since she hadn't participated too much during the lesson, but as I invited them Jen exclaimed, "Absolutely!" Robert then broke into tears and said "yes, yes I want to be baptized!"  This is why I love missionary work so much, to be able to witness first hand the power of God working amongst His children.  This experience recharged me and reminded me why I am here and what my purpose is as a missionary.  This was a miracle Sunday indeed!

I also studied about the Atonement in the Book of Mormon and through modern day prophets.  I studied a talk my favorite sister missionary serving in Philly (aka sister bailey) sent me titled, "The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality" by Elder Bednar.  It really opened my eyes to the Atonement and helped me learn so much more of what the Atonement is and how everyone, whether sinner or saint, can use it.  Everyone should look it up!  But I'll end here since my email is long:)  

I love you guys and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

7/14/14 | From Little Haiti to the High Rollers

Hey Family!

I got transferred to Davie North! It's the complete opposite of Boynton Beach.  First off because there isn't one single Haitian in my area, and there is no ghetto.  But I'm starting to love the area and getting used to talking with rich white people.  My new comp is Elder D'Addabbo, he is from Mesa, Arizona and he just got finished training.  We live in an apartment with 4 Elders and a set of sisters live in an apartment close to us and the AP's live across the pond from us, so we get together every morning and play ultimate frisbee for exercise, it's been really fun here so far!

We had an amazing transfer day miracle.  We were out harvesting in the rain and we saw this lady sitting in her car and her door was open, so we went up and introduced ourselves and chatted with her for a while, then we said left the harvest blessing with her.  After the prayer she was amazed! She said that she knew that Jesus had sent us at that time because she needed us.  She had just read an email from work and was pretty depressed, that's right when we walked up and started talking to her.  She accepted full-heartedly to be baptized and even said that her daughter would like to be baptized too!  It was an amazing transfer day miracle!

Also I'm back on the bike now for the first time in 3 months because of my shoulder, so I've been pretty sore, but I love biking so it's all worth it.  we share a car with the other elders so we switch off every other day.  

I have a little funny story.  We have a pond right behind our house so we have a lot of ducks, so during lunch they always come up to our porch expecting food, so we always feed them leftovers or food that we don't want anymore.  My companion, Elder D'Addabbo decided it was a good idea to catch of the baby ducks, so he did. Next thing we see is this mama duck running towards him and quacking like crazy and she came up and bit him on the leg! It was hilarious!   

This week I was studying a lot on prayer, how prayers are answered and leadership.  I did a why, what and how on each of the subjects.  While studying I came across a scripture in Enos 1:15 which reads, "whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it."  All that God requires to answer our prayers is a seed of faith.  We just need to believe and do all that we can and God will answer our prayers and bless us with miracles.  I will apply that this week since our area is struggling.  We will go out in faith and miracles will occur!

That's all I have time for today, I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

7/8/14 | Last day in little Haiti

Hey Family!

We got transfer calls last night and I am transferring, so is Elder Slade, they white-washed my area again!  I loved it here and it's a huge bummer I only got to have 6 weeks here in the promised land, but I'm sure the next 6 weeks will be good as well wherever I end up:) 

On Sunday Matt was baptized! It was amazing!  He is one of the most elect people I've ever taught!  He was asking about the Temple, so we taught him about the Temple and family history and he is so excited to get started on his family history, since he is a first-generation Mormon, and then go to the Temple.

  

We had an amazing miracle Sunday night after the baptism, we had about 30 minutes before we needed to go home, so we decided to knock doors. We knocked one door and no one answered, then we saw two people sitting on the side of the road and we went over and started talking with them.  We asked if we could say a prayer with them and somehow we got on the topic of smoking and we taught a mini Word of Wisdom and asked the lady to give us her pack of cigarettes, she did very willingly, and I had her take one of them and rip it up.  Then we said the prayer and she highlighted some points of interest that would fit perfectly with the Restoration, so after inviting her to be baptized (which invitation she accepted forJuly 20th) we taught a little bit of the Restoration, just enough to get her interested in us coming back to finish the message.  She is amazing!  She believed it all about the Prophets and was dying to hear more of how it was restored and how we have prophets on the earth today, but we had to go to make it home in time, but it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission, she is so elect! 

Also it was the 4th of July this past week! It was super fun, a family invited us over to a BBQ and we had a lot of really good all-american food.  And unlike Alyssa, we had to go home at 7:30, so we found some ways to entertain ourselves with some glow sticks which were from the best mom who sends the best packages:)  I loved the 4th of July package you sent:)  

Well, that's about all that happened, I have to go pack now and get ready for transfers tomorrow, I love you!

Elder Spencer Bailey

pics. 1-matt's baptism

2 - Happy America Day

3 - found this Columbian Hamburger shop yesterday after zone training, it was delicious

6/30/14 | "It just continues....my oh my!"

Hey family!!!

This week has been amazing!  We reached almost all of our goals!  We have seen many miracles this week.

On Friday we followed up with a media referral, his name is Matt, turns out he had studied with missionaries before and dated a Mormon, so he's been going to church off and on for many years.  He just moved to Florida for med school a few weeks ago and he said that there was a voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him to contact the Mormon church.  One day he went to Mormon.org and put in his info and requested for us to come over.  We got the text a few days later and followed up with him.  He had a copy of the BOM already and was reading from it occasionally, and he had come to our ward a few times without us knowing! We committed him right then and there to be baptized on the 6th, and he first asked "why that day in particular?" we then explained that he could be baptized on the 29th, but he said he wasn't ready for that and the 6th sounded great!  He came to church yesterday and to our investigators baptism later that evening.  

Speaking of which, Dylan got baptized yesterday!!!!!!!!! It was an amazing and pretty funny baptism.  While performing the baptism, Dylan's mom started to take a picture after I finished the prayer and some lady started freaking out, but I had already started lowering him into the water, so I just continued:) other than that, everything went smoothly.

This week I was studying in the BOM in 2 Nephi. I came across a verse in 2 Nephi 8:7 which reads, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings."  I asked the question, "who cares what man thinks? What are the judgments of man compared to the judgments of God?"  I have feared what man thinks over the period of my mission and have worked on getting rid of that fear and not caring what man thinks, but caring what God thinks.  This week I have really been trying to apply that and it has really helped me gain more confidence and trust in the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit in unbinding our tongues so that we can speak what God wants us to speak.  

I love missionary work! And I love you guys lots!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey