First off, super excited that Jenna is having another girl! Congrats sis! and she will be old enough to do stuff with by the time I get back;) And I got the best packages in the world the last couple of weeks! It was the best coming home every night and having home-made chocolate chip cookies:) the Elders that I live with also send you a lot of thanks for the cookies, they want the recipe really bad. And thanks so much for the gift cards dad, I'll put them to good use:) And Alyssa sent me a sweet mission birthday package, speaking of which, I can't believe it's already been over a year since I left! It's flown by so fast! But now I finally have the hang of things and understand missionary work so this next year will be much better than the last.
This week was amazing after we received an enlightening training at zone training. It was on how as a mission we have progressively gotten worse. We have a monthly goal of 175 baptisms and we used to get really close to that, but then we lost faith and we struggle to reach 100 every month now. so they trained us on how to become better and to improve so that we can reach that goal of 175 baptisms. It all starts with personal choices we make each day, so Elder D'Addabbo and myself made goals on how we can change and improve to be able to reach the goals that we, the district, the zone and God had set. We went out Tuesday immediately after the zone training and put our changes into play and we saw a lot of miracles!
On Tuesday we went out with faith that we would reach our goals with God's help as we applied the things we learned. We felt prompted to go harvest in the new area we acquired. During that harvesting session we reached ALL of our goals and went above and beyond the goals that we set, it was amazing! We found 3 people who immediately accepted to be baptized and we have been trying to help them progress this week. We were richly blessed because of the desires we had to become better and because of our willingness to turn our desires and wills over to God.
I was studying in 2 Nephi 2 this morning and had an enlightening study. Lehi is talking to his son Jacob and explains the importance of "opposition in all things" and that we were created "to act and not be acted upon". Our personal happiness and growth depends on the choices we make each and every day and like in 2 Nephi 2:27 the choices are black and white. In the long run we either choose freedom and eternal life by making good choices or captivity and death by making poor choices. There is no gray area, we either follow God or we don't, be obedient or disobedient, and God gave us the choice to act on which way we will follow. Also in that chapter in verse 21 I believe, it says that God prolonged the days of man so it became a probationary state and a time to repent and prepare to meet God. Now I was also reading in Genesis this morning and people back then lived FOREVER, Adam was 900+ years old and most of his lineage lived that long too. They had centuries to prepare to meet God. Today the lifespan is 70ish years so God has really hastened His plan and His work. He expects much more of us in these latter days, He has been raising the bar for centuries and now its up to us to make those correct choices to help us meet the demands He has set and to clear the bar of standards that He has set. So it was a really good study today:)
Also I got to drive the mission van (it's a huge 12 seater chevy van) because we were helping the senior couples move around so it would have killed our miles on our vehicle, so we asked Elder Houskeeper (the vehicle coordinator) if we could have more miles, he replied no, then paused and said "but you can drive the mission van." Alright, that's fine with me! We also helped a family move in from Jacksonville, they are non-members and we got a phone call from sister missionaries explaining that they were moving down and needed help in 2 days. Not a whole lot of time to get a lazy Elder's quorum to get out and help us, so my comp and I moved them in for about 6 hours, it was lots of fun:)
Oh yeah, President and Sister Anderson's (my previous mission president) daughter and son-in-law live in our ward and they had a baby last week. We stop by on occasion to get a drink of water and we stopped by on Saturday an Sister Anderson opened the door!! She had just come into town and so she got us some water and home-made banana nut bread (which was delicious) and talked with us for about 10-15 minutes about missionary work. She also said, "President flies into town on Monday so if you happen to get thirsty and need a drink you may want to stop by here sometime, just sayin" so we will probably get to see president this week as well! We love them lots so it was really good to see sis anderson again.
Well, that was my week in a nutshell, it's been a really good, fast week!
I love you guys lots and hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey
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