3/30/15 | Because He Lives

Heyo Family!!

This week has been amazing here in Fort Lauderdale!!  We saw some awesome miracles at the end of the week.  We worked so hard this past week to ensure that we will baptize in Miracle March! It was really hard fighting off exhaustion and tons of rejection over the weekend, but it was all worth it, Tasiea is being baptized tomorrow!! 

That was the biggest miracle, all week Tasiea had been thinking about the 31st of march for her baptism but she just wasn't sure about it yet.  All week Elder Hayward and I used faith-filled words, there wasn't a doubt in our minds that she wasn't going to be baptized on the 31st, we knew that she was going down on that day, she just didn't know it yet.  Because of this faith-filled talk she started to talk as if it was happening!  Yesterday for fast sunday we fasted so hard, and we had Tasiea fast as well and during Gospel Principles we had to teach last second because the teacher never showed up, we felt prompted to teach about the gift of the Holy Ghost.  The lesson was so powerful and we challenged everyone who didn't quite have the Holy Ghost to work hard to receive it asap, in other words be baptized asap!  After Church, we met with Tasiea and she started off by saying, "Elders, I don't want you to be upset. I have some disappointing news.  I've been thinking about my baptism and ... I'M BEING BAPTIZED ON TUESDAY!!!"  That was the best prank I've ever heard, our hearts dropped when she started off talking, then were immediately filled with joy! It was awesome!  She said that on the way home from Church she was thinking about the lesson we shared in Gospel Principles and she wanted to have the Holy Ghost very badly.  As she was pondering the Spirit touched her heart and told her she's ready to be baptized on Tuesday, it was such an amazing miracle! There is power in fasting

I read some scriptures in 3 Nephi 7 which talked about Nephi. Nephi lived in time of great wickedness, yet it didn't stop him from "testify[ing], boldly, repentance and remission of sins through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ." Because of this "[he] did minister with power and great authority, [the people] were angry with him, even because he had greater power than they, for it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words, for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ."  We've been working on increasing our boldness and love when we teach so that we can have that same power and authority so that the Spirit can work through us more powerfully.

We also got to pick miracle berries at a PM-familys house.  Miracle berries are unreal, you suck on them and they coat your tongue with some protein that makes everything taste like candy and sour stuff doesn't affect you.  I was skeptical so the guy cut up lemons and had us try one before the berry and of course it was super sour, then we ate the berry and ate the lemon, lemons are so good with miracle berries!  Look them up on google.  

 

I'm super short on time! love you!

Elder Spencer Bailey

pic of some guys on the side of the road

pic of my comp and I harvesting miracle berries

3/23/15 | Hollyhood

Hey Family!

I got transferred to the Ft.Lauderdale Zone! I work in a city called Hollywood, its been nicknamed Holly"hood" for a good reason.    I'm happy to be back "home" in Ft. Lauderdale! I love this zone!!  Our area is amazing and I'm to be with Elder Hayward, he is an excellent missionary. He's my new comp, he's from Colorado, half-black, and really cool. We have seen so many miracles in our area this week I don't even know where to begin!   we didn't have enough time to effectively find last week, which is a good problem to have, so this week we will be spending a lot of time knocking doors.  God blessed us greatly yesterday, we had 5 investigators come to Church, 3 of them were found on Saturday! I'll share one of their experiences/miracles with you.

On Saturday we had limited time to knock doors.  We had previously prayed and felt good about this particular street, so we went there in the little amount of time that we had.  After a couple of doors, we saw this guy walking into his house so we hurried and called after him before he shut the door, he came back out to talk with us.  He, Brian, recognized us as Mormon missionaries and said he wasn't too interested, but after getting over some of his concerns he allowed us to pray with him.  After the prayer we recognized the Spirit that he felt and invited him to be baptized.  He said he was not interested in being baptized into the Mormon church.  He continued talking with us and asked if we could answer one question that he had had for some time, he asked us, "Why are there so many religions claiming to be the right Church?  To me it seems as if they are all broken up and don't have all the truth.  So what can you tell me about that?"  Excellent question!  We told him that we would love to take a few minutes to give him the answer, he accepted and let us inside his house.  We shared one of the most powerful restoration lessons of my mission.  Afterwards he told us that randomly last week his mom, up in New Jersey, had purchased a BofM off of Amazon to read.  He and his family are Catholic, so he thought it was random that she was interested in reading it.  then just a few days later we came calling after him.  We showed him that it was no coincidence that we were sent to him.  He felt the Spirit strongly as we shared the Restoration and accepted to come to Church and read the BofM.  He came to Church yesterday and had read!!  He told us that the service was captivating and that he really, really wanted us to come back and share more. We're going back over tonight. It was such an amazing miracle!

Today I did a study on Testimony vs. Conversion and read a talk by Elder Bednar.  A testimony is a precursor to becoming converted to something.  A testimony is a personal knowledge of truth obtained by revelation.  Conversion, however, expands upon our testimony.  It's a result of revelation from God, accompanied by individual repentance, obedience, and diligence.  It requires all of our heart, mind and strength, as well as patience and persistence to become converted.  Elder Bednar gives 5 basic elements that lead to conversion.

1. Believing in the teachings and prophecies of the holy prophets as they are recorded in the scriptures.

2. Exercising faith in Jesus Christ

3. Repenting.

4. Experiencing a mighty change of heart

5. Becoming "firm and steadfast in the faith."

Following this pattern will help us become converted.  I'm continually striving to become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is what we will start applying within our zone, I believe that conversion is what we are in need of at this time to become great again.

Also the apartment I moved into has bedbugs, I thought I was done dealing with those creatures, but I guess not!  As well, the first night I got here we had a Temple tour set with a family we are teaching, the Temple is awesome!! I'll send home a pic:)   

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

3/17/15 | Goodbye Miami!!

Heyo Family!!

This week has been amazing!!!  We saw our zone light up after zone training.  President Richardson came and loved it!  We trained on Accountability, Obedience, the "home of success" and taking responsibility for our areas.  We named ourselves the Miami Beach Thunder Zone so I made headbands for everyone with our baptismal goal and a lightning bolt on the back.  I'll include a pic.  I used a lot of basketball references to make it more personal and it worked out great!  At the end we had a mini bball hoop and net and had everyone cut a piece of the net to symbolize hard work, obedience and success.  It was super fun and an uplifting training! Also created a thing called the MBZ Cut, used a quote from Austin right under the title, within it is things that we need to do to be exactly obedient and by following them we can create a culture within the zone.  

 We saw our zone apply the things we trained on and in return we have many 4's and 5's set for this saturday and the following! we will be finishing strong in March!  We saw our area explode this past week!  We had 3 investigators in sacrament!  that's the most YSA has had in many months! Our investigator George is set for baptism this weekend and we have 2 more going down on the 28th!  I'm sad I won't be able to see them be baptized, but the Lord wants me somewhere else, so I'll be glad to go wherever He needs me! Oh yeah, I'm transferring tomorrow! Goodbye 
YSA life! 

The biggest miracle we saw was on Wednesday after Zone Training.  We had 0 NI so far and we needed to find 4 elect people to help prepare for baptism.  We went out with faith and full of confidence that we would find those who were prepared to be taught.  We went to a place that we felt inspired to knock and within 1 hour we found 4 elect souls who we taught at their door and got solid return appts.  God blessed us to have 4 NI by Wednesday!!  It was such an amazing miracle! we've been able to meet with them since and discern their electness, so far we have 1 set for baptism on the 28th! 

I was reading in Helaman chapter 5 this past week and learned a lot! that's one of my favorite chapters in the BofM.  I read verses 9-11 and it really hit me of just how important the atonement and repentance is.  Christ can redeem us from our sins only because of repentance.  Without repentance and the Atonement the whole plan would be void. There wouldve been no way that we could be saved.  But that is why Christ's role as our Savior was and is so essential.  without Him repentance and change would not be possible.  I'm so thankful that He went through with His plan and completed what He came here to do.  That is why I love sharing the gospel with everyone! The Gospel allows us to access the ability to change and become more like our Savior.

 

I'll wrap up with a quote by Nike "Success isn't Given, It's Earned.  On the Track, in the Gym or on the Field.  With Blood, Sweat and the Occasional Tear."

Also Welcome home alyssa!! Hopefully youre not really awkward:)  Love you!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

3/9/15 | "Bronchitis?!? Ain't nobody got time for that!"

Hey Family!

This week was great! We had 4 baptisms in the zone, we are super happy about that!!  We will keep that momentum going and achieve Miracle March!  We struggled to find YSA this past week, so our Ki's were very low, but we consistently found elect families for other members of our zone while knocking doors.  This week we plan to work very closely with the members.  We met with a counselor in the Bishopric yesterday and made excellent plans to involve the members in the work to find YSA to bring unto the Gospel, I'm very excited for these upcoming weeks to see YSA explode with referrals and baptisms!   

We saw an amazing miracle yesterday as we went to Church.  We hadn't found anyone on our own efforts and we were praying sooo hard for a miracle to occur. As we walked into the church a member from the Hialeah ward pulled us aside and said he brought a friend from work.  We went over and talked with him, George, and found that he is Single and 30!  It was such a blessing from God, we had worked so hard last week and didn't find any elect person to work with, but George is sooo elect!  He stayed for the 3 hours and after Sacrament we invited him to prepare to be baptized, he gladly accepted and said that was his main desire, he wanted to be like his co-worker (which happens to be a Bishop).  After the 3 hours we asked him if he had any questions and he said he had a lot, so we pulled aside a recently returned Missionary (he actually just got home on Tuesday) and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to George in one of the rooms.  He loved it a ton and felt the spirit so strongly!! After teaching about baptism we again invited him to be baptized and set the date for the 21st, he again accepted and said he would give his 100% to prepare for that day!  Such an amazing miracle!!!

This past week I did a study on Captain Moroni with the question "What Qualities made Captain Moroni a Successful Leader?"  

-He was a strong and mighty man with a perfect understanding(Alma 48:11)

-He had joy in the freedom and liberty of his country and fellowman (48:11)

-He had a heart full of gratitude to God (48:12)

-He labored exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people (48:12)

-He was firm in the faith of Christ (48:13)

-He wasn't contentious and didn't like to fight 

-His heart did glory in doing good, keeping the commandments and resisting iniquity (48:16)

-He was like the Sons of Mosiah and Alma (48:18)

When I got to verse 17 I asked the question, "Why would the powers of hell be shaken forever if everyone was like unto Moroni?" 

I believe it was because Satan had no power over Moroni.  His faith in God was unshakeable and he didn't yield to temptation.  Satan has as much power as we give him.  If we don't yield to his temptations his power weakens, if we yield to his temptations, his power over us strengthens.  If everyone could be like Moroni and resist temptation consistently, then Satan would have no power over us and his powers would be shaken forever.  That is why we must muster all the strength we can get to resist temptation!

Also an Elder that we live with got Bronchitis, so he's been stuck inside a lot.  So yesterday I went to Church with his comp, Elder Murat (he's super cool, from Boston, originally from Haiti, and he's the fastest runner in the east right now) from 9-12.  then I came back and went to church with my comp from 1-4, then stayed after for 2 hours meeting with members and going to meetings.  Surprisingly that was the most energy I've ever had on a Sunday even though I was at church for 8 hours!!

This morning we went and got haircuts at this ghetto barber shop, it was sooo cool! One of the best hair cuts I've ever had!  And President Richardson gave us a call and wants to come to our Zone Training on Wednesday!  That'll be crazy!!  It's going to be a ton of fun and we'll learn a lot!  

Also Happy Birthday Dad and Alyssa!!! I hope they are great!

Love you all!

Elder Spencer Bailey

Heres a pic of us at a science museum lifting this giant snake

and a pic of us after a baptismal service:)

3/2/15 | Game Changer

Hey Family!

This week I have learned so much and have grown a lot closer to God, Jesus Christ and the Spirit.  We had a really good District Training on Pride by Elder Corry and I realized that I was trying to do the work on my own and was not including God in the work.  I had relied on my own strength and not God's.  I also read the "Ricciardi Letter", sent from Alyssa:)  it's a letter that was written years ago by an Elder and after reading a section of that and after that District Training my life has been changed!  

The Elder describes an experience when he was in a rough area and hadn't baptized for about 8 months.  He questioned God on why he hadn't baptized and why he kept being rejected after following all the promptings the Spirit gave him.  One morning he said an "angry prayer" and brought all these questions and frustrations to God.  After 45 minutes God answered his prayer and this answer is what changed my life, God told him, “Elder Humphrey, I am here.  I know who you are.  I sent you to those neighborhoods, the very ones where you experienced nothing but rejection.  I prompted your changes in direction to even more difficult neighborhoods.  I know where each of the elect in your area resides.  I know their names.  I could send you to those addresses only, and save you the time and sacrifice looking for them.  BUT ELDER HUMPHREY, WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT SERVE YOU?  The mission experience is to do what you are told, when you are told, to go where you are asked, and know that the blessing comes from enduring what I ask of you.  This is not about you; it is about opening your mouth at all times in all places.  Doing my will without thought to the end result or consequence… this is what serving  a  mission  is."

I at times in my mission have had some of those same thoughts, I have worked hard at following every prompting and going where God wants me to go and yet I haven't baptized in 8 months!  After reading that the Spirit hit me so hard and told me that this message that God gave to Elder Humphrey applied to me as well.  After that message and after the district training, I made a firm determination that I would include God in EVERY phase of the work, I humbled myself and fervently prayed and asked God where to go and to ask for His spirit to be with me to guide my thoughts and actions.  And then we had an amazing Zone Conference about having the faith to find the elect, to be honest I had lost a lot of my faith, but faith is a controllable variable in our lives, we just have to exercise it to increase it, after that training my faith was at a 10!  Elder Nogueira and I saw so many miracles following that training once we exercised our faith and relied wholly on God! I've also been a lot happier and a lot of anger and frustration have gone away.

We saw so many miracles I can't recount them all, but I'll share one of my favorites.  We were knocking doors on Friday evening at a place that God had sent us.  All day I had the impression to try 56th street, so as soon as we were able to go we went straight to 56th street and were led to a specific apartment complex.  We knocked a few doors on the first floor with no success, then we both had the strong impression to go upstairs and talk to a couple who were sitting outside.  We  went and talked with them and they said, "We knew you were going to come talk with us, as soon as we saw you down stairs we knew something was different about you and knew you would come upstairs."  They also have a YSA son named Dwayne.  We said a prayer with them all and testified that God had sent us.  We checked for their Electness and they all accepted an invitation to Baptism and Church, now we needed to check for their willingness.  We briefly taught the WofW and asked if they had any problems with any of the substances, the dad, Bruce, said he drank once in a while but it shouldn't be too hard to stop.  We asked if he had any alcohol in the house and he had one bottle in the fridge, as we were asking him if he would dump it down the drain he was already in the process!  It was such a miracle to be led by the Spirit to them and to find such an elect family!  We passed the parents to the sisters and Dwayne came to church yesterday! We will be baptizing him on the 14th!  

 Dad sent me this question to study last week, "What can I do daily to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ? Look Upward: 2 Nephi 32:3, Look Inward: James 1:22, Look Outward: Luke 22:32" 

I studied that question with the corresponding scriptures. 

 Look Upward: 2 Nephi 32:3 reads, "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." 

 By studying the scriptures and the words of the Prophets we can better know God's will for us and then we can better line our will up with his.  We will do what he wants us to do, not what we want to do.

Look Inward: James 1:22 reads, "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" 

We must constantly be introspecting and make sure we are doing what God asks us to do.  In essence, we must practice what we preach.  Being a doer and not a hearer is the difference between acting and being acted upon.  We must do the little things God asks us to do daily.

Look Outward: Luke 22:32 reads, "I have prayed for thee, that thy fail not: and when thou are converted, strengthen thy brethren."  

Once we ourselves are converted we must help our fellow man be converted.  The key though is to strengthen our conversion first because we can't convert someone beyond our own conversion.  By looking upward, inward and outward we can become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then we can look for others to strengthen and help them gain testimonies too.  

It takes time, effort and continued habits to become a Disciple of Jesus Christ.  Conversion comes after consistently living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Also I got introduced to some of the best food in Central America!  We found a Nicaraguan restaurant, called Pinolandia, in the suburbs on Miami and had Fritanga.  We had whats called Carne Asada (basically steak), Gallo Pinto(rice with pinto beans), and Maduros(fried sweet plantains).  It was so good! we went there a couple times last week and will probably go again this week, I'll finally start to put on weight:)  Also when we went last time we ran into a random member from Blue Lagoon so she bought us a meal:)  I like members who are generous a lot!

There was also a freak rain storm on Saturday, it rained for hours and flooded the streets!  I was dying to ride my bike!  It hasn't rained like that since I was biking in Davie last Summer.  We got soaked while knocking doors, it was the first time Ive used my umbrella on my mission, since I was usually on a bike when it rained, and it was raining so hard that the umbrella started to leak, not sure how, so we ended up getting soaked anyways, it was great! :)  

I love you a lot!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

heres a pic of Fritanga

Here's a couple of pics from the other day:

2/23/15 | Unity

Hey Family!

It was very challenging to find this past week.  Because of a lack of finding it effected the rest of our ki's.  This week we made good plans to make sure this past week doesn't happen again.  We are praying extra hard for YSA referrals since we haven't received any in the last couple of weeks.  We also resolved some conflict and disagreements in our companionship last night so that we can have that unity and bring that unity to the zone.

We saw a very cool miracle on Saturday night.  We knocked so many doors last week without little or no success in finding YSA or elect people to pass, so by Saturday nightour faith was wavering a little bit, but we gave it one more shot on Miami Beach to find 1 elect YSA to work with.  It was late and we were finishing off the night knocking doors when we just let the Spirit guide us and we were led to an apartment.  God led us to an Elect YSA!!!  It was so nice to finally find someone who we could work with!!!  Our hard work and faith paid off, we are meeting with her tomorrow night since she was gone yesterday and today, I'll keep you posted on how she turns out!

I came across this quote last week by Joseph Smith and focused my studies around it, it's kind of long but really good!  "Let the elders be exceedingly careful about unnecessarily disturbing and harrowing up the feelings of the people.  Remember, that your business is, to preach the gospel in all humility and meekness, and warn sinners to repent and come to Christ.   Avoid contentions and vain disputes with men of corrupt minds, who do not desire to know the truth. Remember that “it is a day of warning, and not a day of many words.”  If they receive not your testimony in one place, flee to another, remembering, to cast no reflections, nor throw out any bitter sayings. If you do your duty, it will be just as well with you, as though all men embraced the gospel."  

I focused my studies on humility and teaching with unity.  We did a comp study with Elders Warren and Reno about teaching with unity found out exactly how important it is.  In D&C 42:6 God has commanded us to teach with unity, and in Alma 10:12we see the power that comes as we teach with unity.  We looked to the example of Alma and Amulek and how well they taught with unity, they switched off, yielded to each other and testified of what the other said. Because of that unity they were able to have the Spirit teach with them and convert thousands of souls!! We are working on building that unity when we teach.

This week flew by again and I can't think of anything else that happened.  It was a very stressful week, but this upcoming week will be a lot better! Heres a pic of my comp and I after eating lunch with a member on the Beach.

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

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey