5/27/14 | Haircuts...you gotta love them

This week was crazy, started out with a  lizard running around our apt, I was finally able to catch it and release it back into the wild.  Florida... I love it!  Then it ended with me having a 3-day exchange with Elder Edwards, which was the best 3 days of my life this last 12 weeks (besides conference and the Temple dedication of course)  It was just like hanging out with my friend Nate Quist, because he is just like Elder Edwards, so it was so much fun, I found joy in missionary work again.  To say the least these past 12 weeks have been the hardest and longest 12 weeks of my life, but I can say like paul "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Now on to the next challenge!  

I just had the random thought the other day that missionary work is really crazy, it all relies on 18-21 year olds living on their own, expected to preach the gospel unceasingly and to be obedient.  It's so crazy it works!  Just another example of how true this church is.

Had an amazing miracle this week.  We tracked down a media referral and visited with them.  Turns out they had been in Texas for the last 8 months for cancer treatments.  While there they were introduced to the church and they were taught everything and went to church.  They then just moved back to Florida last week and want to be baptized.  Only problem is that the wife cannot yet since she is not allowed to be in public while her immune system is this low.  But we will continue to work with her, they are so elect!!!! 

Also got the transfer call last night and found out that I am transferring and so is Elder Rodgers! They are white washing the area!  So now on to the next adventure that my mission has to offer.  

But my pday just ended, so I will have to wrap this up!  I love you guys and hope you have a great week!  oh yeah, and I gave myself a haircut the other day..... I leave it at that, I send some pics of myself in a few months when it grows back;)

Love Elder Spencer Bailey 

5/19/14 | Frogs

Hello Family!

What a fast week!  I was out of my area more than I was in my area all week.  But during the time that I was there, a huge miracle occurred.

We went to see an investigator of ours and felt prompted to ask our ward mission leader to come out with us.  We weren't certain if he would really connect with her, but we called him and he was really excited to come.  We taught our investigator the Word of Wisdom and asked our WML to bear his testimony about how the Word of Wisdom has helped him.  Turns out he was actually an alcoholic while serving in the Navy many years ago.  He shared his conversion story and his story on how he accepted the Word of Wisdom and lived it and how it blessed him.  His testimony was amazing! We couldn't have had a better member out with us that day.  Our investigator listened very intently and after our WML finished his testimony, my companion and I bore our testimonies about the WoW and asked if she would live it and stop drinking and smoking.  She agreed and we asked if she had any alcohol or cigarettes she would throw away.  She went into the fridge and pulled out a 6-pack and got a pack of cigarettes from the cupboard and she threw them away right there and we took it out to the trash.  it was an amazing spiritual lesson!  We were so thankful we felt prompted to bring out our WML because his testimony is what she needed to hear, and he invited the Spirit very well which helped her make that step to live the WoW.  

Also the other day we were knocking this apartment complex and were weren't finding too many people who would pray with us.  But on the last hallway with just a few doors left we knocked into this mother and son.  they were very happy to have us pray with them and accepted the invitation to baptism without hesitation.  The mom said that she had been wanting to go back to Church and increase in her relationship with God.  I felt prompted to say, "But why do you really want to be baptized?"  She replied that she wanted to lead the rest of her family by being an example and by taking that step of faith.  We have been really working on getting desires from our investigators this week and that question allowed us to get that desire that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.  The Spirit is awesome!

Oh yeah, a few days ago we walked into the church and heard this high pitched screech which sounds like a cat in distress.  So we went around looking for a kitten and were led to one of the hurricane shutters outside.  We thought "there's no way a cat could be smashed in there and still be meowing!" then we saw the eyes of a frog bulging out of the shutters, it got stuck in there, so we reached out to adjust the shutters to free the frog and then this big black thing slithered out! I've never heard grown men scream that loud! It was a huge snake eating the frog!!  So we ran inside and grabbed some brooms then started poking the snake to get it away from the frog, the the snake turned on us and was coming after us, so we started whomping on it with the brooms until it was dead.  that's my crazy Florida story for the week

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

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

{Elder Bailey and another Elder from his district}
Thanks to a random lady vacationing in Florida! She and her family were in Spencer's ward yesterday and said that 2 cute missionaries came up to them and introduced themselves. She took a pic and sent it to mom. 

5/12/14 | Tribute to Mom

Hey Family!

First off, happy mothers day to the best mom in the world!!!!!  It was super good to talk with you and to remember all the great things you've done for me over my whole life. I echo the words of the man on the penny "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."  So thanks mom for being the best mom in the world!  I really appreciate all that you've done for me and I love you lots:)

What a week! Time flies by so fast now!  It's hard to remember everything that has happened this past week.  Standard for our mission is to have 8 blessings by wednesday.  Just a refresher of what Harvesting is, We knock on the door and tell the people that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and that He sent us to leave His peace and Blessing.  We then ask what they need from Jesus or what we can pray for.  We say the prayer and leave the Savior's Peace and Blessing with them.  We ask them how they feel and we recognize it as the Spirit and the God truly did send us, we then invite them to be baptized on whatever the sunday is that's 2 weeks away.  If they accept we ask when we could come by and share the message of the restored gospel. If they don't we invite them to church or to visit Mormon.org.  Now this is just the layout we follow, we make sure we don't get rote. 

A miracle that occurred this week was more of a indirect blessing.  We were harvesting on wednesday and we only had a total of 7 for the week.  We were determined to get 8 and time was running out. We said a prayer and asked that we would be able to achieve our goal of 8 by wednesday.  Shortly after the prayer we felt super prompted to knock on this one house, we knew that they would answer and we would be able to leave the Savior's peace and blessing with them.  We knocked and a person answered and was definitely not interested. As we were walking away I wondered, "why did I feel so prompted to knock there if they weren't interested? Was my faith not sufficient? or Was it just my own thought and not the Spirit?" 

After pondering on these questions I knew for sure that the Spirit prompted me to knock on that door and that we did have the faith.  Then why were they not interested? As I thought about this the story of Abraham and Isaac came to my mind.  Abraham didn't know why he needed to sacrifice his son, but he willingly followed the command from God and showed God that he would listen and do as God directs, he would act on those promptings he would receive. By doing this Abraham showed God that he would be obedient and therefore God's trust in Abraham went up and Abraham was blessed forever after.  I thought about the experience that just happened and felt good about the whole experience.  I had showed God that I would follow the promptings of the Spirit and therefore God's trust in me went up.  It was a really big learning experience for me and I know that blessings will now come in the future because I was willing to listen and to act.

I was studying in the Book of Mormon and today while reading in Alma 53 I wanted to study on the doctrine of repentance.  While studying I found 3 different types of people in 3 different stages of repentance.  In verse 9 it talks about the iniquitous Nephites and how the Lamanites gained power over them because of their iniquities. They had given into temptation and therefore they were destroyed.  In verse 14 we see the Ammonites and how they are tempted to take up arms in defense of their people and break the covenants they made.  Helaman and others persuade them to stay strong and not to break their covenants.  In verse 20 we see the Stripling warriors and "they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted." They didn't give into temptation and they were firm to keep the commandments and didn't waver.  I was trying to think of how this has anything to do with repentance.  these verses show 3 groups of people, all sons and daughters of God who were tempted.  We see those who fall, those who falter but get back up, and those who stay true.  Everyone of these groups needs the Atonement and repentance in their lives.  Everyday we come across people who are deep in sin and those who live pretty good lives, but everyone needs to repent and be change to live in accordance to God's laws.  I applied this to how I will fulfill my calling, to declare repentance to all of God's children, and help them make those steps so they can live with God forever.

Also just a cool side note.  Elder Holland made a surprise visit to the youth a couple of weeks ago and met with our mission Pres., President Anderson, while visiting with him, he grabbed him by the face (literally, he showed us a picture of it) and he exclaimed, "President, your mission is legendary!"  When I heard that I felt like there was more responsibility and expectations to live up being in the "legendary mission", I will do my best to live up the expectations placed before me.  

I love you guys and it was so good to talk to you all yesterday:) I love you lots and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

Apartment pics:

5/5/14 | Blizzard in Florida?

Hey family!

The Temple dedication was amazing!  We got to go to the cultural celebration on Saturday and we got to sing a couple of songs in front of Pres. Uchtdorf and others.  It was really good!  Then on Sunday we went to the Temple dedication at our chapel and we got to see the cornerstone ceremony in the first session.  Then the power shut off during some of it so we got permission from President to go to the 3 o clock session as well:)  It was amazing!  Their was a significant change in the Spirit after he dedicated the Temple.  Now we should get a schedule to go somewhat regularly as missionaries, what a blessing it is to have a Temple now!  

On the way to the Temple we got hit by a Florida summer rain.  The best way to describe it is, it's like a white out during a blizzard.  You can't see but 10 yards in front of you and it comes down so hard! the streets were instantly flooded.  Then it goes away and the sun comes back out and it gets to be 110% humidity.  And it's only May, so we will see what the rest of summer has to bring.  

On Monday we were harvesting an apartment complex and knocked the entire thing without any interest.  So we were walking back through the parking lot and we felt prompted to talk to this lady moving some stuff into her car.  We called after her right before she went inside her house and asked if we could help with anything.  She said, "yes! I have a washer for you to move!"...perfect.  We went and helped her load her car and then talked with her and her family for a while and said a prayer with them and left the Savior's peace and blessing.  They loved it!  They felt the Spirit very strongly.  They weren't too interested except for the lady we helped move.  She wanted us to come back and to teach her more, but she just moved outside of our borders, so we had to pass her.  But I realized that service was the reason we were able to pray with her and help her find the truth.  Just doing a little act of Christlike service goes a long ways.

Other than that the week has flown by super fast.  Somewhere in all of this we painted a members house, spent a day in Fort Lauderdale for doctors appointments, and I stayed a day or two with Elder Millet, who is in my district, he is really sick so we take turns staying with him.  Missionary apartments are the most boring missionaries in the world.  But I did get to update the area book and call almost every media referral and watch almost every church video we have, and the apartment is really clean now:)  

Here are some pics from the top of the Jupiter lighthouse from a couple of weeks ago.

I love you guys and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

The temple cultural celebration

4/28/14 | Fox Holes, Snowballs, and lots of Sweat

Hey family!

What an amazing week this has been!  We found a lot of amazing people this week that we are teaching.  

First miracle:

The other night we were deciding where to harvest and we both felt really good about checking out this apt complex that we had never thought about checking before.  We went and checked it out and felt really good about it so we started harvesting.  We met a few people here and there that listened to us and after about 50 minutes we were about finished with this apartment complex.  We knocked another door and this lady answered and she gladly accepted a prayer.  When we invited her to be baptized she responded, "well, I don't see why not!"  And she really wanted to come to church.  she was so elect!  It reminded me of the scripture that says something like, "the elect will hear my voice and not turn away" she listened and was so prepared to hear the gospel.  She was unable to come to church, but she will be coming to our Book of Mormon study club at the church on Wednesday and she will be baptized on the 18th!

Funny Story:  Elder Duncan and I were on an exchange on Friday and we had a member meal with the nicest old lady on this side of the Mississippi.  She makes really good food and a lot of it.  Usually she lets us take it home, but on this particular day she didn't want any leftovers(probably because we keep forgetting to bring her tupper-ware back, oops)  She made a lot of meat loaf and mashed potatoes and rolls and carrots and green beans.  we each get a fair amount of food and finish our first plate and our second.  then there is still more and we are both about to explode!  Then we see this old dog named Snowball come around the corner, and we urged him to come over.  as we were talking to the member we kept slipping pieces of meatloaf to the dog.  Thankfully Snowball was really hungry because he ate ALOT of meatloaf and the member was oblivious to all of this.

I also met some of the craziest people in the world last week.  We were teaching them the Restoration and one of the guys piped up and said, "you know what they say?" my comp and I looked at each other super confused and replied "what do they say?" (still not sure who 'they' are) and he replied, "well, they say that there ain't no atheists in foxholes."  we replied, "wow, we didn't know that.  Learn something new every day!" then we continued on with the lesson.  Just a taste of the crazies we  deal with on the daily.

We also went over to teach some Recent converts and they were super upset over something. the wife yelled at us for about 5 minutes or so and then stormed out, we didn't take any offense because it wasn't directed at us, she was super stressed with her week and let it out.  We talked with the husband and she later came back and joined us and apologized for her actions.  then I felt prompted to share a lesson about charity with her.  Just that morning I had done a study on charity so all these scriptures came back to my mind.  I shared Moroni 7:45-48 with them and taught what Charity is and then we read Alma 7:11, it's about Jesus Christ and it shows what the pure love of Christ is.  After we bore testimony about Charity and committed them to do as Moroni 7:48 says to do we felt the Spirit enter the house very strongly.  There was a complete countenance change on the couple and it felt so peaceful inside the home, when minutes before it felt terrible.  The Spirit is very powerful and I have a firm testimony now that it will bring knowledge back to our memory.

Well, it's been an amazing week full of awesome and crazy experiences! 

I love you guys!  

Elder Spencer Bailey

ps we also went fishing again this morning with Jimmy.  

4/21/14 | Hoodlums stealing my bike part 2

Dear Family!

I forgot to finish the story of our bikes almost being stolen.  So after we got back to our bikes we realized that they broke the lock, so the key wouldn't unlock it.  we called around to see if anyone had a power tool that could cut through an almost indestructable lock and we finally found one, the downside was it would take him 30 minutes to get to us.  And it just so happened that we decided to go to the ghetto that day to work.  So here were 2 white boys at dusk in the middle of the ghetto.  We got pretty weird looks and weird comments.  But finally the member showed up and sawed off the lock, but in the meantime the saw shot out a ton of sparks and it burned through my tire.  luckily he had a little mexican truck so he brought us home.  

Also, it was an amazing Easter weekend!! You have to watch the new video the Church released #BecauseofHim it is amazing!  We had a surprise mission conference and Elder Cook, Elder Kopischke, Elder Thompson and Bishop Stevenson came and spoke to us! It was an amazing conference!  I'll include a clip from President Anderson's email at the end which sums up the conference.  Then yesterday we had stake conference and Elder Cook was there again!  What an amazing opportunity it was to hear from an apostle twice in a weekend.  

We had an amazing latter end of the week.  Many miracles happened!  We found many cool people who are all reading from the Book of Mormon and desiring to be baptized in a couple of weeks.  One miracle that I will share is this.  We were knocking doors late Thursday and right before we prayed that we would find someone who would accept us and be baptized.  It was about the end of the night and one of the last doors in the apt complex we were prompted to go to that we were knocking.  We knocked and this nice hispanic lady opened the door, we will call her Mary.  We talk to her tell her we are representatives of Christ and that He sent us there to leave His peace and blessing in a form of a prayer.  We ask what we can pray for and she starts talking about how her family is struggling and her husband and her disagree a lot.  We said the prayer and she said she felt much, much better!  It was the Spirit!  She goes on to tell us that it wasn't a coincidence that we were there.  That morning she had prayed that she would be able to attend Church somewhere again.  Then we showed up and prayed with her and invited her to be baptized and to come to Church and she said yes!  It was just what she was looking for.  What an amazing miracle we were blessed with.

 We were out with a member and nothing was going the way that we had planned it to go (which seems to happen frequently as a missionary) but we kept trying people we had found earlier in the week.  We decided to go and harvest, then I remembered, the Spirit prompted me, to go try a investigator we hadn't really followed up with too well. We called her up and she said she was available right then to visit.  We had planned on helping her with her smoking problem that she has tried to give up over the years.  We taught the Word of Wisdom and a quit smoking program and committed her to stop smoking and drinking coffee.  We called her that night to follow up with her and she had given her coffee to a friend and she had already given us her pack of cigarettes. We have kept following up with her daily and she hasn't smoked since Wednesday and she is reading from the Book of Mormon.  

This week I was reading in Alma.  There is a verse in Alma chapter 3 verse 27 that stuck out to me.  Alma says that we receive wages from the person we decide to work for.  If we choose to follow Satan we get poor wages and damnation to our soul.  If we choose to follow god we receive righteous wages and eternal life.  It made me think of who I am following.  Am I letting Satan influence my choices? Am I putting off my desires or passions and focusing on the work? Am I being exactly obedient?  I pondered on these this week and found that I need to turn my heart full-heartedly unto God and immerse myself fully into the mission or into the service of God.  I need to put off the natural man and become the person/missionary God wants me to be!  

That's all for this week:) I love you guys and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

Pres. Anderson clip. here you go

·Elder Stephen Thompson: Vertical information (revelation from God) is better than horizontal information (from the world).

· Bishop Gary Stevens: This is your “4 minutes” as a missionary, (referring to his General Conference talk that it takes an athlete his whole life to prepare to compete for just 4 minutes in the Olympics); we can’t let Satan gain traction to distract us. Extend commitments “a lesson without commitments is a waste of time” (President Faust).

· Elder Erich Kopischke: What have we learned? It was wonderful  (and rare) to have a General Authority follow up on the things he taught us just 2 months ago.

· Elder Quentin L. Cook:

1. We are in one of the most historic times of the Church since the Restoration of the Gospel. One million missionaries every 20 years; 143 Temples with 17 under constructed ( 85% of all members within 200 miles of a Temple);

2. How a prophet, seer, and revelator assigns a missionary by the inspiration of God.

3. Most important to teach the First Vision (that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God) and Plan of Salvation early in the teaching process.

4. People will feel how you are (example) as much as feel what you say (teaching).

5. Invite everyone (PMG chapter 11) and get commitments.

6.“I haven’t felt capable as an Apostle, but I feel capable in my testimony and witness of Jesus Christ”

7. Apostolic Blessing on all of you including everyone you love; everyone that you want to surround you in the Celestial Kingdom.

----------------------------------------

haha, I didn't know where to put my right arm, it's just awkwardly hanging

MTC reunion

Elder Melander 

Sister Albrecht

Elder Bailey

Elder Taylor

(sadly Sister Vaioleti left before we took the pic)

 psych, sis. violetti caught up with us later.  again, don't know where to put my arms.  

4/15/14 | !El Templo es muy bien!

What a week! We had 2 more amazing opportunities to go to the Temple open house with members and their non-member friends.  What an experience that was. And Katniss got confirmed on Sunday! 

On Thursday my good friend Brother Strasdus (who is an older tall guy) took his 2 friends and us to the Temple.  His friends were stunned by the beauty and magnificence of the Temple.  On the way down we rode with one friend and on the way home we rode with the other.  While on the ride home Dan asked all these questions about the Church and our beliefs and he started getting really curious about the Priesthood and what that entails.  when we explained that we can give people blessings he perked up and said "What does it take to get one and how worthy do I have to be?"  we told him and anyone can receive a blessing.  We pulled over to a random park and gave him a blessing there.  It was an amazing experience and the Spirit was there very strongly.  While giving the blessing, the Spirit was telling me so loudly what I needed to say and what Dan needed to hear.  the power of the Priesthood is real!  yesterday bro. Strasdus called us up and said that Dan wants us to go visit with him and teach him.  Sweet!!  Temple miracle!

Yesterday we went with another ward member and their friend(who is legitimately crazy).  While going through the Temple, I recognized one of the Ushers.  He came up to me and gave me a hug and I was like "what the heck, who is this guy hugging me" then he told me he was David Joseph's little brother, David was in my ward over the summer. I had hung out with this guy when he stayed with David for a week.  Small world!

Oh yeah, I'm staying! and so is Elder Rodgers.  and my whole district.  nothing changed except one sister is transferring.  and I found out over the last few weeks that Michael Jordan, Donald Trump, Tiger Woods, Celine Dion and multiple famous golf-players all live in my ward.  How crazy is that!?!

haha, I just remembered the somewhat funny story of the week.  Elder Melander and I were on a 2 day exchange.  After a lesson we went out to our locked up bikes.  Elder Melander chuckled and said "wow elder, you bike lock is destroyed, what did you do to it?"  I looked at it and laughed and said, "that's your lock, I think someone tried to steal our bikes!"  I started laughing because whoever tried to break the lock destroyed his lock, it was barely holding on.  Then Elder Melander started laughing and said to take a closer look at my bike.  that's when I stopped laughing.  My bike got hammered!!  the guys who tried to take the bikes were using a hammer or something and they didn't have very good accuracy.  I have dents and scrapes all over the frame of my bike.  Oh well, it happens:)  #missionarylife

Well I love you guys and thanks for all the pics of Cancun, it looks like you had a blast!

Love,

elder Spencer Bailey

mini golf

smiling at a fish :)

chillin in my ride in the sunnyshine state