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.

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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

4/7/14 | "It was the best day(weekend) of my life!"

Family!
Wow!  What a weekend!  I honestly didn't see things rolling out like they did these last few days.  It went from "It doesn't look like we will be going to the Temple Open House" and "It doesn't look like Katniss(investigator who was baptized) is going to be baptized" to "Wow!"  Many miracles happened this last week to make it happen like it did.  I'll start by sharing some back story on Katniss.  I don't believe I've ever mentioned her before because of her predicament.

3 years ago she was taught by missionaries, they said something stupid and she dropped them.  She lives with a lifelong Less-active member, lets call him Peeta.  During the last 3 years she and him went back to drinking and doing illegal drugs.  Randomly Peeta decides to come back to church the first Sunday I'm in this ward and brings Katniss with him.  During those 3 years she forgot almost everything the previous missionaries had taught her.  Elder Whitney and I try and try to visit with her but cannot until the end of last transfer.  Katniss loved us and was soaking up everything that we taught her and increased in her faith and testimony.

 Elder Rodgers comes in and we continue to prepare her for baptism.  The reason that I lacked the faith that I would see her be baptized is because of the Law of Chastity issue here.  Peeta hasn't divorced from a previous marriage so he and Katniss cannot be married, thus they are breaking the law of chastity.  We continue to teach her and she wants to be baptized so bad!  Next thing we know she is extremely sick, so we go and give her a blessing and she starts to feel better.  Next day she is almost dying in the hospital.  We lose contact with her for 2 weeks.  Last Tuesday she comes out of the hospital and gives us a call and tells us that she is alive because of the blessing we gave her and because of God.  While in the hospital she had an experience with God where He let her live if she promised to be baptized.  She promised! 

While on an exchange Elder Rodgers and Elder Melander taught the Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom, Peeta willingly decides to sleep on the couch.  We call President Anderson and explain the situation and how they both have no where to go.  He give the OK to baptize her.  We go to the Temple with them on Friday (the most beautiful Temple I've been in, it is an amazing Temple)  where she had an interview with President and then they came to conference on Saturday and she was baptized Sunday.  The Spirit was SO STRONG! It was tangible!  This is the purpose of missionary work!  To bring others unto Christ!  What an amazing, amazing miracle!

General Conference takes on a whole new face when on a mission.  It was amazing!  I was out here for last general conference, but it was my 2nd weekend in the mission and I wasn't too focused.  There were so many good talks!  I'll be excited to have the ensign when I can read them. 

That was basically my week.  I also studied Jacob 5.  I used to dislike that chapter because it's long and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  But I decided to legitimately study it.  It makes so much sense now!  The Spirit taught me so much and gave me a lot of insights that I hadn't thought of before.  So my thought of the week is to strive to study with the Spirit.  It makes all the difference in your studies. 

I love you guys and have a great week in Cancun! 
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey
p.s alyssa I'm in to go backpacking across Europe, one problem though, Nutella doesn't grow on trees, so we will have to buy some before we go;) and sweet castle pics! 

Florida Sunset

Temple open house

Miracle Baptism