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