9/15/14 | "Don't Count the Cost"

Hey Family!!

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

9/8/14 | Sweaty Messes

Dear Family!

Wow, this week flew by super fast!  Can't believe I'm at my year mark already!  At the beginning of the week we struggled a bit with positivity and unity, but we worked on it through out the week and by the end of the week we were very positive and unified again, so the work progressed a lot this past weekend!

We came in contact with a former investigator and she has been reading from the BOM and still wants to continue to prepare to be baptized, she still has issues with the Word of Wisdom and it will be a long road to baptism, but we are going to be there every step of the way to help her no matter how long it takes her to prepare.

We had a miracle occur the last night, we needed 2 NI to reach our weekly goal.  We had just over an hour to harvest so we made an "If..Then.." statement that if we shared a passage from the BOM with every contact we had, then we will find 2 NI.  We kept knocking and weren't finding anyone, got help up in a conversation with a 7th day Adventist for 30 minutes, so our time was short.  We saw a guy doing landscaping and offered to help him out, he wouldn't let us since we were dressed up and didn't want us to get dirty (which we could care less since these are our work clothes:)  so we introduced ourselves and offered to say a prayer with him, he accepted and while talking his wife came out to chat with us too.  We said the prayer and invited them to be baptized, they said they already have been so we taught a mini Restoration lesson and shared some scriptures and testified of the message we shared and that God sent us to them to help them prepare for this baptism.  The wife, Robin, said "I'm so down to be baptized again! I believe you guys and why not be baptized again?"  The husband, Heyron, wasn't as certain.  He argued a little bit about the authority aspect and that the authority has always been on the earth and that he didn't need to be baptized again.  We exhorted him to pray and ask God, since God is the source of truth and will answer any question, and ask him if he should be baptized again and that if the message we shared is true.  He accepted and said he would trust any answer God gave him.  It was an amazing miracle, we reached our weekly investigator goal and God answered our "If...Then..." statement!   We will be seeing them again on Tuesday.

Our other investigator, Judith, has read almost all of 1 Nephi and believes completely in the BOM and is slowly preparing for baptism.  She is waiting on a confirmation from the Spirit that this is what God wants her to do.  And the LA/PM family we found last week, Rueban and Madga, were unable to meet with us because of an unexpected trip, but we will be seeing them this week and will let you know what happens! 

I finished the BOM this past week and Moroni chapter 7 really stuck out to me.  In the beginning verses it talks about how if a man prays without real intent, it profits him nothing, its as if he hadn't prayed at all.  That really opened my eyes and made me think if I pray with real intent.  That is something I will work on this week is praying with real intent and not losing focus or getting distracted while praying.  

Also summer is wrapping up and the locals say this is most humid time of the year...I testify to that!  Whenever we bike we get drenched with sweat and because of the humidity we don't dry out! I've lost count of how many people have given us towels and offered us a change of clothes because we look so wet, literally like we just jumped out of the shower.  But it's been good, it's really helped me appreciate AC.  

I love you guys lots and hope you have a fantastic week! also randon congrats again on making the bball team!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

p.s heres a pic of a cool cloud we saw the other day

9/2/14 | Cabin Fever

Hey Family!!

Well this past week was pretty interesting. Elder D'Addabbo got the flu on Wednesday, so we were stuck at home fromWednesday to Sunday.  On Thurdsday we were able to work out a member split where one of the elders we live with went out with a member and I went with a member and the other elder stayed home with Elder D'Addabbo, so we got one day of work done.  Missionary apartments are super boring!  And our whole week fell apart, Christina decided to wait and be baptized later when she moves to Maine and all our other investigators disappeared and we cant find them.  But we were able to remain positive and faithful.  and Elder D'Addabbo is better now and we were able to get back to work yesterday and we saw an amazing miracle!

We were knocking doors in a complex we've felt like knocking for quite some time now, but we were just finally able to get over there.  We knocked on this one door and a lady answered and after the introduction she said that she was an inactive Mormon.  She had been sealed in the Los Angeles Temple many years ago and was in the Relief Society presidency, but since then she divorced her husband (who is still active in California) and moved to Florida where shortly after she moved in with a boyfriend and has been living with him for 22 years.  We politely asked why she had stopped coming to church and she just explained that she disagreed with some points, but she still knew it was true, she just didn't want to be active.  She invited us inside to talk with her non-member boyfriend who had been to the Temple open house and loved the feeling he felt there.  So we talked about Temples for a bit and offered to bless their home.  They loved the blessing and said they felt the same way they felt when they walked through the Temple.  We invited the boyfriend, Rueban to be baptized and he said that he had been seriously considering it lately especially being baptized in the LDS Church because of it's family standards.  So we testified that Jesus had sent us to him and asked if we could come by on Wednesday to help him prepare to be baptized.  They agreed and we left them a Book of Mormon and a section to read before we go back.  It was an amazing miracle, I've never seen a miracle quite like this the entire time I've been out!

I was reading a talk by President Packer called "washed clean" and it talks about the power of the Atonement and how to become spiritually clean.  He quoted many scriptures of the blessings of becoming clean through Jesus Christ and the good feelings you have when you repent.  I decided that I need to repent more often and constantly be striving to change and become better.  Elder D'Addabbo and I came up with a list of 10 things that we want to be more obedient on every day as a companionship and we each come up with 5 things that we individually want to be more obedient on, we are hanging the lists on the wall so that we remember and we are accountable to one another on how we are doing.  President Packer also shared the quote, "the study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than talking about behavior will improve behavior." I've decided that I will study a specific doctrine each day during personal study to improve my overall behavior. 

Not much else happened this past week, it was just super nice to be outside again after being stuck in an apt for 4 days:)  We also have  a pond behind our apartment with a lot of fish in it, so after a few days of being super bored I called the Zone Leaders and asked if I was allowed to go fishing if Elder D was outside feeding ducks next to me.  They said that we could. I caught the biggest snapper turtle, it broke my line but I got a picture of it before that happened.  It was about 2 feet long, so that was the highlight of last week while being stuck at home:)

I love you guys!

Elder Spencer Bailey

8/25/14 | "It's a great day to be alive"

Dear Family!

What an INCREDIBLE week!!!!  My testimony has grown in the power of unity in a companionship.  On Tuesday morning Elder D'Addabbo and I got into a little fight, but we resolved it and figured out how to get along for the next transfer and what we were each going to do to have more unity.  Ever since then we have seen so many miracles in our area!  

Our first set of miracles occurred Tuesday night.  We created an "If, Then" statement that if we walked quickly and with purpose from door to door, then we would get 4 new investigators.  As we did that, we saw so many miracles.  The first one was when we found Christina.  Her husband committed suicide a year ago, and she lost everything, so life has been pretty rough for her.  We said a prayer with her and invited her to be baptized and she accepted.  She went on to explain that her son had been baptized into our church many years ago and had since gone inactive.  She also said that she used to have missionaries over all the time but wasn't interested in listening to the messages.  Over the years though, she noticed that she has had 7 major tragic events and each time the Mormons have showed up.  She said that it was no coincidence, and we testified that God had always sent us to help her.  She was in the process of moving so we were able to help her many times this week move stuff to her storage unit and each time we shared a message with her.  She came to Church yesterday and in Relief Society she bore her testimony about this Church and how it is the Church of Jesus Christ, she is amazing and so elect and she will be baptized this Sunday!

Heres a story of how our weekend went: the sisters that are in our ward and live in the same complex as us have had a huge cockroach problem, so they deep cleaned their apartment and accidentally mixed bleach and ammonia.  But they didn't figure that out until yesterday, so they had been breathing it in for 3 days.  And on top of that one of the sisters turned on a bug bomb as it was pointed at her face, so she inhaled all the poison.  so we talked to them on Sunday and they said they had been throwing up all night and couldn't breathe and they wanted blessings, so we went over after church and walked through their apartment to get to their porch and it smelled so strong of bleach.  so we gave them a blessing and had them evacuate their apartment and we opened up all their windows to let it air out, then we took them to our apartment and had them study in our room while we studied out on our porch.  

we had them call the mission nurse and she flipped when she heard about what they had been cleaning with, and called Sister Richardson who came real quick and took them to the ER.   then we got a call from the mission nurse telling us that we needed to rush to the ER too since we had been in the apartment too.  so we start heading to the ER  but then we get another call from Sis. Richardson telling us not to go because they said they couldn't do anything for the sisters.  So we thought they were going to die! then she explained more that they could only give them some medication and have them breathe fresh air so we didn't need to go since it wasn't too severe.  So our weekend was crazy!

The other miracle occurred not too long after we met Christina.  We kept knocking doors in this neighborhood and met Lydia.  She had just moved here from NYC and was living with her son and grand-kids.  We said a prayer with her and invited her to be baptized and she said that she really needed to be baptized again.  We have been able to meet with her this week and she came to Church yesterday and loved it!  We taught her the message of the Restoration last night and Elder D'Addabbo and I have been really trying to teach with unity by switching off quickly.  The Spirit was super strong because we taught with unity and she believed the message and will also be baptized this Sunday!  

I also realized that it really does just take a seed of faith for miracles to occur.  This week has been the best week this area has had in a long time and the best week Elder D'Addabbo and I have had as a companionship.  We went out this week expecting to find miracles and we were so greatly blessed by God!  I have been studying in Helaman and have studied the pride cycle and how to overcome pride.  That has been one of my weaknesses on my mission is pride, so I've really been working on that and it's really helped the work progress and our unity increase as I've humbled myself.  

Also we had new ward and stake boundaries last week, we got a big addition to our ward and we are now in charge of covering it all.  We go all the way out to the ocean so our area doubled in size it goes out an extra 12 miles then what it used to be, so they gave us a loaner car to use until they figure out the mile situation since we can't really bike out there since there aren't any roads that you can bike on to get there.  

wow, that's a long email, and I gotta go! I love you guys and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

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These pics are from a Sister Gifford in his ward. She loves having the missionaries over. She's a new convert and gets the new member lessons often. So Elder Bailey and Elder D'Addabbo see them a lot. 

8/7

8/14: They took the Elders and Sisters out to dinner to celebrate Elder D'Addabbo's bday. 

8/16

8/19/14 | Sweat till you drop!

Hey Familio!

What an interesting week!  We had so many miracles at the beginning of the week and found so many people but on Fridayand Saturday all of them dropped us.  It was pretty down-heartening but we kept the faith knowing that if we believe we will achieve!  We went out for many hours this past weekend and just harvested since we didn't have anyone to visit.  It was really hot and humid but we made an if-then statement earlier in the week that if we didn't complain then we would find a family of 4.  So we started saying things like "I love how hot it is right now!" and "I love to sweat a lot!"  It helped us keep our spirits high and not let us get negative.  

And we had transfer calls last night. My whole apartment is staying! We had stake conference, so a new zone was created and ward and area boundaries were changed, so it's going to be a crazy transfer.  I'm staying with Elder D'Addabbo, still greenie-breaking him, must not have done it right the first time;)

I'll write about one miracle that occurred. It was Tuesday night and we had been knocking for many hours and we needed 1 more blessing to reach our goal.  We knocked almost an entire apartment complex with no success, then we got to the bottom floor.  We knocked and knocked but no one answered.  We had been praying silently that we would be able to get one more blessing, but we finished the building and had to get biking home.  On the way to the bikes we saw a guy walking through the parking lot, so we go talk with him and tell him that we are representative of Jesus Christ and that we were sent to say a prayer with him.  He accepted even though he only had 1 minute.  so we said the prayer and invited him to be baptized, he didn't accept but the Lord provided a way for us to achieve our goal by placing that man in our paths.  It all starts with faith, that is how miracles are created!

Also my comp got sick, he was throwing up all Tuesday night, so we didn't get much sleep.  Wednesday happened to be our busiest day, and we didn't think that we would be able to go out and work since my comp felt like crap so I was getting ready to cancel appts and move things around. But my comp is a trooper! he said "we can't stay inside, lets just go get me a Monster (energy drink) and get to work!"  I tried to argue since first off he was still pretty sick, and secondly a monster probably isn't the best thing to drink when youre sick. But he wouldn't hear it, he's pretty stubborn, so we went and got him a monster and he worked the entire day!  It was pretty impressive.

That's about all that happened this week.  We will keep pushing hard this week and see a lot of success as we have faith!  also austin I hope you get feeling better! It's no fun to be sick! 

I love you guys!

Elder Spencer Bailey 

8/11/14 | Back to the Basics

Dear Family!

What an amazing week!  We saw so many miracles this week!  The law of compensation is real!

I'd like to focus on the miracles that happened yesterday.  We felt prompted to knock this area that hadn't been knocked in a long time.  We started knocking doors and no one answered but we saw a guy on the street who was smoking, so we went up and OYM'ed him.  We offered to say a prayer with him and he accepted, he had strong desires to stop drinking and to stop smoking. 

After the prayer he said he felt really good, so we shared a little message with him and invited him to be baptized.  He didn't accept right away but we testified even more and he accepted to have us come back on Tuesday to share more of why he can be baptized again.  We asked him if he had any cigarettes or alcohol that we could get from him so that the temptation wasn't there and so he could start to overcome the addiction, he willingly handed over his pack of cigarettes!  

Then as we were walking back we saw a lady bringing in groceries from her car, so we went over and introduced ourselves and asked if we could help her bring her groceries in, she accepted! after we helped her out, we prayed with her, Abigail,  and her mom, Jackie, and they said they felt "wonderful" after the prayer and that they recognized that the Spirit was there, I love it when they recognize the Spirit!  They go on to explain the many different trials and challenges they are going through as a family, and they highlighted a lot of different points of the gospel, so we shared some scriptures and a message with them and invited them to be baptized.  They didn't right away accept but they wanted us to come back to explain more of why they needed to be baptized again.  It was amazing! We will be meeting with them and Carlos on Tuesday, I know that they will feel the Spirit as we share the message of the Restoration and have those desires to be baptized!

We also had 2 random people show up to church! they missed sacrament, so we took them to gospel principles, then during Priesthood we went into a classroom and had a member with us and taught the message of the Restoration, then we had them go to sacrament in the next ward's meeting.  They are so cool, they had the random thought to come to church that morning, the Spirit works in many different ways!

I was also studying in Alma chapter 36-40 and it's when Alma is giving instruction to his sons, there is so much good information in there, I don't have enough time to talk about what I learned from it.  One thing I loved is the repetition of how the Lord works by small and simple means to bring about His great works.  It's through the basics that we become converted to the gospel.  Just like in basketball, you have to practice the fundamentals or the basics everyday if you want to improve.  We need to study the scriptures everyday, something very simple, yet it's one of the basics that overtime will increase our spirituality and strength.

Also we have had random opportunities to serve random people this last week.  It is so true that service is how you find joy!  I love being able to serve others, and it opens up great opportunities to bring in the gospel.

And in other news, we were getting hit on by one of our investigators.  she was 65 years old...yeah...so we dropped her.  Her desires weren't in being baptized.  #cougar

That's about all that happened this week, I love you guys and hope you have an excellent week!  

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

8/4/14 | The Crash

Dear Family!

This week was really hard, but we kept working hard throughout the week and kept trying to find success.  Our most solid investigators, (Robert, Jen and Nicole) got extremely sick and we haven't been able to come in contact with them for the entire week.  and all our other investigators went MIA.  So it's been rough and were weren't able to find anyone this past week.  But we still have the faith and have great plans to improve this upcoming week.  

One miracle that I saw this week occurred yesterday at church. Over the last few weeks, we have been talking as missionaries in this ward on how to help our ward increase in their activity in helping the missionary work progress.  Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting so we decided to bear our testimonies on missionary work and how every member can be a missionary.  Before we even got up, there were many members who bore their testimony on missionary work, it was amazing!  And then during relief society they had us, missionaries, do a role-play on how to contact people on a daily basis and how to invite them to come to church.  After church it was amazing, there were so many people that wanted to help and many people realized that member missionary work is really easy to do. Hopefully this will continue and we will get a lot of support from the ward now.  

I was studying in Alma, chapters 17-20, which are the stories of Ammon.  As I was studying I wanted to improve on my attitude.  I was reading in Chapter 17 and its where the kings sheep got scattered and the servants were super afraid and lost all faith.  Ammon on the other hand took this as an opportunity to help his fellow brethren.  He says, "be of good cheer", now how could they be of good cheer, they will most likely be killed by the king, so this phrase seems out of place.  it was all in the attitude towards the situation.  Ammon was positive and excited to show forth the power of God.  I decided to follow this example this week by being excited and positive to go out and work each day.  This upcoming week will be really good and we will have a lot of success!

Also on the way home from Ward Correlation last night we crashed on our bikes.  To be honest it was pretty funny and the first time I've crashed on my bike.  A car was pulling out of a driveway, so I started slowing down just like any other time I've had to slow down, but I started slowing down right as we were going through this sandy sidewalk, so next thing I know my bike wasn't underneath me.  Luckily I was able to land just right and slid in the sand, but I ended up running into a spiderweb with my face, my comp wasn't so lucky.  His brakes stopped working so he ran into my bike and went airborne for a while before landing on top of my bike.  The person that was pulling out of their driveway rolled down his window and laughingly asked if we were alright, my comp raised his fist (with his face still in the dirt) and said, "yeah, we're okay."  What a trooper;)  No damage was done, we just got back up and kept doing with a few scrapes and bruises.  

I love you guys and hope you have a great week!  The work will progress this upcoming week for sure!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey