10/27/14

Hey family!!

Had another excellent week this past week!  We worked hard each day and we saw the Lord's hand in the work once more!  

The biggest miracle we saw this week was during Stake Conference yesterday when President Acevedo came up to us and said there was a guy in the very back and it was his first time coming here.  So we went back and introduced ourselves, found out his name is Steve, turns out he was running late to Calvary Chapel and saw all these cars coming into our parking lot so he thought he'd come check it out.  He asked a lot of really good questions during the conference and he was also sitting next to Sister Gardner who gave him a Book of Mormon during the conference.  He started reading it and flipped to passages that the speakers were quoting. He found it very intriguing and wanted to know more.  We talked with him after and shared a message right there in the gym and found more of his desires.  He wants to make a bigger change in the life of his daughter and wife because they aren't very interested in religion.  We invited him to be baptized and testified that by being baptized he would be able to be that example to his family.  He was really interested then to be baptized even though we were "Mormons", at Calvary they have anti-Mormon sermons once a month, but they always respect that we love everyone and work hard and dedicate our lives to God.  Steve said that after witnessing the conference his false ideas of who we are were gone and that he was genuinely interested in learning more. We set a return appt with him and will help him prepare to be baptized on the 9th!

On Saturday my hair was getting too long and we had stake conference on Sunday, and my zone leader friend elder mendenhall was on exchanges with the other elders in our apartment.  So he said he could cut my hair in a few minutes since he was in a hurry and he promised to do a good job... yeah, it all went well until he got the wrong length and also buzzed a good 1 square inch off right behind my ear by "accident". it was probably the worst haircut i've ever received but hey, it'll grow back.  Luckily i'm tall enough that people won't notice the patch thats missing:)

Also we have these annoying monitors on the car that check our speed and give us warnings when we turn to sharply or are speeding and they are really annoying!  The one in our car has been malfunctioning so we took it to the mission office to have it checked and Elder Houskeeper (the driving coordinator) just took it out because he likes us and then said he needed a ride to an auto repair shop to pick up his car.  So I had to drive the vehicle coordinator!!!  That was the scariest driving experience of my life, it was worse than the road test back home!!! Hopefully I never have to do that again.  

One more story.  On Friday we were harvesting and knocked into a guy named Tino.  We said a prayer with him and invited him to be baptized and he said "yes, I've never been baptized before." so we set up a return appt and continued.  We didn't make it 10 steps when the Spirit hit me and told me to go back and teach him the restoration.  I thought, "well, this is going to be awkward, but what do we have to lose?"  I told my companion the impression I received and he said it was crazy but we should do it if the Spirit told me to.  So we went back and talked with Tino again, he was surprised to see us, go figure.  and we explained how the Spirit told us to come back and share this message with him. That caught his attention and he listened intently the entire time.  At the end we gave him a BofM and testified of it.  He thought it was awesome and immediately asked which section he wanted us to have him read. It was awesome!!  I learned that no matter what the Spirit tells you to do, just do it!

Well, I love you lots and hope you have  a great week!

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey 

oh yeah, we also washed a members car in proselyting clothes, interesting experience:)  

a sweet cloud with sunbeams we saw the other day

saw these the other night, I love Florida! 

10/20/14 | Faith is the Key!

Heyo Family!!

What a week this has been!  We got so close to standards again and I can honestly say we gave our all last week.  We did everything within our control to reach standards and circumstances, such as our investigator getting hungover (we need to go over the WofW), and other investigators getting called into work last minute or a grandson getting terribly sick or sleeping through the alarm, prevented them from coming to church.  But we were able to visit with them and things will work out right this week!  We also had interviews with President Richardson, I look up to him a lot! It took me a little while to switch over from President Anderson to him since they are so different, but I really like President Richardson, he gave me a ton of tips on how to continue helping Elder Garrett, he said he was glad he was with me so we could get him sorted out this transfer so he can progress and not be depressed.  It was a very awesome interview! I could talk about it for a long time, so i'll end it here and get to the miracles.  

The biggest miracle we saw this week was while we were biking to our harvesting spot wednesday afternoon.  We biked past this neighborhood and the Spirit prompted us very strongly to stop and harvest there.  So we did and at first I didn't have much faith.  The thoughts, "we're going to knock for an hour and not find anyone", "this neighborhood doesn't look too great", were going through my mind.  That was the natural man speaking within me.  Then the spiritual side spoke up and said, "of course you won't find anyone if you dont believe you will, change your attitude and believe that you will find someone."  It was as if a light switched in my head and I recalled all of the many studies I've done about how faith precedes miracles and how for any miracle to occur you HAVE to have faith.  So I shut down my natural man thoughts and truly believed that we would find someone in that harvesting time we had.  I instantly became happier and more optimistic and knew that we were going to find elect souls, for God had led us to this spot, so there must be people that He was preparing.  Within a few doors we found Brandon and he was partially elect, so I won't focus on him, but it increased my faith more that there were people in this neighborhood.  We came to the point where we had time to knock one more door, half-way up the drive way to the house we were at, the Spirit again stopped us and without thinking I looked to the left and saw 4 doors down a house with a red car and the Spirit told us we needed to knock that door.  We knocked it and found Terri and Joan.  We said a prayer with them, got to know them and the Spirit told us to share the message of the PofS with them, so we did and they loved it!  They wanted to be baptized again, even though they were Catholic, and wanted us to come back.  I knew that that was why God had sent us to that neighborhood and If we hadn't have had the faith, we would've missed the spiritual prompting to knock on their door. 

This past week I was studying in Alma and the stories of Ammon.  He had prayed the God would pour out his spirit upon the Lamanites and soften their hearts so they would hear the message Ammon and his brethren had to share.  At the end of their mission, Ammon looks back and marvels at the goodness of God, he states that God truly had poured His Spirit upon the land and prepared the Lamanites to hear the Gospel.  That strengthened my faith that God will do the same if we pray with faith.  As we saw from our miracle this week, God does prepare His children to receive His Gospel, that's why we must always heed to the promptings of the Spirit.

Elder Garrett is doing much better.  We've found that work is the secret, just as it says in PMG, to overcome any problem.  We've worked so hard this week, we didn't allow any time for Elder Garrett to be depressed or anxious.  We've really been working at teaching and working in unity, we get along great, we just work and teach at much different levels.  Sometimes it feels like 2 oxen pulling a wagon and one of the oxen decides to unhitch and get up in the wagon and let the other oxen pull the team.  Its been exhausting, so last night I shared the scripture in Alma when he had just finished preaching to the Ammonihahites and they were about to throw him into prison, that's when Amulek speaks up and testifies and "the people were astonished" that there was 2 people testifying of the same thing.  He stressed his concern that he was afraid he would start teaching and go off on a tangent that didn't pertain to the lesson, I told him if he listened to  and followed the Spirit it wouldn't be possible to teach contrary to what needed to be taught.  We read teaching with the spirit and teaching with your comp in unity in PMG and had a really good chat.  We made plans to role-play how to switch of frequently and how to build off what the previous comp had said.  I also gave him the talk, "the Atonement and the Journey of Mortality" by Elder Bednar and had him study it this morning, it seems to have helped a lot.  (thanks Alyssa for sending me that talk:)   I'm very thankful for this opportunity though, its taught me a lot and has helped me grow alot, I've seen the growth in Elder Garrett too.  This week is going to be great and we will hit standards!

also random story: we've been driving to our area then biking to preserve miles. We started doing this on Wednesday and while biking Elder Garrett realized he hadn't pumped up his tires for 4 months (yes, he hasn't had to use his bike in 4 months)  so he was going antagonizingly slow because he barely had any air and no offense he's a wee bit out of shape from not exercising, so we switched bikes and I rode his bike the rest of the day, what a ride that was!  the tire finally gave out as we got back to the car as the stem valve snapped, thankfully the spokes didn't break or bend.  So we learned our lesson to always check the tire pressure, kind of like the 10 virgins with the oil lamps and how 5 were prepared and 5 weren't, from now on we want to be apart of the prepared group:)

Well, I love you guys lots!  Have a great week!

love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

10/14/14 | Delightfully Exhausted

Dear Family!

First off, Happy Birthday to the best mom in the world!!!!! I hope you have a fantastic day!

What a turn around week this has been!  I've never felt so much faith and encouragement as we went out and worked this week.  God truly does answer prayers.  We were greatly blessed with success this past week, the most success I've ever seen here in Davie!  It was amazing!  We had so many miracles as we were exactly obedient and worked really, really hard!  We hit standards in every KI except I@s, Dates and Progressing investigators.  soooo close!! But this week we will reach standards!

The best miracle we saw this week was when we met Stacy.  Actually we first met Stacy's sister, Teresa, who was a long-time LA and isn't interested, but she told us to go try her sister Stacy who lived across the street. We went over and met with Stacy and offered to say a prayer with her, she loved it!  She has a son in prison and another son who is always in trouble with the law and she said we were truly sent from God to help her at this time.  We testified that God had sent us and we shared the message of the Plan of Salvation because that's what the Spirit told us to do.  We got to the part of the Spirit world and the Spirit again prompted us to wait and finish the message later.  Stacy was on the edge of her seat, she loved the message, so when I said, "well, Stacy, we would love to come back tomorrow to finish this message and to continue to help you prepare for baptism so that you can be an even greater example to your sons."  Before I could ask for a return visit, she said, "I would love that!!! come back at 6 tomorrow! I want to be baptized and I want my sons to be baptized too!"  The Spirit was sooo strong!!  We left a copy of the BofM and had her read Alma 36 and see the great change that had come upon Alma and a lot of it is contributed to the prayers of his father.  So we told her to keep praying for her son because the power of prayer goes a long ways.  

This week I was studying in Alma and my mind was blown!  I was really having troubles focusing at the beginning of the week but I kept praying that I would be able to focus and learn what God would have me learn.  The last few days have been amazing! The scriptures are awesome!  Today something in particular stuck out to me, it's in Alma 17:11, God tells Ammon and his brethren to be patient in all afflictions and long-suffering and to be a good example to those around them and God would then make them instruments in His hands to bring the Lamanites to the truth.  Also that He pours out His Spirit to prepare the hearts of His children to receive the Gospel.  The Scriptures are AWESOME!!! If you aren't reading them everyday, then get into the habit of reading everyday, they literally blow my mind everyday during studies.  I've lost track of how many times i've read through the BofM, but I've been through it at least 5 times since starting my mission and each time I read it, I find something new in every chapter. I love the scriptures!

Quick funny story:  This actually happened 2 weeks ago, but the member just reminded me last night.  Elder D'Addabbo and I were knocking doors and we had been rained on earlier in the day, then the sun came out and the humidity went up to 110% (don't think that's possible, but it felt like it) so we were soaked while knocking doors.  We knocked on one door and a lady answered and so I said, "Hey, how are you today ma'am?"  and she said, "Ma'am!?!  who are you calling ma'am?!"  I thought, "crap, what'd I say wrong?"  My comp looked like a deer in headlights, he's never seen someone react like that either.  Then she said "I'm sister Kennington, elders!"  ooohhh, that's why she reacted that way.  Then she invited us in and we chatted with her and her husband. On our defense she had been pregnant and wasn't at church the entire time I've been in this area, so I didn't recognize her.  We had FHE at their house last night and she brought it up again just to make fun of us:)  Shes full of a lot of sass.

This week was a really good week though, we worked so hard and are so delightfully exhausted!  It's been great though.

I love you guys lots!

Elder Spencer Bailey

home-made pumpkin cookies as my bedtime snack thanks to mom:)

pic of what happens when we get member meals to go, pic is blurry cause my comp doesnt know how to function a camera

10/6/14 | "When your'e going through [heck], keep going!"-Winston Churchill

Dear Family!

Wow, this week put me through the ringers!  But I've come out of this past week changed and I've learned a lot, it was a miracle to watch conference at the end of this past week.  I don't know why but earlier this week I just got hit with depression and discouragement like I've never felt in my entire life.  Taking over the area plus taking over the rest of Davie was a huge test for me this past week.  When I was at my lowest I called the Zone leaders, which are 2 of my really good friends, and they gave me excellent advice! I prayed a lot and got a blessing and everything turned around from there.  It still wasn't easy but I felt the support form God until I got my feet firmly planted on the ground again.  Thankfully God helped me get through this week and the work is now continuing to go forth!

I got a new companion, his name is Elder Garrett and he's an interesting fellow. He's from Portland, Oregon and has been out for 4.5 months. It's been really hard to get to know him, it's been like trying to get to know a wall... But it'll be a good transfer!  Also at transfers they were going through the areas and I realized they didn't call out a Davie South, and I realized that we would be taking over the entire ward which covers 4 cities!  It's one of the largest areas in the mission, so this is going to be fun.  

Conference weekend was amazing! I loved the talks especially Elder Robbins talk on Saturday, it was super direct, to the point and bold. also I got to go to a different chapel for conference since where we were working was closer to the Hollywood chapel than driving all the way back up to Plantation.  So I got to be with a lot of my really good missionary friends so conference weekend was really good!

We also saw some miracles this past week.

The first miracle we saw was after I received a blessing from Elder Madson and we went out and harvested in the new area we acquired.  While harvesting we both felt great faith and determination to find someone who was willing to receive the gospel.  After knocking for quite some time we found Eric.  After we said the harvest blessing with Eric we invited him to be baptized and he said, "Yes, why not?"  I love hearing that question!  He went on to say that his family was looking for a church and he and his wife were looking to be baptized again!  So we testified that Jesus had truly sent us to him and shared a simple restoration lesson and bore testimony.  He wanted us to come back to help him and his family prepare for baptism, we will be seeing them tonight.

Another miracle was with our long-time investigator, Judith, who is still waiting to receive answers through prayer on some questions she's had.  We invited her to write down her questions and bring them to conference and we promised that God would answer her questions through the Spirit and through the words of the Prophets.  She was unable to come to the Church due to her work schedule, but she watched it from her house and recorded the sessions she missed and watched them later.  I loved how in conference they talked so much about Prophets and Joseph Smith and receiving revelation because she had huge questions on each of those points.  She texted us later and said "[conference] was very very nice. No real hard questions. Many positive comments. It was nice."  

Well, that's about all that happened this past week, it was a really trying week, but I'm glad I experienced it so that I can learn and grow.  Also with the new area came a brand new 2015 Toyota Corolla:)  There are perks to living right next to the mission office and becoming really good friends with the senior couples:)

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

Love,

Elder Spencer Bailey

9/30/14 | Rattlesnake Joe

Hey Family!

This week was another trial of our faith, but we endured faithfully and worked diligently each and everyday to strive to reach standards.  We saw one amazing miracle this week.  We were biking on Sunday and we had a jam packed schedule.  Our investigator, Judith, had to postpone our lesson for an hour which made our schedule even tighter and we didn't think we would be able to get everything we had planned done.  But the Lord had different plans then the ones we had made.  Since we had another hour at the fore-front of our evening we felt like we should keep harvesting.  Elder D'Addabbo had never heard of flow finding before so I explained it and we decided to try it out.  We were led to knock on this door and after we knocked twice we were walking away when a lady, Elisa, answered the door.  She was very interested in the prayer after our intro and we've been really working on being real and getting to know the people we come in contact with.  We really got to know Elisa which made saying the harvest blessing so much more heartfelt and meaningful.  After the blessing she exclaimed how awesome she felt and as we invited her to be baptized she hastily agreed and said that's what she wants to do.  The Spirit was really strong and prompted us to teach the Restoration, so we just started teaching and taught the Restoration and afterwards asked Elisa if she believed the message to be true.  She said it made perfect sense to her and that she believes this is the Church of Jesus Christ.  It was AMAZING!!!  

Then yesterday we went over and taught the Plan of Salvation and used the Book of Mormon to back up our teaching.  After the lesson we asked if she had any questions or comments, she said again that the Plan of Salvation made perfect sense to her especially because of the passages we used from the Book of Mormon.  She is going to be baptized on October 19th!  She is super elect!

Also I'll be praying for Bro Hilmo, send them some love for me! I agree with Karl, he's played a huge role in my life being in the young mens program with him and he helped me a lot at the beginning of my mission, so I hope everything works out well.  

We also got to go to an amazing member meal, they took us to a sushi buffet, and my comp had never had sushi, so the member didn't even give my comp the option to get sushi, had him get something else, not sure why but hey, more sushi for me!  That was my attitude at the beginning, but then she kept ordering more and more rolls of sushi to the point where I lost track of how much sushi I had eaten, then it was my comps turn to laugh at me after the meal when I felt super sick for eating so much sushi, but it was still delicious:)

We've been knocking a lot in our new area and it's really rundown.  a huge contrast from the rest of my area which is all really nice and upperclass.  The new area weve been in is white ghetto, way sketchier than most ghettos because there are a lot of psycho white people who live in these types of areas.  We were knocking and met this guy who said he was a baptist snake wrestler from Alabama.  He didn't give us a name so I thought the name Rattlesnake Joe would be fitting.  He asked if we had the power of God with us and we said, "yeah, were Representatives of Jesus Christ." He said, "well I believe that if youve got the power of God, you cant be bit by snakes, I've never been bit my whole professional career because I've got that power in me."  Then he invited us to put that power to the test and stick our hands in a container that had a rattlesnake in it.  We said, "nah, not today, we'll pass on that offer, thanks though!"  

That's just a little example of the strange south Floridians we run into on a daily basis.

We've also seen huge miracles in finding LA's.  We've really struggled to meet with them previously because the ward doesn't have a list of whos LA. So we've been going around meeting members and figuring out who's active and whos not and as weve increased our relations with the members, we've been knocking into LA's while harvesting! It's been amazing! Last week we met 4 LA's just while knocking doors, and yesterday we met 1.  The Lord blesses us in mysterious ways.  

That's all I have for this week, I love you lots and hope you have a fantastic week!

Also I'm staying in Davie and Elder D'Addabbo is transferring.

Love you all!

Elder Spencer Bailey


Heres some pics of my Zone from zone training a couple of weeks ago, I love them lots!  If you'll look on the far right, that sister is sister McGrath, I went to high school with her, she just got here 6 weeks ago, small world.

9/22/14 | Giving it all

Hey Family!

This week has been an amazing week!  We had been planning to wait and strive to hit standards this week, but then we thought, "why wait a week? why not do it this week?"  So starting Thursday we went out hard and worked super hard to reach standards.  We worked extra hard to work with members because that's where we had been lacking previously, and as we did members starting reaching out to us! It was amazing!  I never thought member work would progress so well here in Davie, all it took was effort and diligence in meeting with members, and of course help from God.  

We put a lot of effort into member work, so we slacked in finding, so this week we will create a better balance and achieve standards.  We got so close to hitting standards it was painful!

A miracle we saw this week was while we were biking from one end of our area to the other, we felt prompted to take a different route than the one we had planned and in so doing we ran into one of our RC, Kattie, who was walking on the side of the road.  We stopped and started talking to her and she explained that she was on her way to El Pollo Tropical to meet with her boyfriend who has been having a really hard time lately.  He's had some hard feelings against the church previously, but Kattie was in the hospital last week and he saw how the Church reached out to her and was always there to lend a hand, after he saw that his heart was softened and was more interested.  So we walked over with her and had a lesson about the Sabbath Day and how Church can bring peace and blessings and how it gives us the strength we need to endure trials.  He was really interested and loved how everyone in the Church is so caring and how they become our "family".  We invited him to attend Church with us and he accepted.  Yesterday he came and was pretty interested!  We will continue to work with him this week.

Also Judith came to church on Sunday.  She is still struggling to know if she should be baptized, so last week we came up with the game plan to continue reading from the BofM and help her gain that testimony.  Well, we also went over to the Kings house the other day to leave a missionary blessing on their home, and guess who was there? Yep, President Anderson!  Like I was saying last week, Sister Anderson told us that if we ever got thirsty again, this week would be a good time to come over because President may be there.  So we scheduled to do a member blessing and went over and got to chat with President for a while, he is an amazing man! Even though he was just in regular clothes and not in his usual suit, you could feel the spiritual power emanating from him.  We brought up Judith and told him our game plan and he added some more insight, he said, "I had a similar experience with some past missionaries and I had the opportunity to meet with their investigator.  She had a list of questions about the BofM, so I took the list folded it up and just testified that it all came down to whether or not the Book was true, if it was the Church was true too."  So he told us to just testify that it all comes down to the BofM and he was confident we could help her gain that testimony.  Yesterday we brought a RM with us to teach Judith and bore solid testimony of the BofM.  She still isn't sure, but the Spirit will hit her one of these days!

That's about it, I'm really tired right now, so I don't remember much else that happened:)  Well I love you guys and hope you have a fantastic week!

Elder Spencer Bailey

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