12/30/13

Well I did have the Merriest of Merries thank you very much! After we chatted (That waas so fun wasn't it?! Lets do it every week) we spent some happy times at the Brown's house. I didn't get to tell you about the Browns while I was chatting with you because I was inside of their house and they would have thought it rather curious for me to talk about them on my Christmas call eh? Anyways, The Brown family is from England! English people are seriously the funniest of funnies! Sister B and I just laughed for the entire meal time because  every time they open their mouths something funny comes out. They are simply lovely. Oh and we live there now. :) We moved from the Lowers to the Browns on the day after Christmas. Yay. 

So we've had been instructed to stay inside because of the sickest companion in the united states. So I made 100 loaves of bread...ok 6 loaves. So we could deliver them to people on Friday. You know for thank you for being our favorite people kinda deal. So we did that on Friday. Meanwhile Sister B is still being the sickest and saddest. 

So I'll be getting a new companion tomorrow or wednesday. But it's ok because I CAN DO HARD THINGS!! and so can sister B :) we spent the morning at Presidents house while they were sorting it all out and I got to talk to the Loveliest Sister Anderson. Just continue praying for her and also you have to do something for me ok? I NEED you to take her to lunch ok?! Will you do that? I'm committing  you to this. Also when you see her give her 100 hugs and MAKE her copy all of the pictures she has on her camera of our time together and give it to me. 

OK This week was weird but next will be weirder!..bye 

Love, Sister Bailey. 

12/23/13 | Jolliest of Jollies

Merry Happy Dearest Family,

This week was pretty much a blur. I had (have) the most awefulest of colds and my symptoms were really bad for really long so I went to the insta-care and they told me I had an upper respiratory infection...aka a fancy cold. So she gave me some antibiotics to take if it didn't go away in 3 more days. So we'll see. (also I would be dead right now if it weren't for your sicky package mumsie!!! I ate all the cough drops and used all the tissues :))

She also told me I needed lots of rest, which I hadn't been doing because I like working too much. We had been in cahoots with Sister Anderson too and she kinda chastised us for working too hard through my sickness...So we decided to (instead of go caroling at Love Park in Philly with a bunch of missionaries) stay home all day and sleep and do restful things for P-day. 

Then it started raining inside our bedroom...for reals. 

I was in the shower around 11 am and sister B burst into the bathroom.."Water's coming out of the ceiling fan!!!"..um what's that? I hurried and got out of the shower and as I was getting dressed I hear her scream "THERE'S A RIVER!!" I opened the bathroom door and water was pouring out of the ceiling and down the walls. Dripping from the ceiling and out of the fan. We called the landlord and she said she would sent the maintenance man right over. It took him forever to get there but he finally came. When he walked in he stopped in his tracks, "Oi! That's allota water"(in a very Nacho Libre voice) and ran upstairs. Umm yes, we were serious when we said it was raining in here. He finally came back with the Landlord and they explained that the people that lived above us had left for the holiday's...unfortunately they had left their faucet completely on and it had been flooding all night. Nice. By this point water is pouring down three of the walls, streaming through half of the ceiling and filling buckets in the bathroom doorway...(right were that lovely patch of black mold lives). <don't worry we are getting the mold checked out this week. They had turned the water off upstairs but it kept draining into our bedroom for a good 30 min. By the time it finished draining, the entire ceiling was yellowy orange...I don't know what it was but I'll send a pic. There were big puddles everywhere and we were running around grabbing all of our things so they wouldn't get too wet. Our bedding was all soaking so we grabbed as much as we could, threw it into our suitcases and left. They were having some cleaning company come to clean all the water up. We called Sister Lower and explained what was going on and she told us that we must come and stay at her house! So we drove down to Kennett and she fed us yummiest soup and grilled cheese. And now we are here at the Library. yay. So much for resting today eh?

Despite all the crazy, we were blessed with 2 new investigators this week! A serious Christmas Miracle!!! That was the focus of our Zone this week and we didn't think we would be able to get any considering all of the time we were able to go out and work would be spent teaching investigators. 

Sister Bettilyon is back to square one of sickville. She finished her antibiotics and was feeling really well (even though the doc told her she didn't need to finish them because they wouldn't help with the supposed virus she had) Then day by day, she drooped back to where she started. The doc referred her to an infectious disease specialist and she has an appointment for Jan 9th...Hopefully we can get her into another one before that. 

Well we actually had a pretty happy week! We were laughing during the rainy apartment episode and ya'll know what happens to missionaries when you lock them in an apartment for a week...they get Kookoo. 

I love you all and hope you the Jolliest of Jollies!!! I'll talk to you live on Wednesday!!! I'm calling probably around 12 my time :) yayyyy. 

Oh I almost forgot...PA is the most wonderful! It's been 60 degrees since Friday :) all of the snow melted and I'm not mad :) we've been driving with the windows down and everything! It's simply fantastic! it feels like summer.

OK BYE!!!

Love, Sister Bailey :)

12/16/13 | Christmas is coming...It's practically here!!!!!

Hello family!

So I have an idea...give me some pointers on what the chirstmas letter should say and I'll write it :)...maybe. Or should we let everyone be disappointed so they all realize how much they miss me?....you should just tell them that it's better this way because they can all just read a weekly letter from me instead of a yearly one..and it's better because it's all about me instead of you hooligans. :) 

Alright, this week was a good one! It's finally feels like winter. (it was like 60's last week or something) but it finally decided to snow here! --Side note to the people of Pennsylvania: Dear PA, Learn how to drive in the snow, No you will not die if you drive faster that 10 miles an hour, especially if you have 4 wheel drive.-- ok ok. People seriously don't know how to handle snow. If there is a storm warning for the next day, people start driving literally 15 miles an hour everywhere. its the weirdest thing on the planet. We had two snow days. That means we can't drive our cars cause the roads will be too bad. We are still allowed to go out on foot but it's hard in a blizzard and we aren't in Canada so we are babies and think that "too cold" is a thing. So on Tuesday we didnt' go out. (oh plus no one we teach or any members or less actives live in walking distance...except for the Banesy! She's a less active member (her real last name is B___) and she talks like John Travolta on Hairspray :) we love her) Cause is was a blizzard of some sort. Saturday was supposed to be super bad so we ended our exchanges with the Broomall sisters early so we wouldn't be stuck with each other. Saturday was another snow day but it didn't snow....till like the evening. lame. but listen to this miracle that happened: Sister Bettilyon and I had both felt some sort of cold coming on and we had heard from members that the storm was going to be really bad and last a few days (thank goodness it didn't). So we asked Elder Marse if we cold run to the store to get some medicine just in case before the storm hit. He told us we could so we headed out. We had accidentally missed a turn and passed the store we were headed to but just decided to go to the next store down the road. We got there and did our shopping and went to check out. As we were buying our things, one of our potential investigators came over and said hi to us! Her name is S____ and she works there at the store. She had just come out of the back room to her register and had only checked one person out before closing up her register! She came and found us!!! It was absolutely a miracle! We got to talk to her for a little bit and she told us that that was her last day working there! She gave us her cell phone number (which is so good because we haven't been able to reach her on her home phone) and told us to give her a call so we can come by! Wow right?! Every time I think about this experience, I just think about how many random things that shouldn't have happened, happened so we could catch up with S____! It all started because President was prompted to call a snow day, and then it didn't snow in the morning like it was supposed to, we ended up at the wrong store and got to the check out line at the exact moment so S____ could find us!!!! I know the Lord does things like that for us every day, it just takes us a while to realize it. 

Here's another miracle: M_____ (one of our investigators) had invited us over for cake and ice cream for her birthday that night. Her husband used to be very anti-mormon but has warmed up to us over the past 3 months. We don't see him very often because she prefers us to come when he is gone just in case. They have a very broken family so it was such a blessing to see them all around the dinner table and you could tell that they really do love each other despite their normal, everyday actions. J (M___'s husband) had gotten up to leave to run some errands and was almost out the door when I asked him if we could say a prayer together before he left. I totally thought he would say no but he said YES!! and came back to the table and we prayed together! I'm pretty sure that was the first time that family has ever said a prayer together! The spirit was so strong and I know J felt it.YAYY! 

OH and I invited Maddie to be baptized!!!! yayyyy she's praying about it. Good thing I already know what her answer will be if she listens. 

^all that happened on exchanges with Sister Bradshaw. I love her and she is awesome because she told me that I was the best sister in the mission or something...

Last night we gave Elder Taylor his new planner :) He promoted us to Unofficial Jr. Zone Leaders. That's how good it was. President was there too and saw it...haha it was so funny he was trying to figure out how it did it ;) then he asked me to make one for all the missionaries in the mission...yeah no thanks. ha.

I went to the chiro this week...5 out of the 7 bones in my neck were out of place...ouch. 

I love you bunches. I wish I could write more but my meany compa is telling me we have to go do laundry or something....

bye love you all!!!!

Sister Bailey

Elder Taylors Planner (we named the camel Pashmina)

Sister B's planner

12/9/13 | Happy Day!

Hello Family!

How are you all doing? I'm doing rather swell :). It finally decided to snow yesterday! Alllll the day long! We got snowed in after church! Kookoo. It took all of them member that live down in Kennett Square (30 min away) 5 hours to get home!!! It took us only an hour (its a 10 min drive). But today is better. The roads are cleared off and its a little bit warmer. Its supposed to snow again tomorrow...I guess you would actually know better than I would considering I can't watch the weather report and you can google it.

So last monday we went to Philadelphia! It was grandomundo funn. We went to the Rocky steps and made friends with the NICCEST Hobo who took our pictures and didn't even run away with our cameras like Sister B thought he would. Apparently he has met with missionaries before but then he lost his house and it's rear impossible to set an appointment with someone that doesn't have a home. :( 

Philadelphia is just crawling with missionaries on mondays cause we LOVE PHILLY! We ran into at least 25 other missionaries! crazzy! From the Rocky steps we walked down to the Temple site. I was sooo excited to see it! They have a little visitor center that Elder and Sister Carr are in charge of...They show you stuff and give you a rock from the temple quarry...but they were out to lunch so we didn't get any of that stuff. So sad :( But the temple is surely getting built and that was happy to see!
Then we walked over to love park. Its just lovely. At Christmastime they have this thing called the Christmas Village, which is TOTALLY my jam! They have themes and this year the theme is something like middle east or eastern europe...Turkey and Nepal kinda stuff. They just have loootttts of vendors with Turkish Towels (uhhh google it, basically I want 50 of them) and Handwoven Pashminas from Nepal :) swooonn. I was just in Heaven!!! We spent way too much time there and found more missionaries and ate spinach puffs from a man in lederhosen :) not sure why he was there but they were scrumptious. 

Then we drove over to B____ and E___'s. They are the Hippies that own Old City Tee's. Its a little gift shop thing. We found more missionaries there. I guess you could say we had a successful P-day last week eh?

On Tuesday, we finally got to go see a doc for the sicky! yayyyyy Good news, It's not Lymes, It's not Arthritis (we were convinced it was for a day or two) It's....Some virus that nobody knows!!! yayyyy Apparently it's like Mono where you just have to suck it up and wait it out. At this point we were on week 4 so what are two more weeks of sick right? They told us they weren't going to test her for what kind of virus it was because it doesn't really matter cause you can't do anything about it. She's feeling better and better errrry dayyy! yayy!

Speaking of herr. Transfers are this week and Trainers only stay with their Golden's for 12 weeks....But The Lord has other plans for us because you can't break up B squared till errry one in West Chester is Baptized!!!  This is so happy because now we get to do all the work and more that we couldn't do when Sister B was sick! This is going to be a transfer of Miracles!!! Just you wait! 

Oh myyy, The West Chester Ward Christmas Party was this week (I'll attack pics) It was just magical! M___e came with us and got to meet all of the youth and she loved them! She told me she was going to hide behind me the whole time cause she's afraid of people but she was totally normal! The theme was a night In Bethlehem and we were all supposed to dress up :) I did of course the best that I could cause I love dressing up like I'm in Jerusalem...Sometimes I do it at home for fun cause it's cozy. We all brought cans of food to trade for stones (money) so we could buy fruits and cheese and nuts and pitas and beef and lentil salad! YUM! we brought blankets and sat on the floor (mom I wish i would have taken pics of how they decorated! It was just jaw dropping over the top!) They made a stage and the youth did a little program that was actually like the Nativity on steroids. Too legit! They had musical numbers and the bishopric were the wise men! When Joseph and Mary were wandering through Bethlehem looking for a place to stay, they finally were offered the stable. We were all invited to follow them to the stable, We walked around the entire church building halls and then out to the parking lot where they had set up a LIVE NATIVITY!!!!! With cows and sheep and goats and angles singing, shepherds and wise man and a real life baby Jesus! It was so wonderful!!! M____e loved it too! After the party we took her on a church tour and she loved it! She's going to be able to come to church with us in january when we switch times cause she works Sunday mornings. Then when M____e left, Brother Moyer told us to come out to where the animals were, Mr. B___y was going to come pick them us soon and he wanted us to meet him. Mr. B____y is the nices quaker man! (I finally met a Quaker!!!!) he owns a dairy that apparently sells the BEST chocolate milk in the united states or something. 

Oh my I almost forgot to tell y'all the best part of the week! Zone training: it's this thing were your zone meets together and basically have district meeting as a zone...lots of learning and role playing etc. We had one last thursday and it was simply fantastic!!! President and Sister Anderson came to it (I just love them, you would too) The sister training leaders had us do the funniest role play! They set up the High Council room like a dining room and we had to pretend like we were at a members house for dinner. we all had a paper on our plate that told us how we had to act. I had to act like snow white. They went around and asked us questions about us, our investigators etc. So I got to tell them all about our seven small investigators that we found in the woods, usually we sing to them in lessons. President and sister anderson thought it was the funniest thing for some reason...I mean i'm not that funny am i? Sister B had to act "rude." President Anderson was asking questions now and he turned to her and asked if she had a boyfriend back home...she goes "yeah like 6." and President turned Bright Red! hahahaha I guess you had to be there but it was just the funniest. We did another role play on asking referrals and it was really good and insightful! as we were leaving the room to go back to the yw room, President turns to Sister B and I and told us that we are just so funny! We should start a comedy club!  ohhhh yeahhhhh

Our investigators are doing pretty well considering we haven't been able to leave the apartment for more than an hour or two a day for the past 5 weeks. A__ just went home for Christmas but we are getting our iPads next week so we'll be able to facetime teach her over the break! yay! Katie set another baptismal date for January 12! We are picking G___ back up (she's the first baptismal invitation, lifes just been getting in the way of her progression, her sister is deathly ill in the hospital and she has to help watch her kids and stuff like that but she is soooo ready for the gospel!) B___ J____ and his girlfriend are supposed to be married in the coming week and that means he can get baptized soon!!!! yay! 

Well Familia, I hope you are having a wonderful Christmastime just like I am!  I love you to the "squishy and back" (-pika mi digio) have a happy happy happy!!! 

LOVE, Sis Lyss :)

I just love PHILLY!...and elk 

LOVE park!!

I wanted all of these ornaments!!!

Do I look Jewish???

me and sister k :) she is our favorite lady, we do our laundry at her house

L and L C____, we had thanksgiving with them and they are the cutest!

The Nativity

12/2/13 | Thanksgiving is for Foxes

First of all, Sister B and I about DIED when we got your thanksgiving card!!!! I do hope that all of your thanksgivings were as wonderful as mine! In the morning, we went to Philly with the Broomall Sisters to meet up with a few Zones that were having a Turkey Bowl! So funn! I brought a thermos full of yummm tea cause I'm just a cool hipster like that. We got lost and ended up driving around downtown philly for a bit on accident (I'm not mad!) We finnally found them and President and Sister Anderson were in the parking lot in their car cause it was freezing and they didnt want to go out! ha. It was alot of fun. Then we went down to the Co____'s for dinner! They have the cutest little boys on the plannet! (I'll send pics next week) Their names are Logan and Lucas. We played with them for a little bit before dinner. Dinner was yummmmm. They had all the normal Thanksy stuff and had the best thing called pinnapple bread cake stuff. Kinda like bread pudding. you eat it with the ham and it was so good! I'm getting the recipe. After we ate we played Blokus...JUST LIKE A BURR THANKSGIVING! It was mega fun and then Sister C___ made us Ginger tea--This was the best tea I have ever had...you will LOVE IT!

Ginger Tea:

Boil water with some ginger in it 

Strain into your tea cup

Heap a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk 

Stir

Drink

Smile!

Then we went on our merry way to the Ca___'s! yayyy I love them!  This is a pic of M___ and S___...they emailed it to me cause they heard Pika asked for a photo of the ward :)...M___ has a crushy crush on the Pika! yayyyyy they shall be married in the morning!

When we got to the castletons, the girls were just putting the finishing touches on their thanksgiving play that Sami wrote when she was 10 (sounds like something me and Jenna would do) It was so funny! ha. Then we had Pieeee YUM!

Then we went to the L___'s and played scatagories and catch phrase. yayyy more games! They sent us home with sooo manny leftovers (they were so good we ate them after district meeting on friday)

As you can see--I did have the happiest of happies for Thanksgiving :) The rest of our week wasn't as jolly joyful. But thats ok! The problem is we have to stay in the apartment for most of the day (we can usually make it to our dinner appointments and one to two more a day) and how are you supposed to baptize people when you dont leave your apt!? Solution (so far) Use technology! I've been text teaching our peoples while the sicky compa takes naps. yay!

Did I tell you K___ dropped her date?...well she did and she's really hesitant to set a new one. Pray for her. k?

Ohhh wanna hear about Ma___!? She is Mi___'s daughter and we've kinda been trying to teach her but we had a major breakthrough with her. She's funny, she HATES a normal lesson setting where the missionaries are sitting across from her and ask her inspired questions from the spirit etc..so for a while we weren't alowed to look at her (it made her feel uncomforable...weirdo) and we had to answer our own questions before we could ask her (like "what did you like from that scripture?" or "how did you feel while we watched that Mormon Message?"

 and usually in the lessons we have with her, Mi____ will interrupt with something but she was at the doc so we had M____ all to ourselves. It was awesome! the spirit was so strong! She has become our best investigator, she keeps all of the commitments we give her! We watched a MM called Look to the light...or somthing. we've actually been watching this one with pretty much everyone..look it up you'll love it. Just kidding I'll just give you the linky:

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911029438001

I'm making sister b a planner of all planners. Thats something we do out here in PA. we decorate our mission planners and they are super cool (remind me to show you the one the elders made me) So I'll show you the one I'm making her when it's finished. you will love it!

I love you famemiley! I think about Aunt Sue a lot for some reason...I think it's because the bishops wife reminds me of her...anyway..tell her helloww! and the rest of the Gubs. I like them...and all of the BURRS! I misssed all of you for thanksgiving!!!! Aunt Natalie: how was your trip to NY??

Bye have a good weeky! OH and Mrs Boss, you are the coolest person on the planet...being on the news! you sly fox!!

SO MUCH LOVE YOU CAN'T EVEN HANDLE IT: Sister Bailey

PS. I'm on my way to Phillly today! jealous?

11/25/13 | We got a case of the Lymes

"Your mom is the smartest mom" -Sister Bettilyon

My dearest companion has Lymes. :( She's not officially diagnosed but we went to the C_____'s for dinner on friday and we were talking to Sister C_____ about her symptoms. After listening to most of them, she gasped and said "you have Lymes!" Sister C_____ had it undiagnosed for 5 years and their daughter A__ got it when she was in kindergarten. Sister C was so mad that we havn't been allowed to take her to see a doctor out here cause Lymes is so common out here that any doctor would have recognized it and put her on antibiotics right away. All of the symptoms line up too perfectly. So we went to get her blood drawn this morning but the thing is, Lymes doesn't always test positive. It's basically just a big mess, and the mission is still having her work with Dr. Ohio (that's not his real name, but he's the dr thats over like 100 missions and he lives in Ohio) who has no idea what lymes is. But we had Zone Conference on Saturday and President pulled her out of Role Playing to ask her whats going on cause she looks so sick. (we are going to make an apppointment for her to see a doc in the stake this week)

Thank you 100 for the package!! "Your mom is the best mom!!" -Sister Bettilyon we love the tea and naan :) yay! Also the target package came with the cds :) yippy i o kayahhaeyy

Zone conference was so good! I love it! so much good stuff and learning :).
Zone Conference was exactly what the both of us needed this week! We were so happy when Saturday finally came!! I love when we get to meet together as missionaries and uplift each other in the spirit. I learned so much! My favorite thing I learned was something Elder W said (one of the AP's) it's a phrase "No random thought" meaning that every thought you have pertaining to missionary stuff is probably from the spirit and you should act on it. I've already started using it. It's super awesome!

So we have pamphlets out here that we can teach with. WE learned how to use them so powerfully at ZC. I was absolutely blown away by the way we are supposed to use the pamphlets. Sister Bettilyon and I have been trying to use them in our lessons lately but it was never anything incredible. Some times it was even a bit awkward. But the way they taught us how to use them effectively was so amazing! We had the chance to use the restoration pamphlet on a member family we had dinner with last night. They have three little girls (the oldest is 4) so we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to practice with teaching children. It was absolutely incredible!!!! When we got to the picture of Jesus in the America's she got so excited! She knew exactly what was happening in it. I asked her what Jesus was teaching the people, she shrugged her shoulders and I told her "He is teaching them the same things that you learn in primary!" She gasped and got so excited!!! Then Sister Bettilyon added, "And that's the same stuff that you learned when you were in heaven!" She was so excited about that too :). At the very last picture, (the one of the girl praying) she told us that the girl was praying to Heavenly Father to ask him if the Book of Mormon that is sitting in front of her is true. She recounted how she asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon was true and that she told her that it was! She said she knew it was true because she felt good when she prayed about it. We were so amazed that a little girl the age of 4 was telling us this! Her mom then told us that they hadn't even prodded her to do it. She came up with the idea on her own when her dad read her a children's version of the Book of Mormon that they have, at the end of it it describes Moroni's promise, when she heard that she jumped up and exclaimed "lets do it!!" This experience was so precious and the spirit was so strong as that little girl bore her testimony to us. IT WAS SO CUTE!!!

"We are not humans having spiritual experiences, We are Spirits having human experiences" a member told me that at church yesterday.

As a missionary, one of the rules is to keep your companion within sight and sound. The Holy Ghost has been given to each of us as a companion. Are we doing everything we can to keep the Holy Ghost within our sight and sound? 

Well Family, I am so thankful for you! and I will miss you this week, but dont worry about me cause we are being taken care of :) (we have dinners at the Co___, Ca_____, K_____, and L_____) whooooo.

LOVE, Sister Bailey

11/18/13

This week was spent in my apartment...boooooo. 100% not my favorite thing! Sister B has been in bed all week with some sort of major exhaustion caused by either her thyroid or extreme hypoglycemia. Super sad to see her like that. But I can say that I learned a lot about companionship unity this week. As (hopefully) you can tell, sis b and i are the best of friends! So I had been wondering how our companionship could get any stronger! Well the Lord decided to show me how (sorry sister b). Forced service. Sister B is someone that is very hard to serve because she likes to do everything for herself. I had been trying to find ways to serve her and just wasn't coming up with anything until she literally couldn't do anything. I have had so many opportunities to serve her this week! At times (like at district meeting) she is too weak to even open the lid of her water bottle--service opp. She has to eat every 3-4 hours--service opp. The list of service opps goes on and on but I wasn't even put out by having to do all of those things for her! Over the week our friendship and companionship has grown even stronger and I can't even wait for her to get better and we can hit the streets of west chester! yayyy.

So...we were supposed to stay in our apartment 24/7 this week (mission nurse's order) but sometimes you just have to leave the apartment and do some missionary work anyways...whoops. On one night that we decided to be missionaries. We went to the Lovely L____'s house for dinner. I'm not going to go into any real detail but when we arrived, there was a real crisis happening. It just sounded like an argument of sorts so we decided to drive around the block and give them some time to cool off. we came back 10 min later and there were a few cop cars. We texted M__ and asked if everything was ok, she said no...We asked what we could do for her and she said "Pray for my son" At that moment, K____ came running out to our car absolutely hysterical. She jumped in our car and gave us a sobbing run down of what had happened. Turns our B___ had had some sort of rage fit and had taken off into the woods. The police had the area surrounded and were looking for him with the K9 unit. H_____ came out to the car with C___ (k___'s baby) and was pretty shaken up too. Between sobs, K___ asked if we would say a prayer. We did and then she made us come in the house with her. They found B____ and lots of stuff happened and T__ and M__ went to the hospital to see B____. K___ and H____ begged us to stay with them and have dinner and just help them keep the spirit in their home. So we did and we got to share a really good message (mormon message style) with Z___ there and everything (he's not a member). It was a much needed miracle for us to be in their home that night and I'm so glad that the Lord has allowed us to grow so close to this family. 

Miracle: T__ L_____ CAME TO CHURCH! With M____ and K___, H____ and C___!!! We were so so happy we both shook T__'s hand twice cause we can't hug him :). 

Last night I spoke at a fireside about "How I decided to serve a mission and How I prepared." (When the bishop asked me to speak on this last week, I was like, I've already shared that story with everyone in sacrament meeting and basically every member that has ever invited us over for dinner so I'm not sure what I can add to it...bad attitude). It was really odd, that yesterday morning at church, Bishop came and found me to tell me how much he really wanted me there to speak tonight and that if we had to, he would find a woman to go and stay with sister b while I went to the fireside. The elders told us later that he had expressed to them as well how much he wanted me there to speak...odd

Remember last week when I told you about when we had dinner at D_____'s house and the room would fall absolutely silent every time I spoke about the gospel, Well that happened tonight while I was speaking. It was an absolute wonder. It's amazing to me how much the YW loved hearing my story, I guess for them, most have already decided that they want to serve a mission. They were absolutely shocked when I told them that I had no desire to serve a mission until the spirit prompted me to. It was at the O'___ home and went really really well! Elder M spoke too. I was so nervous about speaking all week long but after I felt so happy and uplifted! yay. Before we left, we were sure to thank the O'___ for having us in their home. Now, Sister O'___is a member but Mr. O'___ is not. He owns the 76ers (can you picture what a beautiful house they have!?) So we went and shook his hand and he thanked us for coming. Then he looked at me and said "you have a beautiful testimony." oh geese thanks and yes we can be best friends and I would actually love to go to a basketball game or two. :) But yeah last night was super good and I love all of the youth in our ward and never want to leave Sister B or West Chester.

I actually brought a picture of the fam to show some of the yw that have been nagging me to see the boys. hahah they about keeled over when they saw you guys! ha and they're really cute tooo! and they come to utah every summer and some are going to start writing spencer :). My favorite one is M____ C_____...she is 12 and so much funny and pretty and Randon she thinks you are so CUTE!!! perfect :) 

Well thats about all that happened this week. Super exciting. OH wait! Amidst all of the sitting and studying in the apartment this week, I figured out how to teach lessons on the phone so we wouldn't have 0 week :) yay! We were only one short of our goal for lessons taught! yayyy! 

Love you 100 my people. 

<3 Sister Bailey

P.S. Holidays in the mission are going to be bliss :) We've already had one thanksgiving dinner and have 2 planned for thanksgiving day (we had to turn down like 100 offers and figured we could do 2 dinners :)) oh and people are already fighting over us for Christmas Dinner.

I realized that Spencer's mail goes through the mission office...so she decorated his mail like this

These cookies were made by Sister B____'s sons girlfriend. They are so cute and so tasty! She uses royal icing or something. 

11/11/13

Hello my family, 

This has sure been a week to remember! We went on exchanges with our Sister Training leaders. I did learn a lot from being on exchanges. Mostly how much I love Sister Bettilyon and how obvious that the Lord is in charge of everything that I going on down here! Like paring up sister B and I together. yay

Now I'm going to tell you about a woman named D______. She is the lady that stopped her car in the middle of the street to ask for directions, When i walked up to her car (after kindly suggesting that she pull over to the side of the road) She looked at my name tag and asked "Are you Jesus?" haha She is the sweetest little Italian woman. We asked her if we could come visit her sometime so she gave us her number. I called her on Wednesday and we talked for like 20 min. She just has so many questions about who we are and what we do. She ended up inviting us over for dinner on Saturday. So we go to her house and a girl in her twenties opens the door holding a handful of stake knives. She asked us who we were and then said "oh you have the tags" and let us in. That was Dorothy's granddaughter, L___, she was totally freaked out that her grandma had invited strangers over for dinner so she googled what we were supposed to look like and came across Stephanie Nielson's blog. She read a little about it and liked it. (yay fist pump for nie nie!) We chatted a bit with them while dinner cooked and then L____'s parents show up to eat with us too. They were the most hard core Roman Catholic's I've ever met and they were all so curious! I was the best dinner experience! at one point of the evening, They were all asking a bunch of different questions to us, I turned to D____ and was answering hers while sister b was answering her son in law. I started testifying of Joseph Smith and the room fell silent, They all turned and were listening to me so intently, The spirit filled the room. Now, I don't know if anything will come of that night but I do know that they all felt something while we were there and they all really liked us. It was so cool!

We spent quite a bit of time at the hospital this week visiting H____ L____. She hasn't been doing well at all. Lots of complications with her diabetes. :( But she asked for a BOM and some chapters to read on wednesday. Then she's been texting us all week asking for more chapters to read and asking us to come and read with her everyday. YAY, hate to say it but being in the hospital so long has been good for her. 

K___ is doing really well. We are having dinner with her tonight. We moved her baptism date to the 30th of Nov. I really hope that she can make it! 

A__ is doing well. We just found out how confused she really is...After going though 13 different sets of missionaries who wouldn't be confused.

I made the best purchase of my whole mission this week. We stopped at walmart and there it was; the 5 $ CD bin. We had a few extra min so we did a quick dig and what did i find??.....wait for it Elvis gospel jams cd! It is so so so so so so so fantastic! haha mom you would really hate it. 

I got the best package last monday! yay! winner winner chicken dinner for mom! thanks for the left over halloween candy pika and boss. :)

10 points for me because I got sister B saying "Kookoo" haha

I had raw milk last night at dinner at the P____'s...they have a thing for the Amish. It was good...kinda tasted like whipping cream or half and half...not that I would know what those taste's like. 

Well I'mma go read all 500 emails in my inbox ;) good luck with life out there! Satan's a real kook so watch out for him! 

Love you alllll so manny times 12!

Sister Bailey

11/4/13

Hello my family!

I am super happy this day! Wanna hear a happy story? ok We were at K___ and A____'s--Whoa hold up cause guess what! K___ and A___ came to church on sunday! yayyyyyy---k we were at their house last night and first of all they gave us apples, anyone that gives me apples is favorite in my book, Then we went into the other room to have spiritual time (away from the TV and hooligans that live with them...hooligans being A___'s kids, They don't want to have anything to do with the gospel but the a few weeks ago, Amor (A___'s son, senior in high school) was sitting on the couch listening to all that we were saying super intently, we were talking about the plan of salvation. We are just having a real good discussion and he says out of nowhere (cause he was trying too look like he didn't care and wasn't listening but I knew he was) "So are you trying to say, that we lived with God before we were here?!" exactly. anyways, the point of that was to show you that he is taking baby steps to the gospel...really tiny tiny steps) So we are in the other room and we are teaching about keeping the laws of the land (which is exciting in and of itself because that means she has had all of the other lessons and is ready for baptism) and we had pretty much said as much as we could on the subject ("um obey the laws of the land ok?") and Sister B turned to me and did that thing where she stares at you because she is done and wants you to say something. So then I'm like I don't have anything else to say about this other than just do it probably, (those thoughts weren't audible) and then the spirit prompted me to just testify on what I had been studying and contemplating lately, which was our pre mortal life and who we were, what talents and abilities we have forgotten on coming to earth, how we can remember and re develop them etc. So I just turned to K___ and testified of those things and how I know that I have found some of those things for my self just since being on my mission and that I know that there are so many more things I am still working on, That she has many talents and abilities that she needs to remember to help others and the Lord here on earth. I said a bunch of other stuff and kinda just ended with telling her how much we love and care about her. Her response to that was (after thank you) how much she noticed how we "light up" when we are teaching/testifying and she can see that we really so love her. that we are not just in it for the baptisms and she really loved us. She recounted the many many missionaries that have taught her and told us that most were missing that when they taught. Which is so sad to me! Then A___ said that he's not afraid to kick people out of his house (which he's done to missionaries they didn't like in the past) Which is his way of saying that he likes us too. :) Hearing that from K___ was such a validation to what we are doing out her! It made us feel so good and like we really are doing something right. Cause out here in the mission field that's something you wonder quite often, am I doing this right? are my efforts enough? what can I do better? and on and on.

Now lets talk about my favorite family in Pennsylvania; The L____s. I think I've talked about them before (M___ and T__?) So this weekend M___ was the only one home so she called us and made us come over for lunch (not too hard of a battle when the alternative was eating...nothing)--Can I have a side note please: M___ IS the funniest person I've met out here! She is straight up the Jim Carey Grinch! I LOVE HER! and I have found the one and only dog I truly love. Her name is Bambalina and she is so so cute, she sits on my lap when I'm at their house and I don't even hate it! She is so nice and I'll be sure to send you a pic some time. Mom, you could even like her!---Moving on. We were at her house for lunch and she was telling about how obsessed her family is with B2 (thats b squared, thats what they call us). B___ even asked if we could come for Thanksgiving! ha! Last night M___ texted us saying that H____was on her way to the hospital in an ambulance. She was having a diabetic episode. no bueno. so we made a few quick phone calls and worked with some schedules to get some priesthood holders to the hospital for a blessing. And we did it. :) M___ told us that hannah was lucid for the blessing and was very grateful. She is totally out now though, last time we checked she was in a coma while her organs worked overtime. She has infections in her liver and kidneys i think. I do think that this might be a good way for them to come closer to christ though.

On a happier note, our heater works :) Also note to any and everyone that is reading this: if you are ever cold, Tell Sara Jo. She will send you a polar bear blanket...like a blanket straight up made out of baby polar bear fur! This is not a joke. So I've been sleeping cozyyyyy goodness :) But Sis B tells me I'm still talking in my sleep...I'm working on it. I guess if it doesn't wake me up its not a problem right? ha sorry bad joke.

Oh Halloween was this week huh? How was yours? I waited all week to see Tiny B in a strawberry suit! but then I saw the pictures and felt sad...cause it looks like she hates it. or she just forgot how to smile since I left...probably. She is super cute though :)

Ohhhh get ready for this cause I'm going to tell you about Sister B____. This woman is so so so funny and she cooks like Aunt Natalie (thanks for all the emails! Hope you're having fun in NY!) you know, were she adds a little of this and a little of that and oh boy theres the best meal you've ever had. I like to call it spiritual cooking. It's this thing where you let the spirit guide you while you cook. And she reminds me so much of my (favorite) Aunt Sue! She is just wonderful! She had us and the Elders over for halloween and guess what. She invited 4 non member friends! yaya thats so good! Thats called an IBM, which stands for something that means a potential investigator introduced to the missionaries by a member....Its a key indicator in our mission...but you don't know what that means.  Oh well, just know its a thing..or ask an RM.

There are just so many people I wish I could tell you about! But I'm going to talk about me now cause you love me. I'm good :) I love you family and I love getting mail from you :) Dad I read your email before writing and loved it a million! It made me happy cry. Which isn't really a thing i do. Pennsylvania just gets more and more beautiful as fall goes on. it is more beautiful than words can describe. You'll just have to come see it. oh my I almost forgot to tell you about apple cider doughnuts. weather they are doughnuts made out of apple cider or doughnuts made specifically for the intended consumption companionship of the doughnut and the apple cider is still a mystery. But that not important, They are too good to be true!!!!!! Oh my so good!

Love you love you!

byeee

P.S.

I forgot to tell y'all some exciting newssss. Come December,  Every Missionary will get an iPad and every companionship will be getting an iPhone :) yay!

Have I told you that Kennett Square is the mushroom Capitol of the world!? totally awesome weird.

10/28/13

Family I love you!

This first paragraph is exclusively dedicated to My Grandparents: You are the most wonderful people in the world! Thank you so much for the different ways all four of you have influenced my life! Grandma Rose and Grandma Burr--Thank you both so much for the letters you both sent me! You two are my angels :) I firmly belive that the Lords hand was involved in prompting the both of you to write me this week. I really needed to hear from you (and I actually have letters for both of you that I started a while ago...taking longer than I expected..but don't worry I will finish them today and send them your way!!) Grandma Rose--thank you a hundred billion for the lunch money, I will be useing it wisely today ;)

Ok ok, well I guess the Lord has a sense of humor cause he didn't have to send me to Russia to freeze me in half! This week I have been the most consistently cold than any other time of my life! I really don't even like being cold. Apparently this is the part of fall where it feels like -20 degrees when its actually 40 degrees. I'm not even being dramatic about this! Cause listen to this next part...apart from the outside being freezing, is the other part called our walls are very thin (cause they were build like hundred years ago) and we have all wood floors (another sign of coldness). Our heater is one of those electric ones that line about half of the walls (do you know what I'm talking about?) but oh wait...It broke last week. and we are dying. So after about 5 (hundred) hours of being too cold during studies, we called that landlord man (whose actually a woman, sister B keeps telling me so but I keep forgetting) He said, "oh we haven't turned on the furnace yet" ok bye. wait that doesn't make sense man. So we go about our day and this is what we come home to (see first picture below) This is our new heater. So we put it in between our beds and prayed that we wouldn't freeze to death that night ( was certain we would...or that it would catch our beds on fire...also a big concern). The next day we studied in our bedroom (and the days and days after that cause the rest of the apartment is an ice box) We haven't braved into the bathroom long enough to shower either...Just kidding. bad joke. We've been showering. but we hate it cause its so so so so so so cold. We do have hot water though don't worry :) Then last night when we got home. the heater decided it didn't like being used so much. So it exploded our extension cord. There was smoke and sparks but guess what it didn't even shock us our anything bad like that :). Luckily we noticed another heater our in the hall way that looked like ours...so we snatched it right up and slept well last night. 

Other than the part of my life that is frozen. This week was FANTASTIC! (if you discard all the parts that were not up to par). Lets just talk about A___ shall we, She always brightens my day :) A__ is our miracle investigator that I told you about last week. This week, we took her out to dinner with us, a member and the elders. At the end of the dinner, the member Brother K___ started boldly questioning A___. "Why aren't you a mormon yet?" and stuff like that (total interrogation). The spirit was there though, so it was ok. He eventually asked her if she knew that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. She said yes. Then he asked her if she knew that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the true church. She also said yes. By this time Sister Bettilyon and I are about to explode out of our seats! She ended up telling us that she isn't baptized yet because she wants to make sure she is doing it for all of the right reasons (she had a friend that joined very hastily and fell away just as quick) and that she also intends on getting another tattoo.(can you say cop out?) 

After dinner we talked with her in the parking lot for a bit. We kinda apologized for Brother K____ boldness incase she felt threatened or interrogated (which she did). She said it was ok and we got to have a really good discussion with her. She said that she knows that one day she will be baptized but that she knows the Lord has a timeline for her. Right now she has prayed to see if she is on the right path (which is being involved in her Lutheran church) and that prayer was confirmed. She knows more than your average investigator and well more than most that are ready for baptism. We shared some scriptures with her (Alma 5:62) and it really spoke to her. This was all on Wednesday, then on Saturday night she came to dinner with us to the C____'s house. She loves the C____'s. So do I. (Randon will be married to M___ C____ one day :)) We had another very spiritual discussion with her ("what have ye against being baptized?") and she came to sacrament meeting with us yesterday. It was the primary program. We had asked her to be specifically praying for a confirmation on when she needed to be baptized while in the meeting. She felt the spirit so strongly in that meeting. It was wonderful. We only got to talk with her a little after the meeting, enough for her to set up an appointment with us and tell us she is going to make us treats!. So on this wednesday we'll be able to talk with her more on what she felt on Sunday.

Now I'm going to tell you about the L____'s. Mumsie you may recall the email you received from a M___ L___. This is her family.  M___ is the mother and only active one in her family. The sister missionaries found them some how a while back (maybe a mo before I got here) and M___ was over the moon! She has had many blessings saying that one day her husband will come back to the gospel and she felt that the missionaries were the answer to her prayer! So she begged them to make weekly visits and so we have been visiting ever since! T__ is her husband and super funny. We love him. Every time we come over he greets us with "What the hell are you doing here?!" but only because he really loves us and that is his way of teasing us. (he always gives us treats like cinnamon bagels from Panerra (don't even get me started on Panerra). B___ and H____ live at home (H___ is our age and B___ graduated a year ago) Anyways, our visits with them always go so well and the spirit is always there so strongly. Last time we were there is was so good! At the end of the lesson we asked Brady to pray (no one ever agrees to pray except for M___) He said "Yeah I'll pray" we kinda look really shocked at him and he said "You thought I'd give a T__ answer didn't you!" haha so he prayed and it was so good. Then T__ asked us about the phase "its the thought that counts" and if we agreed with it...yes? So then he tells us about how last sunday, M___ was out of town. While he and B___ were eating breakfast, Tom turned to B___ and said "Should we shock the sisters and show up at church today?!" "Well I don't want to go but if you do I'll come with you" was B___'s response. Then they decided not to come and they had already gotten us to say that it was the thought that counted. Which its not but THIS IS SERIOUSLY EXCITING PROGRESSION!

ha every time I write out a story like this one...I realize how unexciting they all actually sound...oh well just pretend with me :)

K___ and A___ got home from their cruise last night so we did a stalk by. They told us all about their trip and how wonderful it was! They stopped in Cocoa Beach and then down to the Bahamas. Ready for a victory fist pump?!--Listen to this: K___ AND A___ DIDNT HAVE ONE DROP OF COFFEE ON THEIR ENTIRE TRIP!  FIST PUMP! They told us how hard it was with all of the fancy fancy cappuccinos and crazy stuff but they did it! yayyyy! K___'s baptism date is December 7th. What a good day right!? so lets all hope she comes through this time...I have a feeling she will. :)

OH my family listen to this! i was watching billions of mormon messages while sister b was on the facebook and I AM IN A MORMON MESSAGE! its called a work in progress...see if you can see me ;)

Ok here's the fun part of the letter called Interactive activity: Randon McKay and Austin James your assignment will be to gather up your father and all watch the best Mormon message called Sanctify yourselves. You will love it! Michael Ammon--You can watch that one too but your assignment is to watch the one called A Secure Anchor. You will love it! Ummm thats all the assignments I have this week. Mom and Jenna--you can watch those too :) and also here comes a challenge to erry one reading this: I challenge y'all to the the book of mormon in its entirety by the end of the year. We've been challenging many families that we have meals with to do this and they have already shared miracles with us just from reading their scriptures. its so easy people!

OK I have a few more things I want to touch on. First: Panerra. This place will be the death of me. I love it infinity. The C___s took us there for dinner last week and we are addicted! They have this soup called Autumn Squash Soup. It is like candy! It kinda tastes like that one squash soup that mom makes...with apples and squash..so good! and their bread is good and their sandwiches are good and their salads are good and...maybe I've been there too many times. If I don't come home at the end of my mission it will be because I am staying here for Panera :) (Zupas dosn't have anything on this place!)

Next: Mexican Hot Chocolate. Kill me this stuff is so good! We had breakfast with the elders at sister A___'s on saturday. She is Guatemalan and made us the best Guatemalan breakfast of my life! oh so tasty!

Have I told you about our ward? Its half spanish...only 75% of the spanish members are inactive. The elders are working on that (I dont know if ive told you anything about the elders now that i think about it...They serve in the same ward as us but are spanish speaking..we see them alot to colaborate ward stuff and they have strep...Pray sister b and I dont get it! we've been feeling a tich under the weather...) ok thats all.

Family I love you love you love you! Seriously. Have y'all taken a look at all of our family lately? I'm talking aunts uncles cousins grandparents...They are all so so good and wonderful! People out here don't have families like we do! so quit taking all of that for granted please.

I hope you have a super week and are staying warmer than I am.  ok ok love you love you long time

love Sister Bailey

fall is so pretty here! Ombre trees are my favorite

OK these are the YW of the ward that love sister b and i. They dressed up as us for their halloween party. M___ C___ is the one in pink sporting my tag. She even got her hands on a necklace with a beehive on it and painted her nails gold like me :) Sorry the lighting of this pic is awful. 

this is PA! So beautiful!

This is our heater friend

We woke up got dressed and ready. did our studies and then were reciting our purpose when we realized that we were uncannily matching...

One time we found some cool trains

10/21/13

Heyyy familia!

How are you lovely people doing?! My week was pretty good for the most part. Y'all are lucky that I am alive to tell email you this week! Fisrt of all: My water bottle is trying to poison me with mold! I hate mold! I'm just minding my own bussiness drinking out of my camelback and I look down and it is compleatly overtaken with mold! (well ok fine there are tiny dots of mold in the mouth piece)--WHICH IS NOT OK!! Then I got a little bit panicy and wondered if mold can kill you...or grow inside of you...dross. But that was like a week ago so it must be ok cause I'm alive! Second thing: I got a flu shot...and wanted to die. Don't get it this year...especially within 12 hours of speaking in sacrement meeting. I think I was allergic to it (or my body just thought it would be fun to pretend to be allergic to it) cause I woke up the next morning and my hands were coverd in hives...I don't know if you've ever tried to scratch the palm of your hand...but it's not a thing. Then they spread all over my body and my head felt like it weighed 5 thousand pounds. But I went to church even though all I wanted to do was lay down. The elders both have the flu and Elder Mask was suppossed to briefly talk in place of the youth speaker that they couldnt find. That's were I come in..they ask me to take elder mask's spot...ok. At this point I'm feeling really crappy but figure I can probably make it up to the pulpit without passing out with the help of the Lord. I did. I don't really remember what I said..I know I talked about how I decided to come on a mission and some stuff about memeber missionary work...whatever I said must have been good cause way too many people came and comented on it after the meetting for it to not be stellar. Brother Slaugh came and told me that it was very bold and impactful...uh you can thank the spirit for that one. Anyways, I'm alive and totally fine :).

So I lost my stupid watch that I've already super glued back together 25 times. I called the Nitz family to see if I had lost it at their house when we watched conference. I did! Sister Nitz found it in the couch! She said she would bring it on sunday. Her daughter Alyssa came up and gave it to me yesterday and says "oh and heres the old band." huh? I looked at my watch and it was a compleatly different band! haha It turns out my watch had yet again broken itself and sister nitz brought it somewhere to get fixed with a new band!! what the goodness?! people are way to nice to us! Speaking of nice people, Mom, you asked about how we get fed and our money situation. Yeah...we basically dont have any money. But we eat at a members house everynight and they send us home with the leftovers and then some so we can eat lunch the next day ;) Members give us jam and canned peaches (like grandmas :))  canned tomatoes, homemade honey, and lots of snacks. So we're set. We gave in the other day and went and bought some mac and cheese with what little money we have left for lunch. It was really good. you can send me that stuff :)

I went to Philly  last week! I loved it! I had my very first cheese steak. oh myyyyyy so good. We went to Gooey Looey's. (Pat and Gino s are over rated. no one out here likes them.)

We have the most incredible investigator! I think I may have alreday told you about her, Her name is Amy and she was a HQ referral. Her good friend Jen refers her every year in october so she has met with a few misisonaries in the past. She stopped meeting with them the first time because it freaked her out that they invited her to be baptized the first time they met her and the second time because they told her that her brother that had just died a few years ago was in spirit prison...she didn't like that. I wonder why.
We were prompted to have her read Lehi's dream this week and when we came back to teach her the next time, she had read it and really loved it. She loved it so much that she called her mom in North Dakota to tell her to read it too. Her mom wouldn't so she read it over the phone to her. We asked her what she learned from studying it, she said "I don't know if this is what it really means or if this is what I was supposed to get out of it..." then she continued to explain lehi's dream to us with perfection! I felt like I was in a seminary class or gospel doctrine! It was absolutly incredible!

 Pennsylvania is the weirdest thing, fall out here is actually a season instead of a week. The trees take their sweet time to change...most of them are still green. Its super pretty though. Probably prettier than anything you can imagine but thats ok :)

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Bye favorite people

sister bailey

somtimes sister b makes me hold all of our weekly planning supplies

The District

this is Sister Coldesina. she has dementia so she doesn't know who we are but we visit her every week. she is always so excited to see us! I think she thinks I'm her grand daughter...oh well. she is super funny. talking to her is like talking to a BLR :)

The phillies statium! PS the guy that owns the 76ers is in our ward. his wife is a member but he isn't. I met him on sunday and decided that I am going to be best friends with him so we can baptize him and go to some games :)

this is a pic of a mural in Kennett square. Its herriet tubman. Kennett was the first stop of the underground railroad.

a pic of the temple to be. we made a card for katie when she was sick the other week and taped this on the front...cause we are crafty like that

sister bettilyon takes random pics of me...stalker