9/30/13 | West Chester, PA

Basically Pennsylvania is Americas biggest secret. It is so beautiful here I cannot even stand it. and thats on top of the compleate charm of west chester. ahh its a dream! you'll just have to come back with me one day cause pictures dont even do it justice (by the way momm, are you planning on sending me a coolpix? cause it would really benefit you the most i think :))

So I took a picture to send to you (actually I took lots) but I forgot my camera cord at the apartment and its too far away to go get...sorry you can wait till next week. Anyways, the picture I was going to start talking about is a picture of a walnut. Well thats what sister bettilyon told me it was but I'm not so sure. It's just a bit smaller than my hand and it's green like a tennis ball.

Lets talk about squirels. They are pretty much evil. They are everywhere here. Just running running running back and forth, jumping from tree to tree and oh I almost forgot; Throwing walnuts, acorns, leaves at humans. Not kidding, Its a serious problem, dont walk under a tree if you hear any movment from above. Speaking of critters. They are everywhere. I feel like I'm living in bambi world. There's squirels, bunnies, pretty birds, little deer, other creatures I can't think of right now and (wait for it)...foxes!!!! YES I screamed when I saw my first one yesterday!! Unfortunatly it was when we were driving home last night and I almost nailed it with my front tire as it scampered across the street. but not to worry, it is compleatly ok! Thank goodness, I probably would have cried if i would have ran over a fox. Thank goodness I dont have to worry about running over sharks. I love them too. Ok I think this mission thing is making me weird....or weirder probably.

DAD you captured an elk!!! yes captured. Congratulations!!! and yes you may hang the antlers in my room. only the antlers. no animal heads near where I sleep. :) Also your postagram, What the goodness that was so fantastic, sister b and i were dying over how great it was! That is all i want people to send me from now on, I will only be accepting postagrams!!! I love them! Did austin get an animal too?

Alright, enough nonsense: This week has been pretty fantastic! Actually the begining of the week is pretty foggy in my head but the rest went a little like this...
On Thursday night we went to the Castletons house. Now, the castletons are the most 100% best example of member missionaries, if everyone was like them the entire world would already have recieved the gospel of Jesus Christ and the second coming would be tomorrow(knock on wood) also don't get me started on member missionary work, our ward has some issues with this concept. Ok so brother castleton has been pretty much teaching his friend Phil for months now and has told previous missioanries about him but that he wasn't ready for missionaries. But apparently now he is!!! coincidence?? I think not. :) So he invited us over to his house to meet with phil, it ended up being more of a get to know him (he litterally told us his entire life story....it pretty much is the worst) (he is orthodox and his wife is compleatly kookoo) kind of thing but i think he needed that in order to trust us with teaching him. We invited him to come to church with the castletons and went on our merry way.
He came to church on Sunday and brought his son and daughter!! woo hoo! Church was excellent and tons of people went up and introduced themselves/ said hi and all that goodness! yay! Then the Castletons had invited us over for dinner with phil's fam and the bunkers. We went and it was super great! They have a 14 and 12 year old girls that are super pumped up about the gosple and want to come out with us...I dont think that's allowed but who cares...KIDDING, we are going to check with the DL :) After dinner we shared a quick message about general conference and it was really good, the spirit was super there and everything that was said was straight up from it!
Brother Castleton is going to go to breakfast with phil this week and see what he has to say about everything then we are going to have a little pow wow with him to see what step to take next with phil. Don't worry, He will be a bishop one day. super solid guy!

On Friday night we had a culture night. The idea behind it was that people could bring their friends to it as a non confrentational way to introduce them to the church culture...mostly to show them that mormons arent aliens. Great idea right?! well that didnt really work. Only two members brought a friend and the one wouldn't let us said hi to her friend...but that lady (her name is sister albadine) is a pretty prickly woman. Our ward is pretty diverse so almost everyone has a different culture close to them in their fam history if they are not from a different country. So they all brought a food dish from their contry and we ate. it was fantastic!!!

Also on Friday, we were pretty much stressing over if we would be able to attend the RS meeting on Saturday night. we asked elder marse (our DL) and he said he didn't think we could cause he wasnt alowd to go to priesthood meeting last GC. So the Zone leaders called us that night and told us we could go! we were so excited and happy, we almost started crying for joy! (we had had a pretty crappy evening before they called us) So on Saturday we went to the stake center in Broomall to watch it. yay it was so so so so sos so good! I just loved it! also sister smith and her comp were there so that was happy. Sister Bettilyon has been companions with sister smiths trainer....i think. or they just know eachother really well. speaking of General Conference, it straight up feels like christmas is coming!!!!! (its practically here!)

So last P day we met this ultimate creeper muslim in the library (not that he was creepy because he was muslim...) he gave us a quran and a billion scriptures from the bible that say the name ishmale in them...great. we didnt know what to do with that stupid book so it was just sitting in the middle of our rug like a horcrux for a week, then we gave it to the elders cause they wanted it. We did read the introduction before we gave it away though. it was compleate nonsence. it basically says if you dont speak arabic then this book will not make much sense to you even though it was translated into english...great.


So many more stories and stuff that will just have to wait till...i get home :) Thank Uncle James and Aunt Michelle and all the Burrs thank you for the card and CD they sent. I will always greatfullly welcome a cd :) speaking of, the hymn revival by the lower lights...can i have it? :) also my tan pants from HM? that would be lovely. thanks so much for the clinique goodies mother. also i did write them down for you. its on my green notebook with the flowers on the front that i regretfully left behind...I will never turn down a cute notebook either (rifle paper <3 favorite). President has asked us all to get "the power of everyday missionaries" by clay m christiansen, so that would be nice too. also do you think that i can have/need my navy fall coat? all i have are thin cardigans and a massive winter coat...awkward. wait back to music. the rule is anything that ivites the spirit...including disney apparently...i'm thinkin the song from tangled would be somthing that i absolutly neeeeeed :) Thank the ward for the letter they sent! (shout out to Sister Birks ;))

I love you all and don't be sad that you are not cuddleing with me this conference weekend. I am being well taken care of :) On Saturday we have breakfast and dinner at member homes :) yay. I love it here and i am compleately spoiled to have such a perfect companion and area as my first!!! have a great week and send mail....i have time to read it not so much emails. you could even print off and mail the emails insted cause right now i've just been taking pictuers of the screan and reading them monday night before bed. its really harddd.

LOVe you love you! oh and sister bettilyons dad says he knows someone who knows dad...who is it?

LOVE SISTER BAILEY :) (go be the best member missionaries that you can!!! )

Sister Bailey & Sister Bettilyon

a beautiful house in K Square

9/23/13 | Pennsylvania

Family! I'm serving in WEST CHESTER! Its seriously the cutest place on the entire planet! The town is so cute and you see that house i sent a picture of...well I live there!!! This place is seriously out of control adorable. 

OK, So we flew in last Tuesday. President Anderson and his wife picked us all up and brought them to the mission home. Then we basically just hung out for the rest of the day. Weird. Then members came and picked up the sisters to stay at their houses cause the elders were all staying at the mission home and they dont have enough beds. Sister smith, sister ricks and i went with the mackleroys. They are super cool. They brought us back to the mission home for breakfast and then we went to the church for transfers. :) I was the very last golden sister to be announced. Its so funny its like a game show. Elders and sisters line the gym and the aps announce one by one the new companionship and where they will be serving. Finally my picture showed up on the screen next to sister bettillyon. YAY! She is so cool and nice and we are basically the same exact person. it freaks our district out. We got all of my stuff and headed straight to an appointment at Michelle's house (shes a complete nutcase that really needs to hurry up and accept the gospel) Anyway, She was running around her house doing who knows what so we sat down and were talking to her daughter. We ended up teaching her the first lesson and at the end of the lesson, Sister B nudged me...so I invited Mia to be baptized...and she said yes :) Bam. Then we were off to our next appointment. Gina was in the area book so she was new to both of us. We got to her house and started talking to her. turns out shes a golden investigator too! so end of the lesson comes around and sister b kicks me....alright, I invited her to be baptized too and she said yes and set a date :) alright alright I think I might just have this whole missionary thing down. We had a couple other meetings that night then we went to dinner at the Burtons. They fed us Sour Krout. I have no idea how to spell that. Anyway..it was actually good. weird.
Our district is sisters Bailey and Bettilyon, Elders Mask and Marse, and Sisters Baugh and Bernard. Elder Marse is our District Leader he's been our 6 mo. sister Bettilyon has been our 3 and is already training me! crazy! The elders are spanish speaking and they are in the same ward as us so we see them alot. I like my district. 

This is really hard trying to recount everything that happened this week. So many miracles! Oh goodness. Lets talk about how people need to stop telling me how tall I am. No people, you east coasters are just all midgets. The other night we had dinner at the Fabers. She is a member and her husband is this funniest little jewish man. We were walking out the door and Mr. Faber goes, "wow sister bailey, you are like Mormon Tall"....Uh what the heck does that mean?? so to explain himself he goes on about how this one time he was at BYU and held the door open for 5 super tall pretty mormon girls...so he thinks we are all tall and beautiful...ok Mr. Faber, we'll go ahead and leave on that note...

And everyone keeps asking me if I played Basketball...really I'm not that tall am I? Also, peoples faces always drop when I say I'm from Utah. But I always get some points back when I say I was born in Connecticut. :) The other thing people keep telling me is that I look like someone they know...now I know how dad feels :) 

OK remember that one time we were looking up stuff in Philly? Rita's water ice....ok it is so good!!! you people have no idea what you are missing out on. Drop your snow cones and get out here! They put frozen custard with them. MOM.DAD: you will not believe this stuff. wayyyy better than nielsons. seriously. 

Mom. remember all of those times you say that your house is dirty/messy/etc. oh mom, you have seen NOTHING of the sort! Just believe me. There are so many weird smells here...sometimes the lord blesses us by sending a breeze of fresh air when we are walking home at night :)

Pdays are hard. We have to wash our car! every single Pday. Aint nobody got time for that! We have to drive it down the block, pay THREE  dollars and drive it through the wash. Dang life is hard. Spencer, consider yourself lucky you don't have to deal with this kind of stuff! ;) Ug and we have to drive down the block to do our laundry for free at sister Politos house. Snap! This week is going to be a rough one, no one signed up to feed us on tuesdayAND saturday.. I dont know what we are going to do! haha ok ok I'm done rubbing it in. Mostly my mission is the best and you should all be jealous. Don't get me wrong. We've also had some hard things happen this week. I'm just not going to tell you :) take that. 

Well family, I'll try not to be so scatter brained next week :) Love you love you. I love the pics you send me! also if you send me letters or anything (send me letters and anything) send it to this address:
428 N Church St #5

West Chester PA
19380
:)

Love, Sister Bailey

Sister Bailey & Sister Smith (MTC comp)

Sister Bailey, Sister Anderson, & President Anderson

Alyssa's apartment is in this cute house!

Library across the street

Funeral home across the street

9/11/13 | MTC

Hello family!!

How are you all doing?! I've been getting all of  your dear elders and they make me so happy. My district always gives me a hard time cause I get so many :). Well today is finally Pday and that is seriously the best feeling in the entire world. Sister Smith and I were looking at our schedule for the day and saw that we had 4 hours of unscheduled time...we have no idea what the heck we are going to do with all that free time! It is such a wonderful feeling :) 

Well mostly for Jenna's sake, let me give you a little run down of what actually goes down here at the MTC. On an average day, you wake up at 6 because 30 min is not quite enough time to get ready properly. Then you head over to our classroom where we meet up with the district. Sing, Pray and have an hour of personal study time. Then we have companion study time for 30 more minuets before breakfast where we share our study learning with our comps. Then we all head over to breakfast. It is usually something good. They always have oatmeal yum yum and so many cereals. I seriously have a bowl of fruit loops with every meal. Then after breakfast we go back to our classroom for 30-60 min of study time. Usually this is when we plan lessons for our investigators. (our investigators consist of role playing with one of our teachers and our TRC investigator) Then on days we have TRC, we go teach our TRC investigator. We did that for the first time yesterday and it was an epic fail. We get there and and the lesson is going just fine for about 5 min. Then the supervisor taps on the door and motions to sister smith that we have 1 min left. We are supposed to have 40 min total. So she about has a heart attack and I'm like great, thats totally fine. So we finish our little getting to know Hely Meza (That is straight up her real name) tell her that God loves her and that we would love to come back on thursday. The end bye. Turns our they double booked our districts TRC time with another district and everything got messed up. Whoops. Oh well, it was really a good experience because I'm willing to bet that stuff like that will happen out there in the real mission world. Well maybe we wont be kicked out by some elders that want to teach our investigator but you get the point. Then we have class time for 3 hours straight with sister gibson. She is a really good teacher but super intense. She kinda reminds me of Janelle DeGroot only I like Janelle better :). In class we do alot of role play and learning. Lots of learning. Your mind is ready to explode by lunchtime but it better not because you have another 3 hour block of class time with brother sherk right after lunch. Lunch is usually really fun because we all get a little crazy from sitting in class for so long. Elder Readhead (the one from england) has been telling us the history of the world according to England. It is seriously hilarious. Yesterday he told us about the Irish potato famine and this is how it went: The Irish seriously love their potatoes. One year, their potatoes didnt grow, so instead of eating their sheep, pigs, cows or anything else they had readily avalible, Then hopped on a boat and came to America. Ok I just realized how not funny that story sounds, but imagine a giant british man yelling that in the cafeteria. Really funny :) Then after our second block of class time, we have Zone Teaching. Which is basically one more hour of class time with our entire zone which is three districts, mine, one that is going to tampa and one going to uganda, english speaking, I didnt even know that was a thing...In zone teaching yesterday, I made sister smith cry. We were going on our amost 5th hour straight of role playing (let me tell you it gets a little old after that long) and i was being our TRC investigator. So I pull out my best spanish accent (Seester smeeth!) and she just couldnt handle it and starts laughing so hard she is crying. now it probably didnt help when I turned russian :). and our teacher kept looking at her like what the heck is wrong with you cause i was doing really well with keeping a straight face. ha. So then you go to dinner and have more cereal (2 bowls for dinner) and learn more about how the british dont really learn or acknowlage the revolutionary war...awkward. Then you have more study time in the classroom for an hour, plan with your companion and go back to your residence. Were you get ready for bed, write in your journals and talk about the funny things that happened that day with the sisters. I LOVE THE MTC! Some days you have Gym time. our district has been playing volleyball together and its really fun. On tuesday and sunday nights you have a devotional and it is really really great. The one last night was by Elder Martino. he talked about the importance of having a member be at your lessons. Which is cool cause we had been talking about that as a district earlier and were trying to figure out the requirement of having a member with you at some lessons. But elder martino set us straight. Having a member with you can be so beneficial for the investigator. we went over the story of alma and amulek and how amulek was like the less active that alma brought back to church and then took him with him to preach and my mind is kinda blanking right now but it was really good. I think its in Alma 8:10. go read it. Sundays feel so wonderful. we had the best sacrement meeting i have ever been in my whole life. They have everyone prepare a talk and then the announce who will be speaking after the sacrement and you dont know if it will be you until then and its crazy nerve racking. I didnt have to speak last sunday so that was good.

There are these videos we have been using in class that the new york times made. It's called one in 8 million and its really cool. They have a bunch of small clips on people they found around the city. We watch one, then pretend they are our investigator and plan what you would teach them. because we teach people here, not lessons. You'll learn that very quickly here spanky. 

Sister Smith and I got a calling on sunday. We are the Sister Training Leaders. That means we get to welcome our new district in tonight with the zone leaders and go over stuff with them. Basically be a good example for them while we are here. I am also the "Travel Mum" when we fly out. Elder Readhead started calling me that so now my whole district does. The real name of is is Travel Leader. But i was looking over my responsibilities and basically I just have to make sure we all act like missionaries while traveling and dont miss our flights etc. so travel mum it is.  

Oh so apparently I failed the stress test we all have to take so they made me go to a workshop in the clinic...yay. I was scheduled to go today but i really didnt want to do that on my Pday so i went to see if i could reschedule. so we went and they told me no i couldnt but that i could do it right then. we only had 15 min before class so they said they could make it a 10 min instead of 30 min workshop. Thats exactly what i like to hear. So we get in there and i see a picture of Cameron Gibons on the desk. I ask the shrink his name and he's totally Camerons dad! I told him my dad was Coach Bailey and he just goes on and on about how great dad is bla bla bla seriously for like ever. So dad, you are even popular here at the MTC ;). Also Nate Haug is here!! I see him in the cafeteria almost everyday! I talked to him the other day, i think he said he is going to argentina...or mexico... He is excited Spencer is coming. Hopefully they will see eachother. Elder Parker in my district is from AF and it turns out he is Jessie Ivins cousin! crazy huh! he is really great.  AND OH MY GOODNESS I SAW PRESIDENT AND SISTER ANDERSON. but I'm guessing you already knew that, he probably told you eh? I was sitting in the massive MTC wide RS on sunday on the second row and i look back and there they are sitting in the very back. so after the meeting i rush over and say hi to them. :) they are so nice and i love them. 

Thank you thank for for your love and support. I think of ya'll often and hope you are doing well. Tell Bailey raw raw raw Roar! 

OH before I sign off. let me tell you about elder Issertell. he just graduated from high school so he's 18 and just the sweetest little homesick missionary. the first few days he cried a bit...alot. and we sang families can be together forever on sunday and he lost it. he's just the sweetest thing. he is also pretty OCD. he has more hair products than i do and he uses a blow dryer to do his one inch of hair every morning. He caries a glasses cleaning cloth around so he can keep his badge shiny and finger print free. haha. He also had a little freak out the other day when he realized that he couldnt remember what medicines you could and couldnt take together. sister smith and i started explaining it to him and he shhhed sister smith and said, "I'm going to listen to what sister bailey tells me cause she reminds me of my mom" hahaha 

and let me tell you a bit more about sister smith. She is very very smart. She has a photographic memory and remembers every scripture reference...ever. which has been really nice and usefull. She also is always right...always. or just really thinks she is. I love her though. we get along really well. she makes up analogies on the spot during our lessons and it reminds me of mom.

Ok time to go. does spencer come in at 12:30? cause I have free time then. and most of the rest of the day. hope to see you this afternoon. Love you all! My next p day will be in Philly!!!

Love, Sister Bailey

and you're gunna hear me ROARRRRAAAAAH!

1st Letter!

Alyssa wrote us an email last Friday, but wrote in the email addresses wrong...so we just got her first email today!
Enjoy!

9/6/13

Hi Family! 

The MTC is a magical twilight zone time warp where you forget you are in Provo and time is really odd. You spend 6 hours a day in the same class room and you have 4 hours straight of study time and its totally awesome. My districts is 4 elders and 4 sisters: Elders Issartell (Kaysville), Readhead (Southern England), Harris (Nevada) and Parker (AF), Sisters Smith, Cottam (Taylorsville), Hood (Farmington) and myself. Sister Smith is my companion and we get along so so well. She is very funny and she thinks I'm funny too, I think that's why we get along so well. She is from Bountiful, the oldest of 6 kids I think and the first missionary just like me! She is 19 and just finished her first year at BYU. Sister Cottam is very...musical theater and she has red hair. and Sister Hood is very very quiet. But they are both nice, I think they are having a harder time teaching together than me and sister smith. Sister Smith and I are the dream team so I guess it would be hard to be like us ;). Elders Issartell and Readhead are very funny. Elder Readhead is from England, he's 20 and is a boat mechanic back home. His accent is exactly like Stan Shunpike from Harry Potter, the letter F instead of TH. (nofink insead of nothing) its really entertaining. 

Our teachers are Sister Gibson and Brother Scherk. They are both very good and so different that we get such different insight from both of them. It's really great. The food here is nothing to complain about. You can have fruit loops for every meal...and I do :) Elder Readhead can't understand how Americans eat cereal as a snack. He also eats mayo with everything so who is he to judge. Spencer you are going to love it here. The spirit is seriously so strong and you learn to love everyone; your district, your teachers, your branch president, companion...you name it, you love it. It's amazing how fast your love grows as well. I have only been here for 3 days and I feel like I have known my district for months. I'M JUST SO EXCITED FOR YOU TO EXPERIENCE THIS FOR YOURSELF SPANKY!

Our Zone consists of two districts, the other district has 2 sisters and 3 elders going to Philly with us and 2 sisters and 1 elder going to Tampa Florida (right next to your mission) It will be very sad to see them go to a different mission cause we love them so much too. Our Zone leaders are going to Seattle and our sister training leaders are going to Michigan. It will me sad to not have them come with us too. They have only been here one week longer than us. Weird. 

I got your package in the mail today :) thanks...but I'm not sure how I am going to pack my pillow....and I already bought another alarm clock at the bookstore...whoops. I would like some baby lotion though...I forgot mine. Did you get my letter I sent home? 

Tell Annie I got her lovely note (courtesy of Ryan Awercamp) THANK YOU THANK YOU! That seriously MADE MY DAY!!! 

I ran into Elder Milheim. I had no idea he was going to Taiwan. Also Sister Howden. I guess she is still here cause of a medical issue. So she might have to stay a whole nother transfer. wowza. 

My P day is on wednesday and guess who has free time from 12-2? Thats right me :) Maybe I'll be seeing you ;) We also get to go to the temple on Pday at 3 to do a session, oh how I wish I could have done a session with my dear and only sister Jenna ;). Write write write me. Dear elder is really easy to use (if you did write me already I wont get it till 9:30 when elder readhead passes out mail. he is the district leader) Also where are my french bee's wax creme brulees? ;) 

I hope you are all doing well and I'll most likely be seeing you on wednesday. Spencer a word of advice. stop chewing gum now. you cant have it here and I'm going through withdrawals. 

Oh my guess what!! there is this tree on campus that straight up smells like cream soda...this is not a lie. ask any missionary that went to the MTC. Ok love you love you BYE!

Love, Sister Bailey :)