4/28/14 | A Bedioun, a Congressman and a Missionary.

Good Monday People, 

Went to a fascinating fireside Brother Kruman had at his house last night. He runs the only chapter of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers east of the Mississippi...wonder why it's not more popular out here...

Beadioun: His name is Ishmael (Ish for short) and he is the first Beadioun Diplomat for Israel. Pretty neat. He spoke at a tiny fireside we were at last night and it was really cool to hear what he had to say. He is very nice too and wrote a tiny biography called "A Shepard Journey" go read it and tell me all about it k? He invited us all to go stay with his family in their beadioun village. (HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!--sign me up) 

Congressman: Fitzpatrick to be exact. Never heard of him, but then again I don't know many congressmen on any sort of name basis. His wife and I are basically BFFs. She told me all about her 6 (that's right six) kids and we had a grand old time! 

Monday: Oh don't worry, we just drove 15 min to Pennypack to visit SISTER BETTILYON!!! NBD. I love her so so so much! We could talk for dayyyss! Best p day everrrr

Tuesday: I was feeling sicky sick, but we were going on exchanges, I was supposed to stay in Morrisville with Sister Wilson but then the sisters saw me and thought it would be better for me to go to Doylestown with Sister Shaia because the mission nurse is in their area so we could just to go her house and stuff. So we did and she predicted seasonal allergies from the mold fiasco, just was Dr Charlie diagnosed!!! YAY. Tuesday rolled into thursday and we went did some volunteer work at a thrift shop (favorite service activity!!! you get first dibs on everything) Let me just say that I love sister shaia! I hope we get to serve together one day!!! She is the one from PG (we met her brother in law at CTR Clothing that one time mom?) 

Thursday: We planned. Comp inventoried for...a while. My dear young companion is...I'll leave it at struggling. Let's all pray for her k? Then we had what I like to call a series of miracles! First we went to our dinner apointment at IHOP. The member brought a friend (IBM!) (miracle 1) Then we were driving back and followed a random thought to stop by Jim's house. He came out to his porch and talked with us for a bit. He told us that he just got put on a job site that dosn't allow smoking (miracle two). I got right up into his face and said, "JIM! Do you think God's trying to tell you something?!" he chuckled and said yes. :) He also told us that he wanted to just come to the church the night before becasue he needed peace. He almost called us. (miracle 2.5). Then we followed another random thought to go to the Heaps and on the way I told sister wright to call Lydia (random thought) so she did but no answer. We parked at the heaps and they weren't home...bummer but Lydia called back. I was able to teach her the most incredible lesson over the phone and invite her to be baptized for May 11!!! YEAH! (miracle 3 + 4+ 5) I commited her to pray about the date and to let us know. She texted us back a little while later and said she was ready for a Mothers day baptism! (miracle 6). Random thought back tracked us to the church, on our way we got a HQ referral (miracle 7). We were already headed in that direction so we said let's go see him now! The lord time's everything perfectly so when we got there and couldn't see any house numbers, a guy walked out of his house and so I just asked hiim if he knew an Elvyn. oh it's his dad (miracle 8) His name was Zach and he told us Elvyn would be home tomorrow at 3. Before we left, Random thought me whipped out a book of mormon and said, "listen Zach, I know that this book is true and the things inside will change your life. But you don't have to believe me, will you read it?" Yeah! he exclaimed. (miracle 9). and we made it in and safe by 9 (miracle 10). 

But then things took a turn for the worst when we got to the apartment and our door was wide open....bad feeling took us runnin back to the car to call the DL. he didn't answer so we called the ZL's and told them that if they tried to make us sleep there that night we probably wouldn't be sleeping. So president gave us permission to go stay with the Pennypack sisters. Lovely. The elders came and checked the apartment but we still had this weird bad feeling about staying there. So they gave us blessings and in mine they told me that Heavenly Father agreed with my decision (to not stay the night there). So off we went for a sleepover with Sister Bettilyon and Sister Adams. They actually live in our area...weird so it was nice to be able to work on the other side of our area we usually dont have miles to go to on friday morning. 

Friday: Sister Wright got sick.

Saturday: Special Olympic volunteering and we found a Mini Reading Terminal Marking called Newtown farmers market on our lunch break. 

Well, That about sums up my week folks! 

I've been studying Patterns lately. GOOD STUFF. When I started my studies on thursday morning with this focus, I was thinking it would be about patterns of the priesthood and stuff like that. But the patterns that the modern day prophets focus on are Family, marriage and ...somthing else I wasn't expecting. Hmm I promise my insights on this was really good, I'll expand more next week when I have my notes fresh. 

Love you!!

Sister Bailey

PS. Remember Maddie Peters from West Chester? She just facebook messaged me and told me she finally went to church yesterday!!! HORRAY!

PPS oh yeah we had the most epic adventures in Valley Forge today :) pictures to follow.

Washington's chapel at Valley forge

Valley Forge

4/21/14 | Happy Easter!

Dear Family,

I hope you have all had the chance to watch the #BecauseofHim video at least 13 times. It is so good! and the best best missionary tool! Did you know you can access it on gospel library now? well you can so now you can watch it all day everyday! and share it will everyone you meet! even the cashier at Kohlers. share share share. 

Easter was the best! I had no idea how great it would be as a missionary! Probably my new favorite holiday. Thankfully I'll be able to have two of them out here in the field now that they changed sister missions to 2 years! #hootiehootie oh I forgot they're not announcing that till next conference so keep it on the DL :)

Oh I almost forgot! I have a new companion! Her name is Sister Wright. She is 19, from Thatcher and just very sweet. Been serving in Medford, Jersey. Here's the crayyy part: She just graduated from high school in May!!! like, when spencer graduated! Now that's insanity! She has been out 6 mo. (just a transfer behind me). she likes reading and sports and history kinda stuff, which is perfect because we have lots of history out here. We are planning on going to Valley Forge next week after my doctor appointment and Washington Crossing is like 5 min away from our house so we'll hit that up sometime. I still haven't hit up the historic district in Philly so maybe we'll do that next time we are in the city. I can tell we are going to see many a miracle this transfer. 

Sad: I didn't see sister B yet :( they did transfers different this time (the goldens came in the day after the rest of us did transfers) so she missed normal transfer meeting but get this: She is serving 20 min away from me in Pennypack! So I think we will go see her today :) according to Elder White (AP) They "hooked us up" --ha he called me on monday night to tell me not to worry about not seeing her at transfer meeting because she would be serving real close to me :) #blessed. 

Miracle: Remember Lydia? I think I told you about her. If not, here's a run down: shes 18, lutheren, dropped us 2 weeks ago after we taught her the first 2 lessons (which she loved)--she talked to her pastor and she told her to drop us. Randomly on Saturday night after we were feeling a wee bit discouraged at the way our week had gone, Lydia texted us this, "I had a dream last night that I was baptized at the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Church and I was telling everyone that I was Mormon." I was jumping for joy and so excited and freaking out!!!!! I could barely explain to Sister Wright who Lydia even was i was so excited! So we asked her if she thought God was trying to tell her something. She said yes and wants to start meeting with us again! She came to church with us and stayed for all THREE HOURS! I know the 3 hour block is not really a big deal for us who have been doing it all of our lives but for everyone else...it is a really hard thing! at least for most people i've taught it has been hard. Except for Kollie, he's heaven sent :) I'm actually talking to him right now on facebook. :) what a blessing to be able to keep up with our converts while we are still out here serving! 

Louise: The woman we met cleaning Ann's house a while ago, remember her? Well, we met up with her yesterday and she was so happy to see us! So curious and askes so many questions! We gave her a BOM and she said she would read from it! :) YAY! That's what hooks 'em! 

Worst news on planet earth: My dear Sister Smith (MTC comp) is not coming back to Philly. She will be finishing her mission in SLC probably doing church media stuff (which she will be sosososo good at!) Sad news but for the best I suppose. She's really the best and always sends me the BEST lovely things!!! I LOVE HER! 

Mom, you are getting realllll good at sending me packages!!! The easter one was pure gold! for realllll. You are the best mom in all of China! and the rest of the world ;) it was a woolly woolly special easter package #diedlaughing Thank you 10 fold for the tree of life thingy! That is seriously so so cool! 

I love all of you so so much and pray for you literally 300 times a day. for real. Be safe out there! it's a crazy world! 

Love, Sister Bailey 

3/14/14 | Happy April

I have some really bad news, Sister Menlove is getting transferred :( saddest missionaries in the United States. But I suppose it will be ok right, cause I'm willing to bet that I'll get another really awesome companion, I have a pretty good track record so far. Luckily I've found the silver lining over this: Sister Bettilyon is coming back tomorrow!! which means I get to see her at transfer meeting :)  How about that eh? 

We had the most incredible miracle happen this week. We had some extra time before our dinner appointment on Saturdaynight so we had planned to stop by some potentials on the way. We ended up stopping at a different apartment complex for some reason, we weren't sure why we were there but there was a former that lived there so we knocked on her door. She wasn't home. For some reason we had parked really far across the entire parking lot, so as we were walking back to the car a woman hollered at us, "Hey are you with the church?" Yeah, we replied and walked over to greet her. She needed help moving some flowers from her car to her garden. We gladly helped her with the task. We asked her if she had met missionaries before because she seemed to know who we were. She hadn't, she just knew we were from a church by the way we looked. Come to find out, she is looking for a church to go to and before we could even invite her to come to church with us, she was giving us her contact information so we could come and teach her some time! She ended up coming to sacrament meeting yesterday and absolutely loved it! When the deacons were passing the sacrament, she leaned over and said, "oh I hope I can see my grandson doing that one day!" She commented as she was leaving how normal the service was...lovely. --I'll keep y'all updated on her...I'm sure there are good things to come! 

Family! I am so happy that you are home safe!! Lets make a deal called next time you leave the country--you have to email me with the subject line "in and safe" when you get home so I can see it on my iPad when I check my ward emails. I was soooo worried that you would die or something else really dramatic!!! Probably because someone told us a story about people he knew that went to mexico and they were riding a vespa and a big van drove by and snatched the wife right off the back!!! CRaAAYYYYZY! So I'm glad that didn't happen to you :) and it looks like you had so so much fun! 

We did lots of tracting finding stuff this week, it was fun. The weather is getting so nice and there are flowers everywhere!!! Have you heard of Magnolia trees!? They are everywhere here and so so so beautiful! and they smell soooo niiiice! 

Mumsie: Thank you for sending the motab cd!! It was like you read my mind! I saw it on facebook and thought, oh i would like that :) then here it is! It's so good! 

Oh on Saturday, we went into the city to see a program the stake put on called The Garden. It was sooooo good! Its a michael mclean thing i think. So good! Look it up. so incredible! 

Love you guys! 

Sister Bailey

By the way, every time we do something fun on p day I think: "Oh myyy goodness I cannot wait to take the fam here! They will love it!!!!" Cause you will :) 

PS I found a pretty mint green eyed cat this week. I liked him. I'll send you pics. Sister menlove was convinced it was a feral cat. It probably was. 

ferral cat

crayyyzyyy

Just your average street in philly...

It's called Magic Gardens! 

MAGNOLIAS!!!! They are evrrywehre

4/7/14 | Happy Conference!

Herro Famiry,

First of all I need to apologize publicly to Michael Ammon. please
will you be so kind as to accompany Spencer and I on our incredible
journey across Europe? You will be a grand addition considering you
speak...mandarin, you can speak to all the Chinese tourists for us :).

second of all:  I want to let you know that I am writing this on a
train. We are going to Philly today to have the funnest day ever. When
we were waiting at the train station, I was having flash backs to the
mom Jenna and alyssa excursion into NYC...the one where we missed the
train :) that was fuunnnn

 Wasn't conference the best thing that happened to you this week!? It
was so so so so good! We watched it at the church, that was nice. The
bishops family always watches it at the church too so they took us out
to eat (ironically to a place called Cancun) after Saturday afternoon
sesh. I liked how President Monson talked about being more kind. "It's
not often that we get a second chance to be kind" isn't that the
truth! In zone training this week, the STLs talked about first
impressions and how we only get one. One impression to be kind, one
impression to be Christlike. So let's just all be kind and Christlike
always so we don't have to worry about messing up any of those first
impressions. We'll probably be better off in the eternal run if we
start this practice too :)

We had a really cool experience this week. We have been teaching a
girl named Lydia for about 2 weeks now. Her and her mom are moving out
of a rather large house and into a very small condo so we have also
been helping her pack a little bit. We talked to her mom in the
beginning and she wasn't interested to hear anything we had to share
about the gospel. So we decided to go over to Ly___'s while we knew it
was only her mom there to serve her. Doing random tasks form hanging
the laundry to sorting stuff into donate, sell and keep piles. she has
also hired a woman named Lo___e to help her with the same kind of
tasks. We have gotten to know Louise just a little bit but haven't
talked about the gospel with her yet. On Saturday morning, we went to
serve Ly___'s mom again but instead she sat us down to eat with her.
While we ate she inquired about what we were doing out here exactly.
We got to share a little bit about why we are here and how it all
works (she was more interested in the mechanics of missionary work at
this point). Her heart is being softened.

Then yesterday, we were tracting in a neighborhood right next to the
Delaware river. We get to a lavender door that we have knocked before
without an answer so we decide to try it again. A woman answered the
door and said "oh hi! How are you girls doing!?" It took us a second
to realize who this woman was...then it clicked, it was Louise! She
asked us what we were doing and we told her that we were out doing
missionary work! "Well, I'm catholic but come on in!" She said. We
were welcomed graciously into her home and were able to get to know
Lo___e better. When we left she told us to come back next week. As we
were walking away, we marveled at the lords timing in this!

We met another woman named Anna while looking for her daughter (a
potential) named R___. It was the 2 time since we met R___ that we
have been to her house to look for her. When A___ told us again that
Rosa was not home, we were a little bummed and we about to walk away.
Then A___ started asking us questions about our religion and if we
were Christians. We exclaimed that indeed we were and would love to
tell her all about it. She said she would love to hear about it
because her and her family do not have a church but are good Christian
people. We are going to go see her again on Thursday!

So...y'all are in Mexico this week. What a great missionary
opportunity! Hope you brought some of those blue paperbacks to put to
good use! Pray for a missionary opp. And you will get one! Simple and
awesome as that. There's your commitment. Second commitment is to take
100 pictures and send them all to me!! I'm talking play by play
status! And send me something special like a cape or maracas. Just
kidding don't send me those things....though I'm sure I could put any
sort of instrument to good use :) ohhh listen to how fun this would
be!! Find the missionaries in the area and go out with them. (Mrs boss
mrs boss!!) you would love it! And who cares that you don't speak
Spanish....we are trying to teach a woman that only speaks Spanish
right now...that's an adventure :)

Sister heaps just called me. Have I told you about her? She is he best
best best!!! She used to live in Kennet Square. So they went to west
Chester last night for a court of honor and she called to tells me how
much everyone there loves and misses me and lots of other real nice
things. Apparently one of the so nice things they shared with her
about me is how I can make bread...my secrets out cause now she wants
me to teach her. So that will be fun! Too bad sister menlove can't
have any, oh i just realized I forgot to tell you!!! Sister menlove is
gluten free! Crazy bus!

Have good week

Ps we're on our way home from Philly now! It was sooooo funnnn!! And
while you are in cancun, PLEASE BE SAFE! Love you!!

Sister B