10/27/14 | Helloooooo!

Good Morning Family! 

We had a really miraculous end to our week!  We got word that a new family of recent converts moved into our ward! The mom and one of the daughters were baptized on September 20th and the other daughter was just baptized last week before they moved! We went to meet them and they are filled with testimony and spirit. The mom, Virginia, is so good at teaching her daughters and helping them remember what they have already have learned. We are really excited to be able to work with them. They don't have a car so we scrambled to get them rides to church and it all worked out! They had a good time at church and felt welcomed :). 

Yesterday we had some time in-between our sunday meetings and our dinner appointment so we set out to contact some referrals. We stopped by a man named Dominic--he was a media referral we have been having a hard time getting a hold of. He was home and was so excited to see us! He let us right in and we assumed he was excited because he referred himself online or something. Then he tells us that he had just met the spanish elders the night before and thought they had sent us! We told him they hadn't but that we did have a message that God really wanted him to hear! He got talking about himself a little bit and he read the Book of Mormon 20 years ago but didn't understand it and asked if we could help him. Yes we can! We taught him about the Book of Mormon and that it testifies of Christ as does the Bible. We told him about when Christ came to the Americas and he was so excited! "No way." he exclaimed in shock! He thought it was so marvelous that Christ visited them. We taught him about Moroni's promise and gave him a copy to read before we come back on friday. We are so excited to teach him. 
We were invited to teach the young women for mutual last week along with the other sisters in the Reading wards. It went really well, we taught them all how to teach with the pamphlets and had them role play. It was incredible to see that even though they weren't the best teachers, they took it seriously and were trying. We walked around and helped them when they got stuck and it was just a really joyful experience. 
Sister Casey and I also got to go to early morning seminary to teach about missionary work. I admire the kids that graduate from early morning seminary so much. What a blessing it is to have seminary during school hours! The lesson went well even though they were all pretty sleepy. 

We had a family home evening lesson with the Papenhousens this week. She is recently divorced and having hard time, she has a 4 year old daughter named Lilly. We taught her the plan of salvation with our little cut outs. It was so funny! On mine I drew little houses in each of the kingdoms (castle, cottage and tent) and when we got to the part about the kingdoms we put them all out and asked Lilly which one she would like to live in. First she was really intrigued by the camping idea then she snatched up DJ and Lilly (that's the names of the little cut out friends) and yelled, "Get to the castle! Get to the castle!" We died laughing! But she's right in her urgency! We should all be that enthusiastic about "getting to the castle" :) 

It was our turn to bring treats to district meeting this week (yes, we have treats every week. One of the perks of being in a Sistrict) I found a Lehi Roller Mills pumpkin cookie mix and whipped it up and now everyone thinks I'm a mad cookie genius! We brought some to correlation that night because we borrowed a can of pumpkin from our ward missionary and told her we would share. Mistake: She brought 2 more cans of pumpkin to church on sunday and insisted we make her more cookies. Before we could explain that it was quite impossible she was gone….so we'll see how that goes. Yous should send me some mix, they are quite scrumptious. (Send it with the Leitz, they are brining my suitcase to the house this week :)) 

Speaking of the Leitz, you will LOVE them! I love them and they will probably talk all about me! They are the best. Last time we went over for dinner there was a box of apple cinnamon tea on my plate at the table, I looked at it and sister leitz goes "oh that is for you! I was thinking about you today while I was at the store so I bought you some tea", they know I like tea because I usually drink about half of a pitcher of their peppermint iced tea every time we go over there. So niceeeee! They also met sister bettilyon at the temple sight a week or two ago!

The 2nd ward sisters had a baptism this saturday and they asked me to play a musical number, since I've been companions with both of them--they know my I can play so I couldn't say no ;). I whipped up a little rendition of "when I am baptized" it went pretty well. Sister Casey was supposed to lead the music for the baptism but literally chickened out at the last second…while the introduction was being played…awkward but I just went up and led for her. The baptism was so good! A 19 year old boy named Cody was baptized. 

Guess what we ran into on our hike last week!!!! A waterfall and a wine cellar!! I'll attach pictures :) it was so beautiful and just 5 min from out place. fun fun fun. 

I hope yous have a happy happy happy week! Love you 100 million geese. 

Sister Bailey. 

he wine cellar! yes we went inside..nothing spectacular

an acorn!! I love me a good acorn :) I brought this one home and I'm going to use it for object lessons :)

Reading!

10/20/14

Hi! 

This week was really hard. But good stuff happened too. 

Listen to this: Last week, a less active member named John called the bishop and told him he wanted to come back to church! So the bishop sent us over :)  His friend Kim, who is not a member, is interested in the church too! We got to go overon Friday night and teach them the Restoration! It went really well. I love teaching. and guess what a miracle happened! Sister Casey invited Kim to be baptized! and she said yes! We don't have a date for her yet though. Here's the miracle part about it: That was the first time sister C has invited someone to be baptized without her companion making her do it! YAY! That is a leap. 

I got to go on exchanges with Sister Menlove!!! That was by far the happiest thing of the whole transfer. We did 100 finding and found a new investigator named Ed! He is the sweetest man! He was so excited to see us (he has met elders before) and told us he is going to catch up on his book of mormon reading before we come!!! how cool is that?! No one ever says stuff like that :). 

We also met a girl named Liz Marie, we were trying to set up an appointment with her but she just wanted to come to church :) That's crazy exciting too!!!! 

Here is the funniest story in america:

We went to have dinner at Sister Knights house on monday evening. She is rather old. While we were eating dinner, she stops and exclaims, "Sister Bailey! I saw someone who looks EXACTLY like you in the ensign!!" oh boy, I had just read that ensign for studies and was positive no one looked like me in it. She runs to get her ensign and searches diligently to find me inside. Now, everyone, I want you to get a copy of the october ensign and turn to page 5. Sister Knight proudly holds up the picture of the girl praying and says again, "it looks just like you!" I didn't really know what so say…sister casey just about spit out her food while trying to hold back laughter. Seeing my disbelief, sister knight proceeds to make me pose like the girl in the magazine so sister casey will agree that it looks just like me. So apparently Sister Knight thinks I'm Asian…ha. It's not the first time :). 

Oh goodness family. Missionary life is crazy hard sometimes. Especially when it comes to companions. But it's all worth it. I've just decided that I'm in the very middle of the refiners fire. which is good because that means that whenever this specific hard stuff ends, things will be 100 better and I will be better too. I've been studying how to be happy and have joy because sometimes it is hard. I studied Sister Winders "Finding Joy in Life" for the 100th time. And I also found a good one by Marvin J. Ashton called "Be of Good Cheer" Also very good. 

Fall is being super beautiful here :) I love it. I've been thinking a lot about you familypants this week. I sure do love you a lot a lot. You are all so lovely and happy! keep being the best family in the whole united states! Love you forever!

Sister Bailey 

The Happiest Halloween Cat! #greeneyeslikethecat

Fall Selfie

10/13/14 | HI HI HI!

Hi!

First of all, I dedicate this letter to Mi Mummsie-pants Jo :) HEPPY BIRTHDAYY (tomorrow) and sorry I didn't get your letter in the mail yet, I didn't have time to write it last p day so it will be late. 

Anyways...

I've literally laughed more this week than I did all last transfer. 100 funny things happened and here they are:

1. The STL's (Sister Pickett and Sister Menlove) tried to poison the whole zone. 

It's Thursday morning, which means district meeting. We all arrive around 10 am to study before the meeting starts at 10:30. When Sister Casey and I got there the Sisters were out front of the building picking some berries off a bush. Apparently they had got there 10 minuets early, which is clearly too early to start studying--so being the adventurers they are, they went into the creepy basement to explore! In there excursion, they found a heavy door covered in spider webs. Immediately, both of them sensed a strong desire to find out what lied behind it! So they cautiously pried the door open to find 100 more bugs, but behind the bugs were some stairs…they followed the rickety stairs into the open air to find themselves locked out of the building. They looked around for a bit, being on the far side of the church, a place they had never ventured before. When, from out of the corner of their eyes, shown beautiful bright red juicy berries covering a row of bushes. "We must try them!" they exclaimed and scurried over to them. They tasted them and decided to call them "sugar berries" because they were the sweetest things these sisters had ever tasted. After picking as many as would fit into their hands, they rushed to the front doors to find us and the other missionaries--having desires such as Lehi's to share the berries they knew to be most desirable above all other berries! On there way the decided to make the berries more presentable they would crack open a big green pokey ball they found that had fallen from a tree (strange side note about Pennsylvania: Weird things grow on their trees…they are all around the size of a tennis ball, same in color as well. Some look like a brain and are called "monkey brains" some are soft like and others are spiky!) Being crafty, they split the pokey ball open and made it like a bowl. Then carefully, they placed the precious berries inside. On there way to the primary room (where our district meets) they ran into us, the zone leaders, and the reading 1 elders and sisters. With excitement they told us to try the berries! We all looked at them with skepticism, especially after finding out the origin of the berries. We all knew it was a bad idea…but the sisters made them look so good! Elder Park was the first one to try them, they were good! Sister Pickett ate another to show me that they were quite tasteful so I tried one as welll and it was the sweetest most desirable berry I had ever tasted. Elder Hardy followed suite and so on until most of us had eaten the berries. Many of us ate multiple berries! One of the elders, being very wise, snatched a picture of the berries and scurried away to the family history center immediately after district meeting to find out more about these shiny red berries. About an hour after we had begun our weekly planning, we got a call from the Zone Leaders asking if we were alive. Apparently the berries we had been gladly snacking on were Yew Berries. aka bad news. If you eat 3 of them…you die, but only if you eat the seeds. Luckily none of us ate the seeds because sister pickett warned us that they were nasty. Oh and come to find out, the golden serving in reading 1 knew the whole time what kind of berries they were and that we shouldn't eat them. hmmmm….But none of us died so it's all good.

Morals of the story:

Don't eat berries from the wild…even if they are planted in front of a church building and you check to see that the squirrels eat them too. 

Use your own brain when people you trust try to offer you things you know are bad

Speak up when you know your friends are "eating poison" or doing something that could be spiritually fatal. 

2. ZONE CONFERENCE! 

Go down the road to Emmaus,

Follow the star to Bethlehem,

And eat a sandwich in Nazareth. 

That's how zone conferences go :). We had zone conference this week, which means road trip with sister menlove and pickett. :) We laughed the entire way there…mostly about the berry incident and what would happen if word got to president…ha. We were instructed about patience and it was really good, then we watched meet the mormons :) ISN'T IT GOOD!? (I'm pretty sure Spencer probably watched it this week also, all of the US missions were instructed to watch it this week) I really liked the coach, and also the humanitarian and everyone else. It was so inspiring! And guess what else it it….THE PERFECT MEMBER MISSIONARY TOOL! Unfortunately the closest place for people to go see it is Staten Island but it will be coming out soon on netflix and youtube so everyone can see it! YAY! 

We had a LA we're working with call us and tell us that she is leaving the church…no bueno. So we went and did some damage control there, she got offended by a not very nice lady in the ward. Sister Ballard is doing better now though and coming to church next week. 

We've been doing a lot of cleaning up the ward list lately, meaning finding all of them members we don't know, and if we don't know them then they are usually less active or have moved. During this ongoing project, we knocked on Theresa Wade's door. She is a young mother with beautiful long brown hair, she had big rubber gloves on like she had been scrubbing something or another. She joined us on her porch even though it was pitch black out and explained her situation. Her husband is very very anti to the church. The elders stopped by a couple times and he thought she can set them up to come so he got really mad at her. I felt so sad for her, she had the desire to be apart of the church but couldn't if she wanted her marriage to be a thing. Not knowing what else we could do, I asked her if we could pray with her. She said yes and I said the prayer. It was simple but when I was done, she was in tears, "it's been such a long time since I've prayed" We gave her big hugs and left before her husband knew we had been there. I've been praying for her because that's all we can do at this point. 

On a happier note: Stacey VonStettin! She is one of our investigators, she was baptized a couple years ago but ditched out on her confirmation. We've been trying to set something up with her for ages but she just started a new job and she's one of those "one thing at a time" kind of people. We stopped by on Monday night on a whim and she happily set up an appointment for thursday! yay! We brought Heather Anderson (yw from the ward) and taught the plan of salvation to stacey and her two little boys, Colton and Slater. (8 and 6 I think) They loved it! we used the cut out's I made a while ago. yay. 

I have 4 more things to share…2 about food and 2 that are bad…I think I'll share the food part first :) 

1. I had a genius moment this week after someone gave us salsa and sour cream:

get a bowl

put in a dollop of sour cream

spoon in some salsa

mix

eat with tortilla chips.

it's 100 better than salsa alone. try it.

2. Tajin. 

I'm not sure if I've told you about Tajin. Its a spice thing mexicans eat on allllll fruit! and it's sooooo tasty, find some and sprinkle it on all of your fruit, if you put it on something that is not citrus squeeze some lime juice on it first. YUM

Now to the bad stuff: 

1. Sister Casey might maybe have appendicitis….

symptoms: pain on her right side, below her ribs.

is that appendicitis? it's been going on for 2 weeks apparently. and we called Sister Anderson and she her to do the exact opposite of what the missionary health guide said to do…strange. we need some google or web md! 

2. We found 1 bed bug. 

I don't think we have bed bugs though but we're going through the motions and precautions…aka spraying Permetherine on everything, washing everything we own on HOT, moving our beds away from the walls (they are now awkwardly in the middle of the room) and putting the legs of our beds in bowls of water (they can't swim)

Want to hear the way we found out we had a bed bug?? So Sunday morning, Sis C found a bug and was looking at it real weird. She said she thought it was a tick so I took a peek…Nope, not a tick and I continued to get ready for the day. She cautiously put it in a ziplock and brought it with us to church. Something I thought was rather strange because she didn't tell me she thought it was a bed bug at this point. She pulls it out to ask the elders after ward council…they had no idea. So she asked that smart elder that figured out those berries were poison what it was. He took it with him and we greeted people for church. Then he came back and said we should follow him. So we followed him to the family history center to find the spanish elders and ZL's there too: He broke the news to us. And all the elders proceeded to tell us what we should do and stuff…they have all had bed bugs out here apparently. That night the ZL's came over to our apt to bring us the permetherine. When they went to get it out of the bag they put it in, they realized it had spilled everywhere. They ended up dumping half of it down the sink and mixed up the rest in a spray bottle for us. They also gave sister casey a blessing because we had just connected the dots to possible appendicitis a few hours earlier and she was in a lot of pain. Elder Park did the anointing and forgot the words in english half way through so he awkwardly switched to spanish to finish. It was a little bit funny. 

So regardless of that bad stuff that happened this week, we had a lot of happy smiles! Here's why. I got to talk to Sister Menlove on Thursday while Sister Casey was in the bathroom, I explained to her how things have been going. Sister Casey started doing this thing where she would jump down my throat every time I would say anything…it was really strange so I just stopped talking to her if I didn't have to. Sister M gave me a challenge to serve Sister C 7 times a day. Challenge accepted. It worked like magic! She started being nice to me. waaalaaa! 

Everything's good over here. We are going hiking with Sister Pickett and Sister Menlove this afternoon. It's getting cooler but not cold yet. I'm slowly cracking open my space bags full of cold weather things. The leaves are changing, they change a lot slower here which is wonderful :). Have a happy happy week! Love you!! 

Love you to the squishy and back! 

Sister Bailey 

10/6/14 | ....

"I just want to close my eyes and GO!...let me goooooo far awayyyyy, where its clean and green and pretty, where they went and made a city outta clay." -Newsies 

Ok this week wasn't that bad but that just went though my head and made me laugh. 

Here is some good new of the week: 

         -Sister Menlove is here!!!!! She is Sister Picketts new companion!! They are my STL's and in the same district as me :)yayyyyyyy #tendermercy

         -Elder Mask and Elder Leavitt (I served with them in West Chester) are here in the Zone too! It's like a big old West Chester reunion! How happy is that!! It's really happy in case you didn't actually know. 

Miracles and happy things that happened this week:

1. I had a really good idea on how to use our extra miles for the end of the month (we never ever have extra miles so this was big!) we were going to write thank you cards for some of the leaders of the ward that have been struggling (this is a hard ward) and hand deliver them--let them know that we are here for them and we love them and stuff. So we set out on our epic adventure over and across the entire ward boundary (that's really far). It went so well! We got a phone call from Sister Bright thanking us that night--it made her whole day. and we got to talk to some of the others we gave notes to and they were just so happy to see us. It was so happy making! #spreadjoy!

2.Glorious-the song I shared with youse last week. I had a really good idea to use it as a teaching tool but since it's not on our ipads that was kind of an obstacle...but my iPad is magic! I figured out that if I open up my facebook even if we don't have wifi, it would still magically play that music video! So we were able to have a really good lesson with Sister Ballard on Friday. That music video brings the spirit so so strongly , I think we are going to have to start using it as a finding tool too. Then later that day, we went to sister rayfords and ended up showing her the video too. Right before we shared it, three young girls came in the house. They sat on the couches but didn't seem interested in even looking at us. But while the video was playing, the spirit came into the room so strongly and one of the girls was totally sneak watching it :). After the video, we testified that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that he cares for each and every one of us. We are indeed all "glorious." I turned to the girl that was secret watching and asked her what her name was, it's Lexi. I asked if her family is religious, she told me that they moved to Reading a while back and never found a church they liked, so I asked her if they would be interested in us coming over and sharing what we believe to see if they like it. She lit up and said that would be awesome! She just needed to talk to her parents about it then we could come over!!! yayyyyyy. Then we talked to the other little girls too, they are children of record!! I guess the sisters used to visit them a while back and we asked if we could come over sometime! They said they would just come to the lessons at Sister Rayfords (she's their aunt) yayyy! This is really exciting! Then since the spirit was still uber strong, we asked sister rayford who she knew that would be interested in hearing a message about christ...and she gave us a referrall!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So Good! 

Another really good thing happened early this week  called "chocolate rescue package" I was so surprised!! and it was so happy making. Also, after the responses I've gotten from multiple people after my last email, I want to say sorry for sounding so apparently distraught. I didn't realize I sounded so hopeless. I assure you I am fine. Here's some good news on the subject though: President Anderson called me this week to discuss Sister Casey, we decided it might be best for her and for the area to add another sister into the mix (aka Trio) So that might be happening at the end of this week but I'm not sure. I have some other things to pow wow with President about before it happens. 

So this is how my weekend went: 

GENERAL CONFERENCE! It feels like Christmas when you're in the mission field :). also isn't it fun that we are all doing the same exact thing at the same exact time for 8 hours!! I think that's fun.

We watched (well...attempted to watch) the first session at the church. The visual didn't work and the sound was spotty so we got the bright idea to pull it up on our ipads and set up in a classroom. We missed a few talks because of bad wifi but it was amazing how it would always cut back in at the perfect sentences and phrases! It was like a battle between the dark side trying to not let us watch conference and angels making it work right at the perfect moments :). We missed most of Elder Robins talk though...I could tell it was a good one!! I have to go back and study most of that session. Oh but I'll tell you what I didn't miss: Ni Hao Elder Hong Wong! Is it just me or did he quote some Sagwa Lyrics (Hao Pung Yo!) 

We watched the second session at the Anderson's house. The adversary was at it again because we had a 20 min break mid session while the internet broke. So we missed the begining of Elder Callisters talk...I was really excited to hear that one but I'll have the chance to study it later too. 

After conference we headed home to finish some planning that needed to be done...but when we arrived home, Sister Casey insisted that she needed some time to write out some goals for a while. So I let her....little did I know that it would take her an hour. So I washed 100 dishes while she did that. Then she wanted to discuss them so we did. They were all good goals pertaining to her personal obedience. Our conversation led me to ask her a few questions, one of them being if she had a testimony of the atonement. She started crying and said she wasn't sure if she knew how to use it. I took the opportunity to teach her about the atonement and how to use it simply. As I spoke, the spirit testified strongly and by the end, she said she felt like she could do it. Later that night, I was pondering on the conversation and I had the most distinct feeling that that conversation we had was the reason I stayed here another transfer. That simple teaching moment and discussion about the atonement was important enough and life changing for the both of us, that I had to stay another 6 weeks. It was almost like the spirit confirming to me that I had done everything I could for Sister Casey and my work with her was done. Don't worry, I'm still going to work my hardest while I am here in Reading, it just means I can turn my focus back on the area more. 

Sunday morning session we got to watch at Rose Pogues :) and I believe Mom got a phone call...haha out of nowhere while we were eating the most scrumptious pumpkin waffles drenched in buttermilk syrup, Rose goes "What's your mom's phone number??" So I gave it to her thinking she would send mom a picture or something, but no, she was calling to thank her for the recipe! HA I couldn't stop laughing! I forget that you guys are just a phone call away, that's freaky. Mom, if you heard any laughing in the background it was me :). I loved elder Eyrings talk in that session.

After that we went to visit Sister Gruber and she invited us to watch the afternoon session with her!!! It was so good! Favorites from that one were: Hamula, Ballard, Scott, Godoy and Katcher. 

Then we went home for dinner break and planning.  Then a very curious thing happened...Sister Casey magically turned into the happiest missionary in the united states...She asked if we could go tracking...no one asks if we can go tracking, let alone someone that you have to trick out of the apartment every morning. Very curious. I literally have no idea what's going on with her. Oh well, every day is a surprise! 

Oh more rescues came this week too!!! Matt and Elder B send much need and wonderful pep talks :) thanks favorites! 

So that's how my week went. I'm not really sure how things will play out into next week, stay posted! 

Spencer also sent me some instructions on how to "harvest" so I think I'm going to study that and see what comes of it :) 

Have a happy happy week! I will make this week happy cause I can. ok byeee

Love, Sister Bailey

PS> The Whistle Pigs have been everywhere lately! Gatherin' up food storage for the winter I suppose. 

Conference Set up