Sister Alyssa Bailey: 1/19/15

Greetings from Philadelphia!

I guess yous all heard about the ice storm that rolled through yesterday. Don't worry it wasn't anything to scream about. Just a little bit of freezing rain in the morning, enough to smash our sacrament numbers down to like 15. The cars were grounded so we got a ride with Sister Escudaro (the member we live with). Right before third hour one of the YW came up to us and asked if we would come to YW today. Of course!!! Turns out it was her turn to give the lesson and didn't prepare anything :) so she conned us into giving the lesson. Actually I just gave the lesson because Sister Cost gave the lesson solo last week in gospel principles. So during the opening song, I'm skimming over the lesson, and those come follow me manuals are money!! Seriously there is nothing really to plan for because it plans is for you! When I get home Imma sign up to be a YW teacher the rest of my life. The lesson went well, we read the happily ever after talk by President Uchtdorf and did a little happily ever after activity. Talked about disney princesses and ugly ducklings. it was grand. After church, we got a ride home with the Menezes to their house so we could teach Tyrese. He's their daughters boyfriend we are teaching. While Sister Menezes was cookin up goodness, we taught Tyrese the Plan of Salvation! I love teaching that lesson! He is progressing so well and always asks the best questions! I'm so glad he is comfortable enough to ask so many good questions! ha He laughed at me a couple of times because I was so excited to answer his questions with the scriptures :). We ended up getting stranded at the Menezes because of weather conditions till the evening. Then we went to Jarrettown for a youth fireside with Starr Dunbar, a LA youth we are working with.

Rewind to tuesday: We had the best lesson at the bishops house with Damien (the one getting baptized on Feb 8th) We also taught him the Plan of Salvation and he asked 100 good questions too! You can always tell when someone has real intent and has been keeping commitments in what kind of questions they ask. He wasn't able to come to church yesterday though because of the weather :(

We met with Sister MacDonald again this week (the one we are getting to the temple). She is doing good. We commited her to fully live the word of wisdom (she has been struggling with coffee and that's the only thing holding her back) When we were going to leave, she asked me if I was related to any royalty. I laughed an was like what??! Then she goes on to explain that I am just so graceful in the way I carry myself that I must have royal blood in me. haha

Sister MacDonald called us a couple days later and accused us of praying for her to not have the desire to drink coffee. I was like, ah dang we haven't been actually, but we haave been praying for you in general. Then she tells us that she just woke up the day bbefore and has no desire to drink coffee at all!!! What a miracle!! We were so so so exccited!

District meeting was really good this week. We were learning about revelation by the spiirit, so for the role play we were street contacting someone that had something on theeir mind and we had to address it without knowing what it was. Sister Handy and I were contacting Elder Seeley. We prayed first and pondered for a sec, waiting for the spriit to help us know what we needed to say. Then it came to me, I approached him and introduced us as missionaries, told him that we had a message about how he can make it safely home to his heavenly father. Elder Seeley started to cry and called a time out (we called times whenever the missionaries addressed the concern). He told us that the person he was being had just been in a car accident with him mom, his mom was in the hospital and he was fretting over how he would get home. It's crazy how the spirit helps us know what to say. Going in, I didn't know any of that stuff but the spirit told me what to say and it was specifically to use the word "home." pretty cool.

We had Zone conference on Friday. It was so so so good. Seriously the best zone conference I have been to. Sister Broadbent (the mission shrink) talked about mission stress. President and Sister Anderson and the AP's introduced the new goals and stuff for the year. good good stuff. Got to see a lot of my favorite mission buddies so that was fun. Oh, they had me lead the music for the meeting and it was the best thing ever! For the closing hymn we sang our mission hymn. It was just so powerful to be on the reccieving end of so many powerful missionary singingness! Ah you all would have cried with joy!

So that was basically our week :). We just got back from getting manicures! A member took us :) Also the elders came too and got pedicures! haaaa i'll send a pic. Love you guys so so much and I hope you have a happy week and lots of other stuffy stuff stuff.

Love,

SisterB