1/19/15 | MLKDAY

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

Car Selfie

Guys, I just discovered this week that an omelet is just an egg taco.
So I made some in mini and called them tiny egg tacos. YUMMERTON

1/12/15 | Why am I living somewhere that the air hurts my face??

It's pretty cold here. but nothing like last year. I feel like I can take pretty much any cold compared to last winter. I hear yous are having a pretty mild winter eh? lucky youuuu! The work is picking up hard here! I love it! ITs like we are finally being blessed to see the fruit of our labors! We got 3 member presents this week!!! We are so thrilled! The first one was with a referral from Sister Samaniego. She met Damien at the bus stop a while back and gave him a Book of Mormon and a Bible. We had the lesson at her house and it went so well. He is so prepared. We invited him to be baptized on February 8th and he said yes! We've been able to keep in contact with him as much as possible through the week and he's been reading! He already prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true and got his confirmation. He didn't make it to church this week though cause he was out of town but he is still reading and praying. 

Our second member present was with Nelson Samaniego, Sister Samaniego's husband. He has been taught by his fair share of missionaries but on Friday night, Sister Samaniego called us and told us Brother Samaniego said he was ready to be baptized! We were so so so excited! We went and taught him on Saturday but in the lesson he told us he wasn't ready yet. He didn't know why. We commited him to be baptized and he said yes but not to a specific date. We commited him to read and pray and he did come to church yesterday, so that's good. 
Our third member present was with Tyrese. He was introduced to the church through some friends some years back and met a member of our ward at a stake dance. They started dating and he has been coming to our ward for some months now. His girlfriend just left for BYU Idaho but we taught the lesson at her families house. It was so good! We got them all involved and he was asking questions and I can tell he really wants to know! We commited him to read and pray and be baptized! He said yes! We tried to set a date in February but he said he really wanted his girlfriend to be there. She isn't coming back till her spring break in April, so we set the date for April 12th. Its a little far off but I know he will make it.
Sister Cost did a lot better this week. Ha, last night she told me I'm working her harder than she's ever worked in her life. I think that's good. We read Beware of Pride for comp study this morning and I think she was mad at me. She said it was hard things to hear. I hope she let's her feelings motivate her to diminish her pride. I have really been so much happier this week. I've been stiving to not be so hard on myself. Lately I have been making myself pretty miserable because I'm not perfect. But I've found that when I make a constant conscious effort to understand that we can't be perfect in this life, and have more gratitude, I am so much happier. :) 

I re-studied one of my favorite talks this week, "Becoming Perfect in Christ." But I ended up getting stuck on the definition of "perfect" There are 100 definitions! the first one I found was "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be" That last part really stuck out to me because it equals Striving! That is one of my favorite words! So when we are striving--that is perfection. Another definition pertains to bookbinding; "denoting a way of binding books in which pages are glued to the spine" In latin perfection translates to complete. So when we are 'glued' to christ, we are complete :). That was kinda a nerdy study but I liked it :). 

On Friday, we knocked into an Indian family. They let us right in and then told us they were Pentecostal (red flag). We taught them the restoration and they were kinda nice. I'm starting to wonder if the word "prophet" mean something funny in indian because these people laughed a little bit when I said prophet just like the last indian family...hmmmmm. anyways, they had lots of good questions and the spirit was there!! She started talking about the gift of tongues and I'm over there thinkin, "oh kay PLEASEE don't start speaking in tongues!!!!" luckily she didn't but she asked if we believe in them. I said yes and explained how our beliefs differed on the subject. Maybee I asked her why god would want us to speak a language that no one understoood?? she wasn't too sure...at least I didn't say the word gibberish in that question ;). 

Hope you all have a happy happy week and I hope you are all reading the Book of Mormon!!! time is running out!!!!! (i'm on 2 nefi!) 

love you all 100,000,000

Sister Bailey  

Us with Thyna Menezes! We love the menezes!! They are my brazilian family

Playing a song just for youuuuuuus!

1/5/15

Helloooooo and Happiest New Years to yous! 

Us Pennypackers had a pretty good week over here in Philladelphia. So goldens have to do this thing called the D.I.E.T...I think it stands for dynamic initial entry training or something. It includes 12 week and a bunch of other things like memorizing D&C 4, the standard of truth, D&C 128: something and all of the chapters in PMG (just the title and what order they are in). So for the past 8 weeks I've been checking in with her progress because she insisted on doing it by herself. She's made flash cards about 100 times but they haven't helped. On Tuesday I sat her down and said, "Listen, you need to start memorizing these things because you are running out of time and I will not be one of those trainers that sign off your diet regardless of it if is actually complete. Will you let me help you?" She sighed and said yes. She had the PMG chapters and lessons memorized within 30 min. I told her that if she could still remember them by that night I would sign them off, obviously she remembered because I have method to my madness. That was that. 

On Wednesday we had an appointment with a less active, Sister Frisby. She usually has some sort of weird task for us to complete when we come and calls it service, which we're cool with but this time she sits us on the ground and says our service for her that day would be folding plastic bags..."whattttt??????!" she laughed and demonstrated and explained that they fit better in the closet when they are folded...um yeah either that or you are clearly mental! So that went well and we were able to teach her a lesson using the new years mormon message. Its really good (and funny) so go watch it. We committed her to work on her family scripture study and she ended up coming to church on sunday and bore her testimony and talked about how they've been doing it! wahooo! After that we went to Sister Macdonalds. Her husband, Jude, just died the end of november and was not a member. Her and her son are the only members. We've been slowly inceptioning going to the temple into her mind and that night, sister cost was talking (I don't know if i've told you this but this girl TALKS....a lot! ha anyways) about the blessings of the temple and that is truly is urgent that she get herself there! She has already taken temple prep so I was really listening hard (to sister macdonald and to the spirit) to see what her hold up was. The spirit was really strong and sister cost was running out of convincing words about the temple. Silence fell and all the sudden it felt as if Brother Macdonald was sitting right next to me. Nudging me and saying, "tell her I'll be there." I opened my mouth and said, "Sister Macdonald. I feel really impressed to tell you that your husband will be a the temple with you when you go." Immediately she fell into my arms and cried, "why why why why would you say that????!?" she cried some more and said that she knew my words were true. That he would be there with her and that they could be sealed. She set a goal to get to the temple by easter :). She also came to church yesterday and bore her testimony. 

We spent New Years Eve with the Mauers. It was so. fun. We had to leave early (a: because missionary curfew is the same all year round b: we had a second dinner appointment [don't you hate it when that happens Elder B??]) Second dinner was with the Escudaros! We live with them :) but get this! Sister Escudaro is the only member! It was a really cool experience because their son was there too and so was his friend. We were able to tell them about missionary work and bare our testimonies. It was really cool. 

Then the year ended. Just like that. As I've been reflecting on the year I've had...whoa guys...I've had an incredible and intense and crazypants year!!! I was thinking about how it was exactly one year ago on new years eve I was at the mission home, dropping off Sister Bettilyon :( That was one of the worst, saddest days of my life but I am so grateful for all of the trials I've had this year. 

Anyways, Thursday came and we scrambled with all of our notes and studies to put the finishing touches on our Zone Training training. We ended up being late but we can't let little things like that ruin the beginning of a perfectly new year ;) all went well buuuutt they probably won't have us teach at ZT again. hA. After the meeting we hit thee pavement! We ended up finding a little Indian family! Shobba and Blesson, We taught them the restoration and invited them to be baptized! It was so good! Oh except for when I was teaching the part about Prophets, Blesson (he's 12) busted up laughing randomly...Sister Cost and I look at eachother realll puzzled and Blesson excuses himself, still laughing hysterically. He came back a few min later and apologized. Apparently he had thought of something that happened earlier that made him laugh...12 year olds are weird but it was rather funny. We had dinner with our favorite people, the Mebius's and went to Coorilation; which is always questionably productive. Here's a funny thing: Elder Zolman (one of the ZL's [oh wait! side story to my side story, I left my yoga kittens calendar in our old apt that the elders moved into and apparently they have been enjoying it. They saw that Elder Bailey's birthday is on January 16th and apparently that is Elder Zolmans birthday too! He's the same exact age as you Spence...which is weird to me but it's almost as if you are my ZL spencer!! haaa] anyways, elder Z was telling us about this lady in his last area that told them that if you look at the sun for 40 min a day, you won't have to eat food. yah clearly she is crazy and probably blind. So the day after he told us that, We were driving and the sun was super annoying in my eyes so it made me recall this story. I turn to sister cost and say " hhey remember that crazy lady that thinks you can stare at the sun instead of eat?? youu should try that." We have a good laugh and continue on driving. a few min later sister cost goes, "WHOOOAAAAA!!!!!!!!" She nearly sccared me to death and made me crash the car, I'm like "whatt???" then she exclaims, "ARE THOSE DOGS PURPLE?!!???!???!" apparently she had been staring at the sun and it made the golden retrievers look purple. ha it was funny and 2 lessons were learned. A: goldens will do anything their trainer's suggest and B: Just don't stare at the sun. We told the elders about it later and they got quite a kick out of it. 

Friday we weekly planned and Sister Bennett and Sister Manson joined us then I left witth Sister Bennett for our exchange in Center City. It was good, we had an appointment cancel but got to teach a lady named Sister Antoine (LA). She has had some addictive behaviors get in her way in the past but is clean right now. We were trying to commit her to come to church and such. The lesson was going good but I was doing that listening hard thing again. A moment of silence fell and I told her, "Sister Antoine, don't let your physical body get in the way of promised spiritual blessings." It wwas cool because that tidbit directly from the spirit was the thing that really spoke to her. She repeated the words I just said a couple times. We recommitted her to come to church and she said yes! We ended with a prayer and went on our way. Being in the city was really great, it really made me homesick for Reading though. We also got to go volunteer at this old people place called the watermark. We got there and the lady that assigns them stuff to do was in charge of the old people exercise class for the week so she had us come to that :) oh my it was a tender mercy! I was super car sick feeling and head achey and we did all this stretching and deep breathing stuff that made it all go away! it was theeee besttt! Then she had us take down NYE decorations and we got to talk about missionary work with her. We went into the auditorium where we were ggoing to be working and i looked up and gasped! There was the temple!!! It was a better view than The Roof in SLC! it was cool. when we were leaving, all the old jewish people were setting up for their sacrament meeting...which got me thinking: why do jewish people take their version of the sacrament if they don't believe Jesus is the Christ?? riddle me that. Anyways, Sister Bennett and I had a good evening and talked a lot about how I can help sister cost thrive in the mission field. The next morning we went for a run to the temple sight! it was super cool, i wish I would have had my cameraa...or  camera card. oh well. We exchanged back and went to the bishops son's baptism. Then out into the world we went! Knock knock a knockin! We met 100 rude people that day. Which I've come to be able laugh about but it still hits sister cost pretty hard. Speaking of the people in our nook of Philadelphia...Let me clear some things up: You asked if there were lots of italians in our area, like I said, they are more concentrated in South philly but we do have a lot of them. and according to Sister Cost there are more black people than white people here. She's right, I just don't notice anymore. So there's that. Speaking of ethnicities; We taught the Comegys  that night. One LA, one Investigator and one potential investigator. Their house was invested with roaches and other buggy bugs so they didn't want us to come in (they are subleasing a room in the grubby house) but we weaseled  our way in cause missionaries are sneaky like that. we ended up teaching a really good lesson about the atonement because Nick (PI) had an issue with a bishop he met in the past. It went well except for the part where Nick stopped me randomly and asked if I was German. I said no, "oh you look super German, where is your accent from?? is it Norwegian???" Ok yeah no, I'm just a white girl from utah. People do ask me if I'm German a lot here. Mom, dad, are yous sure wwe dont have ggermans up the blood line?? look into that. Nick and Andrea ended up coming to church yesterday too! 

The Elders had a baptism yesterday, Esther Carnby. She is the coolest lady. She's from liberia and we got to help her in and out of the font. We also got to see her put on her wig. that was cool :). After that, Brother Menezes came out with us to teach a brazilian lady Sister cost and manson found on exchanges. She wasn't home though ;( Then we went and got Maria Nadeem (she's a RC from Pakistan) to come teach Blesson and Shobba with us. They ignored us though when we knocked. :( We ended up going back to Maria's and we got to teach her a lesson. She was talking about how her year has gone and it made me think of the will of god mormon message, so we shared it with her and ended up talking about her serving a mission. She hadn't ever thought about it really so we commited her to pray about it :). yay. she would be suchhhh a good missionary. 

Tonight we have a dinner appointment with Dianna Felton. She is THE coolest southern black lady who insists she is the best cook in the ward! She told us we are having Black Mac. I looked at her all confused when she told me this and she explained that black people make their mac and cheese way better than white people. ha I'll let you knnow what it is they do to it. ok I love you love you love you. I hope your Book of Mormon reading is coming along!! Don't procrastinate! 

Love yous to the Moon!!!

Sister Bailey 

PS. RS lesson yesterday was an intro to their theme this year, they stole the youth theme :) So it's D&C 4:2. We watched the embark video and oh my goodnessssssss. you go watch it right now. it's so good and sister cost and i have been listening to the new youth music on repeat :0 it's goood stuff! 

12/29/14 | HNY

Helloooooooooo!

I'm emailing you from my couch. :) cause I can. We moved into our new apartment on Friday and let me tell you, it's the nicest thing since our new car. I'll send some pics...maybe. Anyways we love it here even though we don't live in our area anymore and we had to leave all of our Russian neighbors which is ok because we traded them for the best Peruvians in America. 

Ah, it was so good to talk to yous on Christmas! Seriously fun and guess what (mom) I didn't even cry after either! I was on cloud 9! Happiest missionary in the united states! So that was fun, I would say lets do it again but I guess we can upgrade in a few months instead. 

Lets see, lets seee....what has happened this week...We finally got our new area book since the switch up and in turn gave all of our investigators to the Elders. We spent christmas at the Menezes, our favorite Brazilians! They are so wonderful. Sister Menezes made the yummiest dinner! Don't worry I'm stealing all of her recipes so yous can get fat too. 

Speaking of the Menezes, let me tell you about their daughter, Bruna's, boyfriend: Tyrese. Tyrese is the greatest and is always at their house, he comes to church with them every week and he works at 5 Guys. He's a manager there so he always tells us to come in and get a free burger. Anyways, we assumed he was a member because everything pointed at that. Wrong. On friday in coordination we found out that he is not a member! What?! So on Saturday we interrupted our weekly planning session for some free 5 guys. We get there and Tyrese comes to the register, we exchange hellos and then point blank ask him, "Tyrese! you're not a member of the church?!" he laughed and said yeah. We told him we had no idea...bla bla bla how crazy is that..."Do you want to get baptized?!" yes! he said. So we are starting to teach him next sunday at the menezes. yay! And yes, 5 guys is better when it's free :). 

Sister Cost told me she had the best christmas of her life. and I am so so happy :) that was my goal for the day :) 

At church on Sunday, a less active member introduced us to his friend Kevin and told us that Kevin wanted to be taught and baptized. AH! ok :) so we set up an appointment with him on Tuesday (plot twist, i looked up his address and he lives in the elder area soo we had to turn him over Unfortunatly but it's still a cool thing. 

Last night we spent some time at Sister Mirochnick's. She is the sweetest lady! She has had cancer a few times but it went into remission over the summer, she just found out it came back again and is now all over her body so she is starting chemo again in a couple weeks. It's super heart breaking. While we were there the Mauer's showed up and we all ended up eating (the best russian food everrrrr) together. It was really great! The Mauer's have been one of those families that we have been trying to win over for a while (a little bit of the judgy type I think) and I think we did it!!!! Because they invited us over for NYE! YEY. They are super cool and he has the STRONGEST Philly accent I've ever heard. I wish I could bottle it up and send it to you. I'm not super good at the Philly accent but I'll keep working on it so I can show you later :). Unless I've already picked it up and haven't realized it!?!?!? Did I talk funny the other day?!!??. ha. 

We have to teach in Zone Training again this week. Apparently we did too good of a job last time and so they want us to teach again for longer....I'm not super excited about it but I know it will work out. 

GGuys! this is really random but I found something really cool today, It's called Plum Vida (you know the squishy baby food stack we like) and it's Pineapple, Carrot and Mint. Yum. I'm reallllll excited. I'll let you know if it's good. ok as I wrote that I thought that maybe the thing I found should have been a spiritual thought so here's a good one.. by elder holland “You can’t separate Bethlehem from Gethsemane or the hasty flight into Egypt from the slow journey to the summit of Calvary. It’s of one piece. It is a single plan. It considers ‘the fall and rising again of many in Israel’ [Luke 2:34], but always in that order. Christmas is joyful not because it is a season or decade or lifetime without pain and privation, but precisely because life does hold those moments for us." 

II liked that because people out here seem to have an easy time remembering christ at christmas time but then he is gone only to brisk their thoughts again at easter. The Christmas spirit is something we need all year round. Maybe keep that in mind as you set some goals and plans for the new year. Remember the "wise men still seek him" mormon message?? that's a good one too. 

Now for some follow up: What page of the Book of Mormon are all of you on??????? it's not too late to start if you havent yet but remember you only have till March 17 till I come and you get to be tell me face to face weather you have compleated it or not :) 

also did you watch the angels we have heard on high piano guys video??? tell me if you liked it! (ok i already know you loved it so I guess you can tell me how many times you watched it :)) 

Love you all a million hundred. Have a happy happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Byeee 

Sister Bailey Loves YOU!

12/22/14 | Merriest of Merries!

Christmas is coming!!!...it's practically hereeeee!!!
Whoa, this week was a good one, we were able to be a part of the most
incredible lesson! Last Sunday Bishop Ackerman invited us to come to
his house on Thursday for dinner and a lesson with a member and his
non member girlfriend named Sara. (whoot! IBM). Fast forward to
Thursday night when we arrive at Bishops house, Then Ardit (the
member) and Sara arrive! We greeted them and Sara was all like, I am
so glad it's you!!! uhhh what?? Turns out she was at church last week
and heard us speak in sacrament meeting, she had been worried which
missionaries would be the ones teaching her that night. haha. We had a
wonderful meal and got to know Sara more. She and Ardit had been
dating for a while now and she finally decided that she wants the
gospel in her life. We sat down for the lesson and said a prayer. The
spirit was so strong. Literally the strongest I have ever felt it in a
lesson. We taught the restoration and even though we are not perfect
teachers, the spirit was testifying of everything we taught. Bishop
helped us teach a lot and it was just wonderful. I invited Sara to be
baptized and she said yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR
HER! She was trying to describe what she was feeling (the spirit) and
said that it felt like she was finally home for the first time. I
thought that was cool. We explained to her that it was the spirit and
she said it was such a strong feeling you could cut it with a knife!
:) Wow it was good. Then bishop was like, Now, we need to talk about
where you live sara. And I'm all thinking "oh no! They live together
and aren't living the law of chastity and this is going to be a
problem because she can't get baptized until she moves out bla bla
bla...." Then she tells us she lives in Norristown. (wayyy out of our
area, clear next to west chester) So I'm all like "oh thank goodness"
and sister cost is basically crying in the corner because we can't
teach her. Anyways, we were so so sad that we can't teach her but i'm
so glad that she is going to get baptized and that we were able to be
apart of her first lesson. Oh how I hope all of you get an experience
like that in your life time. :)
We also got to teach my new best friend Greg this week. He's 10 and
we're pretty sure he has ADHD. Oh it was a wonderful lesson! We
brought the primary president with us because greg thinks primary is
boring so we brought her to convince him otherwise :). we're sneaky
like that. The lesson went so good, he is a super genius. We taught
him the gospel of Jesus Christ with the gospel nails object lesson. He
loved it! I'll have to show you that one sometime, it's pretty neat.
He also came to the ward christmas party on Saturday!! yay! (but was
sick on Sunday so he didn't get to come to church but guess what that
his (LA) Grandpa came! yay)
We called a girl named Nicole this week to set up an appointment with
her (we are taking over the other  sisters area since they got
transferred and she was in their notes), while we were talking with
her we invited her to come to the ward christmas party and SHE
CAME!!!!!! WHAT?! that never happens! We were so so so excited and she
has 2 of the cutest baby girls I have ever seen! She didn't make it to
church like she planned on but we are meeting with her tomorrow. I
guess her husband is in prison and is a member and when he found out
she was in contact with the missionaries he was so excited, so that's
really good.
We've been meeting with a less active family named the McCrory's and
they are fantastic, they had us over for dinner this week. It will
take a while for them to be reactivated but I'm sure some day it will
happen. Unfortuatly with the boundary changes we have to turn their
teaching over to the Elders. Oh well.
We also got to meet with the Rivera Family. He is a member but none of
the kids or his wife are. We taught them the plan of salvation using
my little cut out buddies and it went so well! I've been making Sister
Cost lead out all of the lessons this week and she's been doing good!
Even though she dosn't think so. At the end of that lessson we invited
them to be baptized, Sister Rivera said maybe but that she wanted her
kids to all be baptized. YAY, maybe isn't no! We have to give them to
the elders too but hopefully we'll see them at church.
I am oh so glad I get to talk to yous this week! Ah I can't even
believe it :). We have christmas conference tomorrow so I'll be
getting your packages then :)! yayyyy. k I don't really have anything
else to say since i'll be talking to you so soon! hootie hootie!

LOVE<3 Sister Bailey

12/15/14 | Hello from Pennypack

Happy Happy Merry Merry! 

I am SO excited for Christmas! We had a super week filled with Christmas Spirit and pass along cards. The coolest thing happened!We were leaving an appointment with a less active and were headed to the car. We saw a woman moving around her garbage cans and stopped to help her. I introduced us as missionaries, we got talking, and I asked her if she celebrated Christmas. She said she "sort of did Christmas." I chuckled a little and asked her what on earth that meant! She then went on to tell us how she really hated how Christmas has turned into such a commercial holiday that came with so much stress instead of joy and peace. We readily agreed with her and went on to tell her about the message we have been sharing with everyone this season. She was very excited to see 'He is the Gift' and invited us over the next day to show her and her eight year old granddaughter! (They had to reschedule because they got sick, but we've been in contact with her and she is still really looking forward to having us over.) 

After our conversation with that woman, we continued down the street, away from our car for some reason. Just a few houses down, a woman (Johannah) emerged and asked from her porch, "Hey did you girls say you were missionaries?!" (she had heard us talking to her neighbor down the street and had gone in her house and waited patiently for us to walk by) "Yes! we are missionaries!" we replied as we walked through her gate and up to her door. She sat down on her stairs and told us that her mother had died within the past year and she was having a really hard time with it. We were able to teach and testify of the plan of salvation right then and there! Then she told us about a friend she has who the missionaries found, taught and baptized. She has been able to witness the complete turn around he has been able to make in his life with the gospel and wants the same for herself. We will hopefully be able to meet with her this week. 

Ah, this was just the coolest experience for me because I usually don't introduce us as missionaries. I try to tell them that we are servants of the lord or messengers of god because people get freaked out by the word 'missionary.' But for some reason I said it that day. I am so grateful I did! If I hadn't, Johannah wouldn't have stopped us! And I have no idea why we even walked down the street instead of going to our car. I guess the spirit can prompt us to do thing without us even realizing it sometimes. 

We had Golden Retraining on Tuesday, It's this 5 hour meeting that trainers and golden's get to go to and it's the best! President and Sister Anderson and the AP's taught us 100 good things! We watched a talk called "It's better to Look up" by Elder Someone Cook. New favorite. Also, when we first got to the meeting, I went up and played the prelude music cause no one else was. People were bustling around getting settled and President came in. He walked right up to the stand and leaned over to me. Right up in my face he says to me, "You have been hiding that  from me your whole misssion!?!" haaaa, well most of my Zone's know I play, I told him. " Ah! just keep playing!" he instructed and walked away. Looks like I've got to watch my back at missionary meetings from here on out :). Oh then Elder Tarry was conducting and announced the song and prayer bla bla bla, then turns to me and is like, Oh and sister bailey will you play? And that is why I don't play at missionary meetings. because then they ask you to play and you've got to say, uh yeah, no I can't read music. and everyone stares at you real funny like you are a lying lie face because clearly you can play the piano. Yeah so that happened :). 

On Wednesday the YW had young women's in excellence thingy. They asked me to speak at it and it went pretty well.Thursday it snowed!!! and stuck but then melted so still no snow on the ground up here but I'm not sad. We had district meeting in Jerettown so we had to go pick up the elders (they don't have a car) and drive for an hour, which is strange considering that it was supposed to me 15 min away. We had the best meeting. Elder Millerberg taught us about Elias and how he is a person back in Noah time but that Elias is also a title meaning forerunner or  restorer. Look it up in the guide to the scriptures, there is some pretty cool stuff in there. We also learned about family history work. I got on family search and guess what, Reva Petersen isn't on my trree. mom, can you do me a favor and go in to my family serch and get that sorted out??? I dont want to break it :). After the meeting we got to have lunch with the Carrs! They are the ones overseeing the temple sight. They fed our whole Zone a Christmas feast! It was wonderful! 

I gave a talk yesterday about sharing the gift. It went rather well, sister cost spoke too. They are changing up our area this transfer, The other sisters that were in pennypack are being doubled out and our district leader is now our zone leader which leaves our district without a district leader and I highly doubt they will put more elders into our ward so we might be experiencing some zone boundary changes this week. Our area is probably going to be doubling in size so that should be a fun take over. The Pennypack ward is awesome! We seriously love it here! 

Love you all 100

Sister Bailey 

12/8/14 | Hellooo

Dear Family 

How are you all doing?! I'm good because I'm eating hi-chews as I type this. We had a really quite memorable week :). Lets start with...

MONDAY: We had the most smashing day in Center City Philadelphia! We took the subway and Sister Cost was freaking out with excitement (she had never been on the subway before) We got off at City Hall (its a super cool station, it comes up above ground in the middle of city hall...just google it, it's cool. We made our way across the street to Love Park to find the Christmas Village. That is my favorite christmas thing ever! I think I'll come every year. We went and saw all the vendors and marveled at their very costly things before we settled on buying some foreign cheese and calling it quits. From there we made our way to the temple! Oh my goodness it is coming along so nicely!!!! Its so big! Here is something fun to know about it, when the church was working with the city of Philadelphia to get the building permits and other tedious things sorted out, the Catholic church threw a fit and said that the temple couldn't be taller than their cathedral just a few blocks away. The church complied and made it the exact same height, but because of a slight incline of the land, our temple is a wee bit taller :). thats all. Anyways, as we were walking up the block to the temple, guess who we saw......Sister Bettilyon!!!! WAaaahooooo! What a coincidence right?!  Just kidding there are no such things as coincidences, especially when you invite your favorite people to meet you in the city on p day :). So we made our way back to Love Park with her and her companion (Sister Larsen from Alpine!) and then we met up with Sister Shaia! oh my goodness right?! thats way too many fun people in the same place to be allowed. We took 100 pictures and then went to grab some foods at Reading Terminal Market. YUM. There we found Sister Manson! here is a fun story about running into her: We had planned on meeting her and had called her earlier to see where they were. they were still doing chores and said they would call us when they were done. Our phone is very special and decided not to do anything when they called 100 times. :( So they gave up on trying to find us and were starving to death so they moseyed their way to the Market. Sister Manson was having a sad day and really wanted to see me badly, so she closed her eyes and said a little prayer pleading to Heavenly Father to let them find us somehow. Right when she opened her eyes, there I was waving vigorously from  across the way! Happy Happy Happy! After Lunch we made the trek to the rocky steps and marveled at what a beautiful city we were in at the top. Ah, Philadelphia truly is beautiful. (Mom and Dad, you know...NYC is just a short train ride away, haha) Oh I forgot to mention what a warm day it was too! all the way up in the 60's! I didn't even wear a coat :). Night was falling, so we made our way back to the subway station to findd that  sister cost had lost her subway token, unfortunate. We ended up having to baack ttrack to the station that sold tokens but it was all good. That night we taught a leess active  familiy.  yay. 

Wednesday: 

We had interviews with President Anderson!!! I Love President Anderson. We had a wonderful chat. When I first got in there, he looked at me and said, "Sister Bailey, Sister  Cost thinks you walk on water!" Ah I chuckled a bit and said "I know, its the worst" He smiled real big and said that he agreed with her. He went on to contemplate what he was going to do without me when I go home. I told him to just let me stay!!! but he can't, oh well it was worth a try. He has some big big plans for the pennypack area. He had me draw our the ward boundaries and the missionary area boundaries on the chalk board and we discussed possibilities of changes to be made. Our ward has too many mmissionaries so he wanted to pick my brain on how I would change stuff. It was good.

That night we taught a new less active that contacted the bishop because she wants to ccome back!!! Her name is Belinda and I think she is secretly a model, but her cover is tthat she works at a bank. She is so ready to come back to church it is incredible! and she wants to get into family history! 

Thursday: Zone Training. We were asked to teach for a portion of the training about Repentance and Companionship Unity. It went so well! We had been preparing when we had spare time through the week and I was wondering how it would all come together. Let me tell you how it came together: the Holy Ghost! We had prepared as much as we possibly could and just jumped into it with faith so the holy ghost helped us and made up the difference in our message. Me and the Holy Ghost came up with the 7 Be's to a Happy Companionship during one of my personal studies earlier in the week :). They are:

Be Meek

Be Humble

Be Honest

Be Patient

Be Sorry

Be Repentant

Be a Listener 

We taught some other stuff with it too and everyone loved it! The Zone Leaders had asked me to do the musical number too so I whipped up a little mash-up of "when I am baptized" and "let zion in her beauty rise" and roped sister cost, sister clark and sister ricks to sing. It went really well! I just love the spirit music brings! After the meeting we had trainer accountability with the Zone Leaders and gave them a double in list before we hit the pavement. 

Friday: Exchanges 

Sister Manson came to work in Pennypack with me for the day. We had the most incredible day! Sister cost and I had identified a street we wanted to knock (due to all of the christmas lights we saw on it) so I took sister Manson there and we started knocking with little success. So we switched to talking to literally every person that we saw on that street, weather they were just walking by or getting in or out of their car etc etc. It was incredible! We ended up staying on that one half block for at least 3 hours. One girl, named Becky, we knocked on her door and used the he is the gift approach. she was interested and we showed it to her right there on her doorstep #iPadblessing. She wants to meet with us again! Elder Millerberg (our district leader) came up with a facebook project for our district. With every person we talk to about he is the gift, we are to take a selfie with them and the card, post it on facebook, tag them and have them share it on their wall. cool huh, so we took a selfie with becky and are super excited to meet with her again. Then we talked to a man named Tom who was getting out of his car with his son, his son was rude and stomped into the house but tom stayed out to talk with us. We shared the he is the gift video and he wants to come to church! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so excited to read it1 (he didnt end up being able to come to church this week because of his work but he is coming next week!) Then we ran into a rude woman to told us to bug off. very rude. (I'm telling you this for a reason, remember this lady). We went about our business talking to everyone. Lots of rude Philadelphians, lots of nice-ish (nice by east coast standards, which apparently isnt nice but I can't tell anymore) people. We stopped and talked to a woman smoking on her porch. She wasn't interested but somehow found herself walking from the cover of her porch (it was raining) down her sidewalk and to her gate where we were waiting to talk to her. Turns out she is Puerto Rican and lives down there for half of the year. She recognized our tags, put two and two together and told us about the Elders that visit her in Puerto Rico. She said she sees them all the time and always invites them in for a break and drink of water. I asked her if she knew what they taught people and she said no. She still wasnt interested in hearing it from us but I asked her if she would do something for me. I pulled out a restoration pamplet and told her that we teach people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I asked her to, whenn she was in puerto rico next week and saw the elders, to pull our this pamphlet and ask them to teach her. I explained that they would be so shocked and thrilled! I wrotte our  name and phone number on the back and told her to call us and tell us their reaction to our little prank :) She laughed and delightfully agreed! Now when the elders teach her, she will feel the spirit and be baptized before the returns to the US! After that eencounter  we made our way back down the street. We ran into that mean woman again, she was clearly still angry and trying to wash her windows. We opened her gate and approached her, she assured us that she wasn't interested but that we could knockk on her door and see if her boyfriend was interested. We watched her struggle for a moment, then I told her that I would be washing her windows today. She looked att me like I was mad but agreed because of my height advantage. As I washed her winddows  we were able to talk with her and get to know her. Let me just tell you taht  sservice  seriously softens hearts because by the end of or talk with her. she was hugging us (liek  5 times each) and saying that she knew it was no coincidence that we ccame to her her that day. We had a return appointment with her on wednesday  :). That night we taught Ross (after our dinner appointment where the members made us wwalk ttheir ddog...) oh my she is a hard one to teach. She is all over the place! First we get there and she makes me heal her bleeding cat with some ointment..the cat seriously hated it and tried to kill me. Ross kept bringing up strange hebrew and jewish books and dead sea scrolls and weird stuff I dont know about. It was rough. 

Sunday! 

We got to watch the devotional! Want to know my favorite part?? The part where everryone sang together and I couldnt help but think about all you hooligans singing at tthe same time with me :) Guess what! Before the devo, there were people practicing sinnging for the mesiah sing a long in the chapel, and I knew most of them!! they were all from the morrisville ward! It was so fun to see them all!

Well family, I love you so so much. all the way to the moon and back (speaking of, did you see the moon the last night!? it was incredible!) I hope you happy week. I get to speak at young womens in excelence on wednesday and then speak again in church onn sunday so wish me luck! You all mean the world to me :) mmmmwwaaahh! 

Love, Sister B. 

Sister Bailey Loves YOU!