always something crazy going on! Tuesday and half of Wednesday this
week was filled with helping missionaries move and get situated for
the upcoming transfer, along with a bunch of other random stuff
missionaries needed. It was hilarious how many missionaries needed
help! We were glad to get back into normal working days again.
Elder Tippetts and I had a fantastic first week of our
companionship! We are already amazing friends, and we both have that
desire to work as hard as we can to find people to teach! Our focus
for our companionship, especially for this transfer, is diligence.
This is something our mission is lacking right now, and we want to set
the example for everyone to change! I've heard from all of my mission
leaders, except for President McMurray, that Tracting is not an
effective way to find people to teach, so we have to focus elsewhere.
This isn't a bad thing to focus mainly on Less Actives, and working
mainly with members, which are both things we need to do as well, but
Elder Tippetts and I are focusing on finding through Tracting. That's
what we did, and we saw the miracles come from it! We talked to a lot
of people, getting rejected many times, but we continued on! We found
seven people who wanted us to come back, and talk to them about the
Gospel more. I'll focus on two of them! The first guy, Joe, was such
a nice guy! We started talking to him, and then I saw he had a bunch
of deer and elk mounted in his house. I complimented him on them, and
that opened the door! He started talking about hunting, then it
turned into his military career. We talked with him for a solid 15-20
minutes, and near the end we offered him a Book Of Mormon, and invited
him to read from it. He happily accepted and said we could come back
in two weeks after he gets back from vacation! How amazing! The next
one was an older lady named Janet. She started to talk with us, and
recognized we were Mormon Missionaries. She offered us some water and
we started to introduce ourselves and to talk about what we do as
missionaries. She listened, then told us her whole life's story. She
has had trouble with another church in the past, and they had
threatened to ruin her life if she exposed them. This was a really
hard time for her, because she felt like she wanted to grow and come
closer to God while going to church, but she was being attacked by the
other people in the church. She ended up not attending that church
anymore, then she tried another church. The first time she attended,
a man came up behind her on the phone with somebody and it was the
leaders of the other church telling them to give her s hard time.
This continued on for many years, and she finally was absolutely done
with organized church's. She expressed to us that she is in the
lowest point of her life right now, and honestly doesn't know what to
do. She wants to attend bible studies, but doesn't want those people
to find out from her church that she is attending. After she
expressed all of her feelings with us, we testified to her that
Heavenly Father loves her, knows her personally, and has a plan for
her! We testified that if she read from the Book Of Mormon, she would
find peace among all of the struggles and trials she was going
through. As we testified to her, the Spirit was so strong! She
started to cry and had to leave to grab a few tissues. It was amazing
to see the Holy Ghost work with someone, and touch her heart! She
accepted a Book Of Mormon, and we invited her to read from it, and to
pray to Heavenly Father to know if it is true. We promised her that
as she did so, she would receive an answer to her prayer. We
scheduled our return appointment for Tuesday, and we will be studying
the Book Of Mormon and the Bible with her. I honestly can't wait! I
can testify that Tracting works! The way the Lord blesses us as we
put forth the effort, and are diligent! I can promise that as you put
forth the effort in anything, Heavenly Father will magnify you more
than you know!
While we were Tracting, we got a random call. The man on the
other end said that this was a relay call, and asked if we had ever
heard of it before. We said we hadn't, so he explained to us that it
was a call from a deaf person who had him type up what we said and he
would say what the deaf person would say back. Turns out it was a man
in the Wyoming State Prison, who is being released soon. He explained
to us that he is a Mormon, but he just isn't baptized because he has
been in prison since he started attending the branch there. He told
us his story, and said he would like to meet with us when he gets out,
so we are really excited to meet with him and teach him! So amazing
how he found our number as well!
We had an amazing free pancake breakfast this past Friday, and it
was fun to see and talk to people. Each day they make thousands and
thousands of pancakes, it's incredible! We were able to do a lot of
service for Cheyenne Frontier Days this past week! On Friday and
Saturday night, we helped out with the ticket offices. Our job was to
make sure everyone had a stamp or a ticket for the concerts or
carnival. We were able to talk to thousands upon thousands of people!
There were a lot of people who recognized us as missionaries and
talked to us, some members came through, but it was so fun to talk to
a ton of different people! It was honestly the best service we could
have done, being able to talk to so many people was amazing! I had a
ton of people ask me how tall I was, and they were just baffled to see
someone that tall, it was hilarious! We were also able to push
handcarts again in the parade on Saturday! It was so fun to be a part
of such a big rodeo! Elder Tippetts and I are already planning on
attending in future years, it's a fun experience! There are a lot of
crazy people that come into town for that, so we had a couple of
hilarious conversations with drunk people, but we were safe so don't
worry! :)
This week was absolutely amazing, and I can't wait to see what
this next one had in store for Elder Tippetts and I! It is so amazing
to see the fruits from our labors, it makes me so happy to know that I
am helping Heavenly Father touch many lives here in Wyoming, I can't
wait to find more of the elect as we tract a ton this week. Remember
Heavenly Father loves you, and knows each of you individually. He
wants us all to be happy, and the Book Of Mormon and Gospel of Jesus
Christ provides that! Hope you all have a fantastic week, thanks for
all of the support!
Love,
Elder Bailey
1-2: found this while Tracting!
3: parade round two
4: makes sense 🍍, only in Wyoming.....
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