Many miracles this week! Wow! Last Tuesday night after dinner, we were walking around near our apartment, and we saw a young family and another family outside talking together. We started to speak with them, and the first person to actually speak with us was a 9 year old girl. She came up to us after we introduced ourselves and said, “I know who you guys are, I’ve always wanted to be baptized but my mom hasn’t let me!” This was quite the surprise that she had such a great desire to be baptized! Turns out her mom is an inactive member, I will talk for about them a little later! The other family started to speak with us, mainly the father, and we had a great conversation! After about 20 minutes of us talking outside their apartment, he invited us in and we spoke for about an hour and a half! We mainly listened to him, but every so often we were able to testify of what we know to be true. When we were leaving, the man told us that him and his wife have truly tried to believe in a God, to believe in a religion, but just haven’t been able to feel what is right. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with him. We invited him to give it one more try, and to read The Book of Mormon with a sincere heart and pray to know if it is true with real intent! The Spirit was testifying to him, we could feel it! He accepted a copy and said he would try it out! Can’t wait to check back in with him!
The very next day we went and checked in with the inactive lady and her daughter. The day prior the lady had acted very standoffish, but when we talked with her that night she was very open and receptive! She told us how her life has been a huge struggle the past couple of years, and she has not been to church for quite a while (a few years). We asked her what is keeping her from coming to church, and she said that she feels like she would be judged by others. We assured her that she would not be judged, people would love her, and that going to church was for her! She told us she wants to attend. She then told us that she wants us to come and teach her daughter before she gets baptized, so that will be amazing! What a huge miracle! Heavenly Father is mindful of all of His children, and we were able to be instruments in His hands to find and talk to these individuals, how incredible!
I had the privilege to go on exchanges with Elder Fonotisetele this past week, and it was a great exchange! He is an awesome Polynesian from the Ogden Utah area. The main success we were able to see was while we went Tracting. We first saw a man mowing lawns in the trailer park we were Tracting in, and we walked up and spoke with him. He was a non-denominational Christian, and we talked with him about our unique message. He seemed a little standoffish, but then Elder Fonotisetele comes in and pulls out the scriptures! He read Moroni 10:3-5 with him, and explained how as we heed upon Moroni’s council and truly read with an open heart and pray with real intent, we can know the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon! The man ended up lightening up after Elder Fonotisetele read with him, and accepted a copy! The scriptures are more powerful than we realize! Truly a miracle! We also found a less active YSA age girl who said we could come back and visit her, but we are going to refer her to the YSA Sisters! Great time Tracting with Elder Fono! He is truly an amazing missionary!
I had the privilege of performing another baptismal Interview this past week, and it went pretty well! It was for a 9 year old girl. Her grandpa joined us for the interview. It was a little hard to keep her focused, but it ended up great! It is always a really cool to see and hear people’s conversion stories. I think I’ve said this before, but I absolutely LOVE Baptismal interviews!!!! Glad I was able to perform another one.
Last Friday we had Zone Conference, what a treat! We got to hear some great trainings from President and Sister McMurray, and from the Assistants! It is always amazing to hear from each of them!!! The main focus of our meeting was from Preach My Gospel Ch.4, “How Do I Recognize and Understand the Spirit?” What an amazing focus! This has always been one of my favorite chapters from Preach My Gospel. I could go on forever talking about all of the things I got out of this meeting, but I will focus on a few things. President McMurray focused on how we have seen many instances lately about revelation. The first ones from General Conference this past spring, and the recent updates in Preach My Gospel! Both are great examples of revelation from God given to His prophets and apostles. Truly amazing that we have witnessed all of these things! We also heard from the Casper Stake President, President Smathers! Wow! He is an inspired man! One quote I loved that he said was this, “we have the same privilege as the Savior, to submit our will to Heavenly Father!” Wow, just think about that! The Assistants came in after and blew us all away, and invited us to focus up, be missionaries at all times, think about the work first and ourselves after we do the work! They read D&C 112:28 and Helaman 10:4, and invited us to make a list of how we can purify our lives! Man I love those guys, they’re awesome! Well, we also got to hear all of the departing testimonies. I have quite a few friends leaving us, so that was such a crazy thing! Overall, it was a great meeting, can’t complain!!
After Zone Conference, we headed home and set some daily finding goals. That is one thing that President has been stressing lately, but especially during our meeting. We set our finding goals for the day at 5:30, and by 8:15 we had met all of our goals we set!!! It was such a testament builder about how important setting goals are! I’ll share a story about what happened. We got out of dinner, and it was very close to where the YSA Sisters lived. We saw they were home, so we went and asked them if they had any neighbors who would be interested in our message, and they pointed to a couple of doors. We went and knocked, talked with a bunch of people, and a teenage boy accepted a copy to The Book of Mormon, and invited him to read and pray. We got his number so we can get a hold of him later! On the last door the sisters told us to knock, we met a man David. He answered in his full military uniform, and we asked him if we could share a message about Jesus Christ with him. He told us he would love to hear our message! We testified to him, read Moroni 10:3-5, and invited him to read and pray to know if it is true! The Spirit was so strong! David pulled out his dog tag and had us read it, he turned out to be a Mormon! He just wanted to hear what we had to say first. He told us how he hadn’t been to church for a few years, and how his life is going crazy right now. He is going through a rough divorce, and wants to come back to church! After listening to him, we invited him to come to church this Sunday, and he said he would love to! He ended up not being able to make it, but we will get in contact with him this week! We promised him he would find comfort in the Gospel through these rough times, and I am a firm believer in that!!!
We had interviews with President the very next day, nice and early in the morning! I feel Jesus Christ love for me as I talk with President, it is incredible! I love him and Sister McMurray so much!! I feel so uplifted, inspired, and loved every interview I have with him. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has placed President McMurray as my mission president, what a blessing!
We taught a recent convert lesson to Scott Saulnier this past Sunday with Dallin, a priest from our ward who is preparing to serve his mission in Alabama! We taught Lesson 3, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went so well, and Dallin is such a great teacher! He will be a great missionary! Scott is a very committed, solid convert to the church. It is amazing to see his faith, and continuous conversion happening day by day! Glad to be able to work with Scott, and teach him more about the gospel!
The scripture I wanted to share this week is in D&C 9:7-9, it was shared by President McMurray at Zone Conference! It says,
The very next day we went and checked in with the inactive lady and her daughter. The day prior the lady had acted very standoffish, but when we talked with her that night she was very open and receptive! She told us how her life has been a huge struggle the past couple of years, and she has not been to church for quite a while (a few years). We asked her what is keeping her from coming to church, and she said that she feels like she would be judged by others. We assured her that she would not be judged, people would love her, and that going to church was for her! She told us she wants to attend. She then told us that she wants us to come and teach her daughter before she gets baptized, so that will be amazing! What a huge miracle! Heavenly Father is mindful of all of His children, and we were able to be instruments in His hands to find and talk to these individuals, how incredible!
I had the privilege to go on exchanges with Elder Fonotisetele this past week, and it was a great exchange! He is an awesome Polynesian from the Ogden Utah area. The main success we were able to see was while we went Tracting. We first saw a man mowing lawns in the trailer park we were Tracting in, and we walked up and spoke with him. He was a non-denominational Christian, and we talked with him about our unique message. He seemed a little standoffish, but then Elder Fonotisetele comes in and pulls out the scriptures! He read Moroni 10:3-5 with him, and explained how as we heed upon Moroni’s council and truly read with an open heart and pray with real intent, we can know the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon! The man ended up lightening up after Elder Fonotisetele read with him, and accepted a copy! The scriptures are more powerful than we realize! Truly a miracle! We also found a less active YSA age girl who said we could come back and visit her, but we are going to refer her to the YSA Sisters! Great time Tracting with Elder Fono! He is truly an amazing missionary!
I had the privilege of performing another baptismal Interview this past week, and it went pretty well! It was for a 9 year old girl. Her grandpa joined us for the interview. It was a little hard to keep her focused, but it ended up great! It is always a really cool to see and hear people’s conversion stories. I think I’ve said this before, but I absolutely LOVE Baptismal interviews!!!! Glad I was able to perform another one.
Last Friday we had Zone Conference, what a treat! We got to hear some great trainings from President and Sister McMurray, and from the Assistants! It is always amazing to hear from each of them!!! The main focus of our meeting was from Preach My Gospel Ch.4, “How Do I Recognize and Understand the Spirit?” What an amazing focus! This has always been one of my favorite chapters from Preach My Gospel. I could go on forever talking about all of the things I got out of this meeting, but I will focus on a few things. President McMurray focused on how we have seen many instances lately about revelation. The first ones from General Conference this past spring, and the recent updates in Preach My Gospel! Both are great examples of revelation from God given to His prophets and apostles. Truly amazing that we have witnessed all of these things! We also heard from the Casper Stake President, President Smathers! Wow! He is an inspired man! One quote I loved that he said was this, “we have the same privilege as the Savior, to submit our will to Heavenly Father!” Wow, just think about that! The Assistants came in after and blew us all away, and invited us to focus up, be missionaries at all times, think about the work first and ourselves after we do the work! They read D&C 112:28 and Helaman 10:4, and invited us to make a list of how we can purify our lives! Man I love those guys, they’re awesome! Well, we also got to hear all of the departing testimonies. I have quite a few friends leaving us, so that was such a crazy thing! Overall, it was a great meeting, can’t complain!!
After Zone Conference, we headed home and set some daily finding goals. That is one thing that President has been stressing lately, but especially during our meeting. We set our finding goals for the day at 5:30, and by 8:15 we had met all of our goals we set!!! It was such a testament builder about how important setting goals are! I’ll share a story about what happened. We got out of dinner, and it was very close to where the YSA Sisters lived. We saw they were home, so we went and asked them if they had any neighbors who would be interested in our message, and they pointed to a couple of doors. We went and knocked, talked with a bunch of people, and a teenage boy accepted a copy to The Book of Mormon, and invited him to read and pray. We got his number so we can get a hold of him later! On the last door the sisters told us to knock, we met a man David. He answered in his full military uniform, and we asked him if we could share a message about Jesus Christ with him. He told us he would love to hear our message! We testified to him, read Moroni 10:3-5, and invited him to read and pray to know if it is true! The Spirit was so strong! David pulled out his dog tag and had us read it, he turned out to be a Mormon! He just wanted to hear what we had to say first. He told us how he hadn’t been to church for a few years, and how his life is going crazy right now. He is going through a rough divorce, and wants to come back to church! After listening to him, we invited him to come to church this Sunday, and he said he would love to! He ended up not being able to make it, but we will get in contact with him this week! We promised him he would find comfort in the Gospel through these rough times, and I am a firm believer in that!!!
We had interviews with President the very next day, nice and early in the morning! I feel Jesus Christ love for me as I talk with President, it is incredible! I love him and Sister McMurray so much!! I feel so uplifted, inspired, and loved every interview I have with him. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has placed President McMurray as my mission president, what a blessing!
We taught a recent convert lesson to Scott Saulnier this past Sunday with Dallin, a priest from our ward who is preparing to serve his mission in Alabama! We taught Lesson 3, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went so well, and Dallin is such a great teacher! He will be a great missionary! Scott is a very committed, solid convert to the church. It is amazing to see his faith, and continuous conversion happening day by day! Glad to be able to work with Scott, and teach him more about the gospel!
The scripture I wanted to share this week is in D&C 9:7-9, it was shared by President McMurray at Zone Conference! It says,
7 Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.
8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.
9 But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.
It is amazing to know that we can receive answers to prayers! Everyone has had prayers that haven’t been answered, but Heavenly Father hears every prayer from each of His children! I know He does! To receive answers to our prayers, we may need to heed upon the counsel of this scripture, to “study it out in your mind;” first, then ask God through prayer. I love how Heavenly Father answers each prayer according to His will and His time. It is hard not to always receive an immediate answer, but we always need to remain faithful and trust that as we align our will with His, we will receive that answer someday! I love my Heavenly Father, and I know that He loves each of you! I hope you have a great week! :)
Love,
Elder Bailey
Pics:
1-2: Zone Conference!
3-5: saying bye to some of my best friends!
6: some of our friends here in Casper!
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