1/16/18 | First week in Wellington!

 This past week was awesome!  I’m writing this so late, because we just had our Temple Trip!  I love to attend the temple!  I wish we could attend it more often, but we’re blessed to attend it as regularly as we do.  I realized what a blessing it is to have temples in our lives.  I would definitely encourage you guys to try and attend regularly, because it will be such a blessing in your life if you do make that commitment!  Life is super busy and quite hectic at times, but if we find and set apart a little time to do the best things, we will be blessed tremendously!  What an amazing temple trip!

       Companionship Update!!! My new companions name is Elder Burke, and he is from California.  He’s such a great guy, and I can’t wait for the time we have together to get to work here in the Wellington Ward!  He has a desire to be here, and wants to do the best he can to be a good missionary, so it has been awesome!  It was kinda crazy getting set up the first day in the new apartment, because we had to do a deep clean from the Elders before..... but we cleaned it up in no time!  Now it feels like home, so that is awesome!  

        From the first day until now, we have been working very hard to contact as many investigators in the area book as possible!  We have met some amazing people here so far, and there is a lot of potential!  One of the most promising investigators so far was Bob.  We first met Bob on our second day here, and got to know him very well!  We got on the topic of President Monson passing away, and that his funeral was the next day.  Bob asked if we wanted to watch it with him, so we did!  It was really an amazing funeral, and it was awesome to hear from our beloved apostles.  Bob really enjoyed hearing from them too, and it was amazing to feel the Spirit as we watched.  After we watched President Monson’s funeral, Bob told us all of his questions and concerns about the church, and what he has been struggling with.  We helped him understand more about our religion, and answered his questions the best we could.  He was baptized in the Community of Christ church (r-lds) and has concerns about priesthood authority.  It was interesting to hear his concerns.  He offered to feed us breakfast on Saturday morning and to have a lesson afterwards, so we thought of what we could do to help answer his concerns.  We decided that the best thing for us to do was to go back to The Book Of Mormon, and focus on building his testimony there first, then the rest would come!  It was an incredible breakfast, made by Bob and his mother, and the lesson actually topped the yummy food!  We read Jacob 2 with him, where he was currently at in his reading, and we went slowly and explained every question verse by verse.  By the end, Bob shared with us how much he loved that we went slow, explained the simple truths that were being taught, and helped him understand the scriptures better.  We invited him to read the rest of Jacob, and to write down any question either about a verse or a topic that is mentioned so we could help him find an answer when we came next Wednesday, and we also invited him to come to church!  This is when the big miracle happened!  He opened up to us and told us he was just about to tell the missionaries that he was done meeting with them.  They had been showing a lot of love, but kept their expectations low throughout their time meeting with him.  This is what we call the “buddy zone”, where not much progression happens.  Bob told us he didn’t feel like he was progressing anymore, and that it wasn’t worth his time to just “be friends” with the missionaries.  That’s not a bad thing to become friends, but he wants to learn a ton!  He said he could tell that we were going to push him hard, and help him gain a testimony of The Book Of Mormon!  This made us so happy!  He said that he could tell Elder Burke and I were dedicated and truly loved being missionaries and helping others progress and learn.  This was one of the greatest compliments he could have told us!  He accepted both commitments, and said he was excited again to learn more and progress!  Him being excited, made us both excited, and we were just so happy the rest of the day!  What a HUGE miracle!  Bob came to church on Sunday, and loved it too.  He will be progressing more and more, can’t wait to teach him again!  

       We went Tracting for Elder Burke’s first time, and it was awesome!  We got doors slammed in our faces, people politely telling us to get away from them, and some slightly interested people!  And on top of that, it has been super cold the past couple of days, so I helped this nice Californian experience some nice cold weather while Tracting!  It was a good time!  I’m grateful I have warm clothes, thanks mom and dad! :)

       We have a bunch of appointments set for this upcoming  week for all of our investigators here in Wellington.  There is a lot to work with, let me tell you.  We had a wonderful meeting with a girl named Jodie, and she expressed to us how she felt like she will never “fit in” within the church.  We talked with her for awhile about how we need diverse people to make the church better!  We are having the relief society and members of the ward help fellowship her, so we hope it will help!  

       All of the members in our ward who we have eaten with so far have been so amazing!  Last Sunday there was a ward potluck dinner, and it was awesome to get to meet everyone.  We think they are starting to like us, so that’s good!  We had dinner with the Knott’s family last night, and we had a great long conversation about hunting.  These are my kind of people!  Haha.  Our ward mission leader, Brother Whittier, is so missionary minded!  Him and his wife are so awesome!  We’ve met with him twice already, and are meeting weekly.  We can tell it is going to be an awesome missionary work based ward! Can’t wait to build up the work here in Wellington!  

       Our sacrament meeting and church this past Sunday was amazing!  We had ward conference, and the focus was missionary work and ministering to the one.  We think it will help the ward become more missionary minded, and help people give us referral’s!  President Foster, the Fort Collins Stake President, spoke and had an amazing talk about a WW2 soldier. It talked about a lds soldier, who fought in the battle of the bulge.  While his tank mates and other crew members went out at night and partied with the French people, he stayed in the tank “between the treads.”  A lot of his tank mates died doing this, and he was protected because he stayed “between the treads” of his tank.  He related this to how it is so important to go to the temple, read The Book Of Mormon daily, and do the little things that will help us “stay between the treads.”  It was an amazing talk!  I loved the analogy.

       We had trainers meeting on Monday, and we rode up to Cheyenne with President McMurray and some other missionaries.  It was a blast!  We were able to see Elder Tippetts, Elder Judd, Elder Littlewood, and a bunch of our other friends from the mission!  It was uplifting and I have a lot to apply to become the best trainer for my Elder Burke as I possibly can!  I can’t wait to apply what I learned.  

       I was studying in Moroni 10 this past week, and verses 4-7 really stood out to me!  They state:

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

6 And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is.

7 And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever.

        This is honestly one of the most important promises that we have in our lives!  This doesn’t just apply to non-members of the church who are seeking an answer, it applies to everyone!  Born in the church, recent convert, less active, investigator, young, old, etc.  If anyone is seeking diligently for an answer to their prayers, if The Book Of Mormon is the word of god, then you will receive an answer!  Some of the most important aspect of this gospel is knowing that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he performed the Atonement for us, and knowing that The Book Of Mormon is true.  You can gain a strong testimony of both as you truly study The Book Of Mormon, and pray to ask Heavenly Father if it is true.  I would invite you all to heed upon this promise!  It will help you so much in your life, and strengthen your testimony.  I hope you all have a great week!  Love you!

Love

Elder Bailey 

Pics:

1-3: temple trip!

4: some guy came around and gave us free milk!  Lets goooo!!

1/9/18 | Goodbye Greeley!

This week has been a pretty good one!  It was sad to hear that our dear beloved prophet, President Thomas S. Monson died Tuesday night.  That made me really sad.  We found out Wednesday morning, and I had a lot of time to think about it.  He was an incredible man, had such a powerful spirit, and he was truly a disciple of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  I’m grateful for his example to me, especially his example of being “on the Lord’s Errand.”  Throughout my mission, I have learned a little about heeding upon spiritual promptings.  President Monson has to be one of the greatest examples of this that I know of!  It was always amazing to hear those incredible stories of him following promptings and helping people every day!  As I’ve thought of him this past week, my mind continues to go back to his final General Conference talk that he gave in the April 2017 General Conference, titled “The Power Of The Book Of Mormon.”  This talk has to be one of the most powerful talks ever given, but it is also the shortest.  One of my most favorite quotes from this talk was about gaining a testimony, it states:

“It is essential for you to have your own testimony in these difficult times, for the testimonies of others will carry you only so far. However, once obtained, a testimony needs to be kept vital and alive through continued obedience to the commandments of God and through daily prayer and scripture study.” 

       I would invite each of you to go and study this wonderful powerful talk, and think of how big of a role The Book Of Mormon plays in your everyday life.  It is true, and I can testify that it is!  Each of us can receive a testimony of its truthfulness, as we put forth the effort!  Whenever I think of President Monson, these words come to my mind.  “We thank thee O God for a Prophet, to guide us in these latter days...”  what a huge blessing it is to have modern day prophets.  The world will miss President Monson, but he is now reunited with his beloved wife and family, but it is comforting to know that the priesthood is still restored onto the earth, and will be manifested by our next prophet!  What a huge blessing!  

       We found out about transfers this past Saturday, which are tomorrow, and I am being transferred to Wellington Colorado.  It is just north of Fort Collins.  I don’t know who my companion is, because I’m training a brand new missionary!  We are meeting him tonight, so that should be fun!  I was a little sad that I was leaving Greeley, here in the Glenmere Ward, because of how much work and success we have seen, but I know that the Lord needs me to be in Wellington at this time!  I’m excited to be able to come back to the Baptisms that we will have later in the month for Tom and Isaiah, so that will still be fun to see those happen!  It will be sad leaving Elder Hatch, we’ve gotten along so well, but I do trust in the Lord that Wellington is where I’m meant to be!  I’m grateful for the friendships that I’ve made here on my mission, they will be lasting ones for sure!  It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here in Greeley for the past three months, time just absolutely flies by!  

        We had three amazing lessons with Tom this past week.  He is the investigator who was invited to church by a friend, and we talked with him after church last week and set up a time to meet with him!  We met with him on Wednesday, Saturday, and Monday.  We taught him the Restoration on Wednesday, and it was so powerful!  As we recited the first vision to him, he was amazed at how incredible that was, for God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ to visit a young boy to answer his prayer!  We invited him to read from The Book Of Mormon and pray to know if it is true, and he excitedly accepted the hard cover copy we gave him!  It was amazing to promise him that he would receive an answer to his prayers.  I love bearing my testimony to everyone that they can receive answers to prayer, because Heavenly Father loves us so much! At our next meeting, we followed up on how his reading has been going, and Tom had read through 1 Nephi 14!  He is so committed to learn, it’s so amazing!  That lesson we discussed what he had read so far, and we read 1 Nephi 15 with him, and broke it down so he could understand it better.  He was able to understand and learn so much!  He loved it!  He told us he wanted to try and break it down and learn from each chapter more.  We invited him to continue to read, and to come to church the next day.  He was definitely at church!  He loves the people, loves the classes, and loves Sacrament Meeting!  Our Ward Mission Leader, Jack Sattler, is such an amazing fellowshipper!  Tom loves being around him and other members of the ward!  Our lesson in Gospel Principles was on “Exaltation,” but Tom wasn’t fazed by it.  He soaked up all the information, and asks really good questions.  Jack Sattler did a great job teaching the lesson, and tied a lot of it into the Plan of Salvation.  Our next lesson on Monday was amazing as well.  He had read a few more chapters, and had written a little summary of each chapter he read to help him understand it better.  We taught him The Plan of Salvation, and explained a little more in detail what we had talked about the past two weeks in Gospel Principles.  The lesson went very well, and he understands it amazingly!  He saw that people had these big quad scriptures at church, and told us he wanted one.  We showed him where he could find it on Deseret Book, and bought it on the spot!  Those things aren’t cheap, and he bought it right then and there!  That is how golden and amazing Tom is!  What a blessing it is to teach him!  He expressed to us how grateful he is for the two of us, Elder Hatch and I.  He keeps telling us that we have been a huge blessing in his life, and he is grateful that we have taught him about the Restored Gospel.  We expressed to him how grateful we were for him, and told him that he is the kind of investigator missionaries dream of teaching!  He loved that.  I told him that I was getting transferred, but that I will still be there at his baptism.  He was pretty sad, but was happy to hear that I was able to come back for his baptism!  Can’t wait for him to be a member of this true church!  What a blessing it is to have met Tom!  

        We have been working with Isaiah Lopez and their family, and this past Sunday was the third time in a row they have come to church!  What a huge miracle!  Isaiah still wants to get baptized, and his parents are still coming each week.  It is such a blessing that they are staying committed! 

        One of my past companions, Elder Gentry, went home this past weekend.  It’s crazy to think I was with him six months ago, and him going home was so far away!  Now it’s past, but he stayed with us his last night, so that was fun to talk with him and be with him his last night!  He was a great example to me of how I can be a better missionary!  We’ll miss him!  

        While I was on exchanges with Elder Garcia this past week, we were walking from the church to go visit potential investigators before dinner.  These two young kids were running and we were able to speak with them at the stop light before crossing a main road.  We taught them about The Book Of Mormon, and invited them to read and pray to know if it is true!  They both accepted a copy and they continued to run off until they went out of sight.  I love speaking with everyone, and spreading the gospel as a missionary.  What a wonderful opportunity it is to have this time to experience sharing the gospel 24/7 for two years!  I love it!

        I was studying in Moroni this past week, and in Chapter 9 something stood out to me.  In Moroni 9:6 it states:

“6 And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God.”

        I pray that we are laboring diligently day by day to continue to grow our faith in Jesus Christ, The Book Of Mormon, and His Restored Gospel here onto the earth.  I’m grateful everyday for the opportunity I have to share that wonderful message, and to help others find that happiness that I’ve had my entire life!  I hope that we all will study The Book Of Mormon daily, and learn more about Jesus Christ.  I know that if you do, your testimony will strengthen!  Mine has!  I hope you all have a wonderful week this week!  I love you!

Love

Elder Bailey 

Pics:

1-2: MLC this past week!

3: Tom our investigator.

1/2/18 | Happy New Year! Can't believe it's 2018!!

  It has been such a great week, full of miracles!  It is so weird that it is 2018!  2018 seems so far away when I started my mission, but time flies when you are absolutely LOVING it out here, finding people to teach and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  I’m so grateful to be a missionary!

       We had interviews with President McMurray this past week, and they went amazing!  I had some doctrinal questions I had from my studies, as well as some questions about receiving answers to prayers.  We had a really good conversation about all of my questions, and President was able to answer all of them.  He’s such an incredible guy, I’m so grateful that I have him as my Mission President!  

       We went on two different exchanges this past week as well, one with the Peak View Elders and one with the Yuma Elders.  I was with Elder Young for our first exchange, and we had a great day!  Elder Young is an amazing missionary, so we had a good time finding people to teach!  We were Tracting right before dinner, and it was honestly super freezing!  I think it was hovering in single digits, but we were definitely blessed for Tracting in those conditions!  (Btw all of the warm cloths I got helped a ton mom and dad:). For some reason we felt inclined to tract a specific street close to where our dinner was at, so we went forth and tracted that street!  We ran into a less active member who wasn’t even on our records!  It’s crazy how often that happens honestly, but Heavenly Father guides us to find his sheep who have lost their way.  We talked with her and asked if we could come back and teach her, and she said she would have to ask her boyfriend first, but to try back in two weeks to see.  What a miracle!  We were pretty numb by the end of us Tracting, but it was all worth it!  For the other exchange we went out to Yuma, Colorado for the day.  We thought it would be good to check in on them, because they are about two hours outside of Greeley.  We went out there and Weekly Planned with them, then I was able to go with Elder Valentine.  We came out at the same time and we served around each other in Cheyenne, so it was fun to catch up with him!  Yuma is quite the place........ a little town out in the middle of nowhere Colorado, but it was a great time!  One miracle we saw was while we were contacting a potential investigator.  Her husband let us in and we talked with him for a little bit.  We were able to teach him about The Book Of Mormon, and we gave him a copy.  He told us that we could come back to teach him and his wife, who only speaks Spanish.  So the Yuma Elders are going to bring a member who speaks Spanish with them, and go and teach them!  How amazing!  I love it when Heavenly Father sends us those who are ready to teach, it is absolutely incredible!  The drive there and back was a little long..... but overall we had a great exchange out in the boonies!  

       Elder Hatch and I received a referral from some sister missionaries to go visit a man named Rodger, and they told us he was interested in learning more!  We were super excited, so we went to contact him.  He let us into his home, and the first thing he told us was that he was a minister...... then it got interesting!  We had a talk for about an hour, about things he thought we believed.  He tried to Bible Bash us the whole time as well.  This is probably the most calm and composed I’ve ever been with a Bible basher! He started throwing in little jabs to us, but we calmly corrected him and testified.  Every single time he tried to Bible bash, all we did was calmly correct him on what we believe, and testify.  He wanted to argue, but all we did was testify.  It literally shut him down and he didn’t know what to do........ it was nice being able to testify and not argue about points in the Bible and doctrine we believe!  Near the end we again invited him to sincerely read from The Book Of Mormon and pray to know if it is true.  We hope someday he does willingly, with an open heart.  This experience made me so grateful for The Book Of Mormon.  It simply clarifies what the Bible teaches, helps us come closer to our Savior, and helps us gain a testimony of His Restored gospel that was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith.  What a blessing and miracle it is to have The Book Of Mormon today!  I’m so grateful for it!  I pray that each of us will remain grateful for that amazing gift of The Book Of Mormon and the “great vicarious gift” of our Savior Jesus Christ! 

        At church this past week, we had five investigators come!  What a huge miracle!  We’ve seen Heavenly Father bless us as we’ve put in the work in this area, and now we are starting to see the benefits!  We have three investigators on date for January, so I can’t wait to see their Baptisms!  The amount of success we’ve seen in the Glenmere Ward the past transfer is amazing!  This is the most success I’ve seen anywhere in my mission, what a blessing!  One of the investigators at church was Tom.  Yesterday was Tom’s first time at church, and he was brought by a member from the Spanish Branch.  Yesterday was our first time meeting him, and he stayed for all three hours.  He expressed genuine interest in learning more, so after church we scheduled a time to meet with him on Wednesday.  It was amazing, because he had a ton of people coming up to meet him, especially our Ward Mission Leader Jack Sattler!  Jack took Tom under his wing, and helped him feel so comfortable.  I’m convinced that Jack is the best Ward Mission Leader in the Colorado Fort Collins Mission!  He is a convert of about a year and a half, and he comes out with us one night a week.  He told us the other day that he loves coming out with us, because he never had a chance to serve a mission, so he feels like now is his chance.  So cool!  Anyways, we can’t wait to meet with Tom this week!  We’re hoping to set him on date for baptism!  

        Yesterday we were finding less actives, and as we were walking away from one house, we looked to the next door neighbors house, and immediately felt like we needed to knock.  We did, and Rachel answered the door.  She said she has talked to missionaries before, but hasn’t ever heard about The Book Of Mormon.  We taught her about it, and she was intrigued by it.  She accepted a copy, and wants us to come back to teach her more!  How amazing!  I love how the Spirit tells us and guides us where to go.  I have had so many amazing spiritual experiences on my mission where I literally feel like we’re on the Lord’s Errand. I think it is because I’m learning to recognize miracles and spiritual promptings throughout the day.  What a blessing it has been to learn more about being a “Spiritual First Responder!” I’m continuing to learn that each day.  In Elder Rasband’s talk from April 2017 General Conference titled, “Let The Holy Spirit Guide,” he states this,

“Third, we must recognize the Spirit when it comes.

My experience has been that the Spirit most often communicates as a feeling. You feel it in words that are familiar to you, that make sense to you, that prompt you.”

       I love this talk, it’s one of my all time favorites!  As we learn the voice of the Spirit, and act upon the first promptings, we will be blessed!  I’d like to invite you guys to think about the miracles you’ve seen in your life and listen strive to the voice of the Spirit everyday!  If you feel as if you haven’t seen any miracles, then I’d invite you to start striving to recognize the many miracles and blessings that Heavenly Father has given you.  I can solemnly testify to you that Heavenly Father has blessed each of us with miracles in our everyday lives!  They are there, we just have to recognize them!  I hope each of you has a great week!  

Love,

Elder Bailey 

     


Pics

1. Zone Conference last week!  (Sorry, didn’t take any other pictures this week....)

12/25/17 | What a wonderful time of year!

  What a week!  Christmas time is absolutely amazing!  It was so fun to talk with you family!  I loved catching up, talking about how you were all doing, and sharing stories with you guys!  It was super weird because it felt like I just talked with you guys last Mother’s Day, I can’t believe that was about seven months ago!  Time flies!  What a blessing it is to have such a wonderful family!  Mom and Dad, thanks for being such incredibly amazing parents!  I owe everything to you, thanks so much for the love and support you show me!  I also love all of my siblings too!  Thanks for being such amazing brothers and sisters!  Mike and Jenna, Alyssa and soon to be Jake, Spencer, and Randon, it was so fun to talk with all of you guys!  I will always be eternally grateful for each of you, and how much of an impact you’ve all had in my life.  I am so grateful to say that every member of my family is my best friend! :)  I’ll look forward to speaking with you guys again face to face at Mother’s Day!  It will literally be just around the corner!  I’m so glad we had such an amazing uplifting call!

         We had our Christmas Zone Conference last Wednesday, and it was so awesome!  The theme was “Faith in Jesus Christ.”  It was really cool to recite “The Living Christ,” I definitely don’t have it perfected yet, but I’m still working on the latter half!  Like I said last week, I’ve learned so much more about our Savior Jesus Christ from studying “The Living Christ.”  It has strengthened my testimony of Him, and I’m so grateful for that!  I’d strongly recommend reading and studying it!  Throughout the Zone Conference, we had amazing trainings from President and Sister McMurray, and the Assistants.  It was overall an amazing Zone Conference!  During lunch we were given Christmas gifts, and letters from our parents with their testimonies written to us.  That was so awesome to read your testimonies, thanks so much to that!  Later in the conference, we had a White Elephant gift exchange!  That was so fun!  I ended up with a signed picture of Elder Gentry, one of my last companions!  It was a nice gift to end up with.  Haha.  After we had a really good Zone Breakout session with the Greeley Zone, and it was awesome to apply what we learned, and to set goals!  Overall a wonderful Zone Conference!  I learned a lot!  

           Later that same day, we had Elder McFadden with us for the rest of the night and we had an amazing lesson with our investigator Billy.  We were able to teach him the Restoration Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ.  The whole lesson went amazing, and the Spirit was so strong!  He asked amazing questions throughout the lesson, and near the end we invited him to be baptized in January!  He said he was going to pray about it and tell us his answer on Christmas when we met with him.  He ended up cancelling our lesson Christmas morning, because family came to town and surprised him.  We are looking forward to meeting with him this upcoming week!  He told us during the lesson that he has been praying to find the truth his entire life, and we were able to promise him that God has sent us to him to bring him that truth he has been praying for!  Such an amazing lesson, and the Spirit was definitely present!  Billy is so amazing!

           On Friday we were Weekly Planning at the institute building, and as we were walking in a man came up to us and asked us if we had jumper cables, and if we could help him jump his car.  We were so glad he asked, so we drove our truck around and helped him out.  We got it started in no time, and we were able to talk with him about The Book Of Mormon!  He accepted a copy, and said we could come back to teach him. He told us that if his big black truck is outside, he’s home!  We can’t wait to teach him!  This was not a coincidence, I can assure you that.  One huge thing I have seen on my mission is Heavenly Father places us in situations, or has us be in certain places to talk with certain people.  It is amazing to be an instrument in our Heavenly Fathers hands to progress His work here! I know that everyone can be an instrument in His hands, as you pray for experiences and opportunities, Heavenly Father will begin to trust you to help others come unto Christ as you act upon every prompting.  Going back to Elder Rasband’s talks, “Let the Holy Spirit Guide” and “By Divine Design,” we can all begin to be instruments to progress His work, as we act upon those promptings and pray for those experiences daily!  If you feel like you haven’t had amazing missionary experiences, try and recognize the little opportunities and miracles each day, and record them in a journal.  I’ve done this since I talked with Brother Weber, one of my favorite members from Cheyenne, on October 17th.  Since that day, I’ve seen a miracle each and every day!  Some days have more than one, others have one, some significantly more amazing than others, but there has been on every single day.  As we recognize those promptings and act upon them, we will be able to see miracles in our everyday life!  I can promise you will see miracles every day, if you learn to recognize them!  I love seeing miracles daily!

          Elder Hatch and I had an amazing Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day!  We are at the Perry’s house, Jack Sattler’s House (our Ward Mission leaders house), and the Seamons house!  It was so fun to have loving members!  On Christmas Eve we went caroling with a district of missionaries in Johnstown.  Only one person rejected us, but we had some awesome experiences!  A non-member family invited us in and gave us cookies, apple cider, and water.  They had us sing another song to them, and we talked with them for awhile.  They asked where we are from, why we’re here, etc.  We were able to tell them that we were missionaries, and it was such a positive experience!  The sisters are going to go back and follow up with them after the holidays.  I think the most impactful person we sang to was the last person on the street.  As we knocked, an older man answered the door, and we sang Silent Night to him.  As soon as we started to sing, you could tell he was feeling the Spirit.  The Spirit of Jesus Christ was touching his heart!  After we finished, he sincerely thanked us for singing to him.  You could tell he was very lonely, and by himself for the holidays.  It was an amazing experience to bring that Spirit to him during his time of need.  Another miracle that was amazing!  

          Actually, just barely at Men’s Warehouse in Fort Collins, while Elder Hatch was buying a new suit for his birthday, I was writing this email when one of the workers asked me what I was doing!  I told her I was writing an email, and asked me why I was writing such a long email.  I explained to her that as missionaries we can only communicate to our families once a week, and FaceTime home twice a year.  She was baffled, and told me a story how she was dating a Mormon guy once, but she didn’t want to convert then so she broke up with him.  At the end of our conversation, I invited her to take a look at The Book Of Mormon, and to look up any questions on Mormon.org and talk with an online representative.  She happily accepted a copy, and told me she would take a look!  What a huge miracle!  I love it!  There are opportunities all around us, even in pdays!

          I was studying this past week in Moroni 7, and verses 42-44 stood out to me.  This verse is tied into D&C 4:5 as well.  President McMurray taught this concept in Zone Conference.  Those verses state,

5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

43 And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart.

44 If so, his faith and hope is vain, for none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart; and if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity.

          It is interesting, the five things that qualify us for the work, all end up leading back to love.  As it says we cannot have faith and hope without being meek and lowly of heart.  It also says we cannot be meek and lowly without having charity, therefore all the five points of being qualified for the work leads back to being loving.  Love is the key.  I’ve hear this many times from Dad, President McMurray, and from the prophets.  We need to love everyone as Jesus Christ loves them.  It may be hard at times to do this, but it is so rewarding once we become loving!  As we learn to be more loving, we will be able to develop the other Christlike attributes as well!  How amazing!   I would invite you all to study Moroni 7, it’s an absolutely amazing chapter!  I hope you all had an amazing Christmas as I did!  Love you, an have a great week!

Love

Elder Bailey 

Pics:

1: an Elders nice joke suit coat, had to try it on!

2: my white elephant gift.

3-4: our Windsor Stake nativity at our investigator missionary dinner.

5: my wonderful family! :)

12/19/17| 6 Days till Christmas!

 I can’t believe Christmas is coming so soon!  How crazy!  It hasn’t felt too much like Christmas time yet because of the warm weather, but it’s supposed to get super chilly this upcoming week, with a bunch of snow!  So we are excited to hopefully have a white Christmas!!  This week has been pretty good.  We had a great time spreading the joy of Christmas to an old folks home this past Wednesday.  We went with a bunch of other missionaries and sung to them for a good hour or so.  They were so grateful for us coming to sing to them, and we’re going back every week to sing!  It is always amazing to spread the Christmas cheer and the love of Jesus Christ, especially to those who are in need of it.  I love the Christmas season!

       There were missionaries departing halfway through the transfer to go home early for school, so we were in charge to taking Elder Evans around to have him say goodbye to people.  He wanted to say bye to a bunch of people in Cheyenne, so we got to go up to Cheyenne Thursday night.  He served in the wards I served in, so I knew most of the people he wanted to say bye to.  We ate at the Turners house for dinner that night, and it was fun to catch up with them!  They were some of my favorite members while I was serving up there!  It was fun to see a bunch of the same people I knew!  

        It was a little frustrating this past week, because almost all of our set lessons with investigators fell through, and we were supposed to have six investigators attend church this past week, but none of them showed up...... but we know that as we continue to try and get them to come to church, we will be blessed for our efforts and eventually they will come to church!  This next week, we are going to push so hard to get them all at church!  We’re praying for miracles so it can come to pass!  

        Yesterday we had a wonderful day!  We were on exchanges with some missionaries, and I was able to go with Elder Mitchell for the day!  He is a really good fun missionary to be with.  While Tracting before dinner, we found a man and his wife who wanted us to come back and teach them more about what we believe.  The man told us that his wife only speaks French, and they wanted us to bring a French copy of The Book Of Mormon when we visit them later this week!  We are excited to visit them!  We also went Tracting later at night right after dinner, and we decided to go “singing Tracting!  We went around and sang “Nearer My God To Thee” and “Silent Night.”  It actually worked out really well!  A family invited us in to sing to them, and it was awesome to see how they were feeling the Spirit as we sang.  They weren’t interested in hearing our message, but we know we left that experience with them to think about!  We had an amazing success as we met a woman named Luz.  We introduced ourselves and asked her if we could sing a song.  She said she would love us to.  We sang to her, and it was really cool to see how music invited the Spirit very quickly!  After we finished, we taught her about The Book Of Mormon and promised her that as she read from its pages, she would feel God’s love for her.  She accepted a copy and told us we could come back on Wednesday!  What a cool miracle!  It was so fun to sing to people, and invite the Spirit of Christ into their lives!  

        On Saturday morning we helped some members in our ward with moving furniture from their deceased mothers retirement home to a Uhaul then we unloaded it into another apartment for a member of the ward.  We helped them from 8:00 to 12:00, so they ended up buying us breakfast at McDonalds and lunch at Chick-fil-a!  It was so nice of them to do that, and it was totally worth helping them moved all of the stuff.  Elder Hatch and I were recruited for this to be the heavy lifters, so it was fun!  Haha.  We were lucky enough to have an elevator in the retirement home to get the furniture down to the ground level, but in the new apartment where we were moving the furniture to, we had to lift all the heavy stuff up a flight of stairs!  After we got all the moving done, Elder Hatch and I were absolutely exhausted!  They asked us afterwards if we could accept tips as missionaries.  We told them we can’t, then they told us that they were going to give us a Christmas presents with gift cards to Texas Roadhouse as well, we told them they didn’t have to but they kept insisting.  We can’t really deny Christmas presents can we? :)  They are such nice members!  

        For Zone Conference this week, we have been asked to memorize “The Living Christ,” so I’ve been studying that a lot the past couple of weeks.  I honestly had never vitalized it before, and I’ve learned so much as I’ve studied it!  Here is a couple of lines that stood out to me,

“He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.”

        Especially during this Christmas time, I am especially grateful for that great and wonderful gift that our Savior, Jesus Christ has given to us.  He is the Gift. He has provided it for us because He loves us so much!  Let us all turn to Him by serving others especially during this Christmas season, and always think of His sacrifice each and every day!  I would invite you guys to read “The Living Christ” and ponder the words of the Prophets and Apostles, especially this week before Christmas.  I know you will feel a deepened love for our Savior as you do so, and you’ll be able to feel His love during this wonderful Christmas season!  Have a wonderful Christmas!  I know I will out here in the mission field!  I love you guys, and hope you have a great week!

Love

Elder Bailey 

Pic: Singing at the old folks home!  

12/12/17 | I Love the Christmas Season!

  I can believe it’s been another week!  So unbelievable.  It’s so amazing to serve a mission, but especially during the Christmas season, when we are teaching everyone we can about our message, which is centered in Jesus Christ.  I’m so grateful that I have this opportunity to serve God and His children!  This past week was awesome, and we were kept so busy throughout the whole week!  We had a pretty good lesson with Nyssa this past week.  It’s been a struggle with her to help her keep commitments that we extend.  We decided it would be best to have this be one of our last push’s to help her keep those commitments, and help her get to church.  We read from Alma and the lesson went very well!  She seemed to understand why it is so important for her to be reading from The Book Of Mormon.  She committed to read the very next night, and we were going to text her to remind her and see how it went.  We texted her the next day, and she said she was still planning on reading that night.  Hopefully this will help her to keep up on her commitments to progress more!  We also taught the Bentz family.  We first asked them why they couldn’t make it to church last week, and it turns out they went to the wrong ward in the wrong building..... but we were so happy that they actually attended church!  We read 1 Nephi 1 with them, and it was awesome to see their family reading the scriptures together!  We invited them to continue to come to church, and to read The Book Of Mormon as a family.  They were all enthusiastic about reading together and told us they were so excited to come to church as well! They are such a wonderful family and we can’t wait for the parents to be reactivated and for Parker to be baptized!  He told us he still wants to be baptized, and that he wants his dad, Jon, to baptize him.  Jon wants to receive the priesthood, so we are working with Bishop to help him do so.  Parker and Bobby are such sweet little kids, they are just soaking up all of the lessons and want to come to church!  So amazing!

         On Thursday we had to pick up a car from the Nissan dealership in Greeley that was getting fixed, and we had to drive it out to Fort Morgan Colorado to meet the Sterling Colorado Missionaries to swap with the mission office’s white Toyota Sienna.  We had to got to four different gas stations and fill up all three cars throughout the day, so we got pretty sick of filling up the cars with gas.... Honestly it was probably one of the longest driving days of my entire life....... haha, we were literally driving after District Meeting, from 1:30 until 6:30, then we went straight to a lesson with the Bentz and we were busy the rest of the night.  We didn’t even have time to eat dinner it was so crazy!  We had about 30 minutes to visit people and to find people to teach.  In that 30 minute period, from 8:30 to 9:00 we found one amazing new investigator.  We were visiting a potential investigator who didn’t answer, then we saw this man pull up and get out of the car with his wife and child.  Elder Hatch and I both looked at each other and we both knew we needed to knock on his door.  We did, and we were able to teach him about Jesus Christ and The Book Of Mormon and asked if we could come back and share that message with him another time.  He told us we could the upcoming Saturday.  How amazing is that miracle!? We tried to visit him on Saturday, but his daughter had just returned from the hospital and they said next Saturday would work better.  I know that the Lord blessed us with meeting Anthony and his family!  Even though we only had 30 minutes to go out and find, as we put forth the effort He still blessed us for it!  Throughout my mission I’ve gained such an amazingly strong testimony of working diligently until 9:00, and the experience just strengthened that testimony of mine.  How incredible.  

         Later in the week we had a solid lesson with Anne and Jason!  Jason is our investigator who bore his testimony twice in sacrament meeting last week.  We taught them The Plan of Salvation, and the lesson went so good!  At the end, we talked about the priesthood and baptism.  We were able to invite Jason to be baptized on January 13th, 2018, and he said that he would love to work towards that date!  His mom, Anne, still wants to pray about it and feel a little better about being baptized.  We are so excited to see them progress and work towards being baptized in January!  Jason is setting a wonderful example for his mom, and that will help her decide to be baptized as well.  The amazing part of the whole lesson was to see the excitement and happiness on Jason’s face when we set a date for him to be baptized.  He has such an amazing spirit about him, and wants to truly learn more about Jesus Christ’s true church.  How incredible!  

         On Sunday night we helped gather food donations at the interfaith choir concert in Johnstown Colorado with another set of missionaries.  Both sets of missionaries who are serving down there were in the choir so they needed some extra help.  It was really interesting to see a ton of different people from different faiths all in one place.  Elder Gentry and I as we gathered food from people, were able to tell a major difference between who was a member of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and who wasn’t.  We started calling it out to each other, and the people we knew were members would come up to us and say “Hi Elders!”  There was a distinct amount of light radiating from members, and a different countenance filled with happiness, joy, and love.  The people who weren’t members of our church seemed like they were lost and they were missing something.  It was amazing to tell that difference, and it was a testimony builder to me that as a missionary, we are teaching the truth.  We are a part of Jesus Christ’s one complete true church established again onto the earth.  It is so amazing to know that for a fact.  I know The Book Of Mormon is true, and it is the word of God.  It is a true account of His children here on the American Continent!  What a blessing it is to be a part of something that is so true.  Think about how much the Gospel has blessed your life, and thank our Heavenly Father for blessing you with it!  I’m so grateful I have it in my life and I have such an amazing family, amazing parents, grandparents, and ancestors who set the path for me to receive these truths.  I will always be grateful for the Gospel in my life.  What a blessing!

         During my studies this past week, I came across a talk from The April 1992 General Conference titled, “The Tongue Can Be a Sharp Sword” by Marvin J. Ashton.  In this talk he mentions a very amazing quote about becoming Charitable and what the true definition of Charity is.  He states, 

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all. …

“Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever.” (Moro. 7:46–47.)

Charity is, perhaps, in many ways a misunderstood word. We often equate charity with visiting the sick, taking in casseroles to those in need, or sharing our excess with those who are less fortunate. But really, true charity is much, much more.

Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again. It makes the thought of being a basher repulsive.

Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.”

         This truly opened my eyes about what it means to be truly Charitable towards our fellow men.  This is something I’ve challenged myself to work on with my missionary work, and with everyone I come in contact with.  I want to invite each of you to think of how you can be more Charitable with your family, siblings, parents, friends, etc.  There could be many ways we can all improve, and I definitely know I have sooo many things I need to improve in, but focusing on one thing will help us become more like our Savior Jesus Christ!  I hope you all have a fantastic week, and remember to seek our ways how you can Light The World, and help others have a fantastic Christ centered, Christmas season.  

Love

Elder Bailey 

Pics:

1: Service at the food bank!

2-3: Our missionary Stake Breakfast this last Saturday .

 

 

12/5/17 | Another Amazing week!

     What a great week!  Transfers made this week absolutely crazy...... we were running missionaries around in our truck over to Fort Collins, back and forth from Greeley to the mission office in Windsor, and then they needed an extra driver for the transfer van to head down to Longmont, so Elder Hatch and I drove a bunch of missionaries down there in the big 12 seater van!  Such a crazy day, but I had a good time driving the van down!  Haha, you feel absolutely massive driving that thing, it’s awesome!  It reminded me of one of our family trips when we got a 12 seater van as the rental car, it was pretty fun!  That night, after all the driving around, we went out with our Ward Mission Leader and his wife to visit an older less active lady.  Our Ward Mission Leader is absolutely incredible!  Jack and his wife Laura are some of the coolest, most missionary minded people I’ve met, and we always go out with him on Wednesday nights to visit people!  Their amazing.  Anyways, we visited Sister Black.  She is an older lady, and she is from some southern state, and sounds like a southern Baptist woman.  It was so awesome to listen to her tell us about her life.  She hasn’t been to church in a long time.  She shared with us her testimony of Jesus Christ, and it was amazing poetic words that she spoke.  You could feel the spirit when she testified of what she knew to be true, it was amazing!  We invited her to attend church, and she told us she would love to attend and try it again.  She told us she was offended by someone, but now doesn’t feel any hard feelings towards the person or towards church at all, she just hasn’t come back.  It will be cool to see if she finally makes that change and starts to come back!  

        We had a “no drive day” this past Saturday, so we were on foot the whole day!  While we were walking to our area, we saw a man fixing his bike, so we talked with him.  He knew a lot about us, he has a Book Of Mormon at home, so we invited him to read from it.  He said he’d check it out, and we also gave him a Light the World card to check out as well.  It was awesome!  We’re praying he checks out the videos to help him have a great Christmas!  While we were there, some random members drove by and gave us these philly cheese steak sandwiches, such a blessing!  As we were walking to dinner, we knew we were going to be a little late, so we pick up our pace a little.  Then out of the clear blue there was a truck with a Utah license plate stopped at a gas station.  The guy asked us if we needed a ride, so we gladly accepted.  He was just on a business trip, and he offered us a ride.  What a Christlike man!  Right when we needed it too.  After dinner, the member who fed us took us to our lesson with Jason at 8:00.  Then he introduced himself and left us cause it was getting too late..... haha.  This made us super confused because we were on foot, but we didn’t really care too much!  After our lesson we started walking.  As we walked, we called everyone in the ward we could think of to give us a ride.  No one answered..... but we kept walking!  By the start of our nice walk home, we were about 8-10 miles away from our apartment, and we had walked 30 min and recognized we were going to be waaay past bed time.  It was 9:15 and we still had a long way to go!  It was super cold, it had been a long day, but no members were open to give us a ride!  We were thinking about hitchhiking on the highway home, which would have been super fun!  But we decided to call another set of missionaries who life in our complex, and they got permission to drive to pick us up so we wouldn’t be home at 11:00.  Such a crazy long day!  Haha, wish we would’ve hitchhiked!  That would’ve been fun.  

        We had some pretty good lessons with our investigators this past week!  We met with the Lopez family, and taught them The Plan of Salvation.  They expressed a desire to come to church, but it has been a struggle to get them there for awhile.  They ended up being sick so they couldn’t come this Sunday, but we are working on helping them get there!  Their sin Isaiah still wants to be baptized as well, so it is a waiting game to see when they attend so we can move forward!  We will continue to do our best at getting them to church!  We’re praying they’ll have that desire to.  We met with the Bentz family, and taught them The Plan of Salvation.  Parker Bentz still wants to be baptized, and we also found out that his dad wants to receive the priesthood to be able to Baptize him!  How cool!  They said they would read The Book Of Mormon as a family and attend church!  We also met with Jason and his mom, and had a really solid lesson about the Restoration.  We focused on them reading from  The Book Of Mormon, and attending church.  They had some misunderstandings about the Restoration from other missionaries, so we clarified and taught them more.  Apparently Jason’s Grandma is a hardcore Jehovah’s Witness, and him and his mom both started expressing how they were so grateful for us coming by and teaching them about The Book Of Mormon.  They’ve never agreed with what the Grandma believes, but they were always seeking the truth.  It’s amazing to see how we have the full truth, and we have that opportunity to share it with all the world!  So incredible!  

        We weren’t able to meet with Billy this past week.  He called us and cancelled because his car broke down and he had to get it to the shop.  He told us he has been reading from The Book Of Mormon, and he has been writing down all of the questions he has on paper so he can ask us when we meet again.  He told us how he still would love to meet with us to learn more!  We’re excited to teach him and bring him closer to Jesus Christ and His gospel!  It is still so amazing how we were guided to him, what a miracle!  

        We had Jason, one of our investigators, attend church this past Sunday.  We don’t know what happened to the rest of our investigators, but we’re on that for this week!  It was actually Jason’s first time, and it couldn’t have gone any better!  He sat by us during sacrament meeting, and then he leaned over and asked us if he could bear his testimony.  We said he could for sure, and he went up and introduced himself, and shared a little testimony.  It was awesome and powerful!  A little later in the meeting, he leaned over and told us he forgot to say something, and if he could go back up.  We told him that wasn’t a bad thing, so he went right back up!  The second time he expressed gratitude for “the Mormons” coming over and teaching him.  He actually called us by name and told us how grateful he was, and how grateful he was to find a new church to go to.  We think he is going to continue to come after he had this amazing experience!  He is a teacher aged young man, so he was able to quickly make friends with some of the youth in our ward, and he loved the rest of church!  How amazing is that?! We can’t wait to have him continue to progress, and to meet with him and his mom to teach them this week!  

          We had MLC this past week, and it was so fun!  It was one of the, if not the, most productive MLC’s I’ve attended.  We discussed and set goals, had good trainings, and discussed how we can best help our mission to continue to grow and progress.  I’ll share one part that I absolutely loved!  President McMurray shared with us a BYU-Idaho devotional given by Elder Wilford Anderson titled “The Faith to Reap.”  This was absolutely amazing!  He spoke that their are two kinds of Faith, first is the Faith to Try, and second is the Faith to Do.  He said most people have the Faith to Try, and that’s honestly the goal is to develop the Faith to Do.  He likened the Faith to Do to another phrase, the Faith to Reap.  He stated that there were three things that help us develop the Faith to Reap,

1. Have Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement.

2. We must Align our will with His. (Reminded me of this talk, “That we might not shrink” by Elder Bednar)

3. Work, or do!

          Developing these three aspects isn’t an easy task, but as we do so we can find peace and a surety that God will be able to work miracles through each of us!  I was actually studying in Ether 12 this past week, and I found some scriptures that applied to this concept.  The first one was in Ether 12:12 and also Ether 12:18,

12 For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.

18 And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God.

          We have to exhibit our Faith in God and his son Jesus Christ in order for Him to bless us with mighty miracles.  We may lack in Faith, but we can always grow our Faith as we base it in Jesus Christ.  He is “the Rock” that we can base our testimony in, so we may have a sure foundation.  In verse 18, it says how they first believed in the Son Of God.  Like Elder Wilford Anderson states, that is the first step in developing the Faith to Reap.  I want to invite each of you to think where you base your testimony.  It is never a bad thing to base your testimony in others testimonies, but I would invite you to base it in our Savior, Jesus Christ.  If we do so, our testimonies will stay strong, and we will always know they can, because he is an everlasting rock that cannot be broken, therefore our testimonies cannot he broken if we base them in Him!  (Helaman 5:12). I hope you all have a wonderful week, and don’t forget to Light the World this Christmas season each day by serving others and following the online advent calendar at Mormon.org.  Love you guys!

Love

Elder Bailey

Pics:

1: my man Elder Tippetts!  Glad I got to see him.

2: Elder Hatch and I bumpin in the 12 seater transfer van.

3: MLC

4: Found this on our “no drive day.”