Flight Plans!!!

...........................................Temple Visits...................................................

........................................................Late night snack-(fat boys)............................................

..................................................................Our Investigator.................................................................

Dear family! 

I am doing great. How are you all? Thanks for the email. I love to hear how the family is doing! it sounds like you all are going to have a great Thanksgiving. I am excited for our Thanksgiving because a member of the 12 is coming to the MTC! What a great way to end my MTC experience -Because I leave to Argentina on Monday!!! 

So this week was a great one! It went by super fast! We got the "new bees" in our district. They are soo cute. It makes me think of my first few days here in the MTC. Oh boy! I would never want to live through that again. hahahaha Now I just have bigger adventures ahead!;) Argentina! So this week my companion and I got to skype a member that lives in Neuquen Argentina! I was kinda nervous because I was afraid we wouldn't be able to communicate very well. Tender mercy-my companion and I were able to talk to her and understand everything (most everything) hahaha that she said. That was a huge blessing for me because I feel so unready to leave. Everyone said oh once you have been in the MTC for 6 weeks you will be so anxious to leave.... Uhhh I must be doing something wrong because I don't want to leave yet. Yes I AM EXCITED TO teach the people of Argentina but ahhhhh I don't feel ready with the language at all. So being able to speak and understand the member from Argentina was a huge blessing. 

Yep! Friday I got my flight plans. I leave the MTC Monday at 6 am. Our plane leaves at 11:15 so I imagine I will call around 8. Is that going to be a bad time? So in our flight plans there is a leader of each group going to each mission. UHHH yay suprise- that is me! I am so nervous. I have to take care of 8 other girls going to Argentina and make sure they get on the right plane and give them their flight information....etc. I have no idea why I am in charge. hahaha I am the one who is probably the worst with Spanish so that is a bit of a worry, but it will be fine! We fly to Georgia then a 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires and then a 2-3 hour flight to Neuquen! Can you believe it? I am leaving in like 6 days! Ahhh pray for me extra this week please! :) hahahah but don't worry because I love new adventures and God will help me.

So my companion and I are the only ones in our district who are teaching a real investigator. It is good but also hard because when we prepare our lessons we want to make them really good so we spend sooooo much time on our lessons. Our last lesson we taught we prepared for 4 hours! We really wanted the investigator to understand the importance of faith and why she needs faith to receive answers to her prayers. We were reading Alma 32 with her and she stopped and asked us why the Book of Mormon is so boring! hahahah uhhhh.... After thinking and praying really hard I simply say in my broken Spanish because God wanted it to be simple for us to understand. It is amazing how God helps me know what to say in the exact moment we need it. 

So, Saturday I was reading my scriptures and I was feeling a little down on the language... I just wanted a nice little reminder that God was going to take care of me and help me. I decided to open up to a random scripture and read whatever I opened up to! And yes guess what I opened up to? D&C 100! It was all about missionary work and how the Lord will loosen my tongue! Then it said you have to have solemnity of heart... After asking and searching the word solemnity and not really know what the word meant, I decided that it meant "solid" in the gospel hahaha... well then guess what happened yesterday! So Sister Neil the General Young Women second counselor spoke to us in Relief Society and talked about that exact verse of scripture and defined solemnity! hahaha crazy. There are always so many miracles. 

Oh so there is a work-out class every morning at 6 am that only sisters can go to if they want. Well I kept asking my companion if she wanted to go with me... Finally I got all the girls to go with me this morning. It was so funny. It was like a cheesy zumba class with way crappy music. hahahah but at least I got 6 girls to go and now we have something to remember in the MTC! 

answers to your questions

hahaha am I getting enough rest?! uh i dont think I will ever feel like I am getting enough rest... But it is for a good cause.

I don't go back to the doctor now that I have my inserts-and they are working great! 

Um there are a few sicknesses like diarrhea but it isn't as bad as it was.

I have everything I need just the call phone for the airport would be nice.

Hope all is well. Tell Tyson I would love to hear from him ;) and tell Serenity I will write her back today and I will write my testimony in Spanish! Love you all and I know the church is true! 

Oh and mom that is so awesome you are helping out at Beehive homes. I wonder why it is so important for our family to be involved with that rest home because we always have someone working there! 

  

Love Hermana Bailey

PS sorry I had so much to write today so i dont have time to try and fix errors so hopefully you get the idea of what I am trying to say! 

Being a Missionary is a Very Sacred Calling

Family,

Dad thanks for your letter! Wow I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get a letter from you- hahaha. How’s work?

So things here in the MTC are good. I found out what we are doing on Thanksgiving. We are doing a service project. And apparently someone really cool is coming to speak to us. Hopefully an apostle! Keeping my fingers crossed. I think that they don't want a ton of people to work on Thanksgiving so we get sack lunches on Thanksgiving. That's all fine and dandy but I am going to miss my Thanksgiving rolls. I don't want to stress you mom but if you have any extra rolls, send them to the MTC.  My companion and I would love that! 

So my stupid foot turned out to be a huge blessing. So I was having really bad pain in my back heal. It felt like a muscle was being pulled whenever I would put pressure on the bottom of my foot. Well after 3 weeks of this, my companion said we are going to the doctor. We went and after seeing 2 doctors here in the MTC neither of them knew what was wrong so my companion and I got to go off campus! Hahaha it was quite the adventure. We went to the foot doctor. He was super nice... He looked at my foot and told me basically what you guys heard from him on the phone but that either I get surgery and postpone my mission 6 months or get some new inserts. Well, of course I chose the inserts. I would rather be in pain than come home and have to come back out. So it was such a miracle that we went when we did because it takes like 2 weeks to make the inserts. And If I would have gone later I would have had to stay in the MTC longer because you can’t send anything to Argentina! -So crazy. The craziest part was that my foot started hurting when it did. Because the only other time my foot gave my problems like that was when I played basketball and that is when I was working out a ton. And here in the MTC we don't walk a ton. It is just studying. But God knew that with me walking 14 miles a day in Argentina that my foot was going to give me problems so he made my foot hurt now so I could get it fixed while I was still in America. Wow, isn't that a huge testimony building story! God knows everything! I hope that is okay Mom and Dad that I got those new expensive inserts:)     Hahah, after the foot doctor I tried to get my companion to go to Papa Johns but she is so obedient she wouldn’t! Hahahha I was so bummed. 

So it sounds like Tyson is home! That is good. What is he doing besides dating Loni? Tell him to write me, I love my letters. They seriously mean the WORLD as a missionary. 

Hope, quess what!? To say your name in Spanish it is Esperanza! Isn’t that pretty! When I found that out I couldn't wait to tell you. Serenity how are you? How’s school? Brayden I wrote you a letter today so you should be getting a letter in the mail pretty soon. 

So wait why is Kami's tailbone hurting? The pictures of the deer are awesome! There is soo much snow! It is freezing outside but none of the snow has been sticking here in Provo. My poor companion is from Arizona and is not used to this cold weather at all and only has a tiny jacket so I share mine but it is really cold for her all the time. 

Wow!  Another cool story. So I was stressing the other day about how I am not even close to speaking Spanish fluently and how I am leaving to Argentina in 2 weeks. Well I prayed to have God help me know how to use these next 2 weeks the best I know how. Well, lo and behold guess what me and my class studied the next 3 days?  How to manage our time wisely! What? Crazy! My prayer was answered again! 

I went to the temple today and we did sealing and the sealer talked to me and my companion about how it is so important that we teach our investigators the importance of baptism. It is so cool- everywhere we go people just love us as missionaries. 

In our Sunday devotional yesterday my testimony was really strengthened on the importance of being a missionary. As missionaries we are the rare few that represent the church. And we are representing the Savior. I used to be so confused why there were so many rules. But as missionaries we represent a lot of things and so we have to be on our best behavior. The speaker also mentioned how we are Christ’s shepherds going out to the world to find the lost sheep. Wow! That hit me way hard. I always viewed Christ as the shepherd but as missionaries we are too! Crazy crazy! Well things are going great. I get a little discouraged about the language- Especially when we talk about conjugating verbs. Uh I felt like being in elementary school and the teachers are explaining something and I have no idea what is going on but everyone else seems to understand. Ugh whenever that happens I just want to cry. But I just keep trusting that the Lord will help me. And besides I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish so I need to not be so hard on myself. Oh super funny story: We were teaching an investigator the plan of salvation and I asked her "De Donde Vivimos" which i thought meant where did you come from.. like heaven you know... Yeah well by accident I said “where do you live”. The girl looked at me and said,  “my room.” About 15 seconds later I realized what I just said and my companion and I just started laughing. Then we told the investigator and she was laughing. We laughed so hard we couldn't even finish because we ran out of time! hahaha oh boy!

Hahahah after every devotional we are asked to set up chairs and then we can leave. Well most people in my district just put up like 2 chairs and then go to bed.  Ugh It drives me crazy hahahah.  So yesterday I told the elders "you guys, the work isn't done" and because of me,  pushing everyone in my district to stay and help until the work is done, they all stayed! It is amazing if one person will just say something, everyone just listens. 

Oh I forgot to tell you! Oh Mom I got so sick this past week.  I lost my voice. But because of your essential oils I got better within 3 days, but other people who had the same sickness had it for a week. It is so funny-I am like the mom of the group. I know how to get rid of stains and take care of people when they are sick. When sisters have a question they say, "ask Hermana Bailey, she will know!" 

hahahaha crazy. 

I forgot! So they want me to play my harp in a thing for Thanksgiving. They don't want it to be a church song.  So could you send me some music?  If you take it to Pioneer Party in a bag they can do same day delivery and that would be really good to get it tomorrow if at all possible.  Thanks Love you. 

Love you all and miss you lots! 

Love Hermana Bailey

Trusting in the Lord's Timing

 My companion and I dressed up like twins on Halloween and switched name tags hahaha.

 These girls are just a few who are in my district.  Love them! One of the girls, (the short one going to Ecuador) sang while I played my harp at auditions to play at the devotional. 

 Hahaha. My companion and I climbed on the statues and pretended we were riding the bikes with the elders. hahaha sooooo funny.  My companion was so worried we would get in trouble. 

My district during study time! 

So this week was quite a learning curve. Trying to forget myself completely is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I am reminded everyday that this is the Lords work and not mine. 

So this week my harp arrived!!!! Thanks that was so fun!  I was hoping I would have run into you when you came but that didn't pan out. That's okay, then I got to practice the harp a bit and I asked one of the girls in my district to sing “Come Thou Fount” while I played and we would audition to play for devotional.  It went well.  It was amazing how the Lord helped me play so well when there was hardly any time to practice! Then I played in sacrament meeting twice yesterday! I played the harp solo that you sent me.  It went great. To my surprise the MTC president and his wife came to our sacrament meeting. That made me a little more nervous:P haha. But the spirit was way strong.  I love sharing my musical talents in religious meetings because the spirit is always there. Then after all the talks the Branch President got up and said, “Hermana Bailey will you play that song again for the closing hymn!”  Hahahah So I got to do it 2 times. That was nice though because I got it all the way to the 4th floor for 2 songs instead of 1. 

Hahah mom it is so funny when I would walk around with the harp.  My whole district would follow me and where ever I would go they would go. Then the Branch President asked some elders to help me hahaha. But in reality, that can’t help that much. But after it was all said and done,  everyone was like “oh you elders are so strong.  I can’t believe you moved Hermana Baileys harp”.  hahahah But then the Elders would say, “she did it all!” Hahahah So now everyone knows how strong I am :) So many people that heard me practice or people that have seen me take the harp to a certain place see me now in places and say, “Hi Harp lady!” Hahaha I think my companion hates it. She says that everyone flocks around me but I don't know if I really believe that.

So my Branch President got released yesterday! Wow that was sad. It is so amazing how I could love him and his wife so much! I have only known them for 2  1/2 weeks. It is crazy how the Lord has really opened my heart to love the people here in the MTC! I am already dreading the day I have to leave. 

So last week my companions and I were eating lunch and a member of the Seventy,  Elder Catch came and sat down right next to me and the girls in my district. He asked us about ourselves; why we were in the MTC? And then he told us a bit of advice right before we left to class. He said that God is so pleased with us being on a mission. He also said “forget your concerns that you might feel like you are a bad teacher. Forget that you can’t speak the language, because God is going to take care of it!” So this week and last week I am continuing to forget my worries and trust the Lord! It is amazing how on a mission I keep realizing that I need to trust God. I am still striving to know how to better trust him. I struggle at times to even see myself ever learning the language. All I can do at times is trust and believe and have HOPE that God will provide a way. I have come to understand faith on a whole different level! Faith isn't just knowing that something will happen. It is us walking and sometimes in the dark but hoping that God will take care of me!  The devotionals here are so awesome! I always find an answer to one of my questions or concerns if I just let my heart be in the right place.

Well enough spiritual stuff! 

Yes Wednesday is my half way mark- so crazy! It is so funny when the people come on Wednesday and I can see how confused they all look. I am so glad I don’t ever have  to redo that day again. Guess who came to the MTC on Wednesday?!  Kathy Andelin (one of the twins from the Basketball team).  I see her all the time. Her classroom is right next to mine! It is so fun! 

I am trying to eat healthy but it is hard when the MTC puts a ton of dairy products on everything they make.  My favorite is their orange chicken!  Mom I am seriously eating like a queen.  Some people complain about the food but I love it. (It isn’t as good as yours of course) But yeah I am pretty sure my skirts are getting tighter.

Yes I met Hermana Orgill! Crazy story to tell Grandma! So I hadn’t thought about Hermana Orgill at all this whole MTC experience.  Then Last week Grandma wrote me and asked me if I had seen her. I put it in the back of my mind and forgot about it. Then Tuesday at devotional (remember I had forgotten all about Hermana Orgil), I remembered her name and that Grandma wanted me to find her. Like 5 seconds after I thought that, a sister behind me says "Hermana Orgil, How are you?”  I looked, and 2 feet in front of me was her! I looked at her and probably confused her for a second but explained that our grandparents are best friends and that they wanted me to meet her! Crazy huh? Now I see her all the time! 

Another cool story! Tuesday night I had a thought - take your vitamin C... I was like weird, I feel fine. No one around me is sick.  But I went ahead and took one. Well the very next day I woke up with a small sore throat! What Crazy?! I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't taken the Vitamin C? Kinda cool. You might think it is stupid that I still got a sore throat! But I believe that the Spirit helped me know that the next day I would be a little sick and that I was going to need a little vitamin to help me through the next day. 

But so my heal spur hurts in my new shoes. I will wear my inserts all the time and hope that helps because I really don’t want to go to the doctor! But just write me a dearelder letter ASAP and let me know what causes heal spurs so that I can hopefully prevent it!

Love you Family! 

Love Hermana Bailey

God Helps Me With Whatever I Need!

Wow time is just flying by! I have learned so much about myself and as a missionary. God really knows me! Every night I make a goal of how I am going to become more like Christ. And yes, of course God helps me with whatever I need!

Kami had her baby! I am so happy! That sounds like it was pretty difficult! I am so bummed I can’t see him.  I keep having dreams that Kami brings him here to see me but he is huge.  I must have those dreams because I am paranoid that I won’t see him until he is 1 1/2 :(    That is okay though.  Throughout this week I have really come to know about my purpose in being here and why God asks so much from missionaries.  I have come to believe it is because we are trying to become more like Christ! His journey  sharing his light and gospel was never easy. 

My companion and I got a calling. We are the music coordinators for all our church meetings.  SURPRISE!  Hahaha  I am excited though to be able to help in some way. 

Okay so, long story short, my branch presidency found out I play the harp. They want me to play in church and they want me to audition to play at devotional. They said you could bring the harp and drop it off at the MTC. I, of course, can’t see you:(  My branch president’s  wife is going to contact you and let you know the details of where to drop it off and when... If you are too busy, no worries I understand. But if you could do that,  it would be fun to share my talents with all these wonderful missionaries.  IF you do bring the harp I need the tuning key and stuff,  music stand and some music:  “If You Could Hie to Kolob” (I played it in sacrament meeting) and if you could bring “Be Still My Soul” (I played that in the singles ward).  Also, in one of my black notebooks is “Come Thou Fount.”  It is a duet.  I think it is 4 pages.  And bring any other music you see that might be good for church. Also, bring a bag full of my harp strings.  If you could bring it tomorrow that would be perfect! 

Yes I got unpacked! Well... sort of. Hahaha  Let’s just say unpacked enough to live for the next 6 weeks.:)  I don’t need anything but if you could send me my red hoody that would be really nice. Maybe even a few hangers... Hahaha you were right when you said I would want more. But I don't need a lot just like 5 would be great.  My clothes don't wrinkle badly at all so we did good Mom! Yay:)

My district has about 12 people.  It is a big district and we study in a tiny classroom all day.  Haha   Let’s just say we are all like family now. The elders gave each of us a blessing yesterday. That was really nice. Now I will have extra help with my studying! Most people in our district are going to Argentina but more northern Argentina.  There are 2 going to Ecuador.  In our zone there were 2 sisters going to Buenos Aires West! I sent them a note for Aaron hoping they will see him and give him the note:) Most of our Zone flew to Argentina today and there are 2 elders going to Salt Lake Spanish speaking! Crazy. 

I never did find out why we aren't with the girls going to Neuquen. But that is okay. There is a reason for everything. 

My teacher is from Mexico so the Spanish she teaches is from Mexico but every once in a while she will say, “in Argentina they say it like this...”  My other teacher served a mission in Neuquen,  Argentina!

Funny story  ---  So the 2nd day here we had to teach an investigator in Spanish.  Then,  after a couple of meetings, we committed him to baptism! It was awesome. The Spirit was so strong.  I felt like I got a glimpse of the happiness that comes from teaching people the gospel and then they choose to be baptized.  Then 2 days later the investigator was our new teacher! What? My companion and I were so bummed.  But now he teaches us and then we have to teach him and we have to pretend he is a real investigator. It is so hard to take it seriously. 

Yes I am so happy!  Every night I just lie in my bed with a heart full of gratitude for so many blessings I have been given throughout the day. Mom, I receive so many answers,  I can’t even remember them all.  Do you remember my cool experience in the temple from D&C 31? Yes  I get cool experiences (if not more cool) like that all day! 

Yeah I LOVE my companion. You should write her a letter because she wrote you:)  Did you get my letter from after my first day in the MTC? 

I have not seen Sister Ellis again,  but I have seen a lot of people that I knew in high school.

Yes I saw the blog pictures they are so cute-thanks. 

Tell Brayden congratulations about basketball! Work your hardest Brayden.  That was my favorite thing I ever did in high school. Love it while it lasts! 

I know you guys are probably way busy,  but remember,  the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.   Hahah I know I am gettting really preachy, but I now know why missionaries do this in their emails because as a missionary you see what is the most important thing. 

Cool experience -- My companion’s friend is getting baptized,  but her family is not happy about it.  So I decided I would write her.  As I was writing, the spirit kept saying to write that I know the Prophet is a true prophet.   I didn’t know why I should say that.  Later I told my companion.  She just looked at me and said that that is something her friend was struggling with!  God knows us exactly. It is something I am reminded of everyday!  

Love you guys! SOOOO much.   I miss you so much. I am praying for you and hope you are doing well. 

Love,  Hermana Bailey

P.S. Devotional on Tuesday and a general authority is coming. I’m  sooooo excited! I heard they are broadcasting it and I am in the choir so I might be on TV.  You should watch It and look for me:) 

The language is coming. I have a card of words that I memorize everyday and I am really trying my best.  My companion said that I have gotten a lot better since starting here! YAY! Hard work! And lots and lots of prayers.