Pressing Forward!

Well Family, 
Tomorrow I will have 11 months in the mission!!! So crazy. I only have 5 more transfers. They go by so fast. I dont know how time just flies but it is going by soooo fast. Everyone tells me I am almost dead! Which is stupid because I still have 7 months which is like an eternity. 

But today we had transfers and my companion Hermana Larmouth left. We were together since June! 14 weeks!  That is a long time!  We got to the point where we worked really well together, and I was so suprised she got transferred. I thought we would have one more transfer.  I cried when she left. 
I am getting a new companion today at 7 so I am just waiting right now.  I am a little nervous because I have to teach her the area and we recently found 6 more new investigators so I am going to have to try and remember everything on my own for now... (wish me luck).  hahaha. Nah, everything will be great.  I heard she is a really hard worker, a gringa that speaks really good Spanish and that she is super cute. 
Monday my companion had back problems so we spent our whole P day with hospitals. It was soooo crazy. 2 gringas that know Spanish, but when it comes to the medical field things get a lot more confusing hahaha. So we were walking all day and my poor companion got to the point that she just got sooo sad because of pain and frustration with the medical program here she broke down crying in the doctors office.. And just left crying.... Yeah, poor thing. That was a hard day for her. She is doing a lot better now. We are going to have a baptism this Saturday. My poor companion left right before the baptism. 

Well this week we went to San Martin de los Andes (so pretty) And it was sooo cool. We got there in a time that the hermanas really needed us. I was able to help a hermana feel better with things that were going on with her investigators and we put 2 new baptismal dates while I was there!!! That was awesome. The people were so nice in San Martin.  I left feeling sorry for myself and thinking, "I want that to be my area. The people were so great and my area is hard. The people are kinda mean bla bla... "  Then, that night we got a phone call from the elders saying they were giving part of our area to the elders! We lost 3 investigators and the girl that is getting baptised this week is now in the area of the elders. And we lost my favorite investigator. I was sooooo mad. I felt like someone took what little I had and gave it to someone else. I cried.. hahaha. So dumb.  

This week I have been so caught up in myself, in my success and what others think of me. I am afraid I am going to come home the same person as when I left. ... And that is not happiness, to always be thinking about myself. I am trying to really forget myself and go to work!!! 

I hope school is going well and you guys are getting excited for Halloween and your holidays.  I love you all. I will check hopefully later with my new companion to see if Mom had a chance to write me. If not, don't stress it.  I will get it next week. :) 

Love you all!

Hermana Bailey

Oh yeah how was the talk from Kinz? How is Hannah??? 

A Week of Miracles!!!!!!!!!!

Wow what a week!!!! Okay before I forget, I have not gotten any letters from Paige. So yes, can you send them? I love it when you can send them through DearElder.com because time on the computer is short. So sending them through dear elder is always better. 

The weather here is somedays super nice-I leave with a jacket.  Other days I leave with 3 coats and boots!!! Hahahah its just like Utah! 

Okay so this week was awesome!!!! So last week was really the trial of the faith. We lost 3 families, leaving us with only 3 investigators!!! That = lots of walking and contacting  :(  But.... we talked to everyone! I am not kidding. We contacted 102 people this week! We normally contact 60 people. Yeah... and guess how many new inestigators we have?!!!! 10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE FOUND 10 NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!!! That is not normal. On average we find 2 or 3 and some weeks 0! But we found 10! How lucky. And 2 of them are good families with a mom and dad!!! Then we had 1 investigator come to church and 2 menos activos and this is their 2nd sunday in a row coming to church so if they come next week they will be active again!!!! And then they can have a calling. 

Then we were teaching this 12 year old girl named M-. She is from Cultral Co (my first area). She had to leave her family for a reason and live with her aunt. Her family are Evangélicas but her aunt, the lady that she is living with now, is a member so we have been teaching her the lessons and she would always get super quiet and not talk when we talked about bautismo. She wouldn't look at us or respond to our questions!! Yeah super awkward. She didnt want to get baptized and we didn't know how to help her. So we were praying that one day she would just tell us she wanted to get baptized because we didn't want to pressure her into getting baptized. Then 2 days ago she told us she wanted to get baptized!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!!! Our prayers were answered! So we are having a baptism in 2 weeks! 

Then another huge miracle- we were walking to a lesson with an investigator who is super hard. He has some really hard doubts. The truth is he is super hard to teach. We taught the word of wisdom a week ago and he told us to stop talking before he got mad... yeah a really bad lesson... but Saturday we decided to try and teach it again! Ummm... it was a miracle. It went so much better and he said he is going to quit smoking and quit all those things he has been doing. So we are helping him with this right now! 

Then we found a woman named Julia. Okay so she is so cute! The first lesson we taught her about the fact that God loves her. She cried and cried and at the end of the lesson she was sooo cute. She said a prayer and thanked God FOR SENDING US TO HER! Then she asked, "Can I take a picture of you guys?" and she sent it to her daughter.  And now we are teaching her 18 year old son too!!!! 

Yeah so many miracles right? And this is just the highlights!!! There are soooo many more! It is incredible.  I have seen some huge blessings this week. On Tuesday we went to a soup kitchen put on by the Catholic church and fed people without homes. It is incredible when different religions get together and serve. 

This week we have transfers... I don't want this transfer to end. New transfers are always a little harder... but hey we saw tons of miracles this week so I can handle a little hard. hahahah 

Love you all. Love love the fotos. Hope, your hair is sooooo long. What's going on with my harp??? Are there a lot of broken strings? Does anyone play the poor thing? hahaha Anyways, love you all. I hope you have a great week and enjoy every min. Tell Grandma and Grandpa congratulations. That is awesome. They finished strong. Tell Kinz to write me.  Big hug and kiss.... oh and Wednesday was my comps birthday. It was sooo fun. The members here are sooo awesome. They gave her cake and presents and called us... The members are sooo great here. We have such a great relationship with the members. They really are like family away from home. They know my name (super hard for them to remember). But they remember!! It is sooo awesome!!! Anyways love you all 

Hermana Bailey

Argentina Life!!!!

we went to this beautiful mountain the last p-day with an awesome view. It is soooooo gorgeous here! 

This member made these sweaters for us by hand!!! She is so cute!

this guy playing the guitar and singing on the bus

Kinz!!! IS HOME!!!!!!!!! What the crazy?!!!! Time just goes by soooo fast!!! Is she going to start school this fall? Do you know what her plans are??? Did she cry when she saw her family? Did everyone go to the airport??

Well this week was sooo awesome!! Soooo me and my companion found a new family to teach. They have 4 kids- 2 that are young women and 2 that would be in primary and a couple that are actually married!!!!!! (never happens here). Then we found a mom and her little 8 year old daughter. And this other family that we have been teaching that moved from Buenos Aires that have 2 little girls (I think I told you about them). But they are awesome!!!! I love them sooo much!!! I actually can say I have sooo much love for these people! 

Anyways... we found like 8 investigators! Which like never happens. But then on Saturday-they all moved!!!!! What the HECK!!!! The big family with 4 kids moved to the area of the elders. I was soo bummed because I would have loved to have taken them to the church. I could just imagine the excitement in the members if we brought a huge family! But oh well.  God knows they are needed in a different ward.

Then the other family from Buenos Aires was in a really bad situation in the apartment in our area so we helped them find a new place to live and we were with them through really hard parts in their life. The mom would cry to us. We had a really great relationship with them and they moved 2 streets OUt of our area!!!! UGh 2 STREETS!  They are really poor. So they had to leave the house they were in because they couldn't pay rent. So they moved into a house that has tons of cockroaches! Yeah!!! Infested. When someone would turn off the lights they came out and then when the lights were turned on they all scatter! Yeah way bad! But the cute family was just soooo grateful for this house that they finally have. And their neighbors are super nice and gave them a tiny fridge and they were soooo happy to have a fridge. It is sooo crazy that when you have nothing, like literally nothing, how happy and grateful you are for what little you have! We really saw the hand of God help them through their trial and now we have to give them the elders becasue it isn't in our boundaries :((((( I wanted to cry when I found out they weren't going to be living in our area. But hey, maybe those elders are what they need now and they will get baptized and they will always remember me and my companion. 

Then on Thursday we had conference with a member of the 70! It was really good. I was kind of grumpy at the start of the meeting. I was getting mad at myself and feeling like I wasn't doing enough and then I would shut down because I didn't have desires to try to work harder because you can only give so much of yourself.  I prayed and asked for help to soften my heart! And the Lord really helped soften my heart! I started to enjoy the counsel from him after the prayer! Cool No? God listens to our prayers. 

So then we had an interview with just the leaders and him! That was cool. I am so lucky to be a hermana lider because I get to have so many special opportunities to listen to such amazing people. He told us about his life and his family. They have lived all over the world!! Their kids like speak 5 languages.  Maybe a year ago that would have been something that I dreamed of- to travel all over the world and live in different places. But now that seems miserable. hahaha When I come home I want to live right next to you guys hahaha! I am so grateful for our family! 

A sister and I were talking and she told me some things about her family and she told me how she never really had a good relationship with her dad. Wow my heart got sooo full of gratitude for Dad!  Dad you're the best. Thanks for being there for us and letting us cry all the time and you would always listen. I was just really sad for my friend that she didn't have the same experience that I had with my dad! What a blessing our family is! I really feel like the luckiest girl on the planet!!! And Mom, you are sooo awesome too!! You always treated Dad like he was the best man in the world. That also taught us a ton! You guys are the best. I am sooo grateful for our many many blessings. Remember family, much is given and much is expected. We have to share what we have. I am learning so much about our many blessings- even the ones we don't think are a big deal - like going to the grocery store and you can buy yellow bananas and not brown ones. hahahaha. 

Congrats Brayden on your license!!! Hope you all have a good week 

Love, Hermana Bailey

August 31, 2015

Rained everyday this week!! Spring is coming!!!

Well Family,

This week I was sick again!!!!! Sooo dumb. But I feel a lot better! I think I am finally done with the stupid head cold! 

So this week was a little hard. We tried sooo hard to find 2 people that could get baptized this weekend but in the end none of our investigators got baptized. So hard. We worked sooo hard and it drove me crazy because the elders kept calling us and asking, "How are your investigators? Found anyone to get baptized?"  Ahhh and you all know how I am a stress head!  So all week I was feeling like a failure or someone that didn't have enough faith because things didn't work out the way I asked. I really struggled because the scriptures say ask and ye receive and if you have faith all things are possible. So I really felt like we gave our all but then things happened - like when we went to their house the investigators weren't home. Or we were teaching a 12 year old girl that is really shy and we invited her to be baptized and.... yeah she wouldn't look at us or say anything for like 10 min..... ugh it was soooo awkward! hahaha  

So after a harder week we had interviews with President on Saturday and his wife asked me how was my health and I just broke down crying. She said, "You don't have to work harder than you have strength." She is such a cutey. Then I had an interview with President and oh boy, we said an opening prayer and I just started to cry. Then he asked what happened.  I explained that I don't understand what we are doing wrong. We work sooo hard, pray tons and we still can't even bring one soul to Christ every month! He said that sometimes the Lord's time is not our time and then we read in the scriptures about Alma. Alma wasn't having success and he left and God told him to go back and then he found Amulek. Then the president said, "You will have success!!"  And he said that the prayers from my family are helping me and lots of nice things... hahaha I always cry - soooo annoying.

Then we had an investigator go to one of the baptisms of one of the elders!!! 

We taught the word of wisdom yesterday and uhhhh he told us he didn't want to hear more, that he had a really bad day and that he wanted us to stop talking before he would say things that he would regret saying. So we ended and after we felt so sad. I don't really know what is going to happen to him but he has a really hard life and he knows he needs to change and that is always really hard on people when they don't want to change. 

Then we had stake conference yesterday with all America Sur!! (South America) It was so great. The apostles talked (well some of them). They talked about missionary work, family and going to church on Sundays. After the conference we had a member come and give us a reference! YEAH!!! MEMBER HELP IS THE BEST!!! 

And we taught a cute family the restoration yesterday and when I was telling the first vision she started to cry!!! The Spirit was sooo strong. Then she accepted a baptismal date. Sooo there are lots of miracles here I just need to have a better attitude. 

We met a RM the other day. she was sooo cute and sooo spiritual. I hope that I can come home a different person. I just need to forget myself!!! That is soooo hard for me sometimes!!! 

Love you all.

Hey Serenity don't be scared about Mr Cornell. All my girlfriends loved him in 5th grade.You are going to learn sooo much stuff.  I Love the back to school photo!!! You are all soooo cute. Miss you tons. But hey, I will be home before summer break!!! Hahahaha Give Kinz a big hug from me and tell her to write me when she can. Love you all. Have a good week

Hermana Bailey

oh I forgot to tell you! hahah in the conference we like have to say hi to everyone. It is a culture thing and we like kiss everyone. hahaha Who would have ever thought I would kiss hundreds of people!!! I love it!! So much love here!!!