Wherein We got to Skype with Maelynn and Landen! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

December 25, 2017

We got to Skype with both of our sweet missionaries on Christmas Day for about 45 minutes. It was SO MUCH FUN!!

They are both doing great and we are so proud of them and we miss them like crazy!

Here are a few pics of the family Skype-ing with them both!

Merry Christmas!

 Maelynn

 Landen

 Both together!

Wherein Maelynn gets LASAGNA!

December 18, 2017

Sooo a couple super exciting things happened this week. the first thing, onTthursday we went to a family home evening with a part member family, and we have literally been trying to have this family night for 2 weeks and last week, the daughter promised us shed make us whatever we wanted because they had to cancel a few times. 

So we asked for lasagna haha and her and her sister totally made us lasagna!!! Even though they had not only never made lasagna before, but had never cooked together before OR used an oven! And it turned out delicious! and later that night their parents thanked us for our simple request because it helped them grow together as a family. And they learned something new, and spent all day long together trying to figure out how to make us lasagna instead of playing on their phones or doing other stuff. Moral of the story: Imma ask for lasagna more often!

Other exciting thing that happened. I got not 1, not 2, but 3 packages this week!!! One from the relief society of the Iona 3rd ward with a stockings and a tree to decorate our house, and notes from the sisters, thanks guys :)
Then on Saturday we just happened to be in a last minute choir practice at the Stake Center when all of a sudden one of the Elders motions for me to go out in the hall, and when I got out there, there was a group of people I didn't know with a box asking for Bailey. Haha I figured it was dad's patient. That was fun to see people from home (even though I don't know them) :) and they had with them 2 giant boxes! Thanks for the stuff you sent. I  haven't opened the one from you guys yet, just the one from Grandma!

Y'all are the best! I'm sending a tiny package with Hna Shook who's going home TOMORROW! so, since moms gonna be in Utah Im just gonna have her text or call you mamacita and save on shipping :)

FELIZ NAVIDAD A TODOS Y A TODOS UNA BUENA NOCHE :))

fotos:

me with your friends, Dad...

renewing our visas so they don't kick us out of the country...

Christmas party last week!

las hermanas de Zona Cuernavaca (U.S., Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, El Salvador)

Me and my comp with the dresses we sent to be made 2 days earlier that literally cost us less that 4 dollars! woo hoo

and the district of Temixco!

Me and my comp with the dresses we sent to be made 2 days earlier that literally cost us less that 4 dollars! WooHoo! 

The District of Temixco

Wherein Landen Stays Put for the Third Transfer in a Row!

December 18, 2017


Dear family,

Trip to Becks and Hansen party sounds like fun. I remember those crazy Christmas breaks trying to stay on the roads while making the seasonal rounds to visits aunts/uncles/and cousins and what not...good times!

Thanks for the Christmas package and like what?? The elders there made Christmas cards....lol...like who would ever have time to do that? That's so cool!

This was a pretty good week, we had our Christmas devotional with president and his wife which was super cool, oh, we also got transfer calls this last Saturday, and guess what craziness has happened. We and elder Loveridge are still together in Moreno valley! That's three in a row with the same person in the same place, cray cray! There weren't hardly any changes though this time though as President didn't want to move everyone around right before Christmas...

We didn't have anybody at church this week which was upsetting. We have one super cool investigadora name Erika that committed to coming to church, and like a member doing fellowship called her in the morning to remind and invite her, and we were super excited because she texted us saying she was on her way to church and everything, and she still never made it. we don't know exactly what happened, but like that sucked. so please pray for her and her kids. She is super cool and want s the gospel so bad, she just has a lot of problemas to overcome. 

anyways, love you guys!

I hope you all have a fantastic week. 

Love, Elder Bailey

Wherein Landen Loves on California!

December 11, 2017

Graduation!!!!!!!!!! Kill it on that board test mom, pero como,. ya sabemos k lo vas a matar. 

Valgame mi hermanita, sola te falta 6 meses mas!!!! eres viejisima! apenas tengo 6 meses en el campo.

thats super cool about lane, Happy birthday this thursday Lane!!!! 

Dile a papi q el es un maestro super bueno tambien.

also, like it seems weird cause I was so sad to leave it in the first place, but I'm actually kinda nervous to go back. Not because I don't like it there or anything like that, but I fell in love with this place here in California. The work, the members, the missionaries, the investigators, everybody. I've not even been here as long as I was there, but I love it here too now. Anyways, I'll keep you updated if I go back or not or when I do. For now, we saw the list mas o menos, and it looks like all of the aps/zls that are heading back first.

love you all fam!

Landen 

1- awkward district pictures

2- when your local McdonaLD'S secretly wants to be Mormon too...

3- so you take a pic in front of it!

Lol, yeah, stateside mission advantage #183 we've been out to eat 2 times this last couple of weeks, once to Chilis and once to Cafe Rio and haven't had to pay for either cause there are members all over the place that just pick up your bill with out you noticing.....people are so nice sometimes!

Wherein Maelynn Gets Fed a LOT!

December 11, 2017

YAYYY MOM!! POR FINNNNNN! Now you can start your own clinic and be rich and famous by the time I get home, which btw, changes are June 25th so I'll be home the 26th or 27th! I don't really want to think about school until I only have like a month left, but, I was talking to Hermana Torgersen today, and she said her mom renewed her CNA license, and I don't know how, but do you want to look into it for me?

Hey also, remember Hermana Shook. my trainer? well she's going home next week, so I;m going to send a few things with her to get to you guys. I'm just gonna send her your phone number mom since you're always in Utah :) 

Also, our mission pres says we can call home whenever works best for you guys between the 20th and the 25th, so just tell me when and I'll find a member with internet .)

Well this week we had our Christmas conference, which was just a Christmas party. We ate food. and more food. and candy. and played games that I just really sucked at but took lots of pics and videos of other people looking goofy. buuuuuttt I left my camera at the house, so you'll just have to wait til next week to get them :) And we whacked open 4 or 5 piñatas. And we watched the videos of the different districts (also gonna get a hold o those to send you) and we played white elephant( I ended up with a Mexican backpack!!) And at the end our president told us that we were going to watch a movie that Pixar recently made called CoCo (apparently its super great and is having a huge impact on people to do family history work) but sadly it's still in theaters and not for sale yet, bummmmmmmer cus its been like 10 years since I've seen a movie that isn't the restoration or 17 miracles!

The  only mas or menos exciting thing that happened this week, is that we ate a lot. Like more than normal. And we normally eat a lot. (For example. one day we didn't have a member to eat with, so we didn't worry too much about it and just went to our appointments: one of them fed us a full meal, another one bought us a pizza, and another one sent us home with a tupperware of chicken sandwiches, chocolate, and bananas. Don't worry about me, I will never go hungry. we should be more worried about if they'll let me on the plane next year!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINY LITTLE LANERS. TE AMO Congrats on turning 12, (even though you still look way too tiny to be passing the sacrament!) Yesterday I remembered that its been 12 years since I got baptized!! I'm getting so old.

les mando mi amor y saludos a todos.

Hermana Bailey

Wherein Maelynn Gets Festive!

December 4, 2017

Hello fam.

SORRY for the short email last week, didn't think it was such a big deal, but this week I will write a little bit more.

SO, we had a baptism this week!!! but I need to explain to you everything that happened leading up to this baptism.

     Over a year ago, Javier had a coworker that started talking to him about his religion (the Mormons) and he was interested, so he looked it up online and asked to talk to the missionaries. He got in contact with some sister missionaries in the Temple in Mexico City who taught him a little and helped him get in contact with the missionaries where he lives. so the missionaries here visited him and his family and his wife Claudia.  And one of his daughters, Nayely, got baptized last year!  Then his coworker moved to the U.S. and he lost contact with the visitor's center missionaries, and the missionaries here also kind of stopped visiting, and he lost the excitement he had before. 

     Then recently he decided that now was his time and he wanted to learn more and be able to be baptized. So he got in contact with some other temple visitor center missionaries (in Washington D.C this time) and so we started visiting him more often. He was able to be baptized this last Wednesday and it was an incredible baptismal service!!  But the best part was when a visitor got up to talk and share her part in the story. She was one of the missionaries in the temple in Mexico City that was teaching him an his family a year ago! And HER SISTER is one of the missionaries that was teaching him from Washington D.C. more recently! The spirit was so strong at his baptism that his other 2 daughters now want to learn more and be able to be baptized as well!  And they have a goal of going to the temple next year to be sealed! 

     I feel so blessed to have been able to be a tinnny part of bringing this family into the gospel. I got to have the blessing of getting to be with them physically, teaching and seeing them change, but there have been so many people helping this be able to happen. And that's how it is with everyone! Its just really neat to be able to be a little part of the process.

      Heres a pic of the family and the brother that baptized him. They're friends, even though the brother is from Hungary and doesn't really speak Spanish. So I translate for him (because I speak Hungarian...jk, he speaks English).

And some Christmasy pics... 'Tis the season, just missin' the snow...

Wherein Landen Sees Amazing Christmas Lights!

December 4, 2017

Dad -  es verdad. tenemos una familia super chevere, como te digo, bien chilo, o como Maelynn lo diria, muy padre.

Mom - sounds like a dope final project. your right, it makes no sense, but cool!

Nice job teaching lessons. Those are super cool topics that we normally don't touch on as missionaries, but still super important for members. Well done. 

I D K nada about the Christmas phone calls yet, All I know is that we are allowed to do them, and thats' about it. But then again. missionaries are only allowed 4 phone calls per mission. and .... I've already called y'all 4 times in my mission...so it sounds like we'll talk in 17 months! jkjk, I'll call you on Christmas. 

Now for the most bring art, the meeeee part.

I'm still in MoVal with Elder Loveridge. we are still on bike. which I have no complaints about bc we get to see all of the cool Christmas lights!  

We are teaching quite a few super cool people. Sadly, the Mariachi band that we were teaching just moved back to Mexico, but we passed on their info, and they said that they would wait for the missionaries down there to contact them, so I hope that little branch there in Nayarit, Mexico has some good missionaries!  

Other super cool story of a family that we are teaching is the miracle story I shared with Pres. this week in my email: (so like its in Spanish, so if you don't understand it your screwed cause I did not write it in a way where google translate will understand it either, jejejeje):

Pues, ensenamos a una familia Gonzalez ayer. Encontramos a este familia de una referencia para su hijo. Pero el hijo no tenia mucho intres, y el cayo de nuestro lista de potenciales, pero dejamos con ellos nuestro numero, y la madre nos llamo una dia y fijamos una cita. Y se cancelo la cita. Como dos semanas despues, Elder Loveridge y Elder Cox fueron a pasar con ellos en un intercambio este pasado semana y fijaron una otra cita con ellos. Cuando pasamos, nos dejaron entrar, y les ensenamos leccion 1. Fue bien, El Espiritu estuvo alli, pero por algunas partes habia mucho ruido tambien. Espesificamente, durante el parte de la historia de Jose Smith. Habia mucho ruido de ninos y perros y cualquiera otra cosa que estuvo alli haciendo ruido. Pero, por un milagro de Dios, y creo q tambien una manifestation del Espiritu, cuando empeze a contar la primera vision, todo el mundo se puso silento. Podia escuchar el sonido de una agoja caer. El espiritu estuvo tan fuerte. En el fin del leccion, les invitamos a ser bautizados. Solamente la madre accepto una fecha, pero el padre no estuvo en contra, solamente no queria una fecha tan cerca.

Pero q dices tu? el Espiritu es real? Deberias creer q sea real, xq te testifico q es. y nos ayuda cada dia.

I love you alll! Have a great week! Mom, like Graduate already Please! jkjk, I know you are working hard on it, good luck on your finals!

 -Elder Landen Bailey

pic 2-  our mariachi band friends' van

pic 3- my shirt after a dope crash

Wherein Maelynn Made Her Own Thanksgiving Stuffing.

November 27, 2017

     We did nothing for Thanksgiving. No one even knew it was a Holiday. So I just made my own little box of stuffing in our house. I just hope Christmas is a little better lol. Sounds like everyone's about ready for you to finish up school mama. love you lots. 
Nothinhg too crazy happened this week. Transfers are today. But I'm staying in Pradera for the rest of my life. Haha jk. But at least until January with Hermana Casillo. Life is good. Love you lots!

Maelynn

Wherein Landen Falls Madly In Love...with FLAN!

November 27, 2017

We weren't allowed to really proselyte on Thanksgiving either, so they told us do our studies, hacer tu plannemiento semenal, then go visit members.  We didn't have time for most of that stuff though cause our schedule went a little like this:

Wake up, plan the day, go to first meal:

          First meal was with the Alvarez family. Brother Alvarez is our WML.  It was a breakfast that we had and we helped them make pancakes, and sausage and eggs. And sis Alvarez had made tamales. Super good stuff and we were all already full by 10 am.

Then go to the turkey bowl: basically everyone in our zone gathered together to play 1 hand touch football. it was a blast, even though I suck at like being coordinated or winning anything sports related...

then we showered and changed back into proselyting clothes and went to our second meal.

         Second meal was with the Perez family. Obispo Perez is the bishop of the nuevo ward where I'm serving right now. They are a super cool couple (can be a little crazy at times) but pretty fun. We just had a light lunch with them there - and by 'light lunch' I mean 4 sandwiches and a salad which was not at all light but super delicious.

Then we breaked for a little and took a nap in the car in front of meal 3 for like 5 minutes. Then we went to meal three.

         Meal three was with Sanchez family. They are a pretty inactive family, but were super excited to have us over for dinner and were talking the whole time about how important the missionaries are for their family. They were super nice and cooked super good.....Oh my goodness I just remembered, Bro Sanchez made flan for desert and it was the best thing ever! I had 2 of them! Ughh - I am so fat. Oh also, I just realized I never told you guys the PR flan story so I'll put that in a ps if I have time,...(if not, ask about it next week to remind me!) But yeah, Sanchez fam = cool. We were there for a good 2.5 hours!

Then we went straight to meal 4.

         Meal 4 was with the Vargas family. Hno. Vargas is the elders quorum pres and he goes out with us all the time. Awesome guy. So we ate with them and had some bomb roast beef...and tamales dulces. Basically the best. We went to share the thought with them at the end, and their 17 year old daughter said that she wanted to share the thought that night so that she could prepare for her mission. So we prompted her with a scripture and she took it away and did a pretty dang good job. 

Then we had to rush cause we were late to the zone activity which was watching a movie in the stake center together. We watched this pretty cool movie about some dude that went to Tonga on his mission. Went through some crazy stuff there and eventually came back to marry his girlfriend who had waited for him. It was a pretty cool show. I'll bet ya that guy has some pretty dope grand-kids on missions right now too (speaking of, one of the elders here totally knows Brian from when they were in the MTC together....wierd).

But yeah. that was basically our whole Thanksgiving. pretty sweet day!

Glad you all had a great thanksgiving as well! Love you all!

Elder Bailey

ps- okay, here is the PR flan story- saddest story of your life:

           It all starts with my first area in Puerto Rico.  So in Aguada, Puerto Rico, there is a Panaderia (bakery) on la 115 called Renacer. It was right next to our apartment so we would eat there a lot. Every time we went over there (which was at least 3-4 times a week), I would see their flan in the baked goods window. It looked delicious. and I love flan. Like I love it a lot. And I always wanted to try that flan there in the window. 

     At the same time though, it was like 3 dollars per slice, so I didn't want to waste all that much money on it, ya know? Eventually I made a deal with myself that I would get it on my last day in the area. The day in between us getting transfer calls and transfer day. That was my plan and I was sticking to it so that I could enjoy the infamous flan as a farewell to that area. Even though every day I went in there I would see it and get tempted even more. I never gave in, holding out on it, to make it special when I finally left the area. Then came a day when they told us a hurricane was coming.  They told us we had to all gather in the mission office, and we were preparing to head over there. 

     As part of our hurricane prep we went over to the panaderia to by some snacks. And that day I saw the flan again. And it tempted me again. but this time it was more of a temptation. It was as if a little voice told me in my head that I needed to buy that flan today. I justified it away, saying that I would be back in just a few days and that I would get it when I left that area. Then the voice came again. 'Get the Flan, you may not get another chance'.  But I pushed the voice out of my head like it was ridiculous. We had already been hit by a hurricane and we were back to normal 2 days later. It would for sure be the same this time again and then we'd get back and I could buy my flan when I actually left the area like I had decided to do. 

      So I didn't get it!  And I never went back to that area. They sent us away and I never got to buy my flan. Looking back that voice was prolly the Spirit telling me that it was my last day in that area. That that was my chance to enjoy that flan. and I didn't do it. I wrote off the voice, cause I thought it was ridiculous. Guys, the Spirit is never ridiculous. It's right. Listen to it!!

Wherein Maelynn Enjoyed the Face to Face Event!

November 20, 2017

Well its been a good week my friends,
 But also the weirdest thing happened.  Friday we went to visit a reference that we got from the light the world activity, and she was super excited when we called her! We got to her apartment and she started telling us about her life, and shes 21 and had just moved here last Monday and was going to be studying in one of the universities here, and was super interested, accepted a baptismal date, had plans to come to church with us, and to the fireside for YSA on Sunday. We had given her number to a few YSA girls in our ward and they had been in contact with her.  Everything was perfect!! Then the next day, Saturday, we called her to remind her that we were going to pass by for her to go to church on Sunday, and she said, "Oh...I'm not going to be able to go".  And when we asked why, she said, "its just that well I moved to Puebla."  She was literally so golden that now I'm pretty convinced that it was all a dream, haha.

Sunday we got to attend the 'cara a cara' for young single adults. I love listening to the apostles, and it was fun to see the 2 of them laughing and answering questions together like 2 best friends. I liked the part that they talked about how as women we don't need to choose between an education/career, and a family. that we can, and should strive to have both!
(Still don't know what I want to study, so don't ask. but I do want to study something.)

Also yesterday me and my companion spoke in church - about the obra misional (missionary work)! surprise!

Basically I meshed all of the talks from the conference in April because they all talk about sharing the gospel. I talked about how we are all part of the family of God and that he wants all of His children to be able to return to Him.  And I talked about how we have been given the Holy Ghost to help us achieve this goal, and also to help others achieve this goal.  I talked about how blessed we are to live in these last days with the Restored Gospel on the Earth but with that knowledge comes a responsibility. a And I talked about how we need to be instruments in the Lords hands so that his purpose can be fulfilled "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  And I told them that being a part of missionary work isn't so hard at all. All we need to do is 1: live worthy of the Holy Ghost. and 2: be willing to do the will of the Lord. ...because THIS is his will. I hope you guys can find opportunities to share the gospel at home too! (even though everyone's already Mormon...)

LOVE YOUUUU!

Hermana Bailey

Wherein Landen Learns that Sometimes God Waits till the Last Second!

November 20, 2017,

That's so cool. There's an Elder in my zone from Meridian, and we talk about the temple there sometimes. Saw some pics of it on the church website as well, looks tan hermoso. Heard that Face to face thing was super good as well, they invited missionaries to it as well, but we didn't go.  And okay, little misinterpretation here. I don't get "sad" from thinking about others. I just sometimes wish the mission success was more rapid, but I know God is definitely watching over the work and is carefully setting it up to do great things., even if it is a little slow. Nevertheless, thank you for the story, that's actually a super cool story. And I definitely feel the love from all you guys and especially from God. So thank you for all that. 

Speaking of super cool stories, you guys want to hear one? 

Okay, so this just happened last night. We had a pretty rough week this last week, we had only taught one other lesson the whole week, and our investigator failed his baptismal interview in the morning (another story). We had been working hard all week long trying to fulfill our goals of new investigators and invitations to baptism and had seen no success. we had also prayed super hard before going out that we would be able to get in at least one more lesson this week and that we could invite at least one person to baptism before the day was over. then with faith filled hearts we got up and we went to work. stopped by the first house and......nothing. the second house and.....nothing. third-nothing, fourth-nothing, talked to a guy on the street-nothing. I think y'all see how the pattern was going. anyways, it got to be like 8:30 at night, and the day ends at 9:00 so we didn't have all that much time left and we went and tried another house of a man we had talked to on the street before. And THEY OPENED THE DOOR!!!!!!- and he wasn't home. So now it was like 8:35 and we went to stop by the last name on our list of potentials for the day, Ruben, a man we had talked to for maybe 5 seconds and he had just told us to come back cause he was on the phone at the time. So we went back. And his wife opened the door. When we asked for him he came out and talked to us. We got talking and we both felt inspired to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, even though we had planned to teach him the restoration. So we did, and in a miracle from God, literally at 8:59 y mas q 50 segundos we invited him to be baptized. He didn't say yes, but he definitely didn't say no either, so there is great hope. Cause we still need to teach him everything.  Anyways, God answers prayers, even if He waits to the last seconds to do it, He does. 

Love you alll!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Bailey

ps: here's a brief peak at my Thanksgiving schedule:

           9:00- Breakfast with Fam. Alvarez

           1:00- Lunch with Fam. Perez

           3:00- Linner with Fam. Sanchez

           5:00- Dinner with Fam. Vargas

Imma be so fat after that day.......

Wherein Landen Has his 4th Bike Crash!

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017

 You should def invite the missionaries over for thanksgiving, missionaries are pretty cool people, hopefully the ones in your ward are obedient and good!

I had recorded a super cool video about the crazy day we had this week and I had some other pics as well, but the camera + library computer is not working today, so no go. Maybe next week. But here's what you need to know:

1) I crashed again on my bike (like #4 now) but I'm okay, I just ruined one of my shirts and had to go teach a lesson with a whole in my shoulder and my pocket half hanging off, but theat lesson was prolly one of the greatest ever so Yay!!!!!

2) First week in our companionship of only junior companions where we don't speak Spanish and it was one of the most successful I've ever had on my mission, hopefully we can keep this fire going.

3) Von G Keetch came and super inspired me. So he cool, I'll share one of the stories he told later

4) We had stake conference too, so my notebook got filled up this week.

5) we are also being super good about working out every morning to, so I'm getting in pretty good shape!

Okay, now cool story by Elder Keetch! 

So he served his mission in Germany, and only ever had one baptism of a man named Philippe Assard. When he went home he had lost contact with Philippe and assumed he had gone inactive or something. So basically thought the only convert he had had on his mission was himself.  Then he told us about his son's mission in South Africa  in which he baptized 20+ people in his first transfer, 200+ people in his whole mission, so many his son couldn't even remember them all. He said that he had always felt like his mission had been a little worthless/unsuccessful because there were such prominent fruits of his labor like there were with his son's. 

Now before I finish the story the reason this inspired me was because I feel/felt the same. Here I am 7 months into my mission still with out a baptism, still with out any leadership, still without any signs I've been a successful missionary. Then I read emails from my MTC companion whose training, and is DL and baptizes every week, or from Maelynn whose training and baptizing like crazy too and they low key make me feel like crap. Don't get me wrong, I love to read about all the joy my friends have in this but it sometimes sucks to not have that same joy for ones' self.

Anyways, next thing he told us was that the day he got called as a seventy almost 30 years later, he walked up and sat on the stand, then listened to Elder Andersons talk. I'm out of time so if you want to go listen to elder Andersons talk from April 2015 and look for the name of his one convert - you'll mind will be blown.

Love you allll!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Bailey

*P.S. Here is a link to the talk from Elder Anderson: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/thy-kingdom-come?lang=eng

Wherein Maelynn Lets off Balloons to #LightTheWorld

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2017

      So basically the reason I'm writing on a Tuesday is because yesterday the church rented the whole center of the town of Cuernavaca and we had a huge activity all day long of helping people get to know the church. There was a table for primary, young men's and women's, relief society, self reliance, family history, service, family home evening, annnnnnd missionaries!!  We weren't allowed to proselyte or even contact people like normal, just invite them to learn more about the church. But if they started to ask more questions, we had to send them to the stake president because we just absolutely weren't allowed to preach. 

    The activity was also to get people excited and involved in the light the world initiative that the church is doing. and the grand finale was a little program we had with a choir, a couple little messages, and at the end, they gave everyone a little card to write what they're going to do to light the world, we tied the cards to a balloon with a light inside, and at the end we all let them go. It was INCREDIBLE!!! Words just don't quite describe it.  The whole day was just soo filled with the spirit, you couldn't help but be happy! 

(I mean yeah there were a lot of people who didn't want anything to do with what we were doing, and even a guy that was yelling "arrepentios arrepentios! Jesus isnt' over here people, hes over here. they're all hypocrites" etc etc.  
But oh well, Jesus isn't in contention either so I don't really know what message he was trying to spread.)

But it was soo cool I wanted to do it again today!! And tomorrow. And always.

Imma try get a hold of some pics to send. Here is a video - if it works!

Love, Maelynn

   

Wherein Landen JUMPS for Joy!

November 6, 2017

The work's going good, always new investigators, just need to get them to progress now. We've been in a grind to get people put on date for baptism, but we've got some really promising candidates coming up soon, so I'll let you know how that all goes down. 

The bikes are super fun! There are definitely disadvantages as well, especially since its getting rather cold here (only like 40 in the early morning and night) but we have so much fun on bikes and it helps us to talk to more people compared to being in a car. 

So I used to be in a trio with Elders Loveridge and Rivas. But we are in transfer day today so Rivas is leaving and it's just me and Elder Loveridge that are going to run the area together. We are a pretty young companionship, combined we have 10 months in the mission which isn't a lot of experience, especially for a new language, but were going to figure it out. And we are going to have fun and work hard with it!

Spiritual thought of the day: (q s exactamente lo mismo q comparti con mi abuelita por parte de mi papi, pero como te digo, soy vago y no qiero escrivirla otra vez.): 

    We definitely still need to follow and heed to the counsel and guidance of our prophet, that's what we teach all of the people we talk to is that we have the blessing of a prophet on the earth today.  Something that the world went without for a lot time which is what led to all of the religious confusion that we have today.   We had one investigator tell us this week that he didn't want to keep talking to us because different religions bring confusion and sometimes contention into the family and we tried to tell him that "no, all of your confusion and questions that you may or may not have can be answered by this message and by the words of the prophets, and it will bring peace, happiness and eternity to your family, not contention!"  Which is true. The restored gospel gives us the opportunity to be happy with our families forever, but we can be especially happy and protected now if we heed to the counsels of our prophet - called of God. This specific guy used his other God-given gift of agency to chose not to listen to us anymore, but that is something that we have to respect.  Meanwhile we can use our agency to follow everything all of the prophets (from the old, new, and modern testaments all included) tell us to do!  Sometimes it seems like a lot, but really it's just living a good life and abiding by the precepts of the Gospel always, and God ALWAYS blesses us when we do so. 

Love you guys, persevera hasta el fin mami con tu escuela!

Elder Bailey