Wherein Maelynn Returns to Tepoztlan for The Day!

August 28, 2017

Wow Landen, you're one to talk about going on lots of date....lol.

So fun to hear about all of the people going on missions! It's pretty great to be a part of this work! 

So the most exciting thing happened this week on Saturday.  So my companion's dad died (actually was killed) in Guerrero when she was 3 years old, leaving her mom a widow with 9 kids!  Her mom took everyone to Tijuana to escape the danger.  Fast forward 15 years: the missionaries found my comp in Tijuana. Her and her mom and a couple of her sisters got baptized 2 years ago.  Ok, well finally this week, my comp found and printed her dads name to take to the temple!  And even though we're not allowed to go, the ward members went and took her dads' name to get baptized and confirmed. Woo hoo! One step closer to being an eternal family! 

Another cool thing that happened this week ... 6 investigators showed up to church!!!

Another cool thing, our district leader got permission from president for us to go to Tepoztlán today! I don't know how he did it, but it felt like I was going home honestly.  And of course they wanted to hike up to the pyramid. I hate that hike. But we went. And I got to see a couple of members, and we went to Tepoznieves of course!

Tepotzteco

a pic of my pretty cool watch and ugly feet tan lines lol.

This dog literally followed us all the way to the base of the pyramid, then collapsed! So this Elder finished carrying it up.

Ok, and I forgot to tell the craziest thing. we went looking for a reference. and her daughter came out and started talking to us and was like "oh Mormons, the only thing I've heard about Mormons is a movie I watched. It's called the Other Heaven or something like that". And I was like "The Other Side of Heaven?" and she was like "yeah, I think so. It's about a muchacho that goes on to some islands and teaches people".  I was like "yeah that's actually about my grandpa on his mission"!   Yeah, pretty nuts. Turns out someone had given her this movie who knows when, and she liked it so much she watched it like 4 or 5 times. And that was all she knew about the church.  Until now! :) go grandpa!

Love,

Sister Bailey

Wherein Landen Reps the Y

August 28, 2017

Thank you momma, Its good to hear from you guys and about home. Definitely been there with the whole stressful school thing, prolly not on the same level as you, but at least intense enough to make me get very little sleep each night tambien.  

Of course all of the girls are talking to Seth mom, he wears my old clothes, obviously good style is going to attract good attention. tell him to go on lots of dates. Dates are fun. But tell him to be smart with his money, cause being 100% pelado is not fun.

Wow, 60 years for Grandma and Grandpa? That's a super long marriage in the worldly scheme, but super short in the eternal scheme. I remember their 50th anniversary - mostly just cause it was while they were living in IF for the temple and it was the first time that most of moms family had seen our house (even though it was our diamond house).  

We had a zone activity today, we went an played capture the flag in an area called Pargueras in a pueblo called Lajas. It was super pretty there. we obviously weren't allowed to go swimming, but they let us go out on the dock to take pics. so here is some beautiful me, still "Repping the Y" clear out here in Puerto Rico. 

love you all, 

Elder Bailey

Also, we threw a party to celebrate Miles' birthday with an investigadora. JK - it was for Elder Mancilla who turned 20 on the 27th as well, but I was celebrating for miles to, so it was totally for him as well.

Wherein Maelynn Makes Tamales!

August 21, 2017

I 100% did NOT forget about Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!  Espero que tenia un dia maravilloso! y lleno de pastel de chocolate!

y Feliz Cumpleaños al profeta Thomas S. Monson hoy!

y Feliz Cumple a mi hermanito Miles tambien. Cant believe the little bugger's turning 8! (btw, the day you turn 8 years old is the day I will have 8 months in the mission!)

Send my love to Mary Jane please!

Parkers gonna be a killer missionary!

I dont have a ton of time to write today because we spent all day learning how to make tamales. yeah thats right :) We went with Pamela and Juan Carlos and she put us to work... making the dough by hand and the salsas and, well all of it! Took literally the whole day, but SOOOOO worth it! Imma send pics just to make you jealous :)

{We also learned that when your run out of leaves, you can make tamales in plastic bags, who knew?}

Okay, Pamela and Juan Carlos make my whole mission worth it, honestly! Since Pamela is now a ward missionary, she was excited to come on visits with us, and Tuesday, she was with us from 11 in the morning til 5 in the afternoon. and man does she have a testimony! She rocks! and yesterday, Juan Carlos blessed the sacrament!!     No joke, these 2 give me SO much hope that there really are prepared people out there. I just don't know who they are yet, and maybe they don't know it either.

Love,
Hermana Bailey 

Wherein Landen Baptizes a Daughter of God!

August 21, 2017

I didn't forget about dad's birthday.  And in memorial of his birthday, me and my comp hiked the closest mountain. It's no TableRock that we usually do for his birthday, but we probably got up to 250 feet above sea level or something crazy like that. 

Tell Mary Jane Hi, and that I love her for me. I'll keep her in my prayers. Tell Lane he needs to start eating more sandwiches if he ever wants to get as big as me (btw, I definitely already grew an inch and a half out here, but Seth's prolly still taller). 

First of all, I wish we could baptize enough out here to have 2 wards overflow the same chapel in the same day, but we're not quite to that point. We did get some this week, though, kinda, i'll tell you about that in a sec. 

That's super cool about Parker leaving on his mish. Still super sad about Braydon though. 

I'm jealous of the eclipse.  All I'm gonna say - cause I don't want to think about how I'm missing a once in a life time opportunity.  But tell the cousins hi!

Okay.  Now the cool part of this week:

So I'm the designated driver of the car that we have here, and the only one with a license out of the 4 of us in Aguadilla because everyone else is Latino.  Which means that when the DL has to go do DL stuff, we have to do an intercambio.  There were 5 this week, 2 of them were full days.  The two that were full days were when he had to go to the stake center to do baptismal interviews for the sisters in Mayaguez who are awesome and had three investigators baptized this week. 

So I had to drive him to do these interviews, one on Friday for this super cool single mom who the sisters have been teaching, and 2 more interviews on Saturday for two little nenas that the sisters found and have been teaching for a while.  The girls are 10 and 13. While he was doing the interviews I had to wait outside with the other people waiting.  So I waited with the hermanas and with the muchacha that was waiting to be interviewed while her sister was being interviewed.

 Anyways, we did the interviews, and we came home and about an hour later the DL got a call in which the sisters asked him if he could come back the next day, Sunday, to baptize the three investigators, cause they all wanted him to.  Of course he said yes, so we made plans to be able to go back to Mayaguez again the next day.  Then the next morning, the morning of the baptism, we got a text, saying that the 13 yo had asked if I could do her baptism. I was super caught off guard, cause I had only talked to her for like 30 minutes while her sister was getting interviewed, but I still said yes. When we got there, I don't even think she knew my name, cause she just referred to me as 'the one who plays the piano', but she still wanted me to baptize her!  Her name is Naomi, her little sister is named Nani, and they're awesome, super cool little kids, I loved the opportunity I had to baptize her. 

Here's a pic for ya' too.  (Try to ignore how white my feet are compared to my face.)

(Response from Maelynn: "I thought you were wearing socks Landen. Haha")

Love you all, 

Elder Bailey

Wherein Maelynn Tells Us She is Safe!

August 20, 2017

"Once again, we got permission to let you guys know that I'm fine! This time the quake was a wee bit closer to us, and mid day, so I did feel it! It was like I was surfing in the street!! Well I've never actually been surfing before, but I've never been in an earthquake either.  But we're all good! A lot of damage in Cuernavaca so pray for the people here por fa."

Maelynn

We also got this from the AP's:

"Good morning Bailey Family

We are happy to inform you that your daughter is unharmed and well. No accidents occurred with any of our missionaries. An email was sent out last night to all of the parents confirming the wellbeing of all of the missionaries but we have been having some issues with our internet so it may have not reached your email.

Thank you for your concern and if you have any other questions, we are here to help. Have a good day!"

Elder Larson y Elder Paul

Secretarios Ejecutivos

Mision Mexico Cuernavaca

Wherein Maelynn Gets A Lollipop

August 14, 2017

         Ok but seriously about the piano thing. First the mission presidents wife found out I could kind of play the piano so I played at a zone conference.  No big deal. Then because of that, someone offered me to play for the choir at a stake conference. Then because of that the stake leaders asked me to play at a meeting with missionaries and stake and ward leaders. Well at that meeting was one of the councilors in our branch presidency. So the next Sunday, a key board all of a sudden appeared at the church, (we had been singing along to CDs up until this time) and from that moment on until I was transferred from the area, I played the keyboard every Sunday (which is WAY harder than the piano, btw) so Practiquen, practiquen, practiquen! 

     You know what they say, "work hard play hard." Mom, glad you're finding time to play hard in the midst of all of your studying and clinicals! Holy crap, whats the deal with this eclipse thing? Once in a lifetime deal or something?  Landen -  jajaja "te gusta mi blingbling" jajaja i love it :) ah Landen, I remember cracking open coconuts with a machete in Tonga. Good times!  You really do feel cool swinging a machete around :) 

     Okay this week, well it wasn't the best but that just means next week will get better, right? As far as numeros go, we're in the pits.  Buttttt I know that's not all that matters ok, iIknow.  But it does kind of suck. 

      Training is hard because teaching is hard. Even if you know how to do something. Like speaking English for example, I know how to speak it, but have you ever tried explaining it to someone that doesn't know how?  More difficult. I know (mas o menos) how to be a missionary, but teaching someone how? More difficult.   Long story short, I don't think I'm going to be a teacher when I grow up. But I am learning a lot. My companion is super awesome! 

      A funny story, we were just at a michoacana (an ice cream place) and I was deciding between Oreo cookie and coconut, when this guy walks in and is like "Hey gringa, do you remember me? you were preaching the palabra down in the barona" and i was like "Uh...no sorry."   And then he looks at the guy behind the counter and tells him to treat me good because I preach the palabra de Dios.  Then he shakes my hand and walks out.  Okay...weird.  Then he comes back. Like 1 minute later and starts talking about how great I am because I'm serving the Lord.  At this point I'm paying for the ice cream (I decided on coconut) and I turn around and this guy just hands me a lollipop and leaves again.  Haha!!  The guy behind the counter was like "uh...do you know him?" well the answer is no, I don't think I had ever seen him before, but hey, free lollipop!!!

      Okay, but the real good news for this week is that even though we didn't have any investigators at church this Sunday, the 3 that got baptized the week before all came. AND Juan Carlos received the priesthood :) :)  And Pamela got called as a ward missionary and she's super excited to go on visits with us!!! As sad as it is that we don't really have investigators right now, these two give me hope! There are some GOOOD people out there ready to accept the gospel and ready to go to work!

Hermana Bailey

Wherein Landen Plays The Piano

August 14, 2017

      Dad, make all of the kids practice piano. Like a little of everything is good, but make them practice them hymns!! This week was one of the most stressful of my mission because of the flippin' piano. If you didn't already know they asked me to play the piano like 2 weeks ago for Stake Conference.  For all of the congregational hymns I gave them a list of the ones I could play and they chose from those for me to play.  Then the stake choir director asked me to play for the choir as well, so I had to learn 2 new hymns that I had never played before, which was stressful, but I had like 2 weeks to practice (on p-days and when we were in the church for correlation and whatnot).  

      Then we get to the stressful part. We get in to the first session of Stake Conference, the leadership session (1 of 3) and I play the opening and do pretty good, things are looking okay. Then right after the opening hymn they announce the program, list off a bunch of people who are gonna talk, and then announce an intermediate hymn....One that they didn't tell me about and one that I didn't know how to play!!  So I had like 35 minutes to go out, find a broken keyboard in the primary room of the stake center, and learn a new hymn that I had to play in front of all of the stake leaders, the area temple president from Santo Domingo, my mission president, and the presiding area seventy - Elder Zivic. 

         Let's just say I crashed and burned on that intermediate hymn. I came back a little with the closing hymn.  Then the next session was a general session on Saturday night, and once again I killed it on the opening hymn, and once again they decided to sing an intermediate hymn that they didn't tell me about!!  Back to the primary I went, to learn a new hymn.  But this second time I started with a prayer. I told God that it was pretty obvious I couldn't learn to play a song in a half hour. Not even just with one hand (which is what I tried the first time) but that I had to learn it for this congregation (some of which drove for over 2 hours to get there). Basically my prayer was a "Jesus Take the Wheel" song, except for with the piano, cause I knew I couldn't learn it, but Jesus already knew it, so he could play it through me. I closed my prayer, and I started practicing with faith, by which I mean that I practiced to learn both hands, not just the right hand, (which usually takes longer and I was running out of time)... but I practiced. And I practiced. And I practiced.  And by the end of my practice time I still didn't know it well enough to perform it!  But I went and I played it any ways. and I prayed while I played. And the congregation didn't know it, but the Spirit of God accompanied them with that hymn. It ended up way better than I ever practiced it, and I can't explain to you in worldly terms how that is possible. 

         From there on out, all of the other hymns were ones that they had told me about and I was more or less prepared for.  Moral of the story is not to not learn the piano and expect God to bail you out of tight situations with a prayer.  No - it is to LEARN THE PIANO! I don't even know the piano that well and apparently I'm the best in the stake here in Puerto Rico! They tried for a while to find someone else, because the missionaries are not supposed to go to the Saturday sessions, but they couldn't find anyone, so yeah, dad MAKE THEM PRACTICE - please and thank you. 


         Dude, that's so awesome that so many people are coming up, its gonna be a party, and the eclipse is gonna be awesome too! I totally could have gotten all you guys eclipse glasses for super cheap at my work if I had known, but like, I don't work there anymore so you're kinda on you're own with that.

      This week has been pretty good. The members have been super nice to me ever since that fireside we had last week. And the work goes a lot smoother when the members are nice to you. As it seems Maelynn put into practice this last week as well. Nice job on those baptisms btw, sis. 

Okay, I've got some extra time so I'm gonna do a member highlight:

       One of my favorite members here is named Chispa. Actually his real name is Jose something, but everyone calls him Chispa. He used to be the town drunk of a pueblo called Aguada before the Sister missionaries came and baptized him and his wife about 15 years ago.  He's been sober ever since.  Everyone in the town knows him and he knows everyone in the town.  So we'll be driving down the road together and he'll just be calling out the window to everyone. He has a little finca in our area and for our p-day today we decided to go help him work on the farm for a few hours. It was actually super fun. I got pretty good at husking coconuts, learned at least 3 different parts of the coconut that you can eat(la tella, la carne, y la manzana).  

      And I had a lot of fun just going wild rambo on some trees with a machete. BTWs its like 10x funner to cut down trees with a machete than it is with an ax.  Plus you look so much cooler doing it.  The thicker trees you had to smack them a few times, but if they were skinnier than like 2-3 inches in diameter you could do them in one swing and it just makes you look like such a stud when you do that. Chispa was super funny there too. He introduced us to the people who live next to the finca and he told them I was Hawaiian (cause of grandpas movie). Also, he doesn't know my real name, he just calls me "Kolicoqui" - partly because he doesn't remember what they called gramps, and because the coqui frog is like the national animal here, so "Kolicoqui" is the Boricuan version of Kolipoki.  Okay, one more funny thing about Chispa is that he loves fishing, like a lot. It's one of the few things we don't see eye to eye on. But he loves it.  And he showed up at church the other week with golden chain necklaces and golden fish hanging on them - a dolphin and a sword fish it looked like.  And all he said was: "Te gusta mi blingbling?" Jajaja! so yeah...that's Chispa. He's cool. 

love you all,

Elder Bailey

Wherein Landen Speaks at a Fireside!

August 7, 2017

     That's cool that y'all had the missionaries over, we love eating with members here. Oh, and dad, I'm sure your lesson was still great.  My worst lesson-teaching at BYU was the Sunday after BYU lost to Utah by barely anything, and well, lets just say I showed up wearing a pair of chonclas with my suit; My lesson plan had ice-cream stains on it from the huge bowl of ice cream I had eaten to console myself after the loss; and I'm pretty sure I compared the Army of Helaman to BYU's football team at least 8 times; and we got out early!!

     Mom, that's pretty cool that you got to go to the cabin for camp. Speaking of the spirits of grandparents though, I got super trunky yesterday cause we watched The Other Side Of Heaven for a ward missionary fireside (fun Spanish word of the day: "charla foganera") It was super cool, but made me pretty homesick to see grandma and grandpa and even mom and dad for a half second at the end.  Super cool though - the purpose was to inspire members to be member missionaries, and not feel afraid to share the church with their friends/family/coworkers. So as the grandson of Kolipolki - of course they made me talk as a part of the fireside and answer questions about Gramps afterwards!  Guys - Spanish is hard!  But I made it through okay.  I also gave one of Grandpas books to the WML.  His name is Danny.  He's super cool. We all made it on his Instagram that night too (see pic)

Keep strong in school, mom and have fun in Iowa!

Love y'all,

Elder Bailey

{Sadie - the best advice I can give you: run faster. It solves every problem. If you're falling behind in a race - how can you fix it? Run faster. If you're not getting the times that you want - how can you fix it? Run faster. Even if you get tired in a race - how can you get less tired? Well, you sit down. But the only way you can sit down is after you finish - so the best thing you can do is finish as fast as you can - which means "run faster".
luv ya sis,

Elder Bailey}

[Also, a really cool mini cooper was out front of our house to other day. And I got a new pair of shoes, and the elder who just went home left me his sun glasses, so needless to say all of these combined for a super cool pic that can only be appreciated in print, so expect a great pic in the mail soon.]

Wherein Maelynn Plans a Baptism!

August 7, 2017

Dear Family - woo hoo, feed those missionaries every day! So -  fun news this week: another baptism! Well actually 3!!! 

   Elizabeth (the blonde) and Pamela y Juan Carlos. Elizabeth was introduced to the church a few years ago when she met her boyfriend who is a returned missionary who lives in San Diego. Honestly the biggest miracle of all of this is her mom. At first when we started visiting her, her mom would get upset and just go to her room.  But now she's started listening to us, asking questions, and when she came to the baptism and confirmation the next day, she definitely felt something special. We're winning her confidence poco a poco. 

     Pamela and Juan Carlos just moved to Cuernavaca like a month ago. They were living in Mexico City, and Pamela had been listening to the missionaries there for a while.  So when they moved here, they passed us the reference, we found them, finished teaching them and helped them take this important step.  During their baptism we Skyped the Elders in Mexico so they could be a part of this special day. They are awesome!  They're already ready for callings, and I have no doubt that in a year they'll be in the temple to be sealed as a family :)   Oh man, that's what this work is all about!! (and I'm definitely coming back when that happens!!)

      This was quite possibly the most stressful week of my entire life.  Trying to plan a baptism and work with the bishop and members, with little help from my comp (because she only has 2 weeks as a missionary, I can't really blame her).  But Saturday came, the bishop actually helped us A LOT and it was a really neat service. The next day, even though all 3 of them showed up late to church, they were all able to receive the incredible gift of the Holy Ghost, and with it being testimony meeting too - man the spirit was strong!  Anyone could have recognized it!

Yeah, that's about it for this week. Miracles really do happen :)

Hermana Bailey