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

Wherein Maelynn Celebrates her 20th Birthday!

November 6, 2017

A member from my comps old area that I don't even know invited us over today and brought me a birthday cake! How nice are these people - seriously.

So a couple of sort of funny things happened this week.

So you know how its like the biggest missionary joke when you contact someone and they say "I'll call you" and NO ONE ever calls. ..Well someone called this week!

someone I guess I had contacted on a bus a month or 2 or who knows how long ago.
So we set up an appointment to visit him in the church, and we got an hermano to accompany us just in case.  And it's a good thing we did, because he showed up just a liiiittle bit drunk.  Enough that we couldn't teach him anything, didn't think it would go anywhere, invited him to church and that was it.
But then, HE SHOWED UP TO CHURCH! it was kinda crazy, but I guess we'll see how well he progresses.

Also, being in Mexico for "dia de los muertos" was cool.  We didnt' really do anything crazy, but one night before heading home we passed by a catholic church (not hard to do, there's one on every corner), and my comp was a little curious so we went in to look around (not inside, just the garden/yard area on the outside) and someone came up to us and told us that if we would persinar (cross our hand from our forehead and so forth like the Catholics do) that they would give us an offering.  Well we weren't really interested in that, so we just kept looking around.  But then a lady came up and gave us each a bag of fruit and pan de muerto (dead bread) and said it was a gift because we came to visit them! Yassss - the perks of looking like a foreigner!

Another funny thing... well the other day my comp was looking at pictures on my camera, and she found one she didn't like of herself and tried to delete it. But my camera is in English, and my comp doesn't know how to speak English except for "good morning" and "my body is beautiful" (no idea where she learned that) and she ended up deleting ALL of my pictures and videos that I have taken in the last 10 months!

so......Don't cry, (I almost did) - but then I realized that pictures aren't everything and also that I have been sending pictures home every week, so not allll hope is lost.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, I hope Sadie had a freaking awesome quinceñera!

(And thanks for the package! I'm waiting til tomorrow to open it, but I appreciate it and also the picture you took so early in the morning!)

love you fam!

Maelynn