Wherein Landen Hikes to a Waterfall.

November 26, 2018

Wow, that is lots of patients, glad they keep you busy there! Hope you still have enough time to enjoy the holiday season too! 

I saw the thanksgiving pics, looks like lots of fun. and a full house!  My comp was mindblown by how big the table was. Our thanksgiving here was good. They don't celebrate it here so I cooked all of our Thanksgiving dinner and me and my comp just kinda celebrated by ourselves in our apartment after we got in at 8 for dinner. Definitely not the most glamorous Thanksgiving, but lots of thanks was still given, so its purpose was fulfilled. 

Things are pretty chill here, nothing really crazy happening. The work is going good.  We have found a lot of new people to teach, so that was a huge blessing.  And yeah, that's really it. I've gotten way good at driving on the left side of the road, but I still mess up a lot and accidentally turn on the window wipers when I need to turn! ;) But I'm getting there - that is the purpose of this life, to work toward perfection, and I'm still in that progress with the blinker! 

 Otherwise life is really chill here, we are excited for the upcoming month and Christmas season. We have a lot of "Light the World" plans for the Island which should be good. 

We also went to  a waterfall today, which was super duper cool. I'll try to send pictures.

Love you all tho!!!!

Elder Bailey

Wherein Landen Meets An Apostle!

November 19, 2018

  Mom - I'm super sorry. It sounds like your guy's week has been pretty crappy. Okay, from what you have told me, super crappy. With so many problems happening it may seem even difficult to get into the Thanksgiving spirit, but I hope everyone can still recognize all of the blessings that you all have still.
    If I might help you all to count some: 
1. Nobody got hurt seriously with two separate car accidents happening at the same time. 
2. Those 2 cars that you were driving were still brand new to my perspective (since I still have never even seen them), so new cars even if they are crashed is a huge blessing. 
3. You live in a country where they celebrate Thanksgiving - so you get lots of food and turkey decorations. 
4. (This one is more for mom)- you got blessed with a friend to share with you more than 40 + years of life. 
5. You have an eternal companion and children to share life with you for eternity as well. 
6. There is always hope in Christ, this life is not the end of the plan of redemption. 
7. You have a super-cool son that got to spend a fun weekend in Puerto Rico with an apostle! 
...... and many many many more as well. 

     If I can add on to that as well some counsel that Elder Christofferson gave to us about overcoming our trials with our faith: If you are going through hard times, Keep going. ("you might make it out before the devil even knows your thereeeeee"). He taught us that frequently in our trials, God teaches us even more. Not because he brings us miracles and glorious wonders to remove us from out of the middle of hard times. Nor does He give us great amounts of courage and energy to push through at a sprint. But most of the time, God will give us just barely enough support for us to make it throughout that very day.        He did not give the Israelites monthly or even weekly 'support bread'. He gave to them and He gives to us support every day in our Daily Bread. Our faith isn't to pull us out of hard times and into glorious ones, rather our faith is to trust in God and depend on Him DAILY, as we fight sometimes just to get to the bread at the end of each day. (Elder Christofferson also shared a super cool story to go along with that). 

     I am thankful as well for many things in life: 

1) Even after our flight got canceled to Puerto Rico and we waited 8 hours in an airport, we still got to safely fly from Dominica to Puerto Rico and enjoy an amazing weekend with an apostle!

2) We learned many wonderful things that are now going to help us complete the will of the Father on this Island. 
3) We made it back safely (with the wonderful package you all sent, thanks all!) to Dominica on Sunday afternoon (after a flight delay in Puerto Rico as well).

     At the point I am at in the mission - and also very prompted by some thoughts that Elder Christofferson shared, I have thought a lot recently about how short life and this mission really are. 
     This life truly is too short, and the mission I serve too fast, for me or any of us to waste time away from the Spirit, or away from the service of God. I, and all of us, are Humans. We are imperfect. And as we serve we are often times unable to contribute all that we might hope to contribute to the building of the Kingdom of God. But as we serve with all our might, even in "our own weak way" (as the patriarch called it in Grandpa Ivan's blessing), we can make a difference, and we can contribute a lot. 

     I know by personal testimony but also because I recently heard it out of the mouth of an apostle, that I have been given authority from Christ to declare His word. To act as He would, and to teach as He did.  With this authority, despite my in-capabilities and the "weakness" of my way of serving, I will be, and am, able to help the Kingdom of God progress on this Island nation to which I am assigned.  That is my hope and Faith, and the promise I give to Him to use all of the time I have let here on this mission - and for the rest of my short life, to serve Him, to Follow Him,  and to help all others around me to do the same. 

I hope all goes better for you all this week, Happy thanksgiving to everyone!!!

I Love you all,

Elder Bailey

Wherein Landen Listens to the Spirit.

November 12, 2018

Wow, that is sad about Jim passing. I hope Lynn could feel the love of the whole family, and that all goes well for her from here forward. Thanks for sharing.  They have been really special friends for our family for, well, I cant even remember how long. But I hold in high gratitude all of the special memories we have with them, from Thanksgiving dinners, to backpacking advice and counseling, to supporting us at our scouting courts of honor. They are some real cool people. 

Life on Dominica continues forward. We had a rather successful week this week, found a lot of cool new people to teach and had some bomb lessons with some of our progressing investigators. We had some super cool experiences as well in following the spirit this week. I will share 2 with you, one big one, and one small one.  First the small one. We went one day to teach a lesson to a person that we had an appointment with and we called and called, and the person never came out. We were bummed, because we had been having a really bad day and had already had like 4 appointments before that fall through.  So it was rough and we were pretty disappointed, but we turned around and started talking to their neighbors.  After a minute of talking to them I opened my mouth to, as I call it "navigate the conversation toward the gospel", and when I opened my mouth the only words that came out were "Thank you, have a great afternoon". ..and the convo was over and we started to walk away.  But it was kinda a weird experience, cause it wasn't what I had planned on saying, but its just what came out.  Right when our convo with the neighbors ended though and we started walking away, was right when the person we had an appointment with came out of her house and yelled us back and told us she had been asleep! We had an awesome lesson with her that we wouldn't have had if we had walked away too fast or gotten tied down in a conversation with her neighbors.  Like I said - something small, but a fulfillment for me of the D&C scripture that says: "the spirit will put the words in your mouth in the very moment". So it was pretty cool.

 The other experience was on Thursday in the morning.  We were making plans for our day, and we had been planing for like the entire previous week that that day we were going to go to the indigenous territory to preach the gospel to the natives of the island for the whole day. We set up the plans, we had everything ready to go, then when we preyed over our plans at the end of the planning session we both felt that something was wrong with the plans.  So we went back over them and revised them a bit, but still, we felt something was wrong.  Eventually we were guided to not to go to the territory that day, even though that is what we had been planning on for forever. And instead we went around and visited with people in the city where we live (Portsmouth).  So we had to start from scratch and change our whole day around and make whole new plans, but at the end of it, we were able to pray over the plans again and get a spiritual confirmation that that was what God wanted us to do! We aren't really sure why we weren't suppose to go to the territory that day, but for what ever reason it was, God didn't want us there. 

The spirit is kinda funny sometimes in the way it works, and the way it speaks to each individual.  But we have been promised many times in the scriptures that no matter how big or small the issue, the Spirit can and will guide us in "all things" as we rely on prayer and the study of the scriptures (2 Nephi 32:3, 8-9). I am super grateful for the Spirit to guide me in my missionary labors, and for all of the plans that God has for me to fulfill, as I try every day to be an obedient instrument in his hands.

I love you all and hope you all the best of best in this upcoming week!

Elder Bailey

From a letter to Maelynn: (About the upcoming trip he will be making to the main island of PR this week):

"We never go back to Puerto Rico. That's why this trip is so special. Literally the only time we get to go back is if we get transferred back and someone comes and replaces us, or if the mission gets a visitor from the quorum of the 12 or above (so the last time it happened was when the prophet came). Other than that, we never go to zone conferences, we just don't have them. We do google hangouts video call for district meetings. We cant even call our mission president because international minutes are crazy expensive, so we just 'whats app' the President and the APs for important stuff.  The closest missionaries are about 100 miles away on an island called St. Kitts, and they are a senior couple in our district.  The closest young missionaries are on St. Thomas (about 200 miles away) (also in our district). So it will be super cool to go actually meet all of the missionaries in our district, having never met them in person before, but we'll see them in PR. 

Wherein Landen Explores the Rain-forest!

November 5, 2018

      Saw all of the pictures, they all look great! I'll be uploading a few of my own as well here soon, we went on another Hike today - the Syndicate Nature trail, home of the Sisserou Parrot (and only place in the world where that type of parrot can be found). So it was pretty cool, but we didn't actually get to see any parrots (cause they're green and we were in a rain forest so they're super hard to see). But we did get to hear them all around us and we got some cool pics of us, and rain forest stuff and even a video of the parrot sounds so it was a fun trip. 

      We also had a great week this week. We found a cool new investigator named Obenson. He came to an English class that we teach with one of his friends. He is from Haiti and only speaks French and Haitian Creole, so being in Dominica he has to learn English. After the class we found out that he lives next to where we live, so we walked home with him, and then he asked for our number and literally texted us asking when we could teach him so we set up a time to go and teach him. We tried to teach him about just simple things like faith and prayer, but couldn't get very far because he literally speaks zero English, and we both speak fluent Spanish, but zero French. So it was rough, but then.... he came to church on Sunday!!! And none of our members speak any French either, so another person we are teaching had to translate for him. So he is showing a ton of interest and is a super cool guy, but without google translate we can't communicate with him at all.  It's a struggle, but its in process now. Keep him (and us) in your prayers please, so that we can communicate with him, otherwise idk what we are gonna do...

      So, a cool side note, we are going back to Puerto Rico in 2 weeks for a fun weekend vacation!  Just kidding, we are going to participate in a devotional that Elder Christopherson is going to give! They decided it was important enough to fly us in to see it! So they are spending money on plane tickets for me and Elder Mancilla to spend a weekend in Puerto Rico! We are going to be there for 2 days for just a 2 hour devotional, so I'm not sure what else we are going to do, but it should be fun. I mention it tho, because it will be like my only chance to get any supplies from you guys! Please send a package to Puerto Rico before I get there on November 16th.  I would love you all super Much!

    In other news I hit my 18 month mark in the mission. Crazy to think it was so long ago that I started. And that so soon I will be going home. Seeing all of these friends going home and hearing about all of their homecomings is crazy and its making me really want to make the most of the time I have left. So I took some time this last week, and to celebrate my 18 month mark in the mission, I set for myself 18 goals that I want to achieve before I go home. I tried my best to follow the outline that mom and dad always gave us to set goals (Educational, Physical, Spiritual, Social, and Financial is what I think they were, if I got them wrong correct me ;))

      In the mission I have come to appreciate the concept and setting and achieving goals, something I was very familiar with before the mission, but something I've now come to recognize as essential in all aspects of life. Even Mom in her work at J4K has a goal for the number of patients to see every day. I'm sure dad does similar things in his work as well.  And we have a sure example of that in God's work for us: "Behold this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal Life of Man". Something that he did not just say and not act on, but something that he gave payment for and made an organized plan and a gospel to achieve. "Such as he is, even so should we be" which is why God has also commanded us, from the beginning, to be an organized people saying "Organize yourselves, and prepare every needful thing." His prophets and leaders have taught us continually that setting and achieving goals is the Lord's way of organizing and accomplishing our work. I know all of you have big visions for the future, you all know that I have a big vision for the future, and I would hope that we can all achieve what God desires of us as we work and even sacrifice to accomplish what we plan to. 

I truly love this work that I am in, and I receive from it blessings every single day. I love all of you as well, and wish the best for you all in this upcoming week of adventures! 

Elder Bailey