Week 18

Hello friends and fam!

I hope you’re all doing great wherever you’re reading this from. Another crazy week here! Transfers are finally here and I got the news on Saturday that I am going to be a “father”!  Now it’s not what you think (lol), when we are called to be a trainer in the mission you are considered the “father” of your new missionary.  I’m pretty sure every mission calls it that, but just to clarify.  So yeah, I’m going to be training a brand new missionary straight out of the gates of my own training.  Kinda crazy, right?  At least for this mission it is.  I’m really really excited but also nervous for this new opportunity.  To be honest, I really don’t feel 100% ready to train a new missionary when I still feel so new myself, but everyone tells me that everyone feels that way when they are called to train, regardless of their time in the mission.  Now not only am I training, but I am also opening the second area here in Obrero Ward, Obrero 2.  Elder Bayona and I have had both areas for the past 12 weeks, but most of our work has been in Obrero 1, so I don’t have an abundance of people to start working with.  It’s going to be a challenge at first, but that is what I like and am excited for.  I feel a huge sense of responsibility for this area I’ve been given, and for the chance I have to teach a new missionary.  I’m ready to get to work.

One interesting thing about training here in my area, is that it’s guaranteed that I’m going to be here in Sullana three more months.  So it looks like I’m going to be spending 6 months of my mission in Sullana!  Wow, 1/4th of my mission.

As for the rest of my week, is wasn’t too eventful.  On Saturday we had our big “Ilumina el Mundo” or “Light the World” activity with all the members from the stake of Sullana.  We all gathered together in the centro de Sullana with all the members, missionaries, and leaders of the stake, and did the light the world initiative.  We invited everyone in the centro to come and watch little videos from the Church about Christmas and listen to us sing hymns. We actually gathered a pretty big crowd of people. It was a really good opportunity for people to learn a little about why we celebrate Christmas and to help them remember Christ.  Even though it wasn’t like a sacrament meeting or other organized church event, there was still a really strong spirit there with all those people.  It was a really cool and fun experience.  It was fun to talk with all the people there and learn more about what is important to them.

I’m sorry I don’t have more to report on!  I’m sure I will have more next week.  I’m so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve the Lord at this time in my life.  I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church of God with all my heart. If any of you are looking for a testimony of the Church, or looking to strengthen it, read the Book of Mormon!  The Book of Mormon can answer any question that we have.  It is such a powerful book and I know that it is the word of God.  It can help all of us in our lives.  As it says in the introduction to the Book of Mormon:  “We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to power in their hearts the message it contains and then ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true.  Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.  Those who gain this divine witness from the Holy Spirit will also come to know by the same power that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is his revelator and prophet in these last days, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah.”

Wow what a promise.  I invite you all to read the Book of Mormon every day and to book for the changes it will bring to your testimony and your life.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving back home!  It is sad to miss moments with all of you back home, but it’s pretty minimal when I think of all the good that we are doing here.   I love being a missionary!

¡Auanza su Verdad!

Elder Bailey   #TCOB  #TakeNote

Week 17

Hey!

Another great week here in the land of Peru. I can’t believe I’m on my last week of training! We have cambios next week and I’m nervous/excited to see what happens. I’m really starting to like my area here in the Obrero ward. We have been finding a lot of new awesome people to teach in these past few weeks. If I say here for another 6 weeks I think there is a lot of success to be had. If I end up going somewhere else, great. I’ll go wherever the Lord calls me. :)

Monday was a great day. For P-day, we played soccer in the morning (like normal) and then spent the afternoon with Elders Hurtado and Thompson from Bellavista ward watching Shrek movies at a member’s house. I believe we watched Shrek 3 and 4, which is crazy because I didn’t even know that there was 4 Shrek movies, lol. It was fun, though, and felt good to relax a little. In the evening, our only appointment that we had scheduled fell through, se we went looking for new investigators to teach the old-fashioned way: knocking doors. The very first door we knocked, we found an awesome family. Their names are Narcissa and her son Carlos, and her brother Edwin and his little kids. They have a solid Christian background so we taught them all about the Restoration. They had so many questions and are super interested. As I was teaching them, I just felt so much love for them and desired to help them in any way possible to receive our message. I feel really good about them. We’ll see what happens.

Tuesday was a super busy day. First thing in the morning we had a lesson with the 15 year old son of the lady that does our laundry. his name is Richard, and he’s a less-active member. I shared Helaman 5:12 with him and told him how our lives will always be better with Christ as our rock and foundation. It was a really spiritual lesson, and Richard told us he would come to Church on Sunday. I’m grateful for the power of the Spirit and the ability it has to change people’s hearts. It really does work miracles here in the mission. In the afternoon we started teaching an 11 year old kid named Dieros. He’s part of a part member family, and seems like a really cool guy. We also had another lesson with my guy Segundo! This time we taught him all about the plan of salvation. We talked about the fall of Adam and Eve and Christ’s role as Savior and Redeemer. He had a ton of great questions and it was fun to help him learn. During the lesson I kept thinking, “Wow, this guy gets it.” He is just super smart and always wants to read and learn more. We proposed a date for baptism on the 9th of December. He said that it would be cool if we baptized him, but wants to read and learn more. We’re going to keep working with him. Man, he is the best. I definitely feel like he has been prepare by the Lord to hear us.

Wednesday was the big World Cup qualifying game here in Peru. Let’s just say that in America there isn’t anything that unites us the way soccer unites this country. It is incredible. I think we may have been the only two people in the city who weren’t closely watching this game. From when the game started to when it ended, there wasn’t a single car or moto-taxi in the street. Now obviously we weren’t watching the game, but we definitely knew everything that was going on from people’s reactions on the street. It was super funny. After it was over and they won, there was a huge caravan of people, moto-taxis, and cars outside our apartment. I had never seen anything like it. I guess that’s how celebrate when your team goes to the World Cup for the first time in almost 40 years. It was nuts, I’m telling you, nuts.

Thursday I had companion exchanges with Elder Westergard. He’s from South Carolina, and he’s super cool. He only has one transfer of experience more than me so I was a little nervous to go about leading my area with someone who knew the language only about as good as me. It went well, though, and we are able to teach a lot of good lessons. The highlight of the day was when we taught a family that we had found a few days back. Their names are Juan and Sujey, and their kids Juan and Ariana. They are definitely some of my favorite people I have found on my mission. They just have a light about them and are so open to hearing our message. It seems to me like they are already god strong members of the church even though they have never heard from the missionaries before. I see so much potential in them. While me and Elder Westergard were teaching them about the Book of Mormon, the mom Sjey quietly asked, “How much of this book do we need to read before our baptism?” Me and Elder Westergard just looked at each other and smiled. It was awesome. I explained that we still have a lot to teach them, but that they can be baptized whenever they feel that they are ready. We will probably put a date for them to be baptized in the next lesson.

Saturday we had a baptism! Well, we didn’t baptize, but we were able to witness the baptism of a kid that we have been teaching. His name is Darlin, and he is 11. He is an interesting little guy, and we had to have a lot of patience with teaching him. He can’t read, and I think has a little bit of a learning disability, but he is awesome. We had to teach him the word of wisdom, tithing, and the law of chastity probably 20 times each so he could remember, but he finally got it down. and was able to be baptized by his uncle. It was kind of sad to see that only about 4 members showed up at his baptism, but it was still a great experience. There is always something special about baptisms. The spirit is always present. Darlin was so excited to be baptized by his uncle, and was smiling super big before, during, and after his baptism. It was awesome to see how happy he was. Darlin is a great example of someone who doesn’t know everything about the gospel, but still has the faith to move forward and follow the example of Christ. Sometimes we don’t have all the answers to our questions, or maybe we have some doubts, but if we move forward with faith and act, we will always be blessed by our Heavenly Father. Learning in the Gospel is a process. We aren’t going to have all the doctrine and mysteries of God revealed to us in one day. We learn little by little, precept upon precept. We have to continually try to learn a little each day. My goal is always to know more today than I did yesterday. That is how we grow our testimonies and knowledge.

I’m so grateful for this opportunity that I have to be a missionary. Everyday I see miracles and can see myself growing. I have decided that I am going to use this mission to change who I am, and to become a completely different person than who I was when I left home. I want to overcome my weaknesses and make them strengths. I’m grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ which makes that possible. Through the atonement we can continually become better each day. 

I hope you are all doing great back home! I love and miss you all so much. Have a good week!! (Also, sorry for the lack of pictures. My companion accidentally deleted all of my pictures from my camera, lol)

Les amo, 

Elder Bailey

Week 16

What’s up everyone?  

Another quick week has passed here.  Time is starting to pick up!  Only 2 weeks left of my training.  Crazy.  I don’t really have a ton to report on this week, just a pretty normal week.  However, on Thursday we had our multi-zone conference.  Every time we have these multi-zones, I learn so much.  This time we talked all about miracles.  I especially liked what President Rasmussen talked about.  He explained that we have miracles every day in our lives, we just have to open our eyes and have the faith to see them.  Sometimes we go about our busy lives with work, school or whatever, and forget to recognize the hand of the Lord and to see his miracles that happen all around us.  Yesterday we were able to see a miracle.

Yesterday we had stake conference for all of Sullana.  To better our church attendance of investigators, Elder Bayona and I headed out early in the morning to invite all our investigators to the conference.  One of which was our investigator named Segundo.  Segundo told us that he would be able to make it, and we were super excited.  However, about 15 minutes later, he called us and said that the probably wouldn’t be able to come anymore, as something with his work had come up last minute.  He did say though that he would try his best to be there.  We were extremely disappointed, because Segundo is one of the best investigators we have, and we knew that attending church for the first time at stake conference would be a great opportunity to receive a good impression from hearing the leaders of the stake and from President Rasmussen.  Twenty minutes before the meeting started, we stood outside the stake center hoping that Segundo would show.  Unfortunately, he never came.  We went in to the meeting a little disappointed, but were able to hear some awesome inspired messages from the leaders of the church here in Sullana.  We then went about the rest of our day as normal.  In the afternoon, we were walking through the area trying to contact new people when we ran into Segundo outside his house.  After a little small talk, he started to explain to us how much he liked the conference.  We were super shocked and confused.  We thought maybe we had missed him walking into the church earlier, or something like that.  Rather, he started to tell us that he came a little late, but was able to come with his little son.  He explained that when he got to the church, he was really confused and didn’t know where to go or what to do.  Now this next part is the miracle.  In one of our first lessons with Segundo, he told us that he knew only one member of the Mormon church, and it was Hermano Hector Lucas from our ward here in Obrero.  Now, Segundo told us that he was really confused with all the rooms and all the people.  But out of all the hundreds of people that were there at the stake center, when he walked through the door he ran into Hector Lucas, who was maybe the only person in the building (besides us) that he knew.  Hermano Lucas was able to show Segundo where to go, and was able to sit by him and his young son, and make him feel welcome.  Segundo said that he loved the conference, and felt really good about it.

Now, a lot of people would say that this was just a coincidence that Hermano Lucas just happened to be there to greet him, but I am choosing to view it as a miracle.  I’m choosing to have faith that it was the hand of God that guided Hermano Lucas to run into Segundo.  I’m so grateful for this miracle I was able to see.  I know that if we choose to look for miracle in our lives, they will be manifest to us.  Miracles happen all the time, we just need to have the faith to see them.  I challenge you all to look for the hand of God and his miracles in your lives.  I know that if you look, you will find.

Well, I am sorry I don’t have more to report on!  Not a whole lot of things happened apart from the everyday things that happen here in Peru, like using a stick to help the little kids get mangos from the trees lol (highlight of my week).  All is great here!  I hope you are all doing good back home!  I’ll talk to you next week!

Nos Vemos,

Elder Bailey

Week 15

Hola!  Another week down!  We had another good one.

On Monday we went into Piura for P-day with some of the elders from our Zone.  It was my second time going through the big mall there, and it was super sweet again.  As I mentioned before, it’s basically identical to a mall back in the states or maybe a bit nicer.  We just walked through some of the stores there and ate lunch in the food court.  After the mall, we went to the giant flea market in Piura.  Apparently it is one of the biggest markets in all of Peru.  It was huge.  There was so many shops and booths and everyone was just selling all kinds of stuff.  It was pretty dang fun.  Monday night we were able to teach Segundo again, and it was amazing!  In just a few days he had read all of 1 Nephi, read all the pamphlets we had given him, and he had lots of questions.  It was sooo awesome.  We were able to answer all his questions and doubts an showed him a video of our living prophets and apostles testifying of Christ.  He loved it.  He has such a good understanding of everything we have taught, he is reading a lot, and he has the desire and faith to learn more.  He is the perfect investigator, and I know he has been prepared.  I can’t wait to teach him again.  Too bad we have to wait until next week when he doesn’t have to work . . .  He is definitely the best investigator we’ve had so far.

One funny thing that happened on Monday night was that when we got back to our room, we realized that we had left our keys in the room and the owners of the apartment building weren’t home to give us the spare key, so we were trapped in our building staircase for over two hours, waiting for them to come home so we could use their spare key.  Those were some long 2 hours lol.  Especially as tired and hungry as we were.  So yeah, kind of funny.  The mission is a test of patience a lot of the time ;)

Wednesday was Dia de los Muertos here in Peru (Day of the Dead).  It is the day after Halloween where everyone pays tribute to their loved ones who have died.  Back home, the closest thing we have to this is memorial day, but that doesn’t even compare to the size of the celebrations here.  As a zone we did a proselyting activity near the cemetery in the midst of the huge crowds of people.  The scene was pretty similar to the flea market in Piura.  There were thousands of people there all going their different directions either going into the cemetery with flowers, or trying to sell something. It was kind of a crazy place to be.  It reminded me of the opening scene from the latest James Bond movie if any of you have seen that (lol).  There were also other religions and preachers there with their own beliefs trying to teach the people, so we had our work cut out for us.  We had a table set up in the middle of the square where people could come up and ask questions and talk to us, but this table only had one set of missionaries.  The rest of us went to work in the crowds.  We went through trying to talk with anyone we could about their beliefs about their family members that have passed on, and tried to set up appointments to teach them more about what we believe in.  We then would give them a pass along card or pamphlet.  We probably passed out thousands of those little guys.  At first we were kind of selective on who and when to give them  out, but by the end, I was yelling out loud “Picture of Jesus Christ!” and waving them around and giving them to everyone that passed by.  I definitely felt a little like a salesman like the the rest of the people there, but you never know how far a little image of Jesus with “lds.org” on it could go.  Plus, were wrote our names and number on every single card so you never know.  It was really funny to us to see how many people turned down a pass along card of christ even when we said it was free.  Interesting.  Overall it was a unique and fun experience.

Thursday and Friday were a test of our patience.  On Thursday, every single one of our appointments fell through and on Friday we were only able to have one.  It was kind of tough but some days are just going to be like that.  Just gotta keep moving’ forward when the tough days come.

On Saturday we had companion exchanges.  I went to the area of Elder Vilchez in Buenos Aires and his companion, Elder Newman came to our area here in Obrero.  Exchanges are always an opportunity to see how other missionaries work and how they do things.  I learned a lot from Elder Vilchez.  He is from Lima and he is 27 years old.  Kind of crazy to think that my companion was almost 10 years older than me.  Elder Vilchez knows both the Book of Mormon and the Bible super well.  he was able to answer any question anyone had with either the bible or the Book of Mormon.  I thought that was pretty cool.  I feel like I could maybe do that with the Book of Mormon, but definitely not the Bible.  One of my goals for the next few months is to get to know the Bible better.  The Book of Mormon and the New and Old Testaments all testify of Jesus Christ and his divine role as Savior and Redeemer.  Both the Book of Mormon and the Bible are the words of God.  The are equally important.  I think it is important not to neglect one or the other.  We can learn from both!

Well, that was my quick week here!  I love you all and will talk to you next week!

Seguir Adelante,

Elder Bailey

“I attribute my success to this:  I never gave or took any excuse.”  - Florence Nightingale