Week 35

Hey there!

So this week started off somewhat interesting.  So off and on throughout my mission I have been experiencing  some pretty bad in-grown toenails (gross I know), but I had been toughing it out trying to fix them up on my own.  However the past few weeks the pain has gotten pretty unbearable, lol. So, we decided to get ‘em fixed up.  We went to the local foot doctor and they poked my two big toes with some big needles to numb them, and then cut the in-growns out.  The funny thing is, I was completely fine with the needles and blood and stuff, but Elder Randall watching from the sidelines got a little lightheaded. He doesn’t do well with that kind of thing. So yeah, I had a good start to the week. :)

We weren’t able to work as much as we wanted to this week, as I was put of of business for a day with my toes. We had our multi-zone training and a few other things that kept us from working a lot in our area.  But of the time we did have, we spent just about every second knocking doors to find new people to start teaching. One thing I’ve found from being here in this part of Piura, is that it’s a heck of a lot harder to knock doors and get inside people’s houses.  Everyone loves to come up with some crazy excuse as to why they can’t listen to a message about Jesus for 10 minutes.  I get pretty heated when we knock a door and they open and tell us that they are “occupied”, and then we watch them walk back to their couch and continue watching TV.  I always tell Elder Randall that I would rather have them just say they don’t want to listen than come up with some crazy lie. Some people don’t even make sense.  For example, one night we were knocking doors, and we knocked a house with a window open and a guy lounging on his couch watching some good ole futbol.  When he heard us, he looked out the window at us and waved his finger saying “Nobody’s here”.  When I heard that I just laughed and said, “So who are you?”, but he didn’t respond.  Maybe he was a ghost or something.  Knocking doors day-in and day-out and talking with these types of people has been a huge test of patience for me.  Sometimes I really have to bite my tongue when someone lies to us or is just plain rude.  Elder Randall has been helping me to try and have patience with people.  He always tells me to think of the classic “WWJD?” (What Would Jesus Do?)  It’s kind of cliché, but it’s so true.  Every time I hear something rude towards us, or some kind of lie, I try to think how Christ would react.  Almost always, I find that he would act contrary to what I want to do, ha ha.  So that is something I have been trying to put into practice.

On Thursday we had our multi-zone conference.  The entire conference was focused on the second principle of the gospel — repentance.  President talked a lot about how sometimes we think of repentance as something negative or bitter, but really it is something wonderful and sweet.  It is through the atonement and repentance that we receive joy and peace.  He shared the scripture in Alma 36:21 that says, “Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains  Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”  As we can see, it is not repenting that is bitter and sad, but rather NOT repenting that brings us misery and sadness.  I am so grateful for the gift of the atonement in my life and for the opportunity that I have to repent and grow from my mistakes.  Like I said last week, repentance truly is a blessing.

On Saturday we had another baptism!  A few weeks ago we started teaching a little 11 year old girl named Duani.  Duani lives with her family who are all members, but are less-active in the church.  Duani has always come to church with her uncle Jimmy, and for that reason we always thought she was a member.  However, one day as we were passing by, her mom stopped us and asked if we could give Duani a blessing, as she had been sick.  After the blessing, we started talking to them and found out that Duani wasn’t ever baptized!  So, the past few weeks we taught her the lessons and of course she accepted to be baptized.  It’s funny how the Lord works sometimes.  The baptism went great, (finally no major problems) as Duani was baptized by her uncle.  I think this baptism was really good for Duani’s family.  During the closing hymn of the service, I noticed her mom tearing up a little bit.  Hopefully this can help them start to come to church again.

Well, that’s all for this week!  I hope you are all doing well back home!  I’ll talk to you all next week. Go Jazz!

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

Week 34

Hey what’s up?  

Can’t believe another week has already flown by.  Time seems to be flying out here with my boy Elder Randall.  Only two more weeks until next transfer!  We are crossing our fingers that we get at least one more six week transfer together.  We’ll see what happens.  During these first 4 weeks together, we have seen a ton of progress and success here in Ignacio Merino.  It has been really cool to see considering this has been one of the tougher areas to be in as of late.  This week we had another baptism!  and another crazy story to go with it . . . So I’ll just jump into things. :)

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had a work visit with the zone leaders.  Elder Burnett came here to our area with Elder Randall and I went over to theirs with Elder Zea.   Elder Zea is from Arequipa, Peru and finishes his mission in 2 weeks.  He is a super good missionary and it was really fun to work with him and talk about all the experiences he has had in the mission.  We basically spent the entire day knocking doors, as all of our appointments fell through.  I would say about 99% of the doors that we knocked we got the classic response, “We’re Catholic!”.  Usually when we get that response, I usually say that they must have lots of faith in Christ, and then I ask them when the last time they attended their church meetings.  Almost every time, they can’t even remember the last time they went to church.  I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and how different our church is.  Yeah, we do have lots of inactive or less active members of the church too, but I absolutely love how the gospel invites us to do and BE so much more than just part of a church or religion.  I feel like being a member of this church is much more than just a title.  We need to be actively living this gospel and trying to be better each day.  It has been such a testimony builder to me to have seen and to have been around so many different churches her in my mission and to see how our church is the only church that I have seen that invites true change in the lives of people.  Now I’m not saying that all other churches are totally bad or can’t help people change, but rather that our church truly invites us to live and BE what we say we believe.  So, I invite all of you to be actively living this gospel and to be what you say you believe.  Don’t be someone who is “all talk”.

On Saturday we had Nicole’s baptism!  Now, when I said last week that I’ve never had a baptism without some kind of crazy obstacle to take, I think I jinxed us, because this week’s obstacle tops them all.  So, Friday night we showed up to the church to start filling the baptismal font.  We swept up and cleaned the font and then turned the valve to start the water to fill the font, but no water are out.  We then tried all the sinks in the bathrooms, and nothing.  We called the bishop and he had some of the construction guys come to figure out the problem as to why there wasn’t water.  When they showed up a few minutes later, they helped us turn on a pump that takes the water from outside and pumps it to the top of the church roof to a big water tank that supplies the whole building with water.  So once they got the pump going , it started to fill the tank above and then we could start filling the baptismal font.  Our baptismal font fills super slow, so we put the water flow on about half, and told the construction guys that we would come in the morning to turn off the water to the font and get ready for the baptism at 11.  Sounds like a solid plan, right?  That’s what we thought.  The whole rest of the night we were a little worried that we had put the water flow too low, and wouldn’t have enough water in the font in the morning for the baptism, or we had put it too high and and would waste a lot of water emptying out of the overflow drain hole when it filled too high.  However, we just figured we would find out in the morning.  When we arrived the next morning, we started to casually unlock the outside gate of the church, until we looked up and saw what made our hearts drop — there was a river running from underneath the door of the church, ha ha ha.  We started freaking out trying to unlock the door to get in and turn off the water to the font (thinking the font had overflowed), however, when we got in we saw we had a bigger problem on our hands.  The entire church was flooded, which water half an inch deep everywhere, but it wasn’t coming from the baptismal font.  We found that the water was coming from the upstairs of the church.  We ran up the stairs sloshing through all the water to see what had happened.  When we got up there we found all the water was coming from the big tank above.  So apparently, when they turned on the pump to fill the tank the night before, the pump was supposed to turn off when the supply tank was full.  Obviously that didn’t happen, and the pump had been putting water into the tank the entire night, overflowing it.  The results were pretty ugly.  Like I said, the entire church was flooded with water, and all the ceiling panels of the roof had soaked up the water like sponges, then crumbled to the floor in a big mess.  Not to mention there are bats that live in the ceiling of the building, so all their bat poop had fallen down with the ceiling panels.  It was all pretty bad.  However, as bad as it was, I looked at Elder Randall and said, “Ain’t nothin that’s gonna stop us from having this baptism.” so, we once again rolled up our sleeves and went to work.  We called the bishop to let him know what happened and he called some members over to come help us.  It’s a good thing our church floor is all tile, because for the most part we were able just sweep a lot of the water out.  We turned on all the ceiling fans and opened all the windows to air that place out.  After about an hour and a half of work, we were able to get the downstairs somewhat dry, and looking good for the baptism.  the baptism went great, and the spirit was so strong.  It was so cool to see Nicole be baptized by her dad, Carlos, who is a recent convert of just a few months.  I really feel like the adversary of just plain bad luck has been trying to keep us from doing this great work, but as we’ve seen this week, not even a flooded church will stop us from baptizing someone into the Church of Christ ;)  I’m grateful to the Lord and to all the members that helped us out to have that baptism.

So on Saturday night I had a really cool experience with a baptismal interview.  One of the cool responsibilities that you have as a district leader  in the mission is to interview the candidates for baptism, to make sure they are ready and worthy.  O Saturday, I had the opportunity to interview an older man, probably in his mid 70’s.  This guy had expressed to me as we were talking that he had made a lot of serious mistakes in his life.  I could tell that these serious sins that he had committed in his youth had haunted him his whole life.  As he expressed to me some of these things, he began to cry and said something that really touched me.  He said, “I know that I am very late in my life, but all that I want to do right now is come unto the Lord and be baptized.”  For this man, all that mattered to him in his life was coming unto the Lord and following his ways.  It was clear to me that this humble man was experiencing true conversion to the Lord.  He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but now at this moment he was fully converted and committed. to the Lord.  It was a very humbling thing to for me to see.  After the interview, I told him that I would need to speak with someone who has a little more experience to receive permission for him to be baptized.  He patiently waited outside as I was able to talk over the phone with President Rasmussen about his situation.  President gave the thumbs up, as he felt like it was OK to go ahead and baptize him.  When I cam out and delivery the news, I immediately received a big hug from this man and he started to cry again.  He then said a prayer out loud thanking the Lord for letting him be baptized and for helping him change his life.  It made me tear up a little thinking of where this man had been in his life before, and to see this direction he was now takin.  This experience has made me think how repentance truly is a gift from the Lord.  Through his infinite atonement we can be forgiven of anything no matter what our past has been.  He has promised us, “Behold, he who has repented of this sins, the same if forgiven, and I the Lord, remember them no more.”  I know that when this man comes out of the water on Wednesday, he will be 100% clean, completely forgiven of this sins, and the Lord will not remember them any more.  I challenge you all to remember the gift of repentance that the Lord has given us and to utilize it each day.  It truly is a miracle.

Well, that is about it for this week!  I hope you’re all doing well back home.  If you ever have a question or anything, feel free to send me an e-mail.  I’ll try to get back to you as quick as possible.

Love you all!  The Gospel is true.

Auanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

Week 33

Buenas Tardes!

Espero que todo esta bien con ustedes. This week was pretty solid. On Saturday we had the two baptisms of Kevin and Guadalupe! I believe I talked about them last week, but they are just two studs. They had attended church when they were really young but were never baptized. One day they showed up at church with their Uncle Jimmy, and Elder Randall and his last companion Elder Mariño, started teaching them. Like I said last week, they are some of the most prepared people to receive the gospel that I have ever seen. It was amazing to see the progression of their testimonies. They are just two of the happiest people I know, too. They always are just smiling and have a good attitude about everything. Man, I love those two. :) It is always such a great experience to witness individuals come unto Christ and be baptized. That is definitely one of the blessings of missionary work.

As great as the baptism was, just like every baptism I’ve had, we had a few obstacles to tackle leading up to it. First, when we showed up on Saturday morning to clean the font. We opened the door to the baptistry and it looked like no one had been in there for like 20 years. There was a layer of dirt and dust probably half an inch thick over everything. It was pretty bad, lol. However, as bad as it was, we only had about 30 minutes to clean and start filling the font before our district meeting. We just shrugged our shoulders, threw on some masks, grabbed the brooms and went to town cleaning that bad boy. After we got it looking somewhat decent, we turned on the water to start filling up the font and ran into another problem. We went outside to use the shutoff valve to hold the water in the font but when we got out there, there wasn’t any kind of shutoff valve. We talked to some of the construction guys who had been working there on our church, and apparently they had trashed the old valve and had plans to replace it. So the water that was going into the font was just draining out the bottom. At this point, we started to panic a little and didn’t know what to do. When it seemed all hope was lost, I went down into the font one last time to see if I could somehow plug the font to keep the water in. I pulled off the little grate at the bottom of the font to find a little drain with some pipe threads. All those hours I worked at Durk’s Plumbing Supply paid off, as I knew exactly what we needed. ;) We jogged over to the local hardware store and bought us a nice 1 1/2 “ threaded plug to fix up that font. So yeah, it was kind of a miracle that we were even able to have the baptism, but everything worked out fine. :)

On Friday our ward had a “teatrin de escrituras” or “scripture theater.” It was actually a super awesome activity where every organization in our ward acted out a story from the scriptures. It was really fun to see all the different groups and organizations put on a show. My favorite act was definitely the recreation of David and Goliath by the High Priests. Some of those guys have a future in acting for sure. Also, me and Elder Randall played our part and sang “Come Thou Fount” and were accompanied by a guy in our ward who plays the violin named Carlos. It turned out pretty good. We’re harvesting some hidden singing talents out here.

So on Thursday we had a little bit of a rough/funny experience with our investigator named Claudia. Things are always kind of difficult when we teach her, but this day was extra tough. First, we usually teach her outside her house and we were there at about 3-4 in the afternoon, so the sun was just beating on our necks. Also, a few minutes into the lesson her dad comes out and starts welding some project and beating a hammer super loud so we could not hear anything, so we were getting a little frustrated. But to top it all off, as we started to teach her about the importance of the Book of Mormon (she didn’t read like she said she would), one of those stray dogs with the super wrinkly faces casually walks up to the side of my chair where my backpack was sitting, lifts his leg, and starts peeing directly on my bag, haha. I hurried and pulled my bag away and had to refrain from drop kicking that dog, lol. Elder Randall could not stop laughing. So yeah, that was a pretty rough lesson. It’s definitely a story we’ve been laughing at this whole week and will remember for a long time. Also, if you were wondering how a typical lesson goes here in Peru, there ya go. :) Good times. Like I say often, I’m developing my patience out here in the mission. In all types of ways, haha.

To finish, I want to talk a little about what I talked about in my lesson in our district meeting. I shared this quote that I really like by Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, “We are commanded by God to take this gospel to all the world. That is the cause that must unite us today. Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of its own self-destruction. Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family.” When I read the quote I think of super heroes. Everyone loves to watch these super hero movies like Spiderman, Captain America, or Batman, and see these great action stories of how they each save the world in a big dramatic way. However, as missionaries we are out here saving the world in a much quieter and personal way. We carry this true message of Christ to truly save the world. We have such a great responsibility as missionaries to carry this message forward to a world that desperately needs it. We are really saving the world out here. 

Well, that is about it for this week! It is definitely an adventure being out here with Elder Randall. Even though every single moto-taxi tries to rip us off for being two gringos, we still love being together out here. It’s really one of the coolest experiences of my life. I’m really grateful for this mission and the changes it is making in my life. It’s definitely hard at times, but it is always worth it. Talk to you all next week!

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

#HeAZuck

#PuttinInWork

#TakeNote

Week 32

Hello all the friends and fam! 

Another week down here in the Piura Vida. This week we worked really, really hard and made a lot of progress here in our area. Elder Randall and I are pretty excited because this week we are going to have two baptisms!! We have been teaching Kevin (age 23) and his little sister Guadalupe (age 12). They are some of the most prepared investigators I have come across here in the mission. After my first lesson with them, I asked Elder Randall, "How are they NOT members??" They have so much knowledge and understanding and have such strong testimonies and desires to choose the right. They will be baptized by their uncle on Saturday. We are stoked for that :)

We have been teaching two kids of a recent convert named Carlos. Their names are Paul and Nicole. They both are about 20 years old and really great. The best way to describe their dad Carlos is that he is your typical "gentle giant". He is one of the most Christlike people I know, and his faith is so strong. His wife passed away over a year ago, and he has the most amazing conversion story. Carlos and his kids were being taught by some of the missionaries in the neighboring ward, but they actually live in our ward boundaries. So we have been teaching them, and have helped Nicole and Paul prepare to be baptized on the 17th. We are really excited for that. There is nothing better than seeing people accept Christ into their lives and to choose to follow him. It's just a great thing to witness.

I don't know if you guys have heard, but theres some big news around here in Piura... Me and Elder Randall purchased a new fan for our room!!! Hahaha not a very big deal to those of you reading this, but ever since I got to this area, we have been cooking in our little room. We had a little fan that is probably about 20 years old that we have been using each day, but I could use my hand to fan myself better. Today we finally got a new one that feels like it's gonna blow us away. Hopefully we dont have to sweat through the nights anymore!! We are pretty dang pumped about it. :)

Once again I have no time. I have so much stuff I wanna say and write about but we never have enough time. :( And once again, I can't send any pictures this week. I'm super mad about that. I just want to end by saying that I have been thinking a lot about the attitude and words of Nephi to his father Lehi in 1 Nephi: 3 7. This scripture has helped me sooo much on my mission. It is so powerful. I love how Nephi relies on the Lord and knows how through his power, he can accomplish whatever thing the Lord commands him. I encourage you all to go study chapter 3 of 1st Nephi. There is so much to learn! 

Until next week.

Avanza Su Verdad!

Elder Bailey

#ThatWasABrick

#SoLongMattHarpring

#HelloKawhi

#HaSaliiiido