February 28th letter

Her letters make me miss my mission so much! About the things that she is experiencing, I once said, "Only on the mission." Ha ha, I love it! The crazy bugs, people getting anti-Mormon advice, family members at home getting hurt, crazy storms that keep you up all night (and making you want to throw your 6 a.m. alarm clock at the wall), and all along realizing that these experiences were strengthening my faith in the Lord. :) Ah, the good ol' days of the mission. I wish I were there with her. :) Anyway, here is her letter:

February 28, 2011

Dear wonderful and amazing Mother,

See how I limited myself to just two descriptive words? I could go on and on and then run out of time to write my letter! Well, that is way lame that the envelope got there empty! Just my luck now I have some postal service person somewhere between here and Utah that is obsessed with me! I swear...haha. I will go to Walgreens today and see if I can have them sent to your Walgreens. That sounds like a good idea!

I sent Dave and JaRelle a postcard last week; I hope they got it. I will email JaRelley back after I write you and Dad. Tell Tosha that she is in trouble because she didn't send me an email today! I am so sorry Dave broke his ankle! That sounds so awful! Boy I thought me being on a mission was supposed to protect y'all! I will take that up with the person upstairs who made me come out here! If I have to be here, He needs to be watching out for the people I love back home. I know that he is watching out for y'all though. I think he gets tired of me pleading for my family back home! It's strange how He blesses our lives in the weirdest way. Maybe Dave will go there and think, "Wow, this Dr. does something cool," and realize that he wants to be an orthopedic surgeon and then someday down the road when him and JaRelle are rich and successful he will think, "Good thing I broke my ankle that day." ...unless he already decided what he wants to be and then the broken ankle thing is just a really big pain in the butt!! I think I can still somewhat legally say that word...

I cannot believe that Casey is home!! That is so crazy! Did y'all go to his homecoming? How is he? Is Sandy so happy to have at least one of her boys back? I am sad that I am missing seeing all these boys come home. It is weird. I am glad Bennion is doing well. It is so strange having them come home.

Ok you cant keep changing the house or when I come home I will have no idea where my house is! That is so fun you changed the bathroom. I bet it looks so good! I want to see what it looks like! What color of blue did you paint it? Are you loving your new couches? Does that room look way good? Is it nice not having to sit on the cofee table anymore? Did you end up keeping them both? It is so strange knowing that things are changing at home and that I am not around to see them. Sometimes when I think, "How in the world am I going to make it?" I stop and realize, "Wow, I have already made it almost 2 months." It is so weird that it has been 2 months since I have seen you Mom. I think if I can make it this almost 2 months and not realize that much time has passed, I can make it the rest of the way...because you know 2 months is just so much like 18 months right?! :)

It sounds like Dad is doing better. I cant believe he made your bed 2 days?! And how on earth did you get him to cook the steaks?! What kinda drugs is he on? Just kidding. Dad is the very best in the whole wide world and he does so much! I cant believe how lucky I am to have him as a Dad. I don't think you both know what amazing parents you are. I am really the luckiest Sister in the world! I love your emails mom they are the best. I dont ever want them to end!

So I guess I should share some stories now, huh? Well last night they had this huge storm! You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas? Well, they are right and that includes weather! It woke me up last night and I stayed awake for the whole storm! It rained so hard and the thunder was so loud! We had 50-mile winds. I just sat there thinking, "Please, oh please, oh please dont let us get a tornado!" I am so dang scared of Tornados now! We have this really sweet lady in our ward. Her name is Sister Coombs. She is awesome and going through a really hard time right now so we stop by and check up on her. Plus she is kinda inactive..but anyway. Everytime we stop by her house I have to brace myself because I never know what kind of creepy story she is going to tell. The first time I met her she went off about the Fire Ants, Triggers (which are nasty bugs that get in your skin! EWWWW!), and then last but not least, snakes. She just went off about these bugs and the snakes and how awful they are and I thought, "I am never going to be able to make it through a summer. I need to go home." Then the next time she starts telling us the most creepy ghost stories in the world. I had to recite my purpose, and my missionary commission, as well as all the principals and sub principals in the first lesson that night to fall asleep because I was so scared. Then the next time she goes off on...yep tornados. She told us the most awful stories about tornados in Waco and how one of them leveled a complete subdivision and only one family survived because they had a storm shelter in their kitchen. Seriously mom, I was freaking out! Kinda like I bet you are right now. So last night we have this big storm and I am thinking, "Wow, I am going to die in a tornado tonight." I am a worry wart, I know. But guess what? There wasn't a tornado and I am still alive, so that is all good. Its just crazy because at night they say you cant see them. All you can do is listen to the radio or TV to see where it is, and guess what...we don't have a TV or radio! Yeah it's legit. But I do have the Lord and He tends to watch out for his missionaries and He is kinda powerful, so I guess I shouldn't be too scared right?

We saw our kinda-investigator Sandra last night. She has been so antid that it is hard to teach her. It is sad. I hate the anti. It's just not nice! Plus it is so not true! She asked why we don't have the gold plates because its not like we could destroy them. And she needed proof. We finally had to ask her how she knew the Bible was the Word of God. She hasn't seen what it was written on, she never met the prophets. She said she just knows because she feels it and sees it all around her. Well guess what.. it's the same thing with the Book of Mormon! Yeah, good thing the spirit guides us or I think I would have gone crazy and she wouldn't want to see us again. We are going by again tonight to show her a clip of Thomas S. Monson. Hopefully it will help.

Well the work is progressing... kinda. But thats ok! We just have to keep working hard and we will be blessed.

I love you too much mom! And I miss you! Oh also, I kinda need a pair of short garments and a garment top. I run out and then have to roll my long ones and wear the same top twice... I dont know why? Its weird. Also maybe could you check my checking account. I got the things I needed but umm... I think it should be good... and I love you...and I'm on a mission! (Dad tell her how cute that is!) I swear I am done using it! I promise! I just needed some skirts because my one is too hot now, and the other really cute plaid one is too short. I am good though, and these will last the rest of the mission. I love them. They are super cute! So you know how they said they have 4 seasons? Well they do! They go like this Spring: March-May, Summer: June-September, Fall: October- January, and Winter February. Haha seriously February is cold! And then its not anymore. Yep one month winter. If they didnt have snakes and bugs I could live here forever! But I wont because I like being by my mommy! Well ok, I love you! I miss you!!

I love you too much mommy!!!!!!!

Love/ Sister Bailey

Kiley's newest letter

She is sounding so happy! I am so proud of her. I'm glad that she is laughing out the hard times. That is seriously what you have to do. For her there and as a good lesson for us here. :) Here's her letter:

February 21, 2011

Dear Mom,

So this week has been crazy. While y'all are getting snow, it is 84 degrees down here! It is hot! I didn't think it was legal for it to be this hot in February. All the schools here are still in school even though it's Presidents Day. Sister Reiher says its because the texans don't like presidents. She is funny. I think it is because they had a couple snow days and now they have to make them up. No bueno!!

So Satan is working hard against us but mine and Sister Terry's favorite saying this week is: "You can't get me down Satan." Sometimes I want to punch him in the face!!! On Tuesday, literally all of our appointments cancelled or were not there. By the end of the day, me and Sister Terry were laughing so hard. Even our service got cancelled!! It was so funny. It was the craziest day. On days like that all you can do is laugh because if you don't, you will cry! But even though this week was hard, we still saw alot of amazing miracles.

There is a part-member/less-active familly in the ward that Sister Terry has been stopping by and trying to see for the last 6 months. On Saturday we were down in the area and no one was home. We drove past the family's house and there were cars in the drive way. So we ran up to their door and guess what....they answered!!!! It was the first time they had answered their door--ever! We were so stoked! We went back on Sunday to meet with her, but she was sick. She told us she works out of town and will be back the first weekend in March. She was super nice so that is exciting. See miracles I tell you!

Sometimes when I am sitting in peoples homes I have to stop and wonder how I got there! On Friday our ward had a "Chili Chocolate cook off." (All of my favorite things.) A lot of the families brought non-member friends and that was awesome. So I am sitting there trying thousands of Chilis, debating what dessert I want, and this extremley old man, Brother Biehl (pronounced Bill), is playing the Accordian. Then he starts playing the Chicken Dance song and I look up and one lady from our ward has a chicken hat on and others are acutally doing the chicken dance, all the while eating chili. I was like what the heck!?! This is an experience I would not have had except for here. It took all I could to not start laughing out loud. There are so many strange moments like that. Or in the middle of teaching when I am just like, "Wow, how did I get here." Or I look around for the mountains and am like, "Where am I?!" But I love it.

I keep thinking about Alex Ferguson and I want her so badly to come out on a mission. I have already learned so much and one of the things is that the Lord provides. I know school is so important to her and that she doesnt know how it will work out, but if she puts her faith in the Lord, He is going to provide a way for her to do it. The experiences you gain out here are worth far more than any kind of school or career. Somebody smack her and start filling out her papers for her! We need more good sister missionaries! And hey, almost all of our sisters are going home in July so mabye she could be called to the BMW!!! That would be awesome.

Life is good. The mornings are still awful, but everyone keeps telling me I will get used to it. I hate morning time. The alarm is my enemy! Is everyone at home healthy and great? I hope so! I miss you all so much and I love you too much mom! You are the most amazing mother in the world and I know I tell you that a lot but that is because it is so true. I am so lucky to have my family. The hardest thing about being out here is just missing all of you. But the Lord helps me out so much and I am so blessed to be out here. Well keep me posted on anything that happens in the family. Did Lauren not get my letter I sent her? It had a lot of pictures in it. I hope she got it! They were for all of you.

I love you SOOOOOO MUCH mommy!!

Love you always,

Love/ Sister Bailey

Finally a letter! 2 of them!!!

I'm sorry to all of you who have asked why I hadn't been posting Kiley's messages anymore... the truth is, I hadn't received any! The first week that Kiley was in Texas, her letter didn't come through. :( We were all quite upset by it, but Dave and I had to laugh because that happened to both of our first letters too on our missions! So it was funny to see that it happened to Kiley too. :) Anyway, here are her two posts.

Letter from February 7, 2011

Dear Momma,

Hi MOM!!! I miss you! It was so hard saying goodbye to you at the airport the other day because I just wanted to keep on talking to you! It is hard to say goodbye! I love you so much and think you are the most amazing mother in the world! I don't know how I got to be so lucky!

Well Texas is great. I came into the freezing cold. My second day here it snowed 2 inches and we had to stay inside all morning to wait for it to melt. President Sagers orders. Luckily it was our planning day and the Lord blessed us by making it melt by the time we finished planning! Pretty dang awesome! It is starting to warm up but they say they think it will snow again on Wednesday! Sad. So I grabbed a warm shirt and sweater.

I guess you already know I am in Waco. Hahahahaha I laughed so hard when I found out that was where I was going. What are the odds that I go there my first transfer?! Seriously! I keep thinking about how many times Sister Denham told me about this place. I bet she was just happy as pie! Brett and Lindsay are great and we are actually going over there to eat tonight. I hear she is a great cook so I am excited! She comes out on exchanges with us and she is awesome. I really like her.

My companion is so great and I am so happy about it. She works hard and is so obedient, but she is also pretty chill. We have fun together. I was going to see if you could maybe send me a CD for V-Day. Its Mo-Tab Come Thou Fount. It is gospel music and I really want it! There is no place to buy Mormon music here and that makes me sad. They dont have a rule on music just as long as it is religious! Yay!

Well I got "Anti'd" for the first time yesterday! I feel like a real missionary now! We walked up to this very nice and cute looking old man. We offered to help him wash his car and he said no and was cracking jokes. I was like oh he is so nice maybe he is the elect...um no. Next thing I know he is telling us what a dangerous relgion we are members of and that we are in a whole "heap of trouble." I seriously said, "Oh dear," out loud. He went off and we didn't fight him as we went to leave he said, " Y'all read the real bible ya hear." We just said that we do believe in the Bible and that we were currently reading it and smiled and left. The thing is when they start being mean they don't make any sense! He told us that you didn't need to be baptized to be saved and asked us why we would think that. We just said that we follow Christ's example and that Christ was baptized. He said its nice if you get baptized, but not important. All you need to be saved is to believe in Jesus. I so wish it was that easy. But if it were that easy, what was the point of Christ Suffering for us? Why should he have been the only person in the whole world who needed to suffer? People have the weirdest logic. Why would Christ be baptized if it wasn't important?! Strangeness huh?

We have so many great things going though. We tracted into a girl yesterday named Stephanie. We taught her the whole first lesson on her porch and left her with a Book of Mormon. She said she was so excited to read it and we set up an appointment to come back next Sunday. I was so happy after that! It was an amazing feeling. We are also teaching a lady named Sandra. She has decided to get baptized on the 19th! We told her that her kids can also be baptized on that day and asked her if she would like us to teach them, and she said yes! I think they will all be baptized and I am so excited for them! They are such a great family and her kids love the gospel! They have so many great questions and they just soaked it all up. We were worried because you need to go to church 2 times before you can be baptized but Sandra hadn't been yet because she works Sundays. We needed her to come. Well it was stake conference so we knew she couldn't come to Sunday's meeting but they told us that Saturday night adult session counts as church. We prayed so hard she would be able to come and she did! It was a miracle! We were both so excited!

This is the "Transfer of Miracles" (Said like Austin Burtenshaw.) At least that is what I have named it and Sister Terry agrees. We are seeing so many miracles it just blows me away! It is amazing how the Lord provides a way for all things to happen. My teacher Brother Terry told us on our last night that Faith=Miracles. And it is so true. If we have faith that God can do it, it will happen. 1 Nephi 7:12 talks about that. And God can do all things in our lives if we just have faith! I love it! I know our Heavenly Father loves us and that as we strive to serve him in all ways He will bless us in ways we can't imagine. We can have such a great relationship with him if we just strive to have one. You should read 'Our Search for Happiness' it is amazing and Elder Ballard puts things so beautifully. He talks about communication with God and it is my favorite part. He says that God never closed the heavens, we did. My favorite line is: "How presumptious of man to tell God that He cannot communicate with his children!" How true that is!! God wants to communicate with us. We just need to pick up the reciever! As they say in the south, "God is Great." He really is! It is so sad to me when people say, "No thanks, I am happy in my religion." Because I just want to shake them and say, "What I have to say will make you so much happier than you can even imagine! Do you love your family? Do you want to be with them forever? I can show you how that's possible." I think I would get in trouble if I did that though so I restrain myself and just smile. I am so blessed to be with y'all forever! I can't even tell you how amazing it is! We are so so blessed!

I love you too much mommy and I miss you! I look at our family picture and just think man I have a great family and I miss them, but I know you will all still be there in 18 months and right now I need to help other families learn how they can be eternal t0o. I need to share my blessings with others and not selfishly keep them.

I love you TOOO much!! Stay safe! Keep me updated on life! I love letters; they are amazing. Oh that reminds me, send everything to:
Sister Bailey
1700 Breezy Dr. Apt # 289
Waco, TX 76712

I love Y'all!!! And as they say in the here in the south, "Have a blessed day!"

Love,
Sister Bailey

Letter from February 14, 2011

Dear Mom,

So life here is good. We have once again seen so many crazy miracles. Seriously, sometimes I just sit there and think, "Wow did that just happen?" One way cool story: We went to see one of our investigators Tamyra. She wasn't there so we went back later that day and there was this Mexican guy outside her house. We started talking to him and he said he didn't speak any English, just a very little bit. So Sister Terry starts saying, "Jesu Cristo y familia is muy muy importante." That is seriously a direct quote, and then she smiled. Haha it was so funny! I love her. Then she looks at me and says, "Do you have a Book of Mormon pass-along card?" I said, "Yeah but it's in english." She was like, "Whatever, just give it to him." So I pull out my last Book of Mormon pass-along card and flip it around to look at the words on the back and guess what.....IT WAS IN SPANISH! It was so crazy! I was like, "Uh this is spanish." Me and Sister Terry just looked at each other. We sat in the car for a few minutes just stunned and laughing. It was so crazy! That is awesome! Especially since I checked everyone of my pass along cards to make sure they weren't spanish! Miracles are awesome.

We met a guy named Bruce on Saturday. He walked up to the Elders in Walmart last Monday and asked for some scriptures. A direct quote from Bruce is, "I just wanted my daily bread." Well we went over Saturday to give him a Book of Mormon and we taught him the first lesson. We invited him to church and he was a little iffy. He said he had been to alot of churches and didn't like them. He felt like they were all fake. (Oh P.S., backround on Bruce-- he has had it pretty rough. Spent some time in jail for I think drug dealing, was into drugs, alcohol, not good stuff. He said that he was trying to turn his life around.) Ok, now back to my story. So we finally talked him into coming. He was nervous because he has tatoos on his arms he felt like people were going to be looking at them. We assured him that no one was there to judge him.

Well long story short, he came to church yesterday!! YEAH!! And he said he liked it. We will pump him for more details tomorrow when we teach him. But he told us that he is on 1 Nephi 22. That is awesome. We were pretty excited about it!

Sad news is Sandra--our investigator who was supposed to get baptized this week--has disappeared. I have no idea where she is. I am worried about her. I hope that everything is ok and that she and her kids are ok. We are sad. But it will be ok. We will find her and make sure she is good.

More sad news: Our investigator Tamyra was going to come to church yesterday. When we didn't see her we went outside to call her. She was bawling on the phone and said that her and her husband had gotten in a fight and he had beat her up. She didn't want anyone to see her face. We offered to come by and she said no. She didn't want us to see her but that she wanted us to come over on Tuesday. We wrote her a card and got some heart shaped candy and put them on her door step. I was heart-broken for her. I cannot even imagine somebody doing that. It is awful!

Well I am sorry to depress you, but the work really is good out here I promise! I love it here. The awesome thing is that sometimes we do get waves of sad and bad news. Yesterday while tracting, not one person wanted to talk to us. One person actually told us that there was a high population of Mormons in Utah and that we might be happier there! Me and Sister Terry laughed about that for a little bit afterwards. But after all that, after Satan tries his hardest to make us want to stop and we keep going forward, we see the greatest miracles. Like Bruce coming to church and reading, or that Spanish pass along card. Seriously that was crazy. But sometimes life is hard. Satan wants us to fail so he puts everything he can in our paths to make us stop. Sometimes we have such great things ahead of us that Satan will try even harder to make us stop. But if we push through all the hard we get the most amazing rewards!!

I have been reading this talk called the 4th missionary. I bet Dave and JaRelle have read it. It talks about the 4 different kinds of missionaries.The first 2 are super disobedient and they get nothing but sadness and regret. The 3 and 4 are super obedient and worthy, but the 3 still gets sadness and do you want to know why? Because his heart wasn't right. If we only do things because we have to and because we worry what other people will think, it benefits us absolutely nothing!! What a waste of time. The 4th one surrenders his whole heart to the Lord and because of that he is changed into a person far better than he ever could imagine. A quote is: "God creates a masterpiece. We ourselves can only make a smudge." I think this applies to everything in life not just missionary work. We should always be serving with our whole heart. That is what is so amazing about you mom. You serve with your whole heart. You don't do anything begrudgingly. You are the most amazing example of giving your heart to the Lord. I am so grateful to have you as my mom. I think that every day. How lucky I am to have the most amazing family in the world! I love you all so much! You are all wonderful. I will talk to you again next week and I hope you get this. Sorry, I dont know what happened last week. I sent it and I guess it didn't send. Oh well. Hopefully it works.

I love you mommy and miss you!

Love you always!

Love,

Sister Bailey

OH P.S. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!!!! I love you and also tell Aunt Nell thanks so much for the card and the gift card. They were so great and she is so sweet!! I Love you momma!

Kiley is in Texas!!!

On Tuesday, February 1st, Kiley left the MTC for Texas! We got the opportunity to talk to her on the phone while she waited at the airport. She sounded so happy. She said she loved the MTC, but was ready/excited/nervous to get to Texas. Her travel plans were a little crazy. Here is what happened:

4:30 a.m. Woke up to be to the travel office on time.

5:00 a.m. Reported to the travel office with all her luggage.

5:30-6:30 Traveled to the airport

6:30 Arrived at the airport and found out the their flight time had been changed due to the icy weather conditions both here and in her other destinations.

7:30-? So then she had a LOT of time to call everyone and have good conversations... I know that being stuck in an airport can be frustrating, but we were all happy. :)

*I don't know the exact times of the rest, but I know that she did have a layover before she finally arrived in Dallas around 9:00 p.m.

We think her p-day is Monday so hopefully Monday we'll have another update for you. It will be an exciting one with details of her mission president, her trainer, her first area... I can't wait. Hope you are all as excited about this as me. :)

~JaRelle