December 19, 2011 Letter

Dear Most Wonderful beautiful crazy fun loving talented amazing inspiring Mother,

Hi mom! Merry Christmas week to you! I can't believe it is already Christmas week! There is no snow. It makes it feel very much not like Christmas. I feel like I have been waiting so long for this week and I don't know where the time went. Can you believe it's already Christmas? Good heavens time goes so fast. It kinda scares me. I cannot believe Max is already coming home! I didn't think he would be home till January. That is a touch surprising. Didn't he just leave? How fun for his family to have him home. I bet they are all very excited. I love that you just smile. It makes me think of right before David got home. Haha we were like chickens with our heads cut off! :) fun days.

I love Mckay. He is so funny! How did he get so dang cute? Who raised that kid? Honestly, I wish I could have heard his talk. Brother Dickamore said it was great. I am so glad that he is in the single's ward. I bet he just makes all the girls want to come to church :) I am glad that Lauren is doing better. She is so cute and bubbly! I love that little girl! I guess she isn't really little...but to me she always will be. Even if she is like 2 feet taller than me. So lame! Oh well who needs to be tall right? Being short is where it is at....:) Is everyone excited to be done with school for a couple weeks? Oh odd...is that weird for them to be home and not have you home? ehh...that sounds so strange to me. I am glad that you are liking work though. You are so amazing you could do anything mother! Sorry the house is crazy. Someday I will come home and mop your floors :) but it's going to be a long time so you might want to mop them before then. :) I wish I could be more helpful to you. Sorry.

That is so cute about Anna! where does she come up with these things? She is the cutest little thing! So they all have to go to the in-laws house? So lame...it's like the in-laws like their families or something. Who does that?!

Oh some business for Brother Dickamore..1. he would like my address....hmmm you never know with him. 2. please tell him I am not nuts!! And I do not speak THAT Texan. He is spreading all sorts of rumors. Gotta watch out for him. :)

Ok so the life of a missionary.....well at least this missionary....
We met some awesome new people this week who are totally going to get baptized! It will be great. Lets see who to tell you about first. Oh, well Boo left. Yeah super lame. He just up and left for Arkansas this week after his finals. It was very sad. He even ditched out on our last lesson. We were a bit saddened by it. But he took his Book of Mormon so hopefully he is reading it!

Then we have Mayo ( it was the first thing that came to me and it's not because he has a weird obsession with mayonnaise) He is awesome! He came to church last week and had some questions so a member set up an appt. with us. He is so golden. He came to church again this week! Yay! So he is awsome. We are going to dunk him. Well not us exactly, but he is going to be baptized!

The other one is named former. I think he really wants to learn and come back. Hopefully it works out. He was taught a while ago, but he fell of the the face of the planet. I am hoping that he doesn't do that again.

So we had Zone conference this week. It was so good! President Sagers always does an amazing job. I am so grateful to have him as my mission president. I learn so much from him. We got to watch 17 Miracles! I was so excited. I have been wanting to see it forever. However, it was not a movie that should be watched in a room full of people...especially a room full of elders. I was trying so hard not to cry. In the end, I couldn't keep it in. Good thing it was dark...I don't think anyone noticed. Wow. I feel like I can never complain again. And Levi Savage was so humble. Can you imagine being called out like that that many times? How amazing. It was a great movie. I loved it. You can learn so much from the example of the early saints. They were such amazing people. Sometimes I wonder if I have that much faith. How amazing.

As for other things....well....I can't think of anything exciting. Sister Lounsbury basically lost her whole wardrobe. Some days. She is so funny. She is very honest and doesn't realize what she is saying sometimes. She has told many people they are less active. I don't know if you know but some people dont take to kindly to being told they are less active. We are working on that.

Lets see what else...oh we ate at this members house this week. It was the first time I truly feared for my stomach. Lets just say it's not the most clean environment. And she made us pizza dogs. If you want to try it, I dont know you could maybe make it for Chirstmas dinner or something, it's really easy-- all you need is a hot dog bun, hot dog weenie, pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. Then put it all on the bun, nuke it in the microwave for a couple seconds and whamo ready to eat! I would suggest some berry tums for dessert. Yep I had some serious heart burn after that one.

Other than that life's just normal. I wish I had more crazy stories for you but it was a pretty mundane week. Yep I did just use the word mundane.

Oh yeah I guess I should maybe tell you when I am calling huh? You might want to know that information...it's only slightly important. So I am pretty sure I will be calling you at 8:00 our time. So that would be 7:00 your time? That would be in the evening not the morning. I am pretty positive its the PMs. hahaha I just put it PMs all in capitals and it looked like PMS. I thought it was kinda funny. Pretty sure I already PMSd this month. So no worries about me being all moody on the phone. :)

Oh, so kinda funny story. Maybe it's just more weird then funny....So did I ever tell you about the book we found at a members house that told the love story of Alma the Senior? Yes someone actually wrote a romance novel about Alma. Yeah. There are no words for that. But anyways I told Sister Lounsbury about that and we laugh about it from time to time. But this morning during comp study I asked her what she studied and she told me how she was reading about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. Then she stops telling me what she learns and says, "Then about part way through I started to think about this love story where two lamanites fall in love and she converts but he doesn't. She runs away to the land with the anti-nephi-lehis. Then of course the Lamanites come and kill them all and he joins the Lamanites because he is mad so he is killing everyone and then he gets to her. It's very tragic. He ends up converting but she dies." hahah yep. I laughed so hard. Oh dear....so all in all, I think personal study this morning was very effective.

Well family, I think that is about all the information I needed to get to you. Oh yeah, mother please don't think I am the lamest child on the earth. Although I really am. I am an awful daughter! I don't know how you can still love me. I didn't send you a birthday card!!!!!!! But I promise that I am sending you one today! I swear! I am so sorry!!!! I want you to know that I did think of you all day. And I sang happy Birthday to you in my heart...a couple times. And I thought if I was home I would get you a paces card...because you love the hamburgers so much ;) So I think the phrase, "its the thought that counts" is really applicable here. I still love you more than anything in this life!! I think you are amazing! And the best mother in the whole wide world!

I love love love love love love love love love lvoe love love love love love love you!!!!!

loves hugs and kisses,

your favorite missionary

December 12, 2011 Letter

Dear sweet, amazing, patient, loving, incredible, to kind, beautiful, most wonderful, perfect, and my very most favorite in the world Mother,

Hi mom! No worries mother we are always safe! We have the Lord with us and don't forget what President Harbertson said when he set me apart! We have no need to fear. :) So in light of all the stupid people we have been teaching, I reread Elder Christofferson's conference talk this past October. It was beautiful. I loved it. There is one part in particular where he says, " It would mock the Savior’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross for us to expect that He should transform us into angelic beings with no real effort on our part. Rather, we seek His grace to complement and reward our most diligent efforts." Yeah, I wrote it down and have it in my scriptures because I love it so much. Isn't that a beautiful quote. I love it. I wish everyone could understand that. I think you are right mom, Satan is so real and so persuasive. Sometimes I can almost just see him standing there laughing at all the people he has persuaded to believe in his false teachings. I think it makes him so happy to see all these people rejecting the truth because they think what he has taught them is true. These people have been taught that you shouldn't ask God whether or not things are true. If it's in the Bible, you should just believe it. You should never stop and ask God if it's true. You just need to believe it. So they think it is wrong for us to ask if the Book of Mormon is true....thank you for that one Satan! Isn't he just a pain? But it's ok President Sagers is always saying the work of the Lord is never frustrated, only we are. And boy is that true. Sometimes I get so frustrated with people. I have to stop myself and remember that it's ok because the Lord will preprare a way and I can't control others agency...although it's tempting at times :)

Mom I want to tell you how incredible I think you are. Sometimes when I think about you it just makes me feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that you are my mother. How lucky am I to have you! I don't know what, but I must have done something pretty good for God to have given me the blessing of having you as my mother. I am sorry that life is a little stressful for you right now. I wish there was some way I could be more helpful. I will write a letter to that cute little sister of mine. The funny thing is I feel like I was like that in high school. Oh high school, I was so stupid. haha I am grateful for all the learning opportunities I had there.....But she needs to be nice to you at least! You're her mom. I think she just might not realize all the amazing things you do for her. And mother anything from you is special to me! So don't stress about me or my stuff.

I am so sad Dad had to conduct a funeral. That makes me so sad for the Hefners (I can't spell their last name) I hope they are ok. It just breaks my heart. What a hard time to lose your dad/husband. I will keep them in my prayers since that is the only thing I really can do. I wish I could do more.

I am glad that we are making it a tradition to go give lunches to the homeless. I think that is so neat. It really helps focus us on the real reason for the season. Being with our families and giving. I am with you mom I wish I could handle every situation the way the Savior would. But mother I think you are way more Christ-like then you give yourself credit for. The Savior's whole life was given in service. He gave to everyone and never stopped to think of Himself. I think you are just like that mom. You give so much and never stop to think of yourself. I can't think of a moment when you weren't concerned for others. I wish that I could be a little more like you. You are a perfect example to me of striving to be more like the Savior.

Well as for crazy stories here...of course we have some! Ok so we went on exchange this week and I was able to travel to the great metropolitan of Justin....population more cows than people! It was great. I loved it! So we went to visit one of the sisters' investigators. And on the way there Sister Reynolds, who I was with, was telling me all about how great this lady was. So I was very excited to meet her...unfortunately, I think I might be bad luck. Because when we got there she told us the more she read the more she felt like she didn't need to be a part of any denomination. So we are talking to her and Sister Reynolds is talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon (since she hadn't been reading!) So Sister Reynolds asks her, "Do you know what a keystone is?" The ladies response.... "a beer!!" hahahahahahaha! Sister Reynolds, "Wrong kind of keystone." Yep....that was great. I hope she gets baptized though.

Ummm...I feel like we had more adventures, but they aren't coming to me! Lets see, I found a popcorn popper in our apartment so I cleaned it up, bought some popcorn kernels, and last night after planning we watched Joy to the World and had homemade pop corn. It was pretty fun!

We taught our investigator Boo yesterday. Man. I had an epiphany about him today, so hopefully by next week I will be able to tell you he was baptized. We are aiming for this weekend. That was the day he picked, but yesterday he told us he still hasn't gotten his answer and if he doesn't have that or a job by Wednesday, he is packing up and leaving for Arkansas on Thursday. We are praying for a miracle. But it will come. I know it will. Him and his girlfriend are so funny. They crack me up. I love teaching them. Poor girlfriend had another member sit her down and tell her all about her experience with having her boyfriend take the lessons. She said he accepted it and got baptized and they were married in the temple. (Here girlfriend is happy. She's like "oh man it will work out!") Then member girl keeps going on and tells a dreadful story about how her boyfriend then resented her for making him join the church, cheated on her, and then left her. Wow....girlfriend was really grateful for that story.

Well, I can't think of anything else exciting to tell you. We are just working. It is pretty fun. Oh funny story, so one morning we are running out to catch the bus and it zooms right past our drive way. Yeah it was just like in the movie. So we had to regroup and shift our plans to wait for the next bus. So we go out, do some other stuff, and then head back to the bus stop. While we are walking there I start teasing Sister Lounsbury about us missing the bus for the second time. So we start teasing about how if we miss the bus, we are giving up the tags, going back inside, and going to bed! Then Sister Lounsbury comes back with, "That's it, if we miss the bus again we are calling up guiltless and telling him to meet us at Lucky Louis!!" (Lucky Louis would be one of the bars behind our house.) I started laughing so hard!! That came out of left field!! Sometimes she comes out with these things that are so unexpected! It kills me. I am like, where did that come from? Well guess what, we made the bus. So we didn't throw our tags down and meet guiltless at Lucky Louis. You still have a faithful missionary. Later on we were talking about it. I was like, even if we did do that we would walk in there and be like, "Ummmm can we have water?!"

Well mother that's it for my disturbing stories! Thanks so much for all that you do! I think you are the most amazing mother in the world. I love you more than anything!

I think you are the best. And P.S. how long are Dave and JaRelle living with you for?

Loves hugs and kisses,

love your favorite missionary Sister Bailey

December 5, 2011 Letter

Dear Most wonderful, pretty, talented, hard working Mother

Wow! It sounds a bit crazy there. I cant believe it! Someone told me today that there had been some crazy winds in Utah. But wow. It killed the neighborhood. You have had quite the week mother. I am sorry. I am glad you have three good helpers back home to help you out. Our week has been a little crazy as well!

First thank you thank you thank you! For Sending me that coat! It has been so needed. It has been very cold here. Im sad because I had my shoes all nice and broken in and then...they get a big hole in them! I wore them yesterday in the rain...they still have not dried yet. I walked around in a puddle! But I am very proud of my holy shoes!

So last week we met this kid named Intellect. He invited us to come back and teach him on wednesday. So we get an exchange and we head out there. When we got there he was sitting in his living room and he had 2 friends with him. We were like huh ok. He told us that his friends had all just "Randomly" shown up to have a jam session...yeah right! Well as the lesson progressed more of them kept magically appearing! They are all from this church who I am pretty sure teaches anti. But anyways they were just throwing out questions at us. They were nice but I know it was an ambush situation! After a little bit Intellect was talking and he said something like "thats why I made sure my friends were here so they could help me stay in the right." oops there goes that lie! He totally invited them over! Jerk! Well you cant make fools of us because we have the Lord on our side! But anyways kinda cool part of the story we are at Lunch on friday at the institute (they do this thing every friday where they have a speaker and then lunch afterwards) so we are eating and in walks one of the kids from the wed. ambush! We will call him guiltless. So guiltless just comes waltzing in! Grabs some food says hi to us and sits down. We were like what the heck! So we start talking to him and he agrees to let us teach him after the lunch because he has more questions. So we start teaching him...wow....can you say ridiculous! As we taught him he went off about works. And how we actually dont need to do ANYTHING to be saved. Christ paid it all so we dont have to. His favorite saying of mine is "we are guiltless not sinless." So we can sin all we want and not worry because Christ took away our guilt. We dont even have to be baptized! He was trying to hard to persuade us to believe that way. It was tempting...well not really..but I could see how someone who didnt already believe in the truth would want to believe in that. No work what so ever. You dont ever feel guilty or worry because you dont have to. You are already saved! I tried to explain to him using a Dr analogy. How we want our Dr. to be educated and to do their own work. I said its like if you Dr. went to this school and everyone decided that one of them Bob was going to do all the work! He would take every test quiz and home work assingment and everyone else would get and A and would graduate. Thanks Bob! As I am explaning it Guiltlss gets a big smile on his face sighs and says "doesnt that sound great?" I was like wow you just missed the point! I explained that no it wasnt great because now when I go to him he wont have any idea! He said no because Bob is in you...no guiltless bob is not in me! There is some serious brain washing going on in that place because these people are crazy!! He is the 2 person from that church who we taught that week. By the end of the first I wanted to pull my hair out! How ridiculous! By the end of Guiltless lesson I just laughed. His was funny. The other Chick named crazy was just awful! It makes me kinda upset when they talk about the Atonement that way. I think it is so cruel and ridiculous to expect one person to take on everything! To suffer unimaginable amounts of pain, to take on everything for us. And then we dont have to do anything ...commandments irrelevant, work unneeded, baptism a fun thing you can do. Its sick.

I decided the Harlot Isabel must have belonged to this church. So she cornered Corianton laid it all out for him he thought hey that sounds nice and he went off with her. Then Dad came around and taught Corianton the truth and he realized...oh...yeah...and repented.

After our lesson with Guiltless he was like how about we just hang out you can tell me about you I will tell you about me. I will invite Intellect and everyone we can just have fun. Haha umm sorry guiltless....we cant. Oh ok. I think he feels sad for us. Poor guy. But its ok because we feel sad for him.

So that was our crazy lesson. Fun to be had in the bible belt! Yay......

Umm in other news...I dont have much. Oh yeah we met a girl she is a less active member. She has cockroaches all over her house. They come out into the light and everything. So we are sitting there talking to her and all of a sudden she grabs one of the cockroaches and paints it with her nail polish. Yep. She just sat there holding it painting it checkered with the same nail polish she uses to paint her nails with. I was pretty disgusted.....yeah.....It crawled up her arm and everything. I was like and we gotta go...see ya!

So other crazy stuff...We did it...yep we found the door to heaven. Most people dont know but its in the ghetto of Denton Texas. Pretty good hiding place if you ask me. So we are walking around this Apartment complex and all the doors are red. We get to the door we want and its white. The only white door in the whole complex. We knocked but no one answered. I guess its just not our time to go yet. I made up a great story for Sister Lounsbury about us randomly disappearing and going to heaven. She laughed. I think sometimes she thinks I am crazy. Meh I guess she would be right :)

Then that same day we are walking and we get to a part in the road where we cant walk anymore. Its on this busy overpass. So we cant go over it, cant go through it, gotta go under it. That was my personal thinking anyways. Sister Lounsbury followed mostly because she has to I think. As we are treking our way down this hill under the overpass we ran into a hobo village. No one was home. But you could tell people lived there. It was a moment that made you very grateful for what you had. We really do have alot. Then we crossed the train tracks. I taught Sister Lounsbury the trick to crossing train tracks...Dont get hit! It was quite the exciting day! There are always adventures to be had. It makes life exciting.

Well I guess im fresh out of adventures for the time being. I hope that your adventures mellow out a bit! I love yall so much! I am so grateful to have such an amazing family! I hope everything keeps going well! Thanks for everything mother! You are amazing. I have the best mom in the whole wide world I am quite certain of that fact. I love you more than anything!

loves hugs and kisses

love. sister bailey

November 28, 2011 Letter

Dear most beautiful wonderful spiritual tasteful hard working talented splendid mother,

So this stupuid computer just deleted my whole email! Yep safe to say I am pretty upset about it. There is another choice word I could use but Elder Baxter (one of the 70s)a told us that is not celestial language so I am refraining from saying it. On the bright side it wasnt long and mostly all I did was tell you about my birthday and how Sister Mortensen, bad influence that she is, made me open my presents early. Then I promptly took accountability for myself because that is what we should do. And told you that I chose to open them (though Sister Mortensen might have prompted the thoughts) and that I loved them all!! They are so stinking cute! You did a good job! I can always trust you to pick out cute things. Thank you so much for them mother. I am going to be the most stylish missionary here!

Well Denton is good! It is cold and we are in a walking/ bus area. So I was going to ask if you wouldnt mind sending me one of my coats and maybe my cute headband things that keep my ears warm and some gloves. Yes all those people who told me Texas isn't cold either lied or never lived in Northern Texas because it is ridiculously cold! We will go with they didnt live in Northern Texas because its not nice to call people liars. Especially when you have to walk around at night and the wind blows...brrr. Ok, it's only in the 50s but I just got off a summer of strait 100 degrees so anything below 80 is a touch chilly! If you wouldn't mind sending me those things it would be very much appreciated!

The other night I looked like a total loser. I had on a black long sleeved shirt, a black sweater from down east and that little black jacket you sent me for my birthday, JaRelle's scarf and a black hat. I looked emo for certain. But it's all I had in the warm department! Oh and maybe send me some brown tights to go with my brown skirts! Sorry, let me just keep tacking things on the list. And I was going to ask if maybe for Christmas Santa could bring me a black undershirt. I would be very grateful to Santa for that! :) Man I sound so ungrateful! I just get off my birthday and I am already asking for things! Sorry mom. I am very grateful and will try not to be an ingrate any more I promise! Thanks so much for all you do. I am so glad that I have a mother who is willing to do so much and help me out in so many ways! You are amazing!

My companion is good. We get along very well. She loves to read. We both lament about going to the library and not being able to touch any of the books! She is funny. God has a tendency to put me with people I wouldn't normally put myself with and then make me like them. I think He teaches me a lot of good lessons.

The ward is fun. It is so different. In case you didn't know (because I sure didn't!), Denton is home of two universities The University of Northern Texas and Texas Women University. It is so weird being in a college town. I (very gratefully!) am only cover 1 ward down here. It is amazing. It is so hard serving in two wards. It's fun being up here. We don't have a car, so we ride buses and walk everywhere. Yes, I am learning how to use the bus system! It is going to take a second. It's weird having to plan your day around bus schedules and not being able to just be like, "Lets go here!" But it's nice walking! You meet so many people and have an oppertunity to talk to so many people. Plus with the holidays I need to walk more to not gain so much weight! I can't become more morbidly obese! That would be no bueno!

We have a couple of investigators up here. I am still learning and meeting everyone so next week I might have more information but the one I do know is named...Boo. He is a member's boyfriend (hence the name Boo. Yeah, I am pretty gangster now!) He is a cool kid. They have been dating for 3 years now. We need to get him a testimony and help him see why the church is different. It's going to be fun.

So who here is excited to have another baby in the family?!?! Becuase I sure am!!! And we all need to tell JaRelle good job on following my rules. I am so excited for her and Dave to have a cute baby. I knew she would get prego. She wrote me a while back to say they were thinking about it, but decided to wait until next July. I knew it wouldn't happen. I am super happy though. Cute babies are so fun. Now at least we will have one cute cuddly baby with all the crazy toddlers!

Umm, well I dont think I have much else to say. Life is good here. I love yall so much and I miss everyone! Christmas will be weird at your house this year, but just think about next year! It is going to be crazy full! With 4 grandbabies!! yay!! I like that our family is growing. And who knows maybe McKay will have a special someone next year too (that's a weird thought). It could be a pretty full house! How fun.

Well mother I love you so very very much! You are the best mother in the world. That is why I claimed you as mine! Thanks for everything. I love love love love love love you!!!

loves hugs and kisses,

love. sister bailey