Tuesday, February 24, 2015

What I Wish I Would've Known

soooo shoutout to my girl, the one and only Bella in Berlin aka BELLA BAKER!! She's my fav (:

so this email is gonna be a lil different. last week my home ward bishop, Bishop Broadbent, emailed and asked me a bunch of "What I Wish I Would've Known" questions sooo i asked my district leader if  we could have our district prayer and talk about it. long story short i ended up instructing at district meeting about it. IT WAS AWESOME. i have sooo much stuff....so I'm probably gonna make it a couple emails about this over the next few weeks and keep adding to it. I'm really excited. Also...my girl Kylie Myers and I made some really funny videos about the gospel lately....so stay tuned on facebook for those (; hahaha the things you do when you are on your way back from the temple...in oklahoma city...3 hours away...anyways!!

HIGHLIGHTS OF DA WEEK:

MONDAY: we played settlers of catan, it's a sweet board game, for FHE. then i asked the members son which ward he was in and it got really awkward and he told me he was no longer a member #GOME i love when that happens...hahaha but i got over it.

TUESDAY: we had an AMAZING lesson with GINA!!!! omg and i got pics with the possum and i almost started to hyperventilate when it was crawling all over me...we have another lesson with her tomorrow. PRAY that we can convince her to go out of her house....yeah #OKIEPROBS

oh and that night i had my first experience with REAL SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN. OMGosh....sooo good!!!!

WEDNESDAY: definitley that night we were at the church of activities.

jeananne (the one that teaches us to crochet) taught the activity days girls!!! how cool!! she looked like a member!! after we were all talking about how excited we were to go to the temple and she asked soo many questions. IT WAS SO AWESOME!! also...it's a long story but i arranged for a member to donate Mickey (our recent convert) a SICK SUIT!! he wore it on sunday and looked sooo fly! it was soo cool(:

THURSDAY: we had SISTER'S CONFERENCE in Tulsa so I got to my Sister PETE <3 <3 it was the greatest, i love her so much. at lunch, everyone gathered around us and we were telling stories and just going back and forth...it was sooo funny. geez, i love that girl. keep her in your prayers..she's having a rough time<3 Love you gurrrrrl!!

FRIDAY: WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE WITH JONI AND KYLIE AND THE PHILLILPS (i adopted them as my parents...they're so funny) we had an amazing time and I got to spend a few minutes in the celestial room...it was so good!! ahhhhhhh(: (:

SATURDAY: we had an amazing lesson with MICKEY!!! IDK...LATELY...our lessons just flow...not to mention we taught 35 lessons last week and 34 this week. TAHLEQUAH IS BOOMING!! (usually we teach likeeee 20 soo yeah, ROCK ON) also we had dinner with my other set of adopted parents...the WARRENS. they're the funniest people i've ever met...actually. like for real, we had a blast. someday ya'll will know this amazing people in my life and it'll be great!!

fun fact: i accidentally wrote a poem while taking notes at sister conference:

it goes like this:

you won't become perfect on your mission,
but you've got a head start,
this is your foundation
HASTEN YOUR HEART<3

cute, right?

and i totally wrote it on accident. love when that happens...

WHAT I WISH I WOULD'VE KNOWN:

  • long before you leave on your mission, actually START  RIGHT NOW,  study Preach my Gospel and the missionary white handbook. first time i read that was in the MTC...also study ALL the chapters in PMG, not just chapter 3 that has the standard missionary lessons. that's a good start but we teach soooo much more than those. plus there's a whole chapter about the book of mormon andddd about findind people to teach! USE ALL YOUR TOOLS
  • having a job with customer service + interacting with people was SO HELPFUL
  • take mission prep and LEARN HOW TO TALK TO PEOPLE. i mean, i've definitely learned a ton thus far, but the beginning was really hard. plus, there's a lotta awkward missionaries. DON'T BE THAT MISSIONARY.
  • go out on splits with the missionaries around you. if you don't know them...FIND OUT and love them and take them places and ask them a million questions...WE LOVE IT
  • save as much of your own money as you can for you mission, i've heard it makes you a lot more driven ( i wouldn't know...i'm super spoiled by my daddy and grandparents :)
  • ask your family that has gone on missions for advice, stories, tips etc.
  • go to college!!! i'm forever grateful i had a year at USU before my mission, i learned how to grocery shop and do my laundry and take care of myself #YOUNGESTCHILDPROBS
  • when you go teach with the missionaries like i told you to, being an ACTIVE member, don't just sit in the corner and twittle your thumbs..you are there for a purpose
  • develop SOCIAL SKILLS! hahaha i kind of already said this but i had to put it in again, b/c my district leader kept yelling it out while i was instructing hahaha
  • learn how to play the piano....i hate hate hate that i took piano for how many years mom? and i can only play a few hymns...(sorry to lorna for never practicing...) but i'm learning again!!
  • develop a testimony of church attendance. i didn't have one coming from utah, where we always go...just because...andddd we invite people to come all the time sooo you need to understand why it's important.
SHOOT!! WE HAVE TO GO.... i have soooo much more...but i'll send it next week!!

i love you people!! the church is true!!!

all my love,

sister bay


hi i'm sister bailey. some call me sister bay. or sister nellie.
hahaha shoutout to my dad for sending me my converse and favorite sweatshirt!!



PICS FROM LAST WEEK!!






last pic with pete...

bowling with da crew...the one in front is the one who made the bet with me....

the valentine's dance with my valentine <3

Valentine's Week



HI EVERYONE!!!!

I hope ya'll had a fantastic valentines day!! Mine was so so good...but we'll get to that in a second(:
Holy moly... I have so much I could talk about but I'll just put in the highlights because we still need to go grocery shopping...

Sooo


Something funny: Thursday was transfers...we got to Muskogee at 730 to drop off Sister Petersen (which was so sad and I miss her so much!! s/o out to you Pete<3) Buuuuut my new companion, whom I already absolutely adore, wasn't going to arrive until likeee 3. So! A bunch of us got permission to go bowling while we waited!! It was such a blast, ah man. I was in charge of a brand new missionary fresh from the MTC for the day so we showed her a good time in the OTM (; But here's the funny part. We were ordering our shoes and the Elder before me said he needed a 10. Then the cute old guy asked me what I was and I said "Umm, probably like 6 and a half" AND he says "No baby girl, you're a 10"....hahaha my face got super red and I just laughed and said thanks...everyone died laughing and won't stop reminding me about it...other funny thing that happened...My good pal Elder Horsley, who I was in the MTC with, bet me a tie that I couldn't bet him in bowling...well...I lost...by like 20..so on Friday when we volunteered at this local thrift shop we went through all the floral ties and picked out the best one. It was like 55 cents so I mean... that was funny though.
Something weird: I AM SENIOR COMPANION!! What in the world...I'm not old enough for this...kidding, I'm super excited about it. Sister Palmer is 3 months old in missionary age so I wanted to make it clear to her that we are learning together, but I also told her that I had learned sooo much in the past 3 months and was excited to show her what the real world of missionary work is like outside of training(: We're already having a blast!!

Something sweet: Well imma tell ya'll about our whole valentines day because the whole day was REALLY  sweet(: (: let's see....we went to Walmart and bought cookie mix stuff, we thought it would be a good incentive to get into less actives houses and to show people how much we love them! On the way home we had a prompted to visit this cute woman at a rest home, she has Alzheimer's disease and we have visited her a few times but never remembers and gets SO excited when we visit her, so that was really special. She was wearing a cute tiara and everything. Haha she told us she was the Queen of the rest home, it was awesome(; We checked the mail when we got home and I had a letter from Lorna Kujanpaa and a package from my sister Melissa and her kids! (Thank you both<3) But it totally made my day, it was kind of a hard morning, I was really missing my mom. Melissa sent me a locket my dad's sisters got my sister's and I at the funeral that says "Never Forgotten, Forever Missed" and it has pictures of my mom and I, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT and I wear it everyday so thank you to my wonderful aunts!! And thank you Aunt Pam and Dad and Eileen for the packages(: I love you guys!! After we made cookies with Kylie and took them to people throughout the day and shared a love scripture, I think it was 1 John 4:7-8. In the afternoon we volunteered at a special needs dance at NSU with Kylie, visited people, and that evening had dinner at the church with a YSA kid, Grady, and some other members. It was cute. They had flowers and everything then we stayed for the adult valentine's dance and just observed. It was probably the most entertaining thing of my life!! Soo much cheesy music, such cute old couples dancing, I was singing and dancing in my chair. hahaha it was so much fun(: Such a perfect valentines day! And it's funny to think I'll still be on my mission next valentines day...haha 375 days ya'll!! I can't believe it...I hit my 6 month mark on Friday...Shoutout to Elder Minaga and Elder Jensen for going to the MTC the same day as me (;

Something spiritual: my studies have been awesome lately...if you know me at all you know I'm a nerd and love school and getting good grades and studying soo it's probably no surprise to y'all that studies are one of my favorite things...but anyway(: The other day I was studying about the first vision because I think it's a good idea to continually learn and gain a testimony of Joseph Smith. Well as I was reading I noticed how often he talked about his heart. For example, he talks about how the scripture in James 1:5 really touched his HEART and how when he was praying he really wanted to know and he was offering up "the desires of his HEART". Then it talks about when Christ explains that the people "draw near to me with their lips but their HEARTS are far from me" and I was just thinking about that a lot this week, especially where it was LOVE week. But I was thinking about how at the beginning of my mission my heart wasn't here...it was at home. And my mission president knew that. I remember one day I was having a rough time and he drove all the way out to Missouri to visit with me. That meant a lot to me, he's so amazing. We talked, I cried, he told me he believed in me and that he knew that I was supposed to be there and that going home would be the biggest mistake of my life...then he said I still had my agency. Soooo, obviously, I stayed. He told me I needed to get my heart here, into the work, into the mission. And I feel confident to say that my heart is completely here now...it really truly is. I have fallen in love with the work, and I'm just so dang happy. Happiest I've been my whole life!! I'm so grateful for President Shumway and all my amazing leaders and companions. As well as all the fans back home!! Thank you all!! I LOVE YOU!!!

HAVE A LOVELY WEEK!!

All my love,

Sister Bailey (: