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 (: