# 17 Progress, Weed & Love

This week was fantastic!! In my area (Talavera) there are a lot of little towns that the last few missionaries hadn't been visiting ever since they took the car out of here. We were looking through the area book and decided that we should set aside 2 days a week to go work in the pueblos. The results have been great!! We are finding some inactive families that really just needed a little push. 

My favorite story is the Fuentes family. They are from Ecuador, and just way cool! They told us that they're been wanting to get sealed with their family for over 14 years, but something always came up. We talked to our Branch Prez, and now we're been assigned Teach the temple prep classes!! I never even finished mine before I went through, so it'll be an awesome learning experience! 

  

    Along with our Town hoppin' we're met some pretty cool people! Given that almost every time we talk to youth they offer us weed. Here's what happened. 

Bulgarian guy, "You guys want some weed?"

Dominican guy, "No! they are people of God... they can't have weed. Wait, can you guys have weed?"

 It's legal here in Spain, but it's still kinda funny. Most of the people we talk to are super respectful, so it's great to see that even though a lot of people here are atheist that they still respect things of God. 

   

     I have come to grow and love this branch that I'm in!! at first I was super sad to be leaving my old area because I loved the people so much, but now I love these people. I have to work extremely hard because there's not alot of leadership or structure, but it makes me love and admire the faithful members we have now! They have good hearts. Even though there are people in the branch that hurt it some members stay faithful, and it just  makes me want to be better!

   Well I get to go give a lesson soon, but i just wanna tell you guys that I love you! I know the church is true, and god has a sincere love for each one of us!! 

  Here are some pics! This is my old comp that I saw at Zone Conference! He's a great friend now!

#16 THE SWORD OF LABAN AND DRUGGIES

I know you miss the pose...

Cray cray cocaine dood, Fishes and progress!

   

    On Wednesday we were heading over to district meeting, and as we were walking to the bus station this gypsy guy tries to stop us. We were running late, so we had to keep walking. He says in his broken English, "Hey nigga, Nigga, you stop! F!"$% jew" and he repeated that about 3 times. Jaja we looked back and saw some white powder or something in his beard. Jaja crazy gypsies! 

     

     I did exchanges that day. I was with a Colombian guy and an American greeny. They`re both super cool. We were in a lesson with a Nicaraguan women. I had just talked and I looked at Elder Maughn (The greeny) to talk. We had just talked about the atonement and translated he said, "We are all humans... and we all have fishes." Haha we all started laughing and the investigator dropped to the floor laughing! In Spanish pescados is fish and pecados is sins. It was fun!

My companion

     Now for Friday night! We had our Family home evening! We did an atonement lesson and we did the push up thing. We had 9 people to start the Night. We did a lesson where we brought chocolates and I had to do 15 push ups for each person to receive one. Even if they didn´t want it I still did 15. I thought that it wouldn´t be so hard, but then I hit 90 and I hit a wall. It was crazy hard to keep going and then 3 new people walked in. They all told my comp to stop it and the last 5 people said that they wanted a chocolate, but didn´t want me to do any more. We then talked about how that related to the atonement and it was really powerful. I did just 135 push ups, but I felt dead. I can only imagine how much harder it was for Christ. 

     

     Well I just want to end telling you that I know this church is true! God loves us so much and the Book of Mormon contains the word of God. Joseph Smith is a prophet and we are now guided by living prophets! 

       

     Love Elder Bailey

Posing

#15 Gotta Be Quick

Well the truth is Talavera is hard! It´s a great learning experience though. I just feel like I´m back in High school getting turned down by all of these people(It was girls in high school) Jk but There are a lot of Gypsies and Spaniards! 

   I just want to take a second and tell you about this family who we meet with. Their name is Tati(The mom) Edwardo(The dad) Mar(The daughter) Ester(The other daughter) Well they´re great! Edwardo is from Spain and Tati is from the Dominican Republic. They haven´t had work for like 5 years. Edwardo fasts 2 days a week to ask for the Lord´s help. That impressed me that he keeps looking and turning to the Lord to help him. Now he has a job offer to start building churches! They´re great! Plus we went and ate food then went to the park with them. They needed a day out of the house! 

    Well right when I got here we weren´t teaching many people, but I talked to my comp and we were working on building solid relationships, and we had 6 investigators to church! (That´s a lot for a European mission ;) Well the Lord has really blessed us! 

   

  I know the church is true and the gospel blesses families! I know we have inspired leaders who can help and bless our lives! 

Elder Terry Bailey

PS I forgot my cord, but I'´ll send pics next week! PPS I´ll tell you about some good stories next time! 

#14 Talavera

Me and Javi

Outline: Area, Comp, Interesting testimony, and then mine. 

     

        I'm trying to sound exciting while I write about my new area so I just did a few jumping jacks... I received some interesting looks. eh Well now I'm excited! Talevera is a beautiful city with a ton of culture. There are a lot of old building here, so it's good looking. My SD converter isn't working, so I can't send pics, but when I get them then I will! I came into the area and our branch has 20-30 members. Our Branch Presiency all live about 1 and a half hours away. We have 3 families that live in Talavera and the rest live in Pueblos(towns) outside of Talavera and it's hard for us to go out there. They had just dropped most of their investigators or been dropped by them, so we're in finding mode! It's pretty rough, but I'm excited for the potential that we have here!! 

   

    My comp is Elder Poulson! He's from California, and went to BYU for a year before coming out here. He has a big heart and is very willing to work! He notices that we need to take big steps to progress this area, and he's excited to do it! He's gonna be a solid comp! 

                                                STORY TIME

     Well this story is kinda crazy... but I guess welcome to Talavera. They had me start off testimony meeting, and that was fun. Then when we had about 10 minutes left this guy named (Read with latin accent) Jesus went up to share his testimony. He has some interesting beliefs. So as he was going up this older guys stands up and takes his family outside. Right before he leaves he said, "Sorry President, I just can't let my granddaughter listen to this apostate charlatain!" JAJA so we have some work to do in the branch! I'm excited for what the feauture holds. 

   

 Now for my testimony! I know that this church is true! I know that God loves His children. I have felt this love and that's why I'm here in Spain for the next two years. God transforms lives, and through Christ we can be made Great! 

Elder Terry Bailey

Isma´s model shoot that he always wanted to do!

Good bye mamas! 

Goodbye!