ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS! DECEMBER 17, 2018

Hello!!

How are you all doing? Excited for Christmas?? I am!! It certainly doesn't really feel like Christmas here, but I am excited!! I can Skype my family on Christmas day just from my phone! We can talk for 40 minutes! I can't wait!! 

Sister Paskett cut and straightened my hair for me this morning! She's really good at hair! :)

This week was pretty good! Let's get this email started shall we?

Tuesday: Great day!! We had 2 awesome lessons that evening!! Okay so back it up, we got a referral from someone in Texas for this guy named Dan. He was going through a really hard time and his friend in Texas reached out to him and read from the book of Mormon to him. It was exactly what he needed to hear and he was like, "Where is that? I need that." So she got in contact with us and we were able to meet up with him! And he is SO PREPARED, it was amazing!! He asked us all these questions about why we need prophets and the Book of Mormon and how he can find more peace and direction in his life. He said he had been praying to find that and then his friend reached out to him and he felt that was an answer to his prayers. It was so cool! We had a great lesson with him, sitting in a food court at the grocery store! At the end, we asked him how he felt, and he said he felt hopeful. He has a lot of faith. We are excited to meet with him again later this week! We also had a great lesson after that with Mike! We read Moroni 6 with him which he liked. He always has great questions. His wife still hasn't shown much interest in coming to his baptism, sadly. We are praying for her to soften her heart. She is fine with him being baptized, she just doesn't care to be there. His baptism is this coming Saturday, the 22nd! We are excited for him!!

Wednesday: We had District Council and interviews with President Bednar! That was so good, I love President so much!! He always makes his missionaries feel good, like they are doing a good job! I appreciate him, being a Mission President would be so hard and so much work! But he does it great! He told Sister Paskett she is leaving me though :( but that's okay, we are getting too comfortable with each other haha, we are just best friends! Sis P is awesome. After that, we went and had a great lesson with a woman named Penny down in Corry! I tracted into her on exchanges and she was nice and wanted us to come back! She has 5 HUGE dogs! But she was so nice, had awesome questions which the Book of Mormon can answer! We taught her the restoration and when we talked about Joseph Smith, she totally believed it! She thought it was super cool! So we are seeing her again tonight and are really excited to teach her again! After her lesson, we went to dinner in Corry, and we ate at this cute restaurant and guess who sat at the table next to us?? AMISH PEOPLE!! There were girls in long dresses and bonnets, and boys with  long bowl cuts.  There was no horse and buggy outside though. It was so fun! That night we had a lesson with Jeric. I dont know what happened but the spirit just was not really there. He wasn't very engaged and focused and it was just an odd feeling lesson. When we left Sis P and I didn't feel good. We both just had stupors of thoughts during his lesson too. It was strange. We went and said a prayer in the car. 

Thursday: We did weekly planning today. Then we saw Shahram, the Iranian recent convert, and the happiest man ever! He is just the sweetest. We talked about prayer and scripture study. He hasn't been at church in a while because he has been working on remodeling his home but he is getting close to finishing. We tried to stress the importance of coming to church but he didnt come this Sunday so we will see. We had a lesson with Mike again and that was good as always! We went over the baptismal interview questions and he did great! He will be interviewed this Tuesday! We asked for referrals and he thought of his friend! He was going to talk to him and invite him to his baptism! He lives in the elders area though :( but that was good, he is being a missionary! We had our BOM Facebook live class talking about Helaman 5....What a cool story!!

Friday: We visited some less actives and a cute old woman who can't come to church. We had a bunch of failed contact attempts that night and then did some OYMing downtown, handing out Light the World candy canes! So that was good.

Saturday: We did some knocking and OYMing and then we had a lesson with a woman we had knocked into last Monday named Lucy! It was so good! She is a cute mom of 3 and she had such great questions about why bad things happen, why we are here, and about the bible - how she can know what is true. We tried to answer her questions and teach the restoration a little bit which was good. We shared a scripture from the BOM that really resonated with her and that she loved! So that was good! We will see her next Saturday. That night we had dinner at a members home. And then we did some service for her, just cleaning her kitchen because we could see she was struggling. Her husband was working and she had 3 kids so she got them ready for bed while we did her dishes (she doesn't have a dishwasher) and swept the floor and just cleaned up for her. It was nice. We then went and helped Diana, the woman we are teaching who hardly ever leaves her house. We helped her go through her packages and boxes, since her back was really hurting her. We talked a little bit about faith. She just has a hard time with science and religion and believing in God. We make very small baby steps with her each time. 

Sunday: Church was alright. Mike came again which was good. We taught just a trainwreck of a lesson for Gospel Principles because our teacher didnt show up but oh well, it worked out I guess Haha that night we saw Diana again and talked more about Faith. She doesn't really think she has any faith but we were like, "You have hope, that is a form of faith!"  If anybody has any good talks or articles or videos or anything about faith or science and religion and how to believe in god that we could share with her, that would be good. We made baby steps again with her though! And we love her, we really do!

We have Zone Conference on Thursday! I am so excited for that!! I Love Zone Conference!

I hope you all have an absolutely FANTASTIC week!! I cannot wait to talk to my family!! I love and miss you guys so much!!  am so thankful to be with my family for eternity!!

Love,

Sister Bates ❤

FUN FACTS ABOUT ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA. DECEMBER 17, 2018

Erie. It's a fun place to live! There are lots of interesting people here. I have had some great times here so far! So, here are some interesting facts about Erie, Pennsylvania!

1. First of all, my area is huge! It takes over an hour to drive from top to bottom or side to side! And we cover just 1 ward and the church isn't even in my area! People travel far to get to church, it is amazing. We often go to a town called Corry which is 50 mins away from our apartment. And our area goes into New York! So, we use a lot of miles... we often pack dinner and eat it in the car to save on miles going back to our apartment. It's a good time though! I've been in this area since early October and there are still a couple town's I have not been in yet that are in our area... we stay mostly in Erie, there's just so many people and so much happening here! But we are teaching a couple people that live farther away.

2. When we are tracting, we have to knock on people's doors with a nice little rhythm and not very furiously, or else people think we are the police. 

3. We see the police all the time. Either we see them drive past us, or we hear their sirens. We've seen people get arrested! We once saw 8 cop cars drive past us real slow with their flashlights out, that was fun! And we once saw cops run into the house of a referral person we were trying to go teach. When we stopped by there a few days later, the woman said he was in jail. Too bad.

4. When we knock on strangers doors, they often will yell out, "Who is it??" In a scary sounding voice. We then reply, "It's the sister missionaries!" In a nice sounding voice. They usually take a bit to open the door, confused as to who we are and often will say, "Who??" They then open the door, and stand there looking tough for a second, then they see these 2 girls in skirts with big smiles on our faces and then they are really nice to us. It makes me laugh everytime.

5. Sometimes when we knock, they will yell, "Come in!" So we will walk in and then they will look at us confused and we realize they must have been waiting for someone else to come over... this is awkward...

6. People here are generally really nice when knocking doors! I've only had a few doors slammed in my face and most of those were when I was on exchanges in a different area! People are typically polite at the door. 

7. People from Pennsylvania are TALKERS!! We once tried to teach this woman we knocked into, but we were over there for an hour trying to talk but she just talked the whole time. It is apparently called the Pennsylvania Ramble! And they will talk to anybody! Doesn't matter if we've been teaching them for months or if we just knocked on their door, they will talk your ear off and tell you very personal facts about their lives you did not need to know lol!

8. People go crazy for decorating for holidays! People had lots of lights and blow up things and lots of other decorations out for Halloween and I thought that was crazy but boy, Christmas! Just drive down our street and see these houses here, they go crazy, they've got so many decorations outside their homes! And everyone decorates, too! 

9. Literally everybody smokes here. I think my clothes will forever smell like cigarette smoke! Teenagers, mothers, old grandparents! Also, many people are missing teeth... hmm I wonder if those could be connected...

10. Never mention the snow. They will then spend 10 minutes telling you all about the CRAZY snowstorm they had last Christmas, telling you the same facts that the last person did. I admit, it was a ton of snow.... they got, like 120 inches.... But everyone tells us about it.

11. It is freezing. Lake Erie, you're beautiful but boy do you make it freezing here! Although these people must be used to this cold because I still see people walking around in shorts when I'm all bundled up in multiple layers... as long as it's not windy, I can handle it haha 

12. Amish people! There aren't many amish people in Erie, but last week we went out to dinner in Corry and there was a big table next to us, full of Amish people! It is so cool to see! And I saw a Horse and Buggy on the road the other day! 

13. There are many poor people. People live off of food stamps. A ton of people do not have cars, which makes it hard to get people to church haha 

14. Everything here is old! We are in the east, so all these houses and buildings are old and beautiful!! 

I love serving with Sister Paskett in Erie, PA! It is a great time! I love the people, I love the work, I love the area, and I love the Lord! Being a missionary is the greatest!! 

Have a FANTASTIC week!!

Love,

Sister Bates ❤

MY FIRST BAPTISM!!! DECEMBER 10, 2018

Hello!

Hope you have had a great week, because I have! It has been really good!

Tuesday: We did some knocking and found this super nice guy named Jeric.  Immediately when he opened the door, he invited us in, and we just talked with him a bit about the Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment. We then did service for this less active woman named Pinky. She wanted us to come help her organize her cupboards and we were there almost 3 hours. It took so long, but we definitely helped her. Then we went to the church and Ian got interviewed for baptism by our District Leader, Elder Call. They came out with big smiles on their faces and from there we were set! We then had a lesson with Mike and he told us he loved the blessing he got on Sunday, it was really cool and he felt it helped.  And last we heard he hasn't smoked since! So keep praying for him to keep it up, he is doing awesome! We set a new baptism date for the 22nd (great b-day present for Marie!) And we set it around his wife's work schedule so she could be there! He really wants her to be there so she better come!

Wednesday: Exchanges! We had District Council and from there we switched with the other sisters in our district. We did lots of tracting. I was with Sister Burton, the STL, and she was super nice! We found 7 potentials in Corry and Northeast, farther parts of our area but equally important parts! So we will go back and try them again later this week. I had to lead out both these days, since it was my area which was a little nerve wracking but worked out great!

Thursday: Sister Skinner and I went and did some OYM'ing on Penn State Behrend campus. We handed "Light the World" cards and candy canes out to people and got a few phone numbers. We also did some tracting. Then had a lesson with Mike! We just read 3 Nephi 27 with him and answered questions he had about stuff. He is so cool ah I wish y'all could meet him! He looks tough from the outside but he's a softie. And he's starting to smile more and is more comfortable asking us questions and just talking with us which is great. We also did our BOM Facebook class at the church with our ward mission leader that night.

Friday: This morning the sisters left.  It was fun having them sleep over for 2 nights! We did some weekly planning and then went and had a lesson with Jeric! (See Tues) which was awesome! He said he's been wanting to go to a church. We had a great lesson with him and he even said the closing prayer! It was sweet, he was so nervous to pray in front of us, and afterwards he said his heart was racing! We gave him a soft baptism invite - we asked if he believed what we told him was true and he said he wasn't sure yet, but he definitely wanted to learn more and we asked if he came to know it was true, would he get baptized, and he said he definitely would! So that was cool! Next time we will formally invite him to be baptized! He's awesome! We also had our Ward Christmas Party that night which was nice. Good food. :)

Saturday!! Great day!! We left our house at 7 am to go fill up the font because it takes almost 3 hours to fill! We then got ready and did some studies and printed programs and got everything ready. And then at 10 am we had the baptism service for Ian! It was so sweet, SO many people came, we ran out of chairs!! Ian's grandma has been a member of the ward for a long time and Ian has come to church with her off and on for many years, so he has had a lot of support. It was awesome, everyone there was so happy!! Especially Ian, it was sweet. He had his friend who is a priest baptize him which was sweet. And then he gave a nice testimony, I teared up. At the end, he looked right at Sis Paskett and I and said "I'm so grateful to be baptized, I'm really feeling the spirit right now" and that just made my heart so happy. I was conducting the music and during the closing song he just looked kind of over some by the spirit and it was so sweet to see. All the work and the effort we put into his lessons was worth it. Ian is baptized and is so happy about it!! We are so happy for him! The rest of the day was great, we did some finding and had a lesson that night which went well.

Sunday: Church was good, Ian was confirmed and the blessing was just beautiful! He again looked so happy, it was great. Mike came to church again! Oh and he came to Ian's baptism! That was great for him to be there and see one. It was a good day.

This week was good. Ian is baptized! We found lots of potential people to teach! We found Jeric who is super cool! It was a great week and I couldn't have done it without your prayers. Thank you for praying for me, I have so many people cheering me on, I know I can do all things!!

If you get the chance, there is a wonderful talk by President Nelson called "joy cometh in the morning" from 1986. it was exactly what I needed to hear, and I would highly suggest reading it!! Here is a quote I loved, "The gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope. It declares joy to be part of our divine destiny. And to experience joy in the morning becomes our special challenge." Joy is a part of our divine destiny!! And the gospel is what offers such great joy.

I love you all SO MUCH!! I hope you have a GREAT week!! 

Love,

Sister Bates ❤

HELLO! DECEMBER 3, 2018

Hello!

Only a few more weeks until I get to talk to you guys! I can't wait! I miss you guys a lot! I just have the best family!! :)

On Tuesday and Wednesday, it snowed like crazy! On Wednesday we got a call from our Zone Leader and he told us to not go out that afternoon unless we had to. We didnt have anything scheduled until the evening so we stayed in our apartment until then! It was a long day Haha we wrote on Pass Along cards and made "Light the World" things while watching Meet the Mormons and Finding Faith in Christ. It was probably good that we stayed in for our safety anyway, they are good about plowing the main roads but every other road was awful. Good thing Sis Paskett is from Utah and knows how to drive in the snow

We moved our District council to Thursday and that was great as always.

Mike is having a hard time quitting smoking. He's cut down a ton but hasn't quit quite yet. He wants to move his baptism date back. The Elders Quorum President gave him a blessing yesterday at church and afterwards he said. "That was awesome!" And had a big smile on his face! And we hardly ever see him smile! So that was good. He's so cool. We really hope he can quit soon! Please pray for him.

Thursday night we went to a Relief Society activity. It was cute. We hoped some women we were teaching would come, as they said they would, but none of them showed up. Bummer. 

We had good lessons with Ian this week. He is excited to be baptized on Saturday! He has his interview with my 

District Leader, Elder Call, on Tuesday and then we are good! We are excited for him!

We did some tracting this week but didn't really find anyone. We met this cool lady who seemed really promising, we talked with her for a long time and left her with a Book of Mormon. We set up to come back yesterday afternoon but she didnt answer the door. We later got a text from her, in all caps, very upset that the book we gave her was not the exact same as the Bible and that she did not want to see us again. We had explained that the BoM was not the Bible but apparently she didn't get it. So we will not be going over there again...

Oh and yesterday we locked ourselves out of our apartment. And, therefore, our car as well. We tried to break in but to no avail lol. We had to call and wait a while for somebody from the management to come unlock it and then we had to pay them $25! It stunk. We were an hour late to our dinner appointment, we tried to just say we would come another time but they insisted we still came. So we did, they had already finished eating lol it was awkward but they were a super duper nice family. The dad is in the Stake Presidency too! So anyway, yeah that was wild. 

Saturday was the Day of Service. We just cleaned the church building lol. It was good to support the ward and eat donuts too!

Aleksey, the cute old Russian man, won't accept the Book of Mormon either. He believes so strongly in the Bible which is awesome but he says it just can't compare with it and he won't believe it. He loves visiting with us though apparently. Idk what we will do about him. We tried to teach Plan of Salvation or Gospel of Jesus Christ but he won't let us move on from the BoM lol he is funny.

We drive past this cute chocolate store almost every day and last Monday we decided to go in! It smelled just of chocolate in there and it was heavenly! And we bought cute little boxes of chocolate and it was delicious!! Really good quality chocolate too! Kind of expensive though, so that will probs be my only trip there haha :)

I decided to read all of Pres Nelson's conference talks since becoming an apostle and one he gave in 1990 was about the name of the church! It was very interesting to read, seeing his focus lately and his talk this conference!

We also have exchanges this week, 2 days and we are blitzing our area which means I am leading out the area for 2 days! Yikes! Pray for me.

Ah it's snowing again!! And we dont have anything scheduled for tonight - no one has gotten back to us about coming over lol so looks like we are tracting in the snow tonight!

I love you all SO MUCH! I hope everything is going well. I hope to hear from ya this week! Happy December!! :) Have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Bakes 🎄

5500 Copper Dr apt 201 Erie, PA 16509

MY TESTIMONY DECEMBER 10, 2018

I know this church is true.

I know that this really is Jesus Christ's church and He has called Russell M. Nelson to lead and guide the church through Him.

I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ really did appear to him.  I know that he translated the Book of Mormon, that it is true, and it really is another testament of Jesus Christ.  I know that by reading it, we can find more peace, joy, purpose, and direction in our lives.

I know that Jesus Christ suffered and died for me.  I am so thankful for Him and all He has done.  I know that I am never alone, He is always by my side.  He perfectly understands me and knows exactly how to help me.

I know Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers.

I am a Child of God.  He loves me, and I love Him.

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

Sister Bates

ONE MONTH UNTIL CHRISTMAS - NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Found cute little Christmas trees and little stuff in a closet at the apartment! 

Happy Birthday, Sister Paskett!

Thanksgiving selfie in a gas station restroom!

Hello!

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! I loved all the pictures I received. I hope you all are doing well! 

Buckle up for another one from Sister "long email writer" Bates. 

Monday: We had an appointment set with someone named Justin. The Erie 1st ward Elders had met with him once before he moved into our area and had a super good lesson with him, even committed him to be baptized! So we were excited about him! So we go over there and knock. And then knock again. No answer, the house was dark. So we decided to do some knocking in his neighborhood. So we go down his street and we were knocking for a good 2 hours! We are almost done circling our way back, and a cop car drives up. A cop gets out and guess what house he goes into? Justins!! And then another cop drove up and went inside too! Then an ambulance drove up! They were outside talking to someone from the house but we didn't know if it was Justin because we hadn't met him. So a couple days later, we call him and text him, no response. On Friday we go over and knock on his door.  This girl answers and we ask for Justin and she says, "Oh, he isn't here. He is in jail." SO! We are no longer teaching him, and he is not getting baptized anytime soon sadly. Lol :)

Tuesday: Mike is so awesome!! He has read into Alma somewhere! He is so cool. We talked about temples and the law of chastity. He said everything made sense but he didn't want to focus on that at the moment, he just wanted to get the word of wisdom down. He was feeling bummed he hadn't totally quit yet. But he is doing amazing!! We only taught him 2 weeks ago, and he has pretty much quit. Please pray for him to have the strength to keep the word of wisdom! 

Wednesday: We had district council. There was exchanges on Tuesday so our district is totally different! 2 of the trio sisters left, and one of the elders left. It's just different. Sis Paskett and I are great though! :) That night we did some walking downtown but it was SO COLD! The weather app said "25 degrees feels like12" and we were like, "Yes it does!" Sister Bates will always accept warm socks in the mail. We also met with Aleksey, the cute Russian man. He is hard to teach since we have that language barrier but he is kind. 

Thursday: Thanksgiving!! We visit a less active woman named Marcia once a month and last week she invited us for Thanksgiving so we went! Her husband and 2 kids are not members and her less active brother and his kids were there so that was cool. They were all nice and the food was pretty good. The pie especially. We then drove up to Ian and had a lesson with him at his Grandmas house. So we spent the majority of the day in New York! We taught him about temples and chastity and that went well. Then they sent us with 3 big slices of pie, each. On a paper plate with a fork with no covering over it. So there was no way that was making it home, even if we wanted it to. Hahaha so we ate a lot of pie.

On Sunday, we got a text from a random number that just said "the only thing keeping me from coming to church is my son gets really car sick" and we were like, Who is this?? So we find out it's this girl, Katie, who had been taught by missionaries 3 years ago, had a baptism date, but went through a divorce and stopped meeting with missionaries. And this is the first time she's been in contact with missionaries since! So we went over Thursday night and met her and she is awesome!! She said she wants to work again towards being baptized, she has been reading her Book of Mormon and had even bought herself a CTR ring! She believes everything is true. She just has a hard time actually coming to church because her 5 year old gets car sick even after being in the car for 20 minutes and the church is 40 mins away. She has tried giving him dramamine but it doesn't help. So if you have any ideas on how we can help her, let us know! Her mom lives nearby and she said she might be able to leave him there on Sundays but we will see. She is just golden! We are so excited about her!!

Friday: Weekly planning! It's a new transfer so we set some new transfer goals and a new vision, see Deuteronomy 31:6! That night we had another lesson with Ian where we taught him Tithing and fast offerings. When we asked him if he would pay tithing he said "Of course I will!" He's excited to get baptized on the 8th! We also had another lesson with Mike.  We taught him about callings, ministering, and being a missionary. He was worried he would be called to be a primary teacher and that he wouldn't know how to do that, it was sweet haha but he is doing great, he has so much faith! We are shooting for the 8th for his baptism as well!

Saturday: Sister Pasketts birthday! I made her a cake, sang happy birthday to her, called her Sister Birthday Girl throughout the day, decorated a little, and just tried to make her feel special. It was a good day. We stayed busy! Oh! So do you remember me telling you about a woman named Stevie when I first got here? She was awesome, had a baptism date and everything, but then life, work especially, just got super crazy and she dropped us. So we went a few weeks without seeing her but on Thursday we messaged her happy Thanksgiving and talked with her and she wanted us to come over sometime! So we went today and she told us she has noticed a change in herself since she stopped meeting with us and coming to church, and she didnt like it. And work is getting better so she wants to meet with us again! It was awesome. She is great and we are excited to see her again! 

Sunday: Went to church, Mike came which was great. We did knocking for a while last night.  

The church is true. This really is the Lord's work and it is the Lord's true church on the earth today! I have seen many tender mercies of the Lord on my mission. Being a missionary is the greatest!! 

Also, at Zone conference a couple weeks ago, my mission president, President Bednar, challenged us all to memorize the Living Christ by our next Zone Conference! The whole thing! (If you don't know what that is, you can find it here! Read it! It is awesome!  http://jesuschrist.lds.org/testimonies-of-him/articles/the-living-christ-the-testimony-of-the-apostles-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?&lang=eng) So Sister Paskett and I have been working on memorizing it each morning and we finally finished it this week! It has been so cool to memorize. I love it so much. It testifies of Christ and as I have gone around, testifying of Christ, I have found myself referring back to it, repeating a sentence or two from it! As Sis Paskett and I recite it each morning, I have found my love for the Savior growing. Each day I become even more thankful for Him and His great atoning sacrifice. He suffered for me. He suffered for you. Because of Him, we can be forgiven, we can feel more joy, more peace, we can know that we are not alone because Jesus Christ has felt every single thing you have and ever will feel, and he perfectly understands. "God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine son." 

I am loving being a missionary! 

Thank you for all the support! I love and miss everyone a lot but I am thankful to be here! And happy to be here! :)

Love,

Sister Bates ❤

HAPPY TWO MONTHS! NOVEMBER 19, 2019

My wonderful district!

Hi family!!

I have been on my mission 2 months today! It's gone by super fast and yet I feel like I've been on my mission for forever already. Time on the mission is wild!  

It is so cold and snowy! And I saw freezing rain this week! That was wild! It was basically like a slurpee falling from the sky.

You asked how many missionaries are in my mission.  As of this next coming transfer, there will be 161! Not counting the 7 senior couples! 

It was a good week! It's all kind of a blur Haha but I will try my best to recall what I can!

Tuesday: we had interviews with president!  He is so nice, so awesome! I love President Bednar so much!! I had a great interview with him, he made me feel good and like I'm doing a great job! Sister Paskett told me he told her that she has the happiest companion! And ain't that the truth! I couldn't stop smiling when talking with him! It was a good meeting. That night we had a lesson with our favorite! Who could that be?? Oh man you guessed it, Mike!! He is so cool. We taught him tithing. We brought our ward mission leader along. They connected and I think that helped Mike. He thought tithing was chill and totally agreed to pay it after he is baptized. Oh boy we love lessons with Mike. The spirit is always way strong. Keep praying for him! He is really busy at work so it's hard to meet more than once a week with him, but we need to if he still wants to make December 8th! He is so awesome.

Wednesday: we visited with a less active woman, Marcia. She's cute. She lives in New York so we only visit her typically once a month. But she invited us for Thanksgiving which we are accepting because her whole family will be there, immediate fam aren't members. And her siblings that will be there are less actives. So it will be a good opportunity. We drove out to a town called Northeast, PA. We met with a less active man, Brother Henning. He was really cool. He teaches history at the local high school. He was telling us what it's like being a high school teacher, how you get to see so many things that the teenagers go through and are able to help some of them. He seemed to still have a testimony. His wife isn't a member. 

Thursday: we did some knocking today. We also drove out to Corry (50 min drive, far corner of our area,) we met an older woman who had requested a BOM. We will try visiting her again next time we are down there. We also taught an FHE lesson. There's an older couple that holds an FHE once a week for people that live in Corry. Especially since they all live so far from the church building and some of them can't make it to church as often as they may like. But that was nice. We then had our Book of Mormon facebook live class at the Parco's. That was good. 

Friday: we had our weekly planning.  We plan for each person, what we think we should teach them that week and when we think we can visit them in the schedule, and set goals for the person. And we set goals for ourselves and make a list of people we are teaching. But it's always good. We visited sweet Betty in her assisted living center. She is the cutest. She is always wearing Pearl's or another necklace. She is so happy to see us everytime we visit. We did some finding in a super nice, rich neighborhood. No one was interested. We had dinner at the Dodson's and taught a lesson to Ian there again too. We taught commandments like praying, scriptures, sabbath day stuff. He is also on date for the 8th. We then visited with a woman named Pinky. She's cute. She was baptized 2 years ago but got offended at church and stopped coming as often. The past couple weeks she has been returning to church which is good. She is really nice. She loves missionaries! 

Saturday: what a day! We did a lot of finding today. One experience was kinda scary but also hilarious. So we are knocking doors right? So we go to knock on this door and there is some music blasting so super loud. We knock on the door but assume they probably didnt hear it. We are about to leave a card on the door when the door opens and these 2 guys are like woah. They were just leaving and we happened to awkwardly be standing outside their door hahaha so they're like "are you jehovah's witnesses?" No we are from the church of j

Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And the one guy goes "oh man yeah we all need saving" and we're like "do you want to learn more?" And he just keeps saying we all need saving as they walk towards their car. So we just decide to leave a card on their door. And then this car pulls up and this woman starts yelling (and swearing lol) and is like "WHO ARE THEY???" And these guys are just yelling back like "woah woah woah they're just from the Church!! We dont know them!" And then she's yelling at us like "WHO ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" And we just are like oh we are just missionaries!! And we are trying to leave and walk on to the next house and oh my heck this girl backs her car up and as we walk past she pulls back into the driveway and literally I was almost hit by a car!! It was wild!! She was so close to me hahaha we just walked quickly onto the next house and don't say anything more as this girl is yelling with her boyfriend all mad at him. So hopefully she saw we knocked on the next house and saw the card we left and calmed down. The guys got in the car and left. Hopefully we didn't get them in too much trouble 😂 it was hilarious and terrifying at the same time. That night we decided to walk around downtown and OYM (Open Your Mouth (just talk to people)) I was a little scared haha but the Lord was watching out for us. We talked to a guy who actually seemed interested and we gave him a book of Mormon so we will see if he ever calls. We also met with Diana and actually had some progress with her!! She has been struggling with the concept of faith and she isn't sure if God is real and has prayed a couple times but hasn't felt like her prayers were answered. We read Enos with her and had a great conversation explaining how the Lord doesn't always answer our prayers immediately and in a big way. I talked about my decision to serve a mission how I prayed about it for months and still never got that boom clear answer that I was supposed to go until I started moving towards it. That really hit her and she had never thought about it like that. Hopefully we will see her again tonight and will continue to progress with her.

Sunday: MIKE FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH!!!!! He was dressed all nice, even had a tie clip on! We were so happy! He got there early, was really paying attention to everything, and he told us he liked it!! He had to leave after sacrament mtg but he is looking forward to coming again next week! He is so awesome! And ward members were nice to him and were coming up and introducing themselves which was great. If you ever see your missionaries sitting with someone new at church, introduce yourself to them!! It is so nice and helps them feel welcomed. That night we went and taught a man named Aleksey! He is the jolliest Russian I have ever met! Seriously he was the cutest! If he grew a beard he would look exactly like Santa. He was kind of hard to understand and it was kind of hard to teach him but we think it went okay. He said he would read the book of mormon so that's good. We are going to try and order a Russian copy for him too. Then we met with a recent convert, Shahram! He is from Iran and is also the jolliest man ever! I felt like I was in a foreign mission tonight visiting with these 2 men with kind of a language barrier. But it was fun!

So that is it! Sorry this email is outrageously long, but yeah, good week! We had a lot of offers yesterday to come for Thanksgiving which was so nice. We actually have some teaching appointments that night which is cool. It'll be a good day.

We are definitely being watched over and taken care of!  I'm so happy to be a missionary!!! I love you all!! You are the best!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Bates ❤

We are trying to invite as many people as we can as part of the light the world, to church on Dec. 23rd! 

Eating at Marcie's restaurant where she works

Out my window right now.