HAVE AN "ERIE" HALLOWEEN!! OCTOBER 29, 2018

T

Hello!!

So! It has been a pretty good week over all! Some days were Great and some days were kind of meh, I'll be honest. But those great days were really great! So get comfy, because you are in for yet another one of Sister Bates' long emails!

Tuesday: Before I got here, the sisters tracted into a woman named Kathy. (Yes we have a Mike, a Jeff, and a Kathy!) And she is just the cutest person ever! She has a strong faith in Jesus Christ and was just so excited to hear about our beliefs. She was excited to read from the book of Mormon! So that was a great lesson! That night we had another great lesson with Mike!! Ah the spirit is just so strong in his lessons, it is awesome. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lessonHe asked great, insightful questions and really ponders a lot. And at the end of the lesson, we invited him to be baptized and he said YES!! It was awesome!! We were so excited!! He is on date for November 30th. We are nervous because we have to teach him the Word of Wisdom tomorrow. We are pretty sure he smokes and drinks coffee at least. Anyway, it will be good but please pray for Mike!  So Tuesday was a great day! We had some other lessons that went well and we were just really happy that day!

Wednesday: we had district council today which was great! The other elders in Erie aren't in our district but one of them is the Zone Leader so they had to come to our council today so they rode with us and that was fun. Those are good elders! The rest of the day wasn't the best, we did some knocking that led to nothing, but we pressed forward, we got cussed out on the phone by a less active lady lol and we had another appointment with Stevie, the other woman on date for baptism fall through for the 4th day in a row.  We haven't met with Stevie in a while, she works a LOT and is so busy and it's just hard to meet with her. Hopefully we will tonight though! We have a lesson planned. That evening we had dinner at a members house which was really nice! They are a really sweet old couple, always serving people and they're just awesome.

Thursday: We did our long weekly planning, which is actually great, gives some good hope for the next week and we set some good goals - both personal, companionship, and for those we are teaching. We then had dinner at another members home. They live more in the country side of Erie. I always like dinner at members homes, helps me to get to know them better and helps them think more about missionary work. That night we had another appointment fall through, so we went to a college campus in our area and put out pass along cards and pamphlets in their chapel and some cards on their cork boards in a main building. We then did our Book of Mormon Facebook live class.

Friday: Friday was a great day! We set up a table outside of Wal-Mart and had a board that said What Brings You Joy? And had people write their answers on sticky notes. We talked to some people, gave a few pass along cards away, and even gave away a Book of Mormon! It was cold standing outside but it was fun! We then went to dinner at a members home and taught a lesson there to a guy named Ian. His grandma is a member but his mom isn't and she wouldn't let him get baptized until he is 18 which he just turned. He has been to church many times and apparently has gone to seminary a little bit. Sis P and I didn't think the lesson went super well, he just seemed unfocused and stuff, but when we saw him at church on Sunday, he came right up to us, told us he prayed about it last night and that God told him he had to get baptized! So he is getting baptized and he is really excited about that! We are going to have another lesson with him at the Dodson's (the YM president) house again on Friday. Then after that, we drove out to a town called Corry that is a 50 min drive and still in our area! And we had a Great lesson there! There is a returning member named Hope who we visited with last week. We asked her if she wanted to take the lessons and she was like ooh! I'll invite my sister over! And my daughter! And my daughter's daughters! So we taught the restoration to this family and it was so awesome!! They were all so engaged and the spirit was so strong! Her granddaughters that were there were 8, 10, and 12 and they all loved it. They all knew this was something special. Hope's daughter, Cherity, and her 3 girls all came to church on Sunday with Hope and her husband and we talked to the 12y/o after and she told us "it was good! Actually it was more than good" with a big smile on her face. So that just warmed my heart!! 

Saturday: It was pouring all day. It was just a day of failed contact attempts. We had dinner with Kathleen, a recent convert and went over the Plan of Salvation with her. She comes to church regularly which is awesome! We had a lesson with Diana.  She doesn't believe in God. We think we made a bit of progress with her. We talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and read a bit from the conference talk The Father.

Sunday: the primary program was sooo cute!! We had a good number of less active there which was good. It was pouring rain outside that night but we did some knocking and this one house, they let us right in, gave us cookies, and we talked with them for a while. They had a cute girl, too. We were able to teach them the entire restoration lesson but at the end, when we invited them to read the book of Mormon they "politely delcline[d]"!! They were so awesome, so kind and generous, and we taught them the whole lesson! We were there for so long and got our hopes up. So that was a bummer. But hey, we planted a seed! We cleared up some misconceptions they had about us and left a good, nice impression. Someday!

We went to Lake Erie this week and ate cupcakes by the lake! It was super super windy hahaha but really pretty! We also have 3 colleges in our area! They are Penn State Behrend University, MercyHurst University, and Gannon University. So that is cool. 

We have Zone Conference on Thursday which we are excited for! It will be a good week. Sister Paskett and I are really positive people and we have been having a great, fun time together. Being a missionary is hard work, but it is so full of Joy! Who knew you could be so happy walking in the pouring rain, knocking on random strangers doors? It's awesome. I love being a missionary!

I love you all! Thanks for all the love and support! I have the best family!!  The missionary life is good! 😊

Love, Sister Bates ❤

5500 copper Dr apt 201 Erie, PA 16509

I thought you might be interested in seeing what my daily schedule is!

6:30 wake up

6:45-7:15 exercise

7:15-8:30 shower, eat breakfast, get ready for the day

8:30-9:00 daily plan

9:00-10 Personal Study

10-11 Companion Study

11-11:30 First 12 weeks training 

11:30-12 Daily Contact (call or text people we planned to see today to make sure they are available)

12-12:30 lunch

12:30-5 appointments, contact attempts, tracting, whatever we have planned for the day

5-6 Dinner

6-9 appointments, contact attempts, tracting, whatever we had planned for the evening. Typically we plan to have lessons in the evening because we are afraid of knocking when it is dark outside haha

9-10:30 get ready for bed, write in journal, pray, go to sleep

(Except on Halloween!  We are going to visit Diana, the woman I talked about in my first email here, who never leaves her home. And then supposed to return to our apartment at 8 instead of 9.)

It is a good, busy life I am living!