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