Wednesday, April 17, 2013

April 15, 2013

*can we just put this out there that Riley's sister is a bit of a slacker lately when it comes to posting his emails. Seriously though.


dear dad.
so i didnt get your email this morning. i am sure your just still working on it and it will be like 3 pages long but i will look forward to reading it next week. my week was very good with lots of work. i have a man come to church straight out of prison! i had taught him and given him a book of mormon while in prison and then he was released saturday and came to church sunday. he has already read up into alma in the book of mormon. what a great blessing. he also has a family i have been teaching and the wife desires baptism but wants to be baptised alng with her husband. so we are working to teach him more. he was in prison for getting ina fight with a guy at a bar. nothing big but he was in there for 4 months and should have beena year. i have also been working hard on converting a mans wife to the gospel. she was just following her husband desire. then her son who is 18 desided to be baptised and prepare to go on a mision. now she wants all the books and asks lots of questions. she has a testimony. i explained to here how a missionary lives the law of consicration. she loved that. she was so amazed. i hope your week was good ad full of joy. sounds like it was from the other letters. love you so much and look forward to your letter next week 

be fitiavana mandrakizay
elder bates


dear mom
thank you so much for your letter. i am so glad that you and dad and emily had so much fun with lyndi and the kids. that is always a great thing to hear. and lyndi wrote me on how much she enjoyed her stay there. she really appreciates ou and dad and all you did for her during the past two ad a half weeks. i remember going to that indoor playground above kinsmen and how lm much fun it was. getting a treat out of the machines. and then you would take us swimming. how i miss swimming hahaa. but i do also remember all the trips you took us on. and how dad would come and then have to leave early or not even go at all. but all of those trips. especially the palmyra one are what fill my mind. they are not just things i remember but they are the things i charish. and i hope you know how much i appreiciate you and dad and all the work you put into it. we did soo many amazing things. seeing niagra falls going to sea world. it was and will always be something i hold onto. i was so young then (9years old) and iwant to go back now as an older man to be able to truely charish all that was holy in that expirience. i  remember sliding down the hil chamurah and things but what i truely reember in detail is how i could not take my eyes of that pagent for a minute. it amazed me. i wanted to be in it. i wished to experience it. oh how great it will be to understand and see all that was, all that is, and all that is to be. i truely look forward to that eternal day.
i am very jealous that you get to spend so much time in the temple. haha. it has been a while since i have been there and was not endowed very long before the mtc so i look forward to going to the temple. i remember singing that song and the missionary song in primary. now they have both become real. and what an amazing gift that is. i am sure your parents would have gloried in gratitude for a temple so close to there home. and i am sure they glory now in the fact that you can so freely partake of that great blessing. they do wait patiently in paradise to hear your incredibe stories and expiriences.

i thank god every day for my opportuity to be a missionary. to serve him and give my life to him. i explained to a woman the consept of missionary service. giving your all. she was amazed. ehr son was recently baptised and excited for him to go on a mission in a year or so. i feel she will also enter the waters of baptism before i leave. i love you and thank you for the scriptures. mosia 4 is my favorite chapter i the book of mormon. i recently read it with an investigator. it is amazing words form a great king.

be fitiavana mandrakizay
elder bates 

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