June 24, 2013

hey dad!!

sounds like you guys had some fun visiting with all the family down in idaho! thats great! and you and mom got a little vacation well i was going to say alone but i think with emily graduated you now have quite a bit of alone time. hahha. how does that feel?? from once6 screaming crazy children to dead silence. its nice to here about the family and thankful for all the prayers. im the only one out on a mission now huh? haha thats weird. but i am very greatful for all the love i do feel from all our family out here.

dallin bought a motor home huh!? hahaha thats pretty cool!!definatly a dallin thing! fits him perfectly . and i am glad you has desided to wokr steady for a while. and i know colter is being good to him haha. i cant wait to see them.

so your doing more work on the mendenhalls yard?? thats great. i did hear that carly is marying the corey boy! good for her! starting a family! haha. tell the mendenhalls i say hey! and am excited to see them again.

so some of the spiritual experiences are hard to describe as they are of things spiritual haha. which is more of a feeling than it is words. but we haev been teaching 2 brothers. tovo and aina and there families. they are amazing men. love god and there families. and we taught them of the restoration. and the spirit there was felt through the flow of the lesson. i dont feel i have ever taught so clearly and smoothly. and i know that it wasnt me. there was a certain warmth in the room that was sentalizing. it was incredible. and then then next time we had with tovo he told us he felt joseph smith was a true prophet and came to church with us this past sunday. it was an incredible blessing i will never forget. i pray tovo will continue to have comfermation to his prays all throughout his lfie and that he will learn to serve his god. then we had a zone confrence that was based on thje atonement. it was incredible and i got was the translater into malagasy. i have been asked to translate quite often and because of that my notes are slim and non excistant hahahaha but i feel i get so much out of it and god blesses me to remember amm that was taught as i reiterize it to my fellow brethereen. watch a talk by brad wilcox called " his graceis sufficient" its amazing. i loev this gospel and this life. i will do all i can.

be fitiavana mandrakizay

elder bates

June 17, 2013

hey dad.

thank you for the encouragement. i do know that when i get home it will be a different world full of termoil and a lot more work to stay close to the spirit. but it is possible to do such a thing haha. i just have to try. and always put god first; then he shall bless me in my journeys path.

my mission has in no scene been easy or a breeze. i have had challanges that fall under many catagories and have learned to overcome. our missions sound very simular. the experiences we encounter and things we learned. and i am so greatful for that. there so no one else i would rather share so many experiences with than you.i really appreciate you dad and really missed you yesterday as it was fathers day. i felt pretty far from you and the family and just felt it was time to go back hahah. i love you so much and cant wait to see you again. but i am focusing on my mission and my investigators. you can talk about me all you want in your talk on the 30th haha. enjoy. give me a good introduction.

you gotta be excited about not going to any more awards nights for a while!! but your not quite out of the weather yet tehre . you still got tons of grandchildren who are gunna want dada be bates there. haha. sorry. it never really truely ends. but enjoy the illusion while it lasts. its exciting for emily that she got an award. i also go most valuable forward. it just sits there on my wall. haha. i might put it on a resume i will never need hahahhaa. but its nice in the moment and she learned something of disipline from the sport i hope. and much of integrety. our family is now really old. no more children in the main line. they are all pretty much classifided adults. by the law anyways. hahaha.

i definatly like the idea of a shope out back way better than the screen encloser. i never liked those things. i think if we worked hard and if you were serious about it we could get it put up before winter. it'd be nice for the trucks in that cold. haha. and it would make for a less clustered garage... just sayin. your the boss but i think we should do it! make a project out of it.

going to idaho will be nice. a nice little vacation just you and mom. or is emily going to? make sure to tell the family i say hey and to get there butts up to canada august 2013. itll be a party extravaganda they wont wanna miss hahahaha.

charity is a great topic for my homecoming talk. i only gave 2 years to try and perfect it. i didnt even get close but i dented the surfice a little. and it gos along great with my fairwell talk wich was about sacrifice. just like yours is on the 30th. coincidence. haha. i am so happy to here that colter and dallin are doing good and still working together great. brings me so much joy.
 

i hope the pictures i sent got to you. i am doing great. working hard trying to help the people i teach find the trueth of this life and the life to come. this week we were blessed with many spiritual times. people telling us how they have been looking for so long and hoped we could help them. this church is true above all other truths. i love it and i love you

be fitiavana mandrakizay

elder bates

(sorry about the sideways pictures, I am havin a heck of a time trying to get them to rotate on here)

 now im lookin like somethin worth while

 this is by far my best picture ever taken.

 "yo smithson!"

 fanirys birthday so we made him a cake! mmmm

 elder rahamafadrahona, my comp, fairy, me and elder nuef with a delicious cake from a box.

 mmmm this is called sonjo. its a root like thing grown here. its delicious with sugar. you boil it first and it iurns out like potato

 me again

June 10, 2013

so. i hope i made up for the lack of pictures this past few weeks.... i sent 10! haha

dear dad.

so whenever someone is sick we try to go out with arronich priesthood. but its the school year and they are all in school. so it was just me and him. with not much to do hahahha. noro is great as ever. way excited about learning and things. she couldnt come to church this past sunday because she had some meeting at a hospital but promised to come next week. we are teaching them about the plan of salvation and they love it. they always have alot of questions. always catholic based questions. wich are sometimes fun to answer haha.

going to lethbridge must have been so much fun. even just for the weekend. seeing the grandkids and things. going to emilys rugby game. pretty dang fun if you ask me. also riding mary!! pretty jelous about that. me and bevan are the only guys in the family who havent gotten to drive that beauty now..... im sad to here that they didnt getthe gold at provincials. but i am way proud emily got a tri!!! and its funny to here how skinny dallin is when i havent gotten much pictures of him. haha i can only imagine. i am actually gaining a little wait again here with all the rice mamma be is feeding me every night. its like in america. where missionaries get fat. haha

thats cool that they had a combined ward thing at church. and iteresting that they changed the bounderies once again. its all because of all those mormons who live down by lakeland ridge. haha they are going to be tehre own ward soon. so what are the bounderies now. whatare the separating roads? i feel like when i get home i am going to know nobody in the ward beacuse of all the new people and now this boundery change haha.  oh well. itll be fun.

im glad you got to go to sydenys fairwell. it ounds like your sunday was super busy and crazy. thats way fun though. getting to go all the way out to devan, then spend some time with friends in bonnie doon. definatly a fullfilling day huh. im glad spencer is doing so good. i wrote him a couple times since being out here but didnt get a reply. thats how it has been with all the others though as well. missionaries just get to busy to write eachother hahaha. we will all swap stories back at home. so carrissa is dating that brock guy?? thats cool. im glad she is planning on going on a mission. its crazy shes almost 19. cool. i am way happy for her.

i heard about robyn running over that  pipe. its a good things things ended up working out well though. and that they got home safely.

so you bought mom a highlander huh!? thats way cool!!! what you gunna get me when i get back huh??? im a sucker for a chevy. hahahahahhaha just kidding. imma get a motor bike...... then go cruising with colter. :P 

i am doing really good. working hard as always. we had some fun this friday doing service. we went out and dug a pool to put fish in and then when that was done we planted sonja. wich is an african plant kinda like a potato but purple spects throughout it and really bland... but you eat it with coconut or surgar and it tastse delicious!!! and we used lots of fertilizer to plant them!! hahaha they guy we were doing it with just starts diggin in with his hands and we fallowed suit. he just smilled at us and said. " its all biological my friends" hahahaha. so that was fun. another damper on the schedual is the new curfew we have until the elections are over. we now need to be in by 8 every night. silly. oh well what can you do. i guess its for the best right. other than that i am doing good. struggling to help my investigators. tired as ever. patiently waiting to go home. working till the end. haha buti am looking forward to seeing you all.

love ya tons

be fitiavana mandrakizay
elder bates

me and faniry and elder rahamafadrahona

 thats the floor of the school we helped recement

 we went and farmed a little friday. haha

 wich ment cow poop!!!! hahahaha

 yup. thats the poop

 its all biological i assure

 good day of work:

 me at a didy poatra... 

 beautiful winter sunset in madagascar

 just a good lookin white guy.

June 3, 2013

haha sounds like a wirl wind for sure back there. you gotta love that though. its crazy hard when your in it but then when y ou look back there is so much to ponder on and learn from. where as if there is no wirlwind then you look back and see what? a semi blank page. thats kinda how my week felt in a sence. my companion was sick tuesday and wednesday so we didnt leave the house........ those 2 days were kinda a blank page and i did not like it. but there has to be things we learn and progress in. and ther definatly was this week.

the needle was definatly clean and brand new!!! and i may only have contracted a cold from the whole ordeal haha. i sneezed 14 times in a row yesterday. blech. oh well i am not someone to stay home for a minor cold..... but i do remember somewhat the story you told me of your tests in peru. but i didnt remember all of it and definatly got a laugh at your experiecne. haha its alot like it is here. the woman nurse who put my needle in stabbed me hard!!!! the bruise was there up until yesterday!!! hahaha today i can barely see it. but they are things we will charish and laugh at forever.
 

dang provincials are going to be so dang exciting!!! filled with adreniline. with challenges. gotta love it. i am excited for emily. and seeing as the have so many stinkin points they have very very good odds of winning provs this year!!  thatll be way fun. personally i think emily should go up early with you and go to the party. it might be a little more enjoyable. less alcohol..... wich thing i hate most in this world. but i am sure she will choose what she thinks is best. and its way crazy that emily is graduated!! pretty crazy to think about. and what a cool way to celebrate it by going to a performance at the winspire. lucky duck.

thats a pretty scary thing for nani to go through. all though she looked fairly well in the pictures you sent. big smiles. i am glad she is ok for now. its good to know that they know the problem. a leaky pipe! haha shouldnt we call a plumber or something?? just kidding i really hope we can get it fixed and fast.

i think what you were thinking about just going up to the vanbruggen reunion friday is a good idea. that way we can get more things in.   itll be a busy  time. we can go home first. and make sure to let people know my homecoming talk and stuff. i was just shooting out ideas. but whatever works best floats my boat. i am just excited to see family.  especially you guys.

its pretty crazy kenseys got a baby now! i remember when she was first starting to date that boy and she was all smiles all the time. right before i left on my mission we went to dinner and she told me she was probably going to marry him with a big smile on her face. i am so happy for her. its such an amazing thing to be able to bring new life into this world. make sure she knows i say congradulations.

so i am doing really well. home is definatly on my mind alot but i am trying to get through that. its just something thats going to be there no matter what and i just have to cope with it. when im working its less present. but it didnt help that my companion said he was to sick to work tuesday and wednesday...... the days pasted slowly. hahaha i got two letters on thursday. one from mamma behr and then the other form sydney bates! they were both great letters. sydneys was way nice to get. you can tell them that i got the letters and that i am going to send replies this week. i might just send my reply to syndey to her mission adress. as letters take a while. but other than that we did get things done this week. we teach a girl named noro who is confined to a wheel chair. we have taught her 4 times now and she ahad a huge desire to go to church. so we picked her up and took her there. wich is a task here in madagascar with no car and she lives at the bottom of a big hill hahaha. but it was definatly well worth it. she enjoyed chruch and couldnt stop asking about baptism. i am excited for her. we also went out to ambohimanambola and recemented the floor of a school we volunteer at every tuesday. they people really appreciated it and we brought many members with us. it was a mormon helping hands project. it went well. and the director of the school is strongly considering baptism right now so i pray that helps him. then on a personally exciting basis there is a member woman in my ward whos name is sister nivo we stop by very often as  some of her kids are not members. we went and bought her 50 kg of rice and so now whenever we dont have a dinner appointment we go to her house and she feeds us delicious malagasy food!!!! :D hahaha i hate cooking it at home cause it takes forever but she said she would do it for me till i went home. she considers me one of her kids. i really love her family. he daughter started coming to churchagain as well the past couple weeks so its really nice. but thats about it for me. just going strong trying to do the lords work. i love you and am so excited to see you all again. give emily a big hug for me.  oh ya and hesston turned the big 8 yesterday huh!!? that is way exciting. i am so excited to see him get baptised!!

be fitiavana mandrakizay
elder bates