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  

May 27, 2013

dear dad. 

yes we did get the flight plasns. crazy huh?? ill be in germany for like 5 hours!! haha i wish i could go look around. jump over to holland for a quick visit. i have really found an interest in my heritage since being here on the mission. 

well should work out alright with the family reunion i guess. hopefully president mendenhall can just release me that day and we head straight up there. itlle be pretty cool to see the whole family. well moms side. right that first week. i remember you telling me the story of you reading the time wrong and running franticly through the airport trying to get everyone out on the tar mac. i was also flight leader when we came here and we didn really have any problems other tha nthat one elder was going to travel separate from us for some of the trip wich i didnt feel comfortable with. but we talked to so me people and they got it is so we were all together on the same flight. but that was the only problem. i remember paying some african dude a a bunch of rands to take us to the terminal we were supposed to go to in south africa cause we were pretty lost there hahahahaha. but i think i will be find going home. though i am somewhat a country boy i think ill be able to find my way throug hthe airports. itll just be weird to be alone for such a long time.... haha a whole day with no companion. might be a nice break... lol. 

kensey has a baby!!?? wow. thats freakin crazy. i would not have thought she would be the first. hahaha but i love beeing proven wrong. tell her i say congradulations!!!! that is so exciting, and i am sure brother lambert is pretty excited about it. just remember back when hesston was born. you were pretty darn proud to. and its pretty crazy that emily is graduating. that is way sucky that she doesnt have a date! why doesnt she just ask matt to go to the whole thing with her!!? grad is lame anyways. haha. the parties and everything... just kinda pointless. oh well. i know its important to her. so i hope she has a good time.

well as long as you didnt actually spend the money on the thing on a sunday i think its fine that you went and took it for a test drive. no big deal. and its not liek there was anything better to do. but if you had the money sitting in your pocket or something thinking of buying it that day then you woulda got an ear full. hahahaha. 

i am so sorry to hear about mom hitting that poor old woman. it is something that sounds pretty unavoidable by the sercomstances mom told me. i am glad that the woman will be ok and hope that her family can understand what happened and not be angry or try to sue or something silly like that. mom soundsed pretty shook up in her letter she sent me.... but i am sure she will be able to find peace in the matter soon. and i am so happy that the police were nice to mom... because we havent had the best experiences with the rcmp in the past. but i am glad this time was different. its one thing when the police make dallin ball but if they were to make my mom ball i think i would feel a little stronger about it. haha. 

its crazy that brady got married last week. so quick after getting home. lucky guy. lol but i am srue the girl he found is fantastic. and i am happy for him. nobody even told me he was engaged hahaha. i found out he was getting married from sister leslie in her letter to me 2 weeks ago. 

sorry about the pictures. this week i dont actually have any to send you... oops. but this week we have a ton of service planed and will be taking many pictures. donty worry. but this week was long and tiring and taking pictures arent the first thing on my mind anymore. think about ti. are they the first thing to come to your mind throughout the day. oh i should take pictures... haha i dont think so because your just so used to everything around you. kinda what its like wtih me. i am so sorry. i will take a bundle this weeka nd send them to you. i promise. but i am doing good. working hard. we were tricked into giving blood on wednesday wich is a funny storey. so tuesday night we stopped by a members house to say hello and naturaly i asked if he need any help.. and to my suprise he looked at me and said yes i do. he said his mother in law was sick at the hospital and they needed help the next day. natuarally i thought they wanted us to give her a blessing. wich is what usually happens. nothing new. so we go the next morning to the hospital and meet them and then all of the sudden i am in this little room with a man and he is asking me if i have diabetes...... now i have been to madagascar hospitals many times and that is not what happens when you walk into the door. so i asked why he was questioning me and he gave me a confused look and said "oh your giving blood" hahahah so i imediatly called my mission president to see if it was even aloud. where he answered. "hmmmm good question..... let me look at my book." lol then continiued to tell me to be srue they wore cloves and wiped down with alcohol and used a clean needle. so i made sure....... hahahaha and i was the first missionary in mada to ever voluntaraly give blood followed by my companion. pretty funny story. and i am still alive with no deseases. i know that by now you are probably phone in hand dailing the mission president but i assure he knows what he is taklking about when it comes to medical talk and if we would have been in any danger he would have put the red flag up imediatly. hahaha. just another day in mada. i love you so much and am excited to se you. try not to remind me to much on how little time i have less here..... hahahahah 

be fitiavana mandrakizay

elder bates

May 20, 2013

dear dad!

i am so greatful that you can be greatful for the challenges in your life. for i am also truely greatful for those trials and mountains god asks us to climb in order to learn wisdom. that great hulility and submissive spirit that we must have . " for except you become as this litttle child ye shall not enter into the kindom of my father" i am so greatful for all that the lord does choose to give me in this life. how he does test me. for through that i can learn more and more. every day. and i know you feel the same way.

haha i  am not going to lie i had a feeling that me telling you the transfer possibilities would make you toss and turn a little. and its funny when i walked into the office and talked to sister cornilleous and she told me that she had just talked to you then told me my realese date. and i know you were wondering when she asked if you were from salt lake that if they were going to accidently send me to salt lake buti highly doubt that was the case... haha she is just an oldlder lady that forgot i was from canada. but the church knows. hahaha. kinda wierd now that there is a day. not really real in a sense still. lol but at the same time makes my days here in madagascar truely numbered. but i just think about the work. hahaha you talked to fred at frist. he is a secretary in the office.... he is sister cornilleouses right hand man. he served in south africa for his mission and is pretty good at english but the accent is hard to get used to. so i am sure it would have been fairly difficult for you to comunicate with him. i can only imagine you trying to talk to him. it makes me laugh.  but it looks like i will be coming home right in the middle of the family reunion right? sorry if that s somewhat inconvinient for any of our family. but i have a feeling it might make it more convenient in some ways. i am truely blessed because i will be able to see many family members that week that might not have come the long distances they need if the family reunion was not that week. where us the family reunion anyways? is it at that lake again? i cant remember how far away it is from the house...oh welll. it will all work out.

it must be nice that you finished spring cleanups!! i am sure it is a weight off your shoulders! and that you could find help. its good that you are so service minded and will do anything for the customers. that is a great quality of yours. the neilsons are very nice people as well and have been great customers for a long time. and dont worry about climbing up on that steep roof anymore. next spring i will be ther eand i still have the bravery and hard head of a young man. you can just move the tarp at the bottom. hahaha. taylor has always like doing lawn maintanence. he always looked for opportunities to work for you or do it himself. but i guess he sees something in being a machinist... wouldnt be my first pick though. has we can clearly see haha. 

hahaha mom wrote me and told me not to listen to a word you said about the glasses thing. but it is funny. it made me laugh. im sure she was a little embarassed by it though.

where did you guys eat with nani and grampi? it made me laugh in nanis letter where she said they had changed there diets and werent eating fast foods anymore but i guess he just cant give up that royal buffet..... sooner or later it will go too... hahaah.

emily always is nice and busy this time of the year. i hope her math went well and that she will be able to graduate. i havent heard about that and am afraid it is a touchy subject.

i am glad that you can have dinner with the missionaries so much. they really do appreciate it. but not only that. they appriciate it when you bring friends...... hahahahaha just sayin. it makes a missionaries day when you invite them over and have one of your wide eyed unexspecting friends sitting there in the living room.... definatly a good thing. and elder brown sounds very simular to elder bates here. i am sure that they are alot alike wich means that elder brown has a great desire and even greater heart.

i am doing great and working hard. we had a great blessing this week where a man named mamy came to church this week. he is a great man with a great love for his family but has been out of work for a long time. we have been teaching him for 2 weeks. his family is already members. his wife baptised in 1997. but he never joined the church. but he started spending time with him and getting to know him through teaching him and he has committed to changing his life. it has taken him over 10 years to accept the gospel. he almost went through with it in 2009 but at the death of his daughter at birth he stopped accepting missionaries. but we went back right at the right time. he was humbled. and ready to recieve the gospel. we will bring great blessings to his family through the holy priesthood of god in these next coming years. he as a broken heart and contrite spirit. and i am truely greatful to heavenly father for blessing him with this gospel. i am still going over here trying not to think about home haha. my comp doesnt help me sometimes as home is all he thinks about but we get along great and are very honest with eachother. that is a great quality to have. honesty. i thank my heavenly father daily for this great gospe l and the opportunity i have to serve him. i will continue in this truthfullness my whole life. i am also so very greatful for you and mom. the great powerful example you have for me and you love you show me. i cant wait to work with you the rest of my life. to learn from you even more.

be fitiavana mandrakizay
elder bates

May 13, 2013

*Mothers Day is one of Two Times a year Missionaries can call their families (the other is Christmas) and so yesterday we all got to talk to Riley! And it was so great to hear his voice, although he definitely has a different accent then when he left and talks really fast, at one point I had to ask him to slow down so that I could better understand him. I think I speak for all members of Riley's family when I say that we feel very blessed to have him in our lives. He is doing great and plans to finish his mission with as much zest and zeal as when he entered it, if not more! I know that the Malagasy people will always have a bit of his heart.

Not too much longer until he will return from his mission, the next three months are going to fly by!

And even though we just spoke to him he still sent us a letter!

dear dad. 

how wonderful it was to hear and speak with you and mom and the whole family. it brought so much joy. i am so glad that everybody is doing good right now. that they all feel like they are doing what they need to. we have all been raised by the same amazing mother and father. 

life sounds busy for all. and i am glad work is going good... 

i as you know am doing great. just striving to do as the lord wants me to do. getting everything i can out of my mission before that dreadful day on a plain. then the day after that it is of course a wonderful day. tell everybody back home i miss and love them. i am so excited to see people. though i can wait a little longer. 

be fitiavana mandrakizay 

elder bates 

and a little from Lyndi's letter too.

... am really doing great. working hard. trying to serve the lord. bearring strong testimony. an incredible blessing i had. it inovolves to men and the book of mormon. we tracted into both of them. there is no relation between them and they dont know eachother. but we found them both on the same day. so we have been teaching them slowly and the lesson came to the book of mormon. i went through explaining the sacred book as i had many times before. but in both these times there was a great feeling of the spirit. the to sceptical men both ended up telling me in seprate times that they have been searching a long time for the trueth much like joseph smith. they both promised me to read the book and pray if its true. they both haev troubles excepting baptism. but i nkow that these men are important to god. and that there is a conversion power in that great book. that holy ancient scripture. i pray to god that they will find what they have been searching so dilligently for in the book of mormon. i know that it can bring countless blessings unto there families. i love god and this work. i love the spirit wich i can feel so abundantly every time i bare testimony of this great gospel. 

be fitiavana mandrakizay

elder bates

 service!!!! we were just walking to a time and saw two women shoveling out this canal. so we took over. they loved it.

 these were the women shoveling. they loved us. we invited them and ther family to church and went on our way. 

 elder Smithson verse the gremlins

 tuesday we went to a school way out in nowhere land and helped teach. it was a blast. we are going to do int every tuesday morning.

 me and elder smithson really love doing service! we shovel dirt

ya. thats how much i love rice....especially when its slightly burnt and swimming in water like that. delicious!!!!!!!!!  (*sorry I couldn't get the picture to rotate... just turn your head a little.)