Elder Bate is Great. He's a worker!

Hello!! (:

This week was pretty good, and we have a reeeeeallllly busy week this week! Things with Elder Bate are going well. (: He is from Ogden, UT. He definitely has a desire to work. On our way back from Ventura on Tuesday we stopped at In'n'out for lunch. Elder Bate just started conversations with everybody he could, which is something I am not used to doing... I usually just keep to myself in public places like that. We both started talking to this girl named Angel, and it turns out that she hasn't been to church for a while because the church she goes to is down in LA where she's from. So we asked if she would be interested in hearing more about our church and she said she would like that, so we got her number and everything (: That taught me a lesson that day to just talk with anybody you possibly can! I got to see Leroy at the transfer meeting last week which was awesome! It was so good to see him!

But yeah, this week we have our mission leadership council meeting which will be all day on Tuesday, then this Saturday is our visit from Elder Nelson! I'm so excited! We rarely, if ever, have mission conferences in which the whole mission is in attendance, so this is a pretty good treat (: Haha. I'm not sure if we all get to meet him or not, but I sure hope so! that would be amazing!

Jose had something come up the day our lesson was scheduled... unfortunately. But its alright we are going to see if we can set something up for this week!

A lot of this week was spent coming up with some goals that we want to present to the zone. We have thought a lot about focusing on the Book of Mormon and placing a certain amount of them per week? Ha we still aren't totally sure. But we are excited (:

We did however teach a few lessons this week. One of them was with a potential investigator named Bill. We met with him along with a member and it was a really good lesson. We used lots of scriptures and such. Near the end of the lesson, his friend Bob came and joined us. So we got 2 new investigators that day, Bill and Bob (: Hahah we got a laugh out of that. We also taught a less active girl named Ivy. She is the only member of her family, and It was a great lesson with her! We just talked about the importance of scripture study, prayer and, of course, coming to church (: Ha. She is really cool though. Then her mom made us amazing casadillas! She is learning to speak English and is surprisingly good. She was so kind! One of the nicest ladies I have met! She prayed for us so sincerely before we left and I felt the love of Christ flowing from her. It was great (: Last night we had a couple really cool miracles. The night was coming to a close as we were walking around an apartment complex and we came across a man named JR. He was just outside and told us how he has a strong faith in God. He told us how he had talked with missionaries before, But not too in depth. He has really been prepared by the Lord! We were somehow talking about Adam and Eve, and he said something along the lines of "God knew that Eve was going to eat the fruit! It wasn't like He wasn't expecting it. He knew the fall of Adam was going to happen." Then we asked him what he thought the purpose of life was, and he was like "bro, we are here to experience good and evil. God wanted us to experience both so we could choose for ourselves and have faith in him." Needless to say, I was just waitng for him to bust up laughing and admit to being a member of the church... but this was not the case. Ha so we passed him on to the Elders who would be teaching him (: There are prepared people everywhere!

Yesterday there was a fire of something along the main road to get to the church building.... and we had a couple investigators who were really planning on coming to church, but they never showed up.... So we are guessing that the road blockage prevented them from coming :/ darn adversary. He truly does anything he can to prevent people from coming to church! AHHH!

But yeah it was a good week. Thank you for all your love and support (: I hope all is going well at home! (: I hope you are doing well with your schooling! Have a wonderful week! Love and miss ya!

Elder Teeples

The district!