To Boldly Go Where No Mission Has Gone Before

So in case any of you guys haven't already seen and/or heard, our mission now has FACEBOOK and SMARTPHONES. That's all fine and dandy, we can use them for our proselyting efforts. But if you'd like to contact me, email is still the way you should do that. They don't want facebook to become a distraction to anyone.

Our week has been pretty rough. We got a lot of contacts, which is good. But it seems like 3/4 of our appointments canceled on us last second. Which is why we got a lot of contacts. So I hope this next week goes better than this one did.

Best part of this week though. We have an investigator that Elder Lee found with his old companion. He went anti for a long time and it's been a long process trying to get him back and get him to keep commitments. Last night, we committed him to be BAPTISED! I'm pretty stoked about it.

The most exciting part of this week. In reference to the title, they are piloting a program here in our mission called "The Book of Mormon Experiment" and it's super cool. The concept is to get people reading the Book of Mormon in small pieces. So we give people 1 page of it. Just a page and a highlighter. Their job is to highlight any references to God or Christ on that page, and to share different things that stood out to them. They made a video about it and I'm not sure if it's out yet, but once it is y'all should watch it. It's super cool and they're starting it in our mission. I think it's going to work really well.

Well, that's it for this week.

Southern word of the week is did'n'I. It's a contraction of did not I. I laughed really hard when I thought of it in the context of Moses. "Who made man's mouth? Who made the deaf, the mute, the seeing or the blind? Did'n'I?"

Also, it's my dad's birthday today. So if you guys see him make sure to wish him a happy birthday. Make sure you say it SUPER LOUD. He's getting old and his hearing is leaving him. Just kidding, he's not THAT old. Love you dad!

See y'all next week

Elder Bates

Pics

1Cutest couple of today

2Wore this tie yesterday, didn't realize it was Cody and Andi's anniversary until lunch. Congrats guys!

3The first cat I actually got to come up to me Sonia could pet it. Georgia has a HUGE stray cat problem.

4The ugliest duck I have ever seen in my life

5The Mission Conference photo