Helmet

I got the helmet you sent, but I picked this bad boy up from the cancer society thrift shop where we volunteer several times a week!  It says Dave on the front! 

(Yes it was free. Yes I cleaned it.) 

16 November 2015

We went to an Indian place for lunch one day. They had a lunch buffet as most Indian places do. It was great food!
And this was Elder Bates first time having Indian food! What!?  A man working there, from India, had the accent and everything, asked what church we were from, I said the Mormon church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said "oh! Latter Day Saints!  I went to some of your services back in India! I have one of your
Bibles!"  Meaning the Book of Mormon. He asked when our service were and asked if we had an office where he could talk to someone. We explained that it's all volunteer, like the bishop and stake president, but we explained that we are full time missionaries. We gave him our number and he said he will definitely call us! Then his boss was coming so he had to stop talking about the church, haha!  He was awesome!! 

Pretty much all these pictures are from last P day. We went up a little past Mount Shasta and Weed to Pluto's Cave. It went back almost a mile. It's apparently a cave from lava or something. We went all the way to the back (we later found out that only about a fourth of the way in is the "safe point"  #whoops) but at the back I suggested
we say a prayer, just because it's kind of special and close back there. We turned all our lights off, which made it pitch black, like you can't see your hand in front of your face. They made me say it because I thought of the idea, haha, but it was really good to connect to Heavenly Father and each other in the back of a cave.  Where there
seems to be no light, we could feel a light from Heavenly Father.

Letter from 9 November 2015

We visit a lot of members, less active or part member families. Thursday we went to Brother and Sister V's house (he's a member but has only been active for a couple years and she's not a member).  We had a little lesson with them. I asked if they had any questions.  Brother V says "well yeah but I'm not sure you can answer them.." We said try us. He asked "well, every time I see a homeless person I feel like I want to help them but I don't want to be the supply for their addiction.  How can I tell if it's the spirit telling me to give them something or if it's just myself?" We talked about if you really feel like you should, then it's probably the spirit. If you have to ask, then it probably isn't.  It was cool.  I told Elder Bates in the middle of the lesson "there's a David A Bednar talk on this."... I had never heard the talk, that was just the apostle's name who came to me.  Sure enough, there was even a Mormon message about it. I don't know why I said Bednar. I really have no clue. I didn't know he gave a talk about that. The spirit told me exactly what to say.  Elder Bednar's talk was just perfect for Brother V.  That was awesome.

2 November 2015

We were not allowed to hand out candy but we were allowed to set out a bowl. This is what I did. Haha!

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not as homesick as I thought I would be! Haha I'm still homesick of course, but I thought it would be torture.  I'm always out and about doing things.  No time to be homesick!  My companion and I do our best to work hard and teach people! That's the important thing!  Also for service we helped a member fill a shed with wood. It was about 8 cord.  Whatever that means in wood terms. All I know was it was a lot of wood.  Like A LOT!!  It took literally  2 days from 11 am to 6 pm.  A lot of bloomin' wood.