March 28th, 2016

Hiiiii family,

Hope everyone had a very happy Easter! I know for me it was a very
beautifully spiritual day. I just loved it! I'll start with Sunday,
well I got to say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting again. Lol
so I was pretty nervous. But it was good. Oh and it was fast and
testimony meeting since next week is general conference. Anywho, the
choir sang some songs and then the members of the Ward council bore
their testimonies and for the closing song, Sister Richards sang "This
Is the Christ." Oh wow it was just so beautiful and powerful and the
spirit was so strong. It was awesome! She sings so amazing! I'm way
jealous haha. Oh but it was also a good Sunday because we had so many
less actives come and our investigator who usually only stays the
first hour stayed all 3 hours and it was so great! Third hour we went
into young woman's and Sister D gave the lesson and I don't
even have words to describe how great it was. We talked about Jesus
Christ and how His atonement helps each and every single one of us in
all of our trails and challenges. I was really able to think about
this with it being Easter and also how because of Him we can be
resurrected too and live with our families again. This of course made
me think of Grandmother because I just miss her so darn much. But it's
so comforting knowing that Christ took on all of that heartache and
other pains I go through because He loves me. Sister D said
something that I really loved, she said that even if I (or any single
person) were the only one on the Earth, He would still die for me
because of the great amount of love He has for me (and every single
person). Gosh I know I'm not doing justice with explaining how amazing
the atonement really is and what it actually means but it's just the
best feeling ever when you can feel the spirit so strongly. She also
shared an amazing video that I can't seem to find the link to on
LDS.org. It's a little girl singing about Gethsemane and it shows the
life of Christ. It you can find it, go watch it. I was in tears it was
just so beautiful.

Okay now rewind to Monday. For pday last week we went to the soccer
place for a little bit then we went to the mission office to play some
scatter ball which is kind of like dodgeball (or spider ball for
Gracee). Anyway, Sister Richards and I are the only ones playing with
a bunch of elders and well as you can imagine someone got hurt, and it
wasn't me. Poor Sister Richards got hit so so hard in the face. Aw man
I felt so bad for her, and the elder that hit her felt 10 times worse,
lol poor guy was almost in tears because he felt so bad. It was sad
but Sister Richards is tough and walked it off haha. Then that night
we had a lesson with a man named R and at first we thought he
was interested but after he took us on a tour of his wood work shop
gave us some chips, salsa, and root beer, and told us everything about
him he informed us he doesn't want to be baptized but he just wants to
learn about "Mormon theology". Oh my, I was dying in this lesson. He
kept talking about "Mormon theology" and "real Christianity" and
comparing the two. I was going crazy. Let's just say he is definitely
not ready. Oh but it was funny because a few days latter we were on
his street and we saw him driving away smoking a pipe, like one of
those old old ones that you only see in movies. Haha yeah that
was Monday....

Tuesday we had zone conference all day and it was so good! I love zone
conference. We have a bunch of different speakers and there is just so
much to learn!! Oh and at zone conference they have clean inspections
on our cars and so sister Richards and I cleaned our car real good and
plus we have a brand new car so we knew for sure that we would win, oh
and we made cookies and gave them to the judges hahah. Anyway after
they judged the cars we go up to them and ask them what our prize was
because we just knew that we were the winners and well they told us
how great our cookies were and then they told us we were disqualified
because we had a brand new car and it wasn't fair to the other
missionaries who had older cars. Isn't that just the saddest thing
ever? Oh man I was so bummed since we worked so hard cleaning it. Haha
but Elder Funk and Elder Lambert (the ones who inspect the cars) told
us they would take us out to lunch as a prize:) lol what little
sweeties they are, I just love the mission staff! Oh and it was so
good to have president and sister Taylor back, they told us all kinds
of stories about the heart attack and such. It was so good to see
them.

Wednesday Sister Richards and I went on exchanges with the sister
training leaders(STLs). Sister Richards stayed in Hazel Dell and I
went to the other Ward with Sister Arnett. Oh and fun fact about
Sister Arnett, she told me she knows Julie Bezzant!!!! She said that
she is in her home Ward back in Arizona!!! #smallworld!!! Lol anyway,
it was so funny being on exchanges with her! We began by stopping by a
few people and then tracting around them and oh my lanta, the first
person that we knock on, a man answers and we tell him that we are
missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and
his wife tells him we are Mormons and then he looks at us and says "I
hate Mormons". Sister Arnett and I are both taken back a little and we
ask if he had a bad experience and he said no he just hates Mormons.
Boy oh boy, I was just so annoyed. This man doesn't even know us and
he's telling us how he already hates us. It's just so sad to see
someone so over taken by Satan that he doesn't realize the beautiful
message we have to share. He then goes on to tell us that he doesn't
believe in Jesus Christ either because he can't see Him. Oh my, what a
sad little old grumpy man. Poor him is all I can think to say. After
that we had to go to our dinner appointment and so we go to the house
Sister Arnett thinks it is and we say hello and ask if we can help
with dinner and she tells us just to play with the kids. So we are in
her living room and she comes from our of the kitchen and turns the
light off. About 20 minutes have passed and no talk about dinner and I
begin to realize that we are in the wrong house. But how in the world
am I suppose to tell sister Arnett without being completely rude and
obvious. And also I don't know who these people are because I'm just
here for the day on exchanges. Well my prayer was answered moments
later because she gets up to go turn on the light for her daughter in
another room and I lean over to sister Arnett and tell her I don't
think she plans on feeding us and I believe we are in the wrong place.
Sister Arnett looks at her phone and realizes what I already knew to
be true. We were definitely in the wrong house. Hahahaha oh man I was
dying laughing. We hurry up and explain the situation and the lady
looks relived because I'm sure she was totally confused at our
presence. Haha so then we go to the right dinner....with some Japanese
people... Haha that was funny. Then we go to another lesson and we are
teaching the plan of salvation and we are explaining the 3 kingdoms of
glory to this little 6 year old and we thought we did a really good
job explaining them and especially emphasizing that we want to go to
the celestial kingdom and so we ask her one more time where she wants
to go(in regards to the kingdoms of glory) and she replies
Disneyland!!  oh my lanta we were all just dying!!!! It was the
funniest thing!!! Lol lol. Then we leave our lesson and it's pitch
black dark outside now and we are trying to get in the car and sister
Arnett is looking for the keys and well turns out she left them inside
and we had to go back in and get them hahaha. Oh man it was such a
funny exchange!

Friday, this is where it gets exciting family:) hahah so we went to go
do some service with our district, Elder Munger & Petitta, Sister Finn
& Crawley, and Sister Richards and myself. Our job was to pull weeds
out of this mans front yard. His yard is basically mud and weeds haha.
So we had shovels and basically just dug up the mud and moved it
around. It was the weirdest thing. Anyway, while we are doing this we
are finding lots of worms and other bugs haha. And a few people in my
district don't like bugs and so they throw a few at each other, no big
deal. I don't really have a problem with the bugs. Anyway I found this
really big worm and I told Elder Petitta to open his mouth and I'm
gonna try and throw it in his mouth. He was clear across the yard, I
knew I wasn't going to make it in. And I didn't, but he wanted to try
and so he tried and didn't get it in my mouth. So then we are
continuing weeding and continuing to find worms. But we were getting
hungry and we decided we were going to go eat as a district after we
were done at BWW. And I love that place so I was so excited. But I
don't even know how it came up but elder Petitta told me he would pay
for my lunch if I ate a worm!!!! Hahah and of course I'm thinking free
Buffalo Wild Wings just to eat a worm. DEAL hahahahaha I've eaten
worse things than a worm since being in my mission. And plus I don't
have money so free is good! And well of course sister Finn wants in of
the deal because we don't want to pay!! So yeah, we both end up eating
a worm and we ended up getting free BWW...totally worth it:) lol lol lol

So then after lunch we have a lesson with T, that's the lady in the
blurry picture. She's awesome. And I just love her to pieces. She is
so strong and such an inspiration!

Saturday night was general woman's broadcast. Mom and Kylee, I really
hope you guys watched it! It was AMAZING!!!! It's so funny what I get
excited for being a missionary. But this is definitely something I was
pumped for! Anyway, I was watching it and I just kept thinking that
mom was probably watching this just as I was and for a second I could
feel mom sitting by me. It brought back some good memories of watching
it with mom a few years ago. Anyway I really enjoyed it, and our
investigator came and watched it too and that was so exciting!!! They
talked a lot about service and how when we love others we serve them
and when we love them we make room for them. It was just so beautiful.
I know we talk about service a lot in the church but they way they
said some things just really made sense and I loved it. It's just so
true, we can't love someone without serving them. Another lady spoke
about refugees and other trials people go through and brought up the
question, what if I was in their place? I love that. We should always
think like that so we can better love them and serve them! We are all
children of God and we came to earth to help each other out! We need
to be there for one another! She also said that we should be praying
to know what the Lord would have us do. And I just loved that as well!
We need to always have a prayer in our heart so we can know where the
lord needs us and what he needs us to do. And cute little president
Eyring spoke and just wrapped everything up and did such a great job!
Poor little President Monson looked so frail. Oh it just broke my
heart to see him like that. Prayers definitely go out to him.
So after this broadcast, we went to a less active couple and discussed
the things that sister Richards and I learned from this broadcast. And
we were talking about love and service and the old lady started
talking about how she loves her husband and afterwards found out about
his cute butt.... Hahahahah Sister Richards and I were mortified
hahaha. This couple is so old and they look like little ooopa loompas,
hahaha oh man. People are so weird and have no filter hahaha. So
weird.

Then Sunday was Easter and we made a bunch of Easter goodies and gave
them to less actives and our investigators. It was so much fun!

And yes mom I got the box, thank you thank you! I loved it! The nail
polish was perfect, me and my companion painted our nails right after
I opened the box:) I wore the skirt to church for Easter:) I LOVE MY
PEEPS AND SOCKS:) lol but mom, the black and white shirt? Idk... Lol
but I loved everything else!!! You da bomb.com mom.

So how is it having everyone home? Probably no good since I'm not
there, am I right? Haha but for real, I'm so jealous of y'all
being together!!!:( I miss you all so much!!!! But I also am loving it
out here, not everyday but most days. This is amazing and I love the
people. I love y'all too. Hope you all have a great week!!!!

Xoxo
Sister Batey

McKenzee and Sister Richards with their new Easter socks.

Selfie.

Sister Richards, Kenzee, and Sister Arnett.

Eating worms for Buffalo Wild Wings...