Marching on!

Something miraculous is happening in our mission! More and more wonderful people are embracing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and being baptized into His restored Church. Through the month of March, our missionaries have already welcomed more new members through baptism in 2025 than the entire year in 2023, and we have more than doubled the number of new converts year-to-date over the same period in 2024! It is all so very exciting! Here we are first at Zone Conference in Beograd, Serbia, with half of our mission, and then some pictures of other parts of Zone Conference:

We were in charge of the devotional for our Europe Central area WSRS group in early March. One of the things we talked about was the parable below. If you haven't studied it recently, please take a minute to read it in Matthew chapter 20. As with all parables, it has multiple meanings.

As mentioned, we are now living in Beograd, Serbia. Here is our first of (so far) 4 Air BnB's we've lived in. It is nicer inside!

Serbian Name Tag

Serbia is quite lovely. A mix of old and modern. The last picture is of a single family home! It belongs to the richest man in Belgrade.

Two good things that started in March were the opening of the Zagreb Community Center, and we started teaching English to Turkish speakers! Below is the flyer Elder Bates made for the Community Center, and a picture of Sister Bates zooming with our English students who live in Türkiye:

Inbetween all of this, we made a couple of weekend trips back to Antalya, Türkiye. We went to lunch with some members of our branch and another Senior Couple. See menu below: We had good food but none of us ordered the Tongue soup, Cheek Soup, or Brain Soup! The bottom picture is of us communicating through google translate! All 4 of us have our phones out "talking" to one another!

We were invited to a BBQ at one of our friend's homes and he made us such a feast! They served us a full plate, then brought more. To be polite we took some. Then they offered more, and repeat, repeat! You won't go hungry when you are with Turkish friends!

They had orange trees in their yard. They picked the oranges right then and had Elder Bates juice them. Wow! Talk about fresh orange juice!

While in Türkiye, we saw this license plate during March Madness!

We received this kind note from a couple in our branch after they had us over to their home.

Back in Serbia, we enjoyed their beautiful waterfront,architecture and these swans in the Danube! They were a good reminder of the peace needed as there is also protests going on there.

Last week we drove from Serbia to Bosnia, but not without some adventures! We sometimes have to share the road with carts and tractors.

GPS sometimes takes us down dirt roads.

But we also have these beautiful vistas, just like life!

We stopped at this Mausoleum where Serbian royalty are buried. Every wall is decorated with these very small tiles. Nothing is painted. Each tile is about 1/4 square inch. There are millions and millions of them, making these breathtaking ceilings and walls.

We arrived in Bosnia and our first stop was seeing this famous bridge built 300 years ago.

On our way to Sarajevo, we went through 58 Tunnels! Bosnia is very mountainous! The architecture when we arrived in Sarajevo is beautiful.

This hotel is the famous hotel all the reporters stayed in during the 1992-1995 war.

We were in Bosnia for a Senior Missionary Conference in which we were well taught, and enriched our already dear friendships.

We had some fun,too!

They had some games and Reid and I were the grand prize winners! We won this huge tub of Nutella! I can hardly lift it!

We ended the conference with a group dinner out at a Turkish restaurant, even though we were in Bosnia. (We eat Turkish food pretty regularly, so not as exciting for us!) As you can see, Turkish food is lots of meat!

While in Sarajevo, we went to a museum about the war which was very humbling. We also visited and walked in the Tunnel they built underneath the airport to get supplies. Elder Bates could not stand up straight inside the tunnel. The pictures below of the men are some of the brave men who buit the tunnel. Sarajevo is like a bowl with the city in the middle and surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains. Snipers were in the hills and it was very unsafe for the people to go to work, school, or even stay home as snipers shot through windows. 15,000 people were killed just in Sarajevo, almost all unarmed civilians. 1,601 of them were children, some who were playing at what they thought were safe parks when shot. There are many reminders of the war, but they have also rebuit and we found Sarajevo to be a nice city, and the people extremely kind.

After the conference, we drove from Sarajevo to Mostar, Bosnia. We saw the most amazing mountains!

We are in an Air BnB in Mostar, Bosnia right now. Here is the street our place is on. It also is very nice inside.

We walked what is called the Crooked Bridge, which was built in 1558!

We also walked the Old Bridge, which was built before 1558. Both of these bridges have a long history, including being bombed during multiple wars, and this one also collapsed at one time.

Yes, the water really is that color! They hold World wide diving competitions here and we hear it's a right of passage for teenage boys to dive from this bridge. The water is very cold we are told!

We have enjoyed Mostar very much. Here's pictures of how it looks.

There was much destruction here during the war. Here is Elder Bates standing between two buildings. One has not been restored and the other has.

We have taken some time to relax. Elder Bates likes to relax by enjoying a good view. I like to relax by shopping the outdoor markets!

Here are some driving signs just for fun. Your guess is as good as ours as to what they mean!

There are not nearly as many homeless here, but we do see beggars. You can see the lady's hand out in one picture, and in the one with the child talking to me, that child walked beside me for a long time and kept asking me for money. It was heartbreaking. In english, "Please! Food! Please!" We do give some of the time.

Here's just some cute people. We love seeing so many parents with young children out and about laughing and talking with each other. Inter-generational fun! People are so kind to us, too!

We like to find humor and joy in our day so I'll include a few fun things, too. When we saw the name of this restaurant, we knew we had to eat there! It was overpriced and not too tasty though.

Letters from home and written in Croatian!

Since it's been Ramadan, the Istanbul airport had this man pouring drinks by tipping over!

We have no idea what "Face Glue" is, or why this ad was in English!

It has been a strange month not being able to travel to Croatia where our projects are, AND we haven't been able to get back to Türkiye since they are having some civil unrest. We have been handling things via zoom, email, and What'sApp, so the work hasn't slowed down too much, but we miss being in person. We have enjoyed seeing 2 new countries though and we continue to be blessed with miracles! We love this quote that we believe in with all our hearts! "Jesus Christ, who created the seas, can calm them; He who gave sight to the blind can lift our sights to heaven; He who cleansed the lepers can mend our infirmities." We look forward to April General Conference and Easter! Keep Marching forward!