Blessed Week~!

Hello! :)

What a blessed week! I think I better start with the most exciting news of all- Bennett and Verna H. are on date for baptism!!! Oh, and they also gave me permission to adopt them as my third set of grandparents :) So many prayers and spiritual energy have gone into teaching Bennett and Verna. From day 1 when I met Bennett (my first day out in the field!) I knew somehow that he would be important. For whatever reason Bennett and Verna have been on my mind constantly throughout this last week. At first it made me anxious, because I was hoping that it wasn't the spirit telling me that something was going wrong there. Sister Anderson and I stopped by on Wednesday to check up on them, and they were both still going strong reading and praying, but I still couldn't stop thinking about them after that. It reminded me a little bit of how I felt about sharing the gospel with D. When you really care deeply about someone, suddenly your desperation for them to accept the thing that you know is so important for them increases so much. I've felt this way with Bennett and Verna, and by the time Sunday came around I woke up and knew that that was the day that Bennett and Verna needed to commit to baptism. Sister Anderson and I decided to fast yesterday that we would know what to say and how to bring the spirit into the lesson, and when the lesson came my prayers were definitely answered. The entire lesson I felt as if the questions I was asking and the things I was saying were not my own. After the fact I didn't even remember most of it and I had to ask Sister Anderson for details so that I could write about it in my journal. At one point I asked Bennett and Verna if they believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet and if he truly did restore Jesus Christ's church to the Earth. Bennett said he couldn't say that he fully believed yet, but he's been reading and praying a lot, and he believes that Joseph Smith could be a prophet and that if he is then he knows his prayers will be answered. Bennett shared with us a very special, sacred dream he had about a week ago the night that he offered a particularly heartfelt prayer asking if the church was true. When we asked Verna she said, "I'm so close, so close. Just right there on the edge, and I believe, but I'm so close! It's to the point that I can tell that the next step is to take a leap of faith, and that scares me." It was perfect! I expressed to Bennett and Verna again how much I love them and how much Heavenly Father loves them, and told them that I knew that they already had a testimony of the truth, because they have already learned these things when they were in the pre-existence, and their spirits recognize truth. I told them that I knew that if they would show their faith by setting a date as a goal to be baptized, the Lord would answer their prayers and give them that last little bit of assurance that they needed. After they said yes and throughout the rest of the evening, I felt so happy! I can't imagine if I hadn't decided to come on a mission and hadn't been able to feel this kind of love for people and for my Heavenly Father. October 12 is going to be a very special day! :)

As if having Bennett and Verna on date wasn't enough, we had another lesson with Jennifer on Thursday, and she has set a date for baptism as well! When we asked her how her reading has been going since we had our first lesson with her last week, she showed us that she's almost done with Mosiah. Solid investigator status! It kinda startled me when she said yes when we invited her to be baptized. We hadn't taught any of the commandments up to that point, so hopefully when she understands just how much of a commitment baptism is, she sill still feel that excitement! I think that she is sincerely searching. :)

Sister Anderson and I have even been blessed in lots of small ways this week too. I had an amazing experience on Friday. We had a lesson scheduled in one of the further parts of the island, but they didn't show. Sister Anderson and decided we would try one more potential, then go back home to have dinner. I was driving to see the potential, and suddenly I just turned onto a street. It was extremely sudden, and it was almost like I did it without thinking- like it was somebody else who consciously decided to turn and not me. We drove to the end of the street, not really knowing why, especially since the street was kinda in the middle of nowhere, but just doing it, and got out and started to knock on doors. We walked up the driveway to the second house, and there was a man there who we started talking to. It took all of one minute for us to make the connection that this man was one of Everett S.’s coworkers- a man that Everett has told us about a few times, and who had been asking a lot of questions about the gospel recently, but whose family isn't on board with it. We had a really amazing conversation with the man, and walked away afterwards completely in awe, because this definitely wasn't a coincidence that of all the houses we could have come to that day, Steven happened to live in this one and just happened to be outside. Hopefully with Everett's help we will be able to teach him and his family soon!

At the start of this week I was thinking a lot about what Sister Anderson and I needed to do to make our goals that we had set happen. I had this very strong feeling come over me where I realized that the Lord WANTS us to succeed. I have no doubt in my mind that he has hundreds of people here in Oak Harbor ready and prepared to hear the gospel, and he doesn't want us to be teaching just one or two of them. The trick is that I need to be in a place where I have the faith and I'm working hard enough that he trusts me with those people. I thought about the scripture that says "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say." I decided to tell Heavenly Father that I felt accountable to him for the goals we had set, and that Sister Anderson and I were going to work as hard as we possibly could and focus all of our thoughts on him this week, and if we did then I expected him to bless us. It wasn't really a gentle request, it was more like a pleading demand. Maybe that's wrong to demand something of Heavenly Father. But it obviously didn't bother him too much, or he wouldn't have given us so much success this week! We barely reached all of our goals this week, plus we had so many tender mercies and special moments with people on top of that. This week we set our numbers a little bit higher, which will make us stretch, and we're going to test him again and see if our teaching pool continues to expand.

Anyways. All that happened, plus a million other things. I wish that you could be here to experience everything with me! I love you all! I keep your picture in my scriptures and pray for you multiple times a day.

Love, Sister Slade