It is so exciting to hear the news about all of the amazing
things that you all are doing and all of the blessings that Heavenly Father
pours over you! I'm just not even sure where to start! How about with I love
you? :)
This week has been a fantastic week to be serving in the
Washington Everett mission! Last Tuesday half of the missionaries gathered to
attend a conference with Elder Paul V. Johnson from the seventy, and everything
that he shared with us was so inspirational! It always amazes me how when you
go to these kinds of gatherings, it's as if they know your thoughts and somehow
they know just what to say. Elder Johnson talked a lot about doing your best
and allowing the Savior to take care of the rest, and recognizing the things
that you are already doing well rather than dwelling on the ways you still need
to improve. This is something I've really struggled with recently. I start to
feel a lot of stress over all the ways that I'm not a perfect servant for the
Lord rather than accepting the fact that Heavenly Father knows I'm not going to
be perfect right off the bat. Heavenly Father has been blessing Sister Anderson
and I in amazing ways recently, despite all of my flaws. Our Ward Mission
Leader told us that we have led the stake in lessons taught and investigators
at sacrament meeting for two months now. It was really overwhelming for me to
hear this, because I really feel like Sister Anderson and I aren't doing
anything. I still experience a lot of anxiety over talking to people, and I
still struggle to teach clearly most of the time, although I have improved. I
feel like I'm constantly praying for help, and I never stop being amazed at how
that help always comes. Speaking of prayer, isn't it an absolutely amazing thing
that the most glorious, most loving, most powerful being in the universe not
only wants us to talk to him, but answers us?
Sister Anderson and I have had some exciting success with
less actives recently! I love working with less actives and part-member
families! We invited Nancy to read a chapter a day from the Book of Mormon last
time we visited her, and this last week when we came she was already halfway
through 2nd Nephi! She has committed to read the Book of Mormon (something she
never did all those years that she was active) and pray to know "once and
for all" if it is true. She really is searching and open to learning and
we are so excited for her because we know that as long as this is the case, she
will get her answer! She said she would be at church this last Sunday, but
wasn't able to make it. :/ Hopefully next week! Willie did come to church
though!!! We have been working with Willie for weeks now, and it has been such
a draining spiritual experience for me. Really getting to know and understand
these people, then praying to know what needs to be said to help them realize
their eternal potential and responsibilities is such a draining process. Zola
is completely reactivated and loving every minute of church!
Something I realized this week is that the secret to
effective missionary work is to get desperate. When I truly start to feel a
deep love for someone, I start to become emotionally involved in their
conversion process, and when that happens, suddenly the intensity and
desperation of my prayers skyrockets. I start to plead with Heavenly Father to
please help me know what to say and do to help these people, and that is when
He starts trusting me with inspiration. It's very tiring. Sometimes I wish I
could just not care so I didn't have to feel that intensity and concern for
people so much of the time, but I know that if that was the case then I also
wouldn't have moments like hugging Verna after her baptism.
I'm sure you have heard the big news recently... now is the
time for member missionary work! Please work with the missionaries in the ward
and ask them for advice on how to share the gospel directly with the people all
around you- people you already have established a friendship with also those
that you don't know well with. Friendships and love develop as you share
spiritual experiences with people! At the conference this last Tuesday
President Bonham told us that the general authorities told him that they want
every companionship to be baptizing weekly. There was an audible gasp, because
that is pretty much unheard of. It was a little bit overwhelming, but I prayed
about it and I've received the confirmation that it is possible... but not
through just Sister Anderson and I. The MTC did a study, and 1 out of 1000
convert baptisms are found through tracting. Sister Anderson and I have been
doing an unfortunate amount of fruitless tracting, so this next week we're
getting smart and filling much more of our time with member-missionary contact.
Now is the time for member missionary work!
Bennett and Verna are doing great! We brought them to a
lesson with us this week, and I get all tingly inside whenever I hear them
share their testimonies. Solid member fellowshippers! At least three times in
Bennett's confirmation blessing he was told that he would be a great asset to
the church through many teaching and service callings. Bennett is extremely
intelligent, and both he and Verna can't get enough of this gospel! It's funny
how Bennett told us that he's probably had 5 or 6 sets of missionaries come to
his home since they moved here, and each time he would take a Book of Mormon
and end up setting it on the shelf and never actually get to reading it. They
truly are a large part of why I was sent to the Washington Everett mission!
We have a district P-Day today, and we're all going to go to
the home of our first counselor in our bishopric and find sea glass at the
beach (which just happens to be his back yard!) and have smores and hot dogs. I
plan on telling all of the other missionaries about how I have a brother who
very expertly outsmarted the MTC computer system... :)
Sister Anderson is wonderful. She is so bubbly and funny,
and we are constantly laughing, most of the time over silly things. She is
exactly what I need!
Love ya!
Sister Slade
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