Nov. 26:
Dear family:
I’m writing for a second week in a row because, miracle of
miracles, I actually have a little free time.
(On P-day, of all the days. Yeah,
I’m as surprised as you all are!)
Missionary life is super busy but if allows me to meet tons
of different types of people, and have tons of experiences that I wouldn’t
normally have. Maybe the greatest
blessing for me is my testimony, which I feel like has tripled in size in the
last two months.
I mentioned in my email that the way we proselyte here is
called harvesting. We are expected to
harvest for at least an hour every day.
We knock on the door, ask them if we can say a special prayer with them,
kneel down, ask what they want us to include in the prayer, and then say a
priesthood blessing on the house and family.
I meet so many new people and personalities from doing this.
For example, one person asked for “destruction” in the
prayer. He was drunk. Then he thought about it some more and
clarified: destruction of the evil spirits in him.
One Haitian man let us finish our blessing then he
immediately started to say his own pray.
After he was done, he started to sing a Haitian hymn at the top of his
lungs. I couldn’t keep a straight
face. I hope I didn’t insult him by
that.
This week is Thanksgiving.
I’m going to go to a Haitian party and have Haitian food for it. What are you doing for Thanksgiving? I can probably imagine. Tell me how close I am. You are all going to
drive up to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house where Grandma will be making tons of
food. A lot of the family will be
there. After dinner, everyone will
gather for a testimony meeting and to say what they are grateful for. All the attendant mothers will tear up,
especially Grandma. Maybe even a few of
the fathers. Afterwards, you will all
drive back home, taking with you a large Tupperware full of Grandma’s leftover
food. So, am I right?
If this letter gets to you before Thanksgiving, tell the
Putnam Clan that I am grateful for all of the candy!
It’s kind of funny.
Most of the missionaries here are 19-22, but I still have half a year
before I turn 19. They all think it’s
weird. I do too, I’m not cut out for
this! I don’t think anyone is! But it’s slowly getting easier, I just have
to get used to it. Actually, I don’t
think I’ll ever get used to the traffic in Miami, but I’ll be more than skilled
enough to drive in Pueblo when I get backJ
I’m getting really good at making a bowl of cereal (bol kon
flaks) for a quick meal in the morning because there’s not enough time to do
more. (except Sundays, because we don’t exercise on Sundays)
Sorry it’s so short again, it’s too hard to get everything
down in the time we have on P-days.
Thanks,
Elder Brandon Slade
Dec 3:
Dear family (again)
I’m starting to get better at doing things quickly. The mission is so slow, and yet so fast-paced
at the same time! I am very grateful for all of your letters, and especially
for the photo of all of you. I hope you
all have a great time on the cruise! I
don’t really remember the one that I went on, except that I remember that I was
grumpy in the Bahamas and our driver gave me a dollar bill. I hope none of you have that problem. Actually, not that I think about it, you
won’t receive this letter until after you return, so I hope none of you had
that problem!
I have had some pretty bad luck with exchanges so far. The district leader is supposed to go on
exchanges with each elder in his district at least once each transfer, so I’ve
been with him one day, and with his companion another while he went on
exchanges with Elder Winslow. The first
time, we had to go to a doctors office and so we didn’t really end up doing any
work; the second time, we were stuck at the church out of our area because the
car was being worked on. There’s a
chance in the near future that we’ll be doing exchanges again, but I’ll be
staying in the area while my companion leaves.
I’m not ready to take over the area, even for a day, so I’ve been
getting worried.
Once the temple is completed in our area, we’ll be able to
go once a transfer. But first we have to
wait for the temple.
There’s a good chance that the boundaries of our mission
will change to include the Bahamas when we get a new mission president in
July. There are a lot of Haitians in the
Bahamas. Do you have to have a passport
to go there?
Also, do you need to get special permission to bury someone
on their own land? How exactly do you go
about doing that?
When did you take the photo that you printed and sent to me?
I had a really good discussion with a couple other elders
during one of my exchanges about good books that we’ve read. It was a fun night, we had a good time.
Today is proving to be a very interesting day. They were testing out the alarm system in the
church while we played in the gym, so the fire alarm keeps going off. And a lady knocked on the door halfway into a
game and accused some of the sister missionaries of stealing her clothes. The lady had been doing “surveillance” of the
church (her own word) for the last few hours, and she said she spotted them
wearing clothes that were stolen from her suitcase a while ago. So we just searched the church building and
we’ve been trying to get a hold of the sisters to have them come back, to try to
find the mission suitcase (full of recently bought clothes) and to find out
what happened to it. Things are looking
more and more like the sisters are innocent. (No surprise there.) Also, we had
pizza for lunch, and I ate about 8 pieces myself, and I’m still hungry. I know, I’m as surprised as all of you are.
It just goes to show how much more energy I’m using compared to where I used to
be.
I’ve been thinking for a while, and I decided that the best
thing for me on my mission is if I am transferred to a different mission 6
months before the end, because then I would have a chance to see how other
missions handle things, and I would have chance of serving with my old
companions again. That would be nice,
but I don’t think it’s really likely.
P-day is nearing an end now.
I don’t have much more time left.
(in fact, I only have a few minutes.) So I just wanted to say: Thanks
for everything, especially the family picture.
I’ll have to imagine myself and Britney in it at the same time. (please don’t let Grandpa try to photoshop us
in it, whatever you do!) My pile of send-home items is slowly getting bigger,
but it’s still not big enough to be worth sending.
Lastly, I want to say that I am so grateful that I have this
opportunity to serve a mission. I have
already been so blessed because of my choice to serve on, and I can’t imagine
what I would be doing if I wasn’t serving a mission. I know that this is the place where the Lord
wants me, and consequently this is where I want to be.
Thanks,
Elder Brandon Slade
PS I am going through computer withdrawal. I found myself typing on a fake keyboard on
my desk yesterday. It makes an interesting
noise.
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