Laborers in the Vineyard

This week, Elder Van Wagenen and I have been working much harder. The week before was a flop because of transfers but also because of a large degree of laziness. We have had a very, very shallow teaching pool for a while. This week we put a lot of effort into finding, and God blessed us with 11 new investigators. Some of them have since been dropped, but as we continue to work hard and trust in the Lord, I am confident that our teaching pool will increase and we will be able to improve the general health of our area.

One of the problems with the area from when I came in is that we have about 20 HQ referrals that have not been updated. Neither of us knows the current status of any of them. That is one thing that we will be working on this week, getting them all caught up. It's an investment - the time spent on them will help us to be obedient, and we will see direct and indirect results from our obedience.

Companionship unity is not really a problem with us two. We're getting along great. After only a few days, he was already one of my closest friends. In our free time (such as after nightly planning or on P-Days), we often talk about long-term projects that we want to work on together after we return from our missions. And we are being careful that those discussions do not interfere with our work or make us distracted.

The person who we are the most excited about for being baptized is named Segens. I forgot his last name. He is on date for next Sunday, we're looking forward to it.

We are also excited for a family of eight that we found last week. Many of them seem excited to read the Book of Mormon, and they seem to recognize that we are representatives of Jesus Christ. They are always glad to have us over, and they come to lessons prepared with a list of questions that they had from their reading assignments. They weren't able to come to church yesterday, unfortunately, but we'll give them another week because they seem to be progressing as a family.

My favorite quote this week:

"It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines."

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Laborers in the Vineyard"

I still don't have my camera, but Elder Winslow said he found it in the Miami apartment and he's trying to find a way to get it to me. I'll probably get it back before next P-Day.

Thank you, everyone, for writing to me. It's great to receive your letters. I'll just take a few minutes to answer questions and remark on them:

Mom: for the Elders, the harvest blessing is a priesthood blessing if we can kneel down in a reverent environment inside of the house itself. In any other situation, or for the Sisters, it's just a regular prayer, asking God for those blessings. The spirit can still be present, either way, but it's stronger when you kneel down in reverence in the house itself. (I wouldn't know how strong the spirit is for the Sister missionaries, I've never been one.)

I'm out of time, or else I would answer more questions.

Thanks for everything,

Elder Slade