Life Changed

I still don't have my camera. I'm waiting on my old companion from Miami for that.

Last Thursday, we had a zone conference where Elder and Sister Kopischke came to train our entire mission. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about the purpose and responsibilities of missionaries, and I'm in the process of applying what I learned. I attached two pictures from that zone conference.

This last week has been a good week for me and Elder Van Wagenen. We have been working hard, and we have a few investigators who we are really excited about. We have both learned a lot, especially from the zone conference.

We have seen many miracles while we have worked. Mostly they have been manifested in the people who we find. We have found many people this week, in miraculous ways.

For example, we found a man named Lenny N. - he came up to us and asked us to talk with him. He told us that he had tried to find the church once several months before, but he had the wrong address and so he couldn't get there. He says that he is interested in the church, but he doesn't know why. He has had doubts in the past that God exists, and he wants us to help overcome those doubts, and replace them with faith. We followed up with him yesterday, and we'll continue to teach him.

We also found a young man named Charles. He accepted baptism, but we were still wary to follow up or teach him because we hadn't met with his parents. But the next day, we were in the area and we decided to try to follow up and to gauge whether or not the parents would let him. As it turns out, he lived with his mother, who is an inactive member who was not in the ward records. She is inactive because of her job, but she knows that the LDS church is the only true church. She wholeheartedly agreed to his baptism, and Charles himself is excited to learn and to prepare to be baptized as well.

Elder Van Wagenen are still working on the outdated list of referrals, getting them all contacted and up to date. It'll probably take another week or two to get them down to a manageable size, but once we get it there then we will receive more of the blessings of being exactly obedient.

I wrote something for the Putnam Family Newsletter. You'll all be able to read it in that, but I thought I'd include it here as well:

My whole life changed a ton in the last twelve months. I graduated from high school, opened my mission call, prepared to leave on my mission, and then actually left on my mission. It's hard to believe that everything can change so fast, but at the same time it doesn't feel to me as if anything has really changed at all. Things just happen so slowly, it's hard to notice the water starting to boil until you are already dead.

The most important changes have come specifically because of my mission. For example, I feel the spirit much more in my life. I don't have as many distractions from the things that are really important. I'm surrounded each day with other missionaries, people who want to help me to learn and progress and become a better person.

I'm extremely grateful to you all for the examples that you have all set for me, and for the encouragement and support I continue to receive from all of you. Thank you all!

Thanks,

Elder Slade