On date

Hey family!

So this may be a quick update. Most of our P-Day was taken up this morning by doing the most intense workout of my life. The zone leaders organized for this ex-special forces guy named Rick from Everett YSA ward to come and take us through an hour and a half workout. My entire body is so sore right now I can hardly believe it. We have exchanges tonight until tomorrow and I'm a little bit concerned that I may not be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning, let alone do a full day of missionary work! Oops. Haha I may be running on a lot of prayer tomorrow! Pretty much all the elders in our zone came but unfortunately it was only us and one other set of sisters from the zone that wanted to go. But it was still a lot of fun and I must say, the Elders didn't show us up too bad!

This week was quite a bit slower than last, but if there's one thing you definitely learn in YSA, it's that when you are staring down a full day of tracting, the phrase "make your own sunshine" takes on a whole new meaning! Also, I sure do appreciate the tender mercies! Heavenly Father blesses each of us with so many small miracles and blessings in our lives every day- seen and unseen!

Gabriel fell off date. He is still really excited for baptism and progressing amazingly! But he talked to his family and they decided it would be best for him to wait until he goes to Texas, even though Lans won't be able to baptize him there, so that the rest of Gabriel's family can come to the baptism. This is actually truly amazing, because none of Gabriel's family is mormon, and we are so happy that they have decided to support him in this decision! The selfish side of me does still wish that I could see him baptized though. Oh well. We made him promise he would write us and tell us about it. :)

Broncos lost. My pride is a little bit wounded and I'm not sure what to expect from FHE tonight :) Lans told us that if the Broncos lost we had to go with him and Reese and Callie to Buffs and try the flamin hot challenge. We shook on it so it looks like that will be an adventure this week...

 We had stake conference this weekend, and it was amazing! For the Saturday evening session a member of the 70 that came to speak called on some Elders from the audience to come up with no heads up and teach a 7 minute restoration lesson to the stake president and his wife. Afterwards he continued his talk and said "I almost chose you, Sister Slade and Sister Glancy, I guess a missionary can never get too comfortable...." The next day when we saw President Bonham he told us that he had given the guy from the 70 four companionships that he felt comfortable with teaching in front of everyone at stake conference. As huge of a compliment as that was for us, I was so relieved he didn't call on us!!!!!!!

The other amazing thing from conference was that our reactivated member, Alexandra, was asked to speak! She hadn't opened up to us previously about how big of an impact we had on her coming back to church. She gave us letters that almost made me cry. It was one of those moments when I could really feel the fruits of my labors and I thought to myself how much I KNOW that God is intimately aware of each of us!

Something amazing that Alexandra told us about her story of coming back is how the previous week when she was asked to speak she was really nervous and one night she was just praying, pleading to be able to feel comfort and confidence about the whole thing. While she was praying we called her. We had no idea about this, but that night Sister Glancy and I decided out of the blue that we should call Alexandra and tell her that we wanted to "sing her a lullaby." It was really silly, but we had had a long day so we were like why not, she'll get a laugh and we will too. So we did, and it wasn't until this weekend that Alexandra told us in her letter that she was crying the whole time we sang her favorite hymn to her over the phone because she knew in that moment that God loved her because He had answered her prayer in such an unexpected way- a way that we had no idea about.

When I first came into the field I decided that one thing I really wanted to learn from the Lord was how the spirit speaks to me. I felt that I had a hard time recognizing when I receive a prompting from the spirit. This has probably been the focus of most of my studies- somehow my study always comes back to this. Since then I have learned that promptings from the spirit oftentimes don't even feel like promptings. More often then not, they seem like a "passing thought" or "little idea" that is so small that if you're not paying attention it is so easy to miss it. So my advice to you is that if you think of something that will bless you, your family, or those around you, DO IT! Don't think. Just do it. I still have a long way to go, but the Lord has blessed me with so many special experiences that build my faith of the Holy Ghost!

SANDRA FROM OAK HARBOR IS ON DATE TO BE BAPTIZED FEBRUARY 15TH!!!!!! It's amazing to see the way that Heavenly Father works in each of our lives!

Well, love you all! More next week

Sister Slade