What is your spiritual DNA?

Dear family,

Transfer calls were officially this morning and... Sister Goode and I are both staying in Halls Lake YSA! I am so excited to be staying! This means that when I reach my year mark, I will have only been in two areas- 4 transfers in Oak Harbor and 4 transfers in Halls Lake. Crazy!

This week was a slow week, as Sister Goode has not been feeling well and we've spent some time in the apartment. A few days ago she was really struggling and President told her that we could go spend a few hours helping Sister Bonham, so we went and helped Sister Bonham make a lemon cake roll for the departing missionaries dinner the next night. It was so much fun to hear Sister Bonham tell stories about when she and President Bonham were dating, and funny stories from raising their family, and when Elder Holland set them apart for their calling, and so much more! Afterwards Sister Bonham showed us old family pictures, and surprisingly the whole thing made me a little bit emotional. I just felt such an enormous amount of love for President and Sister Bonham. It was really wonderful to feel like I was getting to know them on a little bit more of a personal level.

I have been blessed with having so many wonderful surrogate parents since coming on my mission. President and Sister Bonham, Darlene and Everet, Bennett and Verna, and the Hendricks have all been so wonderful to me. This week I was thinking about how blessed I am to have such amazing biological parents. I've seen a lot of the sisters really struggling with adjusting to missionary life and recently I've wondered why it has felt so natural for me to adjust and why it hasn't been as much of an emotional struggle. I've definitely gone through my stages of adjusting and different personal struggles, but it has been so much easier than it could have been, and I attribute that to my wonderful parents. They don't just teach their kids how to be consecrated missionary, they teach how to be a consecrated person. Period. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for their examples and for early morning family scripture study and chores and saturday service projects and PPI's with dad and the list goes on and on. I wish that everyone could have their own personal Sean and Nancy Slade!!

Melissa's baptism was postponed until next weekend due to family being out of town, but she has had her interview and everything and she is as excited as can be!

Just this morning in my study I read the talk "Decisions for Eternity" By Russell M. Nelson from last General Conference. I was struck by this note at the end of the talk: "Each person is born with unique identity, chromosomes, and DNA. DNA is a molecule that encodes genetic instructions used in the development and function of living cells. Each persons DNA is created when the DNA from a father and a mother combine to create the DNA of a new body- a partnership between father, mother, and child." Whoa. If this is the way that DNA works, what is my spiritual DNA? In other words, if I know who my Heavenly parents are, what are the godly attributes encoded within myself? How do I develop and reveal these attributes? What is YOUR spiritual DNA? I came to my own answers, and they were pretty amazing, but I'll let y'all answer these questions for yourselves :)

Love, Sister Slade

P.S. Here are the top 5 funniest moments from this week:

1. Elder Caruso: "Hey sisters, we think that Tasha is having a hard time right now, do you think you could stop by and see how she's doing sometime soon?"

Elder Beatty: "Yeah. Do what you sisters do. Bake her a quilt or something."

2. Driving away after lunch with Lans:

Sister Goode: "I think there's a crumb in my tights."

Sister Slade "What do you mean, there's a pecan in your tights?"

3. We stopped by McDonalds on a night that we didn't have time to take a dinner and I may or may not have tried to pay with my library card... missionary work is exhausting, okay!?

4. Sister Goode and I started making a fort last night but it turned out terrible so instead we just made a cool entrance to the bedroom and called it our lair. Requirements for entering the lair are to stick your hand through the blanket, do the secret handshake, and tell an embarrassing story about yourself.

5. Sister Bonham told us that the very first thing President Bonham said when he came to pick her up for their blind date was "Hi, I'm Kelly, you must be Mark!" Oh President Bonham. So goofy and lovable!