(Sister Slade)
Hello family and friends!
Holy cow! This week has been crazy. It's been the longest
and shortest, best and craziest week of my life. I can't believe that I've been
in the MTC for a full 10 days, but at the same time it feels like I've been
here for a life time. I feel so ready to actually be out in the mission field.
Before I start on my week, a couple of house keeping items. :) First of all,
because my mission is a device mission, I can receive and read emails any time
of the week, I just can't respond. So feel free to email me at any time. It
makes my day to hear from everyone. Also, I guess there was still some problems
with the pictures from last week. Was everyone able to view them? If not, just
email me anytime today before 6 and I will try to fix that. Another thing is
that the MTC is changing my P-day to Tuesday next week, so I'll have another
P-day in 4 days, but I probably won't have another one until I'm actually in
the field. Last thing, to my family (siblings and parents) how are you doing on
my challenge? If you've forgotten about it, that's okay because you still have
3 more days to work on it! But I do expect an email on Monday night from each
of you with an update!
Here at the MTC, we have this thing called TRC where we
contact people who agree to come and be taught by the missionaries. Some of
them are non members who want to learn more about the gospel. Basically, we go
and contact them on the "street" and then we set up an appointment to
meet with them again. Then we teach them 2 or 3 times. Sister Allison and I talked
to a guy named Ethan. He's from the UK and had an amazing accent. We only got
to teach him twice, because the third time would have been today, but it's our
P-day. Both times we've taught him, I've felt the spirit guiding my words and
help me to teach him and not the lesson we had prepared. We're 94.7% sure that
he is a member of the church, but who knows? Tomorrow, we'll have another
contacting activity, where we will meet a new person to teach next week.
I love my district! I feel like I gained 8 brothers (some of
which are older brothers, and some are younger) and a sister. The lord knew
that I can't handle immature people, and so he placed me with people that (for
the most part) aren't immature. Seriously though, it's very obvious that some
of the Elders here are 18 years old, but with my district, they all act older
than their age.
For the first 5 days that I was here, I was looking for
Sister Marks, because I knew she was leaving on Monday, and I was terrified
that I would miss her. She's was the only person that I knew was in the MTC. I
was feeling discouraged that I wouldn't see a familiar face for another 18
months, so I said a prayer that I would be able to fine Sister Marks. Not 10
minutes later, we quite literally ran into each other. This was Saturday night.
Then on Sunday, we ran into each other 5 more times. It was a testimony to me
that Heavenly Father really does hear and answer prayers.
I had a life changing moment on Sunday Night. We watched a
devotional that Elder Bednar gave to the Provo MTC in 2012 called the Character
of Christ. Supposedly you can only find it in the MTC, but I would encourage
each of you to at least look for it. If you can't find it, read Elder Bednar's
book One by One, it sort of touches on the same thing. It was absolutely
incredible though! I can't even describe how powerful his words though. He
talked about becoming converted unto the lord, and the way we do that is to
develop the character of Christ, which is to turn outwards when the natural man
in each of us would turn inwards. I can't begin to express how deeply his words
touched me. He mentioned specifically that this mission is not about me, but I
think that was to general. This life is not about me. We should not be asking
"What can I get out of this life?" but "What can I give?"
I decided to be a part of the MTC which turned out to be the
best decision ever. We practice on Sunday and Tuesday nights, and then perform
for the devotional on Tuesday night. This week, we were singing an incredible
arrangement of I Know That My Redeemer Lives by T. Chemain Evans called
Testimony. I would encourage all of you to look up a performance of it,
preferably by the missionary choir. Before you do that, look up the story of
Samuel Medley (the person that originally wrote the song). When we sang this on
Tuesday, the words were my testimony. "Oh, sweet the joy this sentence
gives! I know that my Redeemer Lives!"
Also at the devotional, the opening hymn was Called to
Serve. I will never forget that experience. There is something incredibly
powerful about 2000 missionaries all singing "Called to serve our
king!" The whole time, I felt like I was on angel's wings.
Now for the fun/funny things that have happened. On Monday
night's, the MTC is catered to by a local food place. This week it was Subway.
It was quite possibly the worst meal I've had since being here at the MTC,
which is saying a lot because the food here is not the best. Working at Subway
for 3 years kind of ruins my appetite for their food. Also on Monday, Sister
Allison started to trot up the stairs to our room and she yelled, "I'm a
horse!" We laughed so hard, mostly because we were so exhausted. Last
night, our entire district was very slap happy. I felt bad for our teacher,
because we would laugh at something really stupid every 5 minutes or so. We
were all ready for P-day today. The subject for this email can't really be
explained because there's a lot to it. But the joke started, because one day
our entire district was falling asleep in class, so our teacher made us do
jumping jacks, wall sits, and a lap around the floor to wake us up. If you can
picture 10 missionaries doing all of this in suits and dresses, then you are
beginning to understand why I chose that as the subject line.
Final thought. 2 days ago, Sister Allison and I were talking
about our lesson plan for Ethan, and she said, "We did the best that we
could with the time that I had." This hit me really hard, because that's
what I want to be able to say at the end of my mission, or even my life.
"I did the best that I could with the time that I had." So now that
is my goal for my mission.
I love all of you!
--
Sister Slade
pictures
1.
2.
3. Emma, this one's for you
4. Funny picture because why not?
5. My district. From left to right, Elder Cahoon, Elder
Spilsburry, Sister Allison and I, Elder Walters, Elder Corbridge, Elder Felt
and Elder Oxenden. In the front are Elder Horne and Elder
Helser
6. Sister Allison and I during study time
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