Last Post

(Elder Slade)

Dear friends and family:

Yesterday was transfer readouts! I, unsurprisingly, am transferring. More surprising is the fact that Elder Storm is leaving Miami as well, so our area is getting whitewashed. Two new missionaries who don't know the area will be coming in to replace us.

I'm not sure what to write in this email. Last Saturday, I had my departing interview with President Richardson. I gave my last talk on my mission on Sunday, and I'm flying home on Thursday morning, and I'll see you all for the first time at about noon over in Colorado.

It's been a good two years.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

P.S. For those of you who don't have my personal email address, you will be able to get in contact with me at brandonyoyoslade@gmail.com. I don't know what my phone number will be yet. I used to have a facebook page, but I deleted it before I left on my mission, so I'll probably go back and recreate it, starting from scratch, so that it's easier for me to keep in touch with all of you.

Last Post

(Elder Slade)

Dear friends and family:

This is the second-to-last email I will send to you while I am on my mission. I only have one more P-day after today, and that P-day will be spent packing and looking forward to seeing all of you just two days later.

Elder Storm and I have had a better week than we had last week, but we're still a little frustrated with the progress that we have been making. We worked really hard, and we were able to improve (progress) in many key indicators, but one key indicator that has notoriously stayed the same is investigators at sacrament. This is the second week in a row that we haven't gotten anybody to come to church; as a matter of fact, these are the only two weeks that Elder Storm and I have been together that we have gotten no investigators to come to church.

Sonia is our only solid investigator right now - her and her nine-year-old daughter. We have been working with them for a week or two now, and she came to the baptism of Alicia and Alvin on Saturday. She loved it, and the chapel tour we had with her afterwards; and she finally offered a prayer, for the first time in 3 or 4 lessons, because of the spirit that she felt there. She was solidly committed to come to church, but unfortunately she took a cold medicine the night before that caused her to sleep in several hours. We were disappointed, but we're going to keep teaching her and get her to church this Sunday so that she and her daughter (and her mother) can be baptized on the 12th. (After I go home... sad face.)

I performed the baptismal interview for Alvin on Thursday, before he was baptized with his girlfriend Alicia on Saturday. (They aren't my investigators, I'm just mentioning them because I did one of the interviews.) It was my first baptismal interview, and it will probably be my last...

Thanks,

Elder Slade

District Leader

Dear friends and family:

This Tuesday I found out that I would be the new district leader for the last few weeks of my mission. I was shocked, but I did my best to give a good district training on Wednesday morning and to find out the needs of the district. I trained about accounting, and being responsible for our efforts, instead of being creatures of circumstances.

We started the week very enthusiastically. We were excited to work hard, and determined to have a turnaround from last week, and to help our investigators progress and be baptized. We had a goal of two baptisms this week, and we still have a goal of five baptisms this month. We fell short, and now our teaching pool is even worse than it was before. We stopped teaching almost all of our investigators, including the three who had been to church several times who could be baptized. (Lucia, Jessica, and Maxime.)

Elder Storm and I feel like the biggest mistake we made this week was that we were so focused on our goal of baptizing, that we didn't stop teaching investigators when their desires and priorities changed. They came to church, and kept some of the commitments we left with them, but ignored others and hung on to a few things in their lives that they didn't want to change. We loved our investigators too much, and so we kept teaching them and we didn't put forth the extra effort to find the remaining investigators who could be baptized at the end of this month.

We are both really bummed about the way that the week turned out. I hate to say it, but despite working hard, we put our efforts into the wrong thing, and we didn't seek the revelation from God that would have corrected us earlier in the week. We're a little discouraged because now we don't have the investigators that we need to meet our baptismal goal, but I'm not going to give up or slack for the last part of my mission.

I'm really excited to hear about the changes in my family, with a new sister, and another brother going off to college. Everything will be different when I finally come home and meet up with everyone again.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Dear friends and family:

Last week ended really well, with ten investigators at sacrament, and plenty of dates and new investigators. Starting the very next day, however, almost all of our investigators started dropping off the face of the map. It was like a magic trick, but it wasn't very fun to watch. The only two investigators that remained by the end of the week were Lucia and her daughter, Jessica. (And it took until Thursday to finally get in contact with them.) I'm sorry to report that thus sudden change of direction in our area caused more than a little discouragement between the two of us.

Lucia and her daughter have been to church three times now. They have a baptismal date for this Saturday, which we will do everything in our power to help them keep. Lucia feels like she needs to know more before her baptism, and she also confided in us that she doesn't feel like she has fully repented of everything she has done in the past. We're not going to push her, but we will help her with that process and encourage her to read the Book of Mormon and to pray. We have plans to have her interviewed early this week, to help her see that she is ready.

The other three investigators that came to church are new investigators from this week, that we found while knocking doors. It is a family: Ezekiel, and his two daughters, both of whom have names that I can never remember or pronounce for the life of me. (Someone else who lives in the same house has an interesting name, pronounced the way you would read "qui est la lune" in French, although it is not spelled that way. It means "who is the moon." Just... thought you ought to know :D) We gave them a tour of the chapel before church started, and they were really interested in the story of Joseph Smith. (We had only found them on Saturday, so we had not had a chance to teach it to them beforehand.) They also have soft dates, but their dates are for the 22nd.

Maxime didn't come to church. Apparently, his job required him to drive all throughout the weekend, because school is starting up so soon. We have stopped trying to see him, because he is almost never home and because he can't progress or be baptized unless his wife hops on the bandwagon and they decide to be married. It's sad, but we made the decision and we feel like it's the best thing to do.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Strong Week

Dear friends and family:

Elder Storm and I are doing very well. We started off the week very strong, working well together and always looking for more things we can do to help our investigators and keep our area healthy. The hard work paid off, and by the end of the week it resulted in... ten investigators coming to sacrament meeting! That is one of the highest I have ever gotten on my mission. Church was a madhouse, we were so worried about getting each of the investigators to their proper classes and getting members to talk with them. In all of the people who came to church, we have...

Maxime. He came for the third time this week. He loves the church, and the only thing that is preventing him from getting baptized is that he isn't yet married with his significant other. They want to get married, but she doesn't want us to help out with it, because she feels like if we do it then we will use that as leverage to get her to come to church with us and to get baptized. (Neither of which are things that she wants to do.) But we'll keep working with them, hopefully she has a change of heart or some other miracle comes along so that he and his kids (and her as well, by preference) can all be baptized together.

Lucia and Jessica. Lucia is a member referral from her cousin, who lives in Canada. She and her daughter, Jessica, have come to church twice, and they have a date for this Saturday! What we're struggling with in helping her get baptized is that she works very late every day, so we have to see her at the end of the evening, so we don't have a lot of time to go over what we need to cover, and even then she isn't always home yet. But we're not complaining, she's great!

Christelle. We knocked into her several months ago, but never went back to see her because she wasn't committed to come to church and didn't have a very strong desire to be baptized. But she called us a few days ago and told us that she wanted to take us up on the offer to come to church. She came, loved it, and has a date for the 15th!

Livesta & her five siblings. We used to call her Abigail, because that's how she introduced herself originally, but apparently her first name is actually Livesta and she told us that that's what she prefers to be called. So... Livesta has been to church five times now. We were really trying to get a big push for her to be baptized last Saturday, but her parents aren't quite on board with it yet. They don't believe that she is mature enough to be baptized. (She's 16, by the way.) So we're going to try to work with them on that and show them that she is old and mature enough to make that decision for herself.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

A good one

Dear friends and family:

This week has been a pretty good one. Elder Storm and I are still going strong. I'm trying not to focus on how soon I'm going home, but it gets harder and harder because almost every missionary I talk to mentions it. :) I'm trying to get as emotionally attached as possible to our new goal: five baptisms this transfer. We know that this goal is inspired of God, and nothing is going to stop us from accomplishing it!

Abigaile came to church again last week. That makes five times that she has come to church. This time, she brought her brother with her as well. Unfortunately, she had a terrible time at church, because she felt sick. She ended up going to the bathroom, throwing up there, and then going home. We stopped by later to talk with her, but she looked terrible. We're going to try to see her again tonight and get her set with a date for this Saturday.

Maxime and his sons did not come to church this morning, because of an unfortunate problem that he had with his car. But we stopped by in the evening to teach him and his family, and he's still excited to be baptized and to join the church. He told us, 'you can just consider that this is my church from now on. I'm not going to be going to any other churches.' Unfortunately, we also found out that he and his wife are not actually married, although they have been living together for the last nine years. So now we are trying to get them married so that he and their sons can be baptized. This is made more complicated by the fact that his wife doesn't really like us that much, but she is the one who wanted to get married all of those nine years so that she could be baptized into her own church. Now Maxime is changing his mind and he wants to be married, just so that he can be baptized. And to make matters worse, he is going out of town today again for work. He doesn't know when he'll be back, but it won't be for several more days.

Those are are two most solid investigators for right now. We have a few other, less-solid investigators we are working with, but they didn't come to church and so the ones that we haven't dropped are on probation until we can find out what happened and why they didn't come.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Ramming Speed

Dear friends and family:

So, last night I found out that Elder Storm and I are staying together for another transfer! (My last transfer!) It's really odd to think that there's only one transfer left on my mission. I remember celebrating my one-month mark in the MTC and thinking, 'that took forever. I've still got a long, long time to go.'

I'm very excited for my last transfer here with Elder Storm. He is a little bit upset that he is staying in Miami for another transfer, because it means that he will be here for another transfer after that as well. But I don't mind, I love Miami!

This week Maxime and his kids came to church again. He was gone for most of the week, because of his job, driving a truck throughout the United States, and when he got back we only had time to teach him one quick lesson (reviewing the restoration) before we had to return home on Saturday night. He came to church on Sunday, but then was too busy for us to see him that night. And yesterday he left again for several days. He and his sons have a date for this Saturday, but it's not going to happen unless he returns from his trip very early in the week, and so we have time to teach him all of the lessons and get him interviewed. Either way, we are going to make sure that they become Mormons! And sooner, rather than later!

Other than that, almost all of our investigators dropped off this week again, so we are back to the drawing board for that. But the North Miami Beach elders sent us two referrals that we are excited to follow-up on tomorrow.

We have made a goal for this last transfer of baptizing five people. Our first transfer together, we didn't find anybody to be baptized; but our second transfer, we baptized 2.5 people. So this transfer I'll finish strong and we'll find, teach, and baptize another five. Maxime and his sons will be three, so we only really need to find two other prepared souls.

For those of you who don't already know: My parents received another daughter from the foster adopt system. Her name is Neveah. (Heaven spelled backwards, with the two vowels flip-flopped.) That makes in total: three siblings that I have now that I didn't have at the beginning of my mission, who I have never personally met. For one of them, Liv, we are going to the temple to be sealed as a family in the week or two after I get back.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Little time

Dear friends and family:

I don't have much time today, unfortunately.

Things are going well. We dropped the family of 8 that we were teaching. (They came to church because they wanted to visit, but they said that they didn't like the way that we worshiped.)

But part way through the week, a Haitian man who was driving around in his car stopped Elder Mears and Elder Robishaw while they were biking (no, he didn't hit them) and asked them if they were Mormons. They explained that yes, they were, expecting him to be anti because of the way that he asked it. Instead, he said, "so when can you guys come by and visit me?" We went by to see him and his family the next day, and he was excited to come to church. He had been to church with us one time, seven years ago, and he told us that he didn't like the way other churches ran things, but he was very impressed with the "Mormon church" and he told us it was the only church he would ever consider going to consistently. Yesterday, he came to church with two of his sons (ages 8 and 9) and they all enjoyed church a lot.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Rough Week

Dear friends and family:

This week was a rough one for Elder Storm and I. We worked hard, but we had very little success regardless. We knocked doors for much longer than we usually do, and we focused on asking for referrals from everybody, but even with all of that we still did not find anyone to teach throughout the week. We had one new investigator for the week, and she is going to be out of town (in Canada) for the next two weeks.

The family of 8 who came to church last week also came this week, but they were late to sacrament meeting again, so they still won't be able to be baptized (the four baptismal age, at least) until the 18th. It's a struggle to teach them, because other than on Sundays, they are never together at home. They all have different schedules, and no matter what time we go over we usually only find one or two of them there. We're excited to work with them more, we're just hoping that they stay strong and keep working for their dates, even though in some of their cases we can't really see them on days other than Sunday.

On the fourth of July, we had to be home at 7:30 instead of 9, because of the nature of celebrations here in Miami (and south Florida in general.) So I made funnel cake for the first time in my life. (Epic failure.) Then we watched the Testaments. (Another epic failure. Did you ever notice the cameraman in the one scene? Or the random black guy in the background in another? Or...)

Thanks,

Elder Slade

New address

Dear friends and family:

We baptized Louisane and Jonal this week! It was one of the most stressful baptisms I've had on my mission. It seemed like everything was going wrong. The baptism was scheduled for 3:00 pm, but as we started preparing for it we discovered a leak in the church building, and our bishop (who was going to baptize them) called and said that he couldn't come anymore, he had an emergency that he had to take care of. He was also going to give them a ride to the church for the baptism, because they don't have access to a car on Saturdays because somebody else uses it to drive to work. So we tried our best to get everything resolved and to keep the baptism at 3:00, but when we drove the the investigator's house to help the other member we asked to give them a ride find them, we discovered that Jonal had been in a car accident earlier that day, and that both of them were very shaken up. Louisane was worried that Jonal had some sort of health complication despite the fact that he said he didn't feel any pain. We weren't sure what to do, but the baptism definitely wasn't going to happen at 3.

Then we decided to try to join our baptism with the baptism for the Spanish ward that was going to happen at 6:00 the same day. So we scrambled to make all of the phone calls, and to talk with Louisane and Jonal and to convince them that God still wanted them to be baptized on the same day. To make a very long, stressful story short, we finally managed to get them to the church and to have them baptized. The baptism started a little late, and it was a bilingual baptismal service, so it took twice as long as it would have in normal circumstances... but Louisane and Jonal are baptized finally, and they were confirmed yesterday!

IMPORTANT! By the way, our mission office is changing the way that we handle mail. They will send you a letter with more details. Basically, don't send my anything at the mission office address any more. They don't want to worry about forwarding things to wherever we live. Instead, send things to our home address. Currently, I live at:

18441 NE 20th Ave

North Miami Beach, FL 33179

...No, I don't live on the beach. The mission doesn't want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a single apartment there.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Baptism!

Dear friends and family:

We baptized this week!

The story: A few weeks ago, I thought of a less-active member who was baptized the week before I got into Florida, almost 2 years ago. Her name is Mikerlange. I thought, 'we should go and see her.' And so we went and saw her. We found out that her daughter, who had been 7 at the time that she, her husband, and her other daughter were baptized, was now nine. We went back to see them several times and got the ward involved in supporting them and encouraging them to go to church. And we set her daughter with a baptismal date for the 20th.

Skip ahead until last week: Mikerda is now ready to be baptized, we set up her interview with the zone leaders (because the district leader is sick.) We show up to the interview early to fill out the baptismal record. We write in all of the information, and I notice something odd about her birthday. As it turns out, when Haitians say that they are nine, they really mean that they are eight years, eleven months, and two weeks old. So we cancelled the interview, scheduled another one with the bishop, and went ahead with the baptism as a child of record baptism instead.

So... no baptisms in the mission. Instead, we helped the ward do a non-convert baptism!

Next week we will have two solid convert baptisms as well. Lusane and Jonal have been to church three times now, and they finally accepted a hard date for the 27th. We've scheduled their interview for this Wednesday, and their baptism will be on Saturday. Hooray!

Also, our ward had a father's day activity after the baptism on Saturday. It was really slow at first, with not a lot of participation, but after 30-40 minutes the entertainment came. Apparently, they had hired a Mariachi band to come and play for the activity. Everybody was very excited for that, and many people got up to start dancing. It was really fun to watch. I recorded several minutes of audio, but I lost my cord to connect my recorder to the computer, so I can't send it to anybody unfortunately.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Good Week

Dear friends and family:

We had a really good week again. We're very excited for many of our investigators. We had six total investigators come to church this week, and three of them can be baptized this Saturday.

Mikerda is extremely solid. She is the daughter of a member who was baptized the week before I got into Florida almost two years ago, and she is very prepared to be baptized and she is excited to come to church each week, and to help others receive the gospel as well. We had a lesson on missionary work, and we asked her what she can do to make sure that as many of her friends as possible get to live with her and God in the celestial kingdom. She told us that she wanted to help others come to church and want to be baptized, because otherwise it would be really lonely when we got to heaven and some of her friends weren't there!

Lusane and Jonal are also excited to come to church. Lusane had a dream where she went to a restaurant and she was served a half-plate of white rice and a half-place of brown rice. And here we come, a half-companionship of white missionary and a half-companionship of brown missionary. I'm not being racist, just frank. She wants to be a part of the church, but she is very hesitant because she is afraid that she will be baptized and then will realize that she made a mistake and will regret doing it. So again we're hoping to help her recognize her answer as she reads the Book of Mormon so that she can be baptized with Mikerda this Saturday.

I don't have much time today, so that's all I have time to tell you!

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Staying in Miami

Dear friends and family:

Transfer calls were yesterday. I'm staying in Miami, with Elder Storm, for another transfer!

We had a pretty good week, with just a few hitches. Our biggest strength this week was we were consistent with getting members out to lessons with us, and so we even improved on that from last week. One of our biggest weaknesses was that our work with recent converts and less actives suffered a lot this week, and got almost zero attention as a result. So we'll be working on improving and balancing out our efforts throughout the week, so that no specific task or group of people gets shafted.

Part way through the week, I started having a large amount of pain in my throat, paired with bad headaches and ear aches that felt like ear infections. I thought that it was strep. When we called the mission nurse, she prescribed a few medications and told me to stay home for three days. I did my best to work things out with other companionships so that we could go on exchanges and continue to get work done in both areas for the days that I was out of commission. I'm back to working now, but I still don't feel 100% better. My throat doesn't hurt like strep anymore, but my headache and ear aches become very distracting when I forget to take ibuprofen to keep it down. If they don't go away on their own in another day or two, I'll call the mission nurse again and get it worked out so that it doesn't become a bigger issue.

This Sunday, we were rounding up our investigators to come to church, and we had a ride set up for several of them. We arrived there to help the investigators get in the car, and we discovered that the car that our member was going to drive them in had developed a flat tire. We weren't sure what to do, but we stayed around and helped him fix the problem, even though church was starting in just a few minutes. We arrived at church 30 minutes into sacrament meeting, and were just barely on time to take the water from the foyer. (There has been several baby blessings beforehand, fortunately.)

One of the investigators who came to church is named Mikerda. She is the 9-year-old daughter of a less-active member (Mikerlange) who was baptized the week before I came into Florida more than a year and a half ago. They all came to church together as a family, and they all really enjoyed it. Mikerda is probably one of the smartest 9-year-olds I have ever met. She's probably one of the smartest investigators I've ever met, in fact. We asked her to read in the Book of Mormon; when we came back, she had read the first six chapters, and she proceeded to describe to us exactly what happened in those chapters, and what she thought it meant. Elder Storm and I are both happy that we're still here together to help her be baptized on the 20th.

Yesterday I tried to cook a meal for lunch. I boiled a bunch of vegetables and fried some chicken, then I combined the vegetables and chicken and fried them together for a little bit. I boiled the vegetables for too long, so they were mushy and came off on the chicken, making it look like I had added pesto or some sort of guacamole. Also, I forgot to season it. I won't be trying that again for a while. :)

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Missionaries get sick too!

Dear friends and family:

This week was one of the rougher weeks I've had on my mission again. It wasn't that Elder Storm and I didn't get along, we got along very well this week actually. It was rough because starting late Tuesday/early Wednesday, Elder Storm and I both started getting sick. We received a cold from one of our investigators. (It was an unwelcome gift, but we graciously accepted anyway.) We then proceeded to miserably work through the brunt of it until it became too rough to keep going, and we went home an hour/an hour and a half early (on Thursday, I believe) to take care of our runny (and bloody) noses and a small fever that I had started developing.

Lesson learned. Don't try to work through a debilitating sickness, just stay home and that way you'll heal up quicker and be more effective when you get back to work.

We had some promising investigators that we picked up at the start of the week, but we lost contact with each of them by the end of the week, and when we went to round them up on Sunday morning, we were unable to talk with any of them. I think we might have scared them off by our runny noses and sniffly testimonies. :P Hopefully none of them caught the cold from us.

One of the highlights of the week was the Haitian conference on Saturday. It was really a fantastic event. I've never before seen so many Haitian saints in the same place. The turnout of the conference was over 400 people from the seven stakes, but I know that just from the Miami Shores ward, there were many Haitians that were unable to come because of work or transportation issues. The conference bodes well for creating another Haitian Creole branch in the near future, which I understand is one of the underlying purposes they had in organizing the conference. I hope that I am still in my mission when that happens.

Another thing that was great about this week is that Abigaile came to both the conference, and to church just yesterday. That is the third week in a row that she has come to church, despite the fact that she still does not believe in Joseph Smith or the restoration. It just goes to show how much better it is for a member to invite friends to come to church than for us to invite random people who we just met. It's difficult enough for us to get people to come to church even a single time, but here we have a member who invited a friend to come to church, and she's come three times already!

We received the conference ensign this Tuesday, and I've been trying to study the talks during personal study. I've been keeping tally of the general topics of the talks so far, and I've had to laugh again at how many of the talks are about marriage and families. More than half of the Saturday morning talks are directly about it, while almost all of them mention it at least briefly.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

P.S. Next week, my P-Day will probably be on Tuesday due to the holiday on Monday.

In Miami

Dear friends and family:

It was really fun to skype with all of you and to see you again! It was also good to finally meet with Ben and to hear about how you are all doing. That was the last time that we will skype, the next time we'll talk to each other will be on September 3rd, when I go home. (I still have 4 months left.)

Elder Storm and I are having a great time in Miami. There are still a lot of rough spots, but it's really fun to be together.

Thank you for all of the packages as well. I made no-bake cookies today, but I haven't eaten any yet so I don't know how they turned out. I also loved the T-shirt from Neumont University. It makes me happy to wear it :D. I received both packages right on time, the day before my birthday.

We had two investigators come to church this Sunday. One of them also came the week before; her name is Abigaile. One of the young women in the ward had invited her to come, and so she agreed, and then we set up a meeting with her. We taught her several times this week. She is excited to prepare for baptism, but she doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon or the restoration, and she feels like she won't be ready to be baptized for several more months, or years. But she has come to church two times now, and so we're again just going to focus on the Book of Mormon, so that she can gain a testimony of the Restoration, and she can feel more ready to be baptized.

The other investigator who came to church is named Mackensie. He is a former investigator, who works almost every Sunday, and so has very few opportunities to come to church. We'll try to see him again and get him pumped up for baptism, but the last time Elder Storm taught him he seemed to be pretty adamant that he wouldn't be ready to be baptized for a long time. (More so than Abigaile.)

In my personal study, I just finished reading the Book of Mormon again on Saturday.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Back in Miami

Dear friends and family:

I'm back in Miami! It's time for round three!

Miami Shores Creole is by far my favorite area that I have served in. I'm so excited to find and teach the people who God has prepared for me here.

My new companion, Elder Storm, is doing great. He is Haitian! His first language(s) are Haitian Creole and French. His accent is going to help me! I really admire the fire that he has for the work. You could see it especially on Sunday morning, with how much energy he exhibited while we were rounding up for church. Without his diligent efforts we would not have been able to get Roberto, one of our investigators, a ride; but because of him, he came to church and is progressing towards baptism. It is a little rough sometimes to be his companion just because of communication issues. He speaks English well, but we misunderstand each other often due to our different cultures - cultures in the mission, as well as demographic cultures.

We had four investigators show up to Sacrament meeting. Our most promising investigator is named Roberto. Elder Storm and Elder Claude had been teaching him for about two weeks already, and now we're teaching him. He came to church for the first time this Sunday, and he really wants to be baptized. We've already made plans to see him every day so that he can be ready to be baptized.

All of the seven stakes in our mission are putting on a Creole Conference in about two weeks. It will be a full-day event, about all sorts of topics, mostly in relation with temples and family history. We've gotten a lot of people committed to come, and we can't wait to go there and to be a part of it. The new things that are happening in the church with regards to Haitians are fantastic, not the least of which is the new temple announced in Port-au-Prince.

Some of you already knew that I was back in Miami, from something on Facebook that Karen Putnam Guillian put out yesterday. She and her husband had moved to Miami the second time I served in Miami, over 8-9 months ago. We didn't know that we were related. It was only a few days/weeks ago that she read an email about Britney being married that she made the connection and thought that we might be related. Then, I came back into the area and we found out that she and my mom are cousins. We had no idea this whole time. (Note from Nancy...Brandon wasn't quite sure who Karen was when she introduced herself while she was there visiting her son, Brandon and his wife Camille, and new daughter...hence the confusion of Karen being Brandon's wife, not mother. I filled in the blanks when we were emailing today!)

It's also really interesting to see time pass. About nine months ago, shortly after Brandon Guillian became our ward mission leader, Elder Fisher and I were some of the first to get the announcement that Karen (Note again from Nancy: Camillle, not Karen)  Guillian was pregnant. (We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.) Now, I'm back, about a week after she gave birth. That really puts things into perspective for me. Time really is blowing by, extremely quickly!

Mother's day: I can't wait to skype with all of you! According to a letter from President, the rules have changed again. I can skype with you all for 40 minutes now, not just 30. Do you know if Britney and her new husband will be there? I'll call on Sunday morning for 1-2 minutes just to finalize plans, but it will probably be around 3-3:30, my time, when we actually start the call. What skype username will you all be using?

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Transferring out of Miami Shores

Transfer calls happened last night. As it turns out, I am leaving Miami Shores again. I've been there for two transfers now, which makes four total because I was there for two when I started my mission. I still don't know where I'm going and I still don't know who my new companion will be.

I am sad but resolved as I prepare to leave Miami Shores, Creole for the second time. I had wanted to stay, but I had expected to leave. Now I am busy packing, but my companion and I are also resolved have the area in a very good condition when my replacement comes in to work with Elder Fisher. We'll make sure the Area Book is completely up to date, and we'll keep working hard tonight to find more solid investigators and keep our current ones solid.

In Miami, our two most solid investigators are still Pauline M. and her fiancée. They are working towards being married and then baptized. They have already met with Brother Acevedo to take his marriage counseling class, now the thing that is holding them back is that they don't feel ready to be married. They feel like they have to prepare and plan a lot before they can be married. Elder Fisher and his new companion will keep working with them to build more urgency and to get them focused less on the preparations for their marriage and more on the temple.

I enjoyed specialized training a lot this past week as well. We had to drive 50 miles up to Boynton Beach for the training and then back, which puts us in a bad spot for miles today (on the last day of the month), but I really loved President Richardson's training on repentance and baptism. I feel like I understand more what investigators need to do before they can be prepared and ready to make the step of baptism. In addition, it helped me to understand more fully what promises I made at my baptism and I learned several things that I can be doing to improve and to more fully keep those promises.

Unfortunately we did not receive iPads at this specialized training. It looks like there are technical difficulties in other places in the world which are preventing new missions from receiving iPads. As far as we know, our mission won't be getting them until January or February of next year. They pushed back their plans while they resolve those problems. Sad face.

For those of this email's recipients who are not in my immediate family: it looks like my family will get to adopt my new sister, Liv. If only I had ever once even seen her...!

For those who are in my immediate family: I might have to mention that Liv is a much better name than Olivia. Liv means book in Haitian Creole, but Olivia makes me think of olives, especially the dried out kind that you can sometimes find sitting out on our table because I forgot to put it in the fridge the night before after I finished eating. Heh heh. Liv is clearly the better name.

For those of you who are serving in the FFLM, or who at one point have: you may be interested to know that the Miami Shores (Creole) elders now are in a two-man apartment. Our roommates moved out just yesterday to a new apartment, to live with the Miami Beach (Creole) elders. So last night, we slept alone in our apartment. It was a relatively quiet night. And now I'm moving out anyway, so I only have the two days to spend in a two-man apartment.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Trying Week

Dear friends and family:

This week was a trying week for me and my companion. Because of accomplishing standards last week, we were all geared up to work with all of the awesome people we had in church last Sunday. But, as the week went on, all of them had things come up that caused them to not want to go to church again or even to see us again, in some cases. It was a struggle to keep our spirits high as all of these things were happening. On Saturday morning, it was looking bleak. We didn't have anyone committed to come to church.

But then we had a miracle! We were finally able to meet with Pauline, one of the investigators who came to church last week. She wasn't interested in being baptized until after she and her fiancee were married next year. But we visited them together, taught the restoration, and then testified about baptism. They wanted to be baptized, but still not until after they were married. (They were not living together, so it shouldn't have been a problem.) So we changed strategy and helped them to realize that they could be legally married this week, and then baptized, and they could have a big celebration for both afterward. Next year, for all we care. They both thought this was a great idea, and so they met with Brother Acevedo for the marriage counseling class after church. They are still very excited to be married, and then to be baptized. If the bishop is available this week, they will be married and baptized this week. If not, then it will be next week.

This will be the first couple that I help to be married on my mission so that they can be baptized. Elder Fisher and I were very careful to emphasize the importance of being sealed in the temple a year after their baptism, and they are both looking forward to that too.

We, unfortunately, fell short of the standards of excellence this week. But we'll repent, and we'll get them this week instead! And then the week afterward! And on and on indefinitely!

Again, we can't wait for specialized conference this Wednesday. We're a little bit bummed that it's all the way in Boynton Beach, even though it would be much less of a drive to get to Miami Lakes the next day. We're going to have to be very careful with our miles these next ten days...

So, Grandma had amnesia temporarily? That doesn't sound like fun. How much of the day did she remember after prodding her memory?

And Gabe is going to NYC. I've always wanted to go to New York, all of you are so lucky!

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Only one year left!

Dear Friends and Family:

This week, we achieved standards in all key indicators! Yay! This is the first time in my mission that I have done it. I've come close one other week when I was with Elder Bailey, but I fell short on a few of them.

On Sunday, we needed three more member present lessons and a member blessing, and it seemed like we weren't going to be able to get them. None of the members we called were able to come out with us, and we were getting close to the time that we had to go out to a lesson. Then, the last person we called finally said he could come out teaching with us! So we went and picked him up, and we started going to visit all of our investigators. But we literally visited ten or so homes, finding out that none of them were there, before we actually had a lesson! We just barely achieved standards for MPLs, but God blessed us for working hard to get the member out with us and we had three excellent lessons with him!

Elder Fisher and I are getting along well. Much better than we did at the start of the transfer, and we are getting a lot of amazing work done. We had 8 people in sacrament meeting yesterday, from a family of five, and two individuals from part-member families, and one other individual. We are excited to have six baptisms next week!

Our ward just got a new Ward Mission Leader, Brother Giullian, so we are excited to work with him and to have closer unity with the ward.

In one of my studies this week or last, I started making a list of my recent converts and trying to see patterns. One thing I noticed is that almost all of my recent converts have neither 1. come teaching with us, or 2. gone to the temple. So that is one thing I really need to repent of and be better at. I'm going to place more of a focus on missionary work and on the temple in our lessons, and especially after these people are baptized, I'm not going to just let them go inactive without ever visiting the temple.

If any of you have sent me letters that have been returned home to you from the mission office, be rest assured, it's happening to everyone. For some reason, none of the packages or letters that are arriving in the mission office are being forwarded to the right places. They are all being returned to the sender. This is mission-wide, and the senior missionaries are doing their best to find out why this is happening and to fix the problem so that we junior missionaries can receive all of your letters and love-in-a-box. Thanks for your patience!

Unfortunately, as some of you have already remarked, this past week I hit my half-way mark on my mission. The week before I hit my year-to-home mark, and this upcoming week I'll hit my year mark. I know, it's sad, but really, I still have a year left! If you don't count the MTC, I've still got a few weeks until I even hit my half-way mark. So you probably don't have to bring it up for another 11 months or so...

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Christ-like Attributes

Dear Friends and Family:

This week, in Miami Shores Creole: Woodjemi N. was baptized! ...and confirmed! She is a 9-year-old who was not baptized when she was eight, although her parents are members. So our bishop asked us to work with her and her parents to get them baptized. Last Sunday, Gerald N. received the Priesthood, so that this Sunday, he could baptize her. It was a really good service. One of the concerns that the parents had was that the ward didn't care enough to show up at the baptism after church. But, the baptism was announced in all classes, and we and the other people in the ward council personally invited many people to attend, and we had a great showing for the baptism right after church.

Apart from that, we also had a terrific week. Our investigator, Witelane, came to church with her four-year-old son. She loved it, but she doesn't feel ready to be baptized quite yet. She wants to wait until December for some reason. But she says if God helps her to know it is His will, then she will be baptized sooner. So we'll keep working with her and we'll help her recognize the spirit.

One of our focuses this week will be having a better ratio between knocking on doors and blessing people's homes and getting follow-up appointments and new investigators. This last week, we were able to get an enormous amount of harvest blessings, but they didn't turn into quite as many new investigators as we would have liked. Also, we are planning on role playing trading off turns speaking in companionship study this week, so that we can better teach with unity.

This week in my personal study, I have been trying to work on some of the Christ-like attributes. I decided to start with humility, because it's something that I really don't have much of. I made a list of things that I can do be more humble and to rely more on the lord, and less on myself. In addition, our district leader committed both of us to do an act of service for each other each day, so I will also be doing that.

I really enjoy seeing the pictures that you all send, and reading your emails to know what you are all up to. I'm excited to finally see the new bedroom, and to know about the new roof that will be going up "without money and without price". It's almost as good as the gospel!

Thanks,

Elder Slade