Christmas!

Dear Family

This week while I was studying the Book of Mormon, I started making a list of ways that faith is strengthened - my own, and my investigators. The list is still in progress so I'm not going to share it. Also, in reading the scriptures, I've tried to apply them to myself so that I can know how to become a better missionary. Some of the things I've noticed are that we need to teach with meekness; and in D&C there's a scripture that asks something along the lines of "why will you continue to be blind guides" that I found by accident. I have scripture references that were meaningful written down, but they are not with me at the moment.

Yesterday, during companionship study we were studying chapter 11 and we both had a very revelatory experience. We both realized that PMG says pretty clearly that we should leave almost no conversations with anybody without inviting them to do something to come unto Christ. So we have committed ourselves for this week to do that with everybody we talk to, with the exception of other missionaries. We feel like this commitment was inspired of God and that he was guiding our studies through the spirit. It was a very meaningful study all in all. My relationship with my companion is getting much better. (Not that it was ever bad, it was just not as good.) I feel that that is the main reason the study was so great.

Thanks for the 12 days of Christmas gifts! We were able to guess all of them so far except for the pictures of Nathan and Mom and Dad, the hot chocolate, the jam/jelly, and the nativity set.

We used bikes a ton today. It was fun, I'm getting much more used to it, but it was also very physically exhausting. But we got back on track with our miles, so that means this week we'll be able to use our car more.

I don't have much time to email today so that's where I'll end.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Christmas!

Hey family! I LOVE YOU!!!!

We had a mission Christmas program this morning and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong!

We have seen so many miracles this week! It seems that the Lord likes to test us- He leads us right to the end of where we think we are about to reach our limit, just to see if we will still give Him our all. Then right when we're not sure how much longer we can do it, He showers us with blessings!

The first miracle of the week is that we made contact with Samantha! Samantha is a former that the Elders taught. She's been through the discussions twice, has a testimony, and has been on date for baptism twice, but the adversary works hard, and both times she fell off date because she got so busy and I think the commitment started to scare her. We've been trying to contact her since getting here, and we finally found her at home! We sat down with her and had a great time getting to know her and talking about how she has come to know that this is the direction that she wants to pursue! Now that she is not as busy she is going to talk with her aunt who is a member about the best date to be baptized. When we meet with her again on Wednesday we're going to take Elder Combe's advice to "Just baptize her already." haha :)

So many fun things this week! Friday night we had ward Karaoke, and it was a BLAST! I seriously have not have that much fun in a long time! It was like I was a totally normal person or something... :) Everyone has been telling me that once you go YSA as a missionary you never want to go back, and I think I agree! We also had a huge turnout to volleyball, and F.H.E, both of which had a few not-yet members attend! Oh! And we invited Mark, one of our potentials to Karaoke, and he texted us later saying he couldn't come, but when he gets back into town in the new year he would like to sit down with us and learn more! :) Saturday we went caroling as a district and it was the greatest! Some of the Elders weren't too fond of the idea, but I think they secretly had fun.

HUGE miracle from yesterday- we were in the foyer talking with people right before sacrament meeting and this guy walks in with his pants soaking wet because he rode his motorcycle to church. (Why would you own a motorcycle in Washington!?) It took us a few moments to recognize him, but he pulled out one of our cards and showed us the address we had written on the back of it- turns out we knocked on this guys door last week and invited him to church! Don't you love it when random people you invited to church show up out of nowhere!? We were able to talk with James right before he left, and we set up an appointment for later this week, and he is also going to be coming to Christmas Eve dinner at Bishops with us and the zone leaders. In the words of Bishop Knoblaugh, "That's how you net them... oops, I mean... reach out to them." :)

We had a stroke of inspiration from the spirit and took an inactive individual we've been working with as our fellowshipper to a lesson with Jose this week. The spirit was strong and she did a wonderful job! Afterwards she said that she wanted to come to church!!! Unfortunately she got really sick so she wasn't able to make it, but next weeks the wek!

Oh! So crazy thing that happened- we went to visit this less active guy named Juan, and when get there he starts talking about the "Elder Burgi" that baptized him when he was in California. Sister Glancy was like, "Hold up, hold up!" Turns out, Elder Burgi is Sister Glancy's best friend that got back from his mission a few months before she left. Juan called Andrew Burgi right there, and put him on speaker phone and said, "Hey Elder Burgi, you'll never guess who's sitting in my living room!" We didn't talk to him of course, but it was crazy! Juan ended up having a really great conversation with "his missionary" afterwards, and I think that that connection meant a lot to him. The best part is... Juan showed up to church yesterday!!!! The Lord works in mysterious ways, let me tell you.

So many more things to talk about... I guess I;ll just have to save them until Wednesday. :) Love ya!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

love, love, love, Sister Slade

 Sister Glancy and I (above) and it snowed - my little snowman (below).

God sees you us as we can become, but loves us as we are!

Hello family,

This week has been a test of my faith. Sister Glancy and I have been working really hard. I don't think I've been more exhausted my entire mission, but I also have never had fewer people to teach. Nevertheless, the Lord ALWAYS keeps His promises, and even when he decides that He wants to test my patience and diligence, I always know that if I hold out until the end, He will bless me. Sister Glancy and I have had some WONDERFUL tender mercies this week. Here are a few of them:

Last Tuesday Sister Glancy and I focused a lot on less active work and were blessed to teach 5 lessons to less active individuals- 2 of which were unplanned! Some of these individuals have agreed to be taught the missionary lessons, which we are really excited about, especially since I have seen this help a lot with reactivations in the past. A few of these individuals even showed up at our ward Christmas party on Saturday, so that was really exciting!

Towards the end of the week we were starting to lose steam. We had 5 or 6 lessons with potential investigators scheduled, and all of them had fallen through. Very few times on my mission have I had a week where we did not find at least one new investigator when I could honestly say that we had worked as hard as we possibly could. Saturday came around, and we were SO grateful to hear back from a guy named Yassine that we were still good to come over later that day! Yassine is 27 and he going to school here although he is actually from Morocco. We found out that he is a nonpracticing Muslim, but he stayed with a Christian host family a few years ago here, and he said that he went to church with them a few times. He said that he would get emotional whenever he was in church, and there was one time that he saw somebody be baptized and he felt really warm and like he was going to cry. Ever since then he has been experiencing a growing curiosity about Christianity. We focused our lesson around recognizing the holy ghost and his purpose in testifying of truth. It was touching to me to hear how Yassine has had these experiences that have helped to prepare him to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ!

One thing that we are going to have to work out this next week is that we found out that we need special permission from President Bonham to teach a Muslim. Hopefully Yassine isn't too intimidated to allow President Bonham to join us for our lesson on Tuesday. Not only that but if someone who is Muslim decides that they want to be baptized, a member of the seventy has to come to interview, and the candidate for baptism essentially has to promise that they will never go back to the middle east again because of the potential violence that could happen to them there. I've been going over different scenarios in my head, and over the last few days I've asked myself a few times- Do I have enough faith in this message that we share that I could invite someone to be baptized, knowing full well that the implications of that may be complete loss of family, friends, and culture? Another question I've been contemplating that I've actually wondered a lot on my mission, is why is it that I was born into a family that has the gospel of Jesus Christ and taught me about it from a young age?

I had an amazing experience during my personal study one day this week where I felt like everything that I needed to study was being given to me. It was like the spirit was enlightening my mind; a continual flow of thoughts and questions and scriptures and it was the coolest experience that has happened to me a few times on my mission so far! The topic that I felt was given to me to study this week was sacrifice. Why are we required to sacrifice, and what examples of sacrifice have we had in the past? I don't have nearly enough time to express everything that I learned, but here are a few quotes I thought about during my study that I will leave for you to think about too. The first is a quote by Elder Holland in a talk called "Missionary Work and the Atonement"- I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary. Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price." The other quote I loved is from an individual who was in the Martin Handcart Company: "The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company."

Sister Glancy's family sent her some Christmas decorations, so we decorated a little tree earlier this week. I'm loving opening my 12 days of Christmas, by the way! Sister Glancy and I did find some ugly Christmas sweater vests from the local Goodwill, in case you are wondering. And yes, we do make ugly sweaters look good. Maybe if we proselyte in them enough we'll find more investigators. Or perhaps we should just proselyte in Seahawks jerseys- i don't know if anyone else is aware of how the football season is going, but based off of hearsay at people's doors I've been predicting a Seahawks-Broncos faceoff in the Superbowl for a few weeks now!

I love you all and can't wait to talk to you next week!

Love, Sister Slade

Harvesting

First of all, thanks for all of the letters and packages! They mean a lot to me. Especially thanks for the 12 days of Christmas package. I opened day 11 on day 1, and I'll open day 1 on day 11. Thanks for everything!

This week from my study in the Book of Mormon I have been reading in Alma, near the end. It's a bunch of war chapters. One thing that I noticed that I am going to try to apply to my own life is that the 2000 stripling warriors are obedient because they have faith: "according to their faith it was done unto them." So even though it's hard to be 100% obedient in everything, I know that if I have faith and rely on the Lord he will help me do it. Also, in the same chapter, it states that faith is a gift from God, and if we pray and sincerely ask for it, then he will bless us with an increased testimony and greater faith.

Probably the greatest spiritual experience I had this week was on Monday. We were harvesting after helping install a printer for a member, and we were both doing our best to make the harvest session meaningful. We only received two blessings, but I felt the spirit very strongly and I want to do my best to have the same sort of experiences every time we harvest. Another time this week, we harvested into a husband and wife - the husband was stuck in bed because of a car accident, and the wife had to work to provide for the two of them. That blessing was another spiritual experience, and it really increased my faith that the miracle of healing can happen through faith.

Transfers are this week, that's why my P-Day is a Tuesday. My companion and I are both staying, but we live with the zone leaders and one of them is going home this week. The other is returning at the end of this next transfer. So I'll find out who the next zone leader is tomorrow, who I'll be living with.

The ward I'm serving in is going to split at the end of this year. When it does, we will be going to both the ward and the branch that is splitting off. So each Sunday we will have 6-7 hours of church. Add in our 3 hours of studies somewhere, an hour of harvesting, an hour of round up, and an hour between the two meetings, and that's our day. Busy, busy.

The language is coming slowly, but it is coming. I understand much more today than I did a month ago, but I still have a long way to go before I can actually speak Haitian Creole fluently.

A funny harvesting experience: this week after we said the prayer, we all stood up and the person we were praying with ripped his pants while he was standing. That was awkward.

We had another exchange this week. The difference is that I took over the area, while my companion went somewhere else. I drove for the first time in Miami. I was terrified, but I didn't crash and I didn't make any huge mistakes. I was more than ready for that transfer to end - I wasn't sure what to do at any given time.

We biked a while yesterday because we've used a lot of miles this month. Then we locked the keys to our car in the car's trunk, and the car was locked. A senior missionary had to drive down from the mission office in order to unlock it for us. That was fun.

Now I'm out of time.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Tracting Lots

Hey family,

It feels like so much happens during the week and then I sit down to write an email and I really don't know what to say. It was so great to hear about the cruise that you guys went on! And I LOVED the pictures! Hopefully I'll get more personal accounts of the trip from all the siblings soon... :)

The highlight of this week was teaching Jose again. He is our only solid investigator in our very shallow teaching pool, and we are very grateful for him! In our lesson on Tuesday he asked us if baptism is important (What a golden question!) and he agreed to a soft commit for baptism. :) Unfortunately he got sick this weekend so we had to cancel our lesson on Saturday and he wasn't able to make it to church yesterday, but hopefully this next week! We also have a few other potential investigators that we have lessons scheduled with, so pray that some if not all of them will follow through!

Being in this area and feeling like we are starting from ground zero has really been making me stretch, and I absolutely love it. I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life. I feel absolutely exhausted all of the time, and every morning that we fall out of bed I have to pray for a while just begging Heavenly Father to give me the energy and desire I need to give my all that day. He always pulls through for me. In Oak Harbor Sister Anderson and I had built up the area to the point that we had some days we were teaching back-to-back lessons. We thought that we were exhausted from that, but Sister Glancy and I are finding (mostly tracting) all day long and that's definitely harder. It's started to get really cold, which makes it harder because nobody wants their door open, even if they're polite, for more than 10 seconds. As a result of this, Sister Glancy and I have started to get creative. We've sung hymns at doors a few times, we've asked people what they think Santa's favorite kind of cookie is, and we've started carrying a stocking around with us and asking people to write on a sticky note their gift to the Savior for the coming year and put it inside the stocking. It always makes us happy when people agree to participate! ( Side note from my personal study this week- God the Father and Jesus Christ are both creators of circumstances, not creatures of circumstances. I have learned that creativity is a Godlike attribute.)

One thing that I am learning over and over again, is that this work absolutely without a doubt cannot move forward without the members. Some days we knock doors all day long with visibly no success and very few people who even give us the chance to testify, and that's frustrating. If you trust the missionaries in your wards, please please please please PLEASE invite your friends to learn from the missionaries! Invite them to come to church! Invite them to attend your family home evenings! Invite like crazy! You succeed when you invite, whether they say yes or no, and if you are inviting because you care about someone, the invitation will never be taken the wrong way. Can you imagine what would happen if ever member of the church invited one of their friends to learn from the missionaries before Christmas? I can't wait to hear about all of your missionary experiences- both the ones that resulted in a yes and the ones that resulted in a no! In the words of my old District Leader, "GO, GO, BAPTIZE!!"

This week my study has been focused a lot on the theme of how God always keeps his promises. The scriptures are filled with "IF-THEN" promises that are absolutely incredible. Some of the scriptures I have found have been so powerful to me that Sister Glancy and I have turned our door into a "promise door" where we can look at sticky notes that have promises written on them whenever we leave the apartment each day. How about this one: "If ye are faithful, then ye shall be laden with many sheaves." Sounds pretty straight forward to me. I can't wait until Heavenly Father rewards our hard work by giving us more investigators than we can handle ourselves.

Later today Sister Glancy and I are going thrift shopping to see if we can find any ugly Christmas sweaters for the ward Christmas party this Saturday. I think I'm also going to see if I can find some more tights, I've been tripling up on tights and I'm still freezing. We've had a few close calls where Sister Glancy almost had to amputate my toes.

Love, Sister Slade

P.S. We've been trying to come up with a name for our GPS, and so far it's a tie between "Lost" and "Sister Garmin" What are your thoughts?

Lots of Updates

Hey family!

We didn't get to write yesterday because of Veterans day, so we have very little time to write today, but I'll try to see what I can do in the next 20 minutes. (This may be slightly scrambled!)

This last week was definitely one of the busiest of my mission, we taught so many lessons it was ridiculous! Hopefully this week shapes up to be the same. I am exhausted. So exhausted that yesterday morning both Sister Anderson and I slept right through the alarm clock, something that neither of us have ever done before! Luckily Sister Anderson woke up at 7:10 and realized what had happened and we both jumped out of bed (Or more like flopped out of bed.) I'm not sure how much longer I can do this kind of schedule, it is so draining in every way. It's funny though, because I can't exactly pray for fewer people to teach, I can only pray for more strength. He is blessing us too much!!!!!!!

Tina and Earl Blackmer are on date to be baptized December 14th!!! So funny story. Weeks and weeks ago we were going to contact a potential, and the potentials neighbor was just getting out of her car and called to us, asking if we were the mormon missionaries. She told us that she was a less active member who was baptized years and years ago in Oregon, but she felt very pushed into her baptism, so she didn't really understand and she wanted us to come back and reteach her the lessons. We've been teaching them for a few weeks now, all the while trying to figure out why we couldn't get their records. Last week they met with the bishop and found out that their daughter who is very opposed to the church had forged a letter asking to have their names removed, so they are no longer members. Tina and Earl told the Bishop that their faith has been renewed in recent weeks. It took having their records removed and hearing the lessons again to make them appreciate what a blessing it is to be a member of the church, and they are now preparing for baptism! Tina came to church on Sunday, and Earl is coming with her next Sunday! The Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes. :)

Jana has come to church 3 times now, and is loving it! It sounds like she feels that she may not be ready for a committment yet, even though she has told us that she believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, she believes the Book of Mormon is true, and has committed to keep all the commandments that we have taught her so far. Not sure what the disconnect is there, so hopefully we can figure that out when we see her later this week.

Steve is now on date for December 28. We decided that he needs more time for preparation and understanding. He didn't make it to church again :( He has a real desire to be baptized, and has expressed some very personal things to us regarding that decision on a few occasions, so we're still working to figure out what the disconnect is there too. The adversary works overtime on the strong, is what I'm thinking.

I think December is that best time to be baptized, because not only do you get to give the Savior a really excellent gift, but you get to start the new year fresh.

Scripture of the week: Alma 26:37. No explanation necessary. What does this scripture mean to all of you?

We got permission for Sister Bonham to do Jillian Michaels workouts in the mornings, so if I come home and you're wondering why I'm so ripped and toned, that would be why... :) If the Tillamook Mudslide ice cream in our freezer doesn't interfere, that is. :)

Love you all!

Sister Slade

P.S. Next tuesday is transfers. Eek!

Hey family!

Drum roll please... my companion and I have been asked to serve in the HALLS LAKE YSA ward!!! I am so excited! It's pretty crazy because prior to finding out our assignment I had been feeling like I was going to be put in a bike area, possibly in one of the smaller northern towns in the mission. I couldn't have been further away from the truth. I'm convinced that President purposely put me in the assignment that would scare me the most. He has a way of doing that. Our area basically covers suburban Seattle up to suburban Everett. YSA covers the whole stake, and half of our area is actually in the Seattle mission. I can relate to Elder Slade's comments about driving in Miami, because after being in Oak Harbor for so long, I am not used to the traffic and being smack dab in the middle of a big city. Because we work only with YSA ages 18-30, the work involves a ton of tracting, and a lot of giving referrals and hoping to receive them in return.

My companion is Sister Glancy, from Roosevelt, Utah. I LOVE her!! Basically we are the same person. It's so funny. She is so compassionate and gentle. She is tenderhearted and loving and already she has been such a good example to me! It's funny because after President paired us together she told me that when I had come up to meet her and the other new missionaries a few hours earlier, she had gotten a very distinct feeling that I was going to be her trainer, and what do you know! Sister Anderson told me the same thing when I was paired with her 2 transfers ago. President truly is inspired. Sister Glancy and I have this thing, I'm not even sure how it started, it just happened, where for our spiritual thought that we share with members we sing a hymn for them. I love it! (In case you were wondering, having dinner with members in a YSA ward consists of camping out on the living room floor eating Dominos pizza. :))

Being in a YSA ward is so different. But I've heard that once you go YSA, you never want to go back! You spend a ton of time with the members, which doesn't fully seem like missionary work. I feel like I'm back at BYU in some ways, but not. It's the weirdest thing. For example, every Thursday night we go to the church and play volleyball. Monday nights we have F.H.E., and on Wednesdays we can attend institute. This first week has been a little bit bumpy, especially since our first few days in the area we didn't have a map or organized area book or supplies or anything else. But somehow we've gotten through, and I know that this is going to be an amazing experience! We will be splitting the area with the Lynnwood Zone Leaders, Elder Combe and Elder Caruso. They have been a huge help to us. Elder Combe was my zone leader when I was born into Oak Harbor, and from what I've heard, He and Elder Caruso have been leading the mission. They are really excellent missionaries, and Sister Glancy and I are looking forward to learning more from them about how to develop our faith and love for the people! Tomorrow the Elders are going to show us how to contact at Edmonds Community College. Sister Glancy and I are strongly considering soap boxin it up. We figure, if it scares us, we should probably do it. WOO HOO!!!!

Elder Bednar came and spoke to all the missionaries in our mission on Saturday and it was amazing! We basically had a question-and-answer type meeting and the spirit was so strong! I learned a lot. I feel like writing about it doesn't do it justice, there was just so much! One thing that was emphasized is that President Monson has stated that the time for planting seeds is long past, and the time for harvesting is here. As exciting as this was to me, at the same time it made me feel a little bit sad too. I don't want it to be time yet when there are still hundreds that say no every week. The number of people we meet here who claim to be atheists is staggering to me, even more so than in Oak Harbor, and sometimes I walk away from a door feeling completely sick to my stomach with sadness for the lack of faith and hope that we see. Elder Bednar brought a much needed boost to my spiritual stamina after a crazy week filled with lots of change!

I'm about out of time. We only have an hour to email today, since our P-Day was moved to thanksgiving, But to close I just want to express how incredibly grateful I am for everything that the Lord has given me in my life. I feel overwhelmed pretty much all the time here when I think, "How did I ever get to be so blessed?" I am so grateful for family and friends and for a Heavenly Father who love me. I wouldn't be here is if it weren't for them. I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ which truly is the only way to find happiness. I am thankful for all of the tender mercies that we see every day, which are too numerous to count.

Thank you all for all of your prayers. Keep up that DAILY scripture study and prayer, even when your life feels too busy. In the words of Elder Bednar, "You make time for the things that matter most. If you're not making time then obviously it doesn't mean that much to you." Can't argue with a General Authority!

Love, Sister Slade

P.S. The scripture of the week is 1 Nephi 3:7. No matter how overwhelmed or how inadequate we may sometimes feel with the path that is placed before us in our lives, the Lord will never give us more than we can handle, and he will never leave us to do it on our own. I know that He lives! He is in the very details of our lives. He is in control, and he will never let us fail as long as we are willing to let Him catch us. Most of all, I KNOW that He loves us! Love you all!

Hello family!

I hope that you are enjoying your cruise! You are probably nice and warm and toasty right now, soak up that sunshine for me! The other day we were talking to a street contact and I started to compare faith to knowing that the sun will rise the next day just like in the primary song and then we all started laughing because we realized... wait a second... we're in Washington. Chances are, the sun probably won't shine tomorrow! haha

Whew! What a week! Sister Glancy and I had the chance to meet quite a few people from our ward in church yesterday, and that was great. (We had stake conference last week.) The YSA ward is so different, it reminds me of BYU in that they announced that everyone should "Come to the reception for Kristen and Tyler next weekend" in relief society, and one of the guys in our ward who got up on Sunday said that "I want to bare my testimony, that God has some of the best looking children out there in this ward." The greatest was in Missionary Correlation Meeting when we were discussing whether or not a girl the ward has been working with has officially been reactivated, and Bishop Knoblaugh said, "I happen to know from an inside source who shall remain anonymous that one of the guys in our ward took her on a date." There was a sudden chorus of "Oh yeah, she's reactivated! She's definitely reactivated!" and that was the end of the discussion. So funny!

I had to laugh at Elder Slade's picture last week of the Krispy Kreme donut boxes, because the apartment we moved into used to be the AP's, so it has been an Elder's apartment since the beginning of time, and let me tell you, the Elder's over the years have left some very interesting stuff there. The good news is we found a box of Christmas stuff in the closet! Last night Sister Glancy and I decorated and got really geared up for what is going to be the best Christmas of our lives! Every night until Christmas we put our Santa hats on, sit by the picture of Christ by the fireplace, turn on the Christmas lights, and we're taking turns choosing a Christmas hymn to sing. I'm still trying to decided what I'm going to put in Sister Glancy's stocking. It can be kinda hard to surprise someone when you're with them 24-7. :)

Sister Glancy and I were blessed to find a few new investigators this week, some more promising than others. One was a guy named Avery who we contacted at the college, but unfortunately when it came to keeping commitments he texted us and said, "Hey look, I'm not actually interested in becoming Mormon, I just think you guys are really cute. Can you come over again so I can get to know you better?" That was a huge bummer. Then there was the guy who said, "I don't care about your message, but I have to tell you, you are one smokin' hot religious lady." YSA missionary work is so different. We decided that our new game plan is to grow unibrows and proselyte in pajamas so that from now on we know if a guy really is an earnest seeker of truth.

We are excited about an investigator named Jose that we taught a first lesson to this week though! He was a referral from the Spanish sisters who have started teaching his mom who doesn't speak any English at all. Jose had already read all of the restoration pamphlet and started on the Book of Mormon when we went over, so he looks very promising!

We also started teaching an Indian guy named Ram who the Elders taught a while back. Ram is from India and there is definitely a language barrier there. It has given us good practice with teaching very simply and clearly. The elders told us to gauge his accountability by how well he keeps commitments. I don't think I mentioned this last week, but there is SO much diversity here! I love it! It's totally normal to see a woman walking down the street in a burqa, and last week we went into this Asian grocery store to use the restroom, and I swear the place was the size of a warehouse. It can be a little bit difficult because we've had quite a few instances where a language barrier has prevented us from being able to talk to someone, but it's been an experience.

Something that I came across in my study this week that I absolutely loved is Luke 9:62, which says "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." I realized this morning that as of today I have exactly a year until I go home. It feels like a long time but it's really not. I had this overwhelming feeling come over me that I absolutely do not want to waste even one minute of my mission. I know that this is time that is consecrated to the Lord. When we give our all to the Lord, I know that He blesses us.

Well, love you all!

Mail is a missionaries favorite gift at Christmas time! :)

Love, Sister Slade

P.S. Please tell Paul that WE FOUND A CHIPOTLE! Tender mercies of the Lord. :)

P.P.S. Bennett sent me an email with a 19 page report he wrote entitled "My LDS Conversion" that was absolutely beautiful. Only Bennett would do something like that. It may or may not have made me cry, but knowing me, that's probably no surprise to you all. :)

Transcribed letters from Brandon

Nov. 26:

Dear family:

I’m writing for a second week in a row because, miracle of miracles, I actually have a little free time.  (On P-day, of all the days.  Yeah, I’m as surprised as you all are!)

Missionary life is super busy but if allows me to meet tons of different types of people, and have tons of experiences that I wouldn’t normally have.  Maybe the greatest blessing for me is my testimony, which I feel like has tripled in size in the last two months.

I mentioned in my email that the way we proselyte here is called harvesting.  We are expected to harvest for at least an hour every day.  We knock on the door, ask them if we can say a special prayer with them, kneel down, ask what they want us to include in the prayer, and then say a priesthood blessing on the house and family.  I meet so many new people and personalities from doing this.

For example, one person asked for “destruction” in the prayer.  He was drunk.  Then he thought about it some more and clarified: destruction of the evil spirits in him.

One Haitian man let us finish our blessing then he immediately started to say his own pray.  After he was done, he started to sing a Haitian hymn at the top of his lungs.  I couldn’t keep a straight face.  I hope I didn’t insult him by that.

This week is Thanksgiving.  I’m going to go to a Haitian party and have Haitian food for it.  What are you doing for Thanksgiving?  I can probably imagine.  Tell me how close I am. You are all going to drive up to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house where Grandma will be making tons of food.  A lot of the family will be there.  After dinner, everyone will gather for a testimony meeting and to say what they are grateful for.  All the attendant mothers will tear up, especially Grandma.  Maybe even a few of the fathers.  Afterwards, you will all drive back home, taking with you a large Tupperware full of Grandma’s leftover food.  So, am I right?

If this letter gets to you before Thanksgiving, tell the Putnam Clan that I am grateful for all of the candy!

It’s kind of funny.  Most of the missionaries here are 19-22, but I still have half a year before I turn 19.  They all think it’s weird.  I do too, I’m not cut out for this!  I don’t think anyone is!  But it’s slowly getting easier, I just have to get used to it.  Actually, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the traffic in Miami, but I’ll be more than skilled enough to drive in Pueblo when I get backJ

I’m getting really good at making a bowl of cereal (bol kon flaks) for a quick meal in the morning because there’s not enough time to do more. (except Sundays, because we don’t exercise on Sundays)

Sorry it’s so short again, it’s too hard to get everything down in the time we have on P-days.

Thanks,

Elder Brandon Slade

Dec 3:

Dear family (again)

I’m starting to get better at doing things quickly.  The mission is so slow, and yet so fast-paced at the same time! I am very grateful for all of your letters, and especially for the photo of all of you.  I hope you all have a great time on the cruise!  I don’t really remember the one that I went on, except that I remember that I was grumpy in the Bahamas and our driver gave me a dollar bill.  I hope none of you have that problem.  Actually, not that I think about it, you won’t receive this letter until after you return, so I hope none of you had that problem!

I have had some pretty bad luck with exchanges so far.  The district leader is supposed to go on exchanges with each elder in his district at least once each transfer, so I’ve been with him one day, and with his companion another while he went on exchanges with Elder Winslow.  The first time, we had to go to a doctors office and so we didn’t really end up doing any work; the second time, we were stuck at the church out of our area because the car was being worked on.  There’s a chance in the near future that we’ll be doing exchanges again, but I’ll be staying in the area while my companion leaves.  I’m not ready to take over the area, even for a day, so I’ve been getting worried.

Once the temple is completed in our area, we’ll be able to go once a transfer.  But first we have to wait for the temple.

There’s a good chance that the boundaries of our mission will change to include the Bahamas when we get a new mission president in July.  There are a lot of Haitians in the Bahamas.  Do you have to have a passport to go there?

Also, do you need to get special permission to bury someone on their own land?  How exactly do you go about doing that?

When did you take the photo that you printed and sent to me?

I had a really good discussion with a couple other elders during one of my exchanges about good books that we’ve read.  It was a fun night, we had a good time.

Today is proving to be a very interesting day.  They were testing out the alarm system in the church while we played in the gym, so the fire alarm keeps going off.  And a lady knocked on the door halfway into a game and accused some of the sister missionaries of stealing her clothes.  The lady had been doing “surveillance” of the church (her own word) for the last few hours, and she said she spotted them wearing clothes that were stolen from her suitcase a while ago.  So we just searched the church building and we’ve been trying to get a hold of the sisters to have them come back, to try to find the mission suitcase (full of recently bought clothes) and to find out what happened to it.  Things are looking more and more like the sisters are innocent. (No surprise there.) Also, we had pizza for lunch, and I ate about 8 pieces myself, and I’m still hungry.  I know, I’m as surprised as all of you are. It just goes to show how much more energy I’m using compared to where I used to be.

I’ve been thinking for a while, and I decided that the best thing for me on my mission is if I am transferred to a different mission 6 months before the end, because then I would have a chance to see how other missions handle things, and I would have chance of serving with my old companions again.  That would be nice, but I don’t think it’s really likely.

P-day is nearing an end now.  I don’t have much more time left.  (in fact, I only have a few minutes.) So I just wanted to say: Thanks for everything, especially the family picture.  I’ll have to imagine myself and Britney in it at the same time.  (please don’t let Grandpa try to photoshop us in it, whatever you do!) My pile of send-home items is slowly getting bigger, but it’s still not big enough to be worth sending.

Lastly, I want to say that I am so grateful that I have this opportunity to serve a mission.  I have already been so blessed because of my choice to serve on, and I can’t imagine what I would be doing if I wasn’t serving a mission.  I know that this is the place where the Lord wants me, and consequently this is where I want to be.

Thanks,

Elder Brandon Slade

PS I am going through computer withdrawal.  I found myself typing on a fake keyboard on my desk yesterday.  It makes an interesting noise.