Its Rainin' Investigators

Hello family!

My new companion is Sister Goode from Disney Land, oops, I mean, Anaheim, California. She is funny, genuine, and filled with the spirit! We are looking forward to tearin it up this next transfer in Halls Lake YSA! We cover 9 companionships of sisters together, so we will have 2-3 exchanges per week,  our first one being this Thursday. I'm very excited!

This week, despite all the crazy change and schedules, has been one of the most fulfilling, miracle-filled weeks of my mission! We're short on time to email today, but even if I had the full amount of time I couldn't tell you about all of the amazing miracles we have seen! We'll save that for after the mission :)

So here goes! We put our investigators John and Bry on date for baptism this week. Both are earnestly seeking, and we are so excited for them! John is a guy who Sister Glancy and I contacted at the college last week. He says that he knows that God exists because of feelings he used to have when he would go hiking with his family in Colorado (Hmm. That sounds familiar!) John came to FHE and loved it! Unfortunately he had to work so he wasn't able to come to church, but he is reading the Book of Mormon, asking limitless questions about how Jesus Christ can help him in his life, and progressing wonderfully! Bry was our member referral! His brother and sister-in-law were recently baptized into the Beverly Park ward recently. Bry s a pretty quirky guy. He happens to be pro bowler so that's pretty cool! His prayers are some of the most genuine I have ever heard out here, perhaps only second to Verna's prayers. March is looking to be a great month for us!

Gabriel is still loving church and reading the Book of Mormon. He made me feel like a proud mama this week when he invited his stepbrother Alex to come to FHE and volleyball! Man oh man, this kid is an outstanding member missionary and he's not even a member yet! Gabriel was going to be moving to Texas but he told us this last Sunday that they decided to not move after all due to some things that happened in the family. God works in mysterious ways... perhaps Gabriel is meant to continue his progression including making the covenant of baptism, in this ward that he has grown to love so much? :)

This week we got a text message from a girl named Melissa basically saying "Hi, you knocked on my door last week, I want you to teach me the lessons." I didn't even remember who this girl Melissa was until we met her again. She was one of those "One last door" contacts, and Sister Glancy and I couldn't have talked to her for more than a minute last week before we had to run to our next appointment. Turns out Melissa has been dating a member and going to church with him in one of the family wards. When we came to visit her she told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon the last few months, she knows it's true, and she wants to be baptized, she just needs to take the discussions. (Which she has already taught herself through reading the pamphlets that she found online, by the way.) Heavenly Father, did you seriously just drop an already-progressing investigator right into our laps? Well thank you!

As if all that wasn't enough, on Sunday Sister Goode and I realized that we were one new investigator away from meeting the Standards of Excellence this week- something that everyone says is unheard of in the YSA ward. I say, "All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me!" President has told us that he expects all STL's and Zone Leaders to meet Standards of Excellence weekly, so Sister Goode and I said a prayer after church and went to work. The girl we had an appointment with cancelled, so we went to see a potential/referral that we had received the night before in hopes that they would be our new investigator instead. Well we got there and had a good conversation but it didn't quite pan out. Right afterwards I remembered a former that lived nearby that Sister Glancy and I had gone to see 2 months ago, but I had totally forgotten about since then. (One of those ever so subtle "whisperings" that it's so easy to not recognize). Well we knocked at the door of this guy Anthony, and it looked like the house was dark and empty. Right as we were about to walk away the hall light came on, and Anthony answered the door. He pretty much stared at us then asked who had sent us. Apparently another missionary on the street had invited him to come to church the day before, and he was going to, but he accidentally slept in. He had been thinking about the Mormons a lot recently, and he had just been praying for direction when we knocked. Anthony came out and the three of us stood out in the rain talking about Jesus Christ and his role in the repentance process. One prayer and a return appointment later, we met standards at 8:00 Sunday night. Sister Goode and I jumped into a HUGE puddle to celebrate our "Victory week for the Lord" and since we had been soaking wet all evening anyway.

The miracles have simply continued this week, because Heavenly Father likes to make good on all of His promises. The missionary department is touring our mission this week, so Sister Bonham joined us for our lessons last night. With Sister Bonham we found a new investigator, and taught Anthony the first official lesson. The spirit in that lesson was so strong. He had already started reading the Book of Mormon the night before after we left, and he also bought us this huge pink and orange umbrella. Haha. So thoughtful! Partway through the lesson he said, "I feel like these things are true, everything makes sense. I think I need to pray to know if these things are true and if I need to be baptized." Sister Goode and I were both thinking "Uhhh... yeah, yeah it would be ok for you to do that! Good game plan!" :)

Through my personal study and the miracles that we saw this week, I have determined that there is no "secret" to missionary work. If we are simply striving to do what Heavenly Father wants us to do- working hard, loving everyone, being strictly obedient, and developing Christlike attributes, etc... Heavenly Father will literally "laden you with many sheaves." I feel overwhelmed with gratitude for everything that He has given me. Please pray that these miracles will continue. Thank you for your love and support!

Love, Sister Slade

Life Changed

I still don't have my camera. I'm waiting on my old companion from Miami for that.

Last Thursday, we had a zone conference where Elder and Sister Kopischke came to train our entire mission. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about the purpose and responsibilities of missionaries, and I'm in the process of applying what I learned. I attached two pictures from that zone conference.

This last week has been a good week for me and Elder Van Wagenen. We have been working hard, and we have a few investigators who we are really excited about. We have both learned a lot, especially from the zone conference.

We have seen many miracles while we have worked. Mostly they have been manifested in the people who we find. We have found many people this week, in miraculous ways.

For example, we found a man named Lenny N. - he came up to us and asked us to talk with him. He told us that he had tried to find the church once several months before, but he had the wrong address and so he couldn't get there. He says that he is interested in the church, but he doesn't know why. He has had doubts in the past that God exists, and he wants us to help overcome those doubts, and replace them with faith. We followed up with him yesterday, and we'll continue to teach him.

We also found a young man named Charles. He accepted baptism, but we were still wary to follow up or teach him because we hadn't met with his parents. But the next day, we were in the area and we decided to try to follow up and to gauge whether or not the parents would let him. As it turns out, he lived with his mother, who is an inactive member who was not in the ward records. She is inactive because of her job, but she knows that the LDS church is the only true church. She wholeheartedly agreed to his baptism, and Charles himself is excited to learn and to prepare to be baptized as well.

Elder Van Wagenen are still working on the outdated list of referrals, getting them all contacted and up to date. It'll probably take another week or two to get them down to a manageable size, but once we get it there then we will receive more of the blessings of being exactly obedient.

I wrote something for the Putnam Family Newsletter. You'll all be able to read it in that, but I thought I'd include it here as well:

My whole life changed a ton in the last twelve months. I graduated from high school, opened my mission call, prepared to leave on my mission, and then actually left on my mission. It's hard to believe that everything can change so fast, but at the same time it doesn't feel to me as if anything has really changed at all. Things just happen so slowly, it's hard to notice the water starting to boil until you are already dead.

The most important changes have come specifically because of my mission. For example, I feel the spirit much more in my life. I don't have as many distractions from the things that are really important. I'm surrounded each day with other missionaries, people who want to help me to learn and progress and become a better person.

I'm extremely grateful to you all for the examples that you have all set for me, and for the encouragement and support I continue to receive from all of you. Thank you all!

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Laborers in the Vineyard

This week, Elder Van Wagenen and I have been working much harder. The week before was a flop because of transfers but also because of a large degree of laziness. We have had a very, very shallow teaching pool for a while. This week we put a lot of effort into finding, and God blessed us with 11 new investigators. Some of them have since been dropped, but as we continue to work hard and trust in the Lord, I am confident that our teaching pool will increase and we will be able to improve the general health of our area.

One of the problems with the area from when I came in is that we have about 20 HQ referrals that have not been updated. Neither of us knows the current status of any of them. That is one thing that we will be working on this week, getting them all caught up. It's an investment - the time spent on them will help us to be obedient, and we will see direct and indirect results from our obedience.

Companionship unity is not really a problem with us two. We're getting along great. After only a few days, he was already one of my closest friends. In our free time (such as after nightly planning or on P-Days), we often talk about long-term projects that we want to work on together after we return from our missions. And we are being careful that those discussions do not interfere with our work or make us distracted.

The person who we are the most excited about for being baptized is named Segens. I forgot his last name. He is on date for next Sunday, we're looking forward to it.

We are also excited for a family of eight that we found last week. Many of them seem excited to read the Book of Mormon, and they seem to recognize that we are representatives of Jesus Christ. They are always glad to have us over, and they come to lessons prepared with a list of questions that they had from their reading assignments. They weren't able to come to church yesterday, unfortunately, but we'll give them another week because they seem to be progressing as a family.

My favorite quote this week:

"It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines."

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Laborers in the Vineyard"

I still don't have my camera, but Elder Winslow said he found it in the Miami apartment and he's trying to find a way to get it to me. I'll probably get it back before next P-Day.

Thank you, everyone, for writing to me. It's great to receive your letters. I'll just take a few minutes to answer questions and remark on them:

Mom: for the Elders, the harvest blessing is a priesthood blessing if we can kneel down in a reverent environment inside of the house itself. In any other situation, or for the Sisters, it's just a regular prayer, asking God for those blessings. The spirit can still be present, either way, but it's stronger when you kneel down in reverence in the house itself. (I wouldn't know how strong the spirit is for the Sister missionaries, I've never been one.)

I'm out of time, or else I would answer more questions.

Thanks for everything,

Elder Slade

Transfers?

Dear family,

This week has been quite the roller coaster! Transfers are tomorrow, and it's going to be a big one! President Bonham is really shaking things up in the mission this time around, and there are very few companionships that won't be changed, including our own. Thursday was leadership calls and Sister Glancy and I thought that we were off the hook until the zone leaders called at 11:00, right as we were almost asleep. I'm going to be a Sister Training Leader this next transfer! I have lots of mixed emotions. I'm very nervous but I'm also very excited. I think that this is going to be an amazing learning experience, and I'm so excited to get to know so many sisters in the mission! I already feel so much love for all of them. Depending on what zones my new companion and I will cover, we will probably end up going on about 2 or 3 exchanges a week. Sister Glancy and I are waiting impatiently for the text that should come any time now to find out which of us will be transferred. Gah the suspense is killing me!

We have found quite a few new investigators this week, some of which show a lot of promise! One was found at the college, two were referrals from other missionaries, and one of them was even our first member referral so we were so excited about that! I hope that I get to stay here so that I can teach some of these people, but even if I get transferred, please pray specifically for Anas, John, Bry, and Nate.

Also continue to pray for Gabriel, who will be moving to Texas next week. We want this to be a smooth transition and for him to bond with the ward and missionaries there as much as he has here.

Sister Glancy and I sang in Sacrament Meeting yesterday and I was terrified but Sister Glancy made me.  People said we did good afterwards, but that doesn't mean I'll ever do it again :) Or maybe I will. I've surprised myself a lot so far on my mission, almost as much as the Lord has surprised me.

This week in my study I have really enjoyed reading through the Book of Mormon and New Testament at the same time. It's amazing to see all of the parallels no matter where you're reading. They truly do support each other in witnessing to to the world that Jesus is the Savior for each and every one of us! A few verses that specifically stood out to me in the Book of Mormon this week were 2 Nephi 16:5-8. When President Monson first announced the age change, (Whew that feels like forever ago!) I was sitting in the tabernacle in Salt Lake for the afternoon session afterwards, thinking and praying, and the very distinct, very sudden words that came to my mind were "Here am I, send me." I knew that I was supposed to go on a mission, it was simply a matter of praying about when.

I feel overwhelmed, thinking about the amazing blessings, growth, and love that I have felt in my own life and in the lives of others since coming. I know that this is where I am supposed to be! This truly is the Lord's work. He is deeply involved in each of our lives. He has a plan and will do everything he can to help us if we will rely on Him. Thank you all for your support and for your love. Go out there and fearlessly share the gospel with everyone that you meet, then write me letters telling me all about how YOU are seeing an increase of the Lord's love in YOUR lives!

Love, Sister Slade

P.S. Congratulations Kayla on your call to Canada!!!  Feel free to teach and baptize a smokin hot frenchman for me to marry.... just kidding....but really. :)

P.P.S. We just barely got the much dreaded text... Sister Glancy is getting transferred, I am staying in Halls Lake YSA! :)

What is this green stuff all over the place?

 The church is true, the book is blue!

 Us with Gabriel

On date

Hey family!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, love you all! More next week

Sister Slade

New area and companion

First of all, this last week was transfer week. That is why my preparation day has been on Tuesday, but now it's back to Monday again. I mentioned last week that I was leaving Miami, and I didn't know where I was going. Well, now I know. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to go to a new area and to be with a new companion. I thought that there was no chance that I would leave Miami this transfer, but I'm glad that I did.

My new companion is Elder Van Wagenen. He is awesome, in every way possible. We get along really well, because we have such a similar personality and such similar interests. For example:

- We both like programming.

- We both like Minecraft.

- We both like reading. (Our favorite author is Brandon Sanderson.)

I also like him because he is funny and he is a great missionary. He is a great example, he wants to help everyone he sees and he is constantly striving to improve.

I left my camera in Miami, unfortunately, so I don't really have any pictures, other than his mission picture, which I'll attach to this email.

My new area is the Boynton Beach North (Creole) area. This area is the only Creole area that is a bike area. The rest all have cars. I have been apprehensive about the new area, because of that. Riding bikes all day long is tiring, even if you are in a flat area like Florida.

This week my companion and I had a real problem with laziness. Part of the problem was that in our area, we have an excuse to wait in a lot of cases, because we are on bikes. So we waited, and we don't get any work done because we didn't use that time wisely. For example, we didn't spend the time thinking about our investigators, or planning lessons, or thinking about how we could make our days more productive. Instead, we used that waiting time to talk about unrelated subjects (such as games that we played before our missions). We became distracted, and we were not focused on our purpose. This contributed to not getting much work done throughout the week, and it is also caused us to not be exactly obedient in getting home on time, and getting out of the apartment on time.

This laziness is something that neither of us wants in our area, and we are looking to do better this week. We have made several resolutions that will help us to keep working, such as not talking about personal matters until after we finish planning each night. If we keep that conversation out of each day, then we can spend more time focused on the work, and we will have more motivation to get to work and to be obedient. The area suffered a lot because of this last week, and we will not let it happen again.

Yesterday, we were privileged to witness the two baptisms from the other Elders' area in our ward. We had the opportunity to teach the people who were there about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was an immensely spiritual experience. One of the people being baptized even started to cry. (Not really a goal, but always a plus.)

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Transfers!

I found out last night: Elder Winslow is staying in Miami Shores Creole. I am transfering to a different area, and a different companion. But I don't know where, or who. I'll find out in transfer meeting tomorrow.

The transfer call last night was a big surprise to me. I didn't really consider the possibility that I might be leaving, it seemed so much more likely that Elder Winslow would be. But now I'm excited to go and meet my new companion and area, and I'm more and more confident that this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Although, that means that the stress of driving these last two weeks (in order to get to know the area better) pretty much went for nothing. Oh well, it was a growing experience.

This week, one thing that I learned in the Book of Mormon is that I think that the promised land is a symbol for the Plan of Salvation. The book of Ether, specifically, talks about how we will be free from "bondage" if we obey "The Lord of the Land" - similarly, as we obey God's commandments in this life on Earth, we will be free from "the chains of hell". The Lord goes before Jared + company in a cloud, leading them to the promised land, a land that He had prepared for them to live. Similarly, the Earth was created as a place for us all to remain. We all followed him here as we chose to accept the Plan of Salvation.

We went on another exchange with Elder Tesch this week. I went with Elders Cobabe and Lange. We harvested for a while, and then I sat in on an entirely Spanish meeting, trying my best to understand what everyone was saying. It was fun!

I'm glad to be done training. Elder Winslow was a great companion. I still don't feel ready to be let off the leash, so to speak, but I don't really think I'll ever feel comfortable or complacent in the mission field. There are always new experiences to be had, and there are always new people to meet.

We had another great experience with harvesting this last week. We knocked into a little girl. We asked what time the rest of her family would be there, because we didn't want to do it with her without any adults around. She understood Creole, so we thought that the family was Haitian. That is the only reason we chose to go back later that day to try to harvest bless her again. She wasn't there, and her parents weren't, but her older YSA sister was. We said the prayer with her. When we were done, she was silently crying. We committed her to be baptized, and she readily agreed. We finished the prayer and we left.

It turned out that her family wasn't Haitian anyway, but because we thought that they were, we went back and we had that awesome experience. It was an amazing miracle, and I'm very grateful that we had it.

We had stake conference this week. President Anderson said that all of us were required to attend both the adult session (the night before) as well as the actual conference on Sunday. This means that, since conference is at the stake center (45 minutes away), and it ended at 9, we returned to our house after 9:30 for the first time ever. But we had permission, so it wasn't disobedient, so that's all right.

The YSA elders, who live with us, had a baptism last Sunday. Their after-baptism party was amazing. The Latino members' families who were friends with the recent convert bought a ton of food and desserts, such as doughnuts, cheesecake, brownies, soda, etc. It was delicious. The best meal I've eaten since IHOP at Christmas.

Last thing, before I have to get off: many people have asked about Harvesting, so I'll talk about it a little more and go into more detail. This is the general procedure, although it is never rote in practice:

1. Knock on door. Someone answers. Say something along the lines of "Hello, we're representatives of Jesus Christ. He has sent us here to pray with you and your family [for such and such reason]. May we say this prayer with you?"

2. Continue, get to know the people, try to get everyone there to join in the prayer. If there in a man in the house, try to get invited in.

3. Ask them what they want you to pray for. (In so many words.)

4. If you are inside, kneel down for the prayer and offer a priesthood blessing on the house and the family. If not, reverently say a regular prayer.

5. Watch the spirit work. Connect the feelings of the spirit with baptism, and then invite them to be baptized. Whether they accept or not, continue to give doctrine and to testify, and invite them for a specific date. (The second Sunday from the date of the blessing.)

6. As the spirit directs, invite to church, accept missionary discussions, or a number of other things.

7. Leave. Follow up quickly, within the next few days, so that the feelings of the spirit are still fresh on their mind.

Thanks,

Elder Slade