Ward Game Night

We had a ward game night on Friday and totally rocked it at Disney headbands!!! How is it that the two people who haven't seen a movie in months and months were the ones to win a Disney movie game? (Movies? You mean they still make those? :D)

Blessed

Dear friends and family:

Charles, Nislande, Erlanda, Ketty, and Lornise were all confirmed successfully this week. Brother Ramos confirmed Charles, but Elder Van Wagenen and I traded off for the other four. Also, Fadens and Stravensky were baptized. It was a good service; all of their baptized family members were there to support, but we were still unable to get their parents to come, because of work. It was another case where the parents were glad that it was happening, but they still don't realize how important it is enough to act and come to church and the baptism.

God has really blessed us these last few weeks. Before the Petion family, Ed, and Charles, I had only baptized one person in about three months (Lucy P., from when I was with Elder Winslow). I have been more than a little discouraged, especially in this mission where standards are to baptize two a month and we are encouraged to baptize weekly. I have been relieved to be baptizing again these last few weeks, but looking back there's nothing really that we did to have these baptisms. They are all miracles from God. We found them all miraculously, and most of them are the type of people who only had to be introduced to the church and invited to come. They would have done the rest themselves.

This transfer is going by really fast for me. There are only three weeks left. A few things that we are going to focus on for the rest of the transfer, and this week in particular, are:

Inviting people to the temple open house

Getting the parents from the Petion family to come to church and support their kids more

Learning to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost better

Finding!!! This has always been a weak point for me, and I would like to go to God and let him make it strong. Especially finding through members and recent converts, not just our own efforts

Elder Van Wagenen and I still get along great. We don't always agree on the best way to do missionary work, but we usually don't let that get in the way.

Fact of the day: everyone calls the Ward Coordination meeting "Correlation". There is no reason to do that. It is the wrong word. It means something completely different. Preach My Gospel never says "Correlation" at all. Nothing does. So why do we use that word? I don't know. Don't ask me.

I just realized I might not have ever told all of you: in this area, there is a member who is a franchiser for a bunch of McDonalds. He gives it to missionaries for free. It is really nice of him. Us missionaries are very grateful.

The Florida Fort Lauderdale Temple open house starts this Saturday, the 29th. It goes until the 19th of next month. Then, the cultural celebration will be on the 4th of May. The prophet will be attending. Then, the actual dedication will be on the 5th. It will be amazing. I can't wait.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

What is your spiritual DNA?

Dear family,

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Sister Slade

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

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

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

2. Driving away after lunch with Lans:

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

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

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

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

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

5 Baptisms!

Dear friends and family:

This week, Edwin K. was confirmed! It was a great blessing. Brother Yorke gave it. After sacrament meeting, Ed said that he felt happy. He has been very excited to be a member, and he has been telling people that he was LDS for several weeks now. I'm glad that he found the church and has finally received the gift of the Holy Ghost!

In other news, Charles was baptized! His Mom, Nardine, was able to get work off this one Sunday, to come to church for the first time in about 8 years, and to be there for his baptism. It was a temporary solution, and it won't work again for a while, but Nardine is upset that she isn't coming to church and she is trying to find a more permanent solution that will allow her to come every week. Charles, however, is very excited about his baptism yesterday, and he's excited to be confirmed next week as well. After he was baptized and changed back, he bore his testimony to the audience. It was a very powerful testimony.

More good news: Lornise, Nislade, Erlanda, and Ketty were baptized yesterday as well. They were happy to be baptized as well. We had the baptism in the evening, at 7, so that their parents and grandparents would be able to come. Disappointingly, none of the parents came at that time anyway, so there was no parental support at the baptism itself. They all want to be baptized, and they are happy that their children are making that step, but they have their priorities skewed a little. The four who were baptized are getting a lot of support from the young women in the ward, and we are going to put a large effort into raising the parents' desires as well.

We had a member referral this week, a woman named Kaitlyn. Brother and Sister Yorke tipped us off about her and told us that she was coming to church on Sunday. After sacrament meeting, we walked over to talk with her and asked about church. She enjoyed it. We asked her if she would be baptized next Sunday; she enthusiastically agreed. We'll be teaching her for the first time tonight, and we can't wait to see her.

This week, we again struggled with finding. We didn't neglect finding or harvesting, we just haven't been able to add to our teaching pool that much. But God has blessed us to find in other ways, and we will focus on finding this week so that we can continue to have a healthy teaching pool.

Fact of the day: Mozilla Firefox is better than Google Chrome, and especially Internet Explorer.

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Transfers Next Week

Hello family,

I was so excited to see the pictures of the baptisms that Elder Slade had last weekend! It feels good to hear from other missionaries, because they are the only ones that really 100% understand the ups and downs to the mission. Love ya, Elder Slade! The work really is hastening!

Sister Goode and I are preparing for the baptism of Melissa C. this weekend and we couldn't be more excited for her! It's coincidentally panned out that most of Melissa's lessons have been when Sister Goode stayed in our area and I was on exchange in a different area, so I feel a little bit jipped that I haven't had the chance to create as deep of a bond as I have with other investigators in the past. I sure love her though, she is so prepared and it feels like every time we are at her apartment she is the one teaching us!

Recently I had the chance to go on exchanges with a Sister Bartsch from Germany and Sister Martinez-Velez from Mexico. The church is true wherever ya go! My favorite exchange this week was with Sister Davis. She has been struggling a lot recently with confidence and feeling like she is good enough to be able to be used by the Lord. It was such a great experience to be able to point out to her all of the strengths that I had seen in her and share with her all of the things that I have been learning about the atonement in the last few weeks.

We were able to find a few new investigators at the college this week. One of them is a guy named Jesse who has been in a wheelchair for a long time because of his battle with cancer. When he shared his testimony with us of how Christ had "carried him" throughout his struggles the spirit was so strong! I wish that you could all meet these people and hear them share their stories, Emails don't do people justice! Unfortunately we found out that he lives in the Silverlake boundaries, so we'll have to do a pass-off lesson. :/

Bry is doing really well. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he has been working really really hard to kick some of his past habits. He went really strong for about a week and a half then unfortunately caved into temptation this week. Thank goodness for the atonement. It looks like his baptism date will be pushed back to next month, but he is working so hard and he wants so bad to turn his life around. Keep him in your prayers!

Anthony, our favorite Christian rapper, also affectionately referred to as G-White, came to vball and the cottage meeting and loved it! He is loving the Book of Mormon too. Unfortunately he flaked on church again this week, and we're not sure why.

Gabriel is doing well. Lans asked him to join us for hobo dinners and s'mores for lunch earlier this week. While Gabriel is still going strong coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon, he reminds me of what happened with Sandra. He realizes just how important baptism is, and because he knows its a commitment and because he knows he has made so many mistakes in the past, he is afraid. We've talked about it a lot, and we're hoping that in the right timing, when he receives his own spiritual witness of repentance and the atonement, he will be strong like Sandra. I have developed a ton of love for Gabriel as we have watched him struggle and progress since we started teaching him. I am learning through investigators experiences and through my own that when it comes to the atonement it is one thing to think it and believe it but its another thing entirely to feel it and apply it.

Transfers are next Tuesday, so we'll find out if anything is changing on Monday! Could I stay a fourth transfer in Halls Lake? I'm really hoping that I get to stay an STL. I have been learning so much and I love getting to know the sisters better so much. I know that whatever happens is according tot he Lord's will though. Any guesses?

Love you all!

Sister Slade

Happy "Unbirthday" Dinner with Mamma Meg

Baptism

First of all, Edwin K. was baptized last night at 7:30. It was an amazing spiritual experience. All of the stress of the day just went away during the calm/contentment of the service. Ed was very happy to be baptized, and I know he's just as excited to keep going to church and to be confirmed and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost next week. (Brother Ramos has pictures, but he hasn't sent them to us yet so I can't send them to you.)

Charles was not baptized, because he missed his ride to church. It was unfortunate, but he and his mother came to the baptism for Ed, and they felt the spirit a lot. He was regretful that he could not be baptized at the same time, and he is on date for next week.

This week has been a good week. All weeks are good weeks as long as you are trying, I think. I still have to work on many things, as always, but one thing I realized is that God doesn't punish you for not doing enough. He always blesses you for what you do do, and I have received so many blessings on my mission. I can't wait to keep going!

That being said, one things that we needed to work on this week as a companionship was that we had very few new investigators. Our teaching pool is starting to stagnate. So that will be a much larger focus this week than it has been in the past. This week we've committed to 1. improve the quality of our harvest blessings, 2. make sure that we get one hour and three blessings each day, and to 3. follow up within 48 hours of the harvest blessing.

Elder McMullen (our district leader) came with me into my area for an exchange this week. The exchange was great. It helped me realize that plans are malleable, and they don't have to be followed just for the sake of following them. You can be more productive if you are flexible throughout the day.

I can't wait to meet Liv! I loved the picture of Nathan smiling with her. Also, one of you said that you would send pictures of Nathan playing in the snow, but I haven't received them yet. :l

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Our newest member, Edwin.

We all went into create breakfast on Saturday.

Heavenly Father Loves Us

Dear family,

All is well in the WEM! This last week I had my "hump day" where I officially reached my 9 month mark on the mission! I thought about either taking a picture with a pillow on my back looking like a camel or a picture with a pillow stuffed up my shirt so that I looked like a pregnant woman but…. Sister Goode and I forgot. haha get it?? :) I am loving every minute of my mission! It is so hard and so tiring and it makes you grow in so many ways. In case you were wondering, missions aren't for pansies! It is so wonderful though. I'm scared the end is going to come way too soon and I'm trying so hard to make every moment of every day count so that I can look back and know I gave it my all. I really related to what Elder Slade said in his last email about how all weeks are good as long as you're trying. I had a really overwhelming experience in a special conference this week where I thought about what the Lord would say to me if I had an interview with Him on the last day of my mission, and the words that came very powerfully to me were "I didn't say you had to be perfect on your mission. I only wanted you to try your very best, and I accept what you have done for me. Thank you."

Last night we had a cottage meeting, which is basically where missionaries can take investigators to the mission home and everyone gathers to hear the testimonies of recent converts. It was the first cottage meeting I've been able to attend on my mission, and it was amazing! Anthony and Bry were both able to attend and they loved it.

Sister Goode and I have been struggling to find new investigators these past two weeks. Please pray that we can continue to add people to our teaching pool. One way that we have been very blessed is that we have an unusual amount of "golden" investigators that we are seeing progressing wonderfully! Normally it's exciting to be able to teach one golden, but we have 4 different individuals progressing right now that makes us so happy! Gabriel, Melissa, Anthony, and Bry all have very strong testimonies and are working towards baptism. Unfortunately the adversary knows that the more of an asset to the Lord an individual will be, the harder he will have to work to dissuade them. We have seen crazy and very real opposition come into the lives of these individuals these week, and it has been so amazing to me to see the ways that they are fighting back and continuing to progress despite the obstacles. Please, please, please pray for these individuals by name! It is so obvious to me that the work is hastening, but that means that Satan is working harder too. You may not know these individuals, but they are your brothers and sisters, and these people need your faith and help!

This week in my study I loved reading Jacob 5. This story is not just about trees, it's about how much our Heavenly Father loves us. And it's not just about the House of Israel- it's about how much He loves me individually, as one of the trees in His vineyard. Sometimes when we're being pruned and dunged and our branches are being taken and new ones are being put in, it can be a very painful process. Sometimes we may feel like because Heavenly Father is giving us so much change and working so hard to perfect us, it means that we are inherently bad, or without worth. Actually, the Lord wouldn't bother to prune and dung and dig if He didn't see that our worth is limitless and we just need a little help sometimes in order to tap into that potential. I think that this is why I have been able to serve as an STL this transfer. (And I hope next transfer too) I have learned so much more from the sisters that I have been exchanging with then I'm sure they've been learning from me. It's hard to focus on yourself when you are focusing on others. President knew i needed a few extra souls to serve in order to completely learn that lesson.

Love ya!

Sister Slade