Out of time

Dear family,

I'm out of time so I'm going to copy and paste what I wrote President Bonham again:

I am still doing well and still loving Silverlake! I love Sister Smith, and I love the investigators that we have been able to find. Sister Smith and I have been able to meet standards twice this transfer, and we plan on making it the "norm" in this area!

Neither Sister Smith or I were feeling very well this week so we had to take some time to rest, but it was cool to see how even though we weren't able to give this week what our "best" has been in past weeks, the Lord took what was our "best" this week and still magnified it. At the beginning of my mission I had this mindset or "Go, go, go!" to the point that I would experience anxiety if I or a companion had to stay in the apartment. It was a good mindset to have, because it was almost like I physically couldn't handle being in the apartment when I knew God wanted me to be out talking to people, but it also wore me down to the point that I finally crashed, partly from exhaustion from things on my mission, and partly from things from before my mission. I've learned a few things in the past months. I won't wishfully say "If I knew then what I know now," because I know that the mission is a growing process and it's a good thing that I am a completely different missionary and person than I was my first transfer in the mission! This week I felt guided to study about the Garden of Gethsemane. This is what I learned:

The atonement of Christ not only gives us the strength to keep going when we are exhausted, but it also gives us the ability to rest when we have begun to "run faster than we have strength." or when "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." We should never take advantage of the atonement to shirk our labors, but we do need to recognize that Jesus Christ died for us because He already knew that there would be times when we would be weak and that He would need to make up for what we are not able to give after we truly have given our all. If we try to give more than we're able to, or if we try to be perfect right now, all by ourselves, then we are not allowing ourselves to use the strength AND the rest that the atonement of Jesus Christ provides. it hurt me to read about the disciples sleeping while Christ was only a stones throw away, suffering for the sins of the world. How could they do that when their calling was to give 100% of their heart, might, mind, and strength? Then I realized that as much as the Savior wanted them to watch with Him, he knew the extent of their abilities as humans. Then in Mark 14:41 he very tenderly and very mercifully says, "sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough." did He mean that the sacrifice that He had just performed was enough to make up for their weaknesses? I still don't understand completely yet, but I did feel very strongly in my studies this week that there is no greater illustration of love than through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Haley is doing well! Her grandma who passed away came to her in a dream the night before we taught her the plan of salvation and told her she was on the right path. Haley described waking up feeling very warm and in tears. In one of our lessons this week she handed us a homemade baptism invite that she had made for us. Apparently she's made some for others that she has already met in the ward, and she created an event on facebook that she invited all of her family to. Those stories about those super crazy prepared people being led to prepared people that you hear about in Sacrament meetings... they're not just stories, they are real.

Emma is excited to be baptized on the 30th! We had an amazing lesson with her last week where she got emotional, telling her how badly she wants to go to the temple. She can't explain why, because she doesn't feel like she knows much about it, but she feels this very strong urge that she needs to go! Hayley that was just baptized has expressed the same feelings recently, so we're going to help them both find family names in the family history center the next few weeks!

Something that I have learned over and over again on my mission is how absolutely vital members are in order for the work to progress at all like it should. I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few weeks, and I'm planning on writing and sending out a "YOU can be a member missionary NOW!" letter to everyone in the family soon. So stay tuned! It's going to be epic!

Love you all!

Sister Slade

Salut!!!

So much has happened this week! I had my first splits! I learned a bit of Spanish! And I ate Poutine!...again... I'm planning on having an entire month without eating poutine, and then perhaps I can be healthy...er

This week I'm going to talk about some of the cultural differences. *clears throat* First off, Quebecois love their poutine. Mmm poutine. Words cannot even descirbe it...*looks off into distance* I'll try though. You start with a plate of double fried potatoes, they can be any shape or size they just have to be double fried. Ain't nobody want squishy taters. You then cover this mountain of greasiness with a delicate brown gravy. (Let it be noted that this brown gravy is not just like any other gravy. This gravy involves the essence of the longest hair off the chin of a Quebecois Mountain-man, followed by the essence of the moose, followed by a touch of Queen Elizabeth II because she is everywhere here. Anyways the gravy is delicious and special to Quebec.) After a healthy amount of delicious gravy is added you top it off with any type or amount of cheese (personally I think I prefer mozzarella) and whichever kind or kinds of meat your heart desires.(the Philly steak meat is pretty good.) The best thing about this amazing dish is that it is literally sold everywhere. Let me name a few places. The local Pizzaria, the local Cosco, the local Mcdonalds, the local Wendy's, the local burger joint etc. etc. It is with no exaggeration at every restaurant in town. Its like trying to find pizza in New Jersey. Everywhere.

Another difference is they don't have milk like in the United States. The milk here comes in bags. Every self honoring Quebecois household has a special pitcher for their bagged milk, and trying to get them into said pitchers requires training by the best of the best. Oh and a lot of shaking. One last cultural difference that I was not really ready for is they do that side kissing thing that the French do that I have tried to spell a million times but can not for the life of me put it to a word... either way they do that. And it will take some getting used to. But hey you get to really get to know peoples perfumes!

I'm attaching pictures to this email, because I have finally been able to attach pictures! The first one is of my companion, Sister Munive, and I with our mission president and his wife. Followed by our lovely roommates the Terrebonne sisters, Sister Tribes and Sister Leano, in a poise they like to call (warning say the following in a Russian accent) "in my country." And then a picture of one of my Sister Training Leaders and I in Montreal after our splits.

On Wednesday we had splits with the Sister Training leaders. Meaning I went to Montreal with one sister and Sister Munive stayed with one here in Mascouche. Montreal is AMAZING! It has all the hustle and bustle of New York but all the shorter buildings of Bloomington. It almost feels like you have elbow room! The Sister Training leaders are assigned to the Montreal YSA branch, so they do a lot more texting than everyone else on the mission. I also got to use Facebook! Granted it was just updating the YSA page but still! It was strangely invigorating.

The Mascouche area is very French, or more likely Quebecois. What isn't French is Spanish. Which makes it a blessing to have a native Spanish speaker as a companion. And yes everyone. She does speak English Fluently. Being in this area has made me realize how I need to learn Spanish. So Sister Munive and I have worked out a study plan. Which mainly just involves my lovely companion teaching me Spanish through French so than we can both work and French and I can learn a language.

I Love you all! Je vous aime!

Soeur Cummings

Keeping Faith

Dear Friends and Family:

This week, China and her family were confirmed in the branch. Marie was confirmed last week, because her baptism was on Thursday, but Shirdie (her daughter) was not able to be confirmed yet because Marie was kept in late at work. Our bishop wants us to do it during this next week, we're going to do it on Thursday hopefully.

We had a great miracle this week. A few weeks ago, we received a referral from Elder Brockbank and Elder Passey in the Palm Beach zone. It was for a Haitian man who wanted to be baptized, but who was there on vacation. So we tried to stop by to see him but he was still away. And this week, we finally had the opportunity to meet with him. It had been almost three weeks since he had met with the other elders, but he still had great desires to come to church and to be baptized. It was a very good experience for me to sit down and teach him for the first time.

Unfortunately, he did not end up coming to church. We had contact with him two hours before church, and he was ready and excited to come, and then... we lost contact, he never came, and we still haven't heard from him. So we'll stop over again tonight and find out "sak te pase."

We had one investigator come to church yesterday. His name is George, and he's a completely white guy, without even a small drop of Haitian blood. It was the Sisters' investigator, but because of extraneous circumstances, we're teaching him anyway. It will be Elder Felkin's fourth white person he's ever taught. (One of the first three being Haitian anyway, because his parents moved to Haiti and then he grew up speaking Haitian Creole.) I served in Boynton Beach, which is a Haitian Creole and English area, so I have taught many, and I've baptized three already, but we are very excited to get Elder Felkins his first white convert!

One of the things we are going to work on this week is keeping faith, and continuously finding. We only had four new investigators this last week, and we need more to keep a strong pool going. So this week we're going to especially work on our harvest blessings, to bring the spirit more strongly into our first contacts with people.

I heard that Elder Austin Bradley left on his mission. I am so excited to hear that! I'm guessing the language he will be learning is Italian? There's an awesome member here, in the Branch, who speaks Italian, English, and Spanish. Her name is Sister Dieste. As anyone who has ever met her will attest, her food is "da best"!

Thanks,

Elder Slade

Miracle Week

Dear family,

So here is the Haley miracle. A few days before our other investigator Hayley was baptized, Sister Smith and I decided to go tract some orange apartments in Mill Creek. Sister Bartsch and I had felt that we should tract these for a while, and for whatever reason we were never able to quite get around to it. Well, we went to tract these apartments and I'm not sure why but we just kept walking towards the back of the complex then both stopped at building G. The very first door we knocked on, Haley answered. Haley has been going to Latter-Day Saint activities in Arlington with her friend for the past 2 years, and she says she always knew there was something different about the Mormons. The first lesson we had with Haley we put her on date to be baptized September 6th. What is crazy is that Haley has really severe anxiety, and she told us in that first lesson that when we knocked on her door she was in the middle of having a panic attack. When she saw that it was missionaries, she felt instantly calmed and it stopped. Not only that, but we found out that Haley moved here about 2 weeks ago, and turned 18 only 5 days ago. I don't think I've ever taught an investigator as prepared as Haley is! She is pure faith and obedience and has an amazing ability to feel the spirit. We feel so blessed to have found her!

We also had a cool miracle when contacting at the college this week. We stopped a guy named Max, who works as a physical trainer and EMT. He is a super cool guy, with a lot of faith in Christ, but said he doesn't really have time to talk right now. I was about to give him a mormon.org card but then had the thought ha he had enough interest that I should give him a restoration pamphlet. So I gave it to him, and he just stared at it in silence with his mouth open for a few seconds. We asked if he had seen the pamphlet before, and he told us that he had been searching for where the pamphlet came from for years. A few yeas ago he got jumped outside a McDonalds in Everett (kinda funny to picture because this was a BIG guy!) He was in and out of consciousness, just enough to remember that someone picked him up and took him to the hospital but he had no idea who it was. When he woke up in the hospital 3 days later, the only thing that the guy left with him was a restoration pamphlet with a name and phone number. In the craziness of what had happened, the pamphlet was lost, but since then Max remembers very clearly the picture of Christ holding a lamb on the front of the restoration pamphlet, and he's wondered what the source was. We got Max's phone number, and he walked away flipping through the pamphlet, completely in shock.

This week I have been studying the principle of asking for specific blessings or asking specific questions. Over and over in the scriptures we read about how if we ask we will receive, but how often do we actually take advantage of this promise, and take that leap of faith, fully expecting Heavenly Father to give as He has promised to? Of course we know hat God gives in His own timing, in His own way, and according to His will, but how often to we ask to know His will, so that we might know exactly what it is we should be asking for? Do we pray to know what we should be praying for? As missionaries we always invite our investigators to ask a specific question in their prayers to know if what we have been teaching them is true, the reason being that if we ask specific questions, the Lord gives specific answers. I was thinking to myself this week, why is it that I don' show more faith in my heavenly Father, and ask those specific questions, or make those specific requests, just as investigators are invited to do? My challenge for you this week is the same challenge hat I have given to myself: pray to know what to pray for, then stretch your faith by making that specific request to Heavenly Father. Then show your faith by praying with "all the energy of heart" and with persistence. Then act as if you already know that you will receive, because you will!

Love you all!

Love, Sister Slade

There is a mission cottage meeting held at the mission home every month where we invite our investigators to come listen to the testimonies of recent converts. We went with some members in our ward, Krissy and Alayna, and also our investigator Heather. The seatbelt on Krissy's car was stuck, so since we wanted to protect my life we decided that we better double buckle me with Alayna and Sister Smith's seatbelts. This picture doesn't quite show what happened, but what followed was absolute chaos in the back seat. There were shouts of "pull harder!" and "Are you sucking in!?" while I just got squished. We were all laughing so hard we were all crying by the time we got to the mission home. I think mostly we were all just way too tired :)

 Are you in need of salvation or a little restoration? Ask a specialist. Or one of His representatives, that works too.

 Hayley's baptism

Mascouche

Its official. I'm a Canadian immigrant. AHH!! That was pretty much all I could do for the first two days of being here. You should ask my companion. Oh right! No body knows where I am right now! My first area is... drum roll please... Mascouche, Quebec! I'm speaking French people! Oh and Spanish but more on that later. Sister Munive, my trainer, has been out here for almost a year. She is from Mexico and has an absolute addiction to any type of cookie. She really doesn't discriminate between her cookies.

Getting to Canada went a lot smoother than I thought I would. On our first flight I had a dream that they had to go through my bag at customs and found my corn-nuts and then taken to jail for smuggling food into Canada... This resulted in my chowing down of corn-nuts on the subsequent flight...just to be safe. But we made it to Canada, made it through customs in record time for a group as big as ours. Then proceeded to wait about half an hour waiting for our mission president to pick us up. You know that typical preschooler look? The kid just standing in a random spot in the room that has no idea what is going on around them but just stands there with drool coming out of their mouth and their finger in there nose? That's what we looked like. No joke.  Because guess what people. Not only do they speak French in Canada. They speak A LOT of French. And none of the French that we know... I felt like that Elder from The Best Two Years "Thats not the language they taught us in the MTC!" It was pretty ridonculous.

Finally our Mission President picked us up, we partook of the first real food in a month and by Gordon! It was delicious! I'm starting to realize that here, the salads are really really REALLY good. We then stayed the night at the mission home, and got to take our first real showers in a month, strange how amazing it is to have perfect water pressure and water that you can actually change the temperature to. The rest of the day was a little sight seeing and then we got to find out where we are going. We met our companions. I ate poutine for the first time. (Don't even get me started on that. It was so good yet so unhealthy that you really shouldn't dwell on how amazing it is. It feels like even if you think of its amazingness you gain weight.) Which is another thing...Mother I don't know how I'm going to tell you this...but I feel like I will be coming back a lot larger than I arrived. The Canadian people love their desserts, and you can't say no. Sister Munive and I were "graced" with the "oppurtunity" to eat four ice cream bars in one day. Please never again.

I don't have much more time but something that I have seen out here is God answers our prayers. He really really does, here's a story to prove it.  Within minutes of meeting my companion she turns to me and says "by the way you are driving." What?? I'm not the biggest fan of driving in the United States but in Canada?? The driving laws are a little bit/ a lot a bit different depending on where you are. Plus in Quebec all the signs are in French, in case you were wondering. So I'm stuck behind the wheel at least for these next twelve weeks because my companion is from Mexico and cannot obtain a licences here is Quebec. So we get into the car, buckle up, then Sister Munive realizes that we don't have the GPS... So we are stuck in Montreal...which is roughly the size of Chicago (I say roughly)... with no direction and a driver who hasn't driven in months. We decided to say a prayer so that I would be calm behind the wheel and that we would be able to get home safely. Sister Munive had a rough idea where she needed to go and so we started. And then somehow we got to Mascouche. Neither of us can tell you how, it felt like I was waking from a dream when we got out of the car to go to Walmart. Except we can tell you how. We know that it was by the prayer we had given that we were able to make it home, safely, soundly and without event. I believe I have seen a miracle, and I can't wait until I will be able to see more.

I love you all! It was wonderful to talk to/see my family this week. It was also pretty cool to hear my family's Russian Foreign exchange student speak French to me =D

Je vous aime

Soeur Cummings

Plan of Salvation

Dear Friends and Family:

This week was terrific for us here in Miami Shores Creole! We had six baptisms. In fact, we baptized in both the ward and the branch!

First, in the Ward, are Marie Deshommes and her daughter, Shirdie. They have been investigators for several months now, but Marie put off being baptized so that she could do it when Shirdie returned from vacation, to show a good example for her. So this Thursday, Marie was baptized; then on Sunday, she was confirmed, and then Shirdie was baptized.

Then we quickly left to get to the branch on time, and at the end of church our other four investigators who have been preparing to be baptized (China, and her children Daphney, Walkie, and Gregory) were baptized. It was a really great experience for all of them to be baptized together. We're going to keep working on China's husband, our goal is to completely baptize the family by the end of the month.

This week, I was reflecting on how much Haitians seem to hate the Plan of Salvation. Before my mission, I had assumed that we would be teaching it first most of the time. It has always seemed like the most important part of the restored gospel to me. But Haitians seem to think that when we go to the temple for baptisms for the dead, we are worshiping the dead, or something like that. I realized while I was thinking about that that the only reason anybody wouldn't like any part of the doctrine is if they don't fully understand it. We all have testimonies of the prophets, and we all believe that they receive revelation directly from God. Why would we have a problem with any of God's revealed word?

On another note, we've got plans to improve and do even better by the end of the month. One thing that we are planning on doing in order to make our missionary work more effective is to call both the ward mission leader and the branch mission leader every day, and report on each of our investigators. We'll just talk it through with them, and that way we'll be able to get the ward more involved in the missionary work. Our finding efforts right now are going to be focused on finding a family of 3 (or more) in the Ward boundaries, with a father who will lead the whole household to be baptized, take up callings, and then to be sealed.

I am still hoping that President Richardson will split our area, because both the ward are constantly feeling jipped because we don't do as much work in each of them as we could have if we only worked in the one ward.

Also, apparently, there are three more Haitian Creole missionaries coming in this next transfer, and at least two the transfer after that. This is really good, because these next three transfers will kill off about 40% of the Haitian Creole missionaries in the mission, and we need other missionaries to replace them! But it is scary to realize that so many of the missionaries that I came out with or who were here when I started are going home soon, or else they are already gone. I have been out on a mission for 10.5 months already. I wouldn't believe how fast the time has gone by.

Anyway, have a great week!

Thanks,

Elder Slade

New Haircut

Dear friends and family,

This week has been a crazy week, full of many experiences that I wasn't expecting to have, but they have all been for the best. My new companion is Sister Smith, from Ogden Utah. She happens to be a hairstylist, so the very first night we were together she informed me that she was going to cut my hair. I didn't realize she meant she was going to cut m hair right then until she started to pull a chair into the kitchen :)

I got special permission to go back to Oak Harbor this morning to attend a funeral for Tiffany Dobelman, one of the investigators that I found and taught in the first six months of my mission. Tiffany died in her sleep his last week, with no apparent reason why. When we first started teaching Tiffany she was Wiccan, and although she was never baptized while I was in the area, she would come to church and I have some amazing memories of teaching Tiffany and her husband Michael as well whenever he agreed to join us. A few months ago I heard from some other sisters that Tiffany had finally decided that she was ready to be baptized! One of Tiffany's main questions that really bothered her when we first started teaching her was "What happens after death?" It was something that really scared her, but something that she overcame as she learned about the Plan of Salvation, so I was a good experience for me to be at her funeral. Her husband Michael said that he has been overwhelmed by the love that he has felt from everyone in the Oak Harbor 1st ward and how much everyone has helped him in the last week. He is still going to take the two little girls to church, because he knows that it's something that made Tiffany happy and he knows it's what she would have wanted. I'm so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Plan of Salvation. I am so grateful to know that I have a loving Heavenly Father who is aware of me and who has a perfect plan for me, both in this life and in the next!

It was great to see many other people from the Oak Harbor 1st ward at the funeral too. I got giant hugs from Verna and Sandra, and I even snuck a quick hug from Bennett too :) Bennett and Verna got their patriarchal Blessings recently, and are still excited to go to the temple when the time comes. This was the first time I've seen Sandra since she was baptized, and when I hugged her I whispered to her how I always knew that she was going to be baptized, and she just started to cry. The people truly are what make the mission so great.

Hayley's baptism and confirmation was this past weekend! She was so happy. The coolest part for me was in her confirmation, when she was told that she will be a light for her friends and family, and they will notice her example, as not all of Hayley's family has been supportive and understanding of her decision up to this point. Hayley is so strong! Some of her extended family that aren't members came to her baptism, and 3 of our investigators were able to attend as well, so that was really cool!

I'm out of time, but next week I will write about the miracle story of the new investigator Haley that we found this week!

Love you all!

Sister Slade