Was that a goat?

(Sister Slade)

Some of the service we do is at a Literacy council that shares a building with a law firm. While we were there last week, we saw someone come down the stairs from the law firm with a baby goat in their arms. We were all very confused. 

Transfers were this week. My new companion is Sister Davis. She is from California and has been out 10 months. I also got confirmation from President Strong that I will be here in Central Park next transfer. Half my mission will be spent in my first area.

We had some really cool experiences this week. Do you remember James, the guy from last week's email that said the super inspiring prayer? Well we had another lesson with him on Saturday. We talked about enduring to the end and repentance, but as we were finishing up the lesson, he stopped us. He then asked us if we could talk to our bishop about baptizing him. HE INVITED HIMSELF TO BE BAPTIZED!!!!!!! I was a little mind blown. I told him that yes, yes we could ask our bishop if he could be baptized. But then I was like, What do we do now? Oh yeah, we set a date. Once again, McDonalds was a holy place to me. 

We were also in charge of putting together a service activity for the young women. We had them do a concert for a local assisted living. It was really incredible. There were two residents that cried when they all sang Peace In Christ. After the concert, we found out that one of the caretakers there was a less active member and she said that she wants to go back to church now because of the spirit that she felt there that night. Pray for Hannah that she will have the courage and faith to actually go back!

While trying to contact people in our area book, we got 4 return appointments in one day. That was huge! Most of the time it's a miracle for us to get even one return appointment. 

I love you!

Sister Slade

Pictures:

1. The trio 

2. Us with Bev and Brian

3. The Pabst family aka the best family in the world

4. This poster was hanging directly across from the toilet in the literacy council bathroom

5 and 6. Me and my new companion 

7. Bentonville stake missionaries

8. Silly stake picture

Week 5 in the CCM!

(Hermana Ellsworth)

I GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE! This is the last time that I get to go to the temple for 18 months. I love the temple soo much and it makes me sad that I will not be able to go for a while. The temple is a beautiful place! Always go to the temple!!!

Also we had an amazing speaker come and speak to us. John C. Pingree Jr. of the 70 came and told us some great things. Some of my favorite things he talked about was how every companion will prepare us for our lives. Whether it be through challenges or through good experiences. He talked about when he was a mission president he watched a sister change so much over her mission. Every email she would start with, "This week the atonement of Jesus Christ helped me to....." and by the end of the mission she was able to change into this refined missionary and woman. Also the speaker called me out over the stand because he said something awesome and I gave my companion a fist bump because of how cool it was and He goes, "thats right !! That was awesome and deserved a fist bump! What is your name?" and I had to yell my name from the crowd. Haha kind of weird.  I know the Atonement of Jesus works but we have to actively choose to use it. Search the scriptures everyday and think about what you can change to become closer to Christ.

My life is great and nothing really is going on in the CCM.  I love you all and I would love to hear from you guys!

Pictures are Hermana Hahne and I, My comp Hermana Bates taking picts of me, and then all the Hermanas in my district. Neilsin, bates, Mehlhoff, Jones, Hahne! I love them so much!

D& C 59:21

(Aldste Cummings)

Må Gud utgjuta sin oändliga kärlek över era huvud mina kära syskon,

I thought I'd change up the greeting a little bit today. Hoppas det smakar.

Anyway, this week has been pretty great. We've had lot's of good fun.

We got transfer calls and Elder Mathias and I are looking at another 6 weeks together here. It's gonna be great. Maybe I'll get to see the grass before I leave.

This week we had a musical fireside with the branch and a lot of people brought friends and nonmembers and it ended up being a really nice evening. The sister missionaries were in charge of the whole thing and had asked us about two days in advance to prepare something to perform so I asked a member if we could use their piano so I could brush a little dust off of "Bröllopsdag på Troldhaugen" by Edvard Grieg. The performance ended up going really well and the Swedes really appreciated that I played a little Scandinavian music.

Funny thing I've noticed from my observations here: There's this big rivalry between the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland) over which one is the best and they're constantly making jabs at the other countries and making claims that their [insert cultural element here] is better than all the others. Unless they don't have a [cultural element] to represent their country in the debate in which case they claim their Scandinavian fraternity justifies their showing pride in the accomplishments of the others. For example, Edvard Grieg is Norwegian and Sweden doesn't have a comparable Swedish composer to rival him so instead of admitting defeat, Swedes glory in the musical prodigy of their Norwegian brother. It's a pretty smart tactic. Either you're the best or everyone's the best and it doesn't matter.

Anyway, the rest of the week went really well. We had this really cool experience on Tuesday. We had prayed in the morning to be led by the Spirit without our being conscious of it and we ended up asking our mission leader to come with us to visit some women who live alone but said we could come back another time. On the way to the first woman, our mission leader didn't hear the directions we gave him and we spent about two minutes driving around in circles in parking lot. We eventually get there and knock and the woman didn't answer. But just as we were leaving, she came walking up from the laundry room and asked our mission leader what he was doing there. Turns out, she was actually an old neighbor to our mission leader and they knew each other really well but had lost contact over the years. We came in and had a fantastic lesson with her and our mission leader was able to give her teaching and advice specifically tailored to her needs. It was incredible.

Everything worked out so well. We decided to swing by her that day specifically with our mission leader who turned out to be an old friend to her and spent just enough time getting lost in that parking lot that she came to the door right when we were leaving rather than having missed her entirely.

To some of you this may just seem like coincidence, but this kind of stuff happens far too often to us and to other missionaries to be anything other than divine intervention. I know God lives and is actively engaged in this work.

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. In a town a little south of here, they have a Polar Plunge every year where they cut a 25m lap pool in the ice on the river and have people race each other in it.

2. "Here comes the Sun, ba ba baba" --The Beatles

3. You may think this is the prints made by two people falling into the snow simultaneously, but you'd be wrong. This is, in fact, the prints left behind when the Elder's Quorum President in our branch pushed me into the snow and then Elder Mathias pushed me back into the snow after helping me up.

4. This elderly woman was standing in the middle of the apartment complex looking scared so I offered her my arm to help her walk over the ice. Super adorable.

I always exercise sometimes

(Sister Slade)

Today's title comes from a four year old boy named Taym. He was showing us his mom's gym and said, "I always exercise sometimes."

Okay. It was a crazy week. One of the sisters in a nearby ward went home and her companion was emergency transferred into Central Park with us. So we have been in a trio all week with Sister Fretwell. She has only been out one and a half transfers so we are finishing her training. We also got transfer calls on Saturday night. Sisters Boyack and Fretwell will be leaving and I will be staying...again. my companion is going to be sister Davis. She is one of the Nauvoo sisters so she will be leaving midway through this transfer which means that I will be in another trio for the last two weeks of next transfer as well. That also means that I will have to stay in Central Park for another transfer after that. 9 months in Central Park!

This week we found 2 new people! The first one is an 85 year old man named Jim. We serve at a senior center and 2 weeks ago be asked us if we could explain the difference between "mormons" and "latter day saints." He wants to learn more! The other person we found is a 24 year old homeless man named James. One of our lessons canceled so we we were walking around and felt prompted to talk to the man sitting on the bench. We gave him a book of Mormon and set up an appointment for last night at the McDonalds. It was an amazing lesson. We taught him how much his Heavenly Father loves him and how he can find hope and stability in jesus Christ. We also taught him about prayer. He's never really prayed before, but we invited him to say the closing prayer. It was the most humble and powerful prayer I've ever heard. In it he said, "Sir, I don't really know how to pray but I want to learn and I am going to need your help." After the prayer, he told us that before it he was really scared but that as he prayed he could feel something warm right here, pointing at his heart.  Then with tears in his eyes, he said, "It's still there." Who knew that a McDonalds could become a holy place?

We also had a lot of really cool things fall into place for us. One of the crazy ideas our mission president gave us was to try to get a meeting with the Walmart Distribution Center manager because the Walmart DC is in our area. We were at a dinner with a member when we found out that he knows the manager and can set up an appointment with him for next week. The whole thing with the trio was also a testimony to us that the Lord is in control. When we rearranged a couple weeks ago, both Sister Boyack and I thought independently of each other that we could fit a trio in our apartment now. Lo and behold, now we have a trio.

I love being a missionary! I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me over the next year.

I love you!

~Sister Slade

Pictures:

1. I saw this outside a Walmart

2. The trio!

3. Sister Boyack with her Chewbaca cup

4. I really don't know what happened here or how sister Boyack convinced us to put those on our heads

5. Us right after finding James

6. Sister Boyack trying to put her shirt on over a bowl on her head

7. Sister Tausinga's goodbye

8. Sister Boyack singing

65 lbs of flour, 5 lbs of butter, 10 lbs of honey, and 5 jars of yeast

(Sister Slade)

Hey! So now I can explain why we made 90 loaves of bread. Sister Boyack and I decided to make a valentine  for each of the families in our ward. It was super fun! It was ana amazing experience to be able to show love to that many people. We were very specific that we didn't want to ask for anything while we were there and we've already seen miracles come from it. What if love was our only motivation?

This week was really good. Yesterday we were trying to contact potentials and stopped at one house. The person who lived there doesn't live there anymore but we met Raj. He was super cool and wants to learn more about Jesus Christ. New person being taught! Yay!

We also taught a member referral last night. Last week we were at a members house and were teaching them about the ward mission plan, Love, Lift,  Include, and Invite. So we were like, "how can you love, lift, include, and invite?" And they were like, "we can invite our work friend to take the lessons from the missionaries." And we were like, "okay!" So we taught him last night. His name is Rohit. It was a really interesting lesson because he knew nothing about Jesus Christ. The prayers he says are memorized and in a dead language that he doesn't know the meaning of. He said he really likes how personal our prayers are. Have you ever thought about how special a gift it is to be able to speak directly to our Heavenly Father? I'm so grateful that I can talk to my Father and that He can talk back to me.

What do you think of the adjustment to missionary standard about communicating to family? It's pretty crazy that I can call home every week if I need to. It's so amazing that we have a prophet to lead and guide the church today.

I love you!

~Sister Slade

Pictures:

1-11 the bread adventure

12. A valentine's rose from my dad

D & C 123:12

(Aldste Cummings)

Hej allihopa!

Well, I just got off a video call with my parents. It was awesome but felt kinda weird. We said more in 15 minutes than we could have emailed in 4 weeks.

For those of you who don't know, there was a recent change in missionary communication abilities. We now can call our families any given Monday rather than specifically Christmas and Mothers' Day. Unfortunately, this applies to only our families so most of you still have to wait to see my radiant smile until we meet again.

This week we visited a member family that is recently beginning to come back to church. They have a 9 year-old son who hasn't been baptized yet and they like having us over to teach him about the Gospel. Last week we figured out that the key to the kid's heart was English. He was a little shy at first but soon enough we got him chatting and joking with us in English. His English is actually incredibly impressive. In our conversation the other day he used the word "aggressive." Again, incredibly impressive.

Anyway, we invited him to be baptized this week and his only complaint was that we set the date too far in the future. We had to convince him that he needed the time in order to be ready but we appreciated the enthusiasm!

It's been really warm the past week. Some of the snow even started to melt! I still haven't seen the grass though. I don't think I ever will see the grass in Boden.

Due to the warmth, the usually powdery snow was wet and moldable. This led to Elder Mathias and I playing Obiwan v. Anakin as he stood at the bottom of a MASSIVE snow pile in snow up to his waist and tried to fight his way up while I stood at the top and pelted him with snowballs while repeatedly verbally affirming my possession of the high ground. We took a video. Good content.

We had a cool experience this week while knocking doors. A woman opened to us and immediately said she wasn't interested in what we had to say. Elder Mathias boldly asked her a question or two more to keep the conversation alive which gave us an opportunity to explain what it was we were doing. In response to her assertion that she's not interested because she's a "normal" Christian, we testified of the joy of the Restored Gospel and how it helps us strengthen our faith in Christ. We then said to her, "Now that you understand our purpose a little better, could we come back another day and share our message with you?" To which she smiled kindly and responded with "Yes, actually. That sounds very nice."

Some people are afraid or reject what we have because they don't know anything about it. They kling to what they think they know without opening up to experience it for themselves. But the more they open their hearts to learn, the more they will find that the message of the Restored Gospel is anything but fearsome or worthy of rejection.

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

(Sorry, no pictures this week)

VIDEO CALLING!

(Hermana Ellsworth)

What a fuuun week! THE BIGGEST THING IS Being able to video call my family. THIS HAS BEEN SUCH A BIG BLESSING. I have been sick for most of this week and that has been hard but I feel so much better. I have used all my time face-timing my family so I am sorry for the really short email. I love my family soo much!!!. Valentines day was kind of depressing. We called it friendship day instead haha got to love the ccm.  My companion and I got to heart attack our district for the holiday though. The lab is full of people who are facetiming.

One thing that I really wanted to share is that Elder Cook and Elder Soares are amazing speakers. They are apostles of God. I know that Christ lives and that He loves each and every one of us. I have felt so much help as I learn the language and study the gospel. I love learning about how much God loves each and everyone of us. I was able to testify of this to a volunteer member who came into the CCM and even though my spanish is hard I was able to say what I needed to say. I love speaking spanish and I love speaking to the investigators because that is when I am able to speak my best spanish.

I LOOOVEEE YOOOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! MISSIONS ARE AMAZING