I guess we could do an emergency transfer

(Sister Slade)

So we got a call on Saturday night. It was President Strong. He told us that there was a sister that needs to go home for a medical emergency which requires some moving around of some sisters. So last night we drove to Springfield Missouri. Sister Faleafa was moved to Mountain View Missouri and Sister Jelderks came back to Fayetteville with me. And now you understand the title of my email. Interestingly enough, sister Faleafa and I have each been part of 3 emergency transfers during our mission.

Fun fact time: sister Jelderks and I are both from Colorado. We both have the same first name. We are both super nerdy and logical people. We're both super neat people and like things to be clean. I have a feeling this companionship is going to work well.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving! We had 3 dinners Wednesday and Thursday. Too much turkey.

I can't really think of anything else that happened this week because I spent 6 hours driving last night.

God is good!

Sister Slade

Pictures

1. I got to see sister Brown when we had an ET!

2. Last picture with sister Faleafa :(

3-8. We put cats in Christmas sweaters for service. They don't look very happy do they?

December 3, 2019

(Elder Petersen)

Monday

               Today was interesting it was my first P-Day with my new companion, whose name is Elder Ladd. We did quite a bit had a dinner with a member family at 5:30 and then went to a few more member houses then our day ended.

Tuesday

               Today was a pretty interesting day because we had service assigned to us but the mission did not realize that our service assignment was closed due to Thanksgiving. But we did have a combined Companionship Study with the Elders who drove us the the failed service. After that we did a lot of tech time to set up appointments for latter in the week.

Wednesday

               Today we did a lot with our technology in proselytizing. We tried to set up as many member appointments as possible during the day. We also went and knocked on a few formers(formerly taught non-members) to see if we could schedule an appointment with them.

Thursday

               We ate a lot of good food and spent a lot of time with members and non that invited us over for dinner. But other than that we did not do much else.

Friday

               Today we had a Multi-District Council meeting in which we met with our entire zone and got training on how to become better missionaries. We did weekly planning and a few member appointments that our ward mission leader set up for us.

Saturday

               We found a new person to teach today as well as did some service for a member. We had a packed night tonight with ministering appointments as well as some how finding a new in the most random way. We just so happened to be being driven around by a returned missionary who speaks marshalese and the door that we just so happened to knock on was of a marshalese speaker who had moved in not too long ago.

Sunday

               My companion was sick yesterday so we did not do much until 2pm. At 2 we went to a meeting with our Stake president, then at 3:15 we had a non-member lesson that went pretty well and after that we went to a Musical devotional that was held in Brigham City that I sung in.

Nov 26, 2019

(Elder Petersen)

Monday

               Today was average until the evening when we went to a pass off lesson from another set of Elders to us. We got so involved with the lesson that we spent a full hour there teaching this nine year old about the commandments and the Word of Wisdom.

Tuesday

               Today was a harder day due to the fact that transfers are tomorrow and my companion Elder Coupe is getting transferred out so packing and deep cleaning took up a bunch of our time. But the hard part was watching Elder Coupe say goodbye to the good friends that he has made over his past 9 months here in providence. He says that it is a bitter-sweet moment and I truly believe that is is and will be for me as well. But to happier subjects our teaching pool has gone up a lot so we actually have something to keep us busy for the next little while!

Wednesday

               Transfer day! My new companions name is Elder Ladd and he is great. We managed even on a transfer day to get a fair bit done in our work which was awesome. We got so much done that it does not seem that it should be the same day.

Thursday

               Today we had Zone conference and we were trained on how to do Ministering With Members effectively. Also we were given an inspirational talk by one of our Senior Elders about how we should never give up on ourselves or our area. That he will never give up on us so we should never give up on ourselves.

Friday

               So today we had a huddle with Elder Waldner which went well. He then took us to a Musical devotional practice that I am in. After our practice we went to dinner and got a lift for one of our homeys who went with us to every member visit that we did tonight and to contact some formers on our lists until it was time for us to go in.

Saturday

               Today began like any other day we had a lesson set up with Heather but she canceled so we did not end up meeting with her but we did try contacting a few of the formerly taught people in our area book. We managed to get to a few of those as well as do some service for some members all before dinner and then after dinner we had a good number of member visits that we went to after diner and after that our day ended.

Sunday

               Today we had a lot of meetings to go to and at the start of the day we we had two member lessons which both rescheduled. Then we did former contacts had dinner and went on splits to get all of our appointments done. Then we went into another fire discussion with a non-member and had another meeting after that. So we are doing good today.

When there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you going to call? Missionaries!

(Sister Slade)

Guess what? We actually got to go out and work for most of the week! And it was a wild week.

On Tuesday Sister Faleafa had to see a Neurologist in Bentonville. Ironically, it was the same neurologist that I went to a year ago. They figured out what was causing the migraines really quickly and gave her a nerve blocking shot and she's been great the rest of the week. Hopefully it keeps working.

On Wednesday we went ghost hunting. Someone we are teaching texted us a d said that there was an evil presence in his house and that he wanted us to help him investigate. We went over to tell him that we could help bless the home or cast it out but that we couldn't be involved in the investigation and that we definitely shouldn't try to speak to it. And then he was like ok and then proceeded to hand us recording devices and heat sensors. The problem was that we couldn't just leave because of various unrelated situations. So we were there for FIVE HOURS. He even downloaded this app (it was definitely fake) that let us speak to the demon (because that's what he determined it was). It said things like bacon, legion, hundred, fear, agent, and objection. The person then said he knew what the demon meant; it was "afraid" of us because we were "agents" of God and we had "hundreds" and "legions" of his angels around us (I don't know how bacon fit in). Anyway, that is where today's title comes from. I will admit that there was definitely something weird in that house and I dos not like how it felt. You better believe I was praying the whole time I was there.

On Friday we had a district Light The World activity. We did service at the library where our bishop is head over facilities. He had arranged for the library to basically do light the world without calling it that. So for Fayetteville's light the square event we handed out light batons that prompted people to do kind deeds throughout the month of December. It was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, sister Faleafa picked up a bug somewhere and has been sick the whole weekend, so there's not much else to report.

God is good!

Sister Slade

Pictures:

 Light the World activity

The library's idea of no shave November

Us at service

 some neat candles we made for light the world

a funny meme

HUMACAO

(Hermana Ellsworth)

I am so sorry that it has been a little bit since I have been able to email a group email but I am in Humacao now and it is one of the most amazing areas. I love it here so much. My companion is Hermana Allred from Las Vegas, Nevada and from Saratoga Springs, Utah!! We lived 20 minutes away from each other in Utah but did not meet until we came to Puerto Rico:) She is a spiritual giant and is helping me grow so much. We are seeing some amazing miracles from being obedient to our mission rules and the advice of our mission president. As a mission we are asked to talk to 10 new people every day for every missionary. That is 20 new contacts every day and we have been able to complete with that promise everyday for these past 2 weeks and now we are seeing some wonderful blessings.

We are teaching Jaileen who is getting baptized on the 7th of December. We were able to go to a members house and have lunch with the Youngs :)  We have some pictures from that really fun lunch. We  are also teaching a man named Tony :) He is amazing at painting and drawing and he drew a picture of the Puerto Rican Temple as his way of keeping his eye on the temple :) 

I love you all so much :)  We had a wonderful Mission Leadership Conference yesterday with Brother Corbitt from the missionary Department of the Church and he talked a lot about the faith that we had in the premortal existence and how we really just to be reminded of the faith that we already had. We are of infinite worth and value and are able to go through hard things. As a companionship we are working on increasing our faith to find the Elect of God who are the ones who will listen to us and not harden their hearts :)

Also my companion had the talk on Sunday in church. .... And when we looked down in her bag after the sacrament we realized that she did not have her talk... SOOO while the other speaker was giving her talk we RAN ALL THE WAY TO OUR HOUSE to grab the talk and ran back before the 1st speaker finished her talk! It was the most stressful sacrament meeting but she got her talk and no one noticed that we were gone for 10 minutes :) So we are good. Its fine, im fine, its fine. :)

GO FIGHT WIN!

Remember to tuck your tail.

Have a wonderful week friends and family!

Serving a mission is like climbing Mount Everest

(Sister Slade)

My emails have got to be super boring recently. Sorry about that.

Not much happened this week except zone conference. President shared a workshop on the doctrine of christ. He compared serving a mission to climbing Mount Everest. Then he said that the doctrine of christ are the things we use to get to the top. Faith is the belief that when you see the mountain you can get to the top, so you start climbing. Repentance is course corrections; making sure you take the best route to get to the top. Our covenants are the climbing gear that helps us get to the top safely. The Holy Ghost is like the mountain Sherpas. They know the mountain so well that they can guide you to the top and back safely. Enduring to the end is the patience, hope and diligence to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Without the gospel of Jesus christ, climbing the mountain would be almost impossible. Serving a mission (or any other experience or trial you're going through) is a whole lot easier when you have and trust the gospel of Jesus Christ. This made me think a lot about why I am climbing. So I invite you to do the same. Why are you climbing? If you aren't utilizing the gospel, then do so. Believe that with the help of Christ you can climb your mountain. Know that it is possible to get back on the path. Remember the covenants you made at baptism and the promises He made to you there. If you haven't yet made that covenant, then consider doing so. I know that it will help you climb your mountain. Trust that the Holy Ghost knows the mountain better than you do and that he can and will guide you if you let him. And finally, don't ever lose hope that there is a top to the mountain. I promise that when you reach the top and look out over the breathtaking view you will ask yourself if that was really all you had to endure.

I love the gospel and I'm eternally grateful that I have it in my life. I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us.

God is good.

Sister Slade

Pictures

1. Zone conference (Sister Faleafa moved when they took the picture so she looks kind of funny if you zoom in)

2. Mold that I found cleaning the apartment (Elders used to live here and it is bad)

3-4. all of the sock monkeys I've made (12 to date).

Transfer Roster!

(Elder Petersen)

Monday

               Today when we were shopping we stopped at a store called great harvest bread and one of our Stake Presidents who owns the Great harvest chain was there and gave us some free loaves of bread to take home which was another new thing that has not happened to me before and then after our P-Day ended we went to a MWM appointment and then after that we finalized a referral conversation that we had been having with a member so now we have a non-member appointment set up for Thursday!

Tuesday

               Today we texted a lot of people to set up appointments for latter in the week after we finished that we started to walk home for lunch we ran into a member that asked us to come into his house and give him a spiritual thought which we did and thought was cool as we did it. After lunch we had a house inspection so we did some cleaning before the senior couple came to do the inspection. After that we had my additional Companion Study and then dinner with some ministering appointments.

Wednesday

               Today we had District Council as well as a mission assigned service which took up most of our day. Both of those finally ended at around four so after that we did additional Companionship Study for that hour and then had dinner at home. After that we had a few ministering appointments which ended our day.

Thursday

               Today we had a Back to Basics meeting basically just to teach us what we should be teaching those people whom we are teaching. Although before that we had a huddle with Elder Waldner during lunch. After both of those we did additional Companionship Study.

Friday

               Today I had a musical devotional practice after our morning studies. After that one of the members in our area took us out for lunch which was a bit of a surprise at the time. After that we had weekly planning and additional Companionship Study. After those we had dinner and a few member appointments then we went to be.

Saturday

               Today started out normal with our studies and then going to a church building and doing tech time. But when we went to lunch Elder Coupe started to feel really bad so we stayed in the rest of the day trying to still be productive even though I cannot go outside because of Elder Coupe being sick. He should be fine by tomorrow though, he got a blessing and he will have a full night sleep to enjoy so we should be able to get to all of our meetings tomorrow.

Sunday

               Today we had a busy day that ended in two news and a transfer roster. So today we had a few meetings went to three sacraments and met with quite a few people in member visits. The big thing that happened today though was that the transfer roster was sent out and now I know that I am getting a new companion and staying in my same area.