Pretty busy week!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for,

This week had been pretty great! Though every week is great as a missionary. We did some service cleaning out a garage and walked and biked (a LOT) in the wind and rain. We helped build a fence. We also had a great lesson yesterday with Abby who we found last week. She seems pretty open and we have high hopes for her!

Yesterday we gave talks in church about service. On thing that stuck out to me as I was preparing is how our love for Christ leads us to want to love and serve others. The famous scripture John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son". My hope and joy is that I so love the Son that I give of my self to serve the world. I love my Savior, and am great ful for what He has done for me, and am greatful to serve God's children here in Idaho.

This coming week we have the blessing of being able to have zone conference and a mission zoom call with an apostle. It should be a spiritually uplifting week! Love you all! Be of good cheer, and know that God loves you!

Pictures:

1. Elder Clove surrounded by cats. He LOVES cats!

2-3. Cooking and serving 30 eggs for Elder Iketau. We were going to have him eat 60 eggs, but he ended up backing out. He only ended up eating about 20 or so, which I was impressed with!

S5 E6: AP for a week?

 (Elder Cummings)

Not actually, but I was a trio with them for most of the week. Super crazy:

Tuesday: We drive down 2.5 hours to BR and stop by LSU to eat with Elder Roderick’s member friends that he got to know when he served there. Then we head to the AP's apartment

Wednesday: we wake up at 4am to drop off Elder Roderick at the airport so he can go to San Fran and get visa stuff done for his call to Portugal.

Thursday: I get to be a bag of meat following the AP's around as they are preparing for the end of the transfer and doing a ton of stuff. It was hectic and crazy but a LOT of fun.

Friday: do some more stuff with the AP's and then stay up late to pick up Elder Roderick from the airport, who's flight got delayed till 12:30am so we stay up a little later and it's ends up getting cancelled. He straight up has to sleep in the airport, but all is well, he is home

Saturday: wake up early to make it down to a landscaping service project spreading gravel and mulch. Then go straight to the airport in sweat and dirt to pick up Elder Roderick. We shower and get ready and then drive the 2.5 hours back to Alexandria with just enough time to have dinner, have Elder Roderick pack late into the night because he's getting transfered😥.

Sunday: went to church, then drove the 2.5 hours back to BR(not even 15 hours later than when we got back to Alex). On the way we saved a turtle from the middle of the road, put him in the car and drove for another 1.5 hours to drop him off at the LSU lake. We named him Muse cause that was the closest sign when we found him in the middle of nowhere. We took him to go sight seeing on the campus cause we had a little bit of time.

Monday(Today): went to the BR Zone Conference, not even in my zone, then left early to be dropped off at the airport to head to an undisclosed location to work on some Taiwan visa stuff. Super exciting! Don't get too excited though, it's not as close as you think. Got to play some video games with a 5 year old that sat next to me cause his sister was asleep and wanted to play with me. That was fun. Now I'm here for the night, getting some tests done and flying back tomorrow!

Needless to say, not a normal week, but despite it all miracles are still afoot and the Work continues on. With a week of a lot of stress and change, I've better realized how the Holy Ghost is truly the Comforter and that we can always feel the fruits of his presence as we live worthy of it; "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance"(Gal 5: 22-23)

Elder Cummings

Photos!

1.Elder Angilau and me at the service project

2. When we found Muse in the middle of the road

3. Muse and Mike meet

4. Muse at his new home

Full Mission Conference and other rare occurances

 (Sister Putnam)

Monday we got together as a district and did volleyball at a park and that was fun.

 Tuesday was interviews with president.  They were in person this time! That's never happened before during my mission, so it was something new to me.

 Wednesday we had district council and then we had a lesson with Reba and Shae.  We taught them about the Book of Mormon and that they can feel nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.  Afterwards Reba texted us and said thank you for the lesson, and that the lesson made her feel better than she had in a long time. It was really awesome, and we hope to help her see the impact that the gospel can have in her life.

On Thursday we had a full mission conference. You've gotta understand that President Auna almost never does things like that. Usually the biggest mission conference we'd have was a half mission conference twice a year, and the biggest mission conference I'd ever been to in my mission wasnt even a Zone Conference but a Half Zone conference due to covid restrictions. So this full mission conference was a huge deal! I got to see all the people I'd met, minus those who had gone back to their original assignments or gone home, and it was way cool! I didnt realize how many people I hadn't met. We talked about growing our faith and that was awesome. Afterwards we went to the tulip festival.  The flowers were so pretty.

 On Friday we had a lesson with a family in the ward that lasted like 3 hours, and the whole time they didn't shove politics down our throats! You have to understand, we've had several member lessons where they only. talk. politics. to. us. So the fact that we had a lesson that lasted THREE HOURS and there was no mention of politics was incredible! And so relieving!!

Oh and on Sunday the elders decided to prank us and harmlessly vandalize our car before they were at church so I'll include pictures!

Okay love you all!!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

S5 E5: The keys to the ministering of porcelain angels!

 (Elder Cummings)

This week was again crazy. It always seems like they are. I was up in Natchitoches until Thursday afternoon but the couple days I was here in Alexandria were jam packed.

Let me run y’all down with some of the miracles:

Wednesday morning, Elder Roderick(my comp) and Elder Leonard prayed to know how they should use technology to further the work. Actually let me preface this. About a month ago a lady we’re teaching gave us like 20 porcelain china decorative angels that we have no idea what to do with. She wanted us to give them to charities or toss them. Alright back to the miracle. Elder Roderick remembers these angels and thinks to put them on Facebook Marketplace for free. He does so, and by the end of the day all 22 of them are claimed by people.

Fast forward to Thursday. We go and give a lady 2 angels she requested and she just about falls into tears. Apparently every year she gives her sister a decorative angel on her birthday but this year her budget was really tight and she didn’t know what she was gonna do. She was worrying and praying and the next day she saw our ad for the free angels and we were able to give her some.

Another miracle is that we put up a free service ad on Facebook as well and had a service opportunity lined up for a lady the next morning. We get to Beverly’s house and clean her big yard up, cutting limbs, making burn piles, etc(see pictures) and we get done and she is also in tears. She’s an old lady with a big yard that she can’t keep up with. The tree limbs kept falling and she couldn’t trim them anymore either and she was really stressed out about it. She said a prayer Wednesday night for a miracle and right after saw our ad for free service.

I know God is aware of each of us and each of our needs. If we come to him in prayer and faith, He will support us and strengthen us. He truly is our Father. Let Him take control in your life, let Him prevail and you will be able to be an instrument in His hands to lift and help others of His children.

Elder Cummings

Pics!

1)These pictures don't do it justice. That pile is massive👨‍🌾

2)the man, Jonathon 💪

3) some more crawfish 😋

Eggs-celent!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

This week was great! We found three new people to teach. We found those people by asking who else could join us at the beginning of some lesson with less active members. They were just in the back room, and they said they want to be taught! The Lord is blessing us immensely! The Lord is good and blesses us as we serve Him.

Not much else happened this week. Went on an exchange with an Elder Iketau who is a 330 pound Polynesian beast who normally pounds 12 eggs in an entire sitting. He said he could do 60 if he tried. We are going to buy him 60 eggs this next week for him to try. But we had a great exchange and I learned a lot from him. You might even say the exchange was eggs-celent!

Love yall!

Pictures:

1-2. Beautiful Sunset yesterday

3. Elder Clove and I riding bikes

4. We've been feeding the squirrels in our back yard. They are getting chunky! The one we named Chonkersgrabbed an entire twinkie and starting going ham on that thing.

Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!

 (Sister Putnam)

Hey everyone!!!

So they just started letting us do District Council Dinners/Lunches again, so after district council we were eating outside and a lady drives her car up to the parking lot, rolls down the window, and is like "hey, do any of you want the Pfizer vaccine? We have a ton of extras at such-and-such place, and we're gonna throw them away" so we were like "well, what are we waiting for?" So our whole district got the first dose together and we go back in a couple weeks to get the second dose! so there’s the explanation for the title of my email lol

On Friday we had a lesson with our friend from Africa, his name is James, and he committed to baptism! So we're getting in contact with the missionaries where he is!

And Reba reached out to us, she said she wants another bible study, so that's exciting!!

Okay love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

The Storms of Life

( Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

It was a good week! Then again, every week as a missionary is a good week! :) Yesterday we taught a man named Lewie that is in his 80's, and he's practically deaf. Since we have to wear these masks, we taught him through screaming. My voice was beat at the end of that lesson, let me tell you. It's a whole other experience yelling your testimony at the top of your lungs in a lesson.

This week was transfers and we're both staying here, but we found out that we now cover another ward! We started teaching a new person in that ward named Chelsie, and we have high hopes for her. She is a devoted Christian and loves learning about the gospel. It's been great to teach her!

Lastly, the weather here has been atrocious! Particularly the wind. It is so hard to bike in wind, let me tell you. There have been some sketchy moments as we've biked on the streets. The wind has been reminding me of a verse in the Book of Mormon:

Helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Though the winds have been heavy, and the storms have been strong, I'm built on Christ! Love you all! Don't let the winds of life beat you down too hard!

Pictures:

1-2. Laticia the schizophrenic person we teach likes coloring and showed us her impressive master pieces. (On a side note, she sometimes forgets to take her meds, and she goes full on Golem mode. It's pretty epic, but hard to teach her in that state of mind!)

3. Elder Clove with a Rabbit named Loki

4. We walked outside, and some girl had parked her bike next to ours. I tried to get Elder Clove to ride it. He said no.