Sister Allie Slater: A Lovely Week in Ohio.

Hey guys!:)

I am going to stop making my emails so incredibly long and just do a summary of the week, haha so I can stop hurting all of your eyes :)

This week has been going good so far. We have had a lot of member presents which are the most important thing ever! We have a ward trunk or treat activity on Saturday and we have been inviting EVERYONE to it. Turns out we have 3 people actually coming! What?! This is crazy! No one ever goes to ward activities haha. Tim is coming, he is a potential investigator. Nicest guy. We are going to do service for him next week. Thomas is coming, he is our neighbor. He was sick this week so we made him some homemade broccoli soup. He told us he isn’t interested in our religion but, he is super nice and is coming to the trunk or treat so maybe his heart is being softened!:) And last, Wes is coming. Oh, how we love Wes :) He is progressing so much. He committed to church on Sunday and is keeping all of his commitments! He is awesome. We brought Sister Flander’s to the lesson we had with him and we talked about faith. We read Alma 32 and talked about how it just takes that little amount of faith, that little seed, and if you have the desire it will grow. We talked about also how prayer is so important. In the lesson the spirit really spoke to Wes cause he was like “Oh! I need to pray to gain a relationship with God. I do not know why I never thought of that.” We were happy he received that revelation for himself :) The Lord is blessing us in this area that is for sure.

We had exchanges again this week. Sister Verhagen came to our area so that means I was in charge of the area ahh I was scared. I had to do all the planning and just be in charge. It was scary but luckily we had two lessons planned. One with Steve, and one with Tristan. We were really excited for both of the lessons! We haven’t seen Tristan in forever so we were excited to see him! But anyway, I made all these plans to visit all these people in this area and none of them were home! Something that I planned 2 hours for took us like 15 minutes to do. So we ended up tracting in the area… I have never tracted before. I have never wanted to, I am scared of it. But, we had nothing else planned so it was necessary. Turns out it wasn’t bad! Haha this one guy though.. oh goodness. We knock on this door and this guy answers and he is shirtless with just this little robe wrapped around his waist. He swings open the door and says “Come in!” Um.. yeah I was speechless. Literally, I didn’t know what to say. I thought this was the end of my life. I thought he was going to kidnap me or something haha. Sister Verhagen finally spoke and was like “Hey we are missionaries and you religious?” and he goes “Yes! I am Pastor King” (in an Indian accent) then he looked at our name tags and was like “oooohhh God bless.” And shut the door. Haha strangest experience but we were laughing so hard after we couldn’t help ourselves. We had dinner at Sister Beachamps that night and she made us a dessert called the death by chocolate brownie. It was like the best thing of my life. I was obsessed I ate a huge piece in like 30 seconds. Man oh man was that things good.. anyway haha. Exchanges were fun! But it was nice to have Sister Horsley bacd :)

We are now allowed to have candles in our apartment! It used to be a rule you couldn’t but now you can! So Sister Horsley and I went to get candles because they make us happy. It was so hard picking a scent! But we knew we wanted a fall one.. and we found the perfect one :) We light it every time we are in the house it smells sooo good. I have a growing obsession with candles now, they are so comforting and they smell so good! Ha it is the littlest things when you are on a mission that make you the happiest. We taught Steve the Plan of Salvation and it went really well. He told us it really comforted him, especially the spirit world. He is so awesome! He totally understands what we teach him. His biggest thing is just the BOM. He keeps saying he just needs to read and pray about it to know if it is true. Hmm what more could we ask for? Haha.The BOM is the keystone! If you know that is true then everything else about this gospel is true. Gotta love it :) It’s cool that he recognizes what he has to do to know if this church is true. Saturday we had the trunk or treat! Yay! Three people told us they would come but one showed up: our neighbor Thomas! He really isn’t interested in the church at all so were surprised he came! But he did! Everyone was talking to him and he was having a good time! It was also a chili cook off so there was some good food there as well :) Sister Horsley and I dressed up the most we could for missionaries haha she was Merida, and I was Snow White. When I asked people who I was though these are the responses, “uh.. Mother Gothell from Tangled?”, “hmm.. you kinda look like a more tasteful mistress of the night.” Hahaha I was dying. I was def not a mistress of the night that is for sure. The trunk or treat was fun though most of the little girls were dressed up as Elsa. They were like “all the Elsa’s come in for a picture” Haha people are still so crazy about that movie. I for sure miss it! It was really fun though :)

We had the BEST SUNDAY EVER! Wanna know why? Well, first it was primary program which is always grand but... WES CAME!! My first investigator at church :) He LOVED it! After church he was telling us about how he is going to come next week.. miracles I tell ya. Miracles. And the Flanders invited him over for dessert at their place! Thanks Sister Flanders for the chocolate waffles, they were delicious!:) But it is just so amazing to see the members want to get so involved with the investigators. It takes a spiritual conversion, but it also takes a social conversion, and our ward has got that covered with Wes. He said this is the first church he has gone to where members have gone out of their way to introduce themselves, and he loved it. We also had a little family home evening action at the Flanders with Wes, it was fantastic! We cannot wait to teach him Tuesday! This is what being a missionary is all about! I am loving it!

Sister Horsley and I have had a lot of fun this week haha. We had a water fight one day where we had our water bottles just getting each other wet. Sometimes when you are out in the field you have to have just stupid silly times or else you go crazy. Then she was leaning back in her chair and totally fell over I was dying! Haha my full intention was to help but... I was too busy eating ha I am a good companion :) She was ok though :) I also made her get a flu shot this week. I got mine in the MTC so I am covered but she did NOT want to get one. She kept trying to get out of it but we did it :) And when she got it she was like oh that was nothing! Yeah.. that is usually how it goes. She is a funny one :)

I got a large package in the mail this week full of candy… thanks Morgy and Heidi I love you two so much :) And yes most of the candy is gone.. haha I cannot help myself when it is sitting there I just eat it! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Welcome to the mission life. Hey, it is all about the work right? It doesn’t matter what we eat! Haha. Thanks for all your prayers I love you all so much! Have a good week this week, and invite the missionaries over for a good home cooked meal. You really don’t know how much they truly appreciate it! LOVE YOU!