Here Am I, Send Me.

My mom told me to be more real on my weekly emails. BUT I AM! Haha Life is good here! Love my comp, love my area, life is swell here in the Hayden Run area. So I guess I will just be over dramatic on my emails to make them more fun! Haha.

Monday: Who knew Mondays could be the best day of the week?:) On P-days we wake up and do our personal and comp study which I love! Personal study is like my favorite time of the day! I have been in denial lately. I feel really fat, I don’t know why every Sister missionary gains weight but we just do! Anyway, I feel fat and then I will eat some M&M’s or some Reese’s to make me feel better haha. That was story of my life today! Anyway we decided today we would clean.. yay. My favorite. But our apartment really really needed it. So we cleaned our bathrooms then went to the library to email. I have my own personal library card and it makes me feel so cool haha. Gosh I miss you all! Missions are not a walk in the park. It is hard!! I have been gone almost a month and it has been the fastest, and slowest month of my life! But it is all worth it. I wouldn’t change this month of my life for anything else. We went to Kroger after to get some groceries. I was trying to get healthy things. I really was but.. Halloween candy. I couldn’t resist. There was a whole bag of Reese’s for three dollars! You better believe that ended up in our shopping cart. Ha. I can’t resist!! After shopping we came back home with full intentions to clean but.. we took a nap. It was like an hour and a half too ohh so nice, I had this dream my mom forgot me at Temple Square and I was running around crazy haha. Thanks for forgetting me mom. After that we cleaned some more. We also made the most epic High School Musical video. Haha it is HSM Mormon version.. it is called YSA for Young Single Adults. Pretty much best thing ever. After our great video we had some din din and then we were off to have a lesson with the Kevin’s we met last week! First we went to meet with Kevin Hola. (haha we call him Kevin Hola cause he is Hispanic) and guess what? HE WASN’T HOME! I was so so bummed.:( I was so excited to teach him! But oh well we will try him again. We quickly texted Tristan to see if he was home and he said we could come over! Tristan is the best. So we went over to his house and we had no lesson planned at all. The spirit was in charge. We had him watch Because of Him, the Mormon message. When that video ended it was silent. Tristan was at a loss of words. He didn’t know what to say and all he said was "wow". The spirit was so strong. So our lesson went into the Atonement. We could tell it really touched Tristan as it really touched us as well. We had him say the closing prayer and it was the most thoughtful prayer ever. I was excited though cause in the prayer he said “thank you for sending these girls to me. I can tell that what they say is… that they have the Spirit with them.” COME ON TRISTAN JUST SAY IT IS TRUE! Haha I thought he was gonna say he can tell what we say is true but whatever. He is getting there!!! YAY! After, we went to have our lesson with Kevin Yo. Haha he is Kevin Yo cause he is black. We were pumped to teach him cause we saw him on the street on our way to Tristan’s and he said “Hey! Aren’t we meeting tonight?” And we got all excited and was like "Ya! At 7:30!" When we got to his house his mom answered and told us he wasn’t there. GAH I was upset. But she said she has talked to some missionaries before.. hmm.. maybe we will go back and teach her and Kevin Yo. I was sad he wasn’t there but.. We will go visit him again. It was overall a wonderful P-day!:)  

Tuesday: One word for this day.. GAHHH. Oh my gosh best day ever!! Okay we started the day off with specialized training. A lot of different zones were there and I saw a lot of my MTC buddies. Oh how I missed them. President Daines gets up and tells us we get to watch Meet the Mormons!!! AHHH!! Everyone was freaking out. It doesn’t even come here until the tenth! But President got special permission for us to watch it! And then they bring out bags and says “What’s a movie without popcorn?” I literally almost cried. Haha so I get my popcorn and whats in it? M&M’s!! WHAT? They know me so well. I was a very happy Sister. Can I just say.. you have to see Meet the Mormons. See it the day it comes out. It is one of the most incredible movies ever. Make sure you take a box of tissues too when you see it. Oh man it just made me so pumped about being a Mormon and ya.. I am obsessed. I was crying through out the whole thing. You must go see it!!! It is not an option. We are trying to get it to play in a theatre here in Ohio. Haha we are going to protest! Okay not really but we want it to play here. I feel like such a VIP for getting to watch a private screening of it haha. President is the best! We ate lunch, listened to some Christmas music, went to meet all these people we planned to see. We got on our bikes and Sister Horsley realized her tire needed some air. So we turned around and went home for that. Then we got back on our bikes and I was putting my bag behind me and somehow the CTR ring I wear on my thumb got caught in the zipper of my bag. In my head I was thinking no big deal I will pull the ring out of the zipper.. didn’t work. Ok.. well I will just pull my ring off.. wouldn’t come off. I started to laugh thinking this is so dumb haha so I asked Sister Horsley to help me. She was laughing way hard I mean my bag was literally connected to my thumb. We were both laughing until we realized it wasn’t coming off.. then my thumb started to turn purple. It wasn’t so funny anymore at this point. We didn’t know what to do! So we called the Elders in our zone. Haha obviously they didn’t know what to do either but it was worth a shot. At this point my thumb hurt so bad. We thought we were going to  have to go to the ER! But I took a good look at the zipper and realized how to get it out. We got my thumb out yay!:) haha. We called the Elders and they were laughing, but it was a scary moment for us! After that traumatic moment we went to see Elizabeth. I hadn’t met her yet but she is Atheist so I thought it would be interesting. And it was. Goodness gracious! My head hurt after that.. I realized how much faith plays a role in our lives. The things she was saying totally makes sense! But, I have the faith in the Lord to know what he says is true. She asked a lot of questions on the Atonement so we told her we would do some research and get back to her. We had dinner and then went to a Chapel Tour we had scheduled with Ryan.. He is the boy who asks so many questions. They are deep doctrine questions too. He is 21 and has a son who is 1. He is really depressed, and doesn’t really know what to do with his life. But we have been teaching him, and he accepted to take a tour of the chapel. We started and just showed him the class rooms, talked about the pictures on the walls, and so on and so forth. But when we went into the chapel.. the spirit was so strong. We talked about the sacrament and read the prayers. He was really touched by those. He would just look around the room and ponder at the things he saw. We thought we would give him some time to think about life, and focus on what he was feeling. So Sister Horsley played some Hymns while we all just sat and pondered. When she was done she asked how he was. He said “I ponder some deep things.” Haha so we asked what about, at this point I noticed he was crying. That boy does not cry! And he just said “That with all I have done in my past, I am not a good enough father to Aaron.” We sat in silence for a good minute and that’s when Brother Suey talked about the Atonement and how it is such a blessing, and that with that we can be cleaned of that guilt, and feelings of not being good enough. We can be molded into a new person, into the person Christ wants us to be. I cannot even explain to you the spirit that was in there. It was taking my breathe away. Ryan cried more and we asked how he was feeling. He told us he felt interesting and we asked interesting how. He told us how he has only felt this way 3 times in his life, and he has not felt this way for a long, long time. Sister Horsley and I got huge smiles on our faces. We told him it was the Spirit, and that with baptism we receive the gift of the holy ghost so we can feel that way more in our lives. We asked him that if he knew this was the true gospel would he be baptized into this church, and he said yes. We told him how he will know the truth through the Book of Mormon and how it will answer all his questions, and give him guidance in his life. We spoke of its truth. You guys, the Spirit was so strong. We know Ryan felt it. He is so amazing. He is ready for this in his life. He needs it. And he is on his way. We asked him to say the closing prayer and he thanked Heavenly Father for sending us into his life because we have stood by him, helping him, more than anyone else besides his parents. He asked to know the truth. He asked if this was Christ’s true church on this earth, I know he will receive an answer. This is what being a missionary is all about. Inviting others to come closer to Christ. I didn’t know I could feel this much joy. Ryan is my brother, and I am helping him return to Heavenly Father. I see such a great potential in him. I want the best for him. And I know as he continues to pray, and to really read the BOM his prayer will be answered. And he will know this is the true church of Jesus Christ, restored on this earth today.

Wednesday: Wednesday was.. eh. We had district meeting which is always fun! I am really starting to get to know my district. They are so awesome! I was super pumped cause I knew after district meeting we could get the car. AHHH for a whole week too! You see, we trade the car with 2 other companionships. So we get it every 2 weeks. Our car is a lovely Toyota Corolla. It is actually really really nice! Sister Horsley is the designated driver. So happy I got out of that one. Haha. She was driving so hesitant it was hilarious! She was literally going 10 under the speed limit. But then again she hasn’t driven in months soo.. I would be sketched out too. We drove to the library so we could print out some talks. After that we headed to Sister Zimmerman’s to get my packages my mom sent to her house. Thanks for the clothes mommyJ Oh and more importantly thanks for my wax pot, I was dying without that! Haha we got some lunch at Taco Bell (which is Sister Horsley’s fav restaurant) and went home. I had a mini fashion show to try on my new clothes and we were off the teach Brother Dickinson. He prefers Brother D though haha. He is a recent convert and is so awesome! We taught him about temples, and he has his temple recommend and we made him promise he would go do baptisms soon. We are very blessed to have a temple like ten minutes away from us. My area is in Columbus, so I am pretty much in the city. After Bro. D. we drove up to see Richard. AHH it is so nice do be able to drive! We can actually get places haha. Richard is an investigator who has so much potential. He is so amazing. He is also going blind, which is a big trial for him. I know this gospel will help him in his life. He is black and is just the sweetest man ever. He was sitting outside his house when we pulled up and I introduced myself. That’s when Steve walked over.. oh Steve. He is a former who the Sister’s had to drop cause he got into way anti-Mormon things. But he is still a really nice guy! After that we noticed we had a text from Ryan! YAY!! We read it and our heart sank.. he said he wanted to cancel our appointment on Thursday. WHYYY. And this is the low of missionary work.. haha how could I be so happy one day then feel so sucky the next. Welcome to missionary life I guess. We just prayed so hard for Ryan after that. We just prayed that he would not let Satan win. We asked him why and he said he got an answer when he read and prayed about the BOM but he needs some time to meditate about it. I totally get it, but I wish he wouldn’t cut us off from him. Lame. Anyway that is probably what made Wednesday an eh kinda day. After that we just did training.. so yeah it was eh. Hopefully tomorrow is better!

Thursday: A huge birthday shout out to my best friend in the whole world! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGONNA! I love you and miss you so much! You are so old now. Haha anyway we decided we would make cookies for Ryan. We wanted to visit him but in a subtle way so he wouldn’t get annoyed. So, we did all our studies then made cookies! Chocolate chip cookies! They are my weakness.. I ate three. I promised myself after that I would start eating healthy. Since we have a car we can get everywhere so much faster it is fantastic. We had an appointment to teach Richard at 1 so we headed over there. Richard has a lot of health problems and when we got there he was about to eat which was necessary cause his blood sugar was low. We totally understand that so we scheduled for Tuesday with him. I can’t wait to teach him! Today was really blah. It was one of those days. We made plans to meet a bunch of people. Less actives, potential investigators. Tons! But no one answered their doors. It got really old after a little haha so we went to Ryan’s to give him his cookies and say hi and lo and behold Tristan was on the side of the street. Yay Tristan! We asked if we could teach him and he said yes so there was our excuse to be at Ryan’s haha since they are brothers. Ryan wasn’t home though so we told Tristan the cookies were for both of them. We taught Tristan the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He seemed to kind of get it.. but has a lot of doubts and questions. Which happens! Ryan eventually showed up haha it was kinda awkward with him cancelling on us and everything but he is cool still. When I saw him though.. something different was about him. He looked happier, like he had the light of Christ with him. I had never seen him like that. I didn’t know if it was just me so I didn’t say anything to Sister Horsley.. until she brought it up a little later and said he noticed it too! AH! I want this so bad for Ryan. And I know Heavenly Father is on our side too fighting hard to get Ryan on the path of Christ. Satan will not win this one. The lesson went a little long so when it was over it was about dinner time and guess what we had? CHICK FIL A. I was super exicted about it. Sister Horsley had never been before. It was of course so good but Sister Horsley felt a little sick after so we had to run to the store to get her something healthy to eat. Haha her body doesn’t like junk food. It’s too bad too cause that is all I eat. We both made a vow though to start eating healthier. After that we went to see Sister Collins. She is a less active, and has depression. But, she is the sweetest lady I have ever met. She saved this baby squirrel who fell out of a tree, and she has been taking care of it until it is old enough to go on its own. The squirrels name is Stella. She is really cute. I held her and everything! Sister Collins is awesome and we are going to do service for her soon. On the way home I was really pondering about Ryan. I knew a mission would be hard, but I didn’t think it would be hard in this way. I didn’t know it would be hard because of the people I met and taught. I want this for Ryan, more than anything. I can already see the changes the gospel is making in his life. I am nervous that Satan will get a hold of him, and he won’t see all this gospel as to offer him. It is hard. But, I know that if I have faith, Heavenly Father will deliver. I love being a missionary so much! I never want to be a normal person again! Haha.

Friday: HAPPY ONE MONTH TO ME!! Isn’t it so exciting? I only have 17 more to go! Haha. This has been the fastest, and longest month of my life. How does that work? I don’t know but I love it! Anyway, interviews with the President. How intimidating. Haha not really. President Daines is so awesome! We had those at one so we so we did our usual morning thing and ate lunch and we were off. We picked up some other Sister’s who don’t have a car this week and they literally live in the ghetto. I am praying I am not put in that area.. but watch I will be just because I said that haha. I am really trying to eat healthier cause I am gaining weight. I hate it! But Sister Daines walked in with a big basket of apples, and candy. Yeah…I went for the candy. I can’t help it! We did some training stuff while President was interviewing. Sister Daines interviewed me as well! I love her! She is the best! She was telling me how Sister Horsley and I are like the smallest companionship in the mission. Haha she said she swears President didn’t put us together by size. In my interview with President he pretty much just asked me how I was doing. I of course told him I was doing AMAZING! I love being a missionary. But it is harder than I thought it would be haha. I also told him how scared I am about winter coming. I really am nervous to be on a bike in the snow.. gah it’ll be cold. But it’ll be a good work out so that is always good haha. Interviews went for about 4 and a half hours.. so after that it was straight to dinner with the Palmers. We had this chicken and broccoli thing that I really enjoyed and then we practice taught on them. We were trying the new method, it is called the pamphlet method. We use the pamphlets and try to make our lesson and message really simple. It is wayyy hard. But with practice Sister Horsley and I are getting better. We went home and did weekly planning for like an hour because we had interviews today and didn’t have a chance to do it. Yeah… we hardly got anything done haha. Then it was off the bed! Who knew sitting around all day in the chapel could make you so tired? 

Saturday: Conference Saturday! Conference takes on a whole new meaning being a missionary! It is like Christmas! Unfortunately none of our investigators could watch it with us. But that is okay that won’t stop me from watching and enjoying. It was freezing this day. About 40 degrees and just hailing and raining all day. Yay… it’s getting cold.. bleh. Haha anyway we did our usual morning routine and headed to Nicole’s to go meet her. Nicole is a referral we got so we were really excited. She didn’t answer. So lame. So we just decided to head to the Flander’s to watch conference. It is weird because here it starts at 12-2, and then 4-6. It is so late! Haha. When I walked into the Flander’s home, I was looking at the little pictures they had on their bulletin board and lo and behold there was a thank you card from Aly Johnson and Jace for their wedding! I freaked out a little and was like “Oh my goodness! How do you know Aly and Jace?" He was then like "oh my goodness you’re the girl Aly told me to look out for cause she is coming to this mission!" And I was like "oh my goodness Aly told me to look for you!" Haha it was cool so he took a pic of me and Sister Horsley and sent it to her. We then watched the first session. It was so good! I loved Elder Christofferson’s talk. He talked on a subject that can be very hard to direct, and he did it so awesome. I also loved Uchtdorf’s, of course. It was funny cause his talk is exactly what our investigator Ryan needed to hear! We wish he were there. The Flander’s have a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and a new born. So you can imagine how hectic it was haha. But their boys are well behaved and so cute so I loved just being around them. Between sessions we went and visited a referral Bro. Flanders gave us. She of course didn’t answer, so we just headed to the lesson we had planned with Bro. D. The recent convert. We talked to him on missionary work. That topic meant a lot to him. He is so grateful for the missionaries and the gospel they have brought into his life. And he want’s to do all he can to do missionary work too. He is awesome. We went to the Hammond’s for the second session. They are empty nesters so we knew their house would be a bit quieter. They are so sweet! We walk in and they made us hot chocolate, and we watched conference. I felt really at home just relaxing on the couch. It was really nice and second session was the bomb. Isn’t interesting how much they were focusing on parenting, and how they should be the prime teachers for their children? I thought it was really cool. I really enjoyed Elder Klebingat’s talk. I loved just how to the point it was. There was no sugar coating, it was just bold. I loved it. But the talk that really touched me was Elder Holland’s. Ohhh my goodness how amazing was that talk? It made me realize we can all turn outward and be more like Christ, and do all we can to help others. It was an amazing, amazing talk. My favorite part is when he said “Because I have been given much I too must give”. That right there is the reason I am here in Ohio, serving the Lord. Everyone deserves these blessings. After second session Hammond’s let us have dinner with them. They made chicken strips, and tator tots. I was down, haha those are my favorite things! After dinner we headed home and finished weekly planning cause we didn’t get to Friday. It was a good time! I love planning for our investigators.

Sunday: Ohhh boy. How did everyone enjoy conference? I know I sure did. We went to the Hammonds in the morning and we had breakfast burrito’s and they were so good. Then conference time. Conference is seriously like Christmas to a missionary. It was just too amazing. I loved the focus. Prophets, and revelation. That is two key things we teach to investigators and it was so nice hearing more about it from men and and woman called of God. AHH it was spectacular. I wish some of our investigators were there to watch because lots of those talks answered questions they have but that is okay! We will print out the talks for them. Between sessions we went to visit some less actives. On the street we met this guy named Bill. Sweetest guy. He took our card and told us he has heard of the BOM before. We asked if we gave him one if he would read it.. he told us not now but maybe later in life. Haha he better hold true to that. We went and visited two less active families. They both were really busy and couldn’t really talk but both families were very sweet. One of the families has the sickest tree house, I just wanted to go play in it, but that would’ve been creepy haha. We got back just in time for the next session. Okay okay Oak’s talk though? Incredible. Everything he talked on is so simple. The fundamentals are things we strive to do. But after hearing that talk it makes me really want to work harder on those things. Especially when I get home from the mish! And what about Bednar’s talk? How many of you want to do more missionary work with in your wards now? I cannot even stress to you how much that talk meant to us as missionaries because ward members make the biggest impact on people. They truly do! Without ward members a lot of people would not get baptized. So be missionaries! Invite people to church! Like Elder Bednar said, share with people the thing in our life that gives us so much peace and comfort, it will bless their life, and yours. I am so grateful for President Monson. I love how many stories we heard of him, that so many general authorities told. He is such an incredible man, he has so many Christ like qualities. We are so blessed to have a living prophet. The Hammonds made us chili for dinner it was delicious! After that it was time to work. We went to visit a few people and none were home.. I hate that! So we went to our apartment and decided to visit people locally. First, we went to see Steve. We met him my first day here in Ohio, he later then called us to tell us this cool experience he had! I can’t believe he even kept our number we gave him.. anyway I had a strong feeling we should go see him. He was standing outside his house and was super pumped to see us. We got talking a little bit and eventually he goes “So.. can you guys like go to Burger King?” We were like um.. ya sure haha. We had no idea what he was getting at. And he was like “Well I want to talk with you guys some more about your church is that allowed?” We laughed and were like “That is exactly what we do!” So he told us to pick a time and a place we felt comfortable with to talk with with. Miracles. They do happen. It was incredible usually we have to ask people to meet with them but Steve asked to meet with us. He is so sweet! We gave him the Restoration pamphlet to read, and he was really excited. I am way pumped to teach him! Sister Storm texted us and told us she was bringing this wood thing for our house haha we were like ok cool. When I met her something popped into my head.. Storm.. where have I heard that.. OH! Brother Lynsky in my ward told me his older sister lived in Ohio. IT WAS HER!! She was so excited and was like “oh my goodness you know my baby brother! And gave me a huge hug. I got a lot of hook ups here in Ohio. After we visited John, who is our neighbor and is so sweet. He was like “wait.. so Mormons can wear make up and stuff?” haha I told him how we are normal people. He thought we like lived like the Amish. After him we saw the Price’s, they are a brother and sister who live in our apartment complex. They’re less active, but way awesome. We chilled with them for a bit. Overall, it was an incredible Sunday. It is getting really cold here though haha but I am getting ready for it.

I love love love being a missionary! This is one of the best experiences of my life and I am only a month in! It is hard.. but there is so much joy I can’t even describe it!

Love- Sister Slater

Happy one month to me!

We heart dancing in the rain.

Nose wax swag. We love it.