Hasta Manana!

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks for everything! This is the last email! I'll be hugging my family before this time tomorrow!

I just want to tell everyone about Oscar!!

I love Oscar. Lately I have liked the hard investigators best. Oscar talks very fast in Spanish and loves asking hard questions, but last week on Tuesday, we came for a lesson with a half hour's notice, and everything had changed from night to day! He came to church yesterday and he knows how much needs to change. Just look at the pictures.

Maybe I'll write more when I get home. 

Love you all! Have a great life! Here's my new contact info:

2083395210

carmensleight@gmail.com

Con Amor,

Hermana Sleight

 Departing temple trip!

Funeral for Hermana Sleight 

Oscar's scripture study 

Pionera de la familia

Dear friends and family,

I love you! Thanks so much for your love and support! I would like to start off this email with one from the end of my cousin Michael's mission that I really enjoyed. He served in Colorado Denver South. I think he's very funny.

"Elder Lowe climbs over the th body of the latest bible basher. The fights between them have become exceedingly easy in the past few months, but Elder Lowe knows that his time is short. He turns to his companion, who was rebuking some "hail satan" children and bears a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ, leaving them in a thoughtless stupor. Together Elder Lowe and his companion turned again towards the mountain top. Though the climb had already taken a grueling two months, the elders knew that it was still a two weeks journey to the top."

"They enter a clearing to find friends cooking meat and olathe sweet corn and are invited to eat with them. After being feed the elders are given 4lbs of cake for supplies as they began to climb once more. Just outside the camp they found one who had strayed from the path. The elders helped the man back towards the path of the disciple. The Elders then continued up the mountain. Elder Lowe entered a fit of coughing, his health deteriorating fast as his life draws to a close, he knows this will be the last climb up the mountain before he returns to the human realm. But for him, hope is not lost. He knows that soon another from his homeland will come and continue the fight he has fought himself for many weary days."

"As the elders finish chronicling the events that have occurred, a dark shadow passes over them followed by a mighty roar. The elders sigh, say a prayer and then ready their weapons to prepare for another fight with the accursed dragon." -Lowe The Magnificent Adventures of the Great Elder Lowe in the Mythical Land of the Colorado Denver South Mission Ch. 103 The End in Sight

Okay, back to Hermana Sleight:

I had my interview with President Henrie today and he reminded me that the goal for every missionary is that each of us is converted. God's plan (thankfully) includes full time missionaries, and our purpose is to teach repentance and baptize converts. However, as that depends on others' agency in large measure, if we focus on it, we will get sad. As we focus on blessing others and guiding them to baptism and salvation, we find happiness and are converted.

Laura was baptized this week. I consider her my first adult convert. I am so happy for her. She understands that baptism is a lifetime commitment and she is EXCITED about it. I have never seen anything like it. I love this work! Mom's asking for details on the baptism. I played "He Sent His Son" and Hermana Henao sang. It was beautiful.

Love you! Have a great week!

Love,

Carmen

Free limones from Filimon

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks for your help and support! You're all invited to my homecoming on the 18th of March. 

I have always wondered how to tell my investigators that their family member will have a chance to accept true baptism in the spirit world without having to teach 3 different missionary lessons on the first visit, but I have found the answer, and it's in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3:11-12 (ish, I wish I could find where I wrote down the reference). It is perfect for explaining that our deceased ancestors will get a chance because they didn't in this life, but that our time is now, and if we don't act, the consequences will be much greater!! I invite you to study it and ponder how to share that truth with a friend.

Stories!

We knocked a door with a lemon tree outside laden with fruit. We were just leaving when the man came outside through another door. We talked for a second about the tree, and he offered us some lemons! He brought us a bag and let us pick them, telling us over and over again that even if he's not home, we can always come and pick some lemons. Free limones!! Yay! Then we asked him is name, and it's Filimon! (remember everyone that in Spanish, the "i" is pronounced "ee") We've been laughing about that one for days! Now we refer to him as "Free-limon".

Hermana Williams is going to remember me as Hermana Sleight and her big ideas. After Laura's interview, we tried to talk with her about going to her house and seeing that she had a bed in a separate room from her ex-husband and she told us it needed to be a morning when no one was home. Welp, it was thursday morning, and we were all together, but Laura had to take the bus home and I knew from experience that if you leave an investigator that close to baptism alone for 10 seconds, they drop off the face of the earth, so I suggested that we all take the bus to her house :] That's how we left the church building locked up with lights on and our stuff inside including lunch and couldn't get back in till 3. I'm so embarrassed. 

Thanks for all your your help! I love you all!

Hermana Madsen is from New Mexico but her grandparents owned a craft store in IF called Madsen's. Carmen has not been her companion but has gone on lots of exchanges with her.

Hermana Williams is also from New Mexico and is going home soon! Carmen was put in a new area with a new comp for the last 3 weeks of her mission. 

Jason Lasagna

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks for all of your prayers and support! It is very reassuring to know that there are people there waiting for me when I get home. Sometimes everything before the mission feels like a dream. People call it the mission veil. 

Please everyone remember the importance of regular accounting to God. People have told me a million times on my mission to account to God each night for what I've done but I've had no idea how to do that. Now I'm at the end looking back and wondering if I've done all I can. I am finding the reassurance that I yearn for, but it's made me think about how I don't want to have this feeling at the end of my life regarding final judgement. Repent on a regular basis. Find out your standing with God. Do what you need to know that you're good.

Stories!

On Saturday we OYMed to Jason Lasagna. He had a super cute puppy that kept him from chatting. But he ran inside and got his Book of Mormon. He had read only 1 page, the page where Alma 18 starts. He has been to church all over southern California. Every time we see him he makes us laugh. I am looking forward to his baptism. Yesterday during our lesson, he suddenly turned around and started cooing at a raven that was still at the very top of the light pole!!! 

Crazy fun life:) Love you all!

Photos of her apartment

Hermanas Stickel, Sleight and Ruelas living it up at Denny's!

Ironico (plus Homecoming info)

Carmen's Homecoming information

Date: March 18th

Time: 9 am - 12 pm 

Lunch will be served after church at our house

Place: 2040 Brentwood Drive, Idaho Falls, ID 83402

* If you need a place to stay, contact Robbie 208.589.2022 

Dear Friends and Fmaily,

I love you so much! Thanks for all of your love and support!

I have left myself 0 time to type, as usual, and I hope that I can put something here worth reading. 

I really want to become a good gospel teacher. Like, phenomenal. I think that my mission has been a  good start, but something that I am looking forward to studying more in depth very soon is the pattern of teaching of the Master Teacher, Jesus Christ. He was bold, kind, and clever. He asked questions and perceived needs. He never passed up an opportunity to teach, and He taught in a way that all who hoped He was the Son of God could understand what they needed to progress. May each of us model our lives and teaching after His perfect example. 

Stories!!

Mario continues to refuse to be baptized, but he loves church, and he is reading the Book of Mormon! He missed his appointment Saturday night because his family wasn't ready on time, but the next morning when they wanted to skip church, HE wouldn't let THEM! Go Mario!!

We met Maria and Raul and then accidentally met Mirna looking for them (I lost the address). But Raul called us every day for 3 days to tell us he was coming to church, and lo and behold on Sunday, there they were!! He said something to the effect of, "Look at what we've been missing out on." Love it! 

Jason is a 17 year old who we knocked on his door last week and he literally asked where we were going after this life and when we answered with the Book of Mormon, he said he had a whole new world of questions open up to him! Yay!!

Love you all, have a great week!!

Carmen and her companions eating pupusas

The background of the sign has a serious message of Christ's love while the Post-it note collection is from the family. This note happens to be a poem from a dog, "roses are gray, violets are gray, everything is gray, give me a treat." and Carmen recited it to a dog she saw later while knocking doors which caused her companion to think she was depressed. That's just our family sense of humor! 

Carmen's wild hair on a grand adventure and an avocado chair for relaxing. 

Fechas!!

Dear Friends and Family,

I love you! Thank you for your love and support. You are wonderful people:) 

There were so many miracles this week! What a testimony builder of faith. For my future missionary readers(if there are any), never EVER stop expecting miracles. Always believe in God's ability to change hearts and believe that He is preparing people to be baptized in your areas, present and future. It makes a big difference. It is not a hoax! I promise it's not. I thought it was, but it's not. Applying this to real life for my 

Destiny was a referral from the Elders when they came to knock in our area for a little ratito. She had rescheduled for a whole week later, but we went, and she was so awesome! She is looking for the religion for her. She is looking for God. When she finds what she's looking for, she's willing to do whatever it takes, including be baptized! 

We accidentally knocked on Mirna's door looking for Maria. (nice one, Hna Sleight, but on her street and the 2 next to it, everything looks exactly the same!) She is also willing to be baptized, and she loved to read and she prays every day! When we asked her to put church on her baptism calendar, she drew a cute little church house and herself going to church on next Sunday:)

I had this feeling that we should knock on a door again because we had met our investigator there, but he told us he didn't live there, and we haven't been able to make contact, but then instead of him, we found Jason! Jason is 17 and he wants to know about what happens after this life. We read from Alma 40:11 with him and then shared the restoration. He is willing to be baptized and he told us that he's got a ton of more questions now that he knows the truth!

I love you all!

Elder Rivera, Hermana Talbert, and me. We were all trained in the same branch and Hna Talbert went home last week, so we took one last pic.

THe new trio! Ready for bed:)

Porto's! Hna Stickel, Sister Burns, Sister Keller, Me, Hna Ruelas​

 

6 weeks

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks for your love and support! I love you all!

I'm going to start with a story. I met this man in my area named Jose. He reminds me of my Uncle Evan AKA super cool. He joined the church 15 years ago with his family, but since then has had a lot of doubts form in his mind, and now he's quite far from being an active member of the church. When we stopped by to visit, he expressed a ton of doubts. I was able to remember about 7, and I deep studied them. The hardest one was, "Why do politics exist with some bishops?" That's my rough around the edges translation from Spanish to English. Basically, he didn't like that his former bishop would let him into the office to talk whenever he needed to, but his new bishop tried to teach him how to make an appointment with the executive secretary, and he felt less important. I couldn't find much on it in the scriptures, but the Spirit led me to President Eyring's talk from the priesthood session of the most recent general conference. This was special because I had never read or heard it before, but I felt the Spirit guiding me to it. It was perfect! It taught me as well. We shouldn't expect our leaders to be perfect because they're mortals, but we should trust that they have a right to revelation from God, and if they mess up, we don't need to spread that around. We can take it up with them and God. I recommend the talk. 

Stories!

We had some missionaries come to visit our area and knock doors for a couple of hours. We found 4 new investigators that day! One of them was a family. It was the very last door we knocked on. 

The day before, I lost the keys to our bikes. All 3 keys to all 3 locks. Nice one, Hermana Sleight! To keep it brief, we had to leave KO early to get our back up keys and get the bikes before the key thief came back in the cover of night to steal our bikes! The last door we knocked before we left had a super cool new investigator behind it! He's 1/2 Armenian, 1/2 Salvadoranean! And he's interested because he's seen a Mormon Youtuber! 

Mario is really cool. I sent a picture of him about 2 weeks ago. He doesn't want to be baptized, but he can see that we're helping his family follow Christ. He keeps all of his commitments except he misses church 2/3 of the time, but I'm really happy for him. 

What was something unexpected that happened with you? WE didn't expect to find anyone Spanish from the BOM experiment BUT THEN somebody had the bright idea to go to the soccer fields on a Saturday morning. #foundem

I love you so much! Have a great week everyone!