Leadership Challenges Continue

January 10, 2011

Dear Family,

Well I have probably had the most memorable week of my entire mission! I’ll start with last Monday. I finished out my P-day and then on Tuesday at 2 in the morning, we got on a bus and headed to Montevideo for our zone leader council. It was great. After the council, I got to go work in my old zone, which is the ghetto area of Montevideo where I used to serve. We had a good afternoon and then headed to the mission home. We spent Tuesday night in the mission home with President Da Silva. On Wednesday, we had a leadership meeting and some of our companions showed up from 33. The meeting went great and I even received my Christmas package from you. It was awesome and so perfect… thank you so much!!!! It was the bomb. Also, Mary I got your card and it was awesome too. Mary, I was really impressed with the family you have. What a good looking family!!! Anyway, we got back to 33 on Wednesday night at 9 o’clock.

Thursday was probably the most eventful day of the week. We had a district meeting and in the interview had a pretty intense disagreement with a couple of our missionaries. Our zone now appears to be not so perfect. The whole thing left a really bad taste in my mouth. I got home just absolutely exhausted after this meeting, so I got my stuff together and we headed for lunch. After lunch, we returned to our place. I went in and started to pray my guts out. While I was praying, I got the impression that we needed to go visit with the wife of our ward mission leader. The ward mission leader’s wife was put in the hospital last week. I called the branch president and he had no idea if she had been given a blessing, so he asked me if we could go do that for him. I said sure. Anyway, we spent some more time in the house finishing up with some stuff. I found my oil vial and we headed out. When we got to the hospital, I asked the front desk where she was and right as we were asking, her family members came running out crying and informed us that she had just passed away - It was really rough. I hate being late!!!! This time though, it was something that really mattered.

On Friday we had a visit with the district president and it didn’t go well. There seems to be something really wrong here, but I just can’t quite figure it out. We shall see. The rest of the week was just as strange. I don’t really have enough time to try to explain it all, but it was rough.

We do have a baptism scheduled for the 22nd, so things are looking really good in that aspect.

Besides all of this, I’m doing well. I so very much appreciate the things you sent me. I love you all so very much. I will continue praying for you all.

Love,
Elder Sluder