Week 24: Why do we fall?

So that we can learn to pick ourselves up!

Hello! Everythings going grand here in Argentina! I had my toe surgery last week on Monday, and now I'm here once again all back to almost normal! My toes been going great actually! I had about 1 day resting and now I'm walking like normal, we've just got to go back to the hospital to take out the stitches on Thursday so I'm still being a little careful not to kick my companion to much, but everything's all good! I rested for 1 day in the pension, the next day we had a member with a car help us out to go and visit a few people! And the next day when we went back to the hospital they said I could walk normal now! Yay!!!

This week has been truly fantastic!! I love being a missionary sooooo much!! I have been able to learn and grow and experience so many different things, and I have become to understand what my goals are in my life, what I want to do, who I want to become, and as well it is such a great blessing to be able to help others realize those things as they follow our Heavenly Father's plan for them! It's the best!!

This past week after the surgery and everything we have been getting right back into it! We were able to visit a few of the people we are teaching on Friday and then next......on Saturday... We went to the temple!! It was so cool! Our area here in Gonzalez Catán is about 30 or 40 minutes from the temple of Buenos Aires, so, when we have 2 investigators at least, and a member to come with us we can take a short trip to the temple! 

So Saturday we all met up in the church and we went on over there, it is such an amazing place, the temple! We were able to give a great lesson about the plan of salvation and share a little bit of time with everyone as we walked around the temple and just enjoyed the peace and the Spirit that you can feel there, even when you are just on the outside. Something that I've learned to appreciate even more now that I'm away from my home in Utah. The opportunity to have a temple so close to your house, or multiple, is a huge blessing!! It's such a sacred place where really we can be close to God and feel His love for us His children!

After we went to the temple Saturday, Sunday we were able to go with a recent convert from our ward who is called Brandon, he is 17 years old and has a testimony so strong about how the church and the Book of Mormon helped him change his life! It was so cool to be able to go visit a few people during the afternoon and night and have him share his testimony with us and with the people here. He's such a great young man and now he's really excited to be preparing for his mission when he turns 18 years old in July! Really it's so great to see people change and have the desire to follow Christ from the testimonies of 3 young people of 17, 19, and 20 years old, it's incredible to see the power of God in the work. 

And that's how the week went! Full of great things and miracles everyday! I hope you all know that I love you all! Take an hour or 2 to go to the temple this week, even if you aren't a member of the church, go outside and really think about what your personal goals are and ask God what His goals are for you! 

From El Gran Catán! 

-Elder Slack!

Week 23: Teach repentance!

Hello! It's transfer day today! And Elder Ribeiro and I will be staying together strong for another 6 weeks here in González Catán! It's such a great opportunity to be out here and serve 100% of the time! 

We've been working hard this week, we're trying with all of our efforts to be able to show the people the pathway to Christ and help them to begin their journey along that path. We've been having a few difficulties with our investigators, but we're learning along with them and we keep praying that they will have the faith to act and progress.

Remember Camila? We've been working with her a lot, she is really a great person and everything, but her situation is a little difficult. She is a little special, and we have to be really focused on our teaching of how to help her progress. Now we can really see that she has the desire to progress, but still has a few trials in her life to be able to progress along the path. It's really hard to see when someone has the desires to follow  Christ but some of their trials make it extremely difficult to do so, but I believe that it makes the prize even more worth it, when we have to work hard and push to be able to receive the blessings of God, we appreciate them even more. 

These past weeks we have been working a lot with a young man, named Alfredo, he's a great guy, he understands a little bit, but we're trying to work with him so that he can have the desires to come to church every week, it's really hard when he struggles so much with his family, but we are really trying to help all of those who will listen and show him that the blessings of God are so much more rewarding than the things of the world. 

As well, yesterday we went to church in the morning and we were there and then this young man showed up, we started talking with him. He tells us he's not a member of any church, that he has never been to an LDS church before, but that he found the church on the Internet and found it interesting and so he just came on his own! It was so cool to see how sometimes God just brings his children back to where they can feel his love, it really taught me how much God has a plan for everyone, and that really as missionaries we just have to do our part in faith and everything follows God's plans and timing. 

As well this week, we went out to do visits with the first counselor of our ward bishopric, we went with him to visit a family who are less active and part of the family aren't members, it was so great to be able to see as he testified to them how much repentance can help them in their lives. Truly when we have the knowledge of the gospel and the commandments and as we try our best to follow Christ, we will be protected and receive help in our trials. But as well the opposite, when we have that knowledge and we choose not to follow Christ we do not have the same promise, we cannot be protected and the only way that we can once again feel the happiness of the gospel is through repentance and Jesus Christ. Truly he taught me that repentance is so necessary if we want to receive the blessings God has in store for us. 

And yeah, it's been a great week! I hope you are all well! I appreciate all of your emails and it is so good to be here!

Love you all! Chau

-Elder Slack

(Picture courtesy of 

Maria De Los Angeles Fernandez Bevans)

Week 22: Hello World!

Hello to everyone! 

Sorry I haven't been 100% consistent with the letters, but hopefully I can get back on track.

It's been so good here in Argentina, a lot of heat during these past 2 weeks, but it's finally starting to cool down and we can get some good sleep in. There are the hints of fall coming on and the work continues.

This week we've been working a ton, as well we got to have 2 special things. First, I got to return to the hospital, yay!! We went back and we put a date for a micro surgery I have to have on my foot because I've got an ingrown toe-nail (I don't remember if I told you that or not). So that was great, I'll be returning the following week on Monday the 7th, so we'll have to see If we email Monday or Tuesday. The second, Elder Bednar came this week! It was sooo amazing! Elder Bednar a living apostle came and visited here in Buenos Aires. Our mission had the opportunity to go and see him live as he helped us learn so much about teaching by the Spirit and how it is that we can help our investigators learn. It was so incredible to be able to go and see him as we spoke with him. There were about 800 missionaries in the chapel with him, and as well there were around 6000 missionaries from all of the area south america south, which includes Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay! It was amazing to hear him as he taught us and feel the Spirit as we all learned together, there's been a lot of things that I learned that I still need to apply and change, it was so amazing though!

This week we've been working a lot with the investigators that we have, right now we have more or less 8 or 9 investigators. And we worked so hard all of the week so that they could all be ready set to go to the church this past Sunday, we went and...... Not one came. We went to look for a few in their houses, but there wasn't anyone at home. We've been thinking a lot about what it is that we need to change so that they can have the desire to come to the church and become closer to our Savior Jesus Christ. As we were thinking last night in our pension we were clueless. So we decided to go ask our Zone Leaders who are these 2 great missionaries and they work in the same ward with us and live next to us. So we began to talk with them and they gave us some great advice and we did a few practices and we are all ready now to start off another week strong and really strengthen the faith of our investigators that we have here in González Catán!

I've been learning so much here with Elder Ribeiro, my companion from Brasil, he's a "Capo" as they say here, which means essentially a "Stud". We'll just say he's a really really awesome missionary! He came so prepared here for his mission with so much energy and excitement to come and work hard! It's been such a great opportunity to be able work with him. We've got our differences and we disagree sometimes, but we are learning so much together and we are changing and becoming better and better people everyday!

Other than that, the weeks been pretty normal, lots of changing peoples lives, lots of happiness, lots of joy, and of course we can't forget that the food is sooooooo amazing here! The mission life is amazing, being able to dedicate all of my time to something that I learn to love even more everyday is such a great opportunity! I hope you are all great! 

That's all for now!

-Elder Slack

P.S. I robbed my companions camera and took 2 pictures, they aren't amazing pictures, but good enough! There's one of my companion and a selfie of him and I.

 Elder Ribeiro 

 Elder Ribeiro and me!