Week 96: El fin de una vida y el principio de otra

Well..... Here we are..... The time has come and gone, and it is now the LAST week of my mission. I can hardly believe it. It seems like it's only been a few months, but as weird as it seems. 2 years have past and here I am once again, writing for the last time in Argentina.

If for some reason the plane has a jet engine failure and I die........ Nah! This letter sounds freaking sad, let's put a positive tone on it!

IT'S BEEEN GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! These last 2 years have been the peak of my life up until now, and I'm sure I've still got a little bit more to climb. God has helped me so much during these last 2 years to grow and become a better person. I love him so much and I love his church and I love his son Jesus Christ. 

With only 7 minutes remaining on my last time to write the family I just wanted to share with you all my testimony. That Jesus Christ lives! That this is the true church, that Joseph Smith yes was a prophet called of God and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. If anyone wants to know it too, read the book, and ask of God to know if it is true.

I've learned so much and I am now a different person. I can say that it has happened to me as it says in the Book of Mormon. I have been born again. I have come unto Christ and I know that we can all repent and feel the same.

This week it's been a strange feeling to know that I won't be here to see the progress of all of the people we have taught and found. In just a week from now I'll be in a completely different continent. But I know that it is God's will. I love you all and I can't wait to see you all again someday! Thanks for being a part of my mission by reading these emails! Love you all!!

-Elder Slack

-P.S. I forgot my memory card, so no photos for the last week. And I'll be giving my homecoming talk on Sunday, September 10th, see my facebook my mom will be writing the hour. Love you all!!

(I added these photos from Stockton's emails over the past two years. I so love this son of mine! He has been a great missionary. I hope you have enjoyed reading his emails as much as I have. Many hugs to all!)

Week 95: Perseverance

Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Everyone!!!

Well, for all of you who want to go on a mission it takes 3 things.... Hard work, Perseverance, and... Hard Work!! 

Well! It's been another grand week here in Argentina. It's coming down to the line now as we roll in to week 5 of the 6 weeks of the transfer. This will be my official last working week of the mission, the last week we've got a conference with a seventy and then for the missionaries who go home we're going to Capital Buenos Aires on Thursday to have a tour and then to the temple on Friday! It's crazy to think that the time has come and gone so quickly, I remember when I had 2 weeks left before I left on the mission, I was super excited to see what it was like and to gain so many new experiences but also sad to be leaving behind so many things. A familiar feeling has come to me as I realize every day that I'm that much closer to the end of it all. I feel sad because I'll be leaving behind all that I have come to know here in the mission in Argentina, but happy because I will be able to use all that I have learned I will be able to go back to all that I knew before. What a strange feeling to tell you the truth.

It's been a wonderful week, I'm very happy and thankful that the Lord has assigned me to be with Elder Pavón my last transfer, he's a great missionary and he's so funny and a great person to be around. He's always got lots of energy and excitement to do the work of the Lord and he's been helping me to learn more every week! If you don't remember he's from Honduras, what and interesting world we live in. I love it so much, I love all of the people here so much, it's incredible!

This week we've been working with several investigators, the one that gives me most hope is called Isabel, she's from Bolivia, like almost everyone here in the area :D. She works with her sisters in a workshop sewing clothes. She's very interested in the Gospel and has great desires to come closer to God. She went to church yesterday, just to sacrament meeting because her sister is pregnant and they had to leave because she was hurting a lot, but we hope that she can progress and be baptized in these coming weeks. 

We're still working with Samantha and Andres, they are both super awesome, they've got plans to get married in December, they've got a few problems sometimes and we hope that we can help them to resolve their problems, but we know that the biggest help they can receive is from our big brother Jesus Christ. They are really incredible and they love us(the missionaries) so much!

We're also working with several other people, several of them have to get married too, but they are interested. We're working with a less active family that has a brother that isn't member yet, we hope that the work goes well this week. We haven't been able to find as many people as we would like, but we know that God knows where they are and that he will guide us to the people that need our help.

It's been a great experience working here in Villa-Celina, I love it so much, I have grown to love even more countries than just Argentina, I've come to love all South America. It's been so awesome to learn Spanish as well, It's a blessing that I'm sure will continue to bless me even after the mission. 

This week one of my favorite experiences that I had was yesterday. We went to visit a less active family that didn't go to church yesterday and we talked with them. I didn't really know what to do or what to say, but I just felt that we needed to show them that we love them. As we were talking with them the mother of the family started telling us about her struggle with some of her children and how she wants then to go the church so much and that she feels so sad that they don't want to get closer to God. She started crying and kept talking and as she spoke, I began to feel something very interesting, as I was watching her and seeing how she expressed so much love for her children, I felt a great feeling of love for her, I felt that our Father in Heaven loves her so much, I began to realize that the love of a mother for her child is so great and even greater is the love of our Father in Heaven for us, for all of his children. In that moment I think I could feel just a fraction of what our Father in Heaven feels for her and for all of us, and WOW, how great is His love!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week! I'm home in 2 weeks so I'll see many of you soon!  With lots of love and a big hug!

 

-Elder Slack

Week 94: Birthday's and Learning

Hola!! Buen Día!!!!

It's been another great week here in Argentina, my time here is growing shorter and shorter, I've only got 3 weeks left. Shout out to Heber who finished his mission this week! What a stud muffin! 

This weeks been a week to remember, that's for sure! Lot's of miracles and blessings from the Lord. 

Last week were the birthday's of Samantha and Andres, 2 of our investigators that I found with Elder Gonzales several months ago. They have to get married still, but they've got plans. They were working a ton, so they couldn't celebrate their birthday's, so we decided that it would be nice if we celebrated with them. So Elder Pavón and I we put our baking skills to the test and we tried to cook a lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. The frosting came out well, the cake "más o menos" as we say in Español. Haha! We've got a recipe book here in our department that the mission gave to us before President Thurgood left, it's got a recipe to cook a lemon cake, but in the microwave. Well, me trying to be the professional cake cooker decided that it would be better in the oven. I think the ingredients aren't the same in the oven as in the microwave, but it was edible to say the least. We brought some balloons, the cake and a firework type candle and we celebrated with them. Despite their happy smiling faces as you can see in the photo, it was great and we all had a good little time.

The other day a worker came over to our pench to fix our ceiling that the paint and plaster was  all falling down, I don't know if I commented before, but everything they build here is built with bricks and cement, very interesting. So we had to stay in our pench almost all day Friday, but we were able to have a great weekly planning session with the extra time to kill.

I wanted to share with you guys 2 great things that I learned this week. 1st I learned the importance of falling. Sometimes the sidewalks are uneven here and I trip almost every day, but not that type of falling. Falling spiritually, I learned this week that sometimes when we fall it may be the hardest thing, it may be the most difficult to pick ourselves back up again, but that process of picking up is why we came here. We came to learn, we came to grow, and when we come into opposition we can have the resistance needed to grow and become stronger and better people. So when you fall, don't worry, the path back to God's presence isn't easy and without problems, it was made to give us trials and to push us to the limits of our abilities so that we can become more like him.

The other thing that I learned was about listening. We taught an older couple yesterday and frankly it was quite an interesting lesson. The wife loved to talk, she talked and talked and talked, and I kind of lost my patience. I kept thinking "this lesson isn't going anywhere" "What does this have to do with what we were talking about" or "look even her husband is beginning to fall asleep from this boring story" So, I did something I shouldn't have done. Right in the middle of a story she was telling us I cut her off and told her we had to leave. We prayed and left and we went on our way. I talked with my companion and he said that I shouldn't have done that, I shrugged it off with some excuse that we had more important things to do or something of the sort. As we went along, talking to several other people I began to feel the painful but familiar feeling of guilt as with every step I realized that truly what I had done was wrong. I tried to ignore it, but it became overwhelming as we talked with an older woman, she started to do the same thing and I remembered something that I had learned at the start of my mission. It doesn't matter what the person is saying, if they are saying it, it's because it's important to them. And it's true. If someone is telling us something it's because they feel that it is something important and relevant. I repented and have determined to listen even more. After all, I realize now that more important than the message we bring is the spirit that the people can feel when we are in their homes. The Spirit will convert them, not me.

Love you all!!

-Elder Slack