Week 59: Working in San-V

Heyllo to everyone! It's been another incredible week here in Argentina! I'm here to write you all again to let you know all the good stuff that's been going on here in the ARGENTINA!!

It's been a week of ups and downs here, the things have been going great! This week we've been in San-Vicente, which is part of my last Zone. We were with Elder Bautista y Elder Torres! It was a pretty awesome week. 

We did a service project on one of the days, we helped out one of the investigators, her fence was broken so we went on over with a shovel a pick and a drill and after working all morning we were able to fix things up! 

This week we were super close to helping someone be baptized, at the end of the week we decided that it would be better to give him a little bit more time to prepare a little better. But he did stop smoking, he stopped drinking, he stopped doing drugs all this week and was super excited to be baptized on Sunday! But that's alright he's still excited to be baptized another day. 

I can't really remember anything super exciting that happened this week, we just went and we worked super hard all week long, so that was great. I'll put a few photos so that you guys can see a little bit what we've been doing! 

Yesterday we had a little "meeting" with Presidente Calquín! It was fun, we talked with him and he talked about what we is hoping from us and that we need to keep working and that we need to try different things, we need to make changes, big and small, we need to do everything we can to change the culture of the mission so that we all have a need to baptize and help the people.

I hope everything is going well with all of you guys! I'm loving and learning from everything! Until next week! This week we are going to be in Laferrere 1A with Elders Hunt and Alvarez! It's going to be great! I love you all!!

Elder Slack

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Week 58: Outside the Box

Hello to all of my friends and family!

Another week has just flown by! It's been incredible all of the things we've been able to do and learn! 

On Monday we headed on over to Spegazzini A to spend the week with Elder Martinez and Elder Affleck. We spent the week teaching lots of repentance and almost baptizing some converts. We taught lot's of lessons, and found lot's of people I guess you could say it was a successful week!

On Tuesday we had District meeting, Elder Martinez was our District leader for the week, we've been talking lots about teaching repentance and baptizing converts, so that was a lot of his focus. Elder Lima and I, we gave a little workshop about teaching repentance to the people, we did a practice with the missionaries and we could all learn a little bit better how to put in practice what we always say we should do. Elder Martinez then whipped out a few examples and then for the last 15 minutes we all left the church and we went out looking for people to teach and contact! It was super great being able to put in practice what we had learned right away. Sometimes we finish the District meeting and then we go back to our areas and we eat lunch and then when we finally get back to proselyting we have already forgotten the majority of what we learned. This time instead of waiting  we were able to get right to it and try it out!

On Wednesday Elder Lima and I we had to head on over to Banfield to have our Leadership Counsel with all of the leaders of the mission. We all talked about what we think the mission needs to change, what are the things that we need to make better and what we can do to achieve all of these things! And at the end we had about 35 minutes really quick, we did the same practice that we did with the District leaders, the ETM's were the "leaders" of 4 different teams and we went out and we did proselyting for a short time! One of the new sayings of President and the assistants is "The best way to learn is doing!" Which I think is 100% correct! So we're trying out lot's of new things!

On Thursday, I had to come all the way back to Burzaco, which is super close to Adrogué (where the mission offices are) I came with Elder Martinez so he could do some of his Visa paperwork. So this week I had to do a ton of traveling, but it was good, I had some time to get to know Elder Martinez a little bit better, we talked about how good the changes are that President is doing with the mission, how it's hard when some of the missionaries don't want to accept the changes and we talked about how we're trying to put in practice what President has asked us to do. There are lot's of changes, but change is a great opportunity to learn and to try new things.

This week has been such a great learning week for me, throughout all of the week we've been talking about how we can think outside the box, how we can change, how we can break the old traditions and try different things, just because our forefathers taught us something in a certain way, doesn't mean that we can't try something new! We've been trying lot's of new ways of teaching, lot's of new ways of talking with the people of doing follow-up of planning lot's of different things. And we've been seeing great results. We fought all week long so that we could have a baptism, but then the one girl that was ready to be baptized on Friday she decided to go to her dad's house for the weekend. But this week we're coming in with some new ideas, new plans new everything! It's going to be a great week!

This week we're going to San-Vicente! San-Vicente is right next to Alejandro-Korn! In the Zone of Longchamps!! So I'll get to pass through my old area real quick!! Whoo!! We're super excited for this week!

On Thanksgiving we ordered some empanadas and we ate them in memory of Thanksgiving, but I hope that the rest of you all had a great week! That you enjoyed thanksgiving and that you could eat some pie and enjoy Black Friday! I love you all!! Chau chau!!

-Elder Slack

PS: Here are the photo's from the week!! I forgot to tell you all! We also did a service project on Saturday! We helped a sister in the ward to replace her roof, but right when we finished taking off the old roof it started RAINING! A ton of rain! We all got soaked! And we couldn't even finish putting on the new roof because the electricity went out because the rain got to the electricity box! AHH!! So we through some chapas (as they call them here, it's like metal serrated roofing) on top and covered up the majority of it all. We ate some asado, and the ward decided that we would finish on Monday! Elder Martinez and I we had to go back to the pench to change in the pouring rain so we got just a little wet! haha! But don't worry we got all dry and changed before we went out to work again! That's all Folks!! Until next week!

-Elder Slack

Week 57: What a week!

Hello World! You're hearing from me tonight, we're back and it's Sunday! Here as an ETM we get back from the area after lunch on Sundays and now we're here in the offices of the mission. We have  a little bit of time to relax, go over the week with the other half of the team and when there's time we can do part of our emails! So I'm going to write this email to all of you right now, and then if anyone wants to send me an email you can send it and I'll look at it tomorrow! 

But it's been a great week here!! It was a great week with the Elders in Burzaco B, there were a few last minute changes on Monday night, we got there and there were a few phone calls made and one of the Elders was transfered super fast. On Tuesday morning they brought over Elder Smout! So we spent the week with Elder Smout and Elder Tolentino!! It was a great week, full of miracles and lot's of learning!!

Some good news real quick, the mission let's us use one of the cameras that they have, so I'm back taking some photos!! So all of you will be happy to see my smiling face, now with 14 Mega pixels!! Haha!

I spent the majority of the week with Elder Tolentino because Elder Smout didn't know anything about the area. We had a few exciting things that happened so I'll try and sum it all up for you guys!

All week we were working really hard to be able to find new people and with the people that we were already teaching to be able to help them be baptized if possible, we had a youth that is 14 years old that wanted to be baptized, he passed the interview and everything but the district leader said that he felt he should wait a week or 2 more. So he wasn't able to be baptized. But we found a ton of people, working together we found some people super ready and prepared for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives. We left the area with 3 people and another family with baptismal dates so that they can help them by doing lots of follow- up. We hope that all of them can be baptized in the weeks to come. The 3 people, Yanina, her sister Zoe, and the youth that was preparing to be baptized came to church today!! 

On Thursday the assistants called us up and they asked us to come to the training meeting of the district leaders so we went over Adrogué (where the offices of the mission are) and we helped them out. We did a proselyting activity, they told us that the best way to learn is to do, so we went out to work and find new people for 2 hours!!  They had us be the "leaders" of 4 different groups, we went out to work and find lot's of people to teach and to help! It was great!! I went with and elder, his name is Elder Soelberg, from Utah as well. After doing lot's of contacts and finding lot's of great people decided that we needed not only to talk with lot's of people, but we wanted to teach someone! We found one man in the train station that was selling shoes, he was just chilling there in front of all the people, and none of the missionaries had ever talked to him. We talked to him for a bit, we explained the Restoration and we asked him to say the prayer to end. As he prayed he started praying for his family for the problems that he has had with his wife and his son. He ended the prayer and started to tear up a little bit, he told us about how he's been having problems for awhile and that he's been searching for help. As we talked with him that day I felt that we were able to bring him a little bit of the help he was looking for! 

On Friday we went back to work with the elders in Burzaco, and on Saturday we were able to find a few new people to teach and the hermanas in the ward had a baptism, we invited a ton of investigators to the baptism and it was great. Only 2 of them could come, but I felt that they were able to start to feel the spirit a little bit better and then they came to church this morning too! 

One exciting but terrible thing happened yesterday on Saturday, I was pedaling along on the bike with my companion, I decided that I want to go a little bit faster (bad decision number 1) so I stood up on the pedals (bad decision 2) and pedaled with all my might to get to the investigators faster (I thought, and bad decision 3) as I accelerated the chain popped out on the bike, that's alright I thought, I'll just slow down and fix it. NOPE it seems like the bike had other ideas, the handlebars bent down from the pressure I was putting on them I fell straight down hit my hangdowners on the bar in the middle of the bike and I dove for the front of my bike head first I hit the grass and did a few somersaults. WHOO! It was super fun. I was not injured seriously, but I did hit one part.... in particular pretty hard! Needless to say I was in pain for quite some time, we retreated to the church close there for 20 minutes so I could recover. 

Anyway's that was my week! It was incredible! I'll read all of your emails tomorrow and I'll respond! Here's some photos! I love you all! It's great here! This week we're off to Spegazini in the zone of Monte Grande!! Whoo!! Until next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

Week 56: The Office

Elder Slack, the Lord has called you to serve as a part of the new ETM Team........ What?? 

Well, another week has come and gone folks, here I am yet again with another surprise for you all!! This week we had TRANSFERS! We were pretty sure that Elder González would be going to another area or something like that, but it looks like the Lord has other and better plans in mind for us!

The Assistants called us the other day and they told us that Elder González is going to be staying in Alejandro-Korn, and I would be a part of something new here in the mission, it's called the ETM-Team. Which stands for Expertos en el Trabajo Misional Team, (which means in English, Experts in Missionary Work)! "Wow!" I thought... "What's that mean?" Haha! Well, they told us that what used to be the "asistente viajeros" (traveling assistants) in the mission are now going to be a group of 4 missionaries that would travel week to week in different areas, the first week 2 missionaries would go to an area and find a ton of people to teach, they will go and find the people the Lord has prepared. Then the second week the other two missionaries are going to go in, teach, prepare and BAPTIZE everyone that is possible! So... I'm going to be a part of that team. I'll be in the second group. So that means that every week I'm going to go to a different area and help out the missionaries so that they baptize as many people as possible! To tell you the truth, I was not expecting anything like this this last week, I was waiting around expecting that I would be staying in Alejandro-Korn until Christmas and everything, but it seems like the Lord has other plans for me! I'm a little nervous for all that we are going to be doing. My companion will be Elder Lima, I shared a pension with him back when I was in Villegas. We are going to go the area and we will do splits with the elders there all week, every day we'll changes companions. We're super excited, I know that Presidente Calquín is trusting in me a lot with this assignment. Now I'm just going to go and give it all I've got! Oh, and Elder Miller, from Brighton High School is part of the team too, but he's part of the first group, but we'll be working together still!

Well, that wasn't the only big excitement of this week, It's been a crazy last week in Alejandro-Korn, we've been planning and preparing all week the Kermese, which is like a carnival type thing. It went SUPER great!! We put soooooooo much time into planning and preparing all of the games and activities, but at the end of everything, it turned out amazing!! About 60 people came, the cultural hall was stuffed!!! I was on the basketball stand the whole time, so I had to pass the ball to the people, mark there ticket and cheer them on as they took there 3 shots! 

This week we passed by Olindo, who was going to be baptized, he's 81 years old and is really awesome, but the woman that is the owner of the house where he lives thinks that we are wizards or something like that. So he said that he can't have anything more to do with the church, that he wants to go, but he doesn't have anywhere else to live. So that was really really sad. 

Anyways, I'll attach a few photos of the families from Alejandro-Korn and the 1 photo I have of the activity of one of the members playing my basketball game!! I love you all! I hope you have a great week! This week I'm going to be in an area that's called Burzaco, with Elder Tolentino! My trainer!! Love you guys!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

Week 55: A storm is coming Mr. Wayne

HELLO! Hey hey! Welcome back all of you to this weeks news, coming straight from Argentina where you can get all the up's and down's, all of the left's and the right's, and if you even want we can give you the zig-zag's! Coming up right now straight from the life of Elder Slack, don't miss a chance like this to hear directly from me what's been going on!

Well well my friends and family, this last week there have been some mild changes in the mission. We received an email from our mission president this last week, there have been a few changes in the rules! We now have the exclusive opportunity to listen to only music from the Mormon tabernacle choir, or from the church! WOW!! #blessed! Am I right or am I right? As well, a few other changes, in the photos that we take, president has asked the we always look like representatives of Jesus Christ, because we are! So, I guess you will all have to say farewell to the funky faces of Elder Slack because we're just going to be all smiles here :D!! As well, we are not going to be having any more zone activities, we can have 1-2 district activities every transfer, Disney movies, that would be a no, because we are going to be having cleaner and safer and more productive activities from now on!! WHOO!! :D And as well, we can't visit the temple, even with investigators only if we have a convert who goes to receive their endowments or be sealed or if we go with the mission president. A few changes, but we're all good! It's all for the better of all the things! WHOO!!

Anyways, outside of that this week we've been doing a ton of prep for a ward mission activity that we are going to have this week, we're going to put on something that's called a Kermese here, it's like a fair or carnival type thing, but we're going to do it in the church, all of the members are going to invite tons of friends and family and we are hoping that we can help all of the people to get to know the inside of the church, and we are going to relate it to the plan of Salvation. Everyone will be given a certain amount of tickets, they can play all the games they want, and depending on how well they do on the games they will receive a ticket of a different color, at the end of it all the different colors will represent the different prizes that they will receive, the prize will represent the three kingdoms of glory. It's going to be great!!

And!! Just to make this week even better than ever, we had exchanges, you are not going to believe with who! With ELDER CORDEIRO!!! WHOO!! Yup! With my old companion from back in Villegas Elder Cordeiro! It was super great, he's a district leader here in our zone so we got to go on exchanges and be companions again for a day! It was super awesome, we got to remember a few of the fun and crazy things we did back in Villegas and we got to see how much we have both grown and changed!! It was great!!

On Thursday, we had a super Family home evening in the ward, Elder González and I, we put on a little musical show, we put on santa hats and we were able to sing a Christmas hymn for part of the ward. And we planned with those who were there what kinds of activities we can do as a ward to help the other people get to know the church through the Christmas season!!

And, the week's fun doesn't stop there, on Friday we had interviews with our mission president! Presidente Calquín! He's super awesome, I can see that he really loves every one of the missionaries and has lots of desires that we can become even great than we are! And in the same day we received a little bit of training from the assistants to the president, wow, I mean WOW! We did a practice of a whole lesson, it was super great, we learned a ton from what they taught us!!

And, I think I told you last week that we were going to have a baptism, well..... The investigator didn't come to the interview again! NOO!! So close! But we understand, he's 81 years old, what can you expect? We're hoping that this week we can get things together and he can be baptized this weekend. 

Anyways, it's been an incredible week, full of miracles and fun! This week is the last week of the transfer, so probably my last week with Elder González, but I'm still super excited to keep working hard here with my new companion if I get one!! Anyways, until next week, we'll be seeing us!! I'm still in search of a camera, so we'll see what we can find. Anyways! Chau chau!!

-Elder Slack

Week 54: Hey Hey! It's Haloween!!

Hello world! Welcome back to the world of Elder Slack, where you can get the latest updates and news about the world and life about Elder Slack in Argentina!! Haha!!

This week has been amazing, very interesting, I learned a lot, and we ate a lot. That's about it! Until next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

(I, Stockton's mom, thought that was it for the week, and then Stockton sent the following email. I just love my son! I'm glad he can still have a sense of humor and finds joy as a missionary.)

Just kidding mom!! Haha! But Now for the real letter!! Haha! It's been a great week, we started off with the district meeting on Tuesday, it was super great, our district leader did a game where we all got to know eachother better, where we started conversations one with another and we talked. Then he connected it to our contacts, that we need to get to know the investigators, that we can't just talk to them like "Church church churchidy church church" But we should talk to them like normal people because they are normal people, and so are we!! Haha! It was super great!! 

On Wednesday we've been preparing a bunch of stuff for a ward activity we are going to do, well we made some errors with my companion and people said things and well, at the end of everything my companion was super duper mad. I felt pretty bad, but I didn't know why, well I talked to him after a bit and I found out he felt like another missionary and I were attacking him. Well, after a lot of confusion and an apology we got mostly everything fixed out. We're still working with a few things, but all in all we are doing better now!

I had 2 exchanges this week, the first I was with Elder Hernandez! He's an awesome missionary from Mexico, he's 26 years old and he's being trained right now. A great missionary, we were able to talk to some great people in su area of Brandsen, it was pretty awesome! The other I stayed here in Alejandro Korn with Elder Juarez from Tucumán Argentina, it's a different province. That went really well, there was a ton of wind and we were getting blown all over the place, but we lived! Haha! We were able to teach a few people really quick then we went to the welcoming home ward party of a missionary from the ward. He's super awesome and now here in the ward we've got another member that can help us out with lessons with members! He gave a great testimony and everyone was so happy to see him again.

On Friday we finished the exchanges and me and my companion were back together again!! That day we received a call from the offices of the mission saying that we needed to call every companionship in our zone and ask about 15 questions to everyone of them to be able to send a report to the mission president. We started that night at around 9:30 and we called a few of them, then we finished the rest of the calls the next morning, which in total took about 3 hours!! Whoo! haha! but we finished it all and we sent them the report and they were very pleased with our efforts!

And! Just to brag about how good the ward here is, we have Lunch everyday with a member or family, and we had 2 dinners this week too! It was super great! The members are so nice here, they help us out a ton with the lessons when we ask them and they give us food! which is even better! 

And The crazy story of the week! Yesterday morning, we went to go out the door to go to church and...... The door wouldn't open! They key couldn't turn the lock!! We were locked in!! Ahh!! So what do we do? Well, while my companion kept trying to open the door I tried to take off the hinges, didn't work. So we looked to the windows!! There was luckily 1 window that didn't have bars on the front. It just had a mosquito net. So we had to use some tricks learned from my father and my construction work with my Uncle Kevin and we were able to take it off and jump out! We ran to the church and we only got there 5 minutes late! Haha! What a morning right? 

Anyways! Work calls! The world needs saving and more happiness! Until next week on Elder Slack news!! Chau!!

-Elder Slack

Week 53: Miracles in the rain!

Hello to all the world! 

It's been another great week! I'm loving still here in Argentina, we've been working super hard Elder González and I, it's been a super great week so I'll jump straight to some of the highlights!

First off, we had a wonderful district activity last week, it was amazing, we did an obstacle course type thing that our district leader Elder Rushton organized, it only had one flaw, in this part where you had to to the wheelbarrow with your companion, there were a bunch of thorns on the ground that no one saw so it was a little painful, but other than that it was super fun!! 

On Wednesday we had an exchange, I went with Elder Price, he's from California, but he lived in American Fork Utah before he came on the mission. It was super great! It rained ALL DAY! Haha! We didn't have any appointments, so we went looking for people to teach, old investigators or people that they had contacted, and we did a bunch of contacts. I was using the classic Mr. Mac coat, when after about an hour in the rain, I realized that it is NOT water proof!! Haha! So we started getting a little wet, but we continued enjoying the day! We contacted a house that sells these little popsicles for 2 pesos, (15 cents) and we bought some and they thought we were crazy or something like that because it was super cold and raining and we were buying popsicles! But we enjoyed them still and we went on our way! At the end of the day we found one of the investigators that they hadn't taught in about a week and we brought a member over to her house and we had a super lesson with her. We put a baptismal date and you could feel the spirit testifying the whole time, and we could see that we had helped her! Blessings of working in the rain, you know it!!

Right now we have 2 potential baptisms for this week!!! WHOO!! The first one is the son of a less active family, he's called Luciano, he's super great, he loves listening and learning, but we'll have to see if his family is going to commit to help him come to the church every week! The ward has a great plan so we're hoping that it'll work! And the other is Olindo!! I don't know if you remember him, but his is the brother of a recent convert family, he is 81 years old and we hadn't been able to find him for about 2 weeks! Then on Thursday we get a call from his family saying that he is there in their house! We ran on over real quick and he was there!! Whoo! He said he was really sick for 2 weeks so he couldn't leave his house much, but now he is ready to be baptized this Sunday!! WHOO!!

And as well, the last quick highlight I think would have to be the "Consejo de Liderazgo" or the Leadership Council, I think it's called! It was amazing, we had a council with president and all of the zone leaders and the sister training leaders and as all of the mission leaders. We talked about the mission and we made a bunch of ideas for a big project that we are going to do as a mission this year for Christmas, it's going to be great!! President did an activity with us about being creative, he taught us about how we form ideas, that really it doesn't work with a blank sheet, you need to have a source of where you can take and make the ideas. It was awesome!! 

Anyways, that's about the week for you all! I hope that you are doing great!!  I'll put a few photos that I took with my companions camera! Love you all!! Chau!

-Elder Slack 

Week 46: So little time, so much to do!

Hello! Hola! I'm back again! Elder Slack, one more week has flown by!

I hope all your worlds are doing well! Mine is great! Missionary life as usual doing all of the things and none of the things. But we keep on chugging here in Villegas!

Well this week has been full of fun! We started off last monday we had our District Activity! I cooked Stroganoff (BRAZIL!!) and we had some great conversations, and at the end we kicked a soccer ball around for like 20 minutes. We were going to do a scavenger hunt for photos, but it started raining! So, we are going to do the scavenger hunt part this week! WHOO!!

Then Tuesday we had our district meeting and fun stuff! It was great! We had some great fun classes and I've got some great ideas for the district meeting this week, it's going to be super awesome!! I'm not a big fan of having meetings where we all sit around for a lot of time people start getting sleepy so I always try to include some sort of game in the teaching, this week I've got planned to teach about baptism! But in a super way! We're going to do a practice baptismal service!! Without water and stuff, and we don't have anyone to baptise, but we are going to practice all of the other things, taking of the photos and the invitations and all that good stuff, to help keep in mind the goal with our investigators is that they can make it to baptism!!

Well, Wednesday and Thursday we had to do 2 intercambios, or I think they call them exchanges in english. They went great! I went with Elder Villegas one day and then the other day I went with Elder Ramos! They both are still being trained, but they are super awesome! I was able to learn a lot from the both of them! They are going to be super great missionaries! Elder Villegas is in our ward here, the ward of Villegas, (Yes his last name is the same as the ward!) And Elder Ramos is here in Ciudad Evita, which is where we live, It's super great!

On Saturday night, we got together 2 familias from our ward, the familia Cortez and the Familia Quiñones and we had a family home evening in the house of Juana and Gustavo! It went super well! We got there at around 7 and we were super stressed out for like half an hour because the other families were already supposed to be there, but they weren't, so we tried calling them and calling them until we called son of the Familia Cortez who could give the phone to his mother and everything was "mas tranquilo" as we say in castellano! (It's like... More chill?) And then when everyone got there we talked about the importance of the small things with a fun activity that my companion did, and then we talked about how we have to trust in God, and we played that one game where you have to fall and have someone catch you and you have to trust in them to not let you fall! Whoo!! It was great!!!!!!

And Rufino! This week, we've got a baptism planned, we need to line up the interview for our investigator Rufino and if he passes Saturday we've got a baptism!!! WHOO! It's going to be great!!! Rufino is a bit older he's got around 50 years. And he's really nice and just likes to know more about God! So, I'll be updating you guys next week how that goes!

Juana and Gustavo are going great, they didn't come to the church yesterday, so that was a bummer, but we went by their house later with a member and we taught them about the sabbath day, and they are super great and excited to go to church this next week. Now we've just got to work with them so that they can start the process of getting married!

As well, Elder Marty and I we are trying to figure out better ways to plan and we are putting all of the less active members and the old investigators on our map to with their house number and we can plan super fast with them on their, so that's great too!

But yeah, that's pretty much a full week, it flew by! This upcoming week we've got transfers AGAIN! What! It went by so fast! So we'll be seeing what happens! But until then we are going to keep working super hard! There are so many things to do, but not a ton of time to do them. So we'll do all that we can and leave the rest to the Lord!

Lot's of love and hugs for everyone! It's been warming up a lot this week, it looks like summer is coming really early, winter is mostly gone. Thanks for all you guys do! 

Chao! 

-Elder Slack

P.S. My companion told me that I've been spelling chao wrong my whole mission, so that's whats up. 

Here are a few photos from the intercambios, where they've got an empty pool outside their pension, and the district activity and fun times with elder marty sneaking the camera around in the area!

Week 43: We Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts

​Hey everyone!! It's a me! Elder Slack!!

This week has been amazing, as almost all of the weeks in the mission, and I've got a lot to tell you guys, so hold on to your seats!!

Well, I think we'll start simply, on Monday we were pretty relaxed, we just hung out a little bit, and bought our food and then while my companion took a nap I was able to make my breakfast for the week! We bought a ton of these tortilla type things that they use to make empanadas here, and we bought some cheese, and I made about 57 quesadillas! WHOO!! And yeah, so I've been enjoying those throughout this entire week!!

Secondly we've been teaching a ton this week!! We cranked out 15 lessons this week, and we're looking at this upcoming week and I'm sure that we're going to be teaching even more!!! We've got a ton of investigators right now, and so many of them are progressing so well, I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to learn to teach and to be able to teach better with the spirit every time that we teach! 

As well, here in Villegas the members have been working "A full!" (a fool) as they say here. It means that they have been working a ton! They have been accompanying us to our lessons with our investigators, and they are visiting a ton of people who don't come to church, as well we've been inviting the members during lunch everyday and teaching them how to be missionaries! I feel like it's working out so far, but now we've got to verify how they're going with that this week, but I'm sure it's going to be great! As well, this week we were able to go to the ward council, that was pretty awesome, we talked about the investigators we are teaching and the help that they need from the ward, and then we had to bop on out because we had another lesson to teach, but Wow, from what we are seeing this ward here is going to be progressing a ton!!

And the most exciting part of the week! SUNDAY!!!! Well, after teaching everyone all week and they all commited to come to church, we went to the house of one of them in the morning so that he could come to church with us, but I guess he was sleeping or something, because no one answered. But then, we get back to the church and who's there? Rufino! And Fidel! WHOO!! There they are sitting in the priesthood class!! Then, at the end of the first our, who shows up?? Juana and Gustavo!!! WHOOO!!! And we had a super full class in Gospel principles! Then we go to head over to sacrament meeting and who do we have? There comes walking down the hall from the youth class Melani (the daughter of Gustavo and Juana) and Pamela!!! Whoo! And just to top it all off, we find out that Fidel's daughter who we've been teaching and is 8 years old had come with him too!!!! WHOOOOSLDFJIEDILSKDJWEOIJLSDJFO!"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!JWJJW!!!!!!!!!!!! Yayay!!! It was so awesome!!! Almost everyone of our investigators were able to come to church yesterday!!! Wow!! It was so incredible! What an amazing feeling, and not even that, but all of them came on their own or a member passed by their house to pick them up! It was such a great feeling, and I realized even more that God prepares the people, I just here to run around and look for them! 

And to top it all off... Last night, we went to teach Juana and Gustavo, and we taught them about the Law of Chastity, and they were super cool about it and really agreed with it! It was super great!! They've still got some changes to make, but it's going to be great!! I've learned so much with them, especially teaching about the commandments of God. I've realized the importance this week of the commitments that we invite the people to make, what we really do here is teach repentance and then baptize converts! That's what we do!

Anyway's, that's been our crazy week! I love you all! Let me know how you're doing! Luckily this week I can write with all 27 letters! (27 because spanish has the ñ too!) haha! Love you! Chau!
-Elder Slack

PS. The Photos are attacthed in a google doc link, I made a video too, I don't remember how much spanish I spoke or if I spoke any english, but if you don't understand, ask your local argentine!

Week 40: A smile can change the world!!

HELLOOOOO!!!! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOOO USA USA USA!!! Hahaha!

Happy fourth of July to everyone from down here in Argentina! I got here to the computer and realized that I forgot to wear my red white and blue, how patriotic, no?

But anyways, I hope all of you guys have enjoyed this week as much as I have, this has been one of the fastest, most and least productive weeks of my mission, but at the end of it all it has been amazing! 

First things first to start off the week we had to move Elder torricella over to our pension this week, if you don't remember he is the Elder who is in our trio for the rest of this transfer. So we headed over to his pension for a little bit to grab some clothes and stuff for him for 2 weeks and a mattress, luckily the pensioneros (the elders in charge of the pensions) were able to help us move everything from one pench to the other. 

And now that we are in a trio we've had the excitement of trying to manage 2 areas at once, which has been quite the hassle. Elder Torricella and his companion couldn't do a whole lot of work in their area because they spent a ton of time in the hospital, so we had to fix a bunch of things that they had left undone and start it going again, but now, this week should be a little bit more tranquilo or smooth going.

As well, Wednesday, we had to waste a few hours running around in different parts of the mission trying to get the flu shot, that they told us we had to get, but at the end of it all we went from our side of the mission to the other, (our mission is actually pretty small) and we found out we can't get the flu shot without a medical prescription. So, we'll see what we can do about that now. But all in all it was an adventure! We ran into a group of other Elders trying to get the shot as well in the Hospital where we all found out we can't get it there, so that was interesting!

As well, one of the Elders in my pension this week had his mission birthday! Elder Phillips from Brigham City, Utah, so we had a mini celebration and we ate Ice cream! That was pretty fun!

And! One of the two highlights of the week! We got to meet our new presidente!! Presidente Calquín! He's from Chile and WOW! I am super super excited to be able to work with him here and to be under his direction and spiritual guide! He is such a loving and kind man and full of energy!! He told us a few stories about his mission and how him and his wife met and it was amazing!! And his wife is Chilena as well, and she was super funny and it is so awesome to have them as our leaders! We all left the meeting there with him smiling and laughing he is so great!! Now we'll have to see how everything goes, I'm hoping that he and his wife can adapt to the mission really well. 

This week I got to do another Baptismal interview, it was with an older woman! She's had a hard life and has a few problems with her memory and everything, but! after a year and a half of teaching her she was all ready to be baptized!! She was baptized this last Saturday! Which as well was an interesting experience, she has a few health problems so they were pretty worried about how she would react to being baptized, so they had the Hermano from the ward to baptize her and then Me and Elder Torricella to assist inside of the font. At the end, it all went so smoothly! It was great!!

And! My favorite part of the week now. Yesterday!! Sunday! Church day! We were working all week with our investigators so that they could come to the church, we go, we're waiting for them in the bus stop and! NOOOO!! They couldn't come because of the rain and mud, but that's not all! What do we do! We rapidly dash to the church where we solicit the help of our Bishop with his car and ZOOM! We go right over to their house where we picked them up! Juana and Gustavo and their little boy Mariano! They all came to church yesterday and they were sooooo well received! The friendshipping was amazing by the ward! They gave them a welcome shout out in sacrament meeting and then afterwards all of the members came up to introduce themselves and to say hi! It was amazing! And at the end of the Gospel principles class, when Gustavo went to say the prayer he said "Thank you so much, Father, that I could come to church today, I am so happy to be here and I want to come here every week." WOOOOOO!!!! It was amazing! And then, to top it all off, later in the day, we went on splits with our ward mission leader and we taught this part member family and the non member dad accepted a baptismal date and everything!! Wow! It was just a great day!

And now I'm here! It has been quite the week! I've been soooo happy this week, I hope all of you guys are happy where you are! Something that our mission president said was (translating): "All you need to do is smile and open your mouth!" And it's so true! I hope you can all take a moment this week to smile! And right now! Smile!! Even if you don't want to do it!

That's all for this week! I've only got a few pictures! I love you all! 

-Elder Slack!

P.S. transfers next week! We'll see what happens!

(Stockton/Elder Slack did not include any captions for his pictures...so the only person I know for sure is Elder Slack.)

Week 37: President

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd let you know that I'm enjoying a ton being on the mission, it's the best thing in the entire world

This week in my life I've had a few exciting things happen, but overall we've been doing lots of missionary things! Whoo!! I kind of realized as well that I haven't told you anything about our investigators or like how often we teach or anything, so I'll try and fill you in a little bit. 

Right now we've got about 12 different investigators, I'd say the hardest part with working here is that the people don't have a lot of time. It's hard, depending on the person, to find them in their houses, but overall we get to teach a lot.

We been working with this man and his wife, but they are really young so I don't know if you'd say man. But they are living here and they are really amazing. Gabriel has been having problems in the past with drugs and things like that and now he is living together with his girlfriend Laila. They are really awesome, really dedicated to learn and they've got a little boy that's 9 months old. We haven't been able to find them this last week though, so we'll have to see how that all goes.

As well we are working with an old investigator that was investigating the church a few years ago. He's from Paraguay and now he lives here with his family. He's really interested in the church and knows that it is something important for his life. He's got a little bit of a brain problem where he forgets things sometimes, but he's really awesome, his name is Fidel, and he lives with his wife and kids and he's been progressing a lot and he's normally in his house so we can find him pretty easily. He wants to be baptized too!

In another part of the ward we are working with this couple, their names are Gustavo and Juana. They are this amazing couple always working, but we are able to find them at the end of the day. They love hearing about the Gospel and are really talkative. As well their daughter has a little bit of interest as well. They weren't able to come to church yesterday because they had to work, but they are super excited to go this next week, and we are going to pass on by tonight to talk with them some more!!

As well we've been teaching Pamela, this girl that is 12 years old, she is super excited about everything that has to do with the church, she is always reading in the Book of Mormon, she's actually almost finished it now! She came to church yesterday and had a super time being there with the young women and as well the president of the young women is super excited to have another young woman here and is working a lot with her so that she can be all ready for her baptism and be really active in the activities that we have here in the ward!! She's planning on being baptized the 25th or the Saturday that is close to that!

And we've got a few other investigators as well that are pretty new, as well we are working with this other couple, Patricia and Agustin, Patricia is already a member, but less active, we are working with Agustin right now so that we can teach him and so that he can understand better the church and to reactivate Patricia and he can be baptized too.

This week has been great!! 1 Highlight of the week, on Thursday we were able to go visit a few people with our mission president, President Thurgood. We will be changing presidents here in a few weeks so we've got our zone conference this week in the temple and he helped us out teaching with us and teaching us so that we can become better servants of God. It was super great to go and see him teach and everything! He really is an amazing man! We'll be getting a new mission president this month, he's from Chile. I'm super excited to go to the temple this week!!

Elder Cordeiro and I we've been working really hard here. I've been helping him out a lot with his English, he speaks really well already, he took 6 years of English classes in Brazil, and now I'm helping him with his conversations and things like that. And as well, he is in turn teaching me a little bit of Portuguese! It is so cool! I can almost completely understand Portuguese because it is so similar to Spanish, and I can converse pretty well with him as well now. It's pretty great. 

All of this week has been full of fun, my companion and one of the other Elders in my pension got sick this week. On Tuesday we took a quick trip to the hospital and everything. We all crammed into a little tiny car on the way there and back, like a taxi type thing. And spent the day there, they did some tests on my companion and stuff, they said that it could be appendicitis, but after the tests they just said it was something like gastromnoitis, or some weird name like that, essentially he ate some food that was weird or drunk some bad water. But that's what happened, so we spent a day there. But now he's all good and we're working a ton!!

It's been getting pretty cold here as well, I have now determined that I essentially hate the humidity, Argentina is great, but the humidity no! Because when it gets cold.... IT IS COLD!!! We've been bundling up everyday and winter hasn't even arrived yet. The members tell us that this is one of the coldest winters that they have ever had here! They said there are chances of snow!! Whoo!! Haha! But it's all great here in villegas!

I love you all! Have a great week!!!

-Elder Slack