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 48: Living the Alejandro Korn Dream!!

Hey everyone! 
I've only got 2 minutes left so I'll write super fast!! I'm zone leader, I got transferred, I'm in the zone of Longchamps and It's super great! We've got bikes and my companion is from Viña del mar Chile!!! It's super awesome here the ward is super great! I love you all and hope to be able to write more next week, I'm going to through some pictures on real quick! Chau! (my companion told me that I can spell chau with U or O, so we're all good!

-Elder Slack

P.S. I met up with Elder Cordeiro!! He's in our Zone and we went and had another Capilla Abierta on Saturday!! It's raining a ton and there is a ton of mud in our area! The mud gets all stuck in the bikes and everything!

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