Week 64: The way God sees things

Hey hey! It's been another great week here. We're back here again, we've just gotten back from another successful week in another great area! I'm super exhausted right now, but it just feels soooooo good to be able to sit here and write to all of you in the air conditioning of the mission offices after being in the heat and humidity all week, haha! But I just loved the whole week!

This week we were with Elder Stapely, from California, and with..... Elder Torricella!!! If You remember who he is! I was companions with Elder Torricella back in Villegas for 2 weeks in a trio, so it was super cool to be able to be back with him again and get to know him even better and do some good work. We were in the area of El Jaguel (Pronounced: El Ha Well). Yes it is called The Jaguel. It was a good week, I learned a lot this week, it was really fun to be with both Elder Stapely and Elder Torricella they are both really great missionaries and they are both determined to serve the Lord!

One of my favorite parts of the week, we went to the TEMPLE!!! WHOOOO!!! It was super great! I've been just a little bit stressed out with a few things lately and I didn't really realize it and it was just great to go to the house of the Lord, I was able to feel a whole lot better, a lot more peace and stress free. I got a few answers to some of the questions and thoughts I've been having lately and it just helped a ton being able to go there now that I've grown so much here in the mission. And it's always great to remember how blessed I truly am and how my our Father in Heaven truly loves us! It was such a beautiful day! We went there with all of the Zone Leaders and all of the Sister training leaders and the assistants and Presidente Calquín and his Wife. It was so awesome. We are so blessed to have a temple inside the limits of our mission. It's been about 6 months since we went the last time, this was the first time that we were able to go with our new mission president, it was super awesome, I loved it so much! And then afterwards we had a Leadership Counsel in one of the buildings next to the MTC here. President talked about how we as leaders really need to focus on serving the other people. He talked about how the best leaders are those that follow. If we can learn to follow the Lord's commandments, follow the plan that the Lord reveals to President then everything will work out alright! I just love our mission president so much, he is such a great man and he is always so excited and ready to help us out and he's not afraid to make changes! 

One of my favorite parts of this week. In the leadership counsel, the assistants talked about the importance of training the future leaders here in the mission. So I was able to put that into practice a little this past week. On Saturday I was talking a little bit with Elder Torricella while we were proselyting and we were able to talk a little bit about being a district leader. Things that I regret not doing as a district leader, things that we have seen that others have done really well as a district leader and I talked with him more specifically about the importance of following what Presidente tells us to do. It was pretty great, I too was able to learn a lot while we talked about things that we can do to help and serve the other missionaries. 

One of the things that I've really realized over the time here on the mission is the importance of applying what our leaders tell us to do. Last year the apostles did a world wide conference about Teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts. At first I didn't even understand what that meant, after watching the whole conference I was a little bit confused still and I didn't change very much in the way that I was helping and serving the people. Then Presidente Calquín got here and he started saying the same thing. We need to teach repentance and baptize converts, and you know what, I still didn't get it. I heard it time and time again, but nothing seemed to really make the click, until just about 2 months ago I came here with my new assignment to be an ETM, and things just started clicking. I talked with the other missionaries, and they helped me to understand it a little bit better. I taught a lesson with my companion and it worked amazingly. And just now within these last 2 months I am starting to realize how important it is that the people repent and are baptized. I am realizing how much it talks about repentance and baptism in the Book of Mormon and in the other Scriptures. I realize that this whole time they have been telling me what to do, and I either didn't understand or just didn't want to make the change. But now as I begin to understand I start changing, as I've put into practice what they've been telling us to do the whole time, Presidente, the apostles, everyone! I've seen so many blessings. Anyways, so that's what I want to invite you to do. I'm going to attach the link to the talk from The president of the church, those of you who haven't read it lately, I invite you to read it and put into practice the principles that it teaches. And then let me know how it goes for you! I love you all! I LOVE serving the Lord and serving the people here in Argentina and being able to serve these incredible missionaries. I am so blessed! Love you all! Until next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

Principles and Promises

The Perfect Path to Happiness

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 39: Trio Baby!

Hey hey everyone!

This week has been super crazy, a few changes coming along now, this last tuesday we had a quick last meeting with our Mission presidente Thrugood and his wife! It was so amazing they have served and loved us so much!! Presidente Thurgood and his wife are from Idaho, but I think they are going to live in Centerville Utah after the mission, I don't really know. 

As well, we started off strong on Monday with our Zone activity, where we prepared a song to sing for Presidente Thrugood, created and directed by yours truly. My companion and I we put together this great song this past week it was a mash-up of Señor te necesito (I need thee every hour in spanish) Brillan Rayos de Clemencia(Spanish of Brightly beams our fathers mercy) And then we sung the last verse in English I need thee every hour with the melody of Brightly beams our fathers mercy. It was so great!!!

We had another week full of interesting Inter-cambios, I think they are called Exchanges in English, I'm not sure. But I went with Elder Phillips from here in our district, we live in the same pension, so that's pretty easy. And then later in the week I went with one of the zone leaders Elder Tipaz from Ecuador! That's was a really cool experience. After everything what I really learned from all of it was that as a leader, a lot of the time I have a lot of freedom. If I want to motivate and inspire the people to be better missionaries or to perform better, I have to think of the way to do it, there aren't a ton of guidelines, it's just like they throw me out here and are like "Go for it son! I know you can do it!" A little like at the start of the mission! Haha! But it is super great!! I love it!!

As well My companion and I we were able to cook up this delicious Brazilian food this week, it's called Stroganoff, it's like this curry, but you put cream of milk and tomato sauce and we made it with chicken, then you put it all over rice. It's soooooo Good! I think I've learned how to cook more Brazilian food than Argentine food while I've been here! Haha!

This week I've been thinking a lot about how none of our efforts are wasted. That as we work and as we invite the people to know more about the Gospel, it's really their choice if they will accept it or not. Our job as missionaries is to do our best and to find the people that are prepared for the Gospel in their lives! I'm so grateful to be able to be here and serve with 100% of my time in Argentina!

We've got transfers coming up in two weeks, if things go without a surprise I should be staying here and my companion should be heading out, he's been here for 6 months now. So we'll see how things work, but just last night we had quite the surprise!

We were doing our daily planning and we received a call from one of the assistants, he tells us that one of the elders from our district has his arm broken and has to end his mission 2 weeks early so we'll be in a trio for the next two weeks with his companion! Whoo!! Elder Cordeiro and I will be working with Elder Torricella these next two weeks! We're pretty excited! 

But as all good things do, my time here has come to an end. Investigator update, this past week was a little discouraging as none of our investigators that we had planned came to church, but we continue working hard and improving! WHOOO!!! I'm so happy to be a missionary and full time servant of the Lord! I love you all so much!! Keep it all real!! Chau!! 

Elder Slack

Ps. No photos this week, there's no time, I'll send some next week. But lot's of cold and rain here!