Week 78:

Hey Hey Hola!

It's been another incredible week here, we were running around teaching a ton and inviting everyone to read the Book of Mormon and to Pray and all that good stuff, it was nice.

We had some exchanges this week, I was with Elder Hall!! YAY! My MTC Companion! Yeah! you know that's what's up, Elder Slack and Elder Hall back in action, teaching repentance in Villa Celina! Whoo! haha! It was super great, and as a plus, in the night time we bought fried rice, which is something that apparrently they eat a ton in peru, next to our pench and we ate it and it was very tasty!! It was way nice!

Also, on Tuesday we had to do a training for a district in our zone, so we did a workshop on Love and unity. Sounds a little weird now that I write it in english, but it's true, love and unity are very important in missionary work! To pracitce our unity, we bought some bungy cords and we bound everyone together in the district and we made them do some activities. The original idea was to bind them together for a day, but we weren't that sure if it would go over very well with the president when he finds out that we make the missionaries do that, and we weren't sure the missionaries would like it either. So we decided for the less drastic version, but it was great!!

This week was holy week, down here in Argentina, there is a ton of preparation for easter and a ton of traditions about holy week. From Thursday to Sunday everyone was on a fish only diet, with bread and noodles and stuff. But it was awesome! I had my first experience of eating fish that has pokey bones! I didn't know why everyone told me that it was going to be pokey until I started eating and I realized that the the fish that I normally eat is not the same as the fish here, but it was awesome!

We were working with a ton of investigators this week, some of who have made us sad because they don't pray or read the book of Mormon, but others, for example Junior, is super ready to be baptized this week!! WHOO!! we're going to have the interview on Wednesday and then he is going to be baptized! WHOO!! 

And on Saturday, we had a really awesome experience! When me companion started his mission, he started in the ward that is right next to ours and that shares the church with us, he contacted an older man more than a year ago, and on Saturday he was baptized!!! And he asked Elder Gonzales to baptize him!! He was so happy! He has diabetes, and only has one leg, so we had to baptize him as a group, so I and one other elder helped out so that he could be baptized! We were all in white, it was so cool. And Afterwards Juan Carlos was so happy, that's his name, because now he knows that he will have the opportunity to see his wife and his son again, who passed away a few years ago! It was great!

Great week! I be happy! I hope you happy too! No time! Chau!! Much Love!

-Elder SlaCK

Week 77: In your dreams!

Hey hey hey!!! Hellos to all of my friends and family! I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Haha! this week has been awesome! 

On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Torres! YAY! i was with Elder Torres before when I was an ETM, he is a super awesome missionary, and has probably become one of my best friends here in the mission! It was great to work with him again! he's from Chile, and just a stud! I learned a ton from him once again, as we were teaching I could see and feel the love that he has for the people here. I realized the what really makes a great missionary. It doesn't really matter if you know how contac really well, or talk really well, or teach really well, what's really important is the person that we are, the person that we become. Who we are is more important than what we do, because who we are will affect 200% what we do and how we do it. The people can feel if we truly love them or not, they will know if we are sincere with our words or not, they will know and we will know. If we want to help them we need to love them.

The other thing I was thinking about this week was how little we truly do in this work, I realized what it means to be truly an "Instrument" in the hands of the Lord, I realized that He is the one that makes the changes that touches the hearts of the people. I kind of understood this before, but I really saw it in action this week as we worked and as I was able to pray sincerely for the well being of the people and know that I can't do much to help them, just invite and pray that God will make the difference for them. 

This week we had a baptism!! Whoo!! her name is Liliana! She is a young Woman and she has been going to church for about 5 months now and was never baptized because there were always problems when the elders tried to have her be baptized. But this week was incredible, she had been interviewed before, but didn't pass because she wasn't sure if the church was true. This week when we asked her if she had prayed about it, she said yes! And that she was now ready to be baptized and had received her answer! She said that she had dreamt that night that she was outside the church and that she heard a voice calling her telling her to come inside, and that was her answer! We were so happy and we went running around the rest of the week to get everything ready! It was great! 

Anyways! I love you all! It's been a great week here, a little bit of rain now as the winter starts to come.

Love,

Elder Slack

A visit to the pants factory

Asado!

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 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!