Week 90: Happiness isn't a destination

HEEEELLLOOOO EVERYONE!!!!!!

It's me! Elder Slack! I'm back once again, another week has come and gone very quickly and what a week it has been! We've been enjoying some colder humid weather this week, it looks like winter finally got here, so we getting all bundled up and we're enjoying the mud! 

It was a great week this week, we did so many things that I can't even tell you all of them, but! I'll try!

Monday was a good start, we went and we had our district activity, we cooked up some hamburgers in the oven and we played a new game that I had never played before. It's called, Soccer in chairs! Everyone has their own chair and the goal is to hit the chair of the other people when you kick the ball at it. If someone hits your chair you have to sit down and you can try and revive yourself if you can manage to kick the ball at someone else's chair whilst sitting, and the game continues until there's only 1 person left. SO! ..... We had some fun with that and that was pretty much all our P-day. 

Tuesday was pretty exciting, I woke up feeling a little abnormal, I thought it was because it was cold, but as the morning went on I realized that something wasn't quite right, after a few trips to the bathroom I resolved that the hamburgers that it probably wasn't the best idea I had ever had to eat 5 hamburgers on Monday. We went to the district meeting and I seemed to live, but when went to lunch in the house of a member, I started feeling pretty bad, so that was the start of 2 days in bed. But I rested up all day Wednesday and by Thursday morning I was feeling 95% better, so I decided to take it a little bit slower, but we still went to work. We found a new investigator that day. We contacted him and he told us that his sister and a few of his brothers were members already! Wow! He let us go inside his house and we taught him a little bit, he's a really nice humble man, he works collecting plastic and glass bottles that people leave on the street and he trades them at a recycling place for money. His name is Luis, it was very nice to meet him.

It was very interesting, whilst I was laying down on my bed, feeling horrible in my stomach I began thinking a little bit about my mission and about this transfer, I remembered one of the things that my president told me in our last interview, he said something like: sometimes you don't need to worry so much about the end of the goal, but you should look at all you are learning while you are working, be happy for all of the little things that you achieve, God's plan is our progress, sometimes if we put a goal, the important part isn't when we achieve it, but how you get there. I was thinking a little bit about that and I realized something, the joy isn't all at the end, it's throughout the entire journey! Happiness isn't a destination, it's an experience. Happiness doesn't come only when we achieve our goals, but we can experience it while we are working towards our goals as well. We should always be happy, we should learn to enjoy being happy always, in every moment, because that is why we are here! "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."  I love scripture even more now, it came to me right now, and how true it is.

Saturday we had a great day, my favorite part, we finally got to teach Gabriela and her family again! Whoo! It was great! She had looked on internet and had found some very interesting things about the mormons, we were able to explain several things and clarify some of her doubts, but the most important thing that we told her that she can do, is read the Book of Mormon and ask God if it is true. Because if the Book of Mormon is true, it means that all we teach is true, if it is not true, the rest could be totally a lie. And I can testify to all of you who are reading this letter, that I know, with a certainty that can't be broken that the Book of Mormon is true, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God to restore his true church, and I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth today. I also know that Jesus Christ lives, and loves everyone of us. And this is what i wanted to share with you all today. And I do it, in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

-Elder Slack

Week 79: Trio time!!

Hey everyone! It's been another awesome week here in Villa-Celina! It's been such an incredible and tiring week this week! We were all over the area and the zone and we just did almost everything anyone can do I think, it's been incredibly crazy and awesomely fun!

We started out on Monday with a district activity, we had an "asado" or we grilled a bunch of meat up and played a little bit of soccer! So that was fun! Then on Tuesday we had to do another district meeting training, but this time it went horrible, if I do say so myself. Haha! HORRIBLE! I definitely learned this week the importance of preparation, God will only help us if we do our part and prepare!

The rest of the week as well we were preparing everything possible for the baptisms that we had on Saturday. Oh, I forgot to mention, yes, we are now in a trio companionship. One of the elders from our ward that lived in our pench with us went home for personal reasons and his companion Elder Hernandez will be working with us during this week! Yay! So... We had to prepare everything for the baptism of Junior, one of our investigators, and the baptism of one of the investigators of Elder Hernandez, Ronald! We had one of the interviews on Wednesday, and then we did interviews on Saturday as well and Saturday evening they were baptized!! WHoo!! It was super great and awesome! Junior has been investigating the church for probably 3 or 4 months now, he was going to be baptized the first week I got here, but he wanted to wait some more, even with our pression to get baptized. So, about a month later now, he was baptized!! WHOO!! He's from Peru, and is always excited to learn!!

As well, on Monday night this week we got a call from the assistants, and they told us, "Hey, we have a new goal for the mission, we want to find 1000 new investigators every week!" So... That's a lot!!! They told us that it's about 11 new investigators every week per companionship!! A ton!!  So we talked with the district leaders on Tuesday to see what we could do to achieve this goal and we decided to do something that's called a tormenta blanca, or  a white storm! I don't know if it's the same in english, but essentially all of the missionaries in the zone we all get together and we work in one ward for a few hours, but instead of doing it like normal we changed it a little bit. Instead of just in one ward, we worked in 4 different wards together! We went to every ward in the zone for 2 hours on Friday, it took a little bit of time, but it was great! We tried to find as many new investigators as we could. It didn't work as well as we thought, but! We'll see what we can do this week so that we can make it go better! Whoo!! Haha! 

And yeah! That's about the week for you!

One of the things I realized yesterday while we were in church was how awesome this ward is! There are lot's of people and many are ready and willing to work in the work of the Lord! It's incredible! They always help us with everything we need! I'm super happy here in Villa-Celina, it's been a huge blessing for me to work here and to work with Elder Gonzales. I hope everything goes well for you this week! Have a great one!! We'll be seeing you! Chau!!

´-Elder Slack!

 the middle of our area 

On the edge of our area we found an abandoned bus stop, but it's HUGE!

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 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 42: I hope you guy read good, beauze zome of theze do't work!

WeII, I'm writimg from zome where here im Argemtima, It'z bee a great week, zorry for the bad writimg, but the Ietterz dom't work, zo I am puttimg other omez for them. I hope that you guyz umderztamd my mezzage!

Zo thiz week haz bee awezome, I am here with EIder Marty, he iz a great ompamiom. We are aIready Iearmimg a tom together! I'II zum up the week for you guyz!

Momday, we got together with my mew ompamiom, EIder Marty, Amd them we bought our food, wrote you guy, made the pemziom zmeII good. (I hab to zubztitute other word zometimez) Amd yeah, it waz pretty great! 

The highightz from the wrezt of the week, we had our diztrit meetimg, amd, that wemt reaIIy weII. I'm ztiII Diztrit Ieader, if I didm't teII you guyz. We taught a tom of perzomaz, amd it waz reaIIy fum! We'be got our imbeztigatorz, Juama amd Guztabo, they habe dizappeared, they were aII ready to go to the reIigiouz houze yezterday, but them they ztopped rezpomdimg to our mezzagez, zo we are goimg to fimd them tomight. 

Thiz iz turmimg out to be a Iitte harder tham I thought, to write, but, we keep goimg... EIder Marty amd I habe beem workimg a bit om our umity, we are pretty differemt, but at the zame time, I thimk it iz goimg to be a great tramzfer! We are ztiII gettimg to kmow the other ztiII, but he iz AWEZOME! 

Thiz week it waz reaIIy reaIIy freezimg! It waz quite the zite! It ztiII hazm't zmowed here, but it pazzed beIow freezimg the other might, zo I am hopimg! Mot mamy of our imbetigatorz ame to the reIgiouz houze thiz week, that waz reaIIy reaIIy zad. But I kmow that we wiII keep workimg!!!!

I am zuper duper exited for thiz week, I'be got a great diztrit meetimg pIammed for tomorrow!! it'z goimg to be amazimg. Thiz week, om thurzday, I wemt to a traimimg with our mew mizziom prezidemt! He iz reaIIy Great!. I'm zuper happy to zerbe with him! Zorry, more iz hard to write, but, I zemd hugz amd heartz to you aII, Mo puedo write amor, im EmgIizh.. With Amor for eberyome!

.EIder ZIak

Photoz of the freezimg amd zome zerbize that we did, amd zome other ztuff.