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 83: And he rested

Hello to everyone! What a different week it has been! I hope you are all well, I am now super well.

During this weeks I think I had one of the most unforgettable weeks of my mission, not because it was super great in the work or anything. I was sick all week! Whoo! Let's go Bronchitits! Yup! Monday in the evening I started feeling a little bad, so we went to the pench a little early, by tuesday morning I was pretty bad. We went to the doctor and he told me that I had Bronchitis, a problem in me lungs, they gave me some antibiotics and sent me home. All week I was recovering. It was very interesting, just resting all week, in some moments I was pretty sad and depressed actually, sometimes as a missionary one is so tired that you just wish you were sick, but when you really get sick, ooooffff, it's the worst! 

But, despite that I learned a lot this week! God was able to teach me a ton. One of the good things of being sick I had a little bit more time to study a few things, I read all of the book Our Heritage, a History of the Church, great book and I learned a lot about where the church came from, it was the first book in english that I have read on my mission, so that was new. Anyway's it was interesting. I'll send you a few quick photos, I'd like to share more, but my time here has ended. Until next week! With love!!

-Elder Slack

A sick Elder Slack doing a nebulizer treatment...

All bundled up and ready to go to work

Week 67: It's a dog eat my back end world.

Hey everyone! Another week has already gone by, how fast the time is truly flying. It's been a pretty crazy week filled with new adventures and new and interesting experiences and I'm bringing it to you now straight from Argentina! WHOO!!

This week we were in Banfield 1B with Elder Colmán from Paraguay and Elder Hebdum from Washington. It was a really great learning experience with both of them I liked being there with them. 

Well to start off the interesting and new experiences I had the great opportunity to be able to bathe all week with a bucket! WHOO! In the pench the water pump to move the water to the water tank broke, so we were without water all week, we could only take water out of a spigot in front of the pench. And the stove didn't' work either so we would heat up the water in the microwave and then we we would "Bathe" ourselves by throwing the water on ourselves. I actually kind of liked it though! But I think I prefer running water.

To continue, on Tuesday we were heading out of the door from the lunch appointment that we had, it was super great the sister was really awesome, and I go to walk out the front gate and I hear Rrrrrr and I feel a jolt! "OUCH" i said, and then I realized that the sister's dog had bit me! Yup, it bit me in the butt. Haha! It didn't hurt that much, but we got back to the pench and looked at it, it was really super small, but it bled just a little bit. So we had to call the presidents wife and she said I had to go to the hospital just because you never know, so we went the next day. No shots, luckily, but I'm on some antibiotics! YAY!! :P

On Friday, in the morning I got sick, I had a low fever and a headache all day, so we went to lunch, but other than that we didn't go anywhere all day.

And those were a few of the fun experiences we had. One of my favorite moments of the week, on Thursday whilst working with Elder Colmán we were going some places and contacting a ton of people and we started talking to this man who was fixing his fence. It was like a miracle, he just started telling us all of the problems that he has had over the last year, he's been having lots of family problems and some health problems and now he's living all alone because his wife left him. And Elder Colmán and I we were able to testify to him about how much Jesus Christ was going to help him in his life, it was so incredible, all share our testimonies I could feel the spirit so strongly, it was incredible, I could feel so strongly that the spirit was testifying of our words. It was great, but then it made me so sad, this great man who needs so much of the help of Christ and he said that he didn't know what to do and that for right now he didn't want our help. It made me so sad to see that someone who's life can change and fix all of there problems decide not to get the help of God. We left him with the invitation to pray and we left.

That's about all from this week! I'm loving it here still, We've got some changes with the schedule now that the apostles just announced in the world broadcast, so next week our president is going to announce what the changes will be for our mission specifically! Love you all! Until next week!

-Elder Slack

(Captions added by Mama Slack)

Elder Branco and Elder Slack. Notice that they each have 2 name tags on, one on their suit coats and the other on their white shirts- they are always wearing/bearing the name of Christ.

Elder Stockton Slack at a dinner appointment. I am so grateful for the love and kindness the people of Argentina give to my son and the other missionaries he serves with. Thank you for feeding and caring for him while he serves his mission!

Elder Stockton Slack proudly wearing an Argentina baseball hat. I love his smile!

Week 49: Sick day

Hey everyone! I'm here again! I've got just a few quick things for you all this week! Argentina is awesome!!

To start things off, this week on Tuesday we had our District meetings and Wow! My first time as Zone leader and I was able to learn a lot, it was an experience very very interesting. Started off everything normal, we had our zone counsel before the meeting started with the 3 district leaders here, it went all smooth. We started our district meeting with our district leader, it was pretty normal, we did some introductions and all. But everyone the whole time was making a lot of jokes and things like that, okay, I guess what can you expect from 19 and 20 year olds. But as Zone Leaders Elder Gonzalez and I, we have to go check on the other Districts to see how their meetings are going. I went over to another class and BAM! Wow, what a difference I felt, when I walked into the room everyone was sitting listening to the district leader, and he was teaching and testifying. As I sat and listened I could feel such a huge difference between the two different meetings, One where everyone was shouting a little bit and making little jokes the whole time and the other where everyone was sitting and listening contently, The Spirit hit me like a wall when I walked into the room. I learned there the importance of reverence that day, that it is so important to have the Spirit that we need to take out all of the distractions and put the jokes aside for a little bit sometimes.

On Friday, I went for an exchange with some other Elders in the zone, I went with Elder Bahena, it was super great, he only has 2 transfers left in his mission and I could learn a lot from him, we taught some great lessons and in the morning we went to a service project of the ward where we had to help put in the cement foundations of cement (well here all of the houses are made out of pure cement and bricks), so that was pretty awesome!

And last but not least, yesterday morning I woke up with a devastating stomach pain, I woke up super sick, I slept a bit more, we got up and went to church at 9:30, we stayed for sacrament meeting, but I was almost dying the whole time, at the end of the meeting a few people were talking to me telling me to feel better and I ran out and threw up in the trash can. So that was super fun! And we went to the hospital after that where they gave me a prescription and some shots to help with the nautiousness and the throwing up. Whoo! Super fun!! They said I probably had Gastritis, I think I got it from drinking the water from an investigator that I asked from. I think he took it out of the tap, but I didn't know so I drank it anyways because I was really thirsty. But I woke up this morning, feeling thousands of times better! So we're all good here! I feel like I'm back to about 80%. So by tomorrow I should be all good to go!!

More than anything else those where a few exciting bits of the week! It's so great here I love serving the Lord! Being a missionary is the best!! I'm learning a ton as Zone Leader! Love you all! Until Next week!!

-Elder Slack   

I got my hair cut.

 My companion on a ladder, Elder Gonzalez

It's been raining and it gets so cold!

Elder Gonzalez- some other photo that I don't remember what it is. 

Week 9: (no title)

Hey! I'm here again! I hope you all have had another amazing week even though I'm not in your lives!

Things have been pretty interesting here in Argentina, the election is over, we're still missionaries, you know, nothing really big. This past week has been all over the map. From rainy days to sick days. But all another day in the life of a missionary!

This past week we had another Capilla Abiertta (Open Church) , church tour, in our Zone. All of the missionaries in our zone went over to another area and we went out and advertised all over the area for people to come and see the church and see what we believe and what we do in the church, it was really good. That took all day Saturday, and then this week we've been planning for our Capilla Abierta here in Catán 3! Elder Tolentino and I have been planning a lot and trying to figure out where all of the members (active and inactive) live so that we can send out the missionaries to go find them and invite them all back to the church, and also the same with all of the old investigators. We're hoping for a good turn out Saturday, but we'll see. 

I got sick this past week on Wednesday, we couldn't leave the pension because I was kind of half dying. So I layed on my bed all day while Elder Tolentino worked on the list of names for our Capilla Abierta. Then that night we had to travel to another area, Adrogué because I had to go do a bunch of Visa papers the next day. So we traveled 2ish hours by bus and I was praying that I wouldn't throw up the whole time, and yay! I didn't. We slept in the Adrogué elders pension. Slept, then the next day woke up, and that is when I threw up. Then we traveled around all day with a bunch of other new missionaries as we went to different places to fill out visa forms and stuff. Whoo! What a party right! Eventually we returned back to our pension where I was able to sleep and rest and I was fine by the next day!

Today we had a Zone activity, our Zone is all Elders, because the majority of the areas here in the Zone aren't um.... suitable, one might say, for Hermanas. So we played some futbol, and ate a ton of Churi Pan, (Sp?) Which is this amazing asado sausage on bread with some ketchup or chimichuri sauce, good stuff. 

Other than that, the week has been pretty normal. We've been out searching a ton so that we can find new investigators. But we're having a little bit of trouble right now. Almost all of our appointments fell through this week, and we taught probably 4 lessons, granted we couldn't do anything for 3 of those days because I was sick and the capilla abierta. But I've been getting really good at contacting people though. The language is coming extremely fast, the gift of tongue's is amazingly real. I feel like if I didn't have it for one day I would be completely lost all day with what's going on. But we've been searching so much this past week. And we had this one day, where all of our appointments fell through. We had a member with us and everything and they all fell through. So we decided to go out finding. So we were knocking some doors and doing some street contacts, but for about 2 hours we had found no one, everyone was either to busy or didn't want to talk to us, or not home. As we were walking to go find in a different area, Elder Tolentino and I started talking. He said he had asked the President, because we've been searching for investigators for 2 weeks, why he thinks we haven't been able to find anyone. He said the president said that we need to have more faith. At that moment I realized what all of my thoughts were. Every time we would talk with someone or every time we would knock a door, I didn't believe that we were doing any good. I didn't believe that we would get anywhere by talking to the person. At this moment I realized what was happening. I was getting what I expected. All along I had been thinking we would get nothing, and we got nothing, then I would ask in my mind "why can't we find anyone?" I realized how important it is to have faith, how important it is to believe that you are going to find someone, how important it is to believe that the person you talk to is going to let you in, or make an appointment. We have to believe that the best is going to happen or God cannot reward our Faith, because we have none.

Anyway's, just a thought of what I learned this week. Also I remembered that my companion shaved all of his hair off. He got a haircut last week, and paid 50 pesos for it in a barber shop. I don't think the people in the barber shops know any more about cutting hair than I do. Because it was horrible. So he tried to fix it with the Zone leaders cutters, but messed it up even more, so they just cut it all off. I've heard it's about to get a lot hotter, so I guess that'll help haha!

That's all! Yours, always smiling

-Elder Slack

Elder Tolentino's haircut

How I take pictures of me when I'm sick