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 38: El TEMPLO!!

What a week it has been indeed! I've got lots to tell and little time to tell it, so I'm going to try and type really really fast!

This week we started off with a great P-day, we had our actividad de Distrito, (district activity) It was pretty awesome, different than what we had planned, but it was good. We made some great pizzas, and we watched the new disney movie Zootopia, it was way good. I'm not sure if it is out on disc there yet, but the movies here come out of nowhere from the street venders with there illegally copied movies so yeah. It was great though! 

The rest of the week has been filled with a few different things, but first a quick investigator update, 

we're still working with Juana and Gustavo, they are super great we are going to have a family home evening with them tonight, they still need to go to church and get married, but we're seeing good progress with them. 

As well we are working with Pamela still, the miracle from the Capilla abierta, she is sooooo amazing, we taught her about the plan of salvacion this week and the whole time was asking all of the right questions and asking questions that are a lot more complex than the normal investigators that we have here, and she is only 12, so that's pretty amazing! We're hoping that she can be baptized here in July, but her dad still is thinking about giving permission.

As well we are working with this great man and his family, his name is Vicente, it's like Vincent, but in Castellano :P He's super great, he has lot's of desires to know more, he's having a little bit of trouble know with work and everything, but he's super excited to go to church this next week!

As well we are working still with Fidel and with his daughter, he is really great, he is accepting and remembering everything really well, but.... He didn't come to church this last week and it was so sad. But we'll keep working with him!

As well we are working with Agustin and Patricia, we had talked with only Patricia once this last Saturday and she said only she would be able to go to church, be we were just starting the Gospel Principles class and BAM! In walks both of them!! Whoo! It's so great!

Those are the main investigators! It's the best thing to teach the people here and to invite them to come unto Christ. It's the best!!

Outside of that, really quick I've gotta give a shout out to the best dad in the world, I'm not sure when Father's day is in the USA, but it was yesterday here in Argentina! I Love you Dad so much! You are the best!!

As well, we had a Zone Conference this past week, we all went to the temple and we did a session and then we were able to have a good discussion for like 2 hours in this other building really close! It was the second to last time that we are going to see our mission president, he is going to leave this week and the new one comes in. We'll see him and his wife this wednesday. They are so awesome, I have learned so much from them! 

And this morning, we got a surprise visit from the Hermana Thurgood the wife of the president! Her and the secretary of the mission passed on by to do a 5 minute inspection to make sure we are maintaining our apartments really well and everything! It was awesome! And they gave us a kit kat!

Anyways, there's not a lot of time, but I went on 2, I don't know what they are called in english, but inter-cambios in spanish, like a split or something like that. With 2 elders in our district this week! I love learning and serving the Lord! I love you guys!! 

Chau!!

some members gave us some food to eat and the end of the night in our pench, so we ate the four of us!

this is the kit kat

Week 24: Why do we fall?

So that we can learn to pick ourselves up!

Hello! Everythings going grand here in Argentina! I had my toe surgery last week on Monday, and now I'm here once again all back to almost normal! My toes been going great actually! I had about 1 day resting and now I'm walking like normal, we've just got to go back to the hospital to take out the stitches on Thursday so I'm still being a little careful not to kick my companion to much, but everything's all good! I rested for 1 day in the pension, the next day we had a member with a car help us out to go and visit a few people! And the next day when we went back to the hospital they said I could walk normal now! Yay!!!

This week has been truly fantastic!! I love being a missionary sooooo much!! I have been able to learn and grow and experience so many different things, and I have become to understand what my goals are in my life, what I want to do, who I want to become, and as well it is such a great blessing to be able to help others realize those things as they follow our Heavenly Father's plan for them! It's the best!!

This past week after the surgery and everything we have been getting right back into it! We were able to visit a few of the people we are teaching on Friday and then next......on Saturday... We went to the temple!! It was so cool! Our area here in Gonzalez Catán is about 30 or 40 minutes from the temple of Buenos Aires, so, when we have 2 investigators at least, and a member to come with us we can take a short trip to the temple! 

So Saturday we all met up in the church and we went on over there, it is such an amazing place, the temple! We were able to give a great lesson about the plan of salvation and share a little bit of time with everyone as we walked around the temple and just enjoyed the peace and the Spirit that you can feel there, even when you are just on the outside. Something that I've learned to appreciate even more now that I'm away from my home in Utah. The opportunity to have a temple so close to your house, or multiple, is a huge blessing!! It's such a sacred place where really we can be close to God and feel His love for us His children!

After we went to the temple Saturday, Sunday we were able to go with a recent convert from our ward who is called Brandon, he is 17 years old and has a testimony so strong about how the church and the Book of Mormon helped him change his life! It was so cool to be able to go visit a few people during the afternoon and night and have him share his testimony with us and with the people here. He's such a great young man and now he's really excited to be preparing for his mission when he turns 18 years old in July! Really it's so great to see people change and have the desire to follow Christ from the testimonies of 3 young people of 17, 19, and 20 years old, it's incredible to see the power of God in the work. 

And that's how the week went! Full of great things and miracles everyday! I hope you all know that I love you all! Take an hour or 2 to go to the temple this week, even if you aren't a member of the church, go outside and really think about what your personal goals are and ask God what His goals are for you! 

From El Gran Catán! 

-Elder Slack!

Week 18: Portugués?

Hey hey everyone from down in South America! 

This week has been amazing! I'll start with the most exciting news! So, I went Tuesday, to go and find out who is going to be my new companion..... And...... It's Elder Ribeiro, from Brasil!! He is a stud! He is learning to speak spanish as well, because in Brasil they only speak portugués, but he is learning really really fast, he knows a ton more than I did when I first got here because portugués is really similar to castellano. He is really great, really excited to be here and he's not afraid to talk to anyone, he just goes and does it even if they don't understand him with his super thick brasilero accent! He's a super awesome companion really ready to go and get to work and I think we are going to be able to do miracles in the area we are in right now! (As an added bonus, he worked in several different restaurants in Brasil before he came out here for the mission, so he knows how to cook really great food!!)

So yeah, we came back from Aldo Bonzi (Where the mission home is) and we went right to work. This week was a little bit harder than at the start, I've learned that there were more than several things that I have to do now that my trainer was doing before. But after a few days I've seemed to have gotten things figured out pretty well. Now we just need to be a little bit more efficient about doing everything. But it's really great! I've learned a lot about prayer and faith and about how the Lord will always help you to be able to do the work that he calls you to do during this past week. 

I've just kind of realized that other than that this past week has been pretty normal. I've learned even more the importance of having a good plan. And as well about how we need to be very direct with the people we try and contact. Before I would come up to them and say something like "Hi, we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and we have a message that we'd like to share with you if we could maybe come into your home and teach you something" And now I've learned that people are a lot more responsive if we just really say why we are here, what it is that we want and teach something that we believe. It's really great! I'm learning so much from Elder Ribeiro, he's a great companion. 

As well, this past Sunday, we were able to bring one of our investigators to church he is a very different case. His name is Demetrio and he had a problem, I can't remember what it's called, but he had something happen about 2ish months ago, and now one side of his body is really really weak. He can't walk and can't really take care of himself. When we first found him we were able to give him a priesthood blessing (If you don't know what that is, ask your local mormon friend, then say you want the missionaries to pass by your house to teach you more) And yeah, so we gave him a blessing, and he has been progressing a ton, when we first met him, he couldn't even move almost nothing without help. Now he can move his arm and his leg really well, and this week he is going to start some physical therapy so that he can regain his strength. So yesterday morning we went with one fo the few members of our ward who has a car, and we went and drove to bring him down to the church, it was really great to have him there and he really liked it, and said when he gets better he wants to come more regularly! 

This week, as well, on Thursday night, we had an activity with the ward that we are in, where they paid for a big bus, and we were able to go with Camila, our investigator, and a bunch of members to the temple, where we were able to have a lesson outside in the gardens of the temple and talk about the importance of the temple and the family in God's plan for us! It was so awesome!! (But then she didn't come to church Sunday so... Man tear)

And yeah, it was a normal crazy week in the life down here in Argentina. It was really really great though! I love every moment! I hope all of you are enjoying your lives! Know that I love you All! Chau!

-Elder Slack

So grateful to the Sister who shared this through FB!

Week 3: Joseph Smith

Amigos y Familia!!

Hola once again from the MTC! I'm loving it here! It's so awesome! My district is amazing and Spanish is honestly so much fun, I don't know why, but it is! Me and my companion are getting along great! We got an assignment for Sundays this past week, we are the Sacrament coordinators so we get to go and prepare the sacrament every week and give the prayers in español and make sure that there are people there to pass the sacrament I'm excited, all those years of sacrament experience getting to apply them on the mission!

So our old District leader, we just changed and have a new one now, he's 21 years old his name is Elder Carson and he's prematurely balding or something like that, but he told me this amazing joke this last week. "What do you call 3 rabbits hopping backwards?? ....... A receding hare line!" Prime stuff am I right!

The MTC schedule is getting a little repetitive, it's pretty much wake up, eat food, class, eat food, class, eat food, devotional class sleep. But it's great I love it, I learn so much every single day. I've resolved that we probably have some of the best missionary teachers, because they are all returned missionaries, they all served in South America/Mexico, and because they served there they taught around 5-10 lessons a day so they know how to teach and they know about the culture, one of my teachers went to the Buenos Aires North Mission, and they all know so much about the gospel and about teaching it and loving it and everything. It's pretty awesome!

Also every week on P-day, we get to go to the temple in the morning, it's awesome, it's literally right across the street and we just walk on over and get to go inside and work there, then after that we get to go and eat breakfast in the temple, it is literally the most divine food in the world right now, because we've been eating the byu food service food and let's just say that it's not the most healthy stuff and doesn't taste amazing, I've just been eating oatmeal or cereal everyday for breakfast everyday and It's just okay, so the waffle I get at the temple is just amazing compared to what we eat here. But I'm grateful for food, and also I'm grateful that I don't have to eat at the MTC for the rest of my mission.

We have a devotional here every Sunday and Tuesday, It's awesome we've had some of the best speakers here, they teach us so much and I've been spiritually fed every time they speak, but also just before the devotional we have choir practice and then we sing a song as a choir for everyone, which there are more missionaries in the choir than there are in the rest of the audience. We don't sound amazing, but we're actually pretty good, but over this past week we sang Joseph Smith's first prayer, (I think that's the song) and the choir director is just awesome, he always has some cool stories and a sweet testimony about every single song, and he told us some amazing stories and facts about the accounts of the first vision, and it strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet so much. And he shared some personal stories from his mission and bore his testimony on the power of the first vision. This one short story, he said he was out on his mission in Brazil and he and his companion came out from teaching a lesson with some investigators and his companion turned to him and said "NEVER teach the first vision like that again" and he was confused and said "Like what??" Then his companion said to him "Like it's not true! Because it is a true story Elder!" That really made me think about my testimony of Joseph Smith and how I teach it, I never want to be teaching and speak and sound like I don't think that it is true, because I know that Joseph Smith went in that day to the sacred grove and prayed, and God and Jesus Christ came down to him. You can read Joseph Smith's story online at LDS.org or just google Joseph smith history or something like that and it should have Joseph Smith's account of what he saw, and I'd like to challenge you all to read it, or reread it, and think about your own testimony, or if you don't know that it is true, take 3 minutes to pray about it, because if that moment isn't true, then none of this church is true, and I know for myself that it happened.

Also this week, there was an elder in another district that had a birthday, and his family sent him a ton of presents and food and stuff, so we had a little mini birthday party out in the hall in front of our room, and he got a ton of balloons and candy, then he gave a bunch of it away, so I grabbed some and everyone gets a ton of packages and so there's a ton of candy just floating around, so I've been able to satisfy my sugar cravings enough for now without buying anything.

Me and my companion Elder Hall have been teaching our investigators and we have been learning so much about teaching and how to apply the lesson to the investigators. I've learned so much about teaching that I never knew before and the language is coming really easily, I don't really worry to much about the language anymore, I just worry about planning the lesson and figuring out what the investigators need. Elder Hall is still struggling with the language a little bit still, but he's talking more and more with each and every lesson.

-- 

Elder Slack

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Mailing Address:

Elder Stockton Gerald Slack

NOV02 ARG-BAS

2007 N 900 E Unit 97

Provo UT 8460

Check my ride (not really)

Found Elder Brown, but now he's gone

Cheese

The name tag on pday

Everyone always asks to try on my glasses

Devotional

The mini birthday party

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