Week 94: Birthday's and Learning

Hola!! Buen Día!!!!

It's been another great week here in Argentina, my time here is growing shorter and shorter, I've only got 3 weeks left. Shout out to Heber who finished his mission this week! What a stud muffin! 

This weeks been a week to remember, that's for sure! Lot's of miracles and blessings from the Lord. 

Last week were the birthday's of Samantha and Andres, 2 of our investigators that I found with Elder Gonzales several months ago. They have to get married still, but they've got plans. They were working a ton, so they couldn't celebrate their birthday's, so we decided that it would be nice if we celebrated with them. So Elder Pavón and I we put our baking skills to the test and we tried to cook a lemon cake with cream cheese frosting. The frosting came out well, the cake "más o menos" as we say in Español. Haha! We've got a recipe book here in our department that the mission gave to us before President Thurgood left, it's got a recipe to cook a lemon cake, but in the microwave. Well, me trying to be the professional cake cooker decided that it would be better in the oven. I think the ingredients aren't the same in the oven as in the microwave, but it was edible to say the least. We brought some balloons, the cake and a firework type candle and we celebrated with them. Despite their happy smiling faces as you can see in the photo, it was great and we all had a good little time.

The other day a worker came over to our pench to fix our ceiling that the paint and plaster was  all falling down, I don't know if I commented before, but everything they build here is built with bricks and cement, very interesting. So we had to stay in our pench almost all day Friday, but we were able to have a great weekly planning session with the extra time to kill.

I wanted to share with you guys 2 great things that I learned this week. 1st I learned the importance of falling. Sometimes the sidewalks are uneven here and I trip almost every day, but not that type of falling. Falling spiritually, I learned this week that sometimes when we fall it may be the hardest thing, it may be the most difficult to pick ourselves back up again, but that process of picking up is why we came here. We came to learn, we came to grow, and when we come into opposition we can have the resistance needed to grow and become stronger and better people. So when you fall, don't worry, the path back to God's presence isn't easy and without problems, it was made to give us trials and to push us to the limits of our abilities so that we can become more like him.

The other thing that I learned was about listening. We taught an older couple yesterday and frankly it was quite an interesting lesson. The wife loved to talk, she talked and talked and talked, and I kind of lost my patience. I kept thinking "this lesson isn't going anywhere" "What does this have to do with what we were talking about" or "look even her husband is beginning to fall asleep from this boring story" So, I did something I shouldn't have done. Right in the middle of a story she was telling us I cut her off and told her we had to leave. We prayed and left and we went on our way. I talked with my companion and he said that I shouldn't have done that, I shrugged it off with some excuse that we had more important things to do or something of the sort. As we went along, talking to several other people I began to feel the painful but familiar feeling of guilt as with every step I realized that truly what I had done was wrong. I tried to ignore it, but it became overwhelming as we talked with an older woman, she started to do the same thing and I remembered something that I had learned at the start of my mission. It doesn't matter what the person is saying, if they are saying it, it's because it's important to them. And it's true. If someone is telling us something it's because they feel that it is something important and relevant. I repented and have determined to listen even more. After all, I realize now that more important than the message we bring is the spirit that the people can feel when we are in their homes. The Spirit will convert them, not me.

Love you all!!

-Elder Slack

Week 23: Teach repentance!

Hello! It's transfer day today! And Elder Ribeiro and I will be staying together strong for another 6 weeks here in González Catán! It's such a great opportunity to be out here and serve 100% of the time! 

We've been working hard this week, we're trying with all of our efforts to be able to show the people the pathway to Christ and help them to begin their journey along that path. We've been having a few difficulties with our investigators, but we're learning along with them and we keep praying that they will have the faith to act and progress.

Remember Camila? We've been working with her a lot, she is really a great person and everything, but her situation is a little difficult. She is a little special, and we have to be really focused on our teaching of how to help her progress. Now we can really see that she has the desire to progress, but still has a few trials in her life to be able to progress along the path. It's really hard to see when someone has the desires to follow  Christ but some of their trials make it extremely difficult to do so, but I believe that it makes the prize even more worth it, when we have to work hard and push to be able to receive the blessings of God, we appreciate them even more. 

These past weeks we have been working a lot with a young man, named Alfredo, he's a great guy, he understands a little bit, but we're trying to work with him so that he can have the desires to come to church every week, it's really hard when he struggles so much with his family, but we are really trying to help all of those who will listen and show him that the blessings of God are so much more rewarding than the things of the world. 

As well, yesterday we went to church in the morning and we were there and then this young man showed up, we started talking with him. He tells us he's not a member of any church, that he has never been to an LDS church before, but that he found the church on the Internet and found it interesting and so he just came on his own! It was so cool to see how sometimes God just brings his children back to where they can feel his love, it really taught me how much God has a plan for everyone, and that really as missionaries we just have to do our part in faith and everything follows God's plans and timing. 

As well this week, we went out to do visits with the first counselor of our ward bishopric, we went with him to visit a family who are less active and part of the family aren't members, it was so great to be able to see as he testified to them how much repentance can help them in their lives. Truly when we have the knowledge of the gospel and the commandments and as we try our best to follow Christ, we will be protected and receive help in our trials. But as well the opposite, when we have that knowledge and we choose not to follow Christ we do not have the same promise, we cannot be protected and the only way that we can once again feel the happiness of the gospel is through repentance and Jesus Christ. Truly he taught me that repentance is so necessary if we want to receive the blessings God has in store for us. 

And yeah, it's been a great week! I hope you are all well! I appreciate all of your emails and it is so good to be here!

Love you all! Chau

-Elder Slack

(Picture courtesy of 

Maria De Los Angeles Fernandez Bevans)