You are not alone

"You are not alone on this journey. Your Heavenly Father knows you. Even when no one else hears you, He hears you. When you rejoice in righteousness, He rejoices with you. When you are beset with trial, He grieves with you...He sees you not as the world sees you; He sees who you really are. He looks on your heart. And He loves you, because you are His child...seek Him earnestly, and you will find Him" -Pres Uchtdorf

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

A Week Full of Miracles

This week has been great and full of miracles! On Wednesday we got to go see a potential investigator that we found last week and he was really interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon because his Grandpa was a member and he told him a little bit about the Book of Mormon. So we went back last Wednesday and taught him about the restoration and about Priesthood Authority. He accepted it all and thought it made a lot of sense that we would need authority from God to act in his name. He told us how he was really excited to read the Book of Mormon and to gain the same witness that we had. We also invited him to be baptized and he said that he really wanted to do that! He told us that a few years ago he really got into religion and a year ago he wanted to be baptized so he went to a bunch of churches but none of them felt right. He told us that he hadn't found a church that felt like the right one for him yet. Finding him was a total miracle! What’s even cooler is we were originally supposed to meet him on Tuesday but he wasn't home but he called us Wednesday morning to tell us that he had to go somewhere yesterday and couldn't meet with us but he still really wanted to. I have seen a ton of times how people are being prepared to accept the Gospel and how there are people that want to learn and are looking for this church. The only thing holding them up is finding them or them finding us. We met another guy named Edward who is from the Philippines and the sisters found him a week ago so they told us to go by and when we did he told us how he met missionaries in the Philippines and he was interested in learning more about our church. So we left him a Book of Mormon and he told us that he would read it. Oh and we got transfer calls last night and I found out that I’m not leaving but Elder Johnson is going up to Burns lake and Elder Boehmer (Beamer) is coming here. So I'm staying in Abbotsford for another 6 weeks. Its kind of funny because I met Elder Boehmer when I left Kamloops, because he was in Kelowna, and I talked to him for a little bit and found out that he came out a transfer after me and that his Birthday is the same day as mine. That's pretty sweet! We’re like brothers except he is Canadian and I’m American. Well I gotta go so have an awesome week!

Found a flock of Goshen while tracting

 Love Elder Slack

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A perfect explanation for why Will chose to serve :)

Repentance is all about change and making things right and better, yeah? So, I am reposting my video now with proper permissions and endorsements. a big thanks to Marshall McDonald:)

Posted by Kallie Clark on Thursday, February 26, 2015

Monday, March 23, 2015

Winter Showers bring spring flowers?

Well, this week was really wet! It has rained a ton here this last week. I now know why they say spring showers because it has pretty much been raining non stop this week except for some random times when it gets sunny and then it rains again. I feel like I have seen more rain in the last 4 weeks than I have in the first 18 years of my life. I never thought I would have to deal with rain when I came to Canada. I thought I would be walking in 2 feet of snow everyday and riding dog sleds.

Rain, rain and more rain
 Anyways on Tuesday Gary, our investigator who told us he didn't want to meet for a while, told us he wanted us to come by and talk with him so we did and at first he told us he didn't want to come to church for a while but by the end of the lesson he committed himself to come to church! He also told us that Carol is probably going to be getting out of the hospital soon! So it seems like their life is finally going to be getting back to normal soon and hopefully we can start helping them get over their smoking addiction and help them get baptized because for Gary the only thing holding him back is his Word of Wisdom problem. He identifies himself as a Mormon when he talks to people. He is really cool. He just needs to stop having big problems happen so we can focus on helping him. 
  Probably the coolest thing that happened this week is when one of our appointments fell through and we where going to go street contacting but it was raining really good and we figured no one would be walking out side so we went tracting on this random street. The first house we knocked on we meet a guy named Jassi and we taught him about Baptism on the doorstep and asked him if he would like to be baptized and he said Yes!! We set up a time to come back the next day. So we came back and we were really nervous that he didn't speak English because we run into a lot of East Indians who don't speak English and just say yes to us. So we thought that is what happened but when we went back we taught him, his wife and their daughter the restoration and they said that they would read and pray about the book of Mormon as a family! It was really Awesome! It was even cooler because that is the first family that I have found and taught on my mission.
 Well sorry this letter is so short but I don’t know what else to write about unless you want to know a good talk to read and in that case read the talk called "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. It is amazing!! (it is amazing by the way)


Love Elder Slack

Monday, March 16, 2015

Be happy despite your circumstances...it is our choice whether we are mad or sad :)

      Well this week hasn't been too eventful except that we went and saw Carol, one of our investigators, in the hospital and she has not been doing very well but we did give her a Priesthood blessing and it seemed to help her a lot but she seems to not be getting much better and when we talked to her boyfriend Gary, another of our investigators, he said she is probably going to be in there for a while and he also told us that he has too much to do and is really stressed out right now so he asked if we could take a break for a while and he would call us when he felt like he was ready to meet again. That was really sad because he was our best investigator and he was really solid but it always seems to be when people are really progressing and working towards baptism is when Satan hits his hardest to stop them. Because he knows how important baptism is and how happy it will make people so he does everything in his power to stop us.
       Then On Friday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders Elder Mahabeer and Elder Camp and I went to mission with Elder Camp and we saw some crazy Miracles!! Our day was pretty much packed with appointments except in the morning so we went street contacting and at first it was like no one wanted to talk to us or even listen to us but after a while we met some really cool people and set up times for us to see them the next day. While we where walking back to the car to go to a lesson, a guy named Dominic, from behind us, yelled at us saying he had a question so we stopped and he asked us what the difference was between us and the JW's so we told him and we asked him if we could meet up with him later that day and he said yes so we went to our appointments and came back later that day to Tim Hortens where he said he would meet us and he wasn't there so we left and went looking for him and while we are walking around we run in to this guy who we ended up talking to for an hour, just about the bible and different things, and while we are talking to this guy Dominic ran buy us and told us that he got jumped while he was coming to Tim Hortens and to try to find him some other time and so we go on our way and go to dinner and after dinner we run into Dominic again like if was meant to be! We talked to him and set up a time to meet him the next day! It was really cool to see how if there are people who we are supposed to meet God makes it happen!!
       Another cool experience that me and Elder Johnson had was yesterday; all of our appointments fell through except our 8 o' clock appointment so we went tracting for a while and when we first left our apartment it was sprinkling and it wasn't too bad but by the time 6:30 rolled around it felt like we were walking through a hurricane and no one was talking to us or letting us in but that's ok because one of the things our Mission President put in his weekly email was about choosing to be happy and just always being happy no matter what your circumstances are because it is our choice if we get mad or sad. So that's what we did we just stayed happy and even though it wasn't the funnest thing to do it was a lot easier. A great example of this is Jesus. He never got mad once and He lived the hardest life anyone has or will ever live and it probably was not a breeze to be the Savior of all mankind but he chose to not let other things affect him and now he’s a glorified resurrected being living with God! That's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. I feel that I forget that a lot, that if I just do what I know I should do I will receive the greatest blessing that God can give us - Eternal Life. This life is just a short moment and the pains and trials are even shorter so there is really no time to get mad or sad.
       This is less important and not relevant to anything but while we were at a members house they have a son who just got back from his mission in Paris France and I told him that I knew someone who is serving in that Mission and his name was Junior Toscano. He told me that he was his companion for the last three months of his mission! That's pretty sweet and crazy to think that someone I knew served with someone that’s in my area now.
       Well I do have to get going but I hope you all have a great Week and Choose to Be Happy!


Love Elder Slack

Monday, March 9, 2015

"The spirit just goes away when people start bashing"

This week was a little different than the usual week, mostly because we met some pretty crazy people. It started off when I went to Chilliwack for exchanges with my District leader Elder Jacobs and Chilliwack reminded me a lot of Merritt except its a lot bigger and the people in Chilliwack really know their Bible because they are born agains. So we got a few people who bashed with us or tried to bash with us but we just walked away and ignored them. While we where in Chilliwack Elder Jacobs took me street contacting, which is something I have never really done before so I was really nervous about doing it but I finally just mustered up some courage and talked to someone and they were not really interested but it really helped me get over the fear I had. It was really cool because there was a guy riding a bike on the sidewalk and I said 'Hi' to him and he stopped and talked to me! It was really cool and we set up a time the next day. Then we went and saw one of their investigators named Gary and he was very interesting. Apparently he has been ready to be baptized but he won’t because he was being taught by sisters and they wouldn’t hug him and he got really offended about it so he said he wouldn’t get baptized but we went over there and resolved his concern and he is going to be baptized on the 28th so that was really cool and very interesting because it took like 45 min to help him get over not getting hugged by the sisters.
  One of the sad things about this week is that we never got to go by to see Gary and Carol because Carol was in the hospital most of this week because the medication she was given was not working and so she had to go to the hospital this week and get checked out that nothing was wrong with her heart but we will hopefully be going by there this week to see how they are. To look on the positive side of things since she has been in the hospital she has been living the word of wisdom so I think this will help her get over smoking and coffee. We did get to see Theresa and Daniel yesterday when we went to Daniel’s 10th birthday party and we were invited to go. They are really cool and if we can meet with them more often they could be baptized pretty soon but they are just really busy and hard to meet with.
 The craziest thing that happened this week is that we went to a potential investigators that we met last week and when we went to his house he had a bunch of stuff prepared and he was telling us all about his church and he was throwing anti at us and I thought Elder Johnson was going to blow a gasket because if there is one thing that Elder Johnson hates it’s when people throw anti at us. We stayed for a bit but then we just told him that if he wasn’t interested in listening and hearing the message we share then we needed to leave. He was getting pretty heated and throwing a ton of scriptures at us and what I really learned is that I need to learn the bible better so that I know how to answer people who throw things at us that the "Bible" says but luckily Elder Johnson knows how to do that.  One thing I have really learned since I got here is that I hate bashing because the spirit just goes away when people start bashing but we have been really good at avoiding bashing.

"Look at the sweet soda we found"
 Well I have to go so have a good week and I'll see ya next week!


Love Elder Slack

Thursday, March 5, 2015

It has been awesome here!

Dear Family

   Sorry it has been a while since I wrote you last. This will be my first letter from my new area, Clearbrook, which is a part of Abbotsford. It has been so awesome here! I love it! It definitely rains a lot more here than it did in Kamloops and is way more humid. It has been really good though. We do a lot more walking here than up in Kamloops and my companion Elder Johnson has been making me run in the morning, which at the time feels like the worst thing I could be doing with my life. But it's probably for the best because I have gained some weight on my mission because of not walking a lot and getting a lot of dinners with members and every one of them seems to think that we never get fed so they feed us enough to last us the rest of the week. I never though that was a bad thing until I weighed myself and I have gained 9 pounds on my mission. That's stinking crazy! So now I'm trying to lose it all. This last week has been really crazy, because I don't know the area at all or any of the members like I did in Kamloops but I'm getting there.
   My new companion is really awesome and very smart. Luckily he knows the Bible really well because a lot of  people here know the Bible and like to bash with us but Elder Johnson knows it so people can't bash.
   We also have some really cool, solid investigators that could be getting baptized this transfer. So that would be awesome because they are really cool and are really progressing. They seem to be ready. This transfer is going to be so awesome!
   Hope Mesquite is not too hot yet and hope life is good and Krista hasn't gotten too much like a teenage girl ;) 

Love,
   Elder Slack

awesome count: 4

Monday, March 2, 2015

We saw some pretty amazing miracles this week!

Well this week has been Awesome!! Elder Johnson and I went on exchanges with the Assistants on Tuesday. Which was crazy because I went with Elder Englestead who is from Cedar City, Utah!! (For those who don't know it, Will's father, grandparents on both sides, great grandparents grew up in Cedar City, UT and he has multiple family members still living there. Will even lived there for about 5 years) He was also good friends with Ty!! (Ty is Will's cousin!) It was so crazy to find out that we knew a lot of the same people in Cedar! Anyways it was really cool to go on exchanges with him because he really taught me a lot and we both did something that really scared us which is store contacting. I know that sounds weird but its when you go into a store and you just talk to people, since we can't legally preach in a store we just talked to people and when they ask questions to us like why we had tags or something like that we could talk about who we are! That terrified me because I have only been kocking on D's and never have done any street contacting which is what store contacting is a lot like. It was really cool though because we founds someone at a Walmart and gave him a Book of Mormon. We do not have a lot of investigators but we do have four really solid ones. We just set a baptismal date with a girl names Carol who is the girlfriend of one of our other investigators Gary. It was a miracle that we set a date with her because we showed up to their place to teach Gary and he was not home so we asked it we could teach her and so we did! It was such a great lesson and we set a date for the 22nd of March. It did not stop there because we got a call from Gary and he told us that he was really surprised that she had committed to get baptized and he told us he wanted to work with her and get baptized with her! So we saw some pretty amazing miracles this week!

Well I have to go and help someone move.

Love, 
Elder Slack