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, August 25, 2015

{Aug 24} Did you say bed bugs?

     This week was great except for the fact that our apartment had bed bugs!! Yeah I said we had bed bugs. Apparently our apartment had that problem before and so we had to go to Willoughbys apartment for a day while they fumigated ours and it was good because I have gotten bitten like 100 times and Elder Mattingley never did so I guess they have favorites. 
      Besides that we were able to see Sheila and read the Book of Mormon with her and to help her learn the things that she already knew before and helping her rebuild her testimony and prepare her to get baptized! This week has been really good and we have been teaching more this week and have had some really good lessons with our investigators and mostly we have been reading the Book of Mormon with them so we can get them into that habit and because the Book of Mormon is the most powerful thing that we have to help people find the truth besides the spirit obviously. It has really helped the people that we are teaching to gain a testimony!
Sorry this one is really short but we have been really busy so see ya. 

Love Elder Slack

I'll send you some pictures next week

{Aug 17} Canada has been so awesome!

     Well this week was great! Elder Mattingley is so cool. He is from Layton, Utah. Brookswood has been really good but is a lot different than Surrey. Mostly because it not as big and we do a lot more tracting here and the area is a lot nicer than Surrey.

     We did a lot of service this week, well we did a lot of moving. We also were finally able to see one of our investigators Shelia who has been out of town. Sheila was meeting with missionaries like 20 years ago and was about to be baptized but someone told her she couldn't get baptized or something like that but anyways the missionaries got back in contact with her a couple months ago and she is so cool and knows that the church is true! We are just teaching her the things that she was taught before and she has forgotten and helping her quit drinking coffee but she is really solid and could definitely get baptized this transfer. So we are really trying to work hard to help her get to the point where she is ready and worthy to get baptized. She also owns a farm and gave us some fruit from it and it was really good!

     Speaking of food, in the Brookswood ward we literally get fed every night. Since I have gotten here every night for dinner we go to a members house. It's so cool except for the fact that I have had to start running again so I don't get fat! It is really cool though because the members here are so cool and really are missionary minded which is awesome! The ward here has been really good about helping us with anything we need especially coming out to lessons with us.
 
     Some other cool things that happened this week while finding were on Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Haase, (who is in the other ward in Langley and just got to the mission field), we were out contacting at the bus loop and started talking to a lady named Amanda and she started asking a lot of questions about things that she had heard about Mormons and we talked to her and told her what we really believed and it was really cool because at first she told us she didn't really want to talk to us because she "knew what we where about" so we asked her "what were we about"? so she started to tell us random things and we taught her what we really believe in and the truth about Mormons. By the end she was really interested and very curious about what we teach but sadly Satan is a big jerk and right in the middle of talking to her, her bus showed up early and she had to run to catch so we didn't get any contact info but hopefully we will run in to her again.

     This week has been really good and Elder Mattingley and I have been working on trying to build up our teaching pool and finding more people to teach. It has been going good and has really helped me remember that we need to rely on the Lord in everything and never think that we can do it our selves. Canada has been so awesome! Even though they are having their hottest summer in 25 years. I love it here! Well I gotta go.

Love Elder Slack

Sunday, August 16, 2015

{August 3 & 10, 2015} On to Brookswood after a fond farewell to some great friends

     These last few weeks have been awesome! One of our investigators came to church yesterday; he loved it. We went and saw him later that day and he told us how he feels like our church is the one he wants to join! So that was pretty cool to hear but he missed church this week and has been really busy but we are going to see him today so that should be good and hopefully he will continue to progress. 
  
     Well, we got transfer calls on Saturday and found out that I am leaving again to go to Brookswood, which is in Langley, and my new companion will be Elder Matingly and he has been out 6 weeks. Elder McCown is going to be training a new missionary here in Surrey. I am pretty sad to leave here but it has been good and I am excited to go to Brookswood. For some reason I can't stay in an area for more than 3 months or keep a companion for more than 6 weeks but I guess there is a plan!

Elder Matingly's sweet flag
     So the last few weeks have been pretty similar and we have been continuing to meet with our investigators. Valentino is the one that told us he wants to join our church and he is really cool. He has come to church 3 times and is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy! He loves it and really enjoys meeting with us. 
      Another one of our awesome investigators is Sonny. He has been doing really good. He has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and it has really changed him. He was not too happy last night when we went and told him one of us was leaving. 
Elder McCown, Sonny and Will
He is so awesome and has really shown me that the Book of Mormon can change lives drastically! We have been working with quite a few other people too. One of the coolest lessons we had this week was on Sunday when we met with a guy we met at Surrey Central named Egor. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and he really liked it. He told us that he was going to come to church and really wanted to read the Book of Mormon to learn for himself. It was so cool because it was all the spirit that taught him and he is someone that has definitely been prepared!

      This week was kind of sad because Elder Lawlor and Elder Woolf are going home so we got to see them for the last time last night. It stunk because Elder Woolf has been around me for 6 months, 3 in Kamloops and 3 here, we became really good friends and Elder Lawlor has been here the whole time I have been here and he is going back to Japan so I probably won't see him for a while.



 I have loved Surrey and I am really sad to leave but I am really excited for Brookswood and to go where the Lord needs me!

Elders Nelson, McCown, Maloy, Kelly, Will and Elder Hall
Elder Hall, Will and Elder McCown at the Vancouver Temple. Their chapel is right by the temple. 
Janet (investigator) and her son who is a recent convert 
Will & Bro Brown (his mission president's uncle)

Love Elder Slack