James was baptized!

     This week was just full of miracles! Well James Goheen was baptized this Friday and was confirmed this Sunday. So that was amazing! I am so grateful that I was able to stay here in Victoria and finish my mission especially so that I could see James get baptized. He has been so solid! The day after his baptism he went and helped the ward weed the church and is going to help a move this Saturday! So he is pretty much become one of the members! He also get interviewed to receive the priesthood yesterday so he is doing pretty awesome!

       I have never noticed, before my mission, how much the Gospel can change someone's life and how powerful it can be. Being a missionary you see that a lot and you make the Gospel the center of your life because all you do is preach the Gospel and everything is focused on that. I guess that is how life should be more or less, in the sense that the Gospel should be the center of our lives. I have seen how when people make it the center how much it changes them and how much joy it brings into their life! I have seen that in my life as well over the past two years and how much the joy the Gospel has brought me and how much it has changed me and molded me more into the disciple that Heavenly Father needs me to be. Now, don't get me wrong I still have a long way to go but the Gospel has helped me so much in my life. I have seen first hand how if you put the Lord first everything else will work out for the better and he will provide a way for all things that we need and will bring joy into our lives. That is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to do. Bring Joy into our lives that will last forever.  It is not meant to restrict us or make life more difficult but to allow us to have the best experience while we are here preparing to meet God.

  

      I can testify that this Gospel is the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that this is the way to lasting happiness in anyone's life. I have felt this for myself and have helped others who have been able to experience it as well. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and will strengthen our testimonies of our Saviour and help us to grow closer to him and to learn of what His will is for us. I know that because I have felt and seen it in my own life! 

Love Elder Slack

ps I don't know if I will be able to email next week so this might be the last one, which is kind of sad but it is part of the Plan.

James has really been a miracle in my life and my time here in Victoria!

      Well this week has been really crazy! So James had his baptismal interview on Saturday and passed!!! He is getting baptized this Friday evening!!! So this week has been pretty amazing besides the fact that we still do not have a car and are still waiting on the insurance so that we can take it in to get fixed but we have been able to use the busses here and has reminded me of when I was with Elder Ringheim and we only had bus passes so it has been interesting!

 

     James has been doing really good! He has been clean of smoking for almost two weeks and he has really been changing and seeing the blessings from not smoking. He has been progressing so much and has changed a lot since we started teaching him a couple months ago. We were able to teach him about the priesthood and how he would be able to receive it after his baptism and we brought Bro Miehe and he bore a really powerful testimony of the power of the priesthood and some of the ways that it has blessed him in his life and it was very powerful to see that. I am really grateful for the way that the Victoria 1st ward has been so friendly to the people that we bring to church and really make them feel welcome and from a lot of the investigators that I have taught that is something that many of them have said is they really love the fellowship that our church has and how lots of people in the church seem to be really good friends and are very welcoming of new people. That is huge for someone that is coming to a new place for the first time and have people come up and welcome you and introduce themselves to you it huge! When James first came to church that is the one thing that he said that he liked the most and something that he has not found in other churches that he has been to. James has really been a miracle in my life and my time here in Victoria! It is meeting people like him and being able to teach him that really make everything worth it and really show that all the hard things that we have to do dont really matter and that miracles will come as we do our best and as we just keep pushing forward and do what the Lord asks and expects of us!

      I just want to share something that really stuck out to me in my reading this week! it is in Jarom 1:9 the phrase that really stuck out to me was"inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments ye will prosper in the land" That is a promise that we WILL prosper not that we might or probably but that we will. We do not know when the prosper will come or how it will come but it will come in the exact way that we needed it. I have truly learned that the Lord is mindful of each and everyone of us and are unique situations and will be there to help us prosper in the land as we keep his commandments and do all that he has asked of us!

Love Elder Slack

I know with out a doubt that It has been because of my Saviour that I have been able to accomplish all that he has called me to do

   Well, this week has pretty much been full of Miracles! We were able to see so much progress with the people that we are teaching this week especially James and Ryan. Elder Chirstiansen and I have been working really hard and have seen so many miracles this last week!

   So, we texted Ryan on Wednesday to follow up and see how his smoking was and he told us that he quit on Monday and I just about jumped through the car roof! It was such a miracle and he has been doing so good with it sense and is working towards the 25th of this month to be baptized and he is doing so good! Then James has been doing so good as well he quite this week and is also preparing for the 25th of September to be baptized as well and it looks like it is going to be a double baptism that week! We have been able to see the miracle of the Gospel and how much it can change peoples lives! Especially Ryan who is pretty much a different person that when I first met him 4 months ago and it has been such a testimony to me of how powerful the Gospel and how we can truly change completely because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and it can be instant as well we do not need to wait a specified time for the Atonement to kick in but it can be instant and eternal! 

     That is something that I will never forget is how much the Atonement can help us if we allow it to. I never knew that it could help me talk to people and overcome that fear I had. It has not been easy but I know with out a doubt that It has been because of my Saviour that I have been able to accomplish all that he has called me to do here in British Columbia.

Love Elder Slack

I have been able to learn so much from the Book of Mormon and it is something that has changed my life forever

    Well, the weather has taken a turn for the wetter and it has cooled off a lot. It has been any where from 16-21 degrees (Celsius) all week! This week has also been a lot of fun too! Elder Christiansen and I really get along well and have been having a lot of fun together but still do get missionary work done. We were able to teach Axcel who is 15 and his mom is a member but he was never Baptized so we have been working with him over the last 4 weeks and he has come to church the last 3 weeks and he has made some good friends in the young mens too. We went over to have dinner with them this last Tuesday and had a really good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we were able to set a baptismal date with him for October 8th and it was so good because since he has been coming to church and the young men have befriended him he has liked coming to church a lot more.  He is one of the only people that we are teaching that does not have a commandment problem so we are really trying to focus on helping him to read and pray daily  to help strengthen his testimony.

     We were also able to teach James a couple times this week and he is doing so good! He is not going to get baptized this weekend but on the 25th he will be! He quit smoking and we are going to help him prepare to be baptized and he is doing so well! He has been reading from the Book of Mormon every day and has been coming to church every week so he is way solid and is really progressing a ton and has really been a miracle!

     We have also been able to see a lot of our other investigators and Elder Chirstiansen has been picking up everything really good. One thing he is still holding on to is that he really likes to use puns, and not very good ones at that ;),  so we'll see if that goes but for now he is still going strong. This week has been really good and reading the Book of Mormon has been awesome! I am even learning things from the Isaiah Chapters which I usually never do. One thing that really stuck out to me is in 2 Nephi 16:8-12. It is like a conversation Isaiah has with the Lord and the Lord asks who he will send to go for him and Isaiah responds to send him and so the Lord tells him essentially to preach the Gospel and then Isaiah ask how long he wants him to do it for and the Lord tells him to do it until the cities waste away which I think is like his way of saying forever. It really hit me because I will not be a missionary forever but I have been called and we all have and it does not end when the badge is off or the church clothes are hung up but we are called forever and always to share the Gospel. I have been able to learn so much from the Book of Mormon and it is something that has changed my life forever and I hope I will continue to let it do that forever!

Love Elder Slack

The Missionary Power of Music

That excitement and spirit that comes from the Book of Mormon

     Well, this week everything should start to get back to normal! Except we got transfer calls on Saturday and I found out that I am going to be training a new missionary for my last transfer so this week is still going to be pretty crazy but this transfer should be a lot of fun!!  This week was really good though. It was just Elder Flood and I because Elder Evans had to go up to Sidney to be with another missionary because his companion finished his mission a week early so that he could go to school so this week was not any less crazy than the last two and it looks like this one will not be either but it should be fun none the less!

  

      We were able to meet with James again and he is doing so good! He is still working on his smoking but it looks like he is going to be on track for his baptismal date and he has been reading to Book of Mormon like crazy and it is really cool because he tells us that it all just makes sense and he is understanding it very well! He is so prepared and has been prepared to hear and accept the restored Gospel! He is just a miracle and he pretty much is just trying to follow Jesus Christ the best he can and says he can feel his faith growing since he started meeting with us and coming to church! 

      The Book of Mormon reading that we have been doing as a mission has been so awesome and has helped me regain that excitement and spirit that comes from the Book of Mormon. I feel like I did at the beginning of my mission when I first started to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and how excited i was as I read and all the things that I learned from it and I have found out again that no matter how many times you read the Book of Mormon you will always get something new out of it and something new always sticks out to me that I had not learned of seen before and it has been really nice to start off everyday with reading the Book of Mormon and just going out with that spirit that it brings. It is something that I want to do everyday when I get back home so that I can always have that spirit with me. There is nothing like reading the Book of Mormon and all that it holds with it. The Book of Mormon has helped me to gain so much understanding even about the restoration because it is the fruit of the prophet Joseph Smith and is the way that we can truly know if all that he taught and saw was real. All we really need to do is read ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon. If we have already gained that witness or never have or did but are not sure anymore I would strongly invite you to read the Book of Mormon and to pray to know if it is true. If you have questions about anythings else I know that the Book of Mormon is there specifically for us to help us with things in out day and can help us receive answers to our prayers! My mission and life have been changed by this book and it has blessed me so much in my life! It can do that for anyone.

Love Elder Slack

The Book of Mormon will change your life

     This week has just been the usual Gong Show like the last 22 months especially the last 2 weeks! Being in a tri has been a lot of fun and Elder Flood and Elder Evans have been great but sadly the tri was disbanded today because Elder Evans is going up to Sydney to replace an Elder who is going home a week early for school so it is just Elder Flood and I covering two areas so this week should be interesting but finally next week I should have another companion and hopefully I will still be here in Victoria. 

     We has a really good week! We saw James on Saturday and we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and we were a little worried because he smokes but we taught him it and asked if it would be problem and he said no and that he has quit before but just needed some motivation to quit again and when he came to church the next day he told us that he hadnt smoked any! It was such a miracle and he is so prepared! 

     We also saw Ryan and he has been doing good. He set his own date for him to be baptized and it will be sometime in September. He is so close and so ready so we are really focusing on helping motivate him so that he can quit but he is really working hard and he has been doing really good on everything else especially on reading the Book of Mormon. 

    There has been a lot of stuff that happened this week that I forgot about until just now so as a mission we are reading the Book of Mormon and it has only been two days but it has been Awesome! I have been able to get something out of every time we read and I did not know how fun it would be but I realized that I actually really like reading the Book of Mormon. I would invite everyone who reads this regardless of  if you have read it 100 times or never to start and see how the Book of Mormon will change your life because I can promise it will because it has for me. Also another really awesome thing that happened is that we had a special John Bytheway fireside on Thursday and it was Amazing! He just talked about the Book of Mormon and it was so cool and it got me even more excited to start reading the Book of Mormon again and since we have started I have remembered how powerful it is and how much I enjoyed reading it at the beginning of my mission!

Will, John Byetheway, Elder Flood, Elder Evans

     Okay so here is the last random story for today so on Friday Elder Evans and I where tracting in an area and our appointments fell through and we were not sure what to do so we decided to stay for a bit in the area and nothing was happening so we started to leave when a mom and her 4 kids walked by so we started to talk to her and taught her a little bit about the restoration and asked if we could come back and she told us to come back on  so we did a couple days later but when we got there her husband was working so we told her we would not be able to teach them but that we had some sisters in the area that could so we called them and them come over to teach this family so while we where waiting we entertained the kids by playing some baseball, which I am always in the mood for, and it was so fun it was only 10 minutes but they were really cool! They are from Ethiopia and apparently baseball is pretty big there so to wrap it up the sisters where able to teach them and they had a really good lesson so that was really cool!

    I know that this email has been all over the place but that has pretty much what this week has been so I guess it works! 

Love Elder Slack

We have been able to work really hard and to see some really good success here in Victoria!

    So, this week was pretty crazy being in a Tri but it has been really good! Elder Flood and Elder Evans are both really Awesome and I have known them both for a while. Elder Flood has been in Victoria since I got here and Elder Evans was in Abbotsford when I was there last so I knew them both and it has been a lot of fun being with them. We have been able to work really hard and to see some really good success here in Victoria!

     We saw Ryan as usual and he is doing so good right now! We were able to have a really good lesson with him and about the importance of baptism and how he could grow his faith to completely quit smoking and kick it so that he could get baptized. It was so good and the spirit was really strong and we were able to re-set his baptism date for August 27th and he is really committed to it so we are going to really be working with him to help him get there! 

   We also have a really cool new guy named James who has come to church the last two weeks and we where able to teach him about the plan of salvation this week and it was Awesome! He just soaked everything in so well and has been reading the Book of Mormon and he told us that he feels like his prayers have been answered since he has been reading it so it has been really cool to see the progression he has made even though it has only been two weeks!

     This past week has been really crazy because we do cover two areas but luckily they overlap but it looks like this week will be the same and then next week I am probably gonna get moved to another area for a week in Sidney with Elder Whitney who is actually from Gunison Utah!

Anyways I gotta go!

Love Elder Slack

The Lord promises to bless us and take care of us as we put him first and show our faith!

    Well, this has been a pretty eventful week with a lot of up's and some down's but to just let everyone know I have two new companions now - Elder Flood and Elder Evans because Elder Cowley went home. Not anything that he did wrong or anything he did not clear up before his mission but he was really struggling with his anxiety and it was really starting to effect him in the work and all aspects so he decided to go home to sort it out and plans on coming back. So, it has been an interesting last couple days sorting everything out and figuring out what I am going to be doing for the last 3 weeks of the transfer but it looks like I will be staying in Victoria with YSA Elders who pretty much cover the same area as me so it should work out good!

    

     So this week has been a little crazy to say the least but I am glad that we can just get back to a normal week! We did have some really cool things happen this week though! We found a new investigator named Jasem, he is from Iran, he has been here for a couple years and is a neuro scientist I think I talked about how we found him last week so if you remember back that far you will remember how awesome Jasem is! We were able to teach him a couple of times this week and it was really good but very different because he has no knowledge of Christianity at all so we have had to keep it pretty basic with him but he is very interested in it because he did not agree with many of the teachings that he grew up with and really wanted to learn more about Christ and then he ran into us so pretty much a miracle! We had some really good questions and things that he was wondering if we believed and pretty much everything he asked can be answered by the lessons we teach as missionaries. So he is doing really well and the rest of his family is moving over to Victoria this week so he wants us to meet his wife too! so that was pretty cool! We also found a couple this week too, named Farie and Fahrac (fa-rock) who are Ba hi but are really open to learning and listening and they have met missionaries before so they new a little bit but we where able to teach the restoration to them and they actually knew quite a bit of it and  want to learn more so we will see how that goes.

    Victoria has been amazing and it looks pretty likely that I will be finishing my mission here which I am not upset with at all! I have been able to learn a lot here just all of my areas but here in Victoria I have realized how little time we truly have our missions and how as we put Heavenly Father and what he has asked us to do first then everything will all workout and I guess it is a little easier on a mission but that is a principal that is applicable to everyone. What ever assignment we have been given. The Lord promises to bless us and take care of us as we put him first and show our faith! As we truly trust and Believe what we know to be true. As we believe the Lord when he says "I am bound when you do what I say but when you do not what I say ye have no promise" He is bound to bless us as we are obedient and fulfill and magnify our callings. He has to do it because he is bound to do what he says or he would cease to be God so its a pretty safe bet that he hold his end of the bargain as we do ours. I know, Believe and can testify that this is true that the Lord wants us to be blessed. He wants nothing more than to see us full of joy and happiness and that will happen as we put him first and do the things that will not only bless us but others as well through our service!

Love Elder Slack

The X Men Castle - it is the castle they used in the Xmen movie The new Squad!

New Companions Elder Flood and Elder Evans - a tripanionship once more

We did not even plan to be downtown at that time but we felt that we should go there

   This week was not quite the same as the previous. We where not able to see many of our investigators this week but we where still able to see Ryan and he is doing so good! We were also able to find some really cool potentials that we are going to be teaching this week!

    Ryan is still doing amazing and is still changing a ton! He set a goal to be fully clean by Sunday so we are really praying for him that he can do it! We had a really good lesson this week with him and we taught him about the temple and how we want to not only to be baptized but to also continue on and prepare to go to the temple and it was such a good lesson and he told us how he wants to do that and make it a goal and how he wants to be married and sealed there! It was so Legit!!! He has such a good testimony of the Gospel and how it can change peoples lives! He even brought his cousin to church yesterday! He is pretty much doing everything a member does except he is not baptized but he is a great missionary and pretty much the coolest thing since sliced bread. He is preparing to be baptized in August so I hope that I am still here when he does!

  We also went on an exchange with the YSA Elders this week and I was with Elder Evans in their area and We were in Downtown Victoria and while I was talking to someone another guy came up behind me and just stood there until I finished my conversation and then he just asked me what I was doing so I told him how I was a missionary and how we share a message of Jesus Chirst and then he told me how he wanted to learn more about Jesus Christ and that he had tried to contact a Catholic priest but he never got back to him and then someone told him that "those guys who walk around downtown in white shirts and ties teach people". He said that he did not believe the guy that told him it so he came to see if we really do that and once he saw that is what we were doing he came up and started to talk to me. It was so cool because before this we had been walking around for 35 minutes and had no luck and we did not even plan to be downtown at that time but we felt that we should go there and it was a Miracle! His name is Jasam and he is from Iran and we are going to see him tonight!

Well that is all the time I have but Victoria is about the most beautiful place in BC and I am really loving it here sooo talk to you next week!

Love Elder Slack

{7/18/16} The Gospel was meant to work wonderfully we just need to let it do that!

This week was pretty Crazy but good I am really glad that I get to stay here in Victoria with Elder Cowley. This week was a little trying because Ryan who was our other Baptismal date was not able to quit smoking yet to make his date but a miracle did happen with that! When we saw him and talked to him about it on Friday and we told him that we wanted to help him be fully prepared for his baptism so we where going to help him quit smoking first and the lesson went really well and then later that night he texted us and told us he was going to try to live the word of wisdom fully and he has not done anything it 2 days!! So he is doing really good and is progressing a lot right now and has such a great testimony of the Gospel and has seen how it has changed his life. I have really been blessed to have been able to teach Ryan because he is someone that has been so prepared by the hand of the Lord to hear the Gospel and everything that we have taught him he accepts and prays about. He is doing so good and while we where in Priesthood yesterday the lesson was on temples and Ryan was asking questions about the temple and after the lesson he told us how he wants to go to the temple and that it is one of his goals now after he is baptized! I don't know about you but that was about the coolest thing someone has ever told me here in Victoria! 
   We where able to also find a really cool new investigator named Kyle who Elder Cowley and I found at the beginning of June but he and his family traveled to Whitehorse for a month so we where finally able to see him this last week. We taught him the restoration and it went so well, he had a lot of really good questions about what we taught and soaked it all in really well! He was very excited to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it to know if it is true. He told us that he wanted to check out or church but that this last Sunday he had plans with his family already but that he would come next Sunday. He is very interested and he has a wife and a new son. He wanted to check us out before we met his wife so hopefully we will get to meet his family soon!

  Victoria has been great and has the best weather I have ever seen! The summers here are just a little nicer than the ones in Mesquite, but just a little. I have been thinking a little more about how close my return date is and I don't like it so I am going to do that less! As I was thinking about it I decided to do an activity in Preach my Gospel on page 152, it's the personal study activity and it talks about what you want to be like when you return home and as I was doing it I noticed that there where still some things that I need to change and work on so that I can be as converted and as changed when I actually do go home. In a very simple way of putting it I want to see how wonderfully the Gospel works in my life and do all the things that God asks of me so that I can see how wonderful it is because that is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ are supposed to do. Bring us the most joy and happiness and to also help us fulfill the potential that our Heavenly Father Knows that we have! I have been able to see first hand how it has dramatically changed people's lives and how much they cherish the truth they have learned and It reminds me how much of a privilege I have had to be raised in this Gospel and to enjoy all the truths and blessings of the priesthood and the church in my life. I have been an amazing blessing to have it in my life and to help others apply it into theirs and so see the Atonement work in their life. I really love being a missionary so much the pleasure of having the spirit always with me, which is not exclusive to only missionaries to every member! The Gospel was meant to work wonderfully we just need to let it do that!

Love Elder Slack

{7/11/16} Final Farewell to Elder Kelly

This week has been really different from most in Victoria but still really good! Saturday was transfer calls and both Elder Cowley and I are staying here in Victoria. Which I am really excited about because we have some really good Investigators that we are working with and I really did not want to leave. We were not able to teach as many of our investigators this week but we where able to set up quite a bit of lessons for next week.

  Ryan is still doing really well and is progressing towards his Baptism in July! He came to church yesterday and brought one of his friends with him so it was really sweet! He is already doing missionary work even before his Baptism. We also had a lesson in priesthood about the Temple and about how important is is and we told Ryan a little more about the temple because he was pretty confused and we told him that our hope is and what we want to prepare him for is to not only to get baptized but to also go to the temple and he told us how he wanted to make that a goal to go to the temple after he is baptized! He is so awesome and has changed so much since when I first met him. The Gospel has truly changed him for the better and has seen how much joy it has brought him! I am really excited to be here for his baptism and it is going to be so Cool!

  We also have found some new investigators that we are working with and we have a lesson with a family that Elder Cowley and I found at the beginning of last month but they went out of town for the month and just got back so we are going to be seeing them this week and they are really cool! We met that dad and his name is Kyle and when we first met him he told us how he was really interested in what we believed and they just started to go to a new church but are not too sure if they want to stay there so we hopefully can get them to come to ours! We also have a guy named Doug that has met with Missionaries a few years ago and we just re connected with him and since we first saw him a couple of weeks ago he has read all of first and second Nephi and told us how much he has enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon and feels that he has received an Answer that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God! It was really cool and he is really been prepared since the last time that he met missionaries!

  The last eventful thing that is happening is the Elder Kelly is going home! This is his last couple of days in the Canada Vancouver Mission. If you do not know, Elder Kelly was my trainer and we were together 21 months ago! It is crazy to think that it has been that long since I got to Canada! It has been Amazing and I am really glad that I still have 3 months left to serve the people here in BC!

Elder Kelly and Will

Just another great week in Victoria!

  This week was just another great week in Victoria! It was not a normal week especially with Canada Day and there was a lot of things going on and Downtown Victoria was just a huge party but we were still able to get some missionary work done!

   Ryan is still doing great! We were able to go to a baptism for some of the missionaries in our zone with him and it was really good. He had a lot of questions about it and said it got him excited for his own Baptism which is happening this month! He also was finally able to come to all three hours of church and really enjoyed priesthood and it was really cool because the whole lesson was on the Priesthood and that is what a lot of his questions were about after the baptism. He is still doing so good and on track! We have seen such a big change in him over the last couple months that we have taught him and he is progressing so well! 

  We were also able to finally see Matti and Cameron. Matti is the member that owns La Belle Patate and his son Cameron is 10 and not baptized so we have been trying to help him get baptized and we had a really good lesson on Friday and Matti just told Cameron how important baptism was and how they need to start to come to church more and it was such a good lesson. It is really looking promising with them!

   We also have had some good lessons with some other investigators and we are finally getting some referrals so the work here is going good! This month they gave us money for bus passes on our mission fund card so we may or may not be getting our car taken away. We are not sure, hopefully the latter.

  Sadly, I can not remember too much else about what we did this week but it was good.

 Elder Cowley and I are doing great! He is really getting used to being a missionary and he is getting a lot more confident and out going so it has been really good!

Love Elder Slack

Climbing trees while hiking in Victoria on P-Day

"So we were just tracting in the city, not even a rural area, and we saw this deer eating someone's flowers"

Share the Gift

     This week has been a really good one! We have been working with Ryan and he is making some really good progress and he is continuing to move forward to his baptismal date of July 22nd. We were able to teach him the law of tithing and he told us how he did not like giving his money to churches but that this church is different and that he would live the law of tithing and that he wanted to pay his tithing from when he first started to come to church six weeks ago! We have seen so much progress with him and he is doing so well! He really is becoming converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is gaining a strong testimony of the restored Gospel! He is so solid and it is just another testimony of member work because he was brought to church by a friend and he had talked to missionaries before and they had invited him to church but he never came but since his friend brought him to church and it was someone he knew it was different and since then he has been progressing so much and has been doing so good!

      Elder Cowley and I have been able to do a lot of teaching this week and have been able to see some really cool miracles this week one with that referral from the Merretts and we were finally able to see him this week! His name is Peter and he is so Cool! He used to be a financier for the Canadian Government and used to travel all over the world with the Prime Minster and finance projects that they were doing. Anyways he has been retired for a few years because he is confined to a wheel chair and could not travel anymore but when we met with him he told us how he had met a lot of members of our church and he had always been impressed by how we live and how we seem to be good people. He really wanted to know why, so we told him about how we follow the example of Jesus Christ and believe in living what we preach and how we believe it is very important to live the life that we learn about. He is very interested because he grew up Catholic but left it because they told him how asking questions was bad and they would not answer the questions he had but he does still have that belief in Christ and God. He is very interested in learning more and finding out for himself. 

      It is really cool to see how people seem to notice what we do and how we as members do live our lives and that is definitely doing missionary work but if no one would have talked to Peter that work might not have yielded all the fruit it could have. I have seen a lot how important it is not only to live what we teach and doing our best because we will not be perfect and then talking to people and trying to share the Gospel in any way we can, not being crazy weird or pushy, but just sharing what we know has changed and blessed our lives, kind of like how we tell people about a good movie or a good place to eat!

  Well I gotta go so talk you next week!!

Love Elder Slack

It was so cool to see how Heavenly father does truly prepare his children to hear the restored Gospel!

 Well I do not have too much time today but this week has been great! We have been able to teach so much and have had a lot of success in finding too! We found three new people to teach this week by knocking on their door and them just letting us in! It was so legit!! We have seen so many miracles! One of the people that we knocked in to is Clark and we were able to teach him the restoration and when we got to the first vision and the Book of Mormon he was so shocked. He told us how he had never been taught that before and wondered why no one else taught about there being another prophet on the earth. It was so cool to see how Heavenly father does truly prepare his children to hear the restored Gospel!

   We also had some really good lessons with Ryan who is down to 2 cigarettes a day at the most! He had been coming to church every week and has been reading the Book of mormon like crazy! He even started to read the gospel principles book to and he is really loving it!

 Well I have to go but thanks to everyone for all the Birthday wishes!

Love Elder Slack


Yep, you read that right...it's this missionary's birthday! He's finally hit the big 2-0! Crazy! How did this boy...

Get to be so old, where has the time gone...but, just look at him now...a mom couldn't be prouder. What a wonderful young man he has become. 

I am always amazed at how many miracles and blessings we see as missionaries

This week has been really great! Elder Cowley and I are really getting into a good grove now with teaching! Elder Cowley is starting to get used to the schedule and everything now! We had some really good lessons! The weather here this week was pretty crazy which I have come to know is usual for Victoria. It was 33 degrees at the beginning of the week and by the end it was 19 so it fluctuated a lot and it can never seem to decide what it wants to do but overall it has been good and having a car makes a lot less important if the weather changes.

   We were able to have a few lessons this week with Ryan and Mike. We got the whole apartment thing figured out with Mike and we are going with Mike to check it out on Wednesday! Mike told us if it works out he will set a day to be baptized on then! So we are really hoping and praying that it does work out for him because this is something that he has been waiting for for a long time and now it is finally here so we will be focusing a lot on that this week to see if there is any way that we could help out and continue to support and motivate Mike! We also saw Ryan and he is doing so good! He came to church yesterday even though he got off work late and did not get to have any sleep but he told us that he really wanted to come so he did, even though he was tired. He has really been cutting down on his smoking and is down to 5 a day at the most! It has been so great to teach and work with him because he is someone that I have seen the Gospel change and he has been doing the change by himself! He is changing things as he learns with out reminding or telling him. He has just seen how the Gospel has changed him and how much it has helped him in his life! He is doing so good and is working hard to be baptized on July 22nd! We have seen some really cool miracles this transfer and a lot of good progression from those that we are working with!

 We also did some finding and on Wednesday we found a really cool family this week when we went by a referral who was not home so we decided to stay in the area and knock on some of the houses next to this referral and we talked to a guy named Kyle who just recently had a baby and he and his wife just started to go to a new church but he was really interested in what we were doing and why we were doing it so we talked about what we do and about the restoration and how we have come out to share this message with others because it has helped and changed our lives. We talked to him for a while and he told us to come by on Tuesday and gave us his number and told us to text him to confirm and we did last night and it is all set up! It was such a cool miracle to see that we went there for a reason! 

   I am always amazed at how many miracles and blessings we see as missionaries and how prevalent the hand of God is in our lives and I am sure that it was just a prevalent in my life before my mission but being on a mission has helped me to recognize it more! I have learned how much God does truly love all of us no matter where we have come from or what we have done he loves us no matter what that is the first great truth!

Love Elder Slack

Welcome to Elder Cowley...fresh from the factory :)

     This Week can only be described in two words... Gong Show...yep that pretty much sums it up of how today went. So, Tuesday and Wednesday I was with the YSA Zone Leaders because I had to wait until Thursday to go pick up my new companion in Richmond. So those two days were pretty interesting and a lot of driving because we had to go pick people up from the ferries a couple of times then finally on Wednesday night I ferried to Richmond by myself again but this time when I got off the Ferry no one was there to pick me up so it was pretty interesting when I got there but luckily a few minutes later one of the senior couples that works in the office showed up to pick me up thankfully and so that night I stayed with like 3 other Elders that were training too. 

     On Thursday I finally got to figure out who my new companion would be. Just because I am really lucky I was the last name to be called to say who my new companion would be so I guess that Heavenly Father is trying to teach me patience but my new companion is Elder Cowley and he is from Orem, Utah. Members think it's really funny when a missionary comes from Utah and always call it the Factory so Elder Cowley has gotten quite a bit of that. Another amazing thing that happened at Transfer Meeting was that we finally got a Car!! So no more buses, well not all the time because we still have bus passes but a car will make it a lot more convenient to get to places and we do not always have to rely on the not so reliable BC Transit. After Transfer Meeting it was just really crazy because we had to take 3 boxes of supplies and mail and a vacuum and Elder Cowleys bags with us to Victoria in the car so after some really intense tetris we got everything to fit in our little Cruze but then we had to figure out how to get to the Ferries in rush hour traffic with was pretty interesting; took for ever and we got to the ferries 20 minutes before it left and got on so we were pretty lucky so we did not get back to Victoria till 6:45.

     So, needless to say we did not do too much teaching this week.We were able to see our investigator Mike who has been taught by missionaries for about six months now and the only thing that is holding him back is that he is living with his girlfriend and can't find a place to move to. Elder Ringheim had been praying for a place to open up that he could move to and found out that it would be a miracle if he found another place in lower Victoria so that is what we prayed for for a long time and then...We had a miracle happen on Friday, we found out that one of our members is moving to Vancouver and wants to sublet her apartment out to someone from the church so we have been getting the info and told Mike about it and found out its only 10 minutes from where he lives now and the price is the same as what he pays for his current place and it's bigger! So it sounds really promising and like it could really happen!!! It was a huge testimony builder that Heavenly Father does answer prayers and that he does not do it in our time table but he does it when it needs to happen. We are really excited to get this moving forward and we have a really good member couple helping us out with it who really want to help Mike get baptized too! 

   

   This week has been really good and it shows me just like every other week why I am serving a mission and why I want to continue to serve and serve even after I leave BC. This work is so true and it is real and Heavenly Father really does lead it and it will succeed as we do what he asks! It helps us just as much as it helps those that we are working with!

Love Elder Slack

Will and his new companion Elder Cowley

New missionaries and their trainers luncheon