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

Friday, February 26, 2016

It is a lot easier to do the hard things that are required of us from our Father in Heaven when we truly love the Lord and love the people that we are serving

This week has been really good! The weather is finally starting to get better, it has been raining less and not as hard so I have been enjoying walking around a lot more than the last couple of weeks. Our teaching pool has been shrinking a little bit just because people are not progressing right now and some of our investigators are out of town for a while and a bunch of other reasons so we have really been trying to focus on find new people to teach and to really share the Gospel with people because we love them and because it truly is something that we love and cherish and something that will help others in their lives. I have found that when I really talk to people and share this unique message that we have out of love and because I love the Lord and the Gospel and want others to have the Joy that I have had come from it that people. It is a lot easier to do the hard things that are required of us from our Father in Heaven when we truly love the Lord and love the people that we are serving. 

   We have had some really cool miracles that happened is that we got some really good referrals from our members! One of our members called us and asked if we had a dinner appointment and invited us over for dinner and one of their friends that just moved into their basement was talking to one of the people that she works with and she was telling him about the church and what she does there and he was asking her why she was so happy and she told him it was because of what she believed and he is really looking for something in his life so she told him about us and how we love to share a message of happiness and she asked if we could come over to tell him more about it and he said we could. So we went over there yesterday and told him about the Atonement and Repentance and how he can find that happiness in his life. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he was very eager to read and to see if this is something that can help him in his life. It was so cool and he is someone who is definatly prepared by the Lord to hear the Gospel. His name is Dan.
  Then we got another awesome referral that we are going to see this week. The family that gave it to us, the Adams, told us how they met RJ and he actually came up to them and asked if they where religious because he noticed that they were different and he told them that he is looking for a church and can't seem to find the right one and he wants to learn more about what we believe. 

 It has been such a good week but transfers are next week and we get calls this Saturday so hopefully I can stay in Abby for another transfer. I guess I'll find out this week.

Love Elder Slack

Thursday, February 18, 2016

And the miracles keep coming

 Sorry that I did not send an email last week. I wrote it but I actually never sent it so I am just going to write this one.
   So this week was great! We have seen a lot of success this week. We were finally able to see a part member family that we are working with, the Swensons, this week and had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation and what was even more of a miracle was their son Calvin was very calm through the whole lesson and we were able to teach everything that we wanted and the spirit was so strong and it was awesome then we were supposed to see them later that week but when we went by Ron, the father, was not there so we just talked to Jeanie, who is the member, and we invited them to a primary activity on Saturday and to church on Sunday but they were not able to make it to the activity and we where waiting for them at church but they were not there when it started so we went and sat down but 20 minutes into the meeting they showed up and it was a miracle because we had a Multi stake Conference yesterday so church started an hour earlier than normal so they did not know but luckily a member who lives in the basement went up and asked if they knew so they were able to make it so it was pretty much a miracle! 
  We were also able to meet a bunch our other investigators and had some really good lessons we even had our investigator Luyi sing in the choir for the ward. We did not have much else happen this week but it was really good!

Love Elder Slack

Monday, February 1, 2016

Loving the people that we teach will help us become the best teachers we can be

 This week was great! It was a little harder to see people that it usually is but  things still worked out it just took a little more effort than normal but we where able to see most of the people that we are teaching. We had a couple that we started teaching 4 weeks ago came to church yesterday and it was so awesome! Their names are Mathew and Crystal  and they loved Church which was good because we had a combined priesthood relief society meeting and we discused the ward mission plan and they where not confused or weirded so as long as we get through fast sunday with them everything should be good! We went and stopped by after church and talked to them about how they liked it and they told us they really enjoyed it and they loved the classes and then crystal told us how she has been going online and chating with missionaries on mormon.org and asking questions and she has really enjoyed it! They are so cool. They told us how they are going to 100 mile house, which is like 8 hours north of Abbotsford, and we told them that we had a church up there too and they told us that they wanted to go to our church while that they are up there. 
  
  We were also able to see Joel this week and Elder Hunter and I  have really been focusing on helping people progress and we really wanted to help Joel to keep progressing since he came to church last week and so we had planed to talk about Baptism and priesthood Authority because he has been struggling with believing that there is only one true church but when we went there we ended up teaching Repentance and found out that he has really been struggling with forgiving him self and is not sure where he will go after this life so we talked a lot about how God will forgive us and how that is what he wants to do because he loves us so if we repent he will forgive as long as we are sincere. It was a really good lesson and the spirit was very strong and it was really great! He commited to pray to know if God forgives him of the things that he has done in the past. 
  
   I also was studying charity this week because we had a fireside with President Burt's family and one of the things that one of his sons talked about is how loving the people that we teach will help us become the best teachers we can be because if we love the people we will want to do everything that to help them progress. So I have been studying Charity to help my teaching and when we taught Joel we really focused on loving him and showing him that we really care about him and want the best for him and it was so awesome! It was one of the best lessons that we had with him and I have had on my mission all because of the love that we showed him!

   The only thing that was not that fun this week was that it rained everyday this week. I don't think I have ever seen it rain everyday for a whole week in my life so that was a mile stone for me. Besides that nothing crazy happened this week.

Love Elder Slack

{Jan 26, 2016} We got to go to the temple which was awesome

This week has been really good. We have been able to teach a lot of people this week and have seen a lot of success and progress in some of the people that we are teaching. We had four people come o church with us on Sunday. 
  
 One Guy the Elder Hunter and I found my first day back here in Abby came for the first time on Sunday! His name is Joel and we have been seeing him pretty regularly since the beginning of this year and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He has not read to much but he has liked what he has read but has struggled with the Idea that there is one true Church and has really struggled with forgiving himself for things that he has done in his past but we finally got him to come to church and it was Awesome! I actually had to give a talk on Conversion in Sacrament, which I was not the most excited for but after sacrament Joel came up t me and asked if I had wrote that just for him and he told me that he felt that it was just for him. It was so cool to see how much church Helped him and how Happy he was at church. Then we had that guy, Clint, that the Brookswood Elders called us about last week who wanted to come to church and he came again this week and we where able to talk to him while at church and he told us how he feels better when he comes to church and he likes the thing that we are teaching and before he met the Brookswood Elders that he felt that he needed a change in his life and that he should go to a church but he did not know which one so when the Elders in Brookswood talked to him he decided to come to ours and he really likes it we are going to see him tonight and he told us that some of his friends where going to be there that where also interested in learning more about what we teach! We also had that part member Family that came last week come again and we where also able to teach them this week and they are so cool and are really loving coming to church! Ron who is a non member told us how he has been reading the Book of Mormon with his son and he also told us how since they have been coming to church and have been reading that it has really helped him and his family through the tough times that they have been going through. 
 
 We also where able to finally see the Hiltz family that we found three weeks ago and we where able to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and Invite them to come to church this week and they said they would come and the mom, Crystal, is really excited to come! They are really interested to learn more and to find out if this is true.  

    We have been able to find a lot of new people to teach like a lady that we met with on Thursday named Natasha who actually was a media referral from her self but when we called her last week and she told she was not sure because she heard that are church did not allow divorce and she has been divorced but we finally convinced her let us come by and hear us out and when we went over and we started to talk to her and she told us how she was very nervous because she thought that we might get mad at here and condemn her but she told us at the end of our meeting that she felt really calm and peaceful and she had not felt that in her life since she stopped going to her last church five years ago. It was such and Awesome lesson and we talked alot about the Atonement and how we can over come our trails through Christ and she invited us to come back so we told her about the sisters that just got put into our ward and she told us that we should have them come over! So we saw some pretty Sweet Miracles this week and We have a lot of great people that we are working with right now! We did have to give some up because the Abby 2nd ward got sisters last week so we gave them some of the sisters that we where working with! 
  
We also were able to go to the Temple Today which was awesome because I have been able to go to the temple in 15 months so it was really nice to go back there and just feel the spirit that is there!



  Well I gotta go see ya!
 Love Elder Slack