Whether I go or stay it's where the Lord wants me to be

Well it’s crazy! This transfer is almost over and I think I'm finally going to leave. Which is really sad because I really like Kamloops and Love the Kamloops 2nd ward. I know that whatever happens is for a reason and whether I go or stay is where the Lord wants me to be. This week, just like this transfer, has been hard but it has been something that I have learned a lot from.

  This week while we where tracting one day we knocked on a guy’s door and he was telling us how the Book of Mormon is false because we don't have historical proof and we don't have artifacts and it seems that whenever we talk to people and they try to prove to us that the Book of Mormon is wrong is when I get strong confirmations that the Book of Mormon is true. While we where talking to him we all testified that the book of Mormon was true and it was AWESOME!! The guy didn't want to listen but people are not always ready to hear the gospel and to accept it. It was one of the coolest moments I have had on my mission because I just seemed to get a feeling that I knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that it is the word of God. 

  This work has been really hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be but I have grown so much and still have a lot to go. One thing that really helped me was in zone meeting, something one of the assistants told us was that one of his companions always told him when he was down and sad about something. He always asked him "Does Christ still live?" "Is Christ still leading this church?" and he would say yeah. Well then what do you have to worry about. That is really true because we can’t make people change or accept this Gospel but all we can do is share it and let the spirit work on them. That is something I didn't understand until recently because I was getting down because all these people I knew where baptizing and I was wondering why wasn't I getting baptisms and I didn't figure it out until a week ago when Elder Persson was telling me that it's peoples decision and we can’t make them do anything and sometimes it’s not our fault at all that people don't get baptized but that they just aren’t ready.

  An awesome miracle happened earlier this week too when we were going to someone’s house that told us to come back and when we went there he wasn't there -- wait it gets better. While we were walking back to our car a lady came out of her house to talk to us and she was telling us how she was being taught by the missionaries in Edmonton but she moved down here and her new boyfriend is kind of Anti Mormon. She was telling us how she wanted to make a change in her life and it was awesome. She invited us to come back so we will be meeting her hopefully this week. That just showed me that if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing and where you are supposed to be God will bless you for your efforts. Well, have a good week and the next time you hear from me I might be somewhere else.

Love Elder Slack

Another "crazy" day in Merritt

Well this week started off pretty normal but on Tuesday Elder Tolman and I went to Merritt on exchanges and that was pretty normal too until we went to visit Dan "the Bearman",  yes, the same Dan "The Bearman" that Elder Walker and I went to visit a few weeks ago and this weeks visit was not any more normal especially since Dan's roommate was there again. So we tried to teach something again but again we got off on aliens but this time we got to see all of his pictures of UFO's and he showed us his claws and he has 2 full necklaces of them one from every bear he has killed, which is 70, but that wasn't the craziest thing because randomly his roommate ran out of his room yelling how beef is up a dollar a pound and that they need to stock up on McDonald hamburgers because they were going to be expensive and then later he came out and told us how oil prices are up and how he needed to go out and buy a 45 gallon drum and get some gas. Then, yes it is not over yet, he came out screaming that he is a drug dealer and how all these people want his drugs but he has already sold them all. His roommate Steve is really CRAZY! Then that wasn't the end of meeting the weird people in Merritt because then we went to a guy named Rick and he was crazy too. He was telling us about how technology brain washes people and it was his mission to get rid of technology and stop the brainwashing it is doing to people. He told us that was his divine mission. So what I have gathered from the 3 times I have been to Merritt is that  there are a lot of crazy people there. but they do have some really cool investigators and they are not all crazy.

Driving to Merritt

  Then at district meeting Elder Persson, Elder Tolman and I had to give a training which we completely forgot about until Tuesday night so that's all we did Tuesday night and for studies in the morning but surprisingly it went really well thanks to the spirit because if I have learned one thing on my mission it is that if I didn't have the spirit I would be a pretty bad teacher but luckily everything we teach is true and we do have the Holy Ghost to testify to people.

  I think i have talked about this a lot but Kamloops 2nd ward is so awesome.  They take care of us so good. I mean we always have dinners and people give us food and members are always willing to do lessons with us.

 Oh and this Friday we are getting a Mini Missionary, which is a preist from somewhere in the stake and they are going to spend a weekend with us so that is going to be pretty sweet and really fun. Hopefully we can make this an uplifting experience but it should be good because we spent like an hour planning for those 2 days. We also got a senoir missionary couple who are from St George, The Mortensons and they are really cool and they know where Mesquite is and they have been there so finally someone actually knows where I live and I didnt have to say an hour outside of Las Vegas so that was cool. 

We also did a ton of tracting this week because we need people to teach but besides that this week has been pretty normal. Just to let you know transfers are next week so I might get transferred. So dont send anything to me for a week.

Love Elder Slack

Me Elder Persson and Elder Tolman in a random tunnel (ummm, ok...maybe random tunnel hopping is a favorite pastime in Canada??)

Normal and different at the same time

       Well this week has been pretty, um, I don't know what this week has been like. It has been kind of normal and different at the same time. One of the things that I really love about the Kamloops 2nd ward is they feed us a ton! I know that sounds selfish but honestly if it wasn't for member visits I probably would not get nearly as much healthy food because healthy food is expensive and in Canada everything is even more expensive than normal. We have some really cool members who feed us all the time and it is so nice!

        One of my favorite members is the Brooks Family who are a really old couple but they always give us a ton of food every month and they give us bacon!! which is Amazing!! When we go over there we always have really awesome lessons because Brother Brooks knows a ton and always teaches me something and probably more than we teach him.

        This week has been kind of different because we have been doing a ton of tracting, like 4 to 6 hours a day at least, because we don't have a lot of people to teach but we have found some really cool people that we will be going by to see this week. Our tripanionship has been going a lot better. At first me and Elder Persson did not get along very well but now we are getting on the same page and we are getting along a lot better than we were and we are seeing more success since that. Well, I have to go so, I hope everyone has a great week and that everyone stays warm because its cold here!

Love Elder Slack

"I've also become a chef in the last 4 months as you can see"

Study area (I don't see a picture of his mother anywhere...)

Will and Elder Tolman (apparently Elder Persson doesn't like his picture taken) 

Tracting in Chase

"I'm still an American"

"Even if what you had planned doesn't work out God will bless you"

Man This week has been Crazy!! P day was pretty normal but on Tuesday we drove to Merritt  to go on Exchange with Elder Walker and it reminded me of old times because Merritt didn't have a car so me and Elder Walker walked everywhere in Merritt but luckily Merritt is pretty small and not as big a Kamloops but it was still stinking cold so I was dying but it was really good we went and taught a potential investigator named Dan the Bearman and him and his roommate are stinking CRAZY!! Dan was telling us how we where put here by aliens and how the wise men where guided by a spaceship to Jesus and then his roommate went outside and cussed out a dog across the street and the weirdest thing is this is typical Merritt but it was really Awesome to because we set a baptismal date with one of their investigators so that was pretty sweet! then we had to get picked up the next day to go to District Meeting and then we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Anderson to Vernon which was pretty Crazy because Elder Anderson just got to Vernon last Transfer so he doesn't know where anything is and we got lost and went to Salmon Arm which is luckily on a half hour away from Vernon and then all our our appointments fell through for the night and so we went tracting and we tracted into an Active member! Yeah an Active member and they invited is in so we had an unexpected member visit which was pretty Awesome! Even though it was kind of embarrassing because we should know where active members live but it was cool and Elder Anderson is way Awesome! Then the next day we went tracting and ran to a guy on the street named Shaun an talked to him for about 20 minutes and he told us have he is an alcoholic and was sober for 17 years and just started drinking again and was looking for a way to over come it and to get sober again. So we talked to him for a while and set up a return appointment and it was really sweet. It just shows that if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing  and even if what you had planned doesn't work out God will bless you if you just keep doing what your supposed to do. After we exchanged back on Thursday we weekly planned and had correlation meeting and talked about an open house that we will be doing in February just as something to get non members to come to the church and see what it is about. Then on Friday we pretty much just tracted the whole day and apparently we tracted some where the JW's just tracted because people where not happy with us. I knocked on one door and the guy threatened to call the police on us for trespassing so it was pretty interesting but then we went to sister Collingridges house for dinner and it was so good but then we had a really Awesome lesson about the Book of Mormanand how important it is in our lives and how important it is to continually receive a personal witness that it is true. It was a really good lesson and the spirit was so strong it just felt Awesome! Nothing to interesting happened the rest of the week except on Sunday our plans fell through after church until dinner so we went tracting and we found 6 people who invited us to come back and we could tell them more. So that was just another testimony builder that if we just keep doing what we are supposed to be doing even if things don't work out how we wanted them to God will bless us and will help us over come what ever is placed in front of us, 1 Nephi 3:7. Hope Everyone has a great week.

Love Elder Slack

Just Do It!

Hey, Sorry my email last week was pretty boring and didn't really say anything at all but this week’s will be a lot better.  Luckily the bar is not set that high.

            Well this week we didn’t have a lot of teaching appointments and so we did quite a bit of tracting and trying to contact former investigators because at the end of the last transfer we stopped teaching a bunch of our investigators because they were not progressing and they were just not getting anything out of our visits. So this week we were trying to find some new people to teach and we found some really cool people while tracting so hopefully we will get to meet them this week. 

Tracting in Barnhartvale

One of the people we met was a guy named Corey and we tracted into him on Friday and we did our usual missionary door approach and asked him if we could do any service for him and he told us on Sunday he was going to shovel and scrape all the ice off his drive way so we quickly jumped at the offer to help him. When we went back on Sunday to help him we didn’t really go expecting to teach him or expecting anything from him to want to listen to us but while we were shoveling off his driveway he started asking us questions about what we believe and why we are so different. So we answered a lot of his questions and one thing that really seemed to surprise him was that almost everything besides the trinity was what he believed in. This really seemed to stick out to me because people always think that we are so different and that we believe in crazy things but when it comes down to it, to the things that we truly believe are not that different. When it comes to how Christ ran his church when he was alive it’s the exact same way our church is run today. A lot of things people hear about the church are wrong, like the guy we ran into this week who told us that to be a Mormon you had to have 1 year’s worth of food storage and If your husband was not a member you only have like 5 years to convert him or you have to divorce him.  People seem to trust the internet instead of the people who are actually apart of the church. At the end of the day all that matters is that we know that this is the Church that is ran by Christ today and that we know that what we are doing is right. 

            On another note I had to give a training in District meeting about relying on the spirit. This is something that I have really learned on my mission is to always follow the spirit! One of the most asked questions when it comes to following the spirit is "How to I know if it is the spirit or if it is just me thinking?" and a quote in PMG from Gordon B Hinkley that said something to the effect that if it is a prompting to do good then it is from the spirit. This is something I have gained a testimony of that if we are prompted to do something good then Just Do It!! Because almost all of the promptings we get to do good or to help are from the spirit. The spirit is so crucial to us but if we do not follow the promptings we receive then it is useless. So it is crucial and vital to follow those promptings that we receive. I know how hard it is to follow those promptings especially when it is something we struggle with. If we follow those promptings and do it even if we feel inadequate we will be blessed to accomplish it. I have seen this because if you don’t know I am not a very outgoing and talkative person so missionary work is not the thing I am best at but I have really learned to rely on the spirit to help me and to guide me in those things that I struggle with.  It just takes some faith. 

            Well I have to go hope this email was a little better than the last and if it wasn’t, well, what you are going to do I’m in Canada!

Love Elder Slack

 

Goodbye to Elder Kelly...Hello Elder Pierson

Well this week has been pretty uneventful since most of Tuesday was taken up by member visits and packing for Elder Kelly and all of Wednesday was spent  dropping Elder Kelly off and picking up Elder Pierson and a whole lot of tracting this week. I don't have a lot of time to email this week just because we have a lot of stuff to do today. So sadly this is pretty much it. I know, a really boring email. Canada is still cold and there is still a lot of snow here!!

Snow, snow and more snow!

Tolman, Will & Pierson With the Watters family

Well, that's it folks.....No, really, that's it....

Transfers brings a new companion for Elder Slack

Meet the new tripanionship of Elder Tolman, Elder Pierson (who comes to the group from San Francisco, California) and Elder Slack. Looks like a mighty good group of YM there!