He seems a lot happier and it seems like he is feeling a lot more joy!

So this week has been crazy! Transfers were this week and neither of us got moved but we did have to take our car to the mission office so that we could swap our car with some Elders in Kelowna because we had a Subaru and they had a Cruze but in Kelowna it snows and it doesn't in Langley so they took the all wheel drive car to where it snows and the front wheel drive car where it doesn't snow. So we drove to Richmond on Wednesday and were there for 2 hours waiting for the car to get there and for it to get switched so they know were it is and everything so needless to say it was kind of a mess but it got done.

  So about a week and a half ago we went to the Canada US Border and it was pretty cool; no wall yet but that should be up right after Trump gets in office but for now it's just a ditch, trees and a piller because I guess it is not a big problem. 

We saw In-N-Out up in Canada but it was a 2 1/2 hour wait to get it so we didn't....it was really sad ;)

   Ken is Also is doing awesome! He came to church yesterday and loved it! He was able to meet a lot of members and had a really good time! He has changed so much since we first met him. He seems a lot happier and it seems like he is feeling a lot more joy! He is still on track to be baptized on October 4th still! He is so prepared and very willing to learn more. Sheila has also been doing well. We were able to give her a blessing yesterday because she has been sick for a week and it was really good because she said she felt a lot better. She is progressing really well and just needs to tell her family that she is getting baptized and then she will be baptized!! Another one of our investiagtors is Leaf and we have had a few really good lessons about the spirit and found out when he has felt it which was really good because he says he has never felt it but he has!

We found a free book thing on the side of the street so we put in a Book of Mormon and it was taken a few days later! So thats pretty cool.

Well I have to go love ya Bye!

Love Elder SLack

"Even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you" -Alma 32

     Well, this week has been crazy busy! We have been teaching a lot more the last couple of weeks, which is awesome because I like teaching a lot more than anything else. It has been a really good week because we have been able to help a lot of our investigators progress and slowly change their lives; so it has been really awesome!

      One thing that I have learned on my mission that really came to me this morning is how little I knew when I came out and how I had a pretty good testimony of a few things but just never really gained a strong testimony of a lot of things or studied the Gospel that much. Because of that I have really seen how real and true Alma 32:27-28 are. Just having that desire to believe, to have a testimony will grow and has help to gain of a lot of things and I still have a long way to go but learning the gospel and teaching the gospel has helped me a lot. I am so glad that I came on a mission and that I did not go home like I thought about on my first day in the field because I thought it was hard, which, it's hard but most things that are right are not easy. I have learned so much, especially about doubting doubts before doubting faith. I have ran into and talked to a lot of people who have told me that the church is a lie and false and that Joseph Smith is a liar and the Book of Mormon was written by the devil and people have even showed me anti to try to prove to me that the church is false. I am sure that most members have gone through this a few times, I have learned that I do not know everything but neither do the people that tell us these things. I only know of one person that does and that is our Father in Heaven and conveniently we can always ask him questions and he will help us answer them. Isn't that pretty sweet! What is even cooler is that he doesn't answer just some people but everyone! He loves us all and desperately wants to hear from us all no matter what we feel like or what we have done. His love is unconditional, we are never unworthy to pray or to receive answers.

       Enough about me ranting. We were able to see one of our newer investigators, Ken, and talked to him a lot about baptism and priesthood Authority and he accepted an invitation to be baptized on October 4th! He is very cool and really wants to learn and find out for him self so hopefully we can continue to help him to be ready for that day. We were also able to see Sheila and go help her at her farm which was pretty sweet and she gave us a bunch of food! Which was awesome! She is so close to getting baptized too and she should be baptized within this transfer. Oh, I forgot to tell you I am staying in Brookswood with Elder Mattingley until the end of October at least.

      Well, I have to go. We got our email time cut a half an hour because the library is really busy so I'll talk to you next week and send you some pics of the border...Yeah the US and Canada border because our area goes all way to the border and we went to a member's house who live like a mile from the border so we went and took pictures and saw freedom!

Love Elder Slack

We have seen so much success this week

Well This week has been awesome! We have seen so much success this week because Elder Mattingley & I have been trying to improve some things that we are not that good at like using our phone to call people and set up lessons with our investigators and it has worked really well. We have been able set up a lot more lessons this week and have been able to make some really good progress with some of our investigators. 

 

  We were able to see Sheila a few times this week and had some really good lessons with her about the Plan of Savation and about the importance of Church. She came to church this week!! Our lesson that we taught about the Plan of Salvation was awesome! She had her sister and it was very good. She is very close to being baptized because she has learned everything already but we are just trying to help her feel the spirit and regularly read the book of Mormon. 

 

 We also found a new investigator named Ken and he is really cool. He has had a lot of stuggles in his life but he told us how he has met missionaries before and gave them his info but they never showed up again. So it was really cool to see how prepared he is and how he just absorbs info. It was also really cool because one of the things that he really likes was that we can trace our authority back to Christ.

 

 Sorry I don't have a lot of time but this week has been really good.

 

Love Elder Slack

Who would have thought that you could get so much out of a book.

This few weeks has been crazy! We finally got our bed bug problem fixed for good on Friday and we got new mattresses which was awesome because my last one was pretty much a board or that's what it felt like and Elder Mattingley's box spring was broken so his bed looked like a U, well kind of.

  Then there was a huge wind storm in the Lower Mainland and it knock out most of the power here in Langley except for downtown which is luckily where we live so we had power but most of our ward did not so it was pretty crazy! There was a ton of trees that fell down on to the roads and a huge tree fell pretty close to the church. So we spent sometime raking up leaves and helping people fix up the mess. Because of the power outage we had Sacrament in the dark, skipped Sunday school and combined Priesthood and Relief society outside. It was pretty cool and a lot of fun.

 

  Last week Elder Johnson of the first Qumran of the seventy come and talked to all the ward councils and the missionaries about how to help the members remember that we are all full time missionaries. When we are Baptized we are commanded to preach the Gospel and whether we where a black name tag or not. The only difference between set apart missionaries and members is how we do the work. set apart missionaries go out and knock on doors and talk to people on the street and go to peoples homes to teach them but members can do it in a very similar way by talking to people and their friends. Not just about the gospel but about them. Elder Johnson talked about how if we just go and talk to people and to our friends and really get to know them and care about them we shouldn't worry about sharing the gospel or how we will tie the gospel into the conversation because it will just happen. It was a great meeting and it is really how us as missionaries with name tags are trying to do it as well by talking to people and getting to know them and to just wait for a time when the Lord will fill our mouths with what he wants us to say.

 This week was a little harder because lots of our investigators have been out of town or busy with things and we have not been able to see them but we were able to see Leaf this week and we had 2 really good lessons with him and we are trying to help him recognize the spirit and to help him receive and recognize the answers that God is giving him. He is very cool and is really wanting to know what God wants him to do. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying so we are really excited to see how he progresses and recognizes his answer. If there has been one thing I have learned it is that the Book of Mormon can change lives. I have seen it change my own life and the lives of others. That is the other thing, I finally finished the Book of Mormon! for the second time on my mission and it was awesome and I feel like every time I read it i get just as much out of it as I did the last time. The Book of Mormon is awesome and I never thought I would ever love it or enjoy reading it like I do now. Who would have thought that you could get so much out of a book? It's almost like it was inspired revelation from God sent here for us in this day!

Love Elder Slack

One of our investigators Sheila has a farm and we went out and picked some corn! And she let us keep it!

{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

{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