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

I just really like being a missionary even though it is easily the hardest thing that I have had to do

This week has been pretty crazy mostly because of transfers which always makes a normal week very unknown because of all the things that happen with transfers especially this week with what happened on Saturday which will actually affect this coming week more than last week. So we got transfer calls and found out that Elder Ringheim is going to Delta, which is right next to where I was when I was in Surrey, and that I am going to be training a new missionary. Which means I will have no companion for two days and have to ferry to Vancouver to go pick him up so I am not sure what this week is going to look like but it should be exciting!

  Back to this last week which was really good and we have been able to see a lot of progression in some of our investigators. Ryan who we have been meeting with for the last 4 weeks has been doing really good! He has gone from smoking 40 cigarettes a day to 5! which is amazing and he has been coming to church every week! He has been doing so good and told us he wants to be Baptized and he set a date for July 22 just so he has time to completely quit smoking and so he can be ready to be baptized and he is doing really great and he has been reading the Book of Mormon and has really been applying what he learns, like he started to cut down his smoking even before we taught him the Word of Wisdom because he felt that was something he needed to do before he is Baptized so he is Pretty Awesome!! We are also working with a guy named Lief. Lief, who we met a couple weeks ago and he is doing good he came to church for the first time last week and really liked it and when we met with him after he told us he feels like he should be baptized so we set a date with him as well for June 25th! He really wants to be baptized so he is progressing to it!

  Elder Ringheim and I have really been able to see a lot of cool miracles this transfer and I am really sad to see him leave but it has been a good time and I got to learn a little bit of Danish but I can not pronounce anything right so it probably will not be much help but it sounds cool! I am really excited to stay here in Victoria! The weather here is Amazing and the people we are working with are doing really good. I just really like being a missionary even though it is easily the hardest thing that I have had to do and it has made me change a lot but it has been a good change and that change really comes from applying the Gospel of Jesus Christ into our lives and seeing the miracles that can happen from it. Sometimes that change is really hard and is something that we do not think we can do and that's probably right if it was just us but its not we have Christ on our side and through Christ anything that we are asked to do can be done! I have learned that personally and am still learning it everyday that I have to go talk to people on the street in Downtown Victoria but some how each day I do it and it is because Christ is there every step of the way through anything!

Love Elder Slack

Coolest experience of my mission to see how big of a help members are to this work

     This week has been really amazing and as you can see by the subject line, which I usually never use, but I felt it was appropriate for this occasion. So I will start this story with last Sunday. So we went to visit a couple, The Merretts, and we followed up on someone that they had talked about at a cottage meeting we had my first Sunday here where they talked about a guy in their building named Peter. They told us how they had been talking to Peter and had told him a little about the church; about how they just returned from a mission in England. As we were talking to them and how they could help Peter more they told us how they had planned to have us over for dinner the next Sunday; so they told us that they would invite Peter to come as well and they did!! On Sunday we went over for dinner and Peter and his wife came and we were able to talk a lot about the church and what we believe and what we, as missionaries, do and it was great! At the end of the meeting Brother Merrett asked if we could come visit them again and they said yes so we got their phone number and are going to be seeing them this week or next week! It was one of the coolest experience that I have had on my mission and to see how big of a help members are to this work because they know people and talk to people that we never could as missionaries and people can see members and see how they are just normal people. It also helped me see that I need to do that when I get home, to continue to be a missionary even though I do not have the nametag anymore.

      We have also been working with a guy named Ryan and we have seen him four or five times and he has been coming to church and is really solid! We saw him on Thursday and we had planned to teach him about the word of wisdom and before we started to do anything he asked about the word of wisdom because he had heard about it a little bit at church and from members so we were able to teach him the word of wisdom and he took it so well! He told us how the blessings that come from the word of wisdom are exactly what he wants and he has already been trying to cut down on smoking and in the last 2 weeks he has gone from forty cigarettes a day to ten a day which is amazing especially for not even knowing about the word of wisdom! It was so amazing to see how prepared he is and how much he has changed by himself because he is reading the Book of Mormon daily and comes to church almost every week! He has changed so much since we have been meeting with him and it mostly has come from himself applying what he has been learning, which is something that we should all be doing. He has told us that he does want to be baptized and that he feels that this is where Gods is telling him to be and he has such a good testimony of the Book of Mormon so once he quits smoking he wants to be baptized! Also he was member referral from someone in the YSA so yeah member work is the way to go!

        We were able to teach quite a bit this week and have been seeing a lot of success and a lot of progression from the people that we are working with! Being on a mission has been a pretty amazing experience and I am very grateful that I still have some time to be here in Canada eh! I have really learned that as we share the Gospel our testimony grows and as we learn more about the gospel and apply it our desire to share the Gospel will increase!

Love Elder Slack

Sometimes we like to just have some poutine :)

Elder Ringheim is a pretty great cook! 

Look at our sweet new Car! runs pretty good:)

I also know that he calls the weak and the simple to perform great things

     This week we were able to see a lot of success in teaching! We were able to do a lot more teaching this week and find some really good people that we are going to meet with this week.

     Monday, after P-Day, started off pretty slow because we were supposed to have a lesson with one of our investigators and then go to a FHE with a family in the ward but we were not able to get a hold of our investigator and the wife in the family fell and had to go to the Hospital on Monday so our evening opened up real quick! So Elder Ringheim and I decided to pray to know where we should go and so after we prayed we felt like we should go by a former investigator that we have been trying to contact so we bused over there and went by him and he did not answer so we decided that there must be a reason that we should be over there so we were walking down the street and I felt like we should go and knock the house on the end of the street and a lady answered and so we talked to her for a little bit and she did not seem too interested until we started to talk about the plan of salvation and she was really intrigued by it and told us that she would invite us in but she had plans later that evening and she was really busy that we but that we could come by next week! So we are going to go by this week and teach her more! Then we kept walking and Elder Ringheim felt like we should knock a house that was across the street and so we did and it turned out to be a lady who was visiting her parents from Mexico and we felt like we should talk about the Plan of Salvation and how it blesses our families and it turned out she had a little daughter and so we talked to her about how we believe that families can be together forever. She told us that she would like to learn more but she was going back to Mexico on Wednesday morning so we told her that there was missionaries in Tijuana where she lived and told her to contact the missionaries there and she told us she would!! So it was so amazing to see how the spirit guides even though our initial thought did not work out there was a reason why we where there!

      Then our week just kept getting better! We were able to see Ryan a guy that the YSA elders passed to us and he is very prepared and he was telling us how since he has been reading the Book of Mormon it has really helped him, especially with his patience at work and he told us how his friends have told him that he has really changed over the last month that he has been meeting with missionaries and coming to church! He has been very prepared and is a very sincere and humble guy. He has been having great experiences with the Book of Mormon and has prayed about it and he has felt that he received an answer that it is true! I have seen so many times how the Book of Mormon changes people and it really is that way that people can come to know if Jesus Christ has restored his Church and brought the fullness of his Gospel back to the Earth! 

      We also had a great Lesson with Matti Lott and his kids and him and his son have come to church the last two weeks! We had dinner with them on Wednesday and were able to teach the Plan of Salvation and it was a really great lesson and Cameron was very interactive and asking a lot of questions so we hope that we can continue to work with them! Hopefully we can help them become fully active and help Cameron get Baptized!

       Then we had a Zone Meeting on Friday which was really good and we talked a lot about conversion but it was a little nerve racking for me because I had to give a training on Conversion in front of 25 people which was very interesting but it went well. I have seen on my mission how as we put in our effort to prepare, the spirit will guide us and help us to accomplish whatever the Lord has asked of us. I have also seen how since I have been on my mission that I have been able to overcome my fears more and put more trust in the Lord to help guide me because I don't think I could have given a training in front of a group that big at the beginning of my mission. I have been able to trust in the Lord and in myself more. 

     A lot of the things that we talked about were about conversion and about why we do things. Do we do it out of obligation or out of a love for the Lord and his Gospel? As we become converted to Christ and his Gospel our desires will be pure and righteous. As we do things out of a love for the Lord we will do them better because we have a pure motivation and the Lord will bless us for that and help us even more. I have been able to think about why I do the things I do and I would invite everyone to do that. I also learned that if we are doing this out of duty and obligation that it's much better than not doing it and God does not expect us to change right this second be he does expect us to be progressing. It is about eternal progression not instant perfection! So it is ok if we are not perfect yet God does not expect us to be but he does ask us to get a little closer everyday and to just get a little better than we were before and that is how we will become more converted!

     I am very grateful for the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that he would love us enough to give his life for us! I know this Gospel is true and that this is His church restored to the earth once again! I also know that he calls the weak and the simple to perform great things and that we can accomplish anything that he gives us as we follow Him and our Saviour! Life was meant to be enjoyed and happy so make it that way and Pure Eternal Joy comes through our Saviour Jesus Chris so "look unto him in every thought. Doubt not fear not!" D&C 6:36

Love Elder Slack

Beautiful sunset in Victoria

Healthy living in Victoria

Peacocks in the park

{5/9/16} Elder Ringheim and I have been exploring a lot more of Victoria than we thought we would

This week has been Good and Crazy mostly because we have been trying to go to different places in our area which does not sound like it would be that crazy but when you have to get there by bus and you don't know how to get there by bus it makes it a very interesting journey especally if you miss your bus or the bus you are on does not get you exactly where you thought it did at all. So needless to say Elder Ringheim and I have been exploring a lot more of Victoria than we thought we would.

   We have been able to find a few new people to teach this week though! On Tuesday we texted a bunch of the potentials that we have in our phone that we did not know and a few of them responded back, one of which was a lady named Hyung Hee,or Stephanie because she is Korean and so she picked an English name, but we did not know she was a lady. So we set up to meet Hyung Hee at the church but when she got there and realized that she was a lady and not a guy we had to go talk to her outside, because as missionaries we cannot be alone with a sister, so we talked to her about the Book of Mormon and told her about the sisters in our ward and how she could meet with them so we passed her info to the sisters and they were able to meet with her a couple days later and she came to church with her son yesterday! It was amazing so see how the Lord really does prepare his children to hear the Gospel and to be receptive to it! We also had a less active and his son, who is 10 and not baptized, come to church for the 2nd week in a row! We were able to talk to them and Brother Lott invited us to come over for dinner and to teach his son Cameron because Cameron has been pushing his dad to come to church so it was really Awesome to see them there! Also Brother Lott owns a resturant called La Belle Patate which is French for The Beautiful Potato and it is so Good! He makes the Best Poutine I have ever had!! We have been going there pretty regularly and have talked to Brother Lott quite a bit so we could build a good relationship with him and help reactivate him and baptize his son. 

  Victoria has been amazing and a lot of fun and it has also helped me get out of my comfort zone a lot more too but it helps that the weather here is Awesome and the ocean is not too far away! I am very grateful that I have had this opportunity to serve a mission and that I still have 5 months to give in this marvelous work! Also Skyping home was Awesome! Happy Late Mothers Day to all the Moms out there!! 

Love Elder Slack