So the Book of Mormon changes lives spiritually and physically!

   Well this week has been Crazy Awesome! One of the best things that happened this week was our landlords who are from Guatemala made us homemade Tacos on Thursday when we got home and they where amazing! The best Mexican food I have had since I came to Canada!  

Tacos made with love by the Rosales 

      We have also been meeting with one of our investigators named Gus who is very awesome and loves what we teach him and comes to church every week but has a problem with smoking that he can't seem to quit. He has been improving and is so close to quitting. He is so solid; he loves reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. He volunteers at all the ward activities. So he practically is already a member just needs to work on his smoking and get baptized. We have been able to meet with him and to just continue to encourage and uplift him because he is so close to getting baptized and he wants to really bad so we have also been really focusing on thinking of ways that we could help him quit smoking.

       One of the more interesting lessons that we had this week was with a guy named Yaroon, he is Fijian and is also Muslim. He wants to learn about Christianity but is pretty stuck on what the Koran says and what he thinks the Bible says about Christ not dying on the cross and prophesying about another prophet and that prophet was Mohammed. So it is kind of hard to teach him because he is pretty stuck on the Koran and is not really willing to try to find out if what we are teaching him is true. So it was a bit frustrating but I never thought converting a Muslim would be easy.

      We were able to see Sonny this week and he is doing great! He has been reading the Book of Mormon a ton the last few weeks and it has really changed him. He has been progressing slowly but he has come a long way since we first started to meet with him and his life is going a lot better too. He finally found a job after months of looking for one too. So the Book of Mormon changes lives spiritually and physically!

      We where also able to get Valentino out to church yesterday and he loved it! He was crying during one of the talks and really enjoyed it. He felt the spirit so strong and he wants to come back so that’s pretty awesome and we are going to try to help him to work towards a baptismal date pretty soon.

      This week has been really hot, well not compared to Mesquite, but the humidity makes it worse. It has been a really rewarding week, we were able to see a lot of our investigators and to help a lot of them with things that they where struggling with and to help them progress.

 Love Elder Slack

P.S.

"In Surrey blackberry bushes grow wild every where so we pick a lot of them while we are walking around"

One last thing, so a week ago I went to get a hair cut and this is what I got! A hipster hair cut. I am not proud of it but we are all given challenges in life

So this is a Kinder Egg (see above). They only have them in Canada and its a hollow Chocolate egg with a toy inside (see below)

...apparently they buy a lot of Kinder eggs ;)

In response to the previous photo descriptions the following email came from Jacob (serving in the Mexico Cancun Mission):

Jacob Mikkelsen <jacob.mikkelsen@myldsmail.net>	Jul 20 (6 days ago)
to William, me, Henry, Tim, Nathan, Krista, Clay, Jace, THEFREERUNINGN.

Just sticking up for Mexico but we have them here too!!!! haha

Gotta love Jacob ;)

The Book of Mormon is so powerful and I have seen how it can change peoples lives

     Well this week was really good and very interesting, just like every other week in Surrey. We have been able to talk to a lot of people and we were able to see Sonny a few times this week and he has been reading the Book of Mormon and has had a lot of questions about it and about our beliefs. It was really good and he told us how he really likes to visit with us and how it really gives him a spiritual boost when we meet with him. He called us last night and told us some of the insights that he had while reading the Book of Mormon and studying the Plan of Salvation that we taught him yesterday and he told us how he was really grateful that we came and visited with him and are helping him come closer to God and to not give up on him. It was so cool to see how he has changed from the things that we have taught him and how grateful he is for it. The thing that really helped him was the Book of Mormon. When we first were meeting with him he was smoking and drinking but when we gave him the book of Mormon and he started reading & he has changed. He has not drank and he is working on quitting smoking.

  

      The Book of Mormon is so powerful and I have seen how it can change peoples lives and really does help everyone grow closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon also helps us overcome other things that we face in life like addiction and just trials that hit us in life with no fault of our own. How it does that is it helps us understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ better to know how we can overcome anything in this life and that is through Jesus Christ. Ultimately that is what the Book of Mormon is for, to testify of Christ and to help us gain a testimony of him and to also help us know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. 

     We also got to see Gus this week and we watched the movie On the Lords Errand. It's about Thomas S Monson and his life; because Gus wanted to know more about the current Prophet. The movie is so awesome and powerful. It shows how great of an example President Monson is of someone who devotes his life to the Lord. I love watching it because when I watch it the spirit testifies to me that Thomas S Monson is a Prophet of God and a follower of Christ. I am so grateful to be apart of this church and to have this Gospel in my life  and for the Book of Mormon and how it has changed me and helps me to become the Disciple that God needs and wants me to be.

Love Elder Slack

Another crazy week in Surrey

     Well this week was pretty awesome and pretty crazy. Last Monday Elder Lawlor and Elder Samis got really sick and were just throwing up like crazy and so they spent half of the week inside dying but one good thing about it was that Elder McCown and I got Elder Tolman with us for 3 days, which was a blast!

      Monday was pretty crazy though because after p-day ended we spent almost 2 hours driving around picking up stuff for Elder Lawlor and Elder Samis so that they had some medicine and food to eat while they where at home. Then we went to Surrey Central and just talked to people and that’s always interesting because there are always crazy people at Surrey Central and they always tell us really weird things. Like one Guy called me a racist because I was religious and how when I die I am going to look at Jesus and the he is going to tell me that I was wrong and that old man was right. Needless to say there are some really weird people at Surrey Central. 

      Then Tuesday was pretty crazy. In the morning we walked around and Elder Tolman, when he is walking, waves at cars so Elder McCown and I started to do it too and we got a lot of people to wave back and it was actually pretty fun and made finding people a little different so it didn't feel like we were doing the same thing that we always do. Then in the evening from 5 to 9 we has lessons with investigators set up so we were literally running from appointment to appointment. It was so crazy and we were so busy that we didn't even have time to eat dinner. It was really good because we got to see Gus and he was doing really good and he hasn't smoked in a week! Which is awesome because that was like the only thing keeping him from being baptized so that was really cool to hear. Then we met a guy named Rudy, he is from Haiti, and is trying to figure out which church he should join. He is looking for the right Christian church. He is pretty cool and we talked to him about the restoration and he really wants to find the truth. Then we saw Sonny, who is East Indian and is really cool and he loves meeting with us but he has had a lot of problems in the past with drugs and depression and he just wants to over come all of that and follow Jesus Christ and then we saw Janet and her son Scott. Scott is a recent convert and Janet is investigating but Scott has autism and he always tells us stories of how he tried to ask a bunch of girls out on dates and just random stuff and its so funny. His stories are hilarious. We saw them last night too and he told us how he wanted to get tattoos and piercings but he still believes in the church but doesn’t agree with that part so we talked to him and convinced him to not get them and to remember how ugly they would look when he got older. 

       Then on Wednesday we found a really cool investigator named Dillon and he is 15. He is living in a care home and he has gone through a lot in his life and he has a lot of questions of why do bad things happen to good and innocent people. He has read a lot of the bible and is super prepared and so solid. We got to see him twice this week and he is really cool!

       On Friday Elder Kelly and I where reunited and got to go on an exchange! It was so fun to be with Elder Kelly again even though we weren't in Kamloops. We went and talked to a ton of people all day and had a few lessons too. It was just fun to reminisce about Kamloops and what's happened over the last 6 months. I forgot how well me and Elder Kelly got along because we basically spent the whole time laughing when we were not sleeping or teaching.

  Overall this week was great and a ton of Fun!

Love Elder Slack