Share the Gift

     This week has been a really good one! We have been working with Ryan and he is making some really good progress and he is continuing to move forward to his baptismal date of July 22nd. We were able to teach him the law of tithing and he told us how he did not like giving his money to churches but that this church is different and that he would live the law of tithing and that he wanted to pay his tithing from when he first started to come to church six weeks ago! We have seen so much progress with him and he is doing so well! He really is becoming converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is gaining a strong testimony of the restored Gospel! He is so solid and it is just another testimony of member work because he was brought to church by a friend and he had talked to missionaries before and they had invited him to church but he never came but since his friend brought him to church and it was someone he knew it was different and since then he has been progressing so much and has been doing so good!

      Elder Cowley and I have been able to do a lot of teaching this week and have been able to see some really cool miracles this week one with that referral from the Merretts and we were finally able to see him this week! His name is Peter and he is so Cool! He used to be a financier for the Canadian Government and used to travel all over the world with the Prime Minster and finance projects that they were doing. Anyways he has been retired for a few years because he is confined to a wheel chair and could not travel anymore but when we met with him he told us how he had met a lot of members of our church and he had always been impressed by how we live and how we seem to be good people. He really wanted to know why, so we told him about how we follow the example of Jesus Christ and believe in living what we preach and how we believe it is very important to live the life that we learn about. He is very interested because he grew up Catholic but left it because they told him how asking questions was bad and they would not answer the questions he had but he does still have that belief in Christ and God. He is very interested in learning more and finding out for himself. 

      It is really cool to see how people seem to notice what we do and how we as members do live our lives and that is definitely doing missionary work but if no one would have talked to Peter that work might not have yielded all the fruit it could have. I have seen a lot how important it is not only to live what we teach and doing our best because we will not be perfect and then talking to people and trying to share the Gospel in any way we can, not being crazy weird or pushy, but just sharing what we know has changed and blessed our lives, kind of like how we tell people about a good movie or a good place to eat!

  Well I gotta go so talk you next week!!

Love Elder Slack

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 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

{Mar 29 '16} God has truly helped us to bless the lives of others

These last two Weeks have been really good. The work here has picked up a lot and we finally have more people to teach so it is really looking up here in Kelowna. This last week we have been able to teach a lot more and have some really good people that we are working with. We have been working with Lillian's friend Rob, Lillian is a recent Convert of about a month, Rob is doing good he has a lot of good questions and really is seeking to know the truth and to find out. He tells us that he has a long way to go but we have had some really good lessons about the Atonement and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they have been really good. Testifying of how Christ is there to help us no matter what situation we are in or where we are at in life. He seems to be doing good but he is taking it slow but Lillian is Awesome and is a very good true friend she has been talking to him a lot and helping him answer his questions. Then we had a former investigator come to church on Sunday! Her name is Radmila and she has really changed from how she used to be and has a strong desire to learn more and to continue to change and figure out how she can find more happiness in life because she told us that she has a big house and a really good paying job and a family but she just does not feel that happy so we were able to tell her what she is missing in life and it is obviously the Gospel so we are really excited to see where it goes with her.

   Another really Sweet Miracle that we saw this week was we decided to go out to this small town that we cover outside of Kelowna called Lake Country to do some finding because missionaries never go out there and we went to the street that we had planned and knocked on a few houses and it just did not feel right so we went to a back up street that we planned and the first door that we knocked on we talked to a Mom named Amy and we talked to her for about 20 minutes about families and how this gospel blesses families and how we believe that families can be together forever and it was such a good conversation and she told us that we could come back to teach her family more. Then the next door that we knock on we meet a Lady named Tina and talked to her and she told us that we should comeback to teach her and her family more. So we where pretty excited and thought that maybe we should go and end on a high note but we both felt like we should stay and so we kept knocking and the next 15 houses there was no luck but then we knocked on this house and we thought there was no one home but a little kid answered the door and his mom was right behind him and we were able to talk to the mom, Gale, and teach her about the Book of Mormon and she told us how she had always wanted to read it and find out what it is all about and she told us how she really admired missionaries on how we go around and teach people and offer to help people and she told us to come back and we could talk to her and her family more about the Book and where it came from! It was such an Awesome Day! We found three really cool solid families to teach. We have really seen a lot of Miracles this week which is really nice and has shown me that God really does have a plan and that he is always preparing his children to hear this Message because before this week we had not seen much success but this week it just did a 180 and is going really well. We have not been doing anything dramatically different but Elder Frye and I have been trying to make little changes in our lives to help us be more obedient  and God has truly helped us to bless the lives of others. 

  I really love my mission and what it has taught me about being a follower of Chirst and I am so grateful for all that I have learned and that I still need to learn but this week I have been able to see how as we just continue to do what the Lord has asked of us he will bless us. He is bound by his word to bless us!

Love Elder Slack

A mission is definitely not what I expected or anticipated but it has been exactly what I needed

This week was good. It has been a little hard because lots of our investigators stopped meeting with us but we have really been blessed with some new people to teach. We were able to find a family this week and they are really cool. Their names are Troy and Joslynn and they have four kids. They are a really cool family that we tracted into and they let us in and we talked to them for 30 minutes and went over what we do as missionaries and went over how that message that we share is meant to bless families and how important the family is and they told us how they used to go to church but they felt like God was being taken out of church and that people were not living what they were preaching and they told us that the church they used to go to did not feel right and that something was missing. We told them a lot about our church and how we feel the spirit there. It is a place that we go to worship and fellowship. They really liked it and told us that we could come back after spring break because they would be really busy. It was such a great experience! We talked to them about how that spirit that is missing in other churches is in our church and that we believe that the church that Jesus Christ established is the same church that we attend now and it has been restored to the earth. It was really great to meet them because we have been doing a lot of tracting and going by people that met missionaries before and we have not had too much success but we met this family who have really been prepared to hear the Restored  Gospel. They have been missing something and This Gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. We have been able to set up some lessons with other people that we met and with some people that met missionaries before so the work has been a lot better here and it is going good. 

   A mission is definitely not what I expected or anticipated but it has been exactly what I needed and I am very grateful that I still have some time to learn some more and to continue to share this Gospel that has blessed my life so much. Crazy thing is I didn't understand, and I am not sure that I still do completely, how much it has impacted my life and blessed me until I came on my mission. I have seen how it has changed others lives as well and given them that hope that it has given me. I have come to learn how real the Gospel is and how much it does help us with and how much Christ helps me with everyday, even things that are not directly related to the Gospel or things I thought were not related to the Gospel. I have also learned that life is not meant to be easy and it will never be easy. Something that President Burt says a lot is that there is not much growth in a comfort zone and there is not much comfort in a growing zone, that is a butchered paraphrasing but basically it means that hard things help us grow and learn and mold us into who God needs us to be.

Love Elder Slack

It was really cool because he answered my prayer from a long time ago

Well, this week has been really crazy! A lot because of transfers. Elder Hunter is getting transferred to Powell River and yep that's right, I am getting transferred too, to Kelowna 1st ward. They are going to bring in two new missionaries to replace us so we have had to write a ton of things down that the Elder staying usually knows and it has been really crazy and kind of stressful over the last day. We told the ward council that we were both leaving and they were so shocked that we were both leaving because they have had a ton of missionary changes in the last 6 months so it was a pretty sad day yesterday but everyone was joking that I will be back in a few months so I hope that comes true! So, we spent most of the day yesterday telling people that we were leaving so when the new missionaries come and try to go teach them they won't be confused when two new missionaries come by. I am really sad to have to say good bye to Abbotsford again but lots of the members were telling me that they would see me in a few months so maybe I'll come back before I go home. 

   

   Anyways besides transfers. We were able to stop by to see a former Investigator named Carlos and we set up a time to come by the next day and when we went by he told us he was still a little busy right then so we just talked to him for a minute at his door and told him about the restoration and how that is what we like to share with people and then he invited us in to tell him more and we were able to teach him about the restoration and while I was quoting the first vision he started to cry and after he told us how he felt something and how he wants to start to change his life and to follow Jesus Christ. So we set a baptismal Date with him for March 26th and we told him about the Book of Mormon and he told us how we wanted to buy it and we told him that we would give it to him for free and he told us how he really wanted to read it. It was amazing! It was one of the coolest lessons that I have ever had. It was so cool and we went and stopped by last night and talked to him again and he has been reading a little bit of the Book of Mormon and he said it has helped him especially to overcome some of the challenges he is having.

  This week has been really weird because I really felt like we were both going to leave but earlier this week I was looking at my planner I had right after I left Abby for the first time and I wrote down areas that I wanted to serve in and I wrote down Abbotsford 2nd and I remembered right after I left here the first time I prayed and asked if I could come back here before I went home. It was really crazy because I totally forgot about that and It was really cool because he answered my prayer from a long time ago and I am really glad he did because I have learned so much since I came back here. It has really helped me to grow and to change more into who I need to become. I know this sounds really cheesy but it has really helped me to come back here so I am not just saying this to look cute but this is real! Well, I have to go and pack and clean up our apartment and do some other "fun" stuff.

Love Elder Slack

God always blesses us as we do our best and do all that we can, not always in the way that we expect but he always does

 Well this week has been crazy! We have had a ton of people to go by. It snowed here on Thursday and lasted for like 4 hours so it felt like I was back home when we get snow. I was glad because last year the snow was just cold and I thought when I got sent to Abbotsford that I would be free and clear from it but it is also supposed to snow on Christmas Eve so hopefully its not too cold

  This week we went to see an investigator that they were teaching named Nancy and what is really crazy is I remember meeting Nancy when I was here the first time. We have also knocked a lot of places that I knocked when I was also here the first time. One thing that I have really learned is that it does not matter if people have been talked to before or if a street was already knocked, people will be prepared! We have found so many people in places that I have already been. 

  We also had a huge miracle happen on Sunday. We saw a family that we are teaching on Saturday night and they said they were coming to church but they never came but a former and her daughter randomly came to church out of no where. We are now going to start teaching them again! It was so cool because we were supposed to have 4 people come to church but none of the people we had confirmed to come came to church but Laura and her daughter came. God always blesses us as we do our best and do all that we can, not always in the way that we expect but he always does.

Our Christmas Tree

Me and Ross, A member in Brookswood that we would visit every week and read the Book of Mormon with

Me and Elder Haase

   I have really learned a lot on how the Lord works and how the Lord always hastens his work and he will do it through us if we let him!

   Have a Merry Chirstmas and Remember what Christmas is really about!

Love Elder Slack

Round 2

Well, this week has been crazy and really weird mostly because I got transferred back to Abbotsford 2nd Ward and they had their Christmas party on Friday so I got to see all the members again and they all kept asking me if there was a reason I was back or if we were on splits or something but I had to tell them that I had been transferred back. They were all saying that I should just call this place home from now on. 

 

  Something else really crazy happened on Friday. So, there were 2 sets of Elders in the Abby 2nd ward and I served in the other one first and one of the other Elders in the other area was supposed to train a new missionary but the new missionary went home in the MTC so that Elder got sent up to Prince George and they closed his area and we took over their area so we are taking care of both areas until next transfer when they re-open the other area. So, I am in exactly the same area I was in 7 months ago. We have been teaching quite a bit and have been seeing a lot of success in the last few days and have been crazy busy trying to combine the two areas. So we have twice as many people to teach right now so it was kind of a blessing to us because our area was pretty slow when I got here but now we are crazy busy.

  I am really glad to be somewhere that I actually know because I really did not want to get transferred 3 weeks before Christmas but it's ok because I got transferred to one of my old areas! One of my favorite areas! This area is so amazing and really takes care of us. It is really crazy because when I left Abbotsford I always wanted to finish my mission here or in Kamloops 2nd and I didn't get to finish my mission but I did get to come back to Abby 2nd Ward so God does really answer prayers and I really can't believe that I got to come back.

 

Well gotta go Love ya Bye!

Love Elder Slack