James was baptized!

     This week was just full of miracles! Well James Goheen was baptized this Friday and was confirmed this Sunday. So that was amazing! I am so grateful that I was able to stay here in Victoria and finish my mission especially so that I could see James get baptized. He has been so solid! The day after his baptism he went and helped the ward weed the church and is going to help a move this Saturday! So he is pretty much become one of the members! He also get interviewed to receive the priesthood yesterday so he is doing pretty awesome!

       I have never noticed, before my mission, how much the Gospel can change someone's life and how powerful it can be. Being a missionary you see that a lot and you make the Gospel the center of your life because all you do is preach the Gospel and everything is focused on that. I guess that is how life should be more or less, in the sense that the Gospel should be the center of our lives. I have seen how when people make it the center how much it changes them and how much joy it brings into their life! I have seen that in my life as well over the past two years and how much the joy the Gospel has brought me and how much it has changed me and molded me more into the disciple that Heavenly Father needs me to be. Now, don't get me wrong I still have a long way to go but the Gospel has helped me so much in my life. I have seen first hand how if you put the Lord first everything else will work out for the better and he will provide a way for all things that we need and will bring joy into our lives. That is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to do. Bring Joy into our lives that will last forever.  It is not meant to restrict us or make life more difficult but to allow us to have the best experience while we are here preparing to meet God.

  

      I can testify that this Gospel is the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that this is the way to lasting happiness in anyone's life. I have felt this for myself and have helped others who have been able to experience it as well. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and will strengthen our testimonies of our Saviour and help us to grow closer to him and to learn of what His will is for us. I know that because I have felt and seen it in my own life! 

Love Elder Slack

ps I don't know if I will be able to email next week so this might be the last one, which is kind of sad but it is part of the Plan.

James has really been a miracle in my life and my time here in Victoria!

      Well this week has been really crazy! So James had his baptismal interview on Saturday and passed!!! He is getting baptized this Friday evening!!! So this week has been pretty amazing besides the fact that we still do not have a car and are still waiting on the insurance so that we can take it in to get fixed but we have been able to use the busses here and has reminded me of when I was with Elder Ringheim and we only had bus passes so it has been interesting!

 

     James has been doing really good! He has been clean of smoking for almost two weeks and he has really been changing and seeing the blessings from not smoking. He has been progressing so much and has changed a lot since we started teaching him a couple months ago. We were able to teach him about the priesthood and how he would be able to receive it after his baptism and we brought Bro Miehe and he bore a really powerful testimony of the power of the priesthood and some of the ways that it has blessed him in his life and it was very powerful to see that. I am really grateful for the way that the Victoria 1st ward has been so friendly to the people that we bring to church and really make them feel welcome and from a lot of the investigators that I have taught that is something that many of them have said is they really love the fellowship that our church has and how lots of people in the church seem to be really good friends and are very welcoming of new people. That is huge for someone that is coming to a new place for the first time and have people come up and welcome you and introduce themselves to you it huge! When James first came to church that is the one thing that he said that he liked the most and something that he has not found in other churches that he has been to. James has really been a miracle in my life and my time here in Victoria! It is meeting people like him and being able to teach him that really make everything worth it and really show that all the hard things that we have to do dont really matter and that miracles will come as we do our best and as we just keep pushing forward and do what the Lord asks and expects of us!

      I just want to share something that really stuck out to me in my reading this week! it is in Jarom 1:9 the phrase that really stuck out to me was"inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments ye will prosper in the land" That is a promise that we WILL prosper not that we might or probably but that we will. We do not know when the prosper will come or how it will come but it will come in the exact way that we needed it. I have truly learned that the Lord is mindful of each and everyone of us and are unique situations and will be there to help us prosper in the land as we keep his commandments and do all that he has asked of us!

Love Elder Slack

I know with out a doubt that It has been because of my Saviour that I have been able to accomplish all that he has called me to do

   Well, this week has pretty much been full of Miracles! We were able to see so much progress with the people that we are teaching this week especially James and Ryan. Elder Chirstiansen and I have been working really hard and have seen so many miracles this last week!

   So, we texted Ryan on Wednesday to follow up and see how his smoking was and he told us that he quit on Monday and I just about jumped through the car roof! It was such a miracle and he has been doing so good with it sense and is working towards the 25th of this month to be baptized and he is doing so good! Then James has been doing so good as well he quite this week and is also preparing for the 25th of September to be baptized as well and it looks like it is going to be a double baptism that week! We have been able to see the miracle of the Gospel and how much it can change peoples lives! Especially Ryan who is pretty much a different person that when I first met him 4 months ago and it has been such a testimony to me of how powerful the Gospel and how we can truly change completely because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and it can be instant as well we do not need to wait a specified time for the Atonement to kick in but it can be instant and eternal! 

     That is something that I will never forget is how much the Atonement can help us if we allow it to. I never knew that it could help me talk to people and overcome that fear I had. It has not been easy but I know with out a doubt that It has been because of my Saviour that I have been able to accomplish all that he has called me to do here in British Columbia.

Love Elder Slack

I have been able to learn so much from the Book of Mormon and it is something that has changed my life forever

    Well, the weather has taken a turn for the wetter and it has cooled off a lot. It has been any where from 16-21 degrees (Celsius) all week! This week has also been a lot of fun too! Elder Christiansen and I really get along well and have been having a lot of fun together but still do get missionary work done. We were able to teach Axcel who is 15 and his mom is a member but he was never Baptized so we have been working with him over the last 4 weeks and he has come to church the last 3 weeks and he has made some good friends in the young mens too. We went over to have dinner with them this last Tuesday and had a really good lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we were able to set a baptismal date with him for October 8th and it was so good because since he has been coming to church and the young men have befriended him he has liked coming to church a lot more.  He is one of the only people that we are teaching that does not have a commandment problem so we are really trying to focus on helping him to read and pray daily  to help strengthen his testimony.

     We were also able to teach James a couple times this week and he is doing so good! He is not going to get baptized this weekend but on the 25th he will be! He quit smoking and we are going to help him prepare to be baptized and he is doing so well! He has been reading from the Book of Mormon every day and has been coming to church every week so he is way solid and is really progressing a ton and has really been a miracle!

     We have also been able to see a lot of our other investigators and Elder Chirstiansen has been picking up everything really good. One thing he is still holding on to is that he really likes to use puns, and not very good ones at that ;),  so we'll see if that goes but for now he is still going strong. This week has been really good and reading the Book of Mormon has been awesome! I am even learning things from the Isaiah Chapters which I usually never do. One thing that really stuck out to me is in 2 Nephi 16:8-12. It is like a conversation Isaiah has with the Lord and the Lord asks who he will send to go for him and Isaiah responds to send him and so the Lord tells him essentially to preach the Gospel and then Isaiah ask how long he wants him to do it for and the Lord tells him to do it until the cities waste away which I think is like his way of saying forever. It really hit me because I will not be a missionary forever but I have been called and we all have and it does not end when the badge is off or the church clothes are hung up but we are called forever and always to share the Gospel. I have been able to learn so much from the Book of Mormon and it is something that has changed my life forever and I hope I will continue to let it do that forever!

Love Elder Slack

The Book of Mormon will change your life

     This week has just been the usual Gong Show like the last 22 months especially the last 2 weeks! Being in a tri has been a lot of fun and Elder Flood and Elder Evans have been great but sadly the tri was disbanded today because Elder Evans is going up to Sydney to replace an Elder who is going home a week early for school so it is just Elder Flood and I covering two areas so this week should be interesting but finally next week I should have another companion and hopefully I will still be here in Victoria. 

     We has a really good week! We saw James on Saturday and we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and we were a little worried because he smokes but we taught him it and asked if it would be problem and he said no and that he has quit before but just needed some motivation to quit again and when he came to church the next day he told us that he hadnt smoked any! It was such a miracle and he is so prepared! 

     We also saw Ryan and he has been doing good. He set his own date for him to be baptized and it will be sometime in September. He is so close and so ready so we are really focusing on helping motivate him so that he can quit but he is really working hard and he has been doing really good on everything else especially on reading the Book of Mormon. 

    There has been a lot of stuff that happened this week that I forgot about until just now so as a mission we are reading the Book of Mormon and it has only been two days but it has been Awesome! I have been able to get something out of every time we read and I did not know how fun it would be but I realized that I actually really like reading the Book of Mormon. I would invite everyone who reads this regardless of  if you have read it 100 times or never to start and see how the Book of Mormon will change your life because I can promise it will because it has for me. Also another really awesome thing that happened is that we had a special John Bytheway fireside on Thursday and it was Amazing! He just talked about the Book of Mormon and it was so cool and it got me even more excited to start reading the Book of Mormon again and since we have started I have remembered how powerful it is and how much I enjoyed reading it at the beginning of my mission!

Will, John Byetheway, Elder Flood, Elder Evans

     Okay so here is the last random story for today so on Friday Elder Evans and I where tracting in an area and our appointments fell through and we were not sure what to do so we decided to stay for a bit in the area and nothing was happening so we started to leave when a mom and her 4 kids walked by so we started to talk to her and taught her a little bit about the restoration and asked if we could come back and she told us to come back on  so we did a couple days later but when we got there her husband was working so we told her we would not be able to teach them but that we had some sisters in the area that could so we called them and them come over to teach this family so while we where waiting we entertained the kids by playing some baseball, which I am always in the mood for, and it was so fun it was only 10 minutes but they were really cool! They are from Ethiopia and apparently baseball is pretty big there so to wrap it up the sisters where able to teach them and they had a really good lesson so that was really cool!

    I know that this email has been all over the place but that has pretty much what this week has been so I guess it works! 

Love Elder Slack

We have been able to work really hard and to see some really good success here in Victoria!

    So, this week was pretty crazy being in a Tri but it has been really good! Elder Flood and Elder Evans are both really Awesome and I have known them both for a while. Elder Flood has been in Victoria since I got here and Elder Evans was in Abbotsford when I was there last so I knew them both and it has been a lot of fun being with them. We have been able to work really hard and to see some really good success here in Victoria!

     We saw Ryan as usual and he is doing so good right now! We were able to have a really good lesson with him and about the importance of baptism and how he could grow his faith to completely quit smoking and kick it so that he could get baptized. It was so good and the spirit was really strong and we were able to re-set his baptism date for August 27th and he is really committed to it so we are going to really be working with him to help him get there! 

   We also have a really cool new guy named James who has come to church the last two weeks and we where able to teach him about the plan of salvation this week and it was Awesome! He just soaked everything in so well and has been reading the Book of Mormon and he told us that he feels like his prayers have been answered since he has been reading it so it has been really cool to see the progression he has made even though it has only been two weeks!

     This past week has been really crazy because we do cover two areas but luckily they overlap but it looks like this week will be the same and then next week I am probably gonna get moved to another area for a week in Sidney with Elder Whitney who is actually from Gunison Utah!

Anyways I gotta go!

Love Elder Slack

{7/11/16} Final Farewell to Elder Kelly

This week has been really different from most in Victoria but still really good! Saturday was transfer calls and both Elder Cowley and I are staying here in Victoria. Which I am really excited about because we have some really good Investigators that we are working with and I really did not want to leave. We were not able to teach as many of our investigators this week but we where able to set up quite a bit of lessons for next week.

  Ryan is still doing really well and is progressing towards his Baptism in July! He came to church yesterday and brought one of his friends with him so it was really sweet! He is already doing missionary work even before his Baptism. We also had a lesson in priesthood about the Temple and about how important is is and we told Ryan a little more about the temple because he was pretty confused and we told him that our hope is and what we want to prepare him for is to not only to get baptized but to also go to the temple and he told us how he wanted to make that a goal to go to the temple after he is baptized! He is so awesome and has changed so much since when I first met him. The Gospel has truly changed him for the better and has seen how much joy it has brought him! I am really excited to be here for his baptism and it is going to be so Cool!

  We also have found some new investigators that we are working with and we have a lesson with a family that Elder Cowley and I found at the beginning of last month but they went out of town for the month and just got back so we are going to be seeing them this week and they are really cool! We met that dad and his name is Kyle and when we first met him he told us how he was really interested in what we believed and they just started to go to a new church but are not too sure if they want to stay there so we hopefully can get them to come to ours! We also have a guy named Doug that has met with Missionaries a few years ago and we just re connected with him and since we first saw him a couple of weeks ago he has read all of first and second Nephi and told us how much he has enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon and feels that he has received an Answer that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God! It was really cool and he is really been prepared since the last time that he met missionaries!

  The last eventful thing that is happening is the Elder Kelly is going home! This is his last couple of days in the Canada Vancouver Mission. If you do not know, Elder Kelly was my trainer and we were together 21 months ago! It is crazy to think that it has been that long since I got to Canada! It has been Amazing and I am really glad that I still have 3 months left to serve the people here in BC!

Elder Kelly and Will

Just another great week in Victoria!

  This week was just another great week in Victoria! It was not a normal week especially with Canada Day and there was a lot of things going on and Downtown Victoria was just a huge party but we were still able to get some missionary work done!

   Ryan is still doing great! We were able to go to a baptism for some of the missionaries in our zone with him and it was really good. He had a lot of questions about it and said it got him excited for his own Baptism which is happening this month! He also was finally able to come to all three hours of church and really enjoyed priesthood and it was really cool because the whole lesson was on the Priesthood and that is what a lot of his questions were about after the baptism. He is still doing so good and on track! We have seen such a big change in him over the last couple months that we have taught him and he is progressing so well! 

  We were also able to finally see Matti and Cameron. Matti is the member that owns La Belle Patate and his son Cameron is 10 and not baptized so we have been trying to help him get baptized and we had a really good lesson on Friday and Matti just told Cameron how important baptism was and how they need to start to come to church more and it was such a good lesson. It is really looking promising with them!

   We also have had some good lessons with some other investigators and we are finally getting some referrals so the work here is going good! This month they gave us money for bus passes on our mission fund card so we may or may not be getting our car taken away. We are not sure, hopefully the latter.

  Sadly, I can not remember too much else about what we did this week but it was good.

 Elder Cowley and I are doing great! He is really getting used to being a missionary and he is getting a lot more confident and out going so it has been really good!

Love Elder Slack

Climbing trees while hiking in Victoria on P-Day

"So we were just tracting in the city, not even a rural area, and we saw this deer eating someone's flowers"

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 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:)

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

{Jan 26, 2016} We got to go to the temple which was awesome

This week has been really good. We have been able to teach a lot of people this week and have seen a lot of success and progress in some of the people that we are teaching. We had four people come o church with us on Sunday. 

  

 One Guy the Elder Hunter and I found my first day back here in Abby came for the first time on Sunday! His name is Joel and we have been seeing him pretty regularly since the beginning of this year and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He has not read to much but he has liked what he has read but has struggled with the Idea that there is one true Church and has really struggled with forgiving himself for things that he has done in his past but we finally got him to come to church and it was Awesome! I actually had to give a talk on Conversion in Sacrament, which I was not the most excited for but after sacrament Joel came up t me and asked if I had wrote that just for him and he told me that he felt that it was just for him. It was so cool to see how much church Helped him and how Happy he was at church. Then we had that guy, Clint, that the Brookswood Elders called us about last week who wanted to come to church and he came again this week and we where able to talk to him while at church and he told us how he feels better when he comes to church and he likes the thing that we are teaching and before he met the Brookswood Elders that he felt that he needed a change in his life and that he should go to a church but he did not know which one so when the Elders in Brookswood talked to him he decided to come to ours and he really likes it we are going to see him tonight and he told us that some of his friends where going to be there that where also interested in learning more about what we teach! We also had that part member Family that came last week come again and we where also able to teach them this week and they are so cool and are really loving coming to church! Ron who is a non member told us how he has been reading the Book of Mormon with his son and he also told us how since they have been coming to church and have been reading that it has really helped him and his family through the tough times that they have been going through. 

 

 We also where able to finally see the Hiltz family that we found three weeks ago and we where able to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and Invite them to come to church this week and they said they would come and the mom, Crystal, is really excited to come! They are really interested to learn more and to find out if this is true.  

    We have been able to find a lot of new people to teach like a lady that we met with on Thursday named Natasha who actually was a media referral from her self but when we called her last week and she told she was not sure because she heard that are church did not allow divorce and she has been divorced but we finally convinced her let us come by and hear us out and when we went over and we started to talk to her and she told us how she was very nervous because she thought that we might get mad at here and condemn her but she told us at the end of our meeting that she felt really calm and peaceful and she had not felt that in her life since she stopped going to her last church five years ago. It was such and Awesome lesson and we talked alot about the Atonement and how we can over come our trails through Christ and she invited us to come back so we told her about the sisters that just got put into our ward and she told us that we should have them come over! So we saw some pretty Sweet Miracles this week and We have a lot of great people that we are working with right now! We did have to give some up because the Abby 2nd ward got sisters last week so we gave them some of the sisters that we where working with! 

  

We also were able to go to the Temple Today which was awesome because I have been able to go to the temple in 15 months so it was really nice to go back there and just feel the spirit that is there!

  Well I gotta go see ya!

 Love Elder Slack

The Biggest Convert on Your Mission is Yourself

Well this week has been really crazy! We have still have been doing a lot of finding recently. One of the Sister missionaries in our ward had to go home because she was really sick and so the other Sister is with some sisters in another ward in Langley but they are covering both areas right now so they asked us if we could start seeing one of their investigators named Barry and he is really cool! He is preparing to be baptized on December 6th and when we were talking to him he told us how much he loved coming to church and the people there and how that was one of the things that he looked forward to the most during the week! It was really to be able to see him and to see how much it has changed his life.

  Before I came up here to BC I did not know how much the Gospel could change peoples lives or how a part of my life it was until I came here and started teaching people who did not have it in their life and seeing it become apart of their life and how much it changed them. I am really grateful for this Gospel and that I was able to come on a mission to really learn what this Gospel is about and how important it is. A great example is I did not know that the spirit could help you in school or that the Atonement not only helps us be forgiven for sins but that it is there to help us in hard times that are not caused by sin or to help us with things that we think are hard like talking to random people. They say that the biggest convert on your mission is your self and thats true. I have been able to learn so much and I have been able to grow my testimony. 

 

 Well I have to go, 

Love Elder Slack

{10/13/15} 2 American missionaries and a Brazilian family celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada

Well this week was pretty good I guess not much happened except that Ken Got Baptized!! It was so cool and kind of funny because the font would only fill up to knee height so it was pretty interesting because he pretty much had to lay down and then get back up but hey it works. 

  So that was probably the best thing that happened this week and we also have been teaching a kid of a recent convert family that the parents were baptized in March and their son just turned 13 a month ago and they wanted us to teach him before he was baptized and help him understand the importance of baptism and he is going to be baptized next week so that is pretty cool.

  Also yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving and it was my first because last year I was in the MTC for Thanksgiving. We went to a Brazilian families house for Thanksgiving which is kind of funny because it was 2 American missionaries and a Brazilian family celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada. 

Also, Next week is transfers and we are pretty sure that one of us will be moving but we don't know who so if I keep my streak going of staying in areas for 2 transfers it will be me but Elder Mattingley has been here for 3 so we don't know. I don't know what else to write because I left my planner at our dinner appointment last night so I can't remember what we did. I guess that's what happens when you get old right?

  Well I'm gonna go

   Love Elder slack

The spirit makes missionary work so much easier

This week has not really gone like we planned but it has been great! I want to start off with something that happened a few weeks ago when we had to go to the mission office. So on our way back we went to one of the only Krispy Kreme's in Canada and the only one in BC! It was so awesome and it was an amazing experience! 

  This week we were able to see Leaf and we took the Bishop to one of our lessons and it was awesome! We taught him about the restoration and he seems to really be soaking it up and he has been reading the Book of Mormon regularly so its only a matter of time that the spirit gets him and converts him. I love the spirit. It makes missionary work so much easier because it is the one that converts them. He was going to come to church yesterday but he got stuck in traffic and was going to be like 25 minutes late and he told us that he got frustrated and went home. So sometimes you just want to drop kick satan because he just pulls the lowest things to stop people.

  

   Ken is doing awesome! He came to church again and really enjoyed it and we moved his baptism to October 11th because of Conference but he has really been progressing and it looks like he is going to make his date. We had a really good lesson with him and we taught him the word of wisdom and found out that he has already cut out alcohol and coffee over the last year! It was really cool to see how he had been prepared by the Lord.

  

  I am almost out of time but I need to tell you one more thing. So we went to McDonalds on Thursday and Elder ordered a McDeca which has 10 patties on a McDouble. I know, I didn't think it was possible but it is and its not a rumor or a legend but it's reality!!

 Well, I have to go.

Love, Elder Slack