Week 28: All the lonely oranges..

Hello everybody! 

Well here we are back on the normal P-Day schedule (mondays!). The past few days have been pretty dang exciting. Boxing day was pretty amazing, even though my legs were definitely sore for the next few days. I'm pretty sure I had more different types of cheese that day than I ever have in my life. It was awesome. 

On Sunday we made it to church and were talking to Brother Roberts about what we had on boxing day, when the bishop walks up and asks "Oh, are you talking about 9/11?" to which we tell him he isn't even close... and then he just responds with "Cheese eating surrender monkeys." I don't even know. But we were all dying of laughter!

So on Saturday we had an appointment set up with a man named Mohammed. We were waiting at the place we agreed to meet, when he calls us and tells us he is at a church close by. We told him we'd go to him him there, but once we got to the church, he was nowhere to be found! We called him and it turns out he decided to walk to where we were before. Long story short, after about 40 minutes of searching for Mohammed, we told him to come to where we were and we'd wait for a few minutes. He made it! We go inside the building and sit down, and then one of his friends (named Nareman) shows up and decides to sit down with us. 

Turns out neither of their english was very good (They were from Iraq and Iran.. they could hardly communicate with each other since one spoke Arabic and the other spoke Farsi) and we spent an hour and a half trying to teach them.. Half the time Mohammed was talking at us in his broken english trying to explain how we were wrong, but in the end they agreed to come to church. Hooray for language barriers. Our brains were tired after that, so on our way home we saw a lonely orange lying in the middle of the road. Feeling sorry for it, Sister Butler and I made it a song of it's own to the tune of the Beatle's 'Elanor Rigby'. I think that the orange felt pretty loved after that. 

Well that's all I have for this year. I'll see you all in 2015! I hope you all make some awesome resolutions (or predictions, for those who are a part of the Bonney clan). 

Much love,

Sister Slack

The zombie bird! It has part of its head missing.. We don't know how it's alive. 

 Christmas day beach time

A time we were in the flat

Week 27: Happy Boxing Day!

Hey there everybody. No, it is not Monday, but yes, it is pday! In the UK today is Boxing Day, which is like a Thanksgiving mixed with a Black Friday. It's a national holiday, so it's a family day and we get to spend it emailing!

This morning we had the chance to go and play football with some other missionaries and ward members. Turns out it decided to rain on boxing day, so there was lots of nice mud for us to play on. It was awesome. We were running around and having a blast, and my legs are dead. Since we don't run anywhere, I think you could say it was a bit of a shock to the system. But it was so much fun!

Oh, and in case you weren't aware, yesterday was Christmas! Sister Butler and I had a nice adventure out on the beach, where we buried treasure, took some sick pics, and even found a shrimp! We even fed some pigeons, gotta say I was grossed out.. but sometimes you just have to do things anyway. 

We spent our Christmas evening at a members home, where we were able to skype our families. It was definitely amazing to see those people again! We also got to play some Yahtzee, where I totally was dominating the whole game. Just so you know. 

This week we also had a lovely district meeting, where we got to have a pinata. They decided to hang it up on the basketball hoop for us to hit, and they made me go first. It turns out that I was actually too short to hit it, so it was basically 5 minutes of blindfolded Sister Slack jumping in the air, trying to hit the pinata. Finally, when I took the blindfold off, I did get a few good hits in there. 

Christmas Eve there was a carol service at the chapel, and it was amazing. The Spirit that comes with listening and singing Christmas hymns is always incredible. It was amazing to be able to be surrounded by the true Spirit of Christmas. the birth of Jesus Christ was definitely amazing, and It was so awesome to be able to remember all that Jesus Christ did for us throughout his life. I know that He is our Savior, and I know that it is because of Him that we can come closest to God. I love being a missionary!

Love, 

Sister Slack

Week 26: Happy Christmas almost

Wow so It turns out I don't have much time left, but I'll summarize my week hopefully super duper fast. 

This week was full of miracles, and full of laughs. Sister Butler and I had the opportunity to walk to the Church in the rain, and we got to see a rainbow! Not just any rainbow, we got to see the end of the rainbow! It was at this moment that I realized that I am in fact a leprechaun. It was a great moment. 

So this week we had some super incredible miracles, and here is one that I sent to my mission president that I'll share with all of you: 

This week we planned to find someone who could be a friend to Sherlock, so they could support each other in the gospel here and in China. We asked to find someone who has been here about a year, and who is outgoing and open minded and prepared to accept the gospel. We were looking for someone Chinese, tall and with a clean shaven face and with glasses, and we told Heavenly Father that we were going to be on a street near the Uni ready to find him. We talked to a few people at first, and then, suddenly we saw him. Walking towards us, was the exact description of what we had asked God for. We stopped him and talked to him for a few minutes, and after setting up a return appointment for the next day and walking away I nearly fell on my face! It could not have been planned better in a movie... This man had everything we had planned to look for. The best part? His name is Benny. After Bennedict Cumberbatch, the name of the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes in the tv series. God didn't just find us a friend for Sherlock, but he gave us his other half. Kinda weird when I say it that way.. but hey. It is all meant to be! My faith has definitely increased over this past week. I know it was only because we were prepared to find him, that we could find someone that was prepared for us. 

I love this gospel, and I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us! 

Love you all!

-Sister Slack 

Best name in the world

When we taught Jeremy before he left home for China

This girl definitely wants a book of mormon for Christmas :D

Week 25: Chocolate muffins

What do you know, it's pday again!!! One week ago, the whole district (missionaries in Swansea) took a bus trip out to a beautiful place called Rhossili Bay, and lets just say it was BEAUTIFUL. Lots of cliffs, lots of sheep, lots of ocean, lots of awesome. You can't ask for more than that. Classic Wales.

So there is a girl named Georgie that a team of Elders are teaching, and she invited us over this week for lunch to make muffins with her. We traveled our way there, noticing that she lived in a more dodgy part of town, and when we finally made it to her house, all of her friends were there too. We walk in, and it turns out that all of them decided it was a good time to break many parts of the word of wisdom while we were there, and they may or may not have been a little bit in the clouds (if you know what I mean). As you all know, my body isn't a fan of gluten (found in wheat), so Georgie found this cool recipie where we made pretty much chocolate cupcake muffins with crushed almonds. 3 words: Chocolate, chocolate, and CHOCOLATE! They were so delicious. Sadly I didn't get to take pictures of them because we ate them all haha. While we were making the cupcake/muffins we talked to her about her thoughts of the gospel, and it turns out she likes learning it, but it is hard for her to change when all of her friends are living the opposite way of the gospel standards. So it was pretty fun to be able to eat muffins and help her resolve some concerns about the gospel!

Later in the week on Friday, we got to travel to a city outside of Cardiff called Rhiwbina for Christmas zone conference!! It was incredible. We got to listen to some beautiful musical numbers, and I got to sing as part of the zone choir. I probably didn't help out too much, because I've had a cold for the last bit and I'm pretty sure I sounded like a dying cow. But hey, it was fun! I also got to see some friends in the mission that I have served around before, and we all got to hear and learn more about Jesus Christ's life and birth. 

People are always prepared for the gospel, and I've definitely seen that as we've met and talked to more and more people and invited them to learn. 

I love you all and hope you have the best week!!!

Love,
Sister Slack

District pday at Rhossili Bay!

Just chilling on the cliffs 

Zone picture at zone conference (I'm in that patch of red clothing between Sister Andrew and Sister Butler)

Week 24: Happy December!

Can you believe it's already December 1st?? I can't. Time is going by crazy fast. This last week was full of good things.

First of all, it's the month of CHRISTMAS!! It's the best time of the year :) everyone is so excited, you can almost feel the energy in the air. Lights are everywhere, and it is the perfect time to talk to people about the true meaning of Christmas. We were testing this out on Saturday, and we ended up finding a girl who actually wants to go to Utah and attend the U of U (almost as good as BYU..). It's cool to see who people are and what they love. 

We are currently teaching one of Sherlock's friends, named Kelvin. He's a chill dude, and we got to walk with him to church yesterday! It turns out he has grown up hearing about all the Chinese traditional ideas of God, but never really believed it. He totally wants to learn more about God, and see how God can actually help him in life. It's fun to teach him- and he even got work off to come to church! Whatta guy. 

This week we got to take Sherlock teaching with us to some of our investigators, and it is so fun to see him testify about what he has just learned. Some of the Elders in our district tried to take him teaching as well, but they got cancelled on. So they taught Sherlock instead, where he described it as "So awkward, they weren't sisters." He loves the missionaries, I promise. 

On Friday, we had the opportunity to travel to the mission home for follow up meeting. It's where all those who are being trained/training get a little inspiring meeting with the mission president. It was fun to see everyone there, plus we met a guy named John on the train who wants to go into the paralympics (idk how to spell that...) in rowing! We gave him a picture of the temple and he was excited about it. There are some sweet people everywhere! 

That's it for now, but the work is going on. Love you all!

Love,

Sister Slack

on the train there was a poster with a man with the last name slack! Represent!

 orange juice

Sherlock got a hold of a missionary name tag, and he was pumped to be wearing it
Well pretty much Wales is awesome, I love being a missionary!