Week 40: "NO WAY. I haven't brushed my hair!"

Hey there everybody! 

So there we were. Walking by a few trees in city centre, when all of a sudden we see a rope tied between two posts, and a violin case on the ground. We then watch as this mid-40 year old man climb on top of the rope to perform by playing the violin, up in the air! Gotta say he is way more fit than I am. There are quite a few random musicians here in Coventry. Lots of accordion players. My favorite one was an accordion player who had no legs, and so he had mini skateboard to get around. He seemed pretty awesome! It sometimes makes you feel like you're in a movie when you have music playing in the background when you talk to people about the Gospel.

 This week on Wednesday it was interesting. We had some lessons planned for the day, but they ended up falling through. So we headed outside to talk to some people, and in about an hour we were starting to wonder what was going on. Why? Because every person we stopped was Christian, and had heard of Mormons, and wanted to tell us about how absolutely wrong we were about everything in the world. At first it was a little entertaining, but by the end we just wanted to talk to someone nice. Over the next couple of hours this is what happened: Sister Urbani passed her driving test! Yay! We had dinner with an awesome Indian family called the Randhawas. They fed us delicious food and it was a blast! Yay! Then we had coordination, a meeting with the other missionaries and the ward mission leader. Seeing other missionaries is always fun! Yay! Then we had a lesson with an investigator named Grace, and she wants to get baptized! Yay!

Wait, Grace wants to be baptized?? Yup! She started out by firmly believing there was definitely no God, but over the past couple of weeks she has realized that God was answering her prayers. She has been having some concerns with living the word of wisdom, though. But overall, it turned into a great day even if it started off rough :) The next day we went on exchange with the sisters from Nuneaton, and I got to bring Sister Scherf to Coventry with me! 

Sister Scherf is from the Netherlands, and she is super awesome. While she was here we saw Grace again, and Grace immediately started talking about the word of wisdom again and how she just wanted to have a try of everything (like champagne, stuff like that). While she was talking about it, we both felt like we should just listen. Grace probably talked straight for about 15 minutes, and all we said was "ok" and "yeah" and at the end she ended up saying "you know, it's not a big deal. I will just decide now  to live it". 

WHAT. Did our ears just hear that?? This is a 20 year old chinese girl who just solved all of her own problems and is now set to live the commandments. It was awesome. 

So this week Sister Urbani felt like she needed to switch things up with her hair, but we didn't have time on P-Day to get to the hairdressers. So, I told her confidently "I can cut it!" No. I've never cut hair in my life. But hey, she decided that that was ok and that we could give it a go! So at 6am (yeah, we woke up early to do it) and a couple of snip snips later I had cut off about 6 inches of hair and layered it. Gotta say I am pretty proud of my skills.

Also we have been seeing our friend Uche (from Nigeria) more often, and last night we asked if we could take a picture with him. He told us "NO WAY. I haven't brushed my hair! I never leave my house without brushing my hair." He says this, but his hair is like less than 1cm long. Then he showed us how he brushes his hair. Yup. It didn't look different. And no. I still didn't get a picture.

Well that's it for now. But keep on rolling! 

Much love,

Sister Slack

The musical gymnast

 I cut Sister Urbani's hair!

Exchange with Sister Scherf!

What happens to a gluten free brownie in a mug...

Week 39: "Let me go into my library.."

Hello everyone! Here we are, sitting at the computer again. Last week was full of exciting moments, and even some sunshine! I was so excited for spring until this morning it started to hail.. I think this country is a bit confused about what season it is. But, I am grateful to have a nice warm coat and some gloves to keep me toasty while the sky is getting fixed.

This week was transfers, and SURPRISE! I get to stay in Coventry with Sister Urbani. It's not really a surprise, but hey those calls are never 100% predictable. Since this is Sister Urbani's last transfer, we are planning on working the hardest we ever have. So I am pretty excited for the transfer. Since we knew people were leaving, we all went to the transport museum last Monday and checked out some nice bikes and cars. Turns out the museum is undergoing some major renovations, so all we got to see was like a room full of bikes, and 2 rooms of cars. Good thing it was free! 

We also had a dinner appointment with the Russel family this week, and they are a fun and funky bunch. We were talking about mission stories, and they started talking about how one of their friends got shot in the leg on their mission. After that, it was nonstop fake shooting and killing from the kids. I don't think I've ever been shot more in my life, except for maybe the one and only time when I played call of duty. Of course, the evening wasn't complete until one of the children sprayed chocolate sauce all over the place after claiming "I don't even like chocolate!" Pretty exciting.

While we were teaching one of our investigators, Uche, this week we somehow came to the topic of alcohol. We explained that we didn't drink it, one of the reasons being that it is bad for you, and then he responded with "HAH, you are wrong, let me counter you with sources. Let me go into my library." He then puts his finger to his head, and I asked him if the library was in his mind. Where he said "Yes, a library in my head." Alright.. well he was unable to find his sources because his library "wasn't working". Too bad, really. I was looking forward to seeing how he worked with his mind powered library.

This week we were feeling pretty bold, so we had many experiences and miracles come from that. Specifically, one day we were with an investigator named Villa where he told us he would only come to church if he flipped a coin.  Heads-he would come, and tails he wouldn't. While he was flipping the coin, I decided that this was not ok. Leaving church and eternal salvation to a coin toss? I don't think so. So while the coin was flipping I grabbed it and told him that coming to church was too important to leave to chance, and that the only way to find out about God would be to come. Then we invited him again to church, and he immediately said yes! Sadly he didn't actually come to church on Sunday, because he got an email telling him that he had to go work or something.. but he gave us his Chinese word that he'd be there next week. So I'll keep you guys posted. 

We also had an amazing lesson with our friend Kristina. She has been meeting with missionaries for over a year, but has had a hard time setting a day to be baptised on. We brought two brethren with us, one being the stake patriarch (a leader in the church). We sat down, and began talking just about life in general, and then she starts to tell us about a dream that she had. We asked her what she thought it meant, and she said we've been talking about baptism for a while now, but I think it has something to do with that. YES. Then, Patriarch Peedle went on to tell her his conversion story, and the spirit we felt there was amazing. After he bore his testimony to her, we invited her to be baptised on a specific day, and she accepted. Miracles are real people.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now, but keep on keeping it real!

Love,

Sister Slack

 transport museum

 BIKES

 A carrrr

More love shakes

Seeing Candy and the Elders

Transfers

 The Russels (Minus bro Russel)

District pic

Week 38: Oh lets go to a meeting

Hellooo everyone. I think I can summarize this week into one word: Meetings. Yup. All over the place. 

So we can start from the beginning, on tuesday we traveled to Birmingham to the mission home for mission leadership council. It was definitely uplifting and awesome, President Rasmussen was able to inspire us to the max. I got to see some awesome people, and then we were able to go back and have one of the most awesome times at a members home. We went to a family called the Borges, and they fed us dinner with our friend Grace. It was delicious, and then we had a powerful lesson about recognizing the spirit. It was sweet. 

The next day we got to do a workover with the sisters in Nuneton, they are awesome. We were walking down the road and we passed this guy, and then I felt like we should just turn around and speak to him. So we stopped him, and it turns out he had gone to an LDS school before, and he had recently turned his life over to Christ. It was amazing to speak to him about his life, and then we set an appointment for them to see him next week. 

On Thursday and Saturday we had Leicester and Coventry zone meetings where we gave some awesome training on the Europe Area Plan for the church to grow. We also were able to visit with loads of our favorite missionaries and eat delicious food. Although it was a little hard to stay awake at times because the night before (wednesday) we had to go to the A&E (the emergency room) for Sister Urbani. Turns out that by emergency room, they mean wait hours to get treated. So finally after 4 hours of waiting, we were finally seen. In the end, we made it home by 2am. Having been going to bed at 10:30 every night since last June, it was a bit of a shock to the system. But we are well and alive now! Oh, and Sister Urbani is fine :)

We also went on exchange with the sisters from Westcotes this week. It was awesome, we found this guy named Raimund. He was pretty drunk, but he gave us his number anyway. On saturday we called him and invited him to church, and on sunday he showed up to the church. So it was awesome!

Buut time is short, so I love you all!!

-Sister Slack

Me & Sister Lamb at mission leadership council

Planning inside the public library

 A&E at 2 am

 Candy's Baptism

Week 37: Coventry is my Kingdom

Greetings from Coventry. Yes I am still alive and well, yes it is still pretty cold, and yes I ate a lot of chocolate this week. I mean, you are only in England once. #YOEO

This week was crazy and incredible. As usual. So we'll start with last week. We received a text from our investigator friend Grace telling us that she was a little drunk and that she didn't want to learn about the gospel anymore. Naturally, we were devastated. We had become good pals and enjoyed many love shakes together. We waited a while to respond, and when we did we asked if we could meet with her to talk about it. Thankfully, she said yes. We met up with her and were able to talk about what happened, and it turns out she didn't even remember sending the text (she had a little too crazy of a weekend). She felt so horrible about sending that message, that two days before we met with her, she said a prayer hoping we would forgive her. Seeing as she didn't believe in God, this was huge. After she was done praying she just felt so strongly that everything would be ok. She knew things would go alright-and they did! Grace is back on track. We showed her the video called Because of Him, and she loved it and decided to work towards being baptized. She's so awesome. 

Also, every day this week we have been able to see Candy. She is progressing so well! She just takes everything to heart and has felt the truth that this is Jesus Christ's church. In meeting with her this past week, we felt strongly that we should move her baptismal date a week earlier. When we asked her about it, she felt so honored! It was adorable. She will be baptized this Saturday (March 7). We told her she could invite people to church, and she brought two of them to church with her this week. During sacrament meeting she asked me "What's a mission?" and I explained that it is what I'm doing and when people share the gospel. She then asked "So, how do I become a missionary?" WOW she's not even a member of the church yet and she wants to spread the gospel like wildfire. 

On Thursday we had dinner with the Basset family. They have 3 kids- ages 11, 8, and 5. While we were eating, they were all teasing each other about having boyfriends and girlfriends. The youngest boy (5 years old) said to his 8 year old brother "You have lots of girlfriends!" The 8 year old responded with "Well if he (pointing to the 5 year old) has any more girlfriends he'll be known as the next King Henry VIII!" Yup. Pretty smart kids.

We also got to go on exchange this week with the sisters from Demontfort. Sister Monnapula came to Coventry with me, and we had a blast. She is from South Africa, and she has a powerful testimony. While we were outside finding people, we stopped this one lady who told us "Well I would meet with you, but I live in Leicester (the next city over)" And Sister Monnapula told her that's where she lives. The lady asked what part of Leicester, and we told her that Sister Monnapula lives in Demontfort. The lady answered with "Oh, really? That's where I live!" Miracles people. We got her information and they are going to see her this week. 

For those of you that know me well, you know that burping has never been a problem for me - to put it lightly. We had dinner at a members home with Candy. While we were sitting on the couch next to each other, I could feel a burp coming on. I couldn't hold it down, and so a tiny little sound came out of my mouth. Candy was so surprised,and then we both just started to laugh. Then, about 5 minutes later, I hear a tiny little sound come out of her mouth! She just burped! We decided not to tell the other people in the room what happened, so they were pretty confused. But hey, bonding moments. 

That's pretty much it for this last week! Keep crackalackin everyone. 

Much Love,

Sister Slack

 Exchange last week with the Loughborough sisters

Our friend failed his driving test, so we left some gifts

 The marathon on Sunday

 Exchange with demontfort! Left to right- Me, Sister Urbani, Sister Weisner, Sister Monnapula

Crazy half the district pic

 Mustaches on the way to zone conference last week

 More mustaches