62: Back to Biking

It's Monday again!

Well, in the beginning of the week I was in Nottingham, and things were getting crazy. Sister Miller and I got to help a member move, but the people who were supposed to move all of her stuff bailed. Being the super hero missionaries we are, we drove to the rescue and moved everything out of her house! Wow. People have a lot of stuff when you go through all of it. I think the scariest part of it was when we moved the table cloth, and this nasty earwig beetle thing was crawling around, and the member just SMASHED it with her hand! We found some nice big spiders as well. 

Wednesday rolled along, and all my stuff was packed up and ready to go (lots of moving this week). I hopped in the car for the last time, and we drove to the mission home! Sister Miller dropped me off, and I went inside the church nearby and we all awaited for our new greenies to arrive (did I mention that I'm training?). Here is a little bit of how things went:

I arrive, go inside, surrounded by pizza I cannot eat. Talk to other missionaries, drink some water, talk some more, and eventually somehow we had a Britain's got talent thing going on, where everyone performed for us at our request. Then, someone brought me a salad (how nice), and then we waited some more... and FINALLY we get called outside to see all of the new missionaries. There are 26 of them! 98% of them are all from Utah. One of the sisters is from New Zealand. A thought popped into my head "hey, she should be my companion". 

Long story short, Sister Grant is my new companion! She is from Hamilton, New Zealand, and she is amazing. She has been a real champ biking around and figuring out Nuneaton with me. The people here are a little interesting, I've noticed. One evening we were biking home and I saw this nice old lady, and I decided to stop and talk to her. I jump off my bike, say hello, and the lady greets me. Suddenly, she jumps towards the street and starts screaming at us and swearing and tries to flag down a car... so we biked away. All we wanted was to share a happy message!

Our flat also happens to be right next to a pub, things got interesting Saturday evening as we were getting ready for bed around 10pm. Some people outside were fighting over who should drive home, and the music was blasting from the doors of the place. Thankfully we have a fan, so most of the noise was flushed out by that. What a wonderful place to live!

On a more spiritual note, we did see some cool miracles. We were out finding late Friday night, and there was literally NO ONE outside to talk to. We decided to head towards this park, and there was a group of girls sitting down in the grass. So, since no one else was around, we went up to them. They had a couple of bottles of alcohol around (great) and none of them looked happy. Two of the three ignored us, but one of them gave us her number and set up a return appointment! You never know who is willing to listen. After we met them, we also met another group of really nice girls who all want to see us again. 

I love Nuneaton. The ward members are amazing, and I can already tell that they care so much about the missionaries. Another reason I love them? They have gluten free sacrament bread! MIRACLE. And so many people in the ward are gluten free. I think I'll fit right in here. Also, earlier in my mission I gave my bike (which I got for free from a member) to another sister who needed it. Coming here was stressful because I had no idea what we'd do to get around. Turns out that the stake bought bikes for the sisters living in Nuneaton, and neither of us need to buy bikes. God takes care of His children. ALWAYS. 

Miracles are waiting for us in Nuneaton, and I know that there is a jackpot waiting around the corner. People are prepared, but we just need to find them. 

I love all of you, have an amazing week, and keep it real :) 

Love,

Sister Slack

We love Nuneaton!

And the bike got us dirty...

An investigator has an African land snail!

Me and Sister Grant with the African land snail

Week 61: Power Walking

Hey people around the world! It was another crazy week, and yes we may

have chased a few people down to talk to them. Always the best.

We had 2 awesome exchanges! The first one was with Sister Beck in

Lincoln. We had some time to stop by less actives and talk to people

on the way. There was this one girl booking it down the road, speed

walking to class. I do my best to stop her and she says "can't stop,

uni student, gotta keep moving." Naturally the thing to do is to go

with her. We walked with her for a good ten minutes, and in the end

she wanted to meet with us!  She also dated a Mormon at one point in

her life. 2 minutes after we met her, we chased down this other guy

with his son and he also dated a Mormon! He also wanted to learn more.

It was awesome.

Plus we got some nice exercise.

If you remember, about 3 weeks ago Sister Owusu and I were in Lincoln

and met a guy named Ben who was super awesome. Yesterday he got

baptised! While I was there in Lincoln I got to teach him about the

law of tithing. He was just so prepared for everything in the gospel!

We also went on exchange with the sisters in Wylde Green, and I was

there with Sister Lee! She is so awesome. We saw the cutest puppy.

Church on Sunday was pretty amazing, Helena (who we've been teaching

for a few weeks) came for the first time! We took the bus with her.

She wasn't there on time, and the bus to go to church was about to

leave, when she hopped off a different bus and ran to us! It was

amazing. She brought her little boy to church, and he loved primary so

much he told us at the end "we are coming again next week!"

Cool miracle, we met this guy named Valentine a while ago who never

showed up to his appointment. I ran into him on the street again and

he told us he wanted to see us! We saw him on Saturday, and he's one

of those people who asks all the right questions. People are so

prepared to accept the gospel sometimes it's ridiculous.

I love being a missionary. I've been thinking about a quote this week,

Elder Holland said "love in the gospel is not divided, but always

multiplied." All the people we meet are amazing. I've become attached

to the people here, all of them have something to offer, and something

for us to learn. When we love them, everything we do somehow becomes easier.

This week is transfers, and things will be crazy, but I'll let you

all know next week!

Love you all, keep it classy people.

Love,

Sister Slack

Last PDay we had lots of fun!

 Ben and Sister Beck- from Lincoln

Zone picture

Found sister urbani! She was at the mission home when we had a meeting.

Sister Lee Exchange! She made us kimchi, and it was so good!

Week 60: Do it, because you can.

Hey everyone, it is a Monday!

We had some really cool things happen this week. We had 2 exchanges (where we swap with other sisters), zone conference, and mission leadership council. Lots of driving, but lots of spiritual stuff. And I even got to eat ice cream! Cheeky monkey flavour, it's a British thing.

Early in the week we were talking to some people on the street, when person after person just did everything they could to avoid us. Typical. Finally, Sister Miller cornered this guy who was waiting for someone, and they were talking for ages together. Not wanting to interrupt their lovely conversation, I stopped another person who looked pretty nice. His name is Phillip, and the first thing he says to me "Hey, I'm a member of the church, and I'd love to talk, but I really do need to leave. But I do want to talk to you later!" Turns out he is a less active member, and now we are going to teach him again and his family. The guy Sister Miller was talking to is named Mo. He is incredible. He is from a non-Christian background, and he asks all the right questions. Pretty much we showed up to teach him about the importance of The Book of Mormon, and he had been reading it and had all these awesome questions about it. How solid is he? Well he biked for 30 minutes to come to church yesterday. He's awesome.

I got to go on exchange with Sister Wiesner, she is from Switzerland! She is so fun, and we went to another area together in Nottingham. She was nice enough to even share her swiss chocolate with me. The next day Sister Miller and I took Sister Wiesner and her companion to Zone Conference! It was in Leicester, and Elder Dyches (a member of the 70, a leader in the church) came to speak to us. It was amazing. I learned so much in those few hours we had together. He talked a lot about making decisions, about using our agency the right way. He gave us some awesome things to work on, and one of my favourite things he said was "Do it, just because you can." He also promised all of us that if we each read 30 minutes out of The Book of Mormon every day on our mission, and at least 10 minutes after our missions, that we would never fall away from the church. It is incredible to know that that book has so much power and influence to better our lives. I am SO grateful that I know about it, and I know it has definitely changed who I am for the better.

Elder Dyches also had some missionaries do a push-up contest, so that was interesting and kinda intense. He had two sets of elders go up, and two elders would do pushups, and their companions would encourage them. One Elder said "Keep going! You are winning!" And then Elder Dyches whips around and says, "No, no one is winning." Great stuff.

The next day we had MLC (Mission leadership council) and Elder Dyches was there again. He is a funny guy, and he served his mission in Germany, and has tried to keep up his German. Too bad my German companion, Sister Miller, can't actually speak German anymore, so when he asked her to help him out it didn't work so well haha. He and his wife talked a lot about doing your best. I've come to realize that our best is always better than what we think it is, and that God doesn't expect anything less than our best. Sister Dyches talked about how "God sends us where we will blossom." It's so true. He doesn't want to just send us where we will grow, but where we will bloom into something even better.

Eventually, I got to go on exchange with Sister Butler again! This time we stayed together in Nottingham, and it was the coolest. We had a dinner appointment with some members, and the fed us OSTRICH! Yup, that giant flightless bird is actually pretty tasty. Then we got to go together to teach a super prepared lady named Deborah (who we will see again today!). She was taught by missionaries years ago, and contacted missionaries in Lincoln and feels that now in her life she is ready to accept God completely in her life. It is amazing to be a part of the process to help people realize how much God cares about them and their families. This gospel is what everyone needs, and it can heal any situation, and always leads us back to Jesus Christ. He provides the peace for us.

Isn't knowing that God loves us the best? I know it is.

Have the best week ever people.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my little brother, Slade! (on the 14th of course)

Love,

Sister Slack

Sister Miller and me

Tasty Ostrich!

Week 59: Pink Highlighter

WOW so this week was crazy amazing. You're probably thinking "she says that every week." Well, you're probably right. I'm pretty optimistic :) 

But really, this week was incredible. We started the week off by going to Wollaton Hall- yes the place where part of Batman was filmed! It was beautiful, Sister Miller and I bopped around and took lots of pictures of dead animals, and even made some videos of us being batman. They provided the capes. It was a little awkward though when I was running down these fancy stairs with a batman cape and a whole family of foreigners walked in. I got over it though, no worries. 

So here is the big time miracle story of the week. Prepare yourself mentally, because it's amazing. We have been working with this guy named Jermaine. He has made some incredible changes in his life, and this week he started taking things much more seriously. He started praying about what he should do, and if the Book of Mormon is true. On Monday we stopped by, and he was in a terrible state. He had had one of the hardest weekends, and he felt sick spiritually (those were his words). We were able to lift his spirits, and that night he said he had been praying for God to send someone to help him, and then we showed up. We told him we wanted to do everything we could to help him, and so we set things up to see him every evening this week. We go over again on Tuesday, and had another super spiritual lesson with him, and he was just absorbing everything. Wednesday we go there, and we were all feeling the spirit and having a wonderful lesson. At the end, I asked "Can we still see you tomorrow?" And he told us "About that.. I prayed about it and I feel like I shouldn't see you again until next week." Ouch. 

Well you can never argue with someone who says they pray about something and got an answer. So we set up a time to go by the next week. We told him that if he needed us to come earlier, that he should put up a sign on his window and then when we passed his house we would stop by (he has no phone). We left feeling good, but kinda weird about it all. 

So we continued on with our week, we had some fun times with awesome members, I had some good gluten free food, we had a district meeting where we ran through the field, and I was craving mac and cheese all week. Prayers get answered people, the next day some members fed us gluten free mac and cheese! 

Friday, we got to go on exchange with the sisters from Wylde Green, where the mission home is. It was so fun! I got to have Sister Lee come back to Nottingham with me. It was a blast. We met this lady who met missionaries 14 years ago, and now she wants to learn more. She is going to london for a few weeks, but we are excited to see her when she gets back. We were doing great, taught a lesson, and then we were STARVING. We were sooo hungry. So we decided to go home to have dinner. On the way home we pass Jermaine's house, and I feel this sort of electric shock go through me. I looked over, and there were 2 notes on his windows. I immediately whipped the car around, we jumped out and looked at the notes. In pink highlighter it was written: Sisters, come back before Wednesday. -Jermaine. 

Naturally the thing to do is to knock on the window, so that's what I did! He came and opened the door, and here is what he said:

"Ah, I was hoping Sister Miller would be here for the news. But you're ok too. Well, I've been thinking and praying a lot, and I want to get baptised."

Pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor.. 

He went on:

"And since this is what I want to do, I thought there is no reason in waiting, so I want to come to church on Sunday, I'm glad you saw my notes!"

He should be getting baptised at the beginning of September.

People. God answers our prayers. He answered Sister Miller's and my prayers, He answered Jermaine's prayers. God listens to us all the time, and will answer in His own time. 

Jermaine came to church on Sunday and loved every minute of it. Another one of our investigators named Kev also came with his 3 year old daughter. Sister Miller and I had to go on splits with members to get them there, but eventually we all made it to church and I was beaming from ear to ear about everything that had happened during the week. Plus church was amazing. I love church. And I love Nottingham. I love everything!  

God loves us so much, He provides everything at the right time. I love this gospel so much! I am so happy that I get to be a part of this work.
I love you all!

-Sister Slack 

Here we are!

Wallaton Hall

The note on the window!

Me & Sister Lee after Jermaine told us he wants to get baptised.