Week 68: Red hot chilli face

Hello family and friends. Today I don't have much time because we are
going to the garden centre. So I'm writing this with my voice if it
doesn't come out the right way don't worry about it.

Yesterday was in a conference we are got to go to Coventry to watch it
in the chapel. It was incredible and I learned so much. And of course
we got three new apostles, so that was amazing! I know that God has
given us such wonderful leaders today. Since we all got to go to the
stake centre, all the missionaries were there as well. One of my
friends from the MTC was there, and he had brought 3 chilli peppers
(apparently the 3rd hottest in the world or something). So he asked me
and Sister Lamb to eat them, and we didn't see why not. Well, mistake
on my part. We ate them all at the same time, and Elder Nogueroles was
fine. However, Sister Lamb's and my mouths were on FIRE. Literally my
face turned as red as the pepper, and tears were coming out of my
eyes. Apparently bread is supposed to help cool it down, and so is
milk. Well, I can't eat bread, and there was no milk. Wow. Let's just
say that after about half an hour my mouth decided to stop burning. So
I ate tomatoes instead to cool it down.

Something amazing happened while at Coventry. 9 months ago Sister
Powley and I found a guy named Uche while on exchange. My companions
and I worked so hard to help him see the importance of coming to
church. Sadly I never got to see it happen while I was there. However,
as the first session was about to start, I looked over and saw him
walk through the door of the church. My heart was so filled with
happiness! I couldn't believe it! After the session of conference, I
got to speak to him and he told me "now I see why you've been trying
to get me to come this whole time." This gospel is for everyone!

That's all I had time for now. I'm being bullied by everyone around me
to stop writing. So blame them because you don't get to hear all the
stories of this week but I'm sure you'll hear something about it later
on in life. I love you and have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Slack

Week 43: I don't have money in my pockets!

Hello dear family and friends!

Well once again, it's sort of the beginning of the month. You know what that means? Meetings! Yay. So many meetings. I almost died from meetings. No worries, I made it through it all. 

This week I got to go on exchange with Sister Schwendiman in Peterborough. It was pretty awesome, I don't think we talked to one person who spoke very well at all. Except for the members who fed us a 4 course meal for dinner. That's right 4 course. Too bad I couldn't eat two of them, due to gluten and late notice. 

When we were in Peterborough we were talking to some people on the street and we tried to stop these two guys. They were speaking in a different language, and once we spoke to them, it scared them and so they jumped back, they both put their hands up and one of them shouted "No! I have no money in my pockets, only drugs!" and then they ran away. You never know who you're gonna meet, I guess. Earlier that day a little kid also stabbed one of our bike seats, but that's another story. I guess you could say Peterborough is a little more sketch than Coventry.

I hope everyone has caught up on General Conference, because it was awesome! So awesome, in fact, that we wanted to show a specific talk with our investigator Grace. Grace has been going up and down with her journey through the gospel, from drunk texts sent our way to saying she would never believe in God, and then coming to church every week. Pretty much it's always unexpected. We decided to show her President Utchdorf's talk about grace with her (hah, get it?) because we thought it was super good and answered all her questions. Also because it was her name. 

We took her to the Thompson's home and taught her with a member named Dili. We were actually fasting that day for things to go well in the mission, because bad things have been happening all over the place. We started off by talking about it, and Dili bore a powerful testimony of how it has made such a difference in her life. It was a really great way to invite the spirit. We all got out a piece of paper and wrote down a question we all wanted answered, and we promised her that she would get an answer to it while she listened. She told us "But that's impossible to know!" We turned on the section of General Conference, and it was amazing.  I looked over at her while she was watching it, and she had tears in her eyes. After we turned it off, we sat in silence for a bit, and then I asked her what she thought. She told us "I definitely got an answer to my question, but I will need some time to accept it." We all got some answers to questions and prayers that day.

Fast forward to church yesterday. Grace talked to both me and Sister Urbani about baptism, and she told us "I want to be baptised soon. I know I need to be baptised." So everyone, miracles are real. She should be baptised this weekend if everything goes well. It's amazing. 

Anyway, time to go. OH. Also, next week PDay is moved to tuesday, because transfers are on Monday. So no emails til then :) 

Stay classy,

Sister Slack

 Outside the church

Crazy hair

We went to the park last pday

Pomegranate heads! 

 #becausehelives

 Peterborough cathedral

Sister Schwendiman!

More park

Park park park

Parkour

Week 42: Post Easter Week

Hey everyone!

Wow, wasn't General Conference amazing? It definitely was inspired. One of my favourite lines from it was from Elder Clayton, where he used the phrase "Twas I, but Tis not I." I loved hearing this and remembering that it is ok to change. It is ok to become someone better. Of course, I will always be Sister Lara Slack. I will always love llamas, and water, and mountains, and having fun (doi), but changing to think more of others, to be kinder, and to love people more is never a bad thing. 

So what else happened this week? Well, it was the first of April! Yes, April fools day. No, we didn't really do anything too crazy that day. However, my wonderful family sent me a practical joke kit for my birthday (thank you for that), and on thursday we had lunch with the 10 missionaries in Coventry. Inside this practical joke set there is this very real looking fake plastic poop. Brown? yes. Sticky? you bet. Smelly? No way. Thank goodness. Sister Urbani and I decided that it would be great to stick it inside of the microwave. Here is how it went: "Hey you should look inside the microwave Elder." "Ok!" he then opens it, looks inside and says.. "Wow. That's disgusting." And closes it, and carries on as though nothing had happened. Yup. No one else even opened the microwave.. well we tried our best, but nothing really happened. Such is life.

We also had exchanges with the sisters from Loughborough! I got to go out to their city with Sister Chen. She is from Taiwan, and is pretty amazing. When I first got there I boldly made the claim that "I love biking!". Little did I know that we would be biking everywhere, in the cold rain, with my very out of shape legs, up a small hill for most of the day. And at the end of it, yup. I still love biking. While I got to do that, I loved the feeling of being a missionary. I kept thinking, "this is what I get to do, to be here and bike to someone's home to serve them. This is so awesome!" Everything is more fun when you have a purpose. 

Yesterday, our friend Grace came back from holiday in Spain. She is from China, and is one amazing soul. She came back raving about an experience she had, and so I'll share it with you guys. She arrived to the city in Spain, by herself, knowing zero spanish, and looking for one friend. Her phone had 2% battery left, and she couldn't find where she was supposed to meet her friend. They agreed to meet at the bus station, but since she was in a brand new country she had no idea where that was. She tried talking to several taxi drivers, but they couldn't communicate due to the language barrier. She decided to say a prayer, and tried to talk to another driver to figure out how to get there. At that moment, she heard "Grace!!" being shouted out at her, and she looked up and her friend was just passing on the bus. The bus driver was able to stop, and Grace and her friend were reunited. 

The first time we met her, she was nearly certain that God did not exist. She had gone to church before, but never felt as though he was there.  Now she knows for sure that He is watching out for her. I know that God watches out for all of us, no matter who we are or where we are or what our past has been. He is always there for us. 

Time's up!

Much love,
Sister Slack

Chocolate easter eggs

exchanges

ROYAL MAIL

MORE chocolate eggs

Spring flowers!

Always treasure lunch

 All we do is vote for people to be baptised!

 Exchange with Sister Chen

Week 16: Funny you should say that...

WOW THIS PLACE IS THE BEST

This week has literally been one of the craziest on my mission so far. It feels like 3 weeks have past, but in a good way. We have done so much and met so many people, it is insane.

The university of Swansea started up again last Monday, so now the whole area is FLOODED with students. Which is PRIME. Sometimes it reminds me of my time at good ol' BYU because it is full of young people doing fun stuff.. except like none of them are members of the church.. Yet!! We have the Uni campus in our area, so as we find and teach people, they are all students from all over the world. We have talked to more Chinese and Africans than I've ever seen in my life, it's the best!! 

This last week was full of miracles, so I'll only share a few. So on Friday I had the chance to go on exchange! Miracles happen on exchange people. So Sister Williamson came to our area, and she stayed with me for those 24 hours. Just after my companion and the other sister left, we realized that they had taken our phone with them! So, we decided to go out finding for a few hours and pray for the best. We got loads of digits and set up some appointments (because people here are so open minded!!!) and met some incredible people. One girl agreed to meet with us just because we "seem like cool people". So that's awesome. As we talked to lots of people, we met one guy named Owen who we talked to for a few minutes. We invited him to general conference, and he said he'd come and bring friends! We were excited, but didn't know if he would actually keep his commitment.

The exchange went on, and the next morning we were out finding people. Literally the second guy we talk to invited to teach us right there and then in the park. It was awesome! He was from India and had some interesting ideas about meditation.. yeah. But after talking to him for an hour we realized we were going to be late for  an appointment! So we RAN to where we were supposed to be, and got there 25 minutes late only to find that no one was home. Awesome. 

Being exhausted from that uphill run, we walked back and talked to a few Chinese girls on the way home. The last one we stopped before going in for lunch was named Renee. I stopped her and started talking when she told me to just take her number because she was about to miss her bus into Cardiff. As I was writing it down, she suddenly burst into tears and told us that she just received the news that her uncle had died. Of course then we hugged her and comforted her as best as we could, and told her that she would see him again. She then told us that she felt a lot better and would see us this next week. 

So as the exchange was supposed to come to an end soon, and after teaching some more, my companion and Sis. Williamson's companion got back (an hour late. of course.). We were about to go inside when we realized that we had locked our keys inside of our flat... awesome. Eventually the zone leaders came and opened it for us and it all worked out!

Pretty eventful. That Saturday night we got to watch general conference, and it was incredible. Our investigator, Joao, came and watched. About an hour into it, I got a call from Owen saying that he was trying to find the church! We quickly grabbed a member and went to pick him up, only to find that he actually did bring a friend! It was incredible to be able to watch conference with 3 non-members around us. They all loved it.

General conference was good people. So watch it. OH. So on Wednesday Sister Lambert and I were talking to people on the street. We stopped this one guy, and the conversation went like this: 

"So do you have a belief in Jesus Christ?" 

"Funny you should ask that... I just got released from the mental institution for claiming to be the anti-Christ two years ago."

Alright man. He ended up being pretty nice for being a crazy person.

But yeah. I guess you could say I am IN LOVE with missionary work now. It is so much fun, and it is so awesome to be able to talk to so many people.

Have the best week people! I love you guys!

Love,

Sister Slack

So I found a nemo onesie in the flat.. so naturally we had to take some pics on our vintage green couch

rock climbing with mormon.org cards

castle ruins in Swansea city center we found last pday

Umbrellas inside? Me & Sister Lambert