Week 69: MIRACLES on MIRACLES

Welcome to the weekly update with Sister Slack! Surprise, it's Monday. Every week I tell myself that I'll be better at thinking about what I want to put in an email, but every week my mind goes totally blank, so we'll see how this works out. 

Last Monday I crashed on my bike for the very first time on my mission. I wish I could say it was epic, but really what happened was it had been raining all morning and I tried to go up the curb and my tire slipped... and I was thrown onto the road. Luckily, I was unharmed! I do have a sweet bruise on the back of my leg, but that's it. Turns out that this was just the beginning to all of our bike problems in the week. Tuesday we made the mistake of lending our bikes to the elders, and they came back and Sister Grant's back tire was messed up, and my front tire was flat. Poor kids had to walk them back to the church for us, but hey! No one got hurt. We have an extra bike at the flat, and we managed to bring the wheel down to try and fix it, but really all that happened was that our wrench broke. Exciting stuff. 

This week Coventry got to see the return of Sister Slack! Yes, I got to go on exchange back to my old area. I was with Sister Sorensen, and it was kinda funny because when I was in Coventry, she came there with me on exchange. We got to run around like mad women (literally.. we were 10 minutes late and needed to get there!) and teach lots of people and I got to see some old friends. We got to see Uche, and I reminded him that reading the Book of Mormon is the best thing he can do! I also got to see Grace (remember Grace? Baptised back in may). She has come back from China and she is amazing!!! We got to sit down with her and talk about how she's been applying the gospel. As we were speaking, I was just so filled with love for all of the people I've taught. It is such a blessing that we get to see the gospel change lives. She also gave us chocolate, so that's always nice. 

(Back to Nuneaton) We also got to see the less active named Catherine again, and she is just amazing. She read 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon and had marked them. She is so sweet, and she is just taking all the right steps to come back to church. Kerry (another less active) came to church again this week! She is so brave and she is doing so good. She loves learning about the gospel and being reminded of everything she was taught as a kid. She has decided she wants to give up smoking, and wants to help her family have the best life possible. The members just love seeing her at church! Also, our ginger (ginger power!) friend we are teaching came to church! His name is Darren. He takes a while to absorb the things we teach, but he definitely is determined to learn. He has had a rough life, but he is so full of hope. 

The biggest miracle of the week happened on Sunday. The whole Coventry zone was fasting this last sunday for us all to be able to see success. It seems things have been rough over the last few weeks, and this definitely was there to boost us up. I was pondering all day of who we could teach or focus on to help them see the gospel in their lives. Really, we are constantly looking for new people to teach. We have seemed to have quite a few people meet with us once, but just never show up again. After church we went into town and started talking to people, and literally everyone rejected us until we met this nice guy named Kyle. Turns out his best friend's brother is a Mormon, and they are both interested to learn what it's all about! Yay! But things get better, Sister Brown (a member) later picked us up for a dinner appointment and it was lovely, and then dropped us off at our flat. We were about to walk inside when the lady that lives below us came up to us and asked "What is it that you do?" She explained that she had once seen the inside of our flat due to water leaking into hers, and she saw all of the copies of the Book of Mormon. She has been wondering for ages. We explained that we were missionaries and that we teach people about God and Jesus Christ all the time. She then told us, "I knew you were. I really need you in my life right now." Pretty sure my heart stopped. With tears in her eyes she told us she has had a crazy past, and that about a year ago she cleaned up her life and found God. She explained that she really needs good people in her life, and a good church. Her name is Sabrina.

God literally dropped her into our laps. We set up a time to come and see her this week, and we are so excited. As we walked into our flat, Sister Grant and I were so grateful that we had fasted that day, and that God loves each one of His children so much! I know that there is nothing better in the world than our own personal relationship with God, and seeing it being built in other peoples lives.

I hope you all enjoy the sunshine and rain this week! I know I will :) 

Much love,

Sister Slack

Grace!

"Cheeeeese"!

Me and Sister Sorensen

Chili Pepper that caused the red face....HOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

Week 45: Amazing Grace

Well well well. What a week it has been. First of all, it was sunny ALL week! Incredible, right? I actually went outside without a coat on, so that was a miracle in itself. 

This week was probably one of my most favourite weeks I've had in my mission. Why? Many reasons. One, we got to help a wonderful family called the Top's move house. We haven't had many opportunities to do much service during the winter, so it was really awesome to be able to help them move all of their stuff. It amazes me how much people can fit into these tiny houses in the UK. Two: we got to have dinner with Kristina (remember her?) and some of her friends. They are such lovely women with warm hearts, we were fed a nice meal and were able to have full bellies and happy faces. 

And of course, Grace. I'm sure some of you already looked at the pictures first and put it together. I'll give you the whole story. We were walking along one chilly day in February, when we stop this chinese girl on the street. We start talking, and ask her how long she's been in Coventry. "Only a few weeks, I just moved here from Swansea Uni." At this time, I had just moved from Swansea to Coventry. We were instantly connected, and agreed to meet up again later. We met her in the library at first, and she confessed that she had just met with us because she wanted to be friends, not because she wanted to learn about God. We talked more and found out that her mom was Christian, and Grace went to church with her every week for a few years, but never felt anything and refused to think that God could be there for her. 

Fast forward to over 3 months later, and  on Saturday she was baptised. She knows for a fact that God is there and cares about her. Talking to her after she got baptised, she explained "I feel so brave, like the bravest person in the world! I feel amazing, this is the best day!" and after receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday she ran to us and hugged us, saying "Thank you! Thank you, I have changed so much, you have worked so hard, thank  you for this." Words can't describe how much happiness there was that day. We have gone through rough and wonderful times with her, and it it is the most amazing feeling to know that a friend has joined the church of God. 

Another miracle happened this week as well. The Elders in our district have been teaching a 14 year old girl named Chloe for a few months now. She has basically been absorbed as part of the ward already, and she is amazing. Her mom, however, would not let her get baptised. After lots of prayers and fasting from everyone, her mom finally agreed to let it happen. She is the sweetest, and she got baptised this last weekend as well. The world is on fire!

Also, on Monday we went to the Coventry Cathedral. We got to walk up 180 spiral stairs to the top, and it felt like we were walking forever in circles. Never ending staircase. But it was beautiful! It always blows my mind that people can build such beautiful buildings without modern tools. But that would explain why the tower is slightly crooked...

Anyway, til next time!

Love,

Sister Slack

 District time at the Cathedral 

When Grace decided to get Baptised 

Grace's Baptism

Everyone getting baptised/baptising

Atop the cathedral

can't get enough of GRACE

 We also helped with the family history fair, so here we are!

Chloe after her getting baptised! She is awesome.

Week 44: Best surprise EVER

Here we are again. Another transfer has come and gone, and Sister Urbani is on her way to London right now and then off to France! Where does that leave me? With a new companion! Here is the story of what happened when I found out what was going on: "Sister Slack you will be getting Sister Thomson as your new companion" 3 seconds of silence, then jumping around with joy and singing some songs about happiness. 

Yeah, I couldn't believe it! Sister Thomson and I get to serve together in Coventry now. We were in the MTC together 10 months ago, and had a few adventures together over in Wales, and now it is just going to be a party every day together. We are so excited to go to work and see miracles happen all the time. Yup. Best surprise EVER. 

But what else happened this week? ON Tuesday I headed over to De Montfort for exchange with Sister Monnapula, and it was so fun. We were walking down the street talking to some people, and every person we met so far had said "This is too personal." or "Not a chance." It was going kinda rough, when suddenly we run into this girl named Chloe. Turns out she had met missionaries before on the street, and she had given them her number but they never called her. She really wanted to meet with them and now they have an appointment for this week. MIRACLE. It was awesome. 

Also, yet another week of working with Grace has past. As we keep talking with her about baptism, she is slowly but surely getting over her fears about it and will take the step eventually. She knows that it is right, but she is so afraid of making a promise. But, on the bright side we have an amazing girl we are working with named Joyce. She is christian, and she came to church for the first time this last week. We talked about what her favorite part of church was, and she explained how she loved applying the scriptures to herself. That's what we all need to do in life, apply the things we learn. That's really the whole reason we have the scriptures, is to see what we can change in our own lives. 

Anyway, we've gotta get going. But just know that this week is going to be amazing! 

Love you all,

Sister Slack

 Sister Monnapula and I on exchange

The district

Trio Exchange with Sister Stone and Sister Pickett

Sister Thomson and I!

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 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 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