Week 71: Family History, we are doing it!

Hello people of the world!

This week has been one crazy adventure. So I'll start of with the awkward moment of the week. Thursday evening we had a dinner appointment at the Bishop's home. We got to their house about 5 minutes early, and their car wasn't in front of their house. "That's weird" I thought, so we decided to make some phone calls for those remaining minutes before we went inside. As we were sitting on a wall, the Bishop pulled up in the drive and then invited us inside. Phew! They didn't forget! I was relieved. So we walked in and sat down, and after about 5 minutes of awkward small talk they come in asking "So, what brings you here today?" Turns out they actually thought they were having us over the next week for dinner, not that night... and they didn't have any food for us! Awkward.. SO we biked out of there quickly to our flat to get some nice food :) 

This week we had a Nuneaton change in history! Sister Grant and I got a stand set up in the market on Wednesday for family history. The only bad side of it was that we had to get there by 8am, so we had to leave the flat by 7:30 to get there. We were good sports and biked in the rain, and got there and talked to people for the next 6 hours. It was awesome! I don't think I've ever gotten so many people to stop and talk to us in Nuneaton. It was so fun to connect to families, and to share with others about mine, and to have them connect it back to our Heavenly Father. As the stake president said, "Discover yourself, discover your family, and then discover the Father and the Son." We met some pretty interesting people, even some people who claim they "don't believe in families" but we still were nice to them and gave them some cards haha. 

Later that same day, we met with Sabrina. Yes, the miracle from two weeks ago. She is so wonderful. She has had such a rough life, but she realized that God is the only one who can help her, and that He truly does make everything better. She has the cutest 1year old son! She really is looking for ways to improve her life and to have the best life for her family.

We are still working with Kerry. She is so humble, and so teachable. We taught her about keeping the sabbath day holy, and she explained how she is trying so hard to live her life the right way. She is such a good example to us of diligence, and also of overcoming trials. Plus, she just got the cutest puppy named Rio. 7 weeks old, and tiny! He's adorable.

Sunday we got to teach Singing time to all the primary kids :) It was amazing to see the enthusiasm, and also how teachable they are. All of them want to do the right thing, and Sister Grant and I had a blast going through all of the primary songs. Of course we had to bring them candy, so I think we are on the good side of all the children now. 

Side note: Today I found a sweater for £1. And it is amazing. 

I love being here in England. The people are incredible, especially the members. Those that we get to work with really have been prepared by the Lord for great things. I thank my Heavenly Father every day that I get to be here. I am so glad we can have that two way communication with Him.

I love you all, thank you for being the best family and friends I could ask for :) 

Take care,

Sister Slack

Puppy!

missionaries

waiting for a lesson

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 67: Time is Flying

Hey my favourite family and friends!

Where do I even begin.. Well on Tuesday,  we had a meeting in Birmingham
about self reliance. My honest opinion of it?  It was long. I've never
had a meeting (as a missionary) that long that didn't really relate to
missionary work, other than the fact that tithing was mentioned. It
was great and I learned some cool things, but 5 hours is a little too
long for anyone to sit down. The great part about it was that I got to
see some wonderful missionary friends! My last two companions were
there, and I got to say goodbye to Sister Miller before she heads off
to Germany on Wednesday.

A cool miracle of the week was that we got to teach Kerry and Madison.
Kerry hasn't been to church in over 25 years (apart from last week)
and Madison came for the first time. We went to their home to teach
them and wow, ten year olds can be so energetic! It was still
wonderful though. We had planned to bring up the subject of baptism
towards the end of the lesson, but as soon as we sat down they
promptly told us that they wanted to prepare Madison for baptism! They
took the words out of our mouths. We then got to have a lovely
spiritual lesson about the restoration of the gospel.

On Friday evening we had the opportunity to host a "Meet the Mormons"
movie night! We've been planning it for a few weeks and of course,
everything goes wrong at the last minute. Two hours before it was
supposed to start, we got a phone call saying "I can't find the
projector." Oh great, so we freaked out for a few minutes and once we
calmed down we texted the bishop, he said he had one, but also
couldn't find it. After another moment of panic we randomly texted a
member to see if she had one, and she did! It was our lucky day. We
got to the church and had everything set up, she we realised there
were no speakers. After many more phone calls, someone came to the
rescue and the show went on! It was great! We had some members bring
their friends and it was great to watch the movie. Yay missionary
work!

Today we also got to go to Bawsworth battlefield with a lovely member,
and it was awesome to see how much history actually is in England. You
don't think about it much when all you can think about is missionary
work!

Things in Nuneaton are going well. It is amazing to know and see how
God puts us in people's paths for a reason. I know that I have been so
blessed with wonderful friends and family in my life, and I am also so
glad that God gives us fun personalities. Because who wants to be
boring. I love the gospel, I love being a missionary, I love life!
Time has gone so fast. I've already been in Nuneaton for 6 weeks!

Till next week,
Sister Slack

Waiting for people to answer their doors

The Nuneaton missionaries :)

And family home evening! Yay!

Week 66: Ginger senses

What a week of MIRACLES everyone! I hope you are prepared to read this wonderful email I am sending you today. 

For some reason Sister Grant and I have been mistaken a few times for people's carers. We knock on their door, and they invite us in, and then when we try to talk about the gospel it becomes real awkward real fast. Conversation typically goes like this: "Wait, you aren't my nurse?" "No." "oh, then nevermind. I'll show you around my house then." This happened to us twice this week. Once on Friday when we were looking for a less active, and yesterday when we were tracting. Yesterday we knocked on this lady's door, and she immediately invited us in and told us her name was Silvia. She was so nice! She sat us down, and then asked us when we expect to finish, but she just kept laughing at everything we said. We told her we were missionaries, and she bust up laughing saying "Well, we are getting on just fine anyway!" Seeing that she didn't have all of her marbles in the right place, we decided to just show her a quick nice video about Jesus Christ. She begins to read all the words that are on the screen, and then she started to dance! Wow. This was one energetic 80 year old woman. 

So it's always been a dream of mine to find someone who is ginger, and to teach them. Thursday we were out talking to people on the streets, when my ginger senses start tingling and I spotted him! A ginger! So we ran over and talked to him, and he wanted to learn more! His name is Darren. We got to meet with him on Saturday and teach him about the plan of salvation, and he said a lot of his questions were answered. 

Later that same day, we decided to stop by a less active. We walked to her house, and she wasn't there so we turned around to head back into town to talk to more people. We stopped this lady on the way, and it turns out she is actually a member of the church! She stopped going to church when she was 11 (she's 47 now). She told us she never wanted to stop going, but her father stopped taking them. We invited her to come with us on Sunday, and she did! She is amazing! Her name is Kerry, and some of the members remembered her and it was incredible to see people's reactions. She even brought her 10 year old daughter, Madison with her. We get to begin teaching them this week more about the gospel. 

A few weeks ago we met this enthusiastic lady named Lucia. We had our return appointment on Friday with her at her home, and we showed up and she had made us a cake! She is amazing. We spoke to her about the restoration, and as we explained about the Book of Mormon, she told us "Wow, this is incredible, I've never heard of this before. I need to read the Book of Mormon!" YEAH YOU DO! It was so wonderful to see her so excited about the gospel. She is from Czechoslovakia, and has a beautiful family.  

Here in Nuneaton we have been having wonderful success with people who have been less active. Brother Edwards came to church again (for the 3rd time in a row!). It is amazing to see that such a simple invitation can change someone's life. I know that the gospel is what each of us needs, not because it's the only right thing, but because it is what will make us most happy. God knows us best! I am soo happy that I get to be a missionary for the Lord.

That is about all for now, because sometimes you can't type anymore!

Much love,

Sister Slack

Gluten Free Cake!

 Going to follow up meeting in birmingham! (Which was awesome by the way. So many missionaries, so much learning!)

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 53: One year older and wiser too!

Wow what another amazing week. It has brought on a lot of reflection and eating of chocolate sweets and gluten free pastries and pizza. It  was a little over exactly a year ago that I hopped on a plane in Salt  Lake City to begin the adventure of learning a bit of the British  culture. At the time, all I knew was how to fake a posh British  accent, and I didn't even know what the word posh meant. Now I can do about 4-6 different british accents, and I even know what posh means! Wow. What great lessons I have learned on my mission.

Well it's been crazy. Where to start... Tuesday I headed on down to Westcotes to spend the day with one of my favourite sisters, Sister Leiss! She's so awesome. She's from Germany, and we had a blast. We cleaned out a hoarders house (well, only a part of it), taught the cutest hindu family, found an awesome Zimbabwe couple, and a really cool girl named Rachel. We got to bike around in the sun and I got this mental sunburn on the back of my neck! What that was about, I don't know.

The next day we had someone come and fix my shower, so that was really nice now I can have a normal shower every day. We also taught Jessica about families and stuff, and it was pretty dang exciting. She is amazing. And she is totally getting baptised this Saturday at 6 pm, so if any of you happen to be in Coventry then, feel free to come.

We also went on exchange with the sisters in Nuneaton and I was with Sister Anderson. She is so awesome! She's from the good ol USA and we had a blast. We met some incredible people and tried to clear out a jungle for a service project. Definitely a blast with her!

One evening we went to dinner with Jessica, Sarah (a member), Kristina, and Tish (member). I think it was one of the best times I've had at dinner so far! They are all hilarious, and it was so fun to have some girl time and eat delicious food. They are incredible people.

Miracle that I am thinking of at the moment: We taught Jessica about the law of tithing this week, and she has been setting aside money for it. She's been having a hard time seeing how things will work out financially. She'd been praying and praying all day, and as she went out of her flat to go to work, she put her hand in her back pocket and found 50 pounds (about $75). God always takes care of us when we put him first, no matter what.

I love this church so much, and honestly I have learned sooo much over the past year. I think one thing I've learned the most is how to love people more. It's amazing to know what little things can make a difference, and as Elder Holland put it "love given is not love divided, but multiplied."

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Slack

Flowers outside our apartment

exchange with the westcotes sisters!

at the castle

caaastle

 bear!

and Jessica!

Week 48: "Oh, it was just heavy."

Hey hey hey everyone! What a wonderful week we have had. Miracles galore!

This week one of our favourite people, Grace, took of for holiday. Before she left, she took us out for lunch. It was amazing to talk about her journey with us and getting to know each other! She told me that when we first met and learned that I had come from Swansea, she was willing to go with me everywhere! God definitely is inspired to put us where we need to be in the right time. We also got to show her how to do family history. It was brilliant to see how excited she got and when she found out she could look through Chinese records, she was so excited! She got her temple recommend and plans to go there in the near future. She flies off to China today. 

Recently we have come back in contact with some investigators who have been scarce, and some of them came to church this week! It was amazing to see how the spirit can work on some people. Tony (remember him? We took his watch last week) met up with us again and it turns out life just got crazy last weekend. We gave him his watch back and in the closing prayer of his lesson he said "Father, please help me to wake up on time for church on Sunday, this is really important to me right now, and I need your help." It was so incredible to see his faith in the Lord in helping him wake up. Another one of our investigators, named Costa, turned down a job offer that would require him to work on Saturdays and Sundays so that he could be able to come to church. Who does that? People who have their priorities straight!

We also got to see our wonderful friend Kristina a few times this week. One evening we told her we would have to come later due to a dinner appointment. It was delicious and we were sooo full (as we usually are after eating at members homes) that we just wanted to lie down. We walk into Kristina's house and she says "oh I'll be with you in a minute, I'm cooking." We thought she meant just for herself, but then she asked if I could eat some of it. Oh no. 2 dinners right in a row is never good, so she was kind enough to pack it up for us (phew!). We didn't have to explode. We also got to watch some parts of General conference with her, and while we watched Elder Holland's talk from last conference she told us "He uses posh words, but the meaning is so simple." We talked about how she felt the spirit, overall it was amazing. 

We got to see our friend Joyce before she headed to Australia for a week and a half, and she showed us a picture of her holding a foal! Oh man it was the most adorable thing ever. When we asked her how it was, she said "Oh, it was just heavy." There ya go everyone. 

This week we had exchanges with the lovely sisters in Nuneaton! I got to go with Sister Mousley in Nuneaton, and it was pretty awesome. When we were walking to an appointment I saw this really tall guy, and I said to her "This guy needs the gospel." So here is how it went... we followed the guy for two minutes walking behind him just out of reach (his legs are long, ok) and then finally we run a little bit and catch up and say "Oh hey! We just feel like we should stop you." He was way nice and wasn't freaked out! So that's good. He was glad we stopped him, turns out he has been praying for God to guide him to a church. BOOM. We got his number and stuff, it was pretty chill. Miracle.

Everything is awesome over here in England!!

Love you all, have  an amazing week and keep on keeping on.

Love,

Sister Slack

 Last meal with Grace

 Teaching Kelly

teaching Joyce with Sister Randhawa

Exchange with Sister Mousley and Sister Scherf