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 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 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