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 4: Tales of an American and a Swede.

Hey there people I love!!

I hope everyone is doing fabulous, and I'd love to hear from everyone! SO YEAH write me or all the missionaries you know because we love to feel loved :)

So being here in the land of England, I've come to learn that chocolate is freakin delicious. SO GOOD here. Wow. Like think of chocolate... and then think of it tasting even better. That's how it tastes here. Even in Europe in general.. because Sister Heikki is from Sweden, and she got a package from home and it had tons of chocolate in it, and even that tastes better than chocolate back home! Sorry to everyone that is there.. it's just so good.

Something fun that happened this week was we got to help set up the talent show!! This ward has a hard time getting along and loving each other, so it was cool to see them come together for a little bit and share some talents :)

We also had the opportunity to go to a little concert, because a recent convert's son was performing. We went so we could talk to the son (called Wayne) and so he'd know that we're not weird scary people. I mean, he is only 13. So we went and it was cool to be there! He wasn't actually too good at singing.. but he could play the guitar nicely! Well, better than I could. Later, the recent convert Sandra, and her daughter Lola, wrestled in the sumo suits (picture below). It was pretty hilarious.

Earlier this week we were knocking doors right before we had a dinner appointment, and about four 20 yr old girls invited us in to teach them. Only one, Belinda, was really interested. But during the middle of the lesson, right before we got to talking about restoration, she got a phone call and went outside and left!! We were kind of confused.. So we left our number and got her number from her friends, and decided to wait it out.

So after we left that house, we went next door and then they invited us in!!! Ok people, this is unheard of here.. Getting invited in to teach a lesson is a rare gem of opportunity. Her name was Margaret Slack. yup. You could say that it was a sweet connection. Then we taught her about the restoration of the church, and got invited back for later in the week.

The next day, we were walking to an appointment when we got a phone call, it was Belinda!! MIRACLE. What 20 year old girl calls you and tells you they want to come to church?? I don't know. But she's awesome. Sadly, she didn't make it to church yesterday, but we will hopefully meet with her later this week.

So when we went back to visit Margret again, we brought a member called Bro. Rawson. Such a cool guy. He was so in tune with the spirit, it was incredible. Margaret has a really bitter view of the world, she thinks that humanity has no hope. But in introducing her to the fact that God loves her, she began to cry tears and realize that she truly has faith in God and that she wants to know more. Hopefully she can move past looking at the world and realize that this gospel brings so much hope!!

Which reminds me of one of my favourite things I studied this week: Miracles. In Mormon 9:15 it says "...God has not ceased to be a God of miracles." This statement has been proven to me over and over this week. As we have met with new people and been able to keep a spirit of hope within ourselves, we have seen miracles daily.

I love you all! And I hope you can realize that we all see miracles every day.

Love,

Sister Slack

Lola & Sandra in sumo suits

Sleeping hedgehog (yes, we poked it to make sure it was alive)

dog from tintin that we found sitting on the fence!! It was pretty legit

How I feel about the hill with cows on it

Me & Sister Heikki

1st time caught in the rain!