Week 70: (No Subject)

HEY EVERYONE!!!

Seems like my time management is getting worse.. well what can I say pday time is precious and no one really wants to spend it all in front of a computer screen! We went to Stratford Upon Avon today, and it was beautiful. There was a butterfly farm there, and plus Shakespeare everything. It was pretty legit. Plus, we went with one of our favorite members, Sister Brown!

This week I learned and re-learned one thing. Things will work out perfectly in missionary work, because God is in charge. Many days this week we had our plans, back up plans, and back-up of back-up plans thrown around more than a monkey throws around banana peels. Each time things like that happened, something else would come up, or someone would offer us a lift, and we definitely saw the Lord helping us out every day. Remember how our bikes were broken? yup. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader, and the 2nd counselor of the mission presidency just so happened to come into the meeting. During that, he offered to give us a bike which he had bought for his wife, and then found out that she hates riding bikes. MIRACLE. Free bike?? Amazing. Hopefully we should get it soon.

A few days later our bikes got fixed, so for now we are mobile again! Woot! It's amazing not to have to spend millions of pounds on bus and rail tickets. However, it's totally worth it when you meet amazing people, and get to see wonderful families in the ward. We had dinner with a family called the Corbishley's, and they had an enthusiastic son who told us a wonderful story all about hippos and how they had watermelon bombs and how they lived on an island. Creative minds. wow. 

MIRACLE:

The whole edwards family came to church this week. 

And we have to go now...

BUT I LOVE YOU ALL!

Love,
Sister Slack

Pictures:

 We love Sister Brown!

We tract old buildings in Stratford.

Shakespeare's house!

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 59: Pink Highlighter

WOW so this week was crazy amazing. You're probably thinking "she says that every week." Well, you're probably right. I'm pretty optimistic :) 

But really, this week was incredible. We started the week off by going to Wollaton Hall- yes the place where part of Batman was filmed! It was beautiful, Sister Miller and I bopped around and took lots of pictures of dead animals, and even made some videos of us being batman. They provided the capes. It was a little awkward though when I was running down these fancy stairs with a batman cape and a whole family of foreigners walked in. I got over it though, no worries. 

So here is the big time miracle story of the week. Prepare yourself mentally, because it's amazing. We have been working with this guy named Jermaine. He has made some incredible changes in his life, and this week he started taking things much more seriously. He started praying about what he should do, and if the Book of Mormon is true. On Monday we stopped by, and he was in a terrible state. He had had one of the hardest weekends, and he felt sick spiritually (those were his words). We were able to lift his spirits, and that night he said he had been praying for God to send someone to help him, and then we showed up. We told him we wanted to do everything we could to help him, and so we set things up to see him every evening this week. We go over again on Tuesday, and had another super spiritual lesson with him, and he was just absorbing everything. Wednesday we go there, and we were all feeling the spirit and having a wonderful lesson. At the end, I asked "Can we still see you tomorrow?" And he told us "About that.. I prayed about it and I feel like I shouldn't see you again until next week." Ouch. 

Well you can never argue with someone who says they pray about something and got an answer. So we set up a time to go by the next week. We told him that if he needed us to come earlier, that he should put up a sign on his window and then when we passed his house we would stop by (he has no phone). We left feeling good, but kinda weird about it all. 

So we continued on with our week, we had some fun times with awesome members, I had some good gluten free food, we had a district meeting where we ran through the field, and I was craving mac and cheese all week. Prayers get answered people, the next day some members fed us gluten free mac and cheese! 

Friday, we got to go on exchange with the sisters from Wylde Green, where the mission home is. It was so fun! I got to have Sister Lee come back to Nottingham with me. It was a blast. We met this lady who met missionaries 14 years ago, and now she wants to learn more. She is going to london for a few weeks, but we are excited to see her when she gets back. We were doing great, taught a lesson, and then we were STARVING. We were sooo hungry. So we decided to go home to have dinner. On the way home we pass Jermaine's house, and I feel this sort of electric shock go through me. I looked over, and there were 2 notes on his windows. I immediately whipped the car around, we jumped out and looked at the notes. In pink highlighter it was written: Sisters, come back before Wednesday. -Jermaine. 

Naturally the thing to do is to knock on the window, so that's what I did! He came and opened the door, and here is what he said:

"Ah, I was hoping Sister Miller would be here for the news. But you're ok too. Well, I've been thinking and praying a lot, and I want to get baptised."

Pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor.. 

He went on:

"And since this is what I want to do, I thought there is no reason in waiting, so I want to come to church on Sunday, I'm glad you saw my notes!"

He should be getting baptised at the beginning of September.

People. God answers our prayers. He answered Sister Miller's and my prayers, He answered Jermaine's prayers. God listens to us all the time, and will answer in His own time. 

Jermaine came to church on Sunday and loved every minute of it. Another one of our investigators named Kev also came with his 3 year old daughter. Sister Miller and I had to go on splits with members to get them there, but eventually we all made it to church and I was beaming from ear to ear about everything that had happened during the week. Plus church was amazing. I love church. And I love Nottingham. I love everything!  

God loves us so much, He provides everything at the right time. I love this gospel so much! I am so happy that I get to be a part of this work.
I love you all!

-Sister Slack 

Here we are!

Wallaton Hall

The note on the window!

Me & Sister Lee after Jermaine told us he wants to get baptised.

Week 54: I can't think of a subject right now

HEY everyone! So this week was awesome. Brilliant. Fabulous. Fantastic. All of that. Pretty much amazing because I made Gluten free cupcakes!!! YAY! And it was also amazing because of some other reasons.

 First things first, our investigator Jessica got BAPTISED. She is amazing, I can't even describe how awesome she is. She's hilarious, down to earth, and she's even British. Teaching her for the last 3 weeks has been amazing, and she has progressed so fast. She always checked with God as to what He wanted for her, and it led her to be baptised. It was definitely one great moment of my mission to see her go into the font. Everything was flawless. We love Jessica. And everyone else does too :)

MIRACLE STORY pay attention. Sooo Sister Thomson and I have been stopping by some members and dropping off notes to them. We stopped by this younger couple and left a note (they were not home. sad day) and then decided to try this one house I thought a recent convert lived in. So we knock the door, and BOOM she was there! Her name is Jolene. She was baptised about a year ago in a place called Newcastle. She told us as we introduced ourselves "I actually really wanted to come back to church this week, I just feel it and I don't know why." Amazing. BUT it doesn't end there! She came to church the next day and brought a friend named Michael, he's pretty cool. During it she felt the spirit so strong, and asked us "Do you think Heavenly Father sent you to my door?" The answer is YES.

 After church we had a munch and mingle (where people bring food and then we chow after church) and I'm talking to Jolene and she is looking to see if her friend Michael is ok. "He's over there talking to Elder Tsai," I told her. She immediately looks at me "Tsai??" Turns out Elder Tsai's brother served in Newcastle a year ago and baptised Jolene! It was amazing to see all of the connections fall into place. I still can't get over this.. it's so crazy.

2 Exchanges this week! First with Sister Crowley in Glenfield, and it was awesome. We taught so many people with the cutest babies. Too bad missionaries aren't able to hold them.. Sigh.. It's ok.

Later, Sister Sorensen from De Montfort came to Coventry with me, and she is so amazing! Wow she just loves missionary work. We had a really great time together. I love getting to know all of the sisters, it's definitely been one of my favourite parts of the last few transfers.  ANNND yup that's the big moments.

Oh, and we taught a guy named Obinna who gave us about a 10 minute lecture on modesty. It was interesting, seeing as he is a 25 year old guy studying at university telling us what dress is appropriate or not. Well pal, good news, missionaries always dress appropriately! Yay! +1 us. 

Overall, I love missionary work. Things are amazing. Sister Thomson and I love each other, and it's a blast in Coventry. We get a new mission president next week, so that will be interesting but awesome to see what happens. 

I love you all!
-Sister Slack

CUPCAKES

Jessica got Baptised!

 Exchange with De Montfort!

And our friend Tony! He's 6 foot 6 and pro at playing basketball. 

FHE last monday

More of Jessica

Jessica got Baaaaaaptiiiiiiiiiiised! In case you just skipped the email and went to the pictures

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 49: You can have these... paperweights?

Yo yo yo greetings from Coventry! Gotta say, this week has been jam packed full of fun.

We got to go on exchange with the beautiful sisters in Westcotes,  I got to go with Sister Stewart!  Man I felt like I brought bad luck for them seeing as we spent the first hour and a half trying to fix her bike, but we did learn how to fix a flat and put the tire back on and how to adjust the brakes all by ourselves! We also had to go and ask their 6 year old neighbor for a bike pump, and it  was a miracle that it worked. Pretty exciting. That night we did get to eat some nice sushi though. We also got to teach a young guy named Jim, and he seemed pretty excited to learn about the gospel, so that was cool. Oh. And we got to bike everywhere!!! Have I mentioned that I miss biking? I miss biking. The bike I got to ride was amazing. Riding through the rain, riding up and down hills, oh it was glorious. 

On Wednesday we got a surprise call telling everyone that the rumors could go to rest, and that everyone would be receiving iPad mini's the next day. Wait... what? Yes. The apple product called the iPad mini has entered the England Birmingham mission. What this really meant was that we had to get up early the next day and drive to the mission home to have 2 hours of training on how to set up an ipad, and then set up our own, and then take the rest of the mission's ipads and distribute them to each little band of missionaries throughout the mission. 

Sister Thomson and I took our little stack of iPad's and traveled around to 3 more two hour meetings where we gave the the training of how to use and set up the iPad. It was awesome to be able to go around and teach people about it, but it was a long day full of staring at iPad screens and such. That might sound like a great addition into the mission, except for now everyone has them, and we haven't gotten permission from Salt Lake to use them yet. Essentially, we now have some nice ipad shaped paperweights lying around, because we can't even turn them on until we get the green light from the big cheese. Crazy, right?

Another miracle! We taught our friend Tony about the word of wisdom, and when he learned about not drinking tea he told us "oh dear, I have to go call my mom and tell her about this!" He is so cool. He just absorbs the gospel like a sponge. We also met this lady named Sabine from the Congo. we met her walking to our car for dinner. We stopped and chatted, and at first she wanted to just walk away, but after talking a bit about our families and her family and the role Jesus Christ has in them she became more open. It was amazing to hear her own testimony about Jesus Christ. She eventually felt like she would enjoy having us over, so we set up an appointment with her this week. We are pumped!

 We have had so many miracles happen. I think one of my favorite miracles was on Saturday. We were finding in city center, and it was time for us to head back for an appointment. We kept seeing this guy walking back and forth, and he looked like one of our investigators named Obi, who is from Nigeria. Eventually, I call his name and he looks around and we wave him down and go to talk to him. "Don't you remember us?" we asked, but he said no. Then looking more closely, I realize that it's not Obi. We start talking and it turns out that his name is actually Obi, and he is from Nigeria and he was willing to listen. So we taught him the restoration right there and after we said a prayer he wanted our number. It was awesome. We exchanged information and then he told us "you know, the only reason I stopped today was because this morning I wrote my name and address on something online, and it told me that I would receive a gospel message today. That's the only reason I stopped. Thank you." God definitely puts people in our path that are prepared! Our minds were spinning after that. Good thing his name was actually Obi, otherwise it would have been kinda awkward chasing him down.

OH. Also Sister Thomson and I need your prayers, we got our provisional licenses to learn to drive in the UK, and we have about 3 weeks to pass 2 tests and get our actual UK license. Hooray for studying about driving in a different country.. It'll be great. The only scary thing is that like everyone fails the first couple of times. One lady in the ward failed the test 13 times, so that's encouraging. It can be done! We'll let ya know how it goes :) 

Also, transfers are this week, but we should both be staying (hopefully), so I'll let ya know!

Much love,

Sister Slack

 Exchange with Sister Stewart

We got our provisional licenses! Watch out GB, we're gonna be professional.

Our lovely paperweights (ipads without use)

 District selfie during ipad distribution

car times

 and sometimes we chill on the couch in our pj's

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 41: "Please, sister, just give me a kiss..."

Helloooo

Well here we are again! SO this last week.. hmm. Well. Yes, it involved eating chocolate Easter eggs. And yes, it involved seeing everything as Easter themed. We see Easter flowers, easter animals, and easter people! They are waiting for us to feed them the gospel and they don't even know it. 

We had some sweet stuff happen this week. We had more exchanges, and this time I actually got to travel OUT of Coventry! Yeah! I went off to a part of Leicester called Westcotes. It was amazing. We got fed 2ce by 2 different families, and they both made delicious gluten free food for me, and even had extra gluten free brownies ready for us. How awesome is that? I love it when people feed us food. I was there with Sister Leiss, she's from Germany, and she taught me the difference between the two stages of the dandelion because they are different in the German language. We also experienced an interesting drink called dandelion and burdock... gotta say it tasted exactly like cough medicine. 

We actually acquired that drink from an old man named Henry. We visited him for a few minutes and after he gave us this mysterious drink, we were leaving and shaking hands. I happened to be the last one to shake his hand and he proceeds to beg me "Please, sister, just give me a kiss, come on." Uhhhh.. Yup I didn't know how to react so I just nicely said "Sorry, I'm a missionary" and then ran away! But it's ok everyone, he had a cat to keep him company once we left. 

We also had exchanges with Glenfield this week. I got to bring Sister Crowley here to Coventry, and it was great! We had a cool experience together. We set a goal to find 6 people who wanted to learn about the church in the morning, and we also wanted to follow the spirit more completely. Our time to talk to people went by, and we had 5 people so far, and it was time to start heading back. So, I turned to her and told her that we needed to find that one more soul, but we needed to use the spirit to find him/her. So, we stood there in city centre, and started to walk towards a statue, and then we both saw this one guy wearing headphones. We said to each other "Let's talk to him". We did, and we ended up having a really nice conversation and he became our 6th person! It was awesome. 

Sister Crowley and I also decided to do some old school doorbell ditching to the bishop. It was pretty exciting, and we even left their family a little box of cookies. Annnnd yesterday it rained and we got to see an awesome rainbow!! 

Yeah well the time has come to go, but I love all of you! Keep on truckin, and remember to not get too friendly with crazy old men.

Love,

Sister Slack

Email time last week!

 I spilled some soup...

Exchange with Sister Crowley and Sister Alexandroia 

We made some fruit for our friend Uche, he needs vitamins while he studies

Talkin on the phoneee

Driving with sister Urbani

crazy cat (an Easter cat!) 

exchange with Sister Leiss!

Rainbow!