It's been an interesting week

It's been transfer week so we spent almost no time proselyting and even less time sleeping, almost literally.  Ill try to give y’all a brief run down of some of the experiences.

Tuesday we 3packed with Elder Calaway and worked on transfers and did an emergency three way exchange. That was crazy. We got back to the office at 10:00 pm and we worked till after 2 am. 

Then Wednesday morning we got back to the office at 8 and worked until 5.  Then we went out and worked a little bit and went to an amazing meeting.  It was a priesthood-training meeting for recent converts and investigators who would soon be ordained priest or elders. It was incredible. The Spirit was so strong in that room as these men discussed how to be priesthood holders and they were being taught by leaders who hadn’t been in the church much longer than themselves! It was a powerful experience. Then Craig had his baptismal interview. He passed with flying colors.

Thursday we trained the new missionaries. It went really well. Then in the afternoon we taught a few lessons and found a bunch of new investigators. Then at night we got back with President and we worked late into the night. Transfers are such an incredible process. It is logical but still very spiritual. We wanted to submit the scenario but we worked in the area in the morning and then we worked all night.

Saturday morning we finalized everything and then we got all the packets and information ready to be delivered. Then we went to Craig's baptism!!!!!!  YAY! (I left my camera in the apt so I’ll have to show y’all the pictures in two years.)  It was an incredible experience. Craig is a navy veteran and a nuclear scientist and he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  It was a touching experience to hear him stand before the ward and bear his testimony, born of the Spirit. He's so, so smart but he has so much faith. His love for the Savior is inspiring. Craig has been on of my favorite investigators. I've taught no one else like him.

I love being a missionary.  I've spent the last however long of my life serving others but I’m the one who grows the most.  I think that's probably what Heavenly Father planned. That night we got a call at 10:30 that two sister missionaries had bed bugs so we gave up our mattresses and drove them up to drop them off. Thankfully I didn’t even feel tired. (D&C 84:33.)

Sunday was sad.  All the members said bye and that they'd miss me.  That made me feel good. Then we had a great dinner with the famous Ann Taylor.  Then we spent an hour with Sister Neider.   She's amazing.  Then we drove to California and back to pick up some elders. We didn’t get home ‘til super late and then we woke up at 4:30 to take President and Sister Neider to the airport. That was sad and hard.  I wanted to cry and not let them go.  I love them both so much, they've given me so much guidance over the last two years. I will miss them. But they said many kind words and even gave me a super sweet book.  All today we've been working in the office.  I love getting things done!

I’m just happy!

Life is good

I love you all so much

Sam

That's all folks!

I'm about to finish my 2nd week in the MTC!

omigosh the mtc is so fun!

jokes
-

It's been a good week. We gave the last two zone conferences. I gave the same training 12 times and loved it each time.

It was interesting to see some missionaries grasp the skills and concepts and others who just let it all wash over their heads. I've learned on my mission the important lesson of being present. If you are somewhere, you need to want to be there. If you don't want to be there either change or repent. If you just sit through a meeting expecting it to be lame, you're going to be bored. But if you seek revelation you can receive it. Luckily I noticed that soon into my mission.

I guess it's like texting friends. If you want to talk to them so bad, why not just be with them. Do what you want but make sure that what you're doing is best. This is hard to explain and I don't know why I'm making you all listen to my rant. 

Craig is getting baptized on Saturday. I'm so excited. He's one of my absolute favorite investigators. I realized I haven't taught very many men in my mission.

This upcoming week is transfer week so we will probably be spending lots of time with President Neider. I'm excited to work on this and hopefully help him make all these things go smooth. 

Life is good here in Vegas. I don't have too much to write about. I got sunburned for the first time in like forever.

My life is so exciting and full of cool experiences but ... I just cant think of them right now.
Ya'll deserve better. 

Maybe sometime in the next two years I'll figure this thing out and send a half decent letter.

I love you all so much.

Sam

I feel like it was just yesterday that I was writing you all

It's been a good week.

Monday we had meetings.

Tuesday was a zone conference.

Wednesday was MLC. My last. And probably my favorite.

Thursday was a zone conference.

Friday was a ZTM. A zone leader was sick so I had to train at it.

Saturday was another ZTM that I was just there to evaluate. 

Sunday was church.

It went so fast!

I love all the things I get to do. I say it all the time, but training missionaries is like my favorite thing to do in the whole world. I really want to work at the MTC after I’m done being an RA.

It's been crazy with investigators this week. Everyone has been so busy with the end of school and with all our meetings it’s been hard to meet with them. So hopefully this upcoming week will be good and we can have more lessons.

I think Craig will be the last baptism I have on my mission. I think everyone else that we’re teaching will get baptized early July. I’ll be sad to miss them. But it's okay. I really love Craig. I've learned a lot from him and his excitement and faith. 13 days to read the Book of Mormon and his retention is incredible. He knew that Alma 13 was the chapter about the 'higher priesthood' that was cool. He will be getting baptized on the 21^st, more on that next week. 

I went on another exchange with Elder Sullivan. He's grown a lot. He's a really good missionary.

That's all I got.

I love you all so much.
Sam 

Hellllllo

So the baptisms didn’t happen.

It was a crazy week.

I’ll talk about the baptisms briefly

We were hoping for three.

1 dropped us Monday afternoon.

1 moved back in with her boyfriend on Tuesday

1 got drunk Wednesday and pushed it back

So none happened in Bermuda. BUT! OSCAR and ABBY got baptized in BV!!! It was so good to go back and see everyone (this baptism was at night) I love them both.

Sam, Elder Wendt, Oscar, Abby, Elder Rushton

Sam, Oscar and Abby

Craig finished reading the Book of Mormon. He loves it. He wants to start reading it again now!

Zone conferences went wonderfully well! I love my topic and I love learning with these missionaries.

This week we have two more ZC and an MLC so it’ll be a good one.

WEIRD STUFF THIS WEEK

-We have a lot of grown men and women cry to us which is a weird experience.

-I got a letter this week from a girl in a past area which was super uncomfortable. Summary: "Hi, how are you? Write me back! Bye." O_o

-We contacted a couple. The man was drunk and tried to take off his pants. The woman showed us her tattoo that ran from her upper torso to her hip. We left. X_X

I can’t believe it's already June. Life is good here in Vegas. I keep getting hotter and hotter. I don’t have much else to say. 

I love you all

:)

Sam

ZONE CONFERENCE

Well. I've sat through a lot of these in my mission, but now it's my chance to run them.

This is such a turn around. I love this assignment but there are no breaks. Every week until the end of the transfer we have big things going on. This week two zone conferences and a temple trip with the new missionaries. Next week two zone conferences and an MLC plus all the ZTMS. Then two zone confernces the week after and the next week another training. It's going to be AWESOME!

We were hoping/planning on two baptisms this past week but they got postponed till this week. Now our goal is three and there is a good chance we will make it. 

I've got to tell y’all about my new favorite investigator, Craig. He's so funny. He is 56 and has studied with the jdubs for 20 years but he started reading the Book of Mormon and now he wants to get baptized. He came to church, he's halfway done with the book and we just met him last Sunday night. It's awesome. He knows the bible so well but he loves the Book of Mormon because it testifies so much of the Savior. It's been awesome to see him read with an open heart and receive a witness. I love teaching those with real intent.

Last Friday we got to do an hour-long Q&A session at a sisters conference. That was cool. Elder Sharp and I had mics and we just took questions from the audience. It was probably one of the scariest moments of my whole mission - so many women.

Sam at Sisters Conference

I went on an exchange with Elder Puga. He's awesome. It's cool to see how much he's grown. He was a junior companion when I was first his zone leader in Central. Now he's a zone leader! The 'rank' is not the growth, but it's indicative. He is still just as humble but he is now confident which has given him a lot of spiritual power. 

I hope rugby is going well. I wish I could get on the pitch. Go Blackhawks!

I got my 'trunky' packet today. All my going home information. I haven't read it yet. 
We found a lot of new investigators this week. Life is so good.

I love you all so much
Sam

Anthony's baptism on May 17, 2014

Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you!

Dear Family,

I love you all.
I feel like a chump not writing very much recently. I'm sorry!
Things are great here. We've hopefully got baptisms incoming and we're working hard. We found a new investigator the other day who said "The Book of Mormon is awesome. I'm going to read this as fast as I can. I can't wait to find out what happens next." Stuff like that is awesome.
Transfer week went well. We got to train lots of new missionaries and I loved it. I like training so much. And the new missionaries have so much faith and fire. 
I wish I could train missionaries for the rest of my life. It's invigorating. 
This work is true. I know it is. I finished the NT today. I love the Bible. I'm going on a diet. 
Life is good.
I love you all so much
Sam

Elder Slik, Sam, and Sister Banks (Rigdon's mom)

Last week's baptism with Elder Sharp

Maddness

Well transfer week is nuts here.

I've loved it. Fast paced and lot's of pressure.

Our mission is now very different. It's got seven zones instead of 12 so everything has been changed and that took a lot of coordinating. 

We've been working hard and we had two baptisms last week! A great way to end a great transfer.

Cheeron Harmon was baptized Monday night. 

Ellesse Todd was baptized Saturday night.

Both of them are real converts, they love the Lord and they have testimonies of the Restored gospel. I learn so much from teaching people like them. It's really helped me to grow and learn and become more like the Savior. 

We have so much joy in missionary work. We see a lot of pain but I think that we're protected from the full blow of it. I don't know if that makes sense. Maybe I’m feeling the Savior help me carry my burdens in a way I haven’t noticed before. I know he loves us.

So there's no denying it. I've got six weeks left. I'm going to have to be carried off the plane. I want this to be the best, hardest working, most consecrated, and happiest six weeks of my life.

I love you all so much.

:)

Sam

Woah

So it's week 6. Time flies by. 

So, so, so, so fast.

We're moving to a new apartment. We have a baptism tonight. It's transfer week so we are going to be helping President a lot this transfer because there are like 25 missionaries going home this and 10 coming in. I'm excited for the challenge. 

MLC went great! I remember how scared I was for my first district meeting and first zone meeting. But I felt confident and it went well. Sister Neider said it was the best she'd seen which made me really happy. She said something to me as well which was an answer to my prayers. "It's not the length of service, but the amount of impact." Something like that. It made me realize that I didn't need to have 3, 4, or 5 transfers in the office, or anywhere to make a difference. Time is irrrrrelephant. She said a lot of nice things to me. I've learned the importance of compliments on my mission. I might have said this before, but if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. But if you do have something nice to say, say it! I've tried to make it a habit to tell everyone the good things I see in them. It makes a difference. 

This week many people told us they knew that God put us in their path. That made me feel like I was doing my job. 

I don't know what else to say.

I'm really self-conscious about my letter length. DON"T JUDGE ME!

I love you all so much,

Sam

Blast from the past!

So we had Stake Conference in the Warm Springs stake this week.

Elder Rene of the Seventy came and that was awesome, but even cooler, was that I was able to be a part of ordaining Hermano Acosta an ELDER! What???? Crazy huh? I don't think many missionaries get to do that. I was pretty emotional. It was great to see them.

I got to see so many people from Desert Bloom. Andres was there! His step dad too! He came up to me and shook my hand and it took me a second to process who he was! I was so happy to see him in a shirt and tie. We didn’t have time to talk but it was awesome to see him. My heart was so full. Heavenly Father is too good to us.

So I got to spend a day in Kingman, Arizona! That was pretty fun. I drove a truck and it was super fun. It was weird being out of Las Vegas, especially because it was noticeably different. Weeeird. 

We should be having some baptisms coming up which would be nice.

I love working with President Neider. Every time I’m around him I grow so much in my respect and I grow so much in my faith and testimony. He is a man of God.

That's all the time I've got for right now. 

I love you all so much.

Gratz to Kate on finishing your first year of college. We'll be sophomores together.

Oh and I get to train in and conduct this months MLC. I’m excited, well excited and scared

:)

Sam

Another awesome week

I feel so bad that I don't have sufficient time to write a quality email!

Things are going great.
I've again been so humbled to work with and 'train' so many great leaders. I know that I take more from these exchanges than I could ever give.

My area is interesting. It covers Las Vegas Blvd right beneath the strip. Some parts are more sketchy and others are really, really nice. It's different than anywhere else I've been in the mission, although I have only been in two zones. Hahaha.

Elder Sharp and I have been working out and trying to eat healthy. It feels good to be lifting weights again.

We are teaching a lot of people, humble, humble people. We had a cool experience this week. A family was about to lose their house and everything they had. They owed $550 and had no money and they needed the money by Saturday. In two weeks they were getting a big check for a few thousand dollars. It was Friday when we talked with them. They cried and cried to us and told us their story. It was very humbling to listen to their hardship and know that I couldn't do anything to help. As much as I wanted to help, they were going to be homeless and their life in shambles and not able to get that money. OH man it was tough. We prayed with them. The next morning one of their sister's who had previously said she couldn’t help stepped in and paid the money. I know she was prompted to help. It was a lesson in humility and definitely a symbol for the Savior (he being the man to step in and pay the debt).

It's a huge blessing to be able to work with President Neider, he is so inspired.

Life is good. I'll see you all in two years!

I love you all so much

Sam

Sam and Elder Slik

So this week I was super lucky to get to go on an exchange with Elder Anderson. We had a blast, the picture comes from when we street contacted this guy selling jerseys and we explained to him that we like to wear matching stuff all the time and eventually his heart was softened and he sold us those jerseys to us for 30 dollars instead of 60 dollars (for both). I'm so grateful for your son, Elder Anderson.  You have raised literally an incredible son and he is my best friend. He has helped me to be a better person and been the friend I need. I know that he and I were friends in the Pre-existence. I know you are proud of him and so am I. He has already done many amazing things and he is about to lead our mission to the next level. Thanks for sharing him with me and everyone here in Vegas.

love,

Elder Slik

this week!

Wow. Time has flown by. It's already been a week?!?!?

Things are going great with me. We're teaching a lot and hopefully we will have a bunch of baptisms this transfer.

I'm getting acquainted with the office and the area and the mission.

I've been on four exchanges since the transfer and I have three more this week. 

I love learning from these missionaries. I'm supposed to be training the zone leaders on these exchanges, but I feel like I’m being trained. I've been able to work with some incredibly talented elders. 

I've learned so much.

I've felt the Lord's hand guide us to be at the right place at the right time to find someone who'd been praying for us. I've felt the words I needed to say to a missionary come into my mouth when I hadn't been thinking them. I've felt my prayers for strength and clarity be answered and I've had the energy and focus I need to complete the task at hand.

Life is good! It's fun. It's exciting. I know Heavenly Father is pleased because I'm doing my very best and trying to be better each day. 

I wish I had more time, and more things to say!

We teach a lot, we find a lot. The area wasn't in the best state when I got here but Elder Sharp and I are working on fixing it up! 

Ughhh! I'll have more time to talk about it all in two years!

I love you all so much 

Sam

Elder Fagersten and Elder Anderson