Letter #15

Hola Familia!!
Well This week we have had some fun times!  Lots of knocking and lots
of talking to less active members.  Last week we had this experience
with one of our less actives.  It kind of made my heart hurt a little
bit.  His name is Manuel Marin.  He was only baptized of few months
ago, yes ONLY a few MONTHS ago!! Unbelievable.  We have been going over
and telling how important is to keep the commandments and to come to
church.  Finally this week he was totally truthful with us.  He told
us that he basically got baptized because a family member told him
that the missionaries would stop coming over so much if he got
baptized.  He just doesn't want any responsibility.  The problem is
that his life is so much better now than it was he doesn't realize the
importance of keeping all of the commandments and enduring to the end.
As I was listening to this I just couldn't believe it.  It is sad to
me that he doesn't understand the importance of the covenant he made
with his Heavanly Father.  We told him we will continue to visit him.
It's better now because we really know how he feels so hopefully we
can help him understand the importance of keeping ALL of the
commandments and coming to church every Sunday and not just when he
feels like it.
We had a really good lesson with one of our investigators.  I am
pretty sure he was slightly tipsy but he was surprisingly interested
in the The Book of Mormon.  The funny thing about this guy is that he
thinks I don't understand any Spanish.  Which I don't understand most
but I am getting to the point where I can understand the main point of
what people are saying.  So He kept being like do you understand me?
I would always knod my head and say yes of course I understand you!:)
Then I would talk and he would be like oh my goodness you know so much
Spanish.  He was surprised at how much I knew.  My companion would
talk some and then he would be like no I want Her (me) to talk because
he was just amazed.  We cleared up the fact that he thought the Book
of Mormon was only about Joseph Smith.  He didn't understand where
Nephi came from because you never read about him in the Bible.  He
seemed really interested and he read the whole first chapter.  I am
just praying that he will keep on reading!  It was such an enjoyable
lesson and I feel like it was good because it made  me realize that I
am progressing in the language and that people can understand what I
am saying.
Now for the picture explanation.  I officialy had my first In and Out
experience!  It was mighty delicous.  I remember going when we went to
pick Bret up from his mission.  I feel like I didn't understand the
delicousness of it all way back then:)  Animal style is where its at
all the way!
Well that is about all of the interesting things that happened this
week.  I hope all is going well at home.  Have fun at school and
remember the people of California in your prayers:)
Les Amo!!
Hermana Clark

Letter #14

Hello!

 

Ok first of all I cannot even explain the joy in my heart right now because I just received the news that not only did Kera put her papers in but she has got her mission call!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!!! I am just so excited for her and I just love that we can both be serving together:) Will you send me her MTC address?? I had a dream the other night that she was going to North Carolina, so that was kind of close. 

Well we had transfer class this morning.  It was such a rush.  I was so scared that either me or my companion were going to get transfered. But we are still her:)  Only one elder in our district got transfered so we are just going to have a grand ol time this transfer.  I can't beleive it has already been one transfer. It went by really fast.  I also can't beleive that Arleigh and Tyrell are officialy hitched.  It's kind of weird to think about but I am so happy for them! 

 

Well this past week has been interesting.  My companion has received some interesting news this week and I am just trying to be good support for her. She found out her grandma had passed away suddenly.  It reminded me of when I found out Grandma Clark had passed away.  It was such a sad time but at the same time it was so comforting to know that we have the gospel and we know where she is.  Also this week I have been thinking alot about our family.  I am just so grateful for you all and the support thatI receive from everyone.  It makes life here easier knowing that I have my family prayig for me and cheering me on!  So thank you for being there for me and being wonderful examples to me in living the gospel.  I love you all so much.

 

This past week it seems that we have just been dropped by all of our investigators.  I get that just gives us time to find many more people.  We calculated our numbers for the transfer last night and we declared the Gospel to 376 people, and that is not counting the people that we tried to talk to.  So I am getting better at talking to people.  It seems like the people that I think will just reject us tend to listen.  Those feelings of fear and shyness don't come from our Heavanly Father because he wants us to talk to all of His children. 

Now let me explain the picture. We have started to go to a class everymoring at the church to do kickboxing.  It is SO much fun.  It is me and my companion and two other sets of elders.  The other day we did yoga so me and my companion decided it would be fun to show how we can read our scriptures while doing these crazy moves.  We took these pictures this morning and are going to make him a collage as a thank you.  So scenario for you, imagine me doing all kinds of crazy yoga moves with a glass table very close by.  Needless to say I was doing something crazy and ofcourse almost broke the table so I thought I would include that!

 

Well I hope everyone is doing great and loving life!  We have so much to be grateful for!  This morning I was reading in Mosiah 18 where Alma is teaching at the waters of Mormon.  What an experience that would be to be teaching those people and having them just Desire to be baptized and enter into those covenants!  What an experience.  There are so many people in the world that don't understand the importance of covenants.  We talked with a less active and he finally told us the truth how he only got baptized because a family member told him that if he got baptized the missionaries would stop coming over so often.  My heart hurts for him because he has made these covenants but doesn't realize the significance.  We told him we are still going to come over and talk to him though.  Hopefully one day he will understand.  On the other hand, as I sat in church today and looked around at our little unit I just felt so happy.  They are pretty much all converts to the church and have totally changed there lives around to live the way God wants them to.  I have no doubt that the Lord will help us find the people that are ready to accept the gospel. 

I love you all!  Good luck with the marathon:)

Hermana Clark

Letter #13

Hola!

What a week it has been.  This week I hit my three month mark.  I kind of couldn't beleive it.  Time is such an interesting concept.  This week was interesting because became partailly ill.  We weren't able to go to church yesterday or work on Saturday because we were afraid of spreading her germs.  So while she was suffering I revamped the area book.  The area book is something I didn't even know exsited before I got here and it is a very important thing.  We are just waiting for them to give us all Ipads and have some awesoem area book app.  So what I did was took all of the potentials and rewrote them so that they were all in the same street for each page.  It was quite the task and I think if I would have known how long it was going to take me, and how bad my hand was going to hurt I would not have started it.  But about six hours later I finished!  It needed to be done and now it is alot easier to look for potentials.   I also made some things to help in teaching, A cup demonstration for the first lesson and some drawings for teaching the plan of salvation.  I am now sure that I don't like it when my companions are sick because we can't do anything, but it was good for her to rest so that we can really hit the pavement hard this week.  We have ALOT of knocking to do:) YIPPEE  It is always kind of scary approaching those doors because you just never know who is going to answer! Each day we come home with new experiences.

So this week I was reading in 2 Nephi.  Once I got past the Isaiah chapters I was ready to actually be able to understand something.  I was reading in chapter 29.  It talks all about why we need the Book of Mormon.  How God loves all his children so why wouldn't he give revelation to them all. IT just makes so much sense, but people just don't get it.  I just wish I could just read that chapter to everyone who says the bible is all we need and it is all scripture that we will ever have.  THat is so false.  The Book of Mormon is written so plainly and is much easier to read than the Bible.  I was also reading in Our Search for Happiness.  If you haven't read it you definituely should because it is wonderful.  Elder Ballard has written this book so plainly and simply to understand some simple doctrines of the gospel.  I feel my testimony has grown so much this week in the Book of Mormon.  It is so powerful.  That is one thing we have started to do as a companionship.  We picked 5 different scriptures to use while contacting people.  The great thing about that is that the scriptures can't mess up there Spanish and they carry the spirit so strongly.  Hopefully we can find more people this week as we actually read with them rather than just telling them about the Book of Mormon and how it is another testament of Christ.

This past week we had zone conference.  It was wonderful but it caused me alot of unwanted stress because I had to go up twice in front of all the elders and bear my testimony.  I just thought some miraculour occurence would happen and my tear ducts would just close while I am serving a mission but that just isn't possible!  Zone conference was great.  I learned so much and felt rejuvinated to go out and talk to more people.  It has been slightly hard for me to overcome my shyness and just walk up to random people and start talking to them abou the gospel.  and sometimes when we just get rejected all day I have to think to my self that it is there choice whether or not to listen. We give them the opportunity  to learn about the restored gospel and they have the choice to accept it or not.  Then at zone conference I learned that I also have a choice whether or not to speak up and go talk to people, if I don't then they miss out on there choice to except it.  Just a litle thought.  The same goes for everyone, not just people serving missions.  Don't be afraid to share the gospel with your nonmember friends.  You never know who's heart will be open and will be ready to except such a wonderful thing as the gospel.

I am loving my mission.  I know that the savior knows all and he is there for us whenever we need him.

Les amo mucho!

Hermana Clark

Letter #12

Hola Familia!

What a week it has been here in California and it sounds like you have had a whirld wind of a week for you all to.  First of all Happy Birthday to Emma, Sophie, and Madelynn.  I feel like they are going to be so big when I get back it is going to be crazy.  It also sounds like you have had a lot of fun in West Yellowstone.  How fun!

This week has been so crazy.  We haven't been teaching a ton of lessons so we have had a lot of time to just go around and knock doors.  This area is one of the wealthier areas so we try to find high concentrations of hispanic people.  We have yet to find something that we already don't know about it.  So naturally since we have been talking to lots of random people we have had some interesting experiences.  Yesterday took the cake.  We talked to a guy who i'm pretty sure was on some type of drug, but everyone needs to hear the gospel.  He proceded to ask us if we beleived in magic, aliens, and love.  He told us he was a street prophet, he said he was homeless but had a house in agourra, and a camp in the woods, and he said that he new ten times more then us about life, as we walked away he told us he was Arros the God of love. The whole time he was talking I was just couldn't beleive it was actually happening and my companion and I decided that sometimes we just want to be able to take pictures of conversations.  I feel that that is just one of many interesting conversations to come.  We also found a guy yesterday that wanted to buy a Book of Mormon from us.  We read a scripture to him and it really touched him.  He spoke english so we had to go back to the car and get him an English one and then we had to refer him to the Elders.  Hopefully they can find him again, and hopefully he will actaully read!  It is so interesting how the people we talk to want to listen and want to learn but aren't willing to read the Book of Mormon.  This is just so frustrating because if they would only read they would know the gospel is true.  They can't know unless they read.  It is just that simple. 

Mom was asking all about my living quarters.  We just live in a room in a members house.  We have our own bathroom and they have provided us with a fridge which is a blessing.  We don't eat with them but we eat in their kitchen.  It is a couple whos kids are all out of the house.  They are so cute. They just chill in the house all day.  She knits all day, and they things she makes are BEAUTIFUL!  And the husband studies the gospel all day.  He always shares with us the interesting things he is learning.  It really is a great experience living with members because they are always interested to hear our stories and how our investigators are doing.  It is funny for me to because I always think of the elders in Ashton and wonder what it would be like to live with him.  I'm sure that would just be a great time.

Our days are interesting here but some interesting things are that we have started to have an English class for the members in the ward, and hopefully they will start to invite there friends:) We really have no idea how to teach English but as we have started to realize how odd English is.  We have funny things.  One of othe ladies asked what, "you are ever so welcome" means.  She understood, your welcome, but why add the ever so.  I though to myself that is a really good question!  So we will see how it all goes.  We are also teaching a Book of Mormon class. We actually found an investigator our of having this class.  It is really cool to take time and read it slowly.  We just started from the begininning and are reading it and talking about how we can learn from them and apply them.  I love the Book of Mormon.  It has so many great things and I hope that you are all reading from it every day!!! We try to get our members and investigators to realize it's important but I really wonder how many members of the church read it everyday.

Well family I must be off.  We are going to try to do a craft today and make Book of Mormon t shirts using spaghetti and spray paint.  We will see how it turns out and I will give you all the details of how it turns out. I hope that the baptism goes well and know that I love you all and think about how your doing every day:)

Les Quiero!

Hermana Clark

Letter #11

Well family I cannot beleive I have finished another week out in the field.  It has been an interesting week and I am excited to tell you all about the baptism we had this week.  you meight be wondering why You are not viewing a picture of the baptism.  Well being myself in all the hubub of the day, I TOTALLY FORGOT my camera.  If you can even beleive it, which I am sure you can because I forget everything:)  thankgoodness my companion had a camera and so I will be sending a copy of it with a letter. 

The baptism went so great.  We were really worried about the water temperature of the font because I feel like every convert we ask abou there baptism, the first thing they say is something about the water temperature.  We had one of the ward missionarier fill it up for us.  We spent all day going around and reminding people that we had a bapitsm this week.  We got a wonderful turnout!  President Castro and his whole family came.  that was just wonderful.  We also had a members husband come who has never been to church.  We also had another of our investigators there.  It all went off with out any problem accept for when the bishop got up and welcomed them, there was a sudden burst of clapping which our investigator started. haha it was funny but it all calmed down.  AFter wards we had some food that the members ahd brought.  Complete with a tamale.  It was cute because all the women went into the kitchen and started serving everyone there portion rather than just setting out al of the food and us getting it ourself.  My companion said that is a very hispanic thing so I better just get used to it.  They got confirmed on Sunday.  It is hard to explain the feelings of witnessing two people be baptized that I am sure a few months ago new nothing about the restored gospel.  they are going to be a strong family, and now we are working towards them going to the temple.  I will still be here when that happens and I will be able to go through with them:) 

This week we didn't have alot of lessons so we tried to do our best to find service opportunities.  the Lord always provides and we found out a member was moving.  We went over to help the elders.  We moved a man and his two daughters move from a small little apartment to another small apartment, but that had the most beautiful view!  It was fun to be able to help him. And with four extra hands I think we helped the job move a little quicker.

Now you are probably wondering what the picture of my eyes is.  Don't worry I am fine I just though you would all like to see i picutre of me how I am looking today.  I got up yesterday and my eye is just huge.  It's just the bottom lid.  IT 's so weird and it isn't that noticable but I really wonder what people think of my puffy eye. 

So funny story.  My companion and I were tracting this week in this community called Las Casitas (small house).  We spend tons of time ther because there are alot of Spanish people.  The hard thing about finding people here is that we really try to find spanish people so we try to find places where alot of them live.  Anyway, we are at las casitas and we knock on this door.  The lady is really nice.  She doesn't beleive in God, but she does beleive in energy and basically carma.  Eventually she tells us she is wicken.  I fell like I have heard all about wickens but never talked to one.  Instead of bleiving in heavan she basically beleives in nervana or becoming one with nature and 7 levels of reincaration.  She basically thinks that one day she will become a tree!  I was so flabbergasted.  She talked about how if she thinks logically she just can't see that there is a God.  I just feel that this is crazy.  Everything testifies of Christ.  I left that little chat with a renewed sense of divine nature.  How we will die and we will be resurrected and we will have the knowledge with us that we have gained on this earth. 

Well family mytime of writing has come to an end once again.  I hope all goes well with Dallin's baptism this week!  I'm so sad that I will miss it.  My understand more everyday about the importance of baptism.  He is making a very wise decision:)  I love and miss you all.  Have a wonderful week!!!

Hermana Clark