Letter #34

Well Taft never seems to surprise me.  There really are so many intersting people that live here.  One day I think we ran into about 2 or 3 drunk men, all before it was 12 in the afternoon!  It was quite the day.  So, now for some more interesting things that have been happening.  So yesterday for church we had some of our investigators come!! YIPEE!! We started teaching this couple, they are interesting and had some drug problems in the past, but they were willing to come to church so we thought, awesome!  Everyone is invited to church.  We had another one of our investigators come and we actually had a couple of less active spanish people come.  So we had Sacrament and then it ended.  I was talking to our English investigators and then we saw that one of our Spanish investigators had come to church!  We hadn't even called him and reminded him to come or what time it had started.  So that was such a pleasant surprise.  So I was able to go to Spanish Sunday School.  The lesson was SO awesome. He went into this indepth study of the restoration.  It was perfect for what our investigator needed to hear.  He explained so simply why we are the only church with authority.  So church was pretty awesome. Then we ate with our ward mission leader and his family.  Then we went to visit a less active.  It is a Samoan family and I think meeting them kind of made my mission:)  This lady is so awesome, she has a 3 year old, 2 year old, 1 year old twins, and she is pregnant and due any day now!  She grew up here but is married to a Samoan.  Her sister is here helping her out with everything.  It was such a sweet experience because she talked to us about how we had come by to make an appointment and it had made her think about how she was raising her family because it has been really difficult for her to come to church, but knows that she has to make it a bigger priority.  Her family is struggling financially, but still they are so giving and offered to feed us.  I guess I can't really explain how great it was to get to know her.  She said she felt like a failure as a mom because she hadn't really been taking her kids to church.  I was so grateful that I could bare my testimony to her of the atonement of Jesus Christ and that we aren't expected to be perfect and that he will make up the difference.  I have realized lately as I go out to work every day that I am relying on the atonement because I am so imperfect, but Heavenly Father still gives me the opportunity to bear testimony and to invite people to come unto him.  This gospel is true and I know that we have to continually be reading and studying the scriptures, we can never think that we have learned enough, or that we have read the Book of Mormon enough.  I hope you are all doing your daily scripture study.  I never realized how important that is until I came out here and became a missionary.  Even if you had a sound foundation you still have to strengthen and care for it, or in time it will crack and crumble.  I am so grateful for your support and all that you do for me!  I LOVE YOU!!!

Les Quiero,

Hermana Clark

 

Oh so pictures, One is of me and my companiona, Hermana Hatch, she is BEAUTIFUL and wonderful!  Also the picture with the children.  There is a little pocket of Oaxacans here.  some only speak misteca, which is like a dialect that they speak in Mexico.  Anyway, these kids are all brothers and sisters and they came and talked to us so we decided to take a picture with them:)  Hope you enjoy the photos!!!

Letter #33

Hola Familia!

How are you all doing?? Taft is doing just great!  Last week we were able to talk to the Bishop and he went through the ward list and told us some people we should go and visit and all of the less actives in the ward.  Well it didn't take long to realize that about half of the town of Taft is Less Active! Not really but it seems like that when we went through the list and person after person was less active.  So we have been trying to go by and visit them.  It has been so interesting to ask why they had left church in the first place.  Usually they just say that they just kind of fell out of the habit.  It just made me realize how important it is to constantly be reading the scriptures and going to church.  It is easy to become complacent and not fall out of activity.  It really is sad to find them and just think that they really aren't happy!  They might think they are but they don't realize the blessings they are missing out on! 

The work here is so interesting.  I definitely am having a hard time teaching white people.  It is so much harder calling people to repentance in English!!  I am not sure why it is so much more difficult for me but I leave realizing that my stomach was just in knots the whole time.  Its find teaching investigators, but less actives is more difficult.  I am working on it though, maybe I just need to realize that my job as a missionary is to bring people closer to Christ in Spanish or in English.  Zebra work is interesting, we are teaching a couple of white people and a few spanish people. I know it is going to be hard to get people to come to church here because there are about three people that come here that speak Spanish.  I just have to keep telling myself that President put us here for a reason and if the people read that Book of Mormon and pray about it, and come to church, it won't matter if there are alot of people that speak spanish, we can always translate for them.  So cool story for this week!!  so since Bethany went to Peru on her mission I have just been hoping to meet and teach someone from Peru.  Well the other day we went to find this less active.  We knocked on her door and weren't 100% positive that she was spanish.  so we started to talk to her in english.  She spoke a little but it definitley was not her first language.  so we started to speak in Spanish.  It was almost instant the change in her countenance.  She invited us in to her home even though before she had had a "headache".  We sat down and learned that her husband had died  5 months ago and that she was really struggling.  she has two boys that have not been baptized.  Anyway, she is from Peru and I told her that my sister had served in Peru.  It was fun to have a teeny tiny connection with her that way.  She let us share a message with her, and also sing a song.  She was so sweet and I definitely feel like we were guided there at that time to help her.  Hopefully we can help her understand that if she starts to come to church she will have more peace in her life.  She was just the sweetest lady, and now I have fulfilled my desire to teach someone from Peru:) 

The ward is really wonderful and they continue to take good care of us.  They always ask us if we need dinner, we wish that they would be asking if we need more member presents!!  I never realized it was such a big deal for members to come to lessons, but if a member comes to a lesson,. the investigator is that more likely to come to church because they aren't as scared.  That is something that we have to work on here in Taft, is to find members to come to us with lessons. 

Well I hope you know that I love you so much and I think of you each and everyday.  I am SO grateful for the support that I recieve from you all each and everyday.  It makes it so much easier knowing that I have family at home cheering me on!  I love you so much!

Les AMO!

Hermana Clark

Letter #32

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well family this week has been a WHIRLWIND!! So let me just paint the picture of taft for you...imagine a town out in the middle of nowhere, so flat that you can see for miles and miles.  The only thing that is obstructing your view are those oil things that go up and down, and also some brown haze from all of the pollution.  Once you get into the town only the main intersections have stop signs, most of the houses have been abandoned, and much to my delight there are stray cats and dogs roaming the streets night and day...but with all of this the people are really nice and I actually quite like it here.  It has a small town feel and the members are SO EXCITED to have gotten rid of pile Elders and to have sister missionaries now.  We live in a pretty great apartment.  It is small but it feels like home more and more every day.  So we white washed in, and usually Elders would have kept track of people using the area book but the last update was in about august so we are trying to contact the very few people there are in there.  And also find the elect!  I really feel like there are lots of people who have just been prepared here to accept the gospel.  There are so many spanish people here I love it!! Also another interesting thing here is that we are doing zebra work.  That means we are working with Spanish people AND English people.  Mom asked me how big the unit is here.  The answer is that it doesn't even exist.  There is only one ward here and there is no unit.  I'm guessing President sent us here to try to start one up.  The white people here work on the oil rigs and the spanish people work around picking oranges.  there are so many orange fields around, well once you get out of Taft a few miles there are orange fields:)  So basically we are trying to get our focus here and I think we will focus on finding Spanish people, but teach the English people the elder's were already semi teaching.  There is one lady that has a baptisimal date for this month but we have to work with her to quit smoming.  She is really nice though. Church yesterday was really interesting.  Alot of people were gone since it was new years and my companion and I thought that that was everyone, but we found out that about half of the ward was not there.  So we will be able to see more people next Sunday.  The Ward Mission Leader and his wife are so  nice!  She is from Burley and reminds me of aunt Bonnie, just so willing to help us out and always busy helping people out.  We went there for dinner and they fed us lunch and I learned how to make pupusas!  They are so good and I will definitely have to teach you all how to make them as well!  My companion is really great to!  This is her second to last transfer and she is from Washington.  She is really laid back, but hard working.  I have really grown to love her this past week. 

So my homework for everyone this week is to google earth Taft so that you can really get a glimpse of its wonderfulness.  Tonight we are having dinner with the 1st counselor in the Bishopric and he said he is going to make us "lengua"  which is cow tongue.  Not sure how this is going to turn out, but I will have to let you know this week. 

I love you all, I will be praying for Sam this week.  Please keep me updated on how he is doing. I love you all.  The church is true and the Book of Mormon is powerful, I hope you are reading it!

LES QUIERO!!

Hermana Clark

Letter #31

Well family I have great news!! Christmas was wonderful.  My companion is so cute and caring, she knows how much a love snow and so she had been shredding papers for weeks.  When she woke up she took the box of paper and through it in the air and wished me a happy white Christmas.  Christmas was a day I will never forget!! We had couple of appointments.  One with a lady who is getting baptized next month.  As we ended her husband had little tears in his eyes and told us how we he is grateful for us.  Ofcourse I started to tear up a little. It was just so sweet.  His wife and daughter are getting baptized together.  It was cool though because we talked about she has to keep the word of wisdom for four weeks before baptism and she has a slight coffee problem.  She simply said, well I have to stop them.  She knows that baptism is essential and is making the next step to an eternal family with her baptism.  The cool thing is that she totally understands that.  They wished us a merry Christmas.  I will be sad that I will not be there for her baptism, but understand that I will never forget them or there sweet little family!  Also I don't know if you knew this but Christmas Eve in the Hispanic culture is bigger than Christmas day.  And EVERYONE make tamales!! We were walking around Las Casitas and the streets even smelled like tamales.  Literally everyone had tamales cooking.  We went to visit someone and she gave us tamales with cheese and Chili's. It was the best tamale I have ever tasted.  She also gave us fried homemade tortillas with cinnamon and Sugar.  Delicous?? I think YES!!  She also gave us some dessert tamales with pineapples.  I still haven't tried them but they I am sure they are delicious.  Also another thing is that hispanics have pride for them tamales.  They will always say these are tamales de Mexico or Tamales de Quatemala.  I didn't realize there were so many different types, but there are.  We ate dinner with a less active who I have grown to LOVE!!  We were the first ones to try her tamales which was the first time she had ever made them:)  She also gave us little gifts.  As she handed them to us, she said "Van a gustar lo"  Meaning you are going to like it!! We wondered the whole rest of the night what it was that she was so sure we were going to like.  Well, she gave us each a scarf.  It was so cute!!  

So now for the big news!!!! I will no longer be in Newberry Park.  I am being transferred to TAFT!!! HAHAHA I hear it is the arm pit of California.  It's a small town in the desert. Near Bakersfield.  I am white washing with Hermana Hatch.  She is older than me and is and awesome missionary, well that is what I hear.  If you are wondering what white washing is, it means that the Elders that are there now are poop heads and lost the trust of the members there and didn't do anything, so President has to send some sisters in to clear everything up.  It is going to be an adventure and I am so excited!!! I can't imagine  not having a companion that knows the area, but I guess now we will be an level ground.  My companion Hermana Tippetts, will be training!!  She is kind of nervous, but whoever her new greenie, she is so lucky!!! Well I love you all.  Thank you so much for the gifts that were sent.  I am so grateful for all of the support that I receive from you, I don't think I would be able to do this without you!!

Les AMO MUCHISISISIMO!!!

Hermana Clark

Letter #30

Well it really isn't looking very much like christmas for reals, but it is getting slightly cold.  But I am not complaining:)  This week went by really, really fast and I was able to have a couple of sweet experiences.  I honestly can't believe it is already December.  I was thinking that this time last year I was getting my papers to be sent in and wondering where I would be going.  I don't even know what happened this year. I sure hope I have been doing the things the Lord wants me to do!  So for the stories of the week!!

First, we started teaching this older couple.  I have decided it is one of my dreams to baptize an older couple because they are so set in there ways, so if I could help them change then that would just be awesome.  Anyway, we talked to them about the Book of Mormon and how it can bring us peace in this life.  As we were finishing, the man, started talking and said that we looked peaceful and happy and he wanted to have that in his life.  That really brought joy to me because a lot of times we wonder as we declare to people if they can see that we are representatives of Christ, if they can see something in us that is different.  It was cool to see that one person saw something different in us that day.  We gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to read it.  I sure hope that do!!  So we had kind of a sad experience this week to.  So we had this investigator.  He is the live in boyfriend of one of the members in  the unit.  We love going over there because they love the missionaries.  Well he just hasn't been progressing at all, not reading, not really praying about Joseph Smith.  So we decided that even though it was going to be hard we were going to have to drop him as an investigator and tell him that we can make an appointment when he comes to church.  Well the lesson turned out to be good.  We talked about agency and how it was his choice to follow the promptings of the Spirit and that we couldn't come over and make appointments any more.  So as a back up story, all the people that told me I wouldn't cry because of Spanish lied to me.  I of course shed a little tear as a bore my testimony to him.  And he started crying to! It was kind of like breaking up with someone.  I couldn't believe he was actually crying, i didn't think he was going to take it that hard.  So that was saturday and on Sunday we talked to Ingrid his girlfriend, she said that when we left he said that we broke his heart.  So we have been wondering if we did the right thing.  I know we did.  we tried to explain that we were hurting more then helping us because we were teaching him the truth and he was having many experiences but was rejecting it.  I know one day he will understand why we had to do that, he will understand when he gets baptized which I know that one day he will.  

Well those are somethings that happened this week.  This week we have a Christmas Devotional and I am playing a piano solo.  I am pretty nervous, but will be praying that I will do ok:)  I hope that everyone has a WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!! Take a few minutes and remember why we celebrate Christmas and bring a little Christmas cheer to the people around you.  I love you all so much!!

LES QUIERO!!

Hermana Clark

Letter #29

Well first off I am SO EXCITED for you all to be in the stake presidency of the 7th stake.  That was my Stake!! President Mendenhall was my stake presidency and I was in the 35th ward.  I just know you are going to love that so much.  That is so crazy for me to think of you two sitting there and getting to know all of the college kids.  Mom you are going to be a great relief society advisor and I am sure dad you will have such a great time getting to know those college students.  I always loved seeing the Heiners in my ward.  You are going to have to tell me what ward you are in and what apartment complexes you cover.  Maybe now that they changed the stakes and everything it will be different but that is just so exciting!!  I can utterly not believe that Christmas is so close!  It is raining today so that's not the funnest.  Today my companion got a package and it had a Christmas present in for her so now we have a present under our little christmas tree.

So this week was pretty crazy and wonderful!  We had our unit Christmas party.  We ate dinner which was so good.  There was Turkey, rice and beans (of course), salad, the most delicious punch ever, and chocolate flan (a traditional mexican dessert) everything was so good, and then we had a piñata.  They made me and my companion sing a little song before we left.  It was wonderful and so fun to get pictures of everyone.  I kind of have a feeling that my time here is getting short so I am trying to take lots of pictures.  It is so funny, the members all know that once the camera comes out, someone is going to be leaving.  I don't know if you all got the feeling that you would be leaving.  IT makes me sad because the work here is definitely progressing.  One of the couples is planning a wedding in a couple of weeks so she will be able to be baptized with her daughter in January.  It has been so fun to see that family progress.  This next week we are going to be having a little Christmas program and a little gift exchange.  I am excited for that, it should be fun to get together with a few of the zones.  

So a cool thing that happened last week...we had been teaching this girl that lived with one of our members.  She has a really sad story, she was being abused by her boyfriend who was actually in jail for abusing her.  She was pregnant with his baby, but she lost the baby.  We visited her in the hospital, and she was really progressing.  Saying prayers and reading in the Book of Mormon.  One day we went over and she had moved.  IT was really sad.  We tried to call her but her phone was disconnected.  So we would ask about her but no one really knew where she was.  Well the other night we were walking around Las Casitas and we heard this man yelling at us through his car window.  We just kept walking because sometimes creepy spanish men say things to us but we just ignore it.  But he just kept doing it and so we turned around and this girl starts running towards us.  Well it was Ashley!! The girl we had been teaching.  She got accepted to a 6 month program to help her get over the abuse and everything.  She seemed to be doing really well.  The person she was with came over to tell us thank you for helping Ashley through some of those trying times. It was such a sweet experience.  Even though she wasn't baptized it was good to know that we helped her through some hard times which helped her get into this program.  We got her address so now you know I will be writing her!

Well I hope that everyone is doing wonderful!!! Stay warm:)

Les AMO!

Hermana Clark

Letter #28

Well this week has been pretty crazy!  We had some interesting experiences and some sad experiences to.  We had to drop one of our investigators.  It was sad but she just wasn't ready to accept the gospel yet.  This last week we had some fun activities.  Here they put on a play type thing of the birth of Jesus Christ. All the youth participate and they do it out side on the lawn of the church.  It brings some nonmembers into the church and so it makes some good opportunities for the missionaries.  On saturday we had the ward party.  The party was for both the Spanish unit and the English ward.  Two men in the ward did a skit of the 12 days of Christmas using raw chickens.  It was pretty hilarious but the whole time I was thinking to myself that all of the Spanish people here are thinking Americans are so ridiculous.  It was fun though and is always fun to be with the ward.  We are having a party just for the spanish unit this Saturday which I am very excited for.  Hopefully we can get some investigators there.  We had one of our investigators at church yesterday and he seemed to have enjoyed it.      We just worked a lot this week trying to find knew people and trying to help the people we are teaching progress.  Oh and we also had Zone conference this week, which of course was AWESOME!  We got new phones and they installed these little things in our car that are supposed to monitor our speed and how fast we stop and stuff.  It was kind of funny because me and my companion had been talking about how president probably has tracking devices and on his iPad he sees a little dot for all the cars and they beep when we brake the speed limit or if we leave our area or something. Then at Zone Conference he told us about this little box that is connected to some type of satellite and is supposedly going to talk to us when we go to fast and stuff.  My comp and I just looked at each other as he was telling us this.  We must have gotten revelation or something:)  We learned a lot about how our purpose as missionaries is to help people to come to christ, but we can help them higher than we are.  Therefore we have to come unto him our selves. President Castro talked about how our goal is to be like Jesus Christ and we have to have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End, and grace is what helps us through all of these steps to refine us and help us become like Christ.  One thing he said that really hit me was that he said as missionaries we are the closest thing to Christ as our the people will see in this life.  That blew me away, and really made me think.  I really am a representative of Jesus Christ, and when the people see me, do they see Christ, can they feel his love.  There is that scripture in Alma 5 that asks us if we have received his image in our countenance.  Really to become like Christ is everyones goal, and as we take the proper steps we become like Christ.  We fall and we have weaknesses but the grace of God is what makes it possible for us to really reach this goal.  I have so many things that I have to change about myself to reach that, but it is comforting that God doesn't expect us to be perfect in an instant, it is a process, day by day, minute by minute.  It is especially applicable at this time of the year when we can think about what we can change about ourselves to help us receive Christ in our countenance for the upcoming year.  

Well I hope you all have a good week and take some time to think about Christ and what he did for us.  

So the place where we do most of our tracking is awesome! There are SO many lights!  Some of them even have music playing outside.  It is so interesting how they don't like have any money but yet they have all of these elaborate house decorations.  The other night my comp and I saw this group of people.  one person was carrying a statue of the Virgen Maria in a glass box, there was like 20 people following her with candles and chanting.  Oh the traditions of the world.  I couldn't even believe my eyes.  People always say that they don't worship the Virgen Maria, I am pretty sure walking around with her with candles and chanting is worshipping!  Hispanic people just love her and actually think she is the mother of all of us.  Oh the lies of Satan!  We are doing our best to spread the gospel and let people know that worshipping her is definitely not ok!

Well I hope all the Christmas parties go well.  I love you all!!

Les quiero MUSHISISIMO!

Hermana Clark