Hola Familia y Amigos!!
Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to email me and read my letters. I feel so loved when I open up my email and see so many new emails from the ones I love!! It is a true JOY!!
Anyways, this week was such a roller coaster. It was so awesome, and so horrible, and so spiritual, and just...Wow. so much to say, but really not very much to say at all.
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| Our nametags |
I mentioned last week how I got really sick with a cold and I received a blessing from the Hatews (Elders Hatch Tews) and they blessed me that I would be healed according to my faith. I then mentioned that Hermana Pratt had given a lesson in relief society about the Book of Mormon and taught us that one of the blessings of the Book of Mormon was health. So I began reading my book of Mormon like crazy! I can truly say that sister Pratt was inspired to give that lesson and that I was healed! I got over my cold/sinus infection the next day! It was so awesome. Unfortunately though, on Friday I got a really bad case of the Flu. UGGHHH. We were having language lessons with Hermano Klabanka and it was the night lessons, and I just started feeling so sick! I pushed through it for about an hour and a half, but at around 8 I had to leave and was throwing up all night. It was so miserable.
Being sick away from home is one thing, but being sick in another country is another. It was awful. BUT, it was fast Sunday this week, and here at the CCM, we begin our fasts on Saturday at lunch. So I had thrown up all night on Friday, then I didn't eat breakfast on Saturday, and I ate a little bit of lunch, then fasted until Sunday at Lunch time. By the time Sunday Lunch came around, I was so hungry that I didn't even care if I was sick, so I ate. I didn't really over eat, but I ate more than I probably should have. So then, after lunch, we went to the classroom to have an hour of language study. I started feeling really sick again, so I decided not to go to the devotional
:o( I stayed at home and Sister Schaefer teamed up with some other sisters. We had gone to the doctor earlier, and he said that when you are sick, your companion can join a trio and you can stay at home and your bed will be your companion, so that is what we did.
So I stayed home, and I just lost it. It is just so hard being sick here! I felt bad because I was missing out on the Devotional, which I LOVE! And I was sad because I missed my family, and it was just awful. So I was crying and throwing up, but then I decided to start reading my scriptures again. I came across a couple of verses that really stood out to me. Ether 12: 6 & 27. "6. And now, I Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not see; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. 27. And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." Those verses were exactly what I had needed to hear because earlier the last week, we had the lesson with Hermana Arbon, the one where we talked about the talk "the fourth missionary." During that talk, I realized that here, at the MTC, I am so aware of my weaknesses, and that is super hard. I took some notes on some of the quotes in the talk that I loved. It said, "to believe weaknesses and deficiencies in your character are unchangeable is to reject the central truth of the plan of salvation. Every challenge you face happens for one purpose only, to apply the teachings of and become like Jesus." So after giving those verses and quotes some thought, I decided to kneel down and pray. I prayed to my Father in Heaven and I told him exactly how I felt, and I truly felt myself become humble before him, and I gave him my weakness. When I got up, I felt better, and I felt an overwhelming amount of love, and I truly felt the presence of my loved ones. It was awesome. I got dressed and I continued on with the rest of the Sunday activities and I haven't been sick once since then. I know that I am such a stronger person because of that trial.
SO, on a more exciting note. We finished teaching our investigator, Randy, who I talked about. We had committed him to baptism, and the first investigator here at the MTC was really for you to see what teaching is all about, and for the most part, we realized that we could have done much better, so they gave us a chance to start over. Randy, our investigator is now our night teacher. He teaches us for a few hours after dinner. His name is Hermano Klabaka. He is so awesome. We all adore him. We make fun of our district Elders and call him their "man crush". They literally worship him. It's hilarious. We are still teaching him though, but this time, he goes by "Lucas." We got to start fresh with Lucas, and we had a really great first lesson with him. We just got to know him, and then we taught him about how God is our Loving Heavenly Father, then we asked him to pray.
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| H. Schaefer and me with Hermano Klabaka, aka Randy, or Lucas |
Ok, funny story. We have loved having Hermano Klabanka as our teacher because we have the strongest love for him because he was our first investigator, so we have a really good time. So, he was teaching our language section of class and he was teaching us about "Gustar" which means "to please." So he told us to give him a sentence in English, so that he could show us how it worked. Elder Sutton then randomly was like "It pleases her to play with the chickens." H. Klabanka just looked up with the most confused look on his face, then we all just completely lost it. We laughed for so long, and all of our faces were bright red...THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SPEND 9 HOURS IN A CLASSROOM! You slowly start to go mad. I love it though.
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| Our classroom |
We also have another investigator! So we have two investigators at once now. Our new investigator is our morning teacher, Hermana Arbon, who I LOVE! She reminds me of my sisters. But she is pretending to be herself.../so I guess she isn't pretending, but it's still fake... Does that make sense? Well anyways, her name is Holly, and we taught her yesterday morning for the first time. We basically did the same thing we did with Lucas. We got to know her, talked to her a little bit, then we taught her about God being our loving Heavenly Father, and she prayed for us. I love the first lessons because we usually ask them to pray, and the spirit is so strong when they pray because they have such a desire to know the truth and to feel the spirit. Even though the lessons are fake, they are so real. They really follow through with the commitments that we ask them to accomplish and they tell us how they really feel. I love it!!! It is also made me feel much better about my Spanish. With Randy, we were just beginning so we didn't really understand what he was saying and we just had to stick with what we prepared. Now that we know a bit more Spanish, we have more room to be guided by the spirit and testify of the things that they need to hear.
BUT, even though I am feeling better about my Spanish... I am struggling SO BAD!! Learning a new language is so hard! I just need to have more faith, but it is so hard sometimes when you have books in front of you and you have the opportunity to write down exactly what you want to say in the lessons. The lessons just aren't as powerful when you read them, so we really try to be lead by the Spirit when it comes to knowing what to say...but it's so hard. Ugh. Sometimes I wish that I was an English missionary, just because I know it would be so much easier. But I'm grateful for this opportunity to learn Spanish and I know that it will bless my life so much. I also love getting to know the Mexicans here. They are so humble and so awesome. I love them so much. I'm so blessed to live in a casa full of Mexicans. It seems like all of our other American friends live in casas with other American sisters, so we felt kid of sad at first, but we love our new friends.
Speaking of our Latina friends that lived in our casa, THEY LEFT ON MONDAY!! IT WAS SO SAD!! We built such strong friendships with them and grew to love them so much. On Sunday night we all just hugged each other and cried. We wished them luck on their missions, then said goodbye. It was so hard. I took some pictures for you all though. I SERIOUSLY LOVE THEM!
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| The Hermanas in our Casa. LOVE THEM AND MISS THEM |
But, this morning after we checked our emails really fast, Hermana Schaefer and I went to clean our casa. We noticed a suitcase next to one of the beds in our room and we started freaking out! We have been very spoiled so far because we have had our room to ourselves, but now I guess we have some roommates. The girl who belonged to the random suitcase in our room came in the casa for a couple of minutes. She looks like a really sweet girl, but she is super shy. We think it is because she doesn't speak or understand any English and we were kind of speaking Spanglish to her. But I'm sure we will grow to love her and the other sisters who move into our casa as well...I just hope that at least one speaks a little bit of English. If not, we will get so much practice with our Spanish!
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| Our Neighbor. She spoke English and we were really close to her. So sad she left, but she's going to be a great missionary. |
Ok, another sad thing happened this week. We lost an elder in our district. His name was Elder Kemp, and I seriously loved him so much. I mean, I love all of the elders in our district, but all for completely different reasons. Elder Kemp was so fun and was so sweet to everyone. I sat next to him a lot, and I got to chat with him a lot. We all knew that he was having a little bit of a hard time, but didn't know how bad it was. He got up to bear his testimony on Sunday, and he gave the sweetest testimony and he just had tears streaming down his face, and I just knew that he knew the Gospel was true, I felt the spirit so much. Yesterday a staff member called him and his companion out of class, so he grabbed all of his stuff and they left. His companion came back, but we just thought he was meeting with the branch president or something, but he had been gone for a while, so we asked his companion, Elder Schmutz, and he got a really sad look and told us that he left. It was so sad. My heart is so broken. It's so hard losing a member of the district because we are so close.
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| Our district with some Latinos in our building. We miss them (Elder Kemp next to me. I miss him, too.) |
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| Elders Scaife, Sutton and Peterson. They're so goofy :) |
HMMMMM. What else.....Sorry if this kind of bounces all over the place, there is just so much going on...hmmmm...
I have made so many awesome friends here. It's kind of a smaller MTC...Even thought it's huge, and we've gotten to know a lot of the other hermanas personally during meal times, and we LOVE the hermanas in our Branch. There are 4 companionships of Hermanas in our branch, including us, and we've gotten super close. We got a Trio last week, and they are so cute. Two of them are Polynesian and the other one is just white, but they are so cute and I've enjoyed sitting with them at meals and getting to know them better. We still like to sit by Hermanas McDonald & Scow, and Hermanas Faw & Christiansen, though. They're just awesome. BUT!! Oh my goodness. Some of our friends are leaving next week!! They're the first generation, so we haven't experienced friends leaving before. It's going to be so sad!! Hermanas Stewart & Carter are leaving next week!! They're our sister district leaders and they are so sweet! They have done so much for me! When I was sick, Hermana Schaefer teamed up with them to go to the devotional and to dinner and they brought me a plate of food, and they asked me how I'm feeling every day and give the best hugs. I can't believe this is our last week with them. I'm going to miss them so much.
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| Hermana Schaefer, McDonald, Scow and Me |
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| H. Scow is hilarious |
Funny story, so yesterday during service, (the weird things always happen during service, ha ha)we were once again washing the tables in the comedor, and all of a sudden we heard this loud obnoxious siren going off. It was just the hermanas, so we all looked at each other, then the janitor guy, who of course was Mexican and doesn't speak a word of English just like the rest of the staff here, started shouting at us in Spanish. We, of course, didn't have a clue of what he was saying, so we just stood there stunned. Then we started seeing people running out of their classrooms to stand in the "safe zones," which are these huge blue circles with arrows that are placed everywhere around campus, usually in the middle of the street. Then we looked at each other and realized that it was an earthquake alarm. So we ran into the street and found a safe zone, but it's funny because the circles aren't that big, so we had to stand so close. We were just like "WHAT IS GOING ON" ha ha. It was funny. It was only a drill, though, so we just had to stay there for like a minute. Then we got to go back to service.
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| The "safe zones" |
Then, at the end of service, we were with a bunch of first weekers, so H. Schaefer, Faw, Christensen, and I, were counted on to translate what the janitor guy was telling us. He was trying to tell us we could go home now, but we kept on mixing up "Hogar" with Jugar" so we kept telling the rest of the hermanas that he was saying that we could go play now, but he kept shaking his head and repeating and we still didn't understand. The it hit us and we were like "OH HOGAR!!" That makes so much more sense! "WE CAN ALL GO HOME NOW!" It was funny. The language barrier is so hilarious. I hate it, but I love it.
I feel like I am leaving so much out, but my brain is just so tired HMMM.
Oh yeah, Pres. Pratt gave a devotional about temples yesterday. It was so awesome. His whole life his job has been working on legal affairs for the church, specifically in South America, so he has lived EVERYWHERE. He told us about how literally every single temple in South America came to be. IT WAS SO COOL. He grew up in Mesa, Arizona, and was sealed in the Mesa temple, so he talked a lot about that temple, which was awesome because that is my temple. He talked about how that was the closest temple for those in Central/South America and how they would give up everything they had to receive the blessings of the temple. He has worked for the church and lived in South America for 50 years now. He said that when he and his family lived in Chile 50 years ago, there wasn't one temple in South America, now there are 22 I think...I think it's 22 or something close. But he said it is an absolute miracle, and a direct blessing from those who gave everything they had to receive their temple blessings. It was such a neat fireside and I gained such a love for the temple. He said another thing that was awesome. He said, "Too often, young people live with the goal of getting married in the temple, but they don't have the goal of receiving the true blessings of attending the temple." I loved it. We are so blessed to live so close to temples. Take advantage of that. Go to the temple often.
ALSO, on the subject of the devotional last night, before the devotional we had some language study time, and we had all finished, and we were just talking to the elders of our district, then all of a sudden, it started raining. And I mean RAINING. It was raining so hard that we had to shout to hear each other over the thuds of the rain hitting the roof. The it started HAILING. Like HUGE HAIL. And this was like 5 minutes before the devotional. Our whole building was out in the hallways freaking out and shouting trying to hear each other. We weren't sure if we were really supposed to walk clear across the campus to go to the devotional, but we decided that we had better try. So we got our umbrellas and BOOKED it to the auditorium. The streets were literally rivers, water rushing, our whole bodies got completely soaked, our shoes completely soaked. It was so crazy. It was awesome seeing the auditorium of about 800 missionaries who had booked it through the rain to hear our Mission President speak to us about temples We were all soaking wet, but it was so worth it.
I'm kind of bummed to get new people today. The CCM is getting so crowded. When we first got here, it was still so small and we only took up half of the comedor. Last week we had to start using the other half, and I'm sure this week, meal time is going to be a zoo. but he, it's so great to see the hastening of the work. It's so real. This gospel is so real and so true. We are ready to share the good news.
I love it here. It's definitely been hard and been such a trial of my faith, but I'm so blessed to have met all of the elders and sisters here, they truly are amazing, and they will be very successful missionaries WE love this gospel and WE are strong enough to leave our families behind and serve our Lord! Only with His help, of course.
I love you all so much, and I love hearing from you! Can't wait to catch up with everyone once again next week. Stay tuned. I'm sure next week will be exciting. We get to go to the Mexico City Temple next Wednesday morning. I'm so excited, but so nervous to do the whole session in Spanish. Wish me luck. Love you all!!
~Hermana Clark
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This is from last week, but I love it. It is a close up of my district and shows our personalities a bit better. For some reason Elder Quackenbusch isn't in the photo, though. I love that kid, too! I love them all so much!! They are so great. Just know that you don't need to worry about me because these elders adore us hermanas.
They tell us every day. They take very good care of us and I feel blessed. |
