Hola!!

Hola!!

Como estan!! How is everyone doing??? I hope you all had a fantastic week! I know I did, but every week is good when you're serving the Lord!! Unfortunately though, I don't have any interesting library stories to share with y'all this week. The librarian is having a bad day, so she isn't really saying much :( hahaha love her though!

Photo from the mission blog of incoming missionaries

So this week, where do I begin? It feels like a lot happened this week, but we didn't really get that much accomplished unfortunately. Well, we got stuff accomplished, but we didn't do as much as last week. This week we had two all day training meetings in Morristown on Thursday and Friday. We are in a walking area, so we had to figure out how to get down there. Luckily, there is a cute sister trio in our district who came and picked us up and drove us there. They were so sweet to do that because it is about 45 minutes out of their way. We have the best district. I don't remember if I told you guys but it's the sister trio, us and then elders, so its 5 sisters and 2 elders. hahahaha The elders must feel super weird during district meetings, but they're so awesome. Our district leader, Elder Cuevas is just this big loving guy, then his companion, Elder Wasden, was actually in the Mexico MTC with me! I love being around Elder Wasden because his Spanish is much worse than mine, it makes me feel good about myself. hahahaha poor Elder.

Anyways, the training meetings were so fun! It was zones 1-5 I think, so there was like 70ish missionaries. We met in Morristown and we got training on how to be better teachers. We did a ton of role plays. I don't really like role plays, but they helped a lot. We got a ton of food too, which was awesome. I miss American food! haha. We had my favorite too! Lasagna and BBQ sandwiches! MMMMM.

This photo was taken by Sister Jeppson and posted on her blog.

President and Sister Jeppson and the Senior couples are so awesome! President Jeppson is such a good speaker. I always feel so inspired when he talks to us and Sister Jeppson is soooo loving. I always feel loved whenever they are around. It is so cute, President Jeppson just sits up there in the front while the missionaries are giving the trainings and he just grins like a proud pappa. And he should too, there are some pretty fantastic missionaries here in New Jersey. I am so happy to be a part of this work, and I am so glad to be serving in New Jersey. Its the perfect place for me.

West New York is a great place to be right now! So many people who are prepared! I don't remember if I have mentioned this before, but the missionaries in the ward teach an English class during the week. It is on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. There are 3 sets of missionaries, so we just switch days usually. There is supposed to be a teacher who is a member of the ward, but she is sick a lot so we have to take over a lot. I LOVE THE ENGLISH CLASS!! They are so darn cute when they try to speak English. (I hope that is how people feel about me when I try to speak Spanish, hehe.) But Sister Martin and I have really grown to love the people in the class. Most of them aren't members, so it is a really great place for us to try to pick up investigators. We are going to make fliers about la noche de hogar (family home evening) so we can invite them all to attend. We are in charge of la noche de hogar every week, its super fun too. Were going to try to get a lot more people to come. It's a good way to get the members to invite their friends. BUT, last week, during la clase de ingles, I was teaching with Elder Wasden because Sister Martin was doing the correlation meeting with the ward mission leader in the lobby. I was turned around to the board, and one of the members was yelling at me to get my attention "HERMANA, HERMANA" Then she pointed at a non member who was in the class, "quiere un libro de Mormon!" ahahaha. She was yelling at me! It was funny, but I got to give this random guy a libro de Mormon. He turned out to be SUPER interested, so I explained a little bit, then when Sis. Martin came back in, we scheduled an appointment with him for the following week. So we met with him this week on I think Monday or Tuesday. His name is Alfredo and he is from Guatemala. He is such an awesome guy! We had a really really good first lesson with him and we just kind of got to know him a little bit and we established our expectations with him. A member was with us and he bore his testimony, it was awesome. We asked him to read the introduction. So then we met with him the next day, he didn't know what the introduction was, but he read the first chapter in 1 Nefi, which was good too. We talked a little bit about what he read, then we read the intro with him, and just told him all about the Book of Mormon. He was so awesome, and he understood it perfectly. We left him with the commitment to read 2 Nefi 31, which talks about the Doctrine of Christ. The next day, we were at one of the training meetings in Morristown, but he called us in the middle. We called him back during one of our snack breaks and he said that he had read 2 Nefi chapters 29-32 and he was wondering what he should read next! We were so excited! He read more than we asked him to and he was calling us during work wanting to know what else to do! He is seriously so awesome!! We told him to just start from the beginning. We were supposed to meet with him on Friday night, but he ended up canceling because he got off of work late, but on Saturday night, he came to la noche de hogar. He met some members and we shared a message about los profetas. We played the game telephone, and we related it to how sometimes a message gets interpreted differently by different people, that is why we need a prophet to guide us. Everyone had a lot of fun. Then Hermana Suarez brought some pudding and cookies for desert. We had some of the ward members who were there help us give Alfredo a tour of the church. They are so funny because they are so bold. Hermana Teran told Alfredo "This is where we come on Sundays because its a commandment of God" It was so funny the way she said it. then Alfredo was like "all day" Then she said "si" then one of the other members who was with us was like "we're only here for an hour" ahahahhaa. They're so funny. I love them. And we got to show him the baptismal font too. It was cool. We are hoping to put him on date tonight. We prayed about it and we really feel like we should invite him to be baptized on 27 de Octubre. I really feel like he will except. He's so awesome.

Also, other investigators. We have this really awesome family who the other sisters were teaching. I really feel like there have been things happening to try to keep us from visiting them because we only met with them once last week. The second we walked into their home though, we felt the spirit literally like a wave. It was so strong. We had been trying to visit with them for a long time, but things kept happening. We were really nervous about the family because the sister who was in WNY before us told that Olinda, (the woman), was really attached to them and that she might struggle listening to other missionaries. But we met with them, and they are so awesome and so prepared. 

Adiel (the man) is praying and fasting to get work off so he can attend church, but he reads el libro de Mormon every day. She tries to read every day, but says its hard because she has to look after their daughter and she needs to work and stuff. I don't know how to explain it, but Sister Martin and I feel something so strong when ever we discuss this family. We were planning for them the other night and we decided that we needed to pray about their baptismal date. They had already accepted the date of 13 de Octubre, but we were having doubts because we are having a hard time keeping in daily contact with them, and we need to teach them more, and they need to attend church more. So we knelt down and prayed for them. It was my first time praying about a baptismal date. We prayed for them, and we just poured out everything we knew about them and what we thought, then we asked to know what date they should be baptized on. While we were praying, I felt an overwhelming amount of love for them, and I knew how important they were to our Father in Heaven. Then, I just knew that it was his desire for them to be baptized on October 13th. I can't even explain it, I just knew. Sister Martin spoke first, and asked me what I was thinking, I told her October 13th, and she said she felt the same way. WE just knew. Soooo. Things still aren't really going that well. We were supposed to meet with them tonight, but they literally just called us while I was typing this and canceled, but we set another appointment with them. We need a lot of prayers with this family. I feel the spirit so strong, and I know they need to be baptized. I love them so much. Pray for them, and pray for us to know what they need and to know what to do to help them. We don't really know what to do, we just know what the Lord wants, and so now we need to figure out how to do it.

Hmmmmmm. Ok, funny story now! So on Saturday, we went to see the Colombian woman in our ward who cooks the best food. She was the one who we had my first dinner appointment with and she just shoveled the food onto my plate. hahahaha. OHHH man shes interesting. She is really really sick, unfortunately, and this week she had a surgery on her eyes. We had been teaching one of her friends in her home, and we had an appointment set to teach them again in her home on Saturday, which we had confirmed with her a couple of hours earlier, so we went over there, with a lesson planned to teach them. We got there and rang the door bell. We hear "Hermanas" so we look up, then all of a sudden there are keys flying at our faces. She threw her house keys from her 3rd floor bedroom window, Luckily Sister Martin caught them. hahaha. We come in, then shes screaming at us from upstairs to come up to see her. We go up there and she is in her PJs and she looks awful. She was in really bad shape from her surgery. She was freaking out because her eyes were bleeding... It wasn't actually that bad, but she was being a little dramatic about it. But, we sang a hymn for her and we prayed, then we hear the door bell, and she says that the elders are here. We had no idea, but apparently she invited the elders over at the same time. So we threw them the keys out the window, then they come up, and they had a member named Hans with them... So the 5 of us are just sitting there awkwardly and shes freaking out about her eyes. Then she yells at the Elder, instructing him to come take her blood pressure... Sister Martin and I were confused, we were like "What? Elder Wasden, When did you learn how to take vitals" His reply: "Last night while we were here visiting Oni." We wanted to crack up laughing so bad, but we managed to keep a straight face. So he took her blood pressure and it was super high, so she started freaking out even worse. She grabbed the phone, then before we knew it she was calling 911, then there were police coming up the stairs. They talked to her, and she wanted to be taken to the hospital.... We didn't really know what to do and we were all just kind of confused. So we go down stairs, she gets in the police car and started throwing up out the door. Then the police man just kind of grabbed Hans to go with them. So Hans and Oni race off down the street with the police and us four missionaries were just left standing there confused about what had just happened... Then we all look at each other and Elder Cueva was all like "AHhhh man! Hans was supposed to be our team up for the rest of the day!" and we all just started cracking up!!!

I swear, after my mission, nothing is going to phase me. The strangest things happen every day. I love it though. I'm so thankful for Sister Martin. She is so much fun to laugh with. We get home and just remember everything that happened that day and we laugh and laugh. It's the best. You've got to have a good sense of humor out here.

On Saturday we got to do a service project. My first service project of the mission! We went down to Passaic and picked up trash at the park. It was soooo crazy how much trash there was in one park!

Photo credit: Sister Jeppson

Sister Martin and I were cleaning the playground area, I was on one side, she was on the other. I was bending over, picking up some Popsicle sticks or something then all of a sudden I hear "Hey, Sister Clark! What do you think we should do with this mattress!" Me: "Oh I don't know.... WAIT, WHAT!!" ahahahha. There was literally a mattress, just chillin at the play ground. We laughed for a while then carried to the fence and kind of propped it up by the trashcans so that maybe the garbage could pick it up. Then a little while later, a young family wanders into the park. There's a little girl playing and her dads just chillin. Then we see him walk over to the mattress, pick it up, then carry it back to the park. Then he changed his kids diaper on the mattress. Then he just left it there. We were like ahhhhhhh what is happening!!! ahahahhaa. Seriously. Nothing will phase me after my mission. WEIRD THINGS HAPPEN ALL THE TIME!!!!

Alright, well that's all I have time for this week. I love you all. I am very happy here, and I enjoyed reading all of my emails and letter this week. Thank you for all that you do.

-Hermana Clark