Fantastic Week!!

EL SENOR ME HA DADO MUCHAS BENDICIONES!

But seriously though. Its true. The Lord has given me so many blessings. Especially last week!! It was goooood.

On Monday I was having a hard time getting out of Pday mode but we went to go see this less active woman that I didn't get to meet last transfer. I was so excited to meet her and I really, really like her. We call her Hna Bueno and she reminds me of my sister Julie. I needed to go visit her that night, it helped me. Its weird how missionary work kind of works the opposite way sometimes, because really, I'm the one that is growing. We are helping her study for an exam and she needs help with the English so we went back over about three more times that week to help her understand the English in the texts books. I really like being at her house because its super classy and it is decorated cute and she really just reminds me of Julie because she's stylish and she has this same kind of sass that Julie has that is hard to put into words. hahaha. It makes me happy going over there. She came to church for the first time since I've been here in Perth Amboy, so that means that we are doing our job as missionaries right!

Speaking of church. Church is either your reward for the week or your little slap on the wrists for the week. This week it was definitely our reward! We had so many less active members come to church this week who hadn't come in ages! And two of the families were all thanks to their Incredible Visiting Teacher! I have gained a huge testimony of Visiting Teaching while I've been on my mission. We have a branch assignment to help the sisters do their visits, so we like to spend a lot of time with the sisters helping them do their visits. We go with them if their companions can't go. This week we actually got to do a split, sister W went with sister Cruz to do her visiting teaching and I went to a meeting with the Relief Society presidency. It was really good. Sister Cruz helped this family to come back to church this week. Then the next day we went with the same sister, Sister Cruz, to help with another inactive family. This family is getting evicted from their house because they can't make the payment. We visit this family a lot, but they just never come to church for various excuses. But we got Sister Cruz involved and she was able to get them a bunch of boxes and other things that they needed for their move. So we went to deliver the boxes and the food that Sister Cruz got them and it was almost time for us to be home. It was about 8:50 and we have to be home at 9 unless were teaching a lesson, so we got on the phone with Paula, the one whose house we were going to and shared a scripture so that we could be in the middle of a lesson, then Hermana Cruz was following us in her car to Paula's house but she was going SO SLOW!!! It was so funny because we were in such a hurry but she kept getting lost. THen we finally got there and we were still in a hurry and we were trying to carry the boxes and they were heavy and we had this huge box of food and we were just in the middle of the street cracking up, then Hna Cruz had to drop all of the boxes because she was laughing so hard and she just kept saying "I'm going to pee. I'm going to pee." ahahahahaha. It was so funny. Then I slipped on ice - then we laughed even harder. It was such a good night. And Paula cried when we gave her all the stuff because she was so happy. Sister Cruz is the best example to us and that experience really helped strengthen our relationship with her because it was hilarious and we helped a sister in the ward. Now every time she sees us she says "CHICAS!! Porque usteds me no saluden!!" so we have to give her a hug every time we see her. It's just funny because she can spot us from across the building and just scream, "CHICAS!!" and we know it's her. I love her so much!! She's hilarious.

 

Friday we had a TERRIBLE lesson with Celenia, our investigator who WAS on baptismal date. We went in planning to teach about prophets, the Word of W isdom and chastity. It started fine, prophets was good, then we got to the Word of Wisdom. You have to have the spirit when you teach the commandments and it was not there. It was our fault. BUT it was also because of the member that we brought in the lesson.. she basically took over the lesson, which was really annoying because some people just don't know how to teach these things. You have to have the spirit, so when the member went off, it was so impossible to bring the spirit back. They were all trying to find ways around the Word of Wisdom.. then we ran out of time because we had to be somewhere so we were just going to teach chastity the next time, but the member brought it up, then Celenia was confused so we had to talk about it... But now she doesn't want to get baptized because the father of her sons lives in the DR and she doesn't know if she should wait to get baptized before or after they get married.... basically everything was terrible... so this week we have to try to fix that. I'm sort of mad. Things could have been handled a lot better than they were. But we're not perfect, but if the spirit is in our next lesson everything will be OK. Its not about our will, but God's.

BUT!! We have another investigator on date!! His name is Modesto! He is the one who has been attending church for about 6 months but he has never been anywhere close to having a baptismal date. When we first started teaching him we would always ask him if he would be baptized but he would decline because he "wasn't ready and wanted to know for sure before such a big commitment".... so we were kind of stuck with him. We taught him all the lessons but he still didn't have a testimony. So a couple of weeks ago we felt like the only way he would be converted was through the Book of Mormon and not through us. He was having a hard time understanding the importance of the Book of Mormon, which is understandable. It is a hard new concept for some people to grasp.. We had always given him chapters to read and he would read them, but he still didn't know why we used the Book of Mormon. So we decided to have him read from the beginning. He started a couple of weeks ago, and when we taught him last week, he had read 13 chapters in one week and he soaked it all in. It was starting to make sense to him. We started seeing a change in him, but we still weren't sure where to go with him. This Saturday we decided to invite him over to the church for breakfast with us and a couple in our branch. We made them pancakes, eggs and sausage. We had a good time talking with all of them. We started the lesson and we followed up on his Book of Mormon reading. He had kept reading and he is in second Nephi now. He started telling us about how he had been pondering deeply on the Book of Mormon and he compared his whole life to Nephi's. It was so incredible how much those two have in common and I have never seen one person gain so much from the Book of Mormon. The spirit was so strong. We weren't planning on asking him to be baptized.. but when he finished telling us about his pondering, we asked him if he believed the Book of Mormon was true. He said yes. Then we asked him to be baptized and he said, "well, yes. SO now what do we do!!" I loved that answer because I felt like he is going to do what ever it took to prepare for that day. We set him up with a day to prepare for that day and we told him all of the things he has to do to prepare for that day and we made plans to get him prepared. We were so led by the spirit in that lesson it was incredible! We were not expecting him to be baptized anytime soon, but its not our plans, its the Lord's. There is GREAT power in the Book of Mormon, all we have to do is read it and ponder it then ask if it is true. It was cool because we didn't even have to do anything... He just had to read it. I'm so amazed and feeling so blessed. He is so converted!!!! We also bought him some new ties to cheer him up because he has been having a bad week, and he came to church wearing a new tie in his new suit that he bought for church and he was just glowing. There is nothing better than seeing the change in people and I have truly seen that in Modesto and that is something that I want to see in ALL of my converts. I will not baptize someone if they are not ready and if they do not have a testimony. I do not want my converts to become inactive after their baptism. That happens way too often. I know that won't happen with Modesto. The change in him is REAL!!

 

SO it was what I would call a very successful week. We saw the Lord's hand every day. Last night we felt really prompted to knock at these one apartments that we had never been too, we just couldn't figure out which door, but we decided we needed to start somewhere so we took turns picking doors. The first two were rejections, then the third time it was my turn, I scanned the doors, then I saw this door with stickers across the court yard and I pointed too it, so we headed over there. We knocked and it was a lady from Uruguay. She was so sweet and we talked to her for a second then we introduced ourselves as missionaries and asked if we could set an appointment with her. She grinned and said absolutely and gave us a number day and time. When we left we felt really strongly that was the door we were supposed to knock... it was about 8 o'clock at that time so we had one more hour. We had 19 lessons for the week at that point and we needed one more lesson to reach our goal for 20 lessons for the week. We didn't have anything planned and we didn't know where to go so we said a prayer in the car... We still weren't feeling anything. Sister Weinstock said, "Just drive to Woodbridge then we'll know where to go from there" We got to Woodbridge and we were just driving around to see if we had any impressions. We weren't really getting any. So sister W said to me "I'm really not feeling anything. You, make a decision and well do it" I looked up and I saw the street "Bunns Lane" I said, OK, well I don't really feel anything either, but one of our investigator lives on this street, we could stop by and teach her. We agreed and we went to park the car. We prayed then got out of the car and started walking up to the door then Sister W. remembered this potential that her and Sister Haddock had contacted the transfer before. We had tried before but no one had answered. We decided to try her instead. We got to the door and knocked. Still no answer. Then the thought came to me that a lot of people live in one house in New Jersey and sometimes the front door isn't actually the front door.. its just kind of an awkward thing to figure out which door is the front door... so we decided to try opening it... so we opened the front door and to our luck! her front door was actually up the stairs!! We just could never tell because of the other door. That is why she was never answering because we were knocking the wrong door all along. We went up there and had a good first lesson with her and set a return appointment. It was cool to see the power of prayer. Sometimes we have to look for the answers and not just expect them. We have to pray with real intent to act.

Well, that's about it for this week. I'm excited for the weeks to come and to see Modesto and Celenia progress further towards baptism.

 

I hope you all have a good week!! Love and miss you!

-Sister Clark

Hola!

Buenas Dias mi familia!!

Espero que todos esten bien!

We had a little bit of a crazy week here in New Jersey. The weather has been TERRIBLE!! On Thursday it snowed so hard all night and day, then Friday it was totally clear, then it snowed all day again on Saturday. Have I ever mentioned to you all how much I hate the snow... Ok, well let me just say that I hate the snow 10x worse here in Perth Amboy, because all of the cars park in the street, but then when it snows, the cars get stuck there on the street, then the snow plows come and make huge piles on the sides of the street that stick out, and people still try to park their cars there but there isn't actually room, then there is only room for one lane of cars to drive down a street, so if your driving down a street and another car comes going the opposite direction as you, you have to pull over and let them pass you because there isn't enough room in the street. IT IS TERRIBLE! And it is supposed to snow again tomorrow, but there is literally no room for the snow... there is no where to put it. We aren't going to have any streets if it snows again. It is stressing me out so bad. People are saying its the worst winter NJ has had in about 30 years. uggghhh barf. 

Thursday was so funny though. It was transfer planning day so we had to take about 5 hours to do our weekly planning and to make our new planners for this transfer and stuff... So early on in the planning at around 2pm we were talking about one of the families that we teach and we were talking about finding them a ride to church, so we decided to ask the Smiths if they would give them a ride. We pick up the phone and dial the Smith's number and no answer... we thought it was kind of weird and so we shrugged it off and decided to try back in about 30 minutes. We tried back in about 30 minutes and again no answer, so we decided we would try back again later.. we try back again later and again no answer... That time it was really strange, they usually answer by the second time, so we started to get a little worried. We called the Elders and asked them to call them, they called them and they didn't get an answer either. So we decided we would just try to call them about every 30 minutes... so we did that all day and we were not getting any answers. By about 6 we were very worried so we called the mission office to try to get a number for one of their kids and no one had any numbers for one of their kids... so we had dinner, then we were going to do our transfer apartment cleaning but we were just so worried about them, we kept calling the elders to see if they would go to their apartment to check on them, but the elders weren't answering either now and we were just supper bugged, then our neighbors needed us for something and we were at out neighbors house for a good 1 and a half hours helping them with something, then we got home and it was 9 and the Smiths still weren't answering, so we basically came to the conclusion that they both had heart attacks, just died from old age or they were in some tragic terrible car accident. We were so stressed out that we couldn't even do our nightly planning. Finally we got a hold of the elders and they got permission to stay out past bedtime to go to the Smith's apartment and check on them. The only problem, you have to have a key to get into their building and there aren't door bells.... so  they went and looked in the garage and their van was there and their phone was in the van. They somehow got up to the Smith's apartment and they were fine, they just had stayed inside all day because of the snow and somehow didn't hear any of the 3 phones that we were calling... UGH OLD PEOPLE!! They called us that night to tell us they were ok and we were so excited to hear their voices! It was so funny though.. WE were literally having heart attacks. I have never been that worried before. I would be torn apart if something happened to the Smiths.

On Saturday night they had a really fun Valentine's day activity. Hispanics go all out with their fiestas. The church was decorated so incredibly! It was a snow day though, and so the cars had to be parked so we got permission to drive to the church and just park here for the day, so we just hung out at the church for a few hours before it started. We were worried that no one was going to come because the snow was so bad, but we were so wrong, nothing is going to stop Hispanics from having their fiestas. hahaha. The turn out was great and everyone had a ton of fun. Sister Weinstock and I mixed the drinks... we had "martinis" hahaha. Everyone was laughing at us sitting at our little drink table. The Smiths also brought these hilarious pictures of them like 50 years ago. 

Our investigators are doing really well. Our girl investigator is doing so well! She is going to get baptized in March, we had to move her date back a couple of weeks because the snow is such an issue with getting people to church. She is sooooo neat though and she is excited to get baptized. 

Our neighbors are still doing well. They're so much fun. They are at their windows every night when we get home to wave at us. IT was so funny on Friday - we decided to go and clean the snow off of the cars in the parking lot and while we were out there doing it they just watched us the whole time. We were out there for like an hour and a half too, they didn't budge. hahha those girls are so cute! 

Well, that's about it. I love you all and hope you have a good week!!

 

p.s. I am staying here in Perth Amboy with sister Weinstock for another transfer!

-Sister Clark

Crazy Week

It was such a crazy week! It is now the 6th week of the transfer, which also means that it is the last week of the transfer. Can you all believe how fast this transfer went by? So here it is again, the excitingness of transfers. Next week we will know if I will be getting a new companion or not and If I will be training, which I highly doubt because I think there is only 2 Spanish sisters coming in. It is so sad though... A lot of sisters went home early this transfer and 3 of them were Spanish and 2 more Spanish sisters are going home at the end of this transfer. President and Sister Jeppson look so tired. It is hard to lose missionaries early. BUT I still cant get over how fast this transfer went by. Its exciting though. I am kind of hoping to see some change. I think Perth Amboy could use some fresh eyes for finding. There is a big possibility that nothing will change though.

So, this week was so insane. Monday after Pday, all of us that were still trapped at the church had to try to get our cars out of the parking lot to go home. Our cars were totally buried and they were stuck in the snow, so we had to push each other out one by one. It was funny. Sister Jeppson was out there taking pictures of us, so there might be pictures of it on her blog. We finally made it home and we had to park our cars for the night and they actually told us to just stay inside... So, we went over to our neighbors to see if we could borrow a board game. WE borrowed monopoly, made a pizza and just played all night. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday we canceled zone meeting because of the weather again. It was raining but it was so cold that it was freezing, but that only lasted for the morning. By the afternoon it was safe enough to go out. We had to go do all of our shopping then we went to Chick Filet  for lunch. Then, we had to leave for Newark at about 3 pm to make it there by 4:30. The senior couples planned to pick me up at the Newark chapel because I went to go see a doctor in NYC. It was so cool to go into Newark. There is a new chapel there that is so cool. It's HUGE and it has underground parking and elevators. Probably the coolest church building I've ever seen. It was a very interesting trip to NYC. The traffic was INSANE because there was people everywhere who came for the Superbowl but then got snowed in on Monday and now everyone was leaving. it took us to hours to get to NYC from Newark, which is a really long time. We were stuck in the Lincoln tunnel for at least 2 minutes because the traffic was stopped in there. It is pretty claustrophobic in there. It was so fun to be in NYC again though. We drove along the coast and I could look out over the Hudson and see my old area of West New York. I miss that place!! Last night sister Orton texted me and told me that our old little neighbor in the WNY apartment who lives downstairs died. Its so sad. I'm going to call her today to see what happened and if they're going to have to move now. :(

We had zone meeting on Wednesday and that was really fun. Our theme for this month is the Book of Mormon. I'm so excited. We're all reading the Book of Mormon in 90 days with a specific theme.

Our investigators are doing well!! The one who was struggling to understand the Book of Mormon is doing really well now. We told him to just start from the very beginning and so he did. We met with him yesterday and he read the first 13 chapters in 2 days and he LOVED it. He talked about what happened for about 20 minutes. It was really neat to see. Our investigator with a baptismal date is having a couple of troubles and we are going to have to move her date back a couple of weeks, but I'm still confident that she will be baptized soon andI will be here to see it. She is so ready, she is just like a sponge soaking it all in. I LOVE teaching her.

On Friday and Saturday I had a really fun exchange with our Sister Training Leader, Sister Schultz. She is an English sister serving in New Brunswick. She came here to Perth Amboy to spend the day with me. The day did not exactly go as planned, but we still had a lot of fun together and she taught me a lot. She is actually finishing her mission next transfer, so shes pretty old, so I definitely had a lot to learn from her. Exchanges are the best.

Wow, there is some drama here in this little branch. The things missionaries have to deal with are kind of crazy sometimes. It makes for really good stories though. I love it.

Our neighbors are doing well. The daughter will be having her second treatment this week, so keep her in your prayers. I love them, they are so fun be with.

Well, I think that's about all there is to report on this week. I hope you all have a good week!!

-Sister Clark

I hate the superbowl

So, today it is snowing like crazy!!! The cars are parked for the day, BUT our zone had interviews with president, so he gave us permission to just come to the New Brunswick chapel because he doesn't have the time to reschedule them. So, now here we are, we had our interviews and now it is snowing so hard and were all just going to chill here to wait and see if it calms down. It's pretty fun. Were using the family history center to email, but i don't have very much time because there's a lot of missionaries.

 This week was really good though, we got to do service twice, which I love. On Wednesday we went and helped one of our members take down her store. It was so sad that she had to close down her store, but it was so much fun. We were there for about 4 or 5 hours just helping her take down clothing racks. She bought us some really yummy Mexican food after. These Hispanics know exactly where to get the good food. I hadn't really had any really good Mexican food since I've been here in Perth Amboy, since it is mostly an English communities, but this place was really yummy. Then, the next day, Thursday we went to another member's house and she bought us some pizza and we had a really good lesson with her. It was our no driving day, so we usually go visit her on Thursdays because she lives the closest to us (about an hour walk). We saw that her house was a little messy because she just works and works and works. We asked if we could come by on Saturday and help her clean and she gratefully accepted. We stayed there for about 6 hours helping her organize everything in her ho use. It was a lot of fun. She made us some really good rice too. I love serving the members, they have a lot of really cool stories and I learn how to say a lot of fun things in Spanish. I am learning dichos, or little sayings. It is really fun to ask them what their favorite dicho is, they get really excited about it and they teach you ones that is specific to their countries. An example of a dicho is, "otro perro con eso hueso" the literal translation is "to another dog with that bone" but it really means like, ahh get out of here, you get the idea. I know a lot of them now, it's fun to use them.

So if you didn't notice the subject of this email, I hate the Superbowl. We have one investigator with a baptism date and she is sooooo ready and she has accepted the date and is preparing, her problem is that she lives with her mom and sister. Her mom isn't a member, but her sister is a very active member. Her sister is in college and comes home for the weekends and takes her to church. Because of the Superbowl though, her sister needed to leave earlier on Sunday to get back to her school before hitting the Superbowl traffic. SO, she didn't come to church. It was so frustrating. We got a ride for her and everything, but she didn't want to go without her sister :(.. She can still be baptized on her date though, but church is really important.

Yesterday was so fun, our neighbors invited us over for lunch. She made us some really good chicken and pasta. It was so yummy, it was weird to be over for dinner at someone's house and have American food. It was so fun to talk to her though and to play with the girls. Her daughter just had her first chemo treatment last week and she is such a champ! She was definitely a lot calmer than she usually is, but she is still so awesome. Her mom is so great, she tells her that she has to defeat the cancer so she can say "in your face tumor!" and that just makes her laugh and laugh. They're the sweetest family. Then after that the Smiths, our senior couple, invited us over for dinner. They are so cute! I loved going over to their house. She reminds me of grandma Clark for some reason. She made us beef and mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. We had a good time talking to them and we helped them do the dishes - then we had ice cream and cookies, then shared a message with them. They just keep going with the dying jokes though, I can't handle it, it's way too funny.

We have this one investigator that I love. She is from Puerto Rico and she is just spicy. She has this sass that I love. She will always tell us, "now girls, you know I'm  not racist, but wow this Mexican!" and we just look at each other and we have to try to hold in our laughs.... This is such a funny thing with Hispanics and having so many different cultures in one branch. They crack me up though, they are always polite and serve each other even though they may not like each other's countries. They're awesome.

Well, I'm just about out of time, I love you all and hope you have a good week!

-Sister Clark