Hey friends and family, guess what!! Today is my 8
month birthday in the mission!! Can you all believe it has already been 8
months!! I can't believe that. I feel like the weeks are just going by
faster and faster. I love it but I hate it at the same time. Next month I
am going to be at my half way mark. We made it half way, family!! Now
we just need to do that all over again, then I'll be home. See how easy
that was? hahha Just kidding, definitely not easy, but I know there are
GREAT things in store for the next 10 months. Things are still just
getting better for me! Every week gets better and better, I don't know
why but I'm thankful.
This week I started out with the goal of either giving one Book of Mormon away every day or setting one return appointment every
day. President Jeppson promised us that if we carried a Book of Mormon
in our hands every second and if we contacted using the Book of Mormon,
contacting at least 10 people a day, our teaching pool would double. I
made myself trust in that promise and I really wanted to put it to work.
I gave out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon this week! It felt good, I
felt like with that goal that I had the Lord was putting me in places
where there were people who were prepared to receive the book. 2 of the
people were English, so we had to give them as a referral to the
English elders, but the elders are actually teaching them now and one of
them is still texting us, telling us that she is reading it and meeting
with the elders and she likes having them in her home and having them
pray for her. The English one we were led to in a really weird way. We
had planned to go to a specific apartment building where there are a lot
of Hispanics and just knocking around and contacting, but for some
reason I was just not paying attention and I missed the turn, so in the
process of trying to turn us around to get back over there, (which is
impossible with these crazy New Jersey roads, but that's another story
for later) We had to turn onto this street which led to a jug handle. While we were on that street, we found some apartment buildings we had
never seen before. We got lost down there trying to find the jug handle
to lead us back to the other road, so we decided to just park and knock
at least 1 door. We parked and we walked down a couple of rows of doors
looking for one. We chose one and rang and this young girl answered. We
talked to her and she was so sweet. We explained what the Book of Mormon
was and handed her a copy.. She looked at it then looked up then looked
at it again, then looked up at us and just said, "is this really for
me?" and we said absolutely, then she got the hugest grin and said THANK
YOU SO MUCH SISTERS!! and gave us a big hug. We gave her information to
the elders. :)
My favorite Book of Mormon miracle for the week: On Saturday we started out the day fine. We had two lessons with members by 3 o'clock
and it was just an ordinary day. After our lesson with the second
member, I started feeling so weird. I just felt so unmotivated and just
down right WEIRD! No words to describe the way I was feeling, but it
wasn't good. So we just kept going for 2 more hours doing our normal
stuff then we came home at 4:30 for dinner, we had planned 30 minutes of
phone time before dinner at 5. While we were on our way in, our neighbor
girls and their mom came out and they were talking to us for 30 minutes
which took our whole phone time. Normally I wouldn't care, I love playing
with them and talking to them, but I was just feeling so irritated. I
was so bugged! I was just so bugged about everything and I had a bad
attitude and I had no idea why! I came inside and I just layed on the
floor and I was just whining and acting like a child on whining on the
ground flailing my arms and legs around.... Funny right? hahahaha My
companion was just laughing at me because I was acting so weird! I didn't
know what was happening to my mood and we were just laughing. Then she
started feeling that way too. So together we were just feeling weird and
unmotivated. We took an extra 20 minutes of dinner time and we were
contemplating just going to bed because we just felt so weird, but it
just didn't feel right! So we just pushed ourselves out the door, turned
on our favorite CD and blasted the music and made our way up to Carteret.
We had it in our plans to visit this member named Irma who is
ALWAYS home. We planned her because we were both just feeling so weird
and we decided that we would rather be at an appointment than just
knocking doors. So we get to her house and her son answers and told us
that she had just left to go shopping, so we couldn't come in. We were so
bugged!! But we had some other people to try. We looked at our backups
and we had the media referral penciled in for that time. We didn't
really want to go over there, but we decided that we had better follow
our plans. It was so weird, we just had these random ideas to go to
different places than to this lady's house, but we had decided a few
weeks ago that we were going to try our best to follow our plans without
changing them, so we went to her house. We knocked and she wasn't home,
like always, but her neighbor answered the door. He stepped outside and
shut the door behind him. We asked him if he knew when his neighbor
would be returning, he told us she was working in New York and that she
was only home on certain days.
We then introduced ourselves and we told
him that we help people come closer to Jesus Christ and we teaching
using a book called the Book of Mormon, which is another testament of
Jesus Christ. He looked at us for a second then he said, "excuse me for
one second" he opened the door and yelled in to his wife and said "hey,
there are two young girls here who teach people about Jesus Christ, is
it ok if they come in for a couple of seconds?" She came up to the door
and said "oh claro que si!" and they invited us inside. We sat down and
they had 2 bibles sitting out on their coffee table. He explained that
he had just bought his wife her own copy of the bible and they were
studying together when we had knocked. I explained to them that the
message that we teach is very unique and a little bit different, but it
was still centered in Jesus Christ and we asked permission to share it.
They anxiously agreed, so we began the restoration. They were listening
very intently and on the ends of their seats. They were asking questions
and they understood everything so clearly. We were talking about Jesus
Christ and how he organized his church and how there was one lord and
one church and how he gave his apostles the authority called the
priesthood, then we talked about how the world fell into apostasy. We
explained what that meant, then he looked at me and said, "so this means
that the church I have been going to isn't true, doesn't it" And I said
yes. We told him that all of the churches teach good things and they
have incredible people, but they don't have the fullness of the truth.
They were in deep thought and it looked like they were accepting this
concept. Then he asked "so wait, is the world still in apostasy then?" I
LOVED THAT QUESTION!!! THEY UNDERSTOOD SO PERFECTLY!! We told them
about Joseph smith. We read in James 1:5 and we recited the first vision
to them. It was completely silent for about a minute after that. They
were just so deep in thought. Then he just let out this "wow, that is so
incredible". We taught them about the Book of Mormon and how it was
written by prophets and how it contains the fullness of the gospel of
Jesus Christ and how it tells us everything we need to do to receive
salvation. We gave him a copy and he held it and looked up and said,
"Sisters, I have seen Mormons in the Dominican Republic and I have heard
of the Book of Mormon before, but I did not know what it was, I thought
it was a book about Joseph Smith. I thought you worshiped Joseph Smith,
I am so glad that I know that is not true anymore." We asked them to be
baptized after that. He thought very hard about it and said that He
wants to be baptized, but that this was a lot to learn in one night. He
said he was going to read the Book of Mormon and ask if it was true and
keep learning from us. They said that if they keep going and they feel
like it is the only true church on the earth, that they would absolutely
be baptized. We left them with a chapter to read and they invited us
back this week. We were there for almost 2 hours and they didn't want us
to leave, but we were going to be late getting home. We ran to the car
and on the way home, (about a 20 minute drive) we were just so full of
joy and happiness and the weirdness that we were feeling earlier that
day was gone. We felt that they were very specifically prepared and that
our Heavenly Father was very pleased. We know that there was so many
weird forces against us that day trying to keep us from finding them,
but I am so thankful that we went anyways. It truly explains the
weirdness that can't even be put into words that we were feeling that
day. That night we experienced one of the neatest miracles I have seen
on my mission.
Second neatest Book of Mormon miracle: The Z family. I'm
not sure if I should put their name on here because they speak
English... But the Z family is what I will call them. Their last name
starts with Z :) The Z family is a family in our branch that have been
less active for a couple of years. We have records of the missionaries
visiting them frequently for the past year and maybe a little bit
longer, but they really haven't come to church very much. So they really
weren't progressing towards being active very much. They prefer English
and they love having us over for dinner usually about once a week. They
would usually end up arguing with us during our lessons though because
they are very intelligent and full of character. They don't usually read
out of the Book of Mormon and we have been trying to get them to read
for AGES!! Last week we visited them and we were talking with them and
Sister Z said that she was ready to start strengthening her testimony
and she wanted to know for sure if this church was true, because she
didn't actually know for sure, she just felt like it was good, but she
didn't feel like she had gotten a real answer. We asked her to read
Joseph Smith history. She said she might, but hey that was good enough
for us. We came back and she had actually read. That week we asked her
if she would start reading the Book of Mormon. She said absolutely. She
texted us during the week and told us she had been reading. We had an
appointment with her on Thursday
and since we knew she had read, we planned to teach her how to apply
the Book of Mormon. We go over and we talk a bit the way we always do
(they're so fun to talk to) then she just says, Ok, sisters, so when are
you going to ask me how my reading was? she had the hugest smile on her
face!! "I read 4 chapters of Nephi and I read Enos and Jerom and Words
of Mormon and all the small ones!! She was so excited!! She said that
she had prayed the way we said before she would read and asked that she
would be able to understand the words on the page. She said she had read
1 Nephi so many times but she just didn't understand what was being
said. She was just reading words on a page. But this time she actually
understood the story! That Lehi left Jerusalem with his sons, then Nephi
cut off Laban's head! She said that as many times as she had read that
she had never actually understood that story!! Her face was just lit
up!! Then we asked her, OK so now you know what is going on, so now how
do you apply it. She said, "I really have no clue, I guess don't get
drunk or else someone will cut off my head?" then we all laughed and we
just said, you know what, its perfect that you don't know, because that
is actually what we planned to teach you.
I felt really impressed to
share this random experience from this week. It goes like this: We are
teaching a family and we are trying to get their kids to read in the BOM
so we promised one of the kids that if he read every day last week we
would by him a 3 musketeers bar. He did it so we bought him one and we
were planning to give it to him the next time we visited them. We had an
appointment with that family the day before and Sister Weinstock set
the candy bar next to the phone, thinking that when I grabbed the phone
to leave I would just see it and remember that we needed to take it. As
we were rushing out the door to the appointment I grabbed the phone and
we left. While we were on our way there Sister Weinstock asked me if I
got the Candy, I said "No I thought You had it" She told me that she put
it next to the phone because she thought I would see it. Well, I didn't
see it because I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for it, I
thought she had it. So, this experience relates to studying the
scriptures because we only see the things that we are looking for. There
is this huge candy bar in the scriptures but if we aren't looking for
it, were going to miss it. She just looked at me and said, wow that is
such a funny story, but that actually makes so much sense!! We taught
her about reading the Book of Mormon with a theme or a specific question
that you want to learn about it. She was so excited to get started. Then
at church this week she was excited to tell us that she had been
reading more and that she is trying to look for specific things! SHE IS
SO AWESOME!! Her whole demeanor changed. Instead of arguing with us, she
is truly searching for the truth and putting in the effort. She has
changed so much! It is so cool. I don't know how many times I can tell
you all this, but THERE IS GREAT POWER IN THE BOOK OF MORMON!!
Well, those are pretty much the highlights of the week. It was a pretty good week full of learning for me!
Well,
gotta go, my times up! I'll talk to you all more, probably with many
more miracles from the power of the Book of Mormon. I hope you all are
reading every day. If you're not, repent. I am calling you to repentance.
START RIGHT NOW! I promise you that you will be blessed.
Love you and hope you have a great week, and read the Book of Mormon!!
-Sister Clark
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