What a Week!

Wow, what a week. It seriously went by so fast. The weeks are just starting to go by faster and faster and it is kind of disgusting actually.... I guess that's what happens when you get old. Time speeds up. Speaking of getting old...

I HAVE BEEN ON MY MISSION FOR ONE YEAR!! WHAAAAT? I don't know how that happened. To think that a year ago I left for Mexico, knowing zero Spanish having no clue what I was in for. So weird to think about because now all I ever think about is my mission.. and most of the time I am thinking about in Spanish. God is so real.

There are definitely lots of stories to tell about this week though - it was so much fun! Proselyting time on Monday was just awesome. It POURED rain the whole 3 hours we were out. We had 2 set appointments but they both canceled, so we had to do our back-ups which were at the bottom of our area. So we go down to the bottom of our area into this place that we had never really been before. It was actually a really cute little town with a main street that was adorable. There was a cool music shop that was distracting me. I am going to have to make it down there some P-day and buy a capo for my guitar. Anyways, we were out walking around in the pouring rain under one umbrella... Because I don't have an umbrella... cough cough.... hint hint... anyways. I don't have an umbrella. :) I really need an umbrella, because we got SOAKING WET. It was so fun though. It built our comp unity. It's pretty tight space under there. There is nothing like Jersey Rain. It soaks you to the bone. It's kind of crazy actually... and it floods so fast. So after walking around there and talking to the people who were seeking refuge under the bus stops (btw, bus stop contacts are actually really good in NJ because public transportation is actually a huge thing, not just for crazy people). We decided to head  back into Garfield, a little bit closer to home. We had a back up to go visit this girl who was a former investigator because her aunt is a member. We knock on her door and her grandmother answered.... Her name is Luz and she talks so weird... It's not even her accent because I have talked to a lot of Colombians before and their Spanish is as clear as a bell... I literally could not understand a single thing she said all night. But she invited us in because it was raining, but she was kind of crazy. And it was dark in her house and we were talking to her in her living room while her grandson was watching Pirates of the Caribbean. If it's not already hard enough to try to stay focused while you are talking to someone that you really don't understand, it is 100x harder to focus whilePirates of the Caribbean is playing on a scary dark rainy night. hahahaha oh boy. She was super crazy. After the lesson we walked outside and Sister Haycock was just laughing at me because the whole time the lady was talking and it was my turn to say something, I would just look at her with this confused look, then she would start talking because she knew I had no idea what she was saying. hahahahhaha. I am so thankful to have a companion who is basically fluent in Spanish.

   

Last week Sister Haycock got the invite from the assistants to give a training at the meeting for the new sister training leaders this Wednesday... I was SO EXCITED because that meant that I could go back to Morristown for the day. It was so hard to be patient waiting for Wednesday to come, but it FINALLY came. We had to be at the mission home by 4, so we were trying to fill up our afternoon in Passaic by just finding new people and trying to find places where we could do service. We ended up not really getting anything done and getting super lost in our area. We had a lot of fun though. We were playing 20 questions where you have to answer the question that you ask. We just ended up arguing about what kind of women we would be attracted to if we were men for about an hour. It was so weird but sort of hilarious because we were arguing so bad that we just had to end the conversation. Ahahahahahha. That basically explains our companionship. We don't argue like fight argue, but we just are completely opposite and it is kind of hilarious sometimes. We always find a balance though, and it turns out awesome. Anyways, we left for Morristown and I dropped off Sis Haycock at the mission home. Then Sister Heule came to pick me up for the day. I spent the day with her driving my car and her 2 companions went and worked in Madison. It was so fun! I missed her. It is always so fun to see old companions, but it was really fun to actually be her companion for 2 hours in our old area. WE WENT TO SEE THE GARCIA FAMILY!!!! There are so many amazing miracles happening with that family. Alonso actually has a baptismal date and his little brother, Mauricio, is getting baptized on the same day! I guess he has been going to church and mutual every week and has friends at church now and everything! So cool! Mauricio had just barely come to church for the first time on my last Sunday in Morristown. I saw Jenny and Ana. It was so good to see them! I LOVED IT! Their dog is getting so big. After going to see them we went back to the mission home so I could get back together with Sis Haycock. Turns out that the meeting ran late, so we got to sit in for the last part of the meeting, then eat dinner with them. It was super fun. I got to see Sister Schaefer too, because she is a Sister Training Leader. We have the best sisters in our mission... And sister Taggart made some really good chicken. The Taggarts are GREAT!

On Thursday we taught the Lopez family. They are a family that I have been really determined to help since we got to Passaic. Last week we taught them about the Book of Mormon and how it answers the questions of the soul. We asked the teenage daughter if she had a testimony of the BOM and she honestly answered that she didn't and she let out some concerns. We asked her if she had any questions about life and god and stuff. She said she had always wondered why God lets us suffer and why there are people who do bad things. We gave her 2 Ne 2 to read and we promised her that she would receive an answer and a testimony of the BOM if she read it. When we went back this week to follow up, she was excited to tell us that she read it! She showed us verse 11 and said that it was her answer. She was really excited and she felt the spirit! SO COOL! She said she would read every day this week so we are texting her to remind her. I sat by her yesterday at church and she said that she is reading but she just forgot to on Saturday. I love it when people keep their commitments and they see the blessings! So cool. The spirit is real, promised blessings are real!

Friday we got to go to Ellis Island again! It was super fun this time. Catherine, the lady that is in charge of our volunteer service, is so funny. She gave us this really long training on how to do it and it is so awesome how much she knows about history. She can find ANYONE who came to Ellis Island just based on history and she knows how a lot of the spelling errors are made and everything. She just loves it. I saw her help some people trying to find their family. She was able to help them find someone and the woman was so happy that she cried. It was a spiritual moment. Families are soooooo important to everyone. Catherine isn't even a member of the church, but she told us "family history is a Godly thing".... Anyways, we aren't allowed to proselyte there, but we don't really need to. Everyone feels the spirit and feels closer to God. A lot of people feel the presence of their family members there and it is fun to see the excitement. I met a really cool man and lady and I was able to help them find a lot of their family and read their ship manifests and everything. They were so excited and they  just kept thanking me. I ended up helping them for like 30 min because they didn't want me to leave... The guy was asking me who I was and everything then when I told him I was a missionary he grinned and said, "oh yeah I'm familiar with the Mormon church, I used to live in  Logan!" I was so excited and told him that my dad lives in Logan. I guess he went to USU for a while and he knew a lot of Mormons. He said he was interested, but no one ever really asked him about it and he never really asked anyone else about it. I gave him Mormon.org. hahaha. He was a super cool guy.

Saturday was a really great day. We had two REALLY REALLY GOOD spiritual connections with two contacts. Ones name was Jesus and he has a cute son and the other ones name was Brandon who is a 17 year old boy. They were both really open with us and desired to get closer to Christ and to learn more about our message. They both understood the restoration really clearly... Jesus was really blown away by the fact that there is a living prophet and was asking a lot about it. He said that he believed it could happen. Brandon was blown away by the first vision. My companion said it then right after we were quiet for a second and he just said, "wow that is really, really cool" We have appointments with them this week. We find a lot of really cool people every week, but the problem is finding the ones who will progress. I am really really praying that these two will progress. They have so much potential to be great priesthood holders, which is really what New Jersey needs right now.

We committed Marcial to baptism this week. I can't even begin to tell you all how amazing this guy is. He finished the Book of Mormon this week. He told us that he knows it is true. He still has a lot to learn but he is very sure that he needs to continue learning and accepting the message. He is so humble and it is great. He does everything that we tell him to do, trusting that it will help him understand. We taught him on Wednesday at the church and we gave him a little tour. We showed him the baptismal font and took that time to teach him about the ordinance of baptism. The only baptism that he was really familiar with was the catholic. He had a lot of questions about why it is any different and behind the symbolism and everything. We read in 3 Nephi 11 with him and he was very interested in the whole thing. He is very intellectual so he has to know the why behind everything. We asked him to pray about it. To pray and ask God if baptism by immersion and by the proper authority was what God wanted him to do. We followed up with him the next day and he said that he prayed about it and he agrees with baptism by immersion.

Yesterday was a SUPER special day. I feel so blessed to have been a part of it. Sister Haycock's mom was baptized when she was 21 and she was pretty much rejected by her family because of it. She later went on to serve a mission in Austria and has a great family now and everything, but her family has never really been open to the church or missionaries or anything. She has a sister that lives here in NJ and Sister Haycock has been dying to get in contact with her. She hadn't seen them in years and didn't really know them. She got permission from the mission president to call them and set up a time when we could visit. She called them and her aunt and uncle and cousin were really excited and set up an appointment for Sunday afternoon. Sis Haycock was so so so nervous. We went down there and we had such a great afternoon with them. We stayed for a few hours and they live by this gorgeous lake and they showed us around and took us to the beach and everything. It was so neat because there was such a strong family connection between them even though it was kind of like they had just met for the first time. Sis Haycock bore her testimony and invited them to take the lessons from her. Her cousin Sarah accepted and was pretty excited. Her aunt Karen and uncle Tim weren't really interested in listening but they wanted her to come back and they thought it would be a great idea for her to teach Sarah so that she can learn it for herself and make her own decisions. It was super awesome and I am so proud of Sister Haycock because I know that was a really scary thing for her to do. I have an awesome companion.

Well, that is pretty much all of the highlights. We had a lot of fun this week. I am one happy missionary :)

Love you all and hope you have  a great week!

-Sister Clark