Flood the Earth

We had such a busy week. I don't think I have ever been so tired. It is definitely a good tired though, its fulfilling. But, Sister Haycock and I probably aren't very fun when it is just us two at our apartment together because were just like, trying to keep our eyes open. In any of the free time that we have we will take a little power nap or something. Its kind of lame, but it is beautiful.

Marcial is doing so well. We have basically taught him all of the lessons except for a few of the commandments and things about church auxiliary but he already knows everything about that since he already read the whole guia, which is basically the bible dictionary in Spanish, its just in the back of the book of Mormon not the back of the bible. So.... We basically just teach him that stuff because it is a requirement for baptism then we move on really quick and he has a lot of questions just about the stories that he is reading in the scriptures and things that the prophets are saying. He is the best! We went through the baptismal questions with him this week just to make sure there wasn't anything that he was missing or that he needed to learn more about. He passed with flying colors... at least from our point of view :) We also planned his baptismal service with him. That got him really excited. We let him pick people to do the talks and the prayers and everything. He had fun thinking about the people that have helped teach him. He asked us to do something to be a part of it too because we are really important to him since we taught him everything since the beginning. He said he wanted one of us to do a prayer and a talk and that we could chose who would do what. I am doing the prayer and Sister Haycock is doing the talk. After we made the program he was just glowing. IT seemed more real to him. We went and saw him later in the week and he had a lot of questions about the temple and about the doctrine and covenants and pearl of great price, because he doesn't have a triple so he hasn't read those. He told us that he really wants to go to the temple, which is really good. That means that he will probably go within 60 days of his baptism, which is the goal for recent converts. If they go to the temple within that amount of time, they are more likely to stay active. On Sunday I gave him a preparing for the temple pamphlet and a his own triple. He was so excited. He shook my hand and said "thank you SO MUCH sister!" then he sat down and started skimming through it. He was more excited than a little kid at Christmas. It was cute! I loved it. 2 more weeks! the count down is beginning!

We found some really really cool people. On Wednesday morning, Sister Haycock lost a really special necklace while she was out running, so right after our comp study we went outside to look for it. We met this super old lady from Peru and she had all these connections with the missionaries in Peru. She said that they bought her house in Peru and made it into the meetinghouse for the church. hahah. We couldn't really tell how interested she actually was, but we set an appointment with her for last night... So we show up last night and right as we were about to knock on her door we hear someone yelling at us from across the street. I could have sworn he said "tienen novio?" which means "do you have a boyfriend?" so of course I was just going to ignore it and keep knocking on the door, but luckily Sister Haycock has better ears than me, he actually said, "can I help you?" so we walked over to him across the street sitting in his truck. He said that he lived there and Mercedes (the old woman) was his mom and that she wasn't home. We could tell though after just a few seconds of talking to him that he was super drunk. He reeked of alcohol and his words were super slurred and he just kept saying things over and over that didn't make any sense... We didn't really want to keep talking to him because we didn't really think that was worth our time so we just told him "well, we know that God loves you and as representatives of Jesus Christ we invite you to repent." then all of a sudden the guy that was sitting next to him passed out on the passenger side just shoots up and asked us "hey what are you selling? did you just say god? what about Jesus Christ?" we were a little bit shocked because we didn't really pay him any attention because he was passed out drunk and he had a beer sitting right there between his legs. hahaha. But he just kept on talking about Jesus. He got out of the car and Sister Haycock and I rushed over to his side because he was not stable enough to be standing in the street with us. hahaha. Somehow he actually asked us some good questions about Christ and we were able to answer them. Then he told us that he wanted to change his life and repent and be a better dad for his daughter and he showed us a picture. He told us that he has 5 court cases right now, but two of them miraculously got dropped and he knows that it is God and he has one this week for a DUI and he might have to go to jail for 10 days but he is praying that he doesn't. He was super funny and just about as sincere as any drunk guy could possibly be. He asked us about the book of Mormon and we gave him a card and wrote our phone number and the church address and times and we set an appointment with him. HE was really excited, then he just kept telling us, I'm going to come, but if i don't or if I'm not home when you come over, its probably because I'm in jail, so just come back in ten days. Then he just kept on saying, "man I was passed out in the seat then all of a sudden I heard Jesus so I just shot up! I think its God kind of just slappin me in the face goin "boop, wake up stupid!" ahahahah it was so hilarious. Then he kept swearing so we would just rebuke him right then and call him to repentance then he would apologize then he would do it again then we would do the same thing and he actually started swearing a lot less in that time we were talking to him. He was so funny. Definitely one of my most memorable contacts on my whole mission.

Then we went home right after that, it was about 815 and we had to do our numbers and everything, so while were sitting down at our table doing our numbers the phone rings, and it is an unknown number, so I answer, and of course it is Christopher (the drunk guy) and he was like, "hey sisters, I just wanted to ask you about the book of Mormon? what is that? hey whats your name? wait, whats your first name? why are you on a mission? when do you go home? what do you do when you go home? are you like, not allowed to get married or something?" and he just goes on and on and telling us more about his court and how he wants to know what he can do to be better. He was like, "Sister Clark, just tell me what I need to do tomorrow to repent and be better!" so I was like, "Well, you can start off by praying the way we showed you tonight and telling God thank you for your blessings then asking him to forgive you and help you to stop swearing, then after you pray, you have to try your hardest all day to not swear" then he was like, "so I pray, then I cant swear all day? man, that's tough, but yeah. I can do that. I'm gonna do that!" then he just kept talking and it was the funniest conversation I have ever had on the phone. He talked for 20 minutes and we have some of it on video. Ill have to show you all after the mission. He may just be a drunk right now, but I have faith in him. He kind of reminds me of this one guy that the elders taught in Perth Amboy. I think I told you about him, but his name is Chino and he changed his whole life for the gospel. He was just like Christian and probably worse. In and out of jail, drinks, smokes has kids from different women and things, but he left all of that behind little by little and came to church every Sunday. I really loved Chino and loved talking to him, he was very sincere. One time we saw him outside after he broke up with his girlfriend and he had a pack of cigarettes and he was telling us how he was so mad that he just went out and bought those cigarettes, but he didn't want to smoke them because it had already been a few months since he had smoked, so we took them from him and read in the scriptures with him. I am hoping that Christian kind of turns out like that... But we'll see in the next week or so. 

Tanya and Wellington are still doing well. They are still praying to know if this is what they want, but they kind of want to take it slow, but they want to experiment on everything, with faith and repentance, maybe baptism. They are so great! Tanya has been reading the book of Mormon and finding answers for how to help her son and they make food for us and they love us a ton and are excited when we come over. They are also the cutest parents. A couple of days ago we went over and just Tanya and the boys were home and the youngest Alexis was just running around in his undies playing his ipad and Tanya just looks at him and says "tu no puedes hacer eso, tu estas sexy! Las hermanas no puedan ver eso!" (hey you cant do this, your too sexy, the sisters cant see that!) and we all just cracked up and he blushed and came and sat on the couch without pants on anyways. hahahha

We had our exchange on Friday and I went to Caldwell with sister Coalam. It was a pretty fun exchange. I set some good goals for the future. I want to kind of stabilize my habits that I have gained on my mission thus far so that I am a better person when I get home and I can keep going strong. I also want to help our branch a lot with technology and sharing the gospel creatively. As you may know, the last couple of months I have been more on my creative side. I have been painting, making different pictures and tools for teaching and different things for my journals and what not. It has been really fun and I feel like that is kind of how I share my testimony. I want to help the members do that online. Also, just in case you haven't heard the talk by elder Bednar yet, take this time right now and go to  https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng and click on the elder Bednar talk that says #sharegoodness. Watch it then go and do it or make a plan with your family of different ways that you can do it. There are a lot of ideas on lds.org and if you don't know very much about social media, don't be lame and comfortable where you are, its time to learn, go do some research. :) A very important prophecy is being fulfilled starting now and it needs to be a FLOOD not just a little flash flood. Get to work family and friends! Ok, now go watch that talk and stop reading my email. That is more important!

I love you all so much and thank you for your encouragement and support! Talk to you next week!

-Sister Clark

Long Week

Sad news. I got sick this week. BOOOO. It was super dumb. But we still managed to have a successful week. I just had like some kind of body flu or something. I just had really bad aches and pains everywhere and I was exhausted. So for 3 days we were basically just teaching then sleeping in between our appointments then hurrying outside at the end of the day to get our 10 contacts so we could do the zone goal.

On Monday we had a fun zone activity. I learned how to play tennis. All the Elders in our zone are very patient with us sisters and let us play sports with them, even though we are all super bad. hahaha They teach us though, which is nice.

On Monday night we went and taught Tanya and Wellington. We had such a good appointment with them. They had lots of questions for us about the Book of Mormon. Wellington has been reading every day. He told us that of course he had a few doubts just because it is something new to him, but he said that he believes that it could all be true, he just needs to learn more in order to know. He read to us the first few verses in Nephi and told us that of all that he read, those impacted him the most along with the rest of chapter one, because chapter one is basically the same exact story of Joseph Smith - just 600 years before Christ. It testifies of Christ and of the scriptures and prophets and it makes it pretty clear that it is either true or it's all a lie, but the testimony of Nephi in verses 1-3 really led him to believe that it could be true. AHHHHH. THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG! We promised him that if he kept reading and praying that he would come to know that it was true. We have been bringing this Dominican member with us to fellowship them and she has come to visit them with us about 4 times now so they are building a really good friendship, which is awesome! Tanya and Wellington are Dominican as well and they have kids around the same age as this member and her extended family that is also in our branch. We are going to try to get Tanya and Wellington into this group of Dominicans. We know that would help them so much as they are going through all of this transition.

Tuesday was when I really started to get sick. We went to zone meeting in the morning and we had  a really good training on teaching repentance and promising blessings when we invite people to repent. It helped me to realize that the blessings of repentance are some of the greatest blessings that we can receive as humans and that we need to promise that to people and make sure they understand that. After zone meeting we had zone lunch at Wendy's. When we pulled into Wendy's, this homeless guy came up and knocked on our window and asked us for money. We didn't have any. Then we saw him walking around and asking everyone in the parking lot and in the drive-throughs and all the other missionaries if they had money and he was being super rude about it. He was like yelling at other missionaries and telling them that they were supposed to be followers of God but they wouldn't give him anything. We got into Wendy's and we were all feeling kind of bugged by this guy because he was being so rude and ungrateful. Literally none of us have any money ever because we only get so much every month and we pay fast offerings. So we just ignored it and all got our lunch and sat down together. This guy kept on storming into the Wendy's and yelling at everyone and stuff so we were all just like. WOOWWWW. This poor guy is out of his mind. I remembered earlier that I had been reading the beatitudes in Matthew and the verse that talks about if a man asks you for your coat give him your cloak also... I don't remember exactly how it goes, but its something like that.. anyways that verse kept on coming to my head and I just kept on having this inward battle with myself. All of the missionaries and I know that we don't have to give anything to homeless people and God isn't going to condemn us for that because we are already giving God everything that we have while we serve him and because the money that we have really isn't our money at all, it is all of the sacrifice that people donate to the church. So none of us were going to give him anything because well, we didn't have anything to give. But for some reason I just could not get that verse out of my head! I decided that I was better off just going and buying him a dollar cheeseburger than arguing with myself about it so I stood up, waited in the long line, bought this guy a cheeseburger and went outside and gave it to him. All he said was "god bless you" he grabbed the cheeseburger unwrapped it and ate it in like 2 bites. He didn't even look me in the eyes. Then he went and continued begging everyone in the Wendy's parking lot and dining room for money. I definitely felt kind of bugged about his reaction, but I still felt good about it. It was only a dollar and I just went without a frosty.

We had a good lesson with the members that live downstairs. Their names are Elsa and Nelly and they are from Peru. They are seriously the coolest women ever! They told us all about their story. About how Elsa has been living in the U.S. for a few years longer than Nelly and Nelly's husband and how she asked for them. They have to 10 years to get residence (sorry I don't know this vocabulary about legalization in English.... but I'm trying to translate it the way we would say it in Spanish) Anyways, Nelly and her husband have been here for 7 years and they have 3 years left. They left their 3 children in Peru. She told us that she doesn't really worry about the older two who are 19 and 20-something, but she worries every single day about her youngest son who is only 12. She said it has been the hardest trial of her whole life to leave him there, but she made promises to him that she has to keep. She said she battles with herself everyday to know if it is worth it or not. She said that they talk on the phone every day and that her 3 kids live with her sister, who doesn't really take good care of them. She leaves for the weekends and her son has to stay in the house all alone and he gets to scared to sleep alone so she will watch him sleep on Skype and that helps him feel better. She said she will just stay up all night sometimes just watching him sleep. I asked her if she had ever sent the missionaries over to teach them but she said that she is too scared to even send the missionaries over because it is so dangerous where they live and she is worried about the safety of her children. She said that her daughter had a bad experience with a fake missionary. Some lady came up to her daughter and told her that she had won the lottery and how she needed her help to get her prize. Then a "missionary" with a plaque and everything came over to help to. The "missionary" drove them to her house and told her to get all of her things that were valuable and bring them to the car, so she went in and took everything and gave it to them, then they just drove away with all of her stuff. Isn't that crazy? I know it couldn't have been a real missionary because he would have had a companion. Ugh that story made me sick! So Nelly tells her kids not to trust anyone until they can come here to the U.S. She is such an amazing woman though. Her and her Sister never miss a Sunday. They both came in contact with the missionaries when the church rented the apartment in their house for missionaries to live in. They absolutely love having us living in their house and are so good to us.

Sister Haycock's cousin got back, so we got to go teach her on Thursday. That was fun, as usual. We also made plans to go back next week for a fun day so they can go and take us out to get lunch and ice cream. That will be way fun, too. They are great people.

On Friday we went to Ellis Island. That was fun, as always. We had a cool experience while we were there. When we got there, Catherine told us that we should take an hour for lunch before we started working, so we headed out through the big building outside to the benches so we could eat our lunch. It didn't take very long for us to finish eating and we were just sitting out on the benches enjoying the beautiful day watching all of the ferries for the statue of liberty pass through. We still had like 30 minutes left of our hour lunch break, but we decided that we would rather go inside and help out, so we got up and started walking back to the family history center. While we were walking through the huge hall full of all the tourists we saw this cute girl and she smiled and waved at us so we smiled and waved back and kept on walking back to the family history center. In the family history center there is the main part where everyone goes to get on the computers and look up the ship manifests of the immigrants who came through Ellis Island, then there is a desk and a hallway for employees. In the hallway Catherine has an office where we put all of our stuff. We were walking to the office to put our stuff away and then go back out to the main floor and help the tourists. We walked into the office, set our stuff down then talked to Catherine for a second. While we were talking to Catherine, The girl that waved at us kind of wandered in. She asked about the family history center. We explained to her that she passed it and this was the office for the employees. She was like... "ohhh...." then she felt a bit awkward, but explained to us, "Well, I am LDS and I am from Utah but I am visiting New York on a business trip with my husband. He is in meetings right now so I decided to come here by myself. I am actually supposed to meet up here with an old friend who lives in this area but I can't get a hold of her because my cell phone died on the ferry ride over here. So I have just been standing in the middle of the main hall hoping that we would find each other, but I haven't found her yet. I have been praying like crazy - then I saw the sisters and I knew that they could probably help me, so I followed them." Then we smiled and Catherine laughed and said "oh, of course. Aren't the sisters great?" Then she asked us if we knew where she could charge her phone because she had the chord for a USB outlet but not for an electrical outlet so she would need to plug it into a computer or something for a second. Catherine is a sweet lady and let her plug her phone into her computer. Once we saw that everything was worked out, we left her in there with Catherine who could also help her out with her family history that she wanted to learn about. It was cool to be an answer to her prayers though. It reminded me of the talk in conference a couple years ago that said, "ask the missionaries, they can help you!" It's true. We can't fix or solve everything, but we can do our best to help in whatever way we can!

I also learned that day at Ellis Island I can understand Italian perfectly. For some reason the museum was FULL of Italians that day. I helped a few families where only one member spoke a little bit of English and would translate, but I could understand everything they were saying, I would just respond in English and the English speaker would translate it into Italian, in some cases I could even reply in Spanish and they could understand because they are so similar. It was very interesting and kind of an exciting discovery for me!

We had a crazy weekend full of work work work. We have a zone goal to contact 700 people a week as a zone and we send in our contacts every night and they are counted so that we can see how far we need to go. By Saturday everyone was slacking super bad we still needed like 300 by Sunday night, so Sis Haycock and I accepted the challenge. We were trying to get people pumped up and contacting by sending zone texts and stuff, but no one was really doing it, so we decided "OK, let them do what they can and we will make up the rest." So on Sunday we decided to take a walking day and contact everyone we saw. We walked to church and contacted 24 people on the way there then on the way home we got about 30 more. We went home had lunch, did about an hour of studies then decided that we had better get back to work instead of finishing our comp study and language study. We went back outside and walked to a couple of appointments. We went to go see this less active woman named Hermana Leal. Her whole family was over for a family gathering, but we just sat in the kitchen with her while she prepared food for her family. She had 12 granddaughters and their families over. She made us these really yummy things... I forgot what they are called, but we kind of learned how to make them so I'll have to try when I get home... Then she made us try some of the soup... I'm not gonna lie I didn't really like it very much. It was pig soup and it tasted like straight up pig. It had a bunch of pig parts in it. Even the bones. That is the strange thing about Hispanics... they never take the bones out in soup... anyways it also had pig ears. Now I can say I have eaten a pig ear. I didn't like it. It was gross. Then the rest of the night we just walked around our town and we ended up contacting 107 people, we taught 4 street lessons, found a new investigator, found 3 good Spanish potentials for ourselves, 2 in the elders area by the church who said they would get baptized, then a new investigator for the English sisters. The new investigator for the English sisters is so solid. We found her outside of a convenience store sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette. She said she would listen to us until her ride got there. We taught her a short summary of the restoration, the Book of Mormon then we focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ with her. She was so touched. She opened up to us and told us about how she felt like God would not forgive her because of the terrible things that she had done in her life and how she had chosen not to believe in God for a time in her life because someone she loved had committed suicide and it was just hard for her to think about whether she would see her again or not, because she had always been taught that God doesn't forgive those who commit suicide. We were able to testify to her of the power of the atonement and repentance then she asked us to mark a chapter in the Book of Mormon for her so that she could read more about repentance, then we could come back later that week and explain more to her. She was in tears but was so comforted by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Her ride got there and we gave her a big hug and sent her off with her own copy of the Book of Mormon. She was super cool!

Well, that's about all I can fit in this email for this week! I am loving life and the work here in Passaic. I feel so blessed and happy to be a missionary.  Pray for my investigator families! I hope you can grasp the love that I have for them. It's strong!

ALSO side note. Cesar Mauricio (Alonso's little brother) got baptized yesterday! that's pretty awesome too. :)

Love you and miss you all! Have a good week!

-Sister Clark

I like your tights...I know that...they're cute...

We had a BUSY week here in Passaic. Wow, we taught and taught then taught some more. It was so great. We are just teaching anybody that we can find. I mean, we don't count them as investigators if they aren't going to progress, but we have really been working on teaching when we contact someone rather than just giving them a card or something like that. It's much more effective. People are so cool! They love telling us about their lives and they really appreciate the message that we share, whether they want to know more or not. It is super cool how God just puts us where we need to be. Being a missionary and experiencing that has proven to me that he is in every detail of our lives and that he always answers our prayers. Every contact that we seem to have some sort of spiritual connection with has usually had some sort of spiritual experience lately or has been going through a hard time or just needed something. They express that to us also. Before my mission I always thought of missionaries as receiving a lot of rejection from people on the streets and things like that, which I'm not going to lie, that happens a lot, but really, there are a lot of people who don't exactly want to learn more about the church, but that are sincerely grateful for what we do. That is something really cool to see. Some people understand the sacrifice that we make, even if they don't understand the message that we teach. That is something that has really stuck out to me this week.

The Lazaro family fed us chicken legs and rice and potatoes this week. Just like every week, it was incredible! They're from Mexico, so their food is always spicy. They always ask us if we want salsa, so we ask them if it's hot. they always say "mmm, not really," so we try some and we end up dying every time. If a Mexican offers you salsa and tells you that it won't be hot, don't give into that lie. It's always hot :)

Sister Lazaro told us that she had "pocos alimentos" (a little food or snack.). We cracked up when she brought our plates out. This is what she refers to as "pocos alimentos."

 We had two really great lessons with Marcial this week. We finished teaching him the plan of salvation and we taught the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know how many times I can say this, but he is seriously the best! On Friday when we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, we had him over at a members house. That made all the difference for that lesson. It was really funny how it worked out actually. We asked Sister Caldaron last Sunday if she would come teach Marcial with us on Friday. She said that she would be happy to. Then when we called her on Friday night to tell her we were on our way to pick her up, she told us that she had prepared food and she was ready for us to bring him to her house.... we were so confused. I guess she thought we asked if we could bring Marcial over... so we hurried and called Marcial and asked if we could change the plans a little bit and if he would follow us out to the Calderon's family... it took a little bit longer than we had planned, because we had to drive clear out to Moonachie to pick up Marcial, then have him follow us to Lodi where the Calderon's live. But it was so perfect! He had a great time and he was comfortable in their home. They friendshiped him and shared their testimonies and their snacks with us. Then on Sunday they came in to church and without hesitation sat right next to him and brother Calderon sat by him in priesthood and they were talking the whole time and brother Calderon was explaining different things with him and shared his testimony with him. It was so awesome! Members are sososososososososo important! Marcial was glowing! This week he told us that he has been thinking a lot about when he wants to get baptized and everything and he decided that he doesn't want to wait for his girlfriend to get here because he just isn't sure when that is going to happen and he wants to get baptized before Sister Haycock leaves because it he wants her to be here. He is SOOOOO READY! ahhh. He is almost done with the Book of Mormon second time around! It is so funny. He practically has it memorized. He remembers all  of the stories, so whenever we share a scripture with him, he just goes "ohhh is this the part when...." then he explains the whole story before we read the scripture. hahahah oh he is great.

We have a couple of really cool newer investigators. I can't remember if I have written about them yet or not.. Anyways, their names are Tania and Wellington. I don't even know how to describe them. They seem to be some of those rare super prepared people. They have had a lot of different experiences in other religions and they know the doctrine in the bible really well and are very willing to experiment with what we invite them to do. They listen very intently and they understand the principles we teach very clearly. It has been really neat to teach them. Tania loves testimonies. I shared my testimony with her and an experience I had about how I knew theBook of Mormon was true and she just listened so intently the whole time. Then when I was done, she asked my companion to share her testimony of how she knew it was true. It was really cool and the spirit was there and we could tell that they recognized it. We are excited to go back and teach them again tonight. We have taught them a few times now and they said they are willing to start coming to church soon to see if they like it. 

On Thursday we usually go see the same people for our walking day. We started with a less active named Hna Echiveria and she always gives us a ton of food. She had her granddaughter and all of her great grandchildren over at her house with her that day. Her grandchildren are so stinkin' cute. She had 3 granddaughters and they literally had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. Sister Haycock and I had so much fun playing with them and teaching them. We each had one sharing a chair with us while we ate playing with our pass along cards and our pamphlets and just being so cute. It reminded me of my cute nieces and nephews and how much I just looooove talking to kids because they are so innocent and honest. It was so fun. Then later that night we went to visit one of my favorite families, the Lopez family. Before we got to their house we contacted a really cool guy on the  street. His name was Michael. He was one of those really really intelligent people. He was super cool and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he was really interested to read it because he knew a lot of church history because he studied religion. He said, "wow I have always wondered about this book because I have studied Mormon history, but now I actually own one, that is cool, thank you sisters." Anyways. It was a cool contact. Then we went to see the Lopez family. Ok, funny story, before we went to go see them, we were planning to go get ice cream but we contacted Michael so we didn't have time.... We were super super bummed about it. Within 10 minutes of our appointment with the Lopez, Abby, the 13 year old, went into the kitchen and came out with two big ice cream cones for us. Sis Haycock and I just looked at each other and cracked up and we told them the whole story about how we wanted ice cream so bad. I guess that the conclusion to this story is that GOD LOVES US! haha. He cares even about the little things... Like wanting ice cream :) Only if you put him first though.... like contacting someone instead of buying ice cream. 

Oh yeah! I can't forget to tell you about the Valencias! Oh man, we had a good time visiting them this week. The Valencias are the Peruvians that are like 100 years old and kinda crazy. Remember them? Well, we had an appointment set with them for Friday at 3. Hno Valencia NEVER forgets about appointments with us. He just loves us so much that crazy old man... anyways. SO we get there and he forgot for the first time ever. So they had two nurses over there to help them out and he was just laying in this chair and his wife was taking a nap. But he sits up and he was so happy to see us he pointed his hands up to the sky and said "oh dios me envio dos angeles!" (God sent me two angels!). hahahaha. We asked him if it would be better if we came at a different time but he said that he wanted us to stay right where we were. So we were talking to him and his two nurses were just kind of sitting in the back ground having their own conversation. We shared a short message with him and ended with a prayer, then it was time for one of his nurses to leave. She went over to his chair and told him goodbye, then on her way out she asked him if there was anything she could do for him, then this special conversation happened:

He replied "next time you come over here listen to these two angels sitting on my couch." 

And she laughed and said, "oh you know I go to my own church." 

Then he sits up ready to pick a fight with her he stuck his finger out and said "but you are not baptized!" 

Nurse: "I was baptized." 

Hno Valencia: "by who?"

Nurse: "by a man, just like you were."

Hno Valencia: "El fue on Hombre mundano y pecaminoso" ( no he that man was worldly and a sinner!"

Then the nurse rolled her eyes and shut the door. Ahahahahahahahahah I wanted to laugh so bad. Man if he could walk, I would love to contact with him and watch him call people to repentance like that. It was so hilarious. Then he said to us "well, I tried." Then we were standing up to leave and he said to us "stop, don't move" then he hobbled over to open his cupboard. When he opened it our mouths dropped because it was full of Peruvian candy and soda and cookies... It looked so delicious. We were getting excited. Then he reaches to the back and starts rummaging around. We were anticipating getting some delicious Peruvian cookies. Our mouths were watering. Then he pulls out two cans of tuna. I wish I had a picture of our faces. I wanted to just bust out laughing right there. We said thank you, grabbed the tuna and hustled out the door because we were trying not to laugh at how lame our lives are. hahaha. It was so disappointing, but oh so funny. We have the worst luck. 

Saturday was such an interesting day. We went back to the service house that we were working on last week. We were there from 9-2 scrubbing rust off of these two shelves. There were 6 of  us working on these two shelves and we were scrubbing them for a good 4 hours and they still had rust on them. It was so crazy. Kind of annoying. They were so disgusting. I wish I had pictures of them. It was fun though. It was nice to just work and talk with other missionaries without a thousand other things to worry about. I got to know the 2 new missionaries in our zone pretty well. They were helping us out. The new sister is so cute. Her name is Sister Ivie and she is being trained in Patterson by Sister Monson. It is cute to see her and remember when I was that young in the mission. She was like a lost puppy. I hope I was able to help her in some way. She had tons of questions about the mission and everything. The first few weeks you really have no idea what is going on, you kind of just follow your trainer around. It made me feel so old though because all of the missionaries that Sister Monson and I were talking about have already died. And because we were teaching her about transfer gossip and so we named off the Spanish sisters that are older than me and there are hardly any.... That was a really gross realization. Ah ew. The weirdness is too much. 

The rest of the day was just so funny. There was so many random things that happened. We got home from service at 3:30 and we had an appointment at 4, so we did some super fast showering. It was really impressive actually, then headed to this appointment. It was a hand off of an English investigator that we found to the English sisters in our area. So we were there with Sisters Webb and Greenall, the Patterson English sisters. The guy juked us so we kind of lingered and talked to them for a minute. We were just really intrigued and didn't want to leave that street because there was a movie being filmed in the house across the street and we were watching them do all of that. They were doing some scene over and over again. We were kind of trying to get in the back ground of the scene and show some Book of Mormon pride. hahaha. We finally decided that we were being unproductive just sitting around watching them film this movie so we left and walked around Lodi a little bit to try and visit some less active members that lived in that area. We were contacting some people as we were walking. On our way back to the car, we saw this lady with some patterned tights, a bun and headphones. Oh we hate it when people walk around with head phones because it is hard to talk to them, and this lady had this attitude about her so sister haycock was just like "challenge expected" so she walked up to this lady and was like "hey I really like your tights" and the lady just put her hand up and walked passed us. Sister Haycock is persistent though with our district goal to bear testimony in EVERY contact, so determined to get her testimony in there she looked at me panicked and said, "and I know that..... They are really cute!" This all happened within like a 5 second time period. It was just way too funny. I started laughing right there on the spot. We had to stop walking and just laugh and laugh and laugh for a second. Not quite the testimony that I think our district leader was talking about, but an A for effort Sister Haycock. So now whenever we need a laugh one of us will just look at the other and say "Hey I like your tights... I know that...... They're cute." 

After that we had the giggles all day and funny things just kept happening. We went to go visit this less active named Lilian. We absolutely adore her. She is so cute. But we were talking to her about the Book of Mormon and Sister Haycock was something out to her when all of a sudden the footrest on the seat she was sitting in just sprung up and caught us all by surprise. It was so funny. We laughed and laughed. Then Lilian left the room randomly and came out with brand new shoes for both of us. And they are super cute and comfortable too! God just loves us so much! We are getting points for trying, even though we feel like we are just failing so bad with all of our awkwardness.

The Albarracin family made us spaghetti verde. SO yummy. 

They're from Peru, so of course their food is good :)

 

Those are basically all of the highlights for this week. It was great. We didn't get to go see Sister Haycock's family though, because her cousin was out of town. They just got home though, so we have an appointment with them for this Thursday, so that should be fun. Then we are going to Ellis Island on Friday which should be fun, too! It is going to be a great week!

I love you and miss you all! Remember to choose the right!

-Sister Clark

P.S. Shout out to all of my dead companions, if you are reading this, (which I know you probably are because you are all stalkers), you should love me and send me letters or emails because I miss yous and I want to hear all about your buried relationships! love yous! <3

Photos, photos, photos

Me at the mission office with an Albanian Book of Mormon!

Me and Sister Schaefer at the STL training meeting.

The Peralta family. The dad is from Argentina and the mom is from Peru. Both of their moms are visiting. The dad's mom isn't a member. WE call her "the suergra" which means mother-in-law. Looooove this family.

Sister Dahl and me. (Doesn't she look like Shannon Jones? Weird, right??)

GIANT church right down the street from our apartment. Our church tour begins.

District

Zone 1 Elders!!

Sister Haycock and me with our minionaries.

The Zone 1 sisters and our "minionaires"

The elders and me with our minionaries from my mamma :) thanks mommy!

Sis Haycock and I are just obsession over our minionaries!

Ellis Island

Yenny, me and Ana <3

Yenny and Ana waving goodbye

This is when I went back to Morristown for the day. We went to the Garcias and I had to get a picture with their fish "Nemo." They are giving him away because he is lonely :(

The Lazaro girls. They are so crazy! They made us these cupcakes. Love them to pieces.

Patterson Falls!

Our recent convert, China!

The Rios family. they are so awesome!

Sister Webb and her Texas pride :)

Staying in Passaic!

Sister Haycock and I celebrated my year mark with some milkshakes from Carvel. They have this Nutella flavor that I am OBSESSED with.

 

Sister Haycock and me after going to the Filipino breadhouse in Jersey city.  This basically explains our companionship :)  this cake was super yummy, too...just so ya know. I'm taking my family there

I don't know if I mentioned this last week, but this week is transfers!! Sister Haycock and I weren't really worried about it. We knew we weren't going anywhere because we got doubled in and Sister Haycock dies next transfer so it would be super weird for either one of us to move. This also means that I am set up to train next transfer. I am super excited for that. Basically everyone in the mission has to train by next transfer. It's going to be a bit crazy. There is like Spanish sisters going home on Wednesday and there was 6 that come in today and I think around 6 or 7 that come in next transfer. I remember seeing the incoming list at the mission office last transfer. Anyways. Basically our mission shrunk for one transfer but it's going to bulge next transfer. It is so crazy how the mission does that. I feel like for the past year there hasn't been this huge influx of Spanish sisters coming in. Now it is happening again! Super exciting, the mission is just going to keep changing and getting better.

Sister Haycock and me.

So, 6 more weeks in Passaic with Sister Haycock! I am so excited. We grew so much together last transfer. These past 6 weeks flew by! It was super crazy! I know time will probably just keep going by faster and faster, which is even weirder. Its weird to think that I only have 4 transfers left... I think I might actually die in Passaic. That would be sweet! I really really love this area. Our investigators are incredible. Especially Marcial. I don't know how on earth I got picked out of all the missionaries in our mission to teach him. Yesterday after church, our branch president pulled us aside and said, "I just wanted to tell you sisters that I met with Marcial and I am EXTREMELY impressed with him. I look at him and I see a great future leader of the church. He has his own personal testimony and it radiates. Congratulations on your good work sisters." IT was super cool! I  mean, I don't really feel like I did anything. Marcial was converted purely by the spirit and the Book of Mormon. He is so awesome.

OK, the highlight of this week though... are you ready for this?

ALONZO GOT BAPTIZED!!!

ahhhh I am so stinkin excited about that. And his Dad Julio baptized him. 

I am so glad he got baptized yesterday in stead of when I was in Morristown. I mean yeah, I was really sad that I couldn't be there, but the timing was just perfect for him. August 3 was good for him, I can feel it. That way his Dad got to baptize him and his little brother is preparing for baptism too and has a testimony. Awwww wow so much happiness!! Also, Ivonne is doing very well. From what Sister Heule told me, the branch has just embraced her and they help her with her kids and they just love her. I am so happy about that. 

Sister Heule said that last night after Alonzo's baptism, all he could talk about was how happy he was to have made a covenant with God and how he made a promise that he would stick with it for the rest of his life and that he was all the way in. AHHHH I AM SO PROUD OF HIM!! I hope he goes on a mission.... I will pay for it if I have to. His little brother too :)

I have huuuuuuuge hopes for Marcial. He wants to wait to get baptized in September because he has "una persona querido" (a special friend) who needs to come, aka his girlfriend *cough cough. uhhhh. Haha we talked to her on the phone a while ago. She is an active member in Peru and she referred him. I am picturing her and him getting sealed in the temple sometime next year and it makes my heart happy! Life is GOOD!!!!

Also, Adele is playing in the library right now and I am totally having flashbacks to our Yellowstone trip when Julie and I listened to it over and over again and Rod got super bugged! hahahaha good times. Sorry I was a pill.

I think that is all I really have to report on this week... other than we have a GREAT week set up already. I am so excited for this week. It is going to be non stop work.. Just the way it should be. Sister Haycock read me a talk by Elder Holland this week about mediocrity. One thing that he said caught my attention. He said something along the lines of "you should be so dead tired after your mission that you need to be carried you off the plane." That is my goal! These next 6 months I am going to work so hard that you are going to have to carry me off the plane!! hahahaha

Oh yeah, we had a really fun service project on Friday. It started at 8 and ended at 2. It was this guy who bought his ex wife's house that was repossessed and it was COMPLETELY DISGUSTING!! I swear it was one of the grossest things I have ever seen. He wants to fix it all up though. Sister Haycock and I called dibs on the kitchen... it was so gross. I wish I would have taken pictures. We cleared off this whole pantry with broken dishes that were covered in stickiness, dust and MOUSE POOP! Seriously, there was a mountain of mouse poop in this kitchen. I have never seen so much poop. And everything was just sticky and greasy and rusty. We threw out all the bad dishes, organized and washed the good ones, threw away the bad food (sis Haycock and I had a lot of fun secretly throwing away all the alcohol, hahahaha :) Then we cleaned the stove and the counter tops and the floor. The floor took forever. It was covered in grease so all the cracks were full of nasty sticky black grease. We had to put some elbow grease to get it out. ha. Then we moved everything to the center and started painting. All the walls in the house are brown or red and he wants it white. We got one wall done. We are going back next Saturday. I am super stoked! It felt good to get some good work done and to see the results. It was super rewarding... We need that break from missionary work sometimes!

Me, sister Haycock and Sister Larsen with the toilet paper that Sister Larsen helped me sneak out of the mission home... We were out of toilet paper and it was only Wednesday...we were desperate. hahahaha. We probably could have just asked, but it was more fun this way :)

 

The toilet paper experiment hehehe

That's about it.... Love you all! hope you have a good week! Talk to you later!

-Becca