I Heart U.C

Hey familia!

Wow email time flew by today! I took some time to email some of my old companions! I seriously miss them like crazy! Its weird to think about, but after this transfer, I will only have one companion still in the mission with me. Sister Heule will still be here but everyone else will be home. That is super gross and it makes me feel old, so were gonna stop thinking about that now...

Anyways, seriously, I think one of the greatest blessings that I have gotten out of my mission is my companions. I cant wait for y'all to meet my companions. Holy stink, they are just the greatest people I know.

This week was super weird. I was kinda sick for a while, so we were in the house a lot, and we just kind of had an off week, but it was good. Sister Jorgensen and I get along so well together and we have fun. I am teaching her how to play the guitar so we are literally playing the guitar every free second that we have. I love it. I haven't played the guitar this much in so long. It definitely helps me with stress.

We have this really neat investigator named Byron. He is from Guatemala and I just wish you could all meet him because it is so hard to explain people and how great they are and how much I love him.... but lets just say that I love him a lot. We talk to him every day and we meet with him almost every day. He is just so funny and he is kind of like an older brother to us. We sort of treat him like our baby. We are always super preocupado for him and how he is doing and calling him every second to make sure that he is OK and everything. Its so funny. He wants to get baptized really bad, but due to some things in his past, he has to be approved by Salt Lake, so it could take a really long time. For now we are just teaching him and having fun with him and making sure that he is behaving himself. The ward here loves him.

I really love the ward down here. It is fun to be back in a ward. Wards and branches are sooooo different.

On Friday morning we did a blitz in west new York.. so all of the missionaries in our zone and a tone of west new York members went and tried to find everyone on the ward list who was inactive. It was super fun to be back in WNY and with the members. I love being this close to where I was born. Its close enough but far enough away. It's good that I am not in a different ward. I would be way too distracted if I was back in the WNY ward. Union City ward is so much fun too. I feel like everyone that I have taught in all of my areas has some connection to the union city ward, because union city is like the spot. It's the lugar. All the Hispanics have something going on in Union City. So we see some people from my other areas every once in a while. It's fun being here. It's a hard area though just because there is so much people. It's hard to chose who we are going to talk to and everything..

It's kinda scary down here sometimes too... because it is a pretty populated city. There is a lot of sketchy business going on sometimes. The other day this guy tried to give me and my compa 100$ each. It was kinda creepy. Also, muchachos are just dumb and bad language is gross and it gives me the heebie jeebies.

Yesterday I did an exchange with Sister Weinstock in Bayonne... which was kind of weird because it was a Sunday, but it was super fun. Bayonne is a Spanglish branch, so half of the members speak English half speak Spanish and there was only like 20 members. Get this, the church was in the back of a quick check gas station. Classic. I love New Jersey. Were growing! It was super fun. I had to translate the meeting. It was super fun. I felt really official because they had translators, so I had to sit in the back and whisper into the translator for all the little Hispanos. I loved it. Then right after church there was a random Hispanic day parade and there were these really cool dancers with really cool costumes on. I think they were from Bolivia. They were jamming to their Hispanic music. I loved it. I cant even explain to you the obsession that I have with Spanish music. I am so excited to just listen to all of the Spanish music that I want. Its funny because we just know the popular Spanish music because the people we teach area always playing it and the stores on Bergenline are blasting it and everything. So were always just like singing random Spanish music then were like.... what is this? Who are we? I would have never sung Spanish music before my mission. Well, I was crazy back then. I'm obsessed with Spanish and with Hispanics.

Also random fact. On the mission you kind of go through different phases with your different companions based on how your personalities mesh together. I have gone through some pretty funny food phases with companions... like with sister martin it was grilled cheese and pancakes, with sister Orton it was refried beans, with sister Weinstock it was rice, with Smeds it was Pasta.... But this is definitely my favorite... So sis Jorgensen and I both just have no idea how to cook.... so we are just kind of acknowledging that fact together and just kind of creating things... anyways we are obsessed with corn right now and we also get crackers and sandwich meat and cheese and stuff, but get this: we were experimenting and we decided that we wanted to put some refried beans and Valentine sauce on our crackers with our turkey and cheese on the cracker and seriously... best thing ever. That was a really good decision on our part. so if you want to know what I eat for lunch every day. That's it. I'll make it for y'all when I get home. :)

Well, that's just about all for this week. These computers that we use in  Seacaucus have a 2 hour count down and when your done it just shuts the computer off and I only have 8 minutes and it is kind of stressing me out. I have 6 minutes left.

I love you all so much and I will talk to you next week! Behave yourselves and don't forget to pray and read your scriptures every day! It's really important!

-Sister Clark