Taco Queen

So.... I have some bad news.

Transfers are this week. I have been dreading this week all transfer!! My companion Sister Haycock is leaving me!! It is the woooorst. Shes going to her home in Colorado. I don't know why this is so hard for me, but I have been so sad lately. We have just had the craziest transfers together. The past 3 transfers of my mission have just been so weird and a huge trial of my faith, but the hugest blessing. I went to Morristown for one transfer and had the time of my life. It was hard for me to leave that area because I felt like I had just gotten there, but then I came here.... Sister Haycock and I got doubled in, which for those of you that don't know what that means, we both were new to the area, so we built it up ourselves and we made it our own area. It was so much fun. It was really crazy that we were doubled in together because we are two pretty seasoned missionaries. I don't know. It was just cool... then we worked so stinkin hard here. We worked and worked and worked, and I absolutely fell in love with Passaic. It was weird to think about Sister Haycock leaving and someone else being here with me because Passaic just feels like our area... Kind of like our baby and I didn't really want to share it with someone else. I don't know, maybe im just weird... but at the same time, I was really excited to stay here and probably end my mission in Passaic because I just love it so much here....

Sister Haycock and me with our Jersey shirts and hipster glasses.

BUT, we got some really bad news on Thursday. Let me just start from the beginning of the day. I woke up on Thursday morning, and I was just exhausted from the start. I was just so tired! On Thursday mornings, we always go see our recent convert, China, at 10 am, so we did our studies. (they were really sleepy studies for me) Then we went to China's, which we had to walk there because Thursday is our walking day, so that took a lot of time and energy, and we got back to our apartment around noon. Then I was SUPER tired, so I took my lunch break, set my alarm for 1 hour and climbed into bed and DIED. I slept so hard. Sister Haycock was in the other room eating her lunch and reading the Book of Mormon.... Then while she was having her lunch break, she got a phone call... from the assistants to the President, who had some news for us.... They called about 10 minutes before I was supposed to wake up... But sister haycock couldn't wait for 10 minutes until I woke up to tell me the news, so she comes into the bedroom and wakes me up. She sits on my bed, puts her hand on my leg and says... "Sister Clark... I have some bad news for you." Me still laying in my bed having no idea what could have possibly happened, "ok what?" Sister Haycock, "the assistants called, we're getting doubled out."

(doubled out= when both missionaries leave the area and two new missionaries take their place or get "doubled in")

Silence.

Me: "wait.. what? We can't be getting doubled out. We just got doubled in. You're joking. You're not funny."

Sister Haycock: "No really, Elder Nielsen called and we are getting doubled out."

Me: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" As I slam my face into my pillow and scream/cry/flip out. It was kind of a dramatic reaction. Sister Haycock makes fun of me for it. Words don't do it justice. But basically, I flipped out. 

So... We kind of just sat there for a while/ moped around our apartment really confused and sad. Then we had to start our transfer planning... We had only scheduled in time for our regular transfer planning... But now we had to prepare our area to get doubled out (We are both leaving the area and two new missionaries are coming in our place), which means that we had to go through our whole entire area book and make sure all of the records were up to date and write notes and advice for the missionaries coming. We had to make a letter of random things they would need to know, like how Elsa lives below us, the trash comes on Tuesday and Friday, Elsa puts our mail downstairs at the weird entrance, we never use the front door, the bedroom door is broken, we visit China every Thursday at 10, Hna Echeverria every Thursday at 4, Hna Lopez every Thursday at 7 and just so many other details about every single person that we work with.... just things that they wouldn't know.

That was kind of sad.. It just showed me how hard we worked in this area and how much progress we saw. We know this area so well. We know exactly where everyone lives, we know all about the members and silly things like how to get into their houses (Hispanics have really weird doors that are hard to find). ahhhhhhh it was depressing... Then we had to schedule in time for me to pack... That took forever. Sister Haycock was already packed because she knew she was going to be leaving so she started a long time ago.. Me on the other hand, we were 100% positive that i was going to die in Passaic, so my stuff was just everywhere.

We didn't do that all in one day though. On Thursday we stopped and went to our Thursday appointments (hna Echeverria and hna Lopez). We decided that we didn't really want to tell people that we were both leaving because that would make it hard for them to focus... So we just had normal lessons with them but inside my heart was kind of breaking. Hna Echeverria made us really yummy steak and soup and we had a really good lesson with her. It was hard for me to love her at first when I got here, but now I love her so much, she has grown a lot. Then we went to the Lopez but they weren't there for some reason, which is really weird, so we just left. While we were standing on their street trying to figure out if we should do our back ups or just go home and plan/pack, the Paterson English sisters pulled up. (they work in the same area as us) They rolled down the window and shouted at us excitedly; "GUESS WHAT SISTERS, THIS IS SO CRAZY! WE'RE GETTING DOUBLED OUT!!"

Me and Sister Haycock's mouths dropped... 

Us; "NO! YOU'RE JOKING! We're getting doubled out too!!"

All of us: "AHHHHHHHHHH WHAT IS GOING ON!!" 

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Them:"The Rutherford Sisters are getting doubled out too!" (there are two sets of English sisters that work in our area, the Paterson sisters and the Rutherford sisters)

We were so/still are so confused. Then the Paterson sisters told us that they were actually on their way to go meet the Rutherford sisters at Rita's and asked us if we wanted to come. We didn't have to think twice about it, we jumped in the car. We met the sisters there at Rita's and just flipped out together while we ate our feelings. Then we went home and planned the rest of our weekend and how we were going to see everyone that we wanted to see and pack and clean everything before Tuesday... So much work.

We had a fun weekend though!

On Friday we went to see the Albarracin family... A really awesome active family in our branch. They are from Peru and Hna always makes us the best food. Peru has the best food on the earth. She has two kids named Alexandra (8) and Jeffrey (5) and they are so crazy! They are hilarious though. I love playing with them. Jeffrey has ADHD or something, so he is way crazy. I looove playing with them.

Me and Jeffrey. I'm obsessed with this kid.

Right when we got there, they pulled us into the living room and we had some ice cream with them... then they played doctor with me. They put a bunch of pillows and band aids all over me and they were checking my heart beat and my temperature and my blood pressure. It was hilarious... While they were doing that, Sister Haycock shared a  message with Hna Albarracin. hahaha. I guess my job was distracting the kids. :) then after we said the prayer, Alexandra just looked at us with puppy eyes and was like "I LOOOOVE painting peoples faces, but my mom never lets me put my make up on her" so we decided to let her put make up on us... It was HILARIOUS!! Jeffrey joined in on the fun too. Alexandra just COATED our eyes with a thousand colors of eye shadow and she put this bright pink sparkly lipstick on us. Then Jefferey just went crazy.  He was just putting the eye shadow all over our faces. He was mostly doing it to Sister Haycock though, so I said "Jeffrey, I need some too, so that I can be pretty!" Then he just looked at me and batted his long eye lashes and said, "You're already pretty!" Then he looked at Sister Haycock and said, "you're almost pretty!" Then he just kept putting the makeup all over her face in HUGE chunks. ahahaha. It was hilarious. We were cracking up. Especially Hermana Albarracin. Then they were painting our fingernails and I said, "wow, Jeffrey, that is so gorgeous, thank you!" Then he looked up and said, "No you're gorgeous!" then he looked at Sister Haycock and said, "And you are gorgeous too!" Then continued working hard on the finger nails... It was quite the adventure.

After the kids did our makeup.

This week I probably ate the most food of my whole mission. On Friday we got fed massive amounts of Mexican food by the Lazaro family, then hna Albarracin gave us sandwiches, ice cream and a protein shake, then at our last appointment Hna gave us HUGE glasses of orange juice.... The heart burn was crazy that night. Just think about it. A ton of Mexican food then a ton of orange juice.

Me and the Garcias (our branch mission leader)

Then on Saturday night we had correlation at the Garcia's house and they made us tacos again.... Oh man we went crazy with the tacos. Elder Obley and I ate 11 each, then Elder Aspinall broke the taco record, he ate 31 tacos. Sister Haycock ate 24 tacos. She broke the sister taco record. Elder Perez ate 28 tacos and Elder Hansen ate 18.... It was crazy. They ran out of meat. As a whole, we ate 32 pounds of meat. SO CRAZY!

Elder Aspinall and sis Hay after they ate 31 and 24 tacos. Taco champions.

Sis Haycock is my hero!

haha

Marcial got confirmed and is now a happy member of the church.

Our recent convert Martin blessed the sacrament for the first time. I'm so proud :)

Well, gotta go, love you all! have a great week!!

-Sister Clark