I Am Being Transferred

NJ Pride

I feel like it is always the same story on the last Thursday night of the transfer... But somehow  it is never any less exciting for me. This transfer, both Sister Throckmorton and I felt like we had very high chances of training, so we were super anxious.

The transfer text...dun dun dun.

Every Thursday, we hold a weekly planning session as a companionship, which normally lasts about 3 hours. In this time we discuss every single investigator and member that we teach regularly and we plan their lessons for the week. We discuss our contacts that we had in the week and the people who could potentially become investigators and we discuss ways to find new people to teach. If you go to PMG (Preach My Gospel) chapter 8 you can read all about what this planning consists of. It is kind of a long process, but it is usually pretty fun. We can tend to get kind of restless and do crazy things.... we also eat a lot. BUT on the last Thursday of the transfer it is like 10x worse because we have to do the transfer planning. It adds on another 2 hours to fill out all of the information in our new planners and to plan all of the activities for the month and to completely update the area book. Then after all of that planning, we have to do TAC, which takes another 2ish hours. Basically we don't really leave the apartment. So much fun though!

 

Me and Throcky during TAC right after we got the training call.

 

In addition to all of that fun stuff we have the trainer calls, which normally go out on Thursday night because the Trainers meeting is almost always on Friday morning. We had just barely put on our p-day clothes to start cleaning. Sister Throckmorton was in the bathroom. I heard the phone. We had heard the phone go off 3 times that day already and every single time we jumped to go see if it was President Jeppson. This time, I didn't really feel like it could be him. I go and look at the phone and I saw the oh so familiar 0.0 President Jeppson light up on the screen.... I think my heart will race every single time. I answered, "Hello, this is Sister Clark" "Hi Sister Clark, how is your TAC going?" "Oh, its going very well President Jeppson, what can I do for you today?" "Well, Sister Clark, I need to speak with your companion" "Absolutely President Jeppson, please hold." Put the phone on mute.. die a little. Say a gratitude prayer that I am not training... "SISTER THROCKMORTON, PRESIDENT JEPPSON WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!" I scream at my companion through the bathroom door. I don't hear anything.... then the door swings open. She thought I was kidding.... I was so so serious. I showed her the phone and she had a little freak out moment, then answers the phone. She got called to train! hahaha so funny. I have now answered the phone for 4 training calls for my companions. I am getting used to speaking with President Jeppson on the phone. I guess I have just been blessed with AWESOME companions! Who knows, maybe in 6 weeks he'll be calling for me.... You never know. The suspense kills me.


Sheila and Me

Beatriz, me and Wellington. My favorites!

Paula and family.

Sillies

 

Other than that, it was a pretty average week. We went to the zone meeting which was AWESOME! Our monthly focus is on faith and the STLs made a cute planner cover for the zone goal. The zone goal is to one up our Key Indicator scores every week. It's going to be awesome and a huge test of our faith. Our monthly scripture is Moroni 7:33-34. So awesome, I love it. After our Zone meeting, we had the hot seats for Elder Christensen and Elder Romrell, who are leaving on Wednesday :( SO SAD! I don't know if I have ever told y'all about a hot seat. On the last zone meeting of the transfer, the missionaries who are going home have what is called a "hot seat" where you put a couch on top of a table and they sit up there and all the missionaries in the zone get to sit around them and ask them what ever questions that they want about their missions. IT is so FUNNY! There are always some quality stories and great advice. I was super sad though, because this time my district leader Elder Christensen was leaving! It's sad to see him go. He has been my district leader for 2 transfers... I have only had 2 district leaders on my whole mission, which is kind of strange... normally people switch districts every 1 or 2 transfers. I'm just super BLESSED because I have had the 2 GREATEST district leaders in the whole mission and I was blessed to have them both for 3 transfers each. But, anyways they just told awesome stories about almost getting jumped in Trenton by gangsters, but escaping by the power of the word of God, casting out devils, and of course lots of randomly naked people in the streets... New Jersey is insane, then you've got to have the most embarrassing moments and the moments where you laughed the hardest with your companion, I guess one of them peed their pants from laughing so hard and the other one's companion broke a hole in the wall with his rock hard bum. Good times. That is what a mission is all about. The good times.

Sheila, the recent convert of the Elders, making the tostadas for the mother's day activity. On Sunday, the primary invited all the Relief Society in for a lunch. It was WAY cute!

The Presidencia and Me. I am going to miss these 3 like crazy. Best Relief Society Presidency I've ever seen!

Hermana Cruz and me <3

OOOOOH MONDAY!! I can't forget  about Monday. Last Monday after emails, we had the FUNNEST p-day I have had on my whole mission. We had a zone activity. The whole zone came down here to Perth Amboy and we headed down to the beach to play Foosball... Literally, one of the Elders found a broken Foosball table in a dumpster so he took it home, fixed it and it is as good as new...

Elder Platt and Sister Collins, an intense game. Sister Collins couldn't handle the defeat.

 

I am amazed at some of the random things that Elders have. It was so much fun though! We just brought the Foosball table down to the beach and played Foosball and ate pizza on the shores of good ole Perth Amboy.

 

Look who it is! Hermana, Martinez, mi mama <3

 

Of course all of us sisters headed down to the waters edge and wrote in the sand and took some epic jumping pictures.

 

My STLs, Sisters Webb and Collins. LOOOOOVE them.

 

NJMM Pride

 

 

 I think these are some of my favorite sisters that I have ever served around, it's going to be rough to leave them! I'm the only sister getting transferred in the zone. Waaaaahhh :( We had a lot of fun though. I brought my guitar and Sister Webb sang. She has an awesome voice. It was really fun to play the guitar and take pictures and just chill with some of my favorite sisters. The Elders were taking weird pictures... Like the little mermaid and King Triton pictures... I think that is what they were going for... I don't ask anymore.

 

 

I told you they were weird...this is pretty normal

 

 

 

 It's just always weird. hahahaha. Oh elders. It was hard to leave when P-Day was over. We wanted to stay there all day. Oh well, there is work to be done!

 

Celenia returned home yesterday from the D.R. and is ready for baptism soon! So excited for her!

 

It's going to be so sad to leave all of our awesome investigators. We really have some jewels down here in P.A., but I will keep you updated on how they are doing and when they get baptized!

 

Well, gotta go! Love you all!

-Sister Clark

 

These dark babies are killing me. I want to steal them. Look at that hair!

 

May!!!



Sister T made me this sign for my halfway mark



 

Katie sent me a Rita's gift card for my halfway! we were super stoked! Tahks, Katie.

 

I can't believe it's MAY! The summer is coming here in New Jersey. It's starting to get pretty humid and I am not sure how I feel about it. Yuck. I am not looking forward to this humidity. We got SO MUCH RAIN this week! It was so much fun though! Rain just makes missionary work more fun, especially when it's not cold rain. Cold rain isn't as fun.

 

We got so SOAKED!

 

It was a pretty slow week around here. Celenia left for the DR to get married, she is coming back on May 11, so hopefully there will be a baptism quickly following that. I am so excited for her. She is amazing! We got to meet with Ramon and Estrella and we had a really serious talk with them about keeping their commitments and the importance of reading the things we ask them to read and things like that. We got the vibe from them that they really want to read and to keep learning. We weren't sure for a little while because they weren't really doing their homework. We called them a couple of days later and they said that they read the plan of salvation pamphlet and the scriptures in the back together as a family with their 3 boys and they loved it! I'm so excited! It is really neat that they did that. We ask them every time we see them if they will follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and they always say yes... They just haven't come to church. It is so hard to get people to church sometimes. Once they start coming to church, I think things will start moving very quickly for them. They are such a neat family and I just love them so much because I found them and it was such a miracle. They are such a miracle.

 



We made a banana cream pie for weekly planning!



Sorry it's a bit blurry and we look crazy

We had it planned this week to go on an exchange with our Sister Training Leaders on Friday of this week, but on Tuesday night at about 10:15, we got a text from them saying that they couldn't do it on Friday because they had a meeting, and they asked us if we could do it the next day. We said sure and we threw our stuff together to do this exchange. It was kind of crazy and last minute, but that's just missionary life. Everything is kind of crazy and last minute. You just have to do what you have to do. Good times for sure.

 

Wednesday was the day it rained ALL DAY! Literally it was raining when I woke up and it was raining when I went to bed, no pauses in between. I have never seen so much rain in my life. BUT, anyways, on Wednesday we get up, study and we had 2 appointments before our exchange at 3. We met the Sisters at the Perth Amboy capilla... (I forgot how to say that in English... sorry family). (Mom looked it up- chapel) We exchanged super quickly in the pouring rain, trying not to get our stuff wet. Sister Webb came to Perth Amboy with Sister Throckmorton and I went down to East Brunswick with Sister Collins. I HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME!! It was the Best Exchange of my whole mission... I feel like I say that every time, but this one was really good. I had already been down to this area before on my exchange with Sister Varble, so I was a little bit familiar with the area. Sister Collins is a newly called Sister Training Leader and I didn't know her before she got put down here with Sister Webb in East Brunswick at the beginning of the transfer. I had been really impressed by her though as I spoke with her at zone meetings and I know her daughter Sister Paight, who was in my district for my first two transfers of my mission, so I was SO excited to go out with her for the day and learn some of her tricks and skills and what not.

 

We drove down to East Brunswick, which is about a 30 minute drive and we talked and got to know each other a little bit... we were starving though. They had a crazy morning because they were actually on an exchange the day before and were just barely exchanging back. They were together for about 30 minutes on the drive to Perth Amboy. That life must be crazy. The STLs do 2 or more exchanges per week. I don't know how they do it. Anyways, she had  a crazy morning/afternoon and hadn't even eaten yet, so we had a little lunch brake and we went to this place called Mancini's pizza. The missionaries in Brunswick areas go there a lot and we go there for zone lunch sometimes, so the workers there know the missionaries. The sisters have an investigator who goes there every day and he has been promising that he would get them a shirt but he hasn't, so while we were ordering, Sister Collins asked the cashier, "so how can we get one of those cool Mancini shirts" and he said, well, what size do you want? We told him our size and then he just gave them to us. We were shocked... He gave them to us for free! We were so stoked! It as pretty funny. It was a great start to the rest of the exchange. We enjoyed our pizza then we headed out to an apartment complex where there were some appointments scheduled.

 

The day wasn't really scheduled out very well because Sister Webb was there the day before and sister Collins was in Princeton so we just had to kind of do what felt right. All the appointments around there juked, so we decided to get in our 10 contacts for the day.... IN THE POURING RAIN!! We knocked tons of doors and everyone told us we were crazy. We taught one guy in his doorway, we couldn't go inside because there wasn't a woman. We were DRIPPING! Then we found an area that had the hallways covered, so we decided to try those. We started from the top and worked our way down. We weren't having much luck, then we knocked this door and this guy named Archie answered. He invited us in right away, but we couldn't enter because there wasn't a woman present, so he just came right outside in the rain with us. He was really interested. He told us how he had been through some hard things in his life and he wants to strengthen his relationship with God. He was born Muslim and he was planning on starting to practice again, but he said he wants to explore other things. He said that he recently started praying every day and this morning he was praying that he would have somebody to talk to, and he knew as soon as the doorbell rang that his prayers were being answered. We taught him about the restoration and read him a scripture. He was in awe and he looked at us and said, "I am so thankful that you two sisters came over today and taught me in the rain, can you come back tomorrow" so we scheduled an appointment with him the next day. I haven't followed up with them yet on how it went, but I'm going to see the sisters and I'm excited to see how it went.

 

Sister Collins and me.

 



After that we went to the church for mutual to see if anyone brought some non member friends... and we really had to use the bathroom. Church buildings are life SAVERS! There wasn't really anyone there, but we talked to some members for a while and we went into the family history center and the lady helped me learn how to do family history, which I really needed because we are trying to get that started here in Perth Amboy. No one has done it before... then we had to leave because we had a lesson planned with an investigator named Bob at 8:30. Bob lives in the same apartment complex as the sisters, so when we pulled into their spot at the complex, we saw that the door of our apartment was WIDE OPEN!! It was so scary. We were super scared and we didn't know what to do... and we were late for the appointment, so we called the elders and they said they would come check the apartment as soon as they got home, which would be around 9 or a little after because the traffic was bad due to the rain... We said ok and so we decided that we would just leave it open because we were too freaked out and go to our appointment. We started to say a prayer in the car before we left. In the middle of the prayer we hear this huge BAM! right on the hood of the car. We both screamed so loud and jumped. It scared us to death. It scared the guy who slammed our car to death too. we rolled down the window and he said that he was the neighbor and he just wanted to let us know that the door had been open all day. Which freaked us out even more. We ran to Bobs and had a pretty good lesson with him. I taught his wife in Spanish, she's from Colombia. Then we headed home around 9:30. The elders still weren't there because they were stuck in traffic because the freeway flooded.

 





  

Bob made us the WIERDEST brownies



 

 

We started our nightly planning in the car. The elders finally got there around 10 and checked our apartment. They said nothing looked wrong and it looked like the door just blew open from the wind. We headed inside and finished our nightly planning. We barely finished by 10:30. The lights have to be out by 10:30 but we hadn't even eaten dinner or gotten ready for bed. so we turned off all the lights and got a flashlight and ate some left over pizza in the light of the flashlight and were just cracking up about how crazy our day was and how soaking wet we were. We got in bed around 11 but didn't even end up going to sleep until around 1 because we were talking so much. Sister Collins fell asleep mid sentence because she was so tired. It was funny. She is super cool and we had a lot of fun together and got along really well and had a lot of random things in common. Is what I needed! Its always fun to make a new friend.

Cute Planner!

 

 The next day we did our comp study and you always get an extra hour on exchanges so the Sisters can give you a training and kind of criticize you and help you set goals to improve. Sister Collins helped me SO MUCH! I had felt like I was kind of stuck in my missionary work and I got to talk to her about it a little bit and she knew exactly what to say and taught me something really cool about goals and desires and stuff and we were able to set some really good goals for me which have helped so much! It was so cool that this exchange was exactly what I needed to get out of the little rut I was in and that Sister Collins was able to help me. I'm not sure if anyone else could have helped me like she did. God puts us where we need to be and when so we can learn.

 

 

We got to go through the Ironbound to get to the Newark chapel. It's crazy down there in Newark!                           There's a reason only Elders serve there!

On Saturday night we got to go down to Newark for the Saturday night session of Stake conference. It was such a good conference! It was all about missionary work. President and Sister Jeppson spoke and one of our Sister Training Leaders in the short hills area spoke. She did a particularly good job representing the NJMM. President Jeppson had all the missionaries stand, which was about 40ish of us and he bore a testimony in our behalf of the gospel of Jesus Christ while we were standing. The spirit was so strong and it was really neat. I was so proud to be a missionary. Then President Jeppson looked at us and told us that he was proud of us. There is no better feeling than when President Jeppson tells you he's proud of you... Except for when maybe God says it :)

 

We had a member who went with us and she was so motivated that she went and ordered a copy of preach my gospel right then and then she came out with us on a team up last night. We contacted this one guy and she gave him a Book of Mormon, asked him to read it, set a return appointment AND asked him for referrals. It was awesome, and the guy was super interested and wants us to come back. MEMBERS ARE THE BEST!! Members are so important. and in the words of Sister Boudesoque, who spoke at our stake conference "Members, you are so important to missionary work and to the missionaries. We LOVE you and we are here because of you" I couldn't say it any better. Its 100% true. I hope you all are doing your member missionary work and have a family mission plan. If you need help, ASK THE MISSIONARIES... They will be happy to help you. That's what they're there for.  I think before my mission I always had the mindset that the missionaries need the member's help - that they rely on members for food and for referrals and what not, but I have learned that it's the opposite. Its really the members that need the help of the missionaries. The missionaries aren't serving missions so that they can receive help from members, they're serving missions so that they can help the members and strengthen the WARD. Well, at least that's why I'm serving a mission. Just a thought :)

I got to go to Manhattan this week! Super cool! I love that place.

It was SUPER flooded.

I got an AWESOME package from my sisters. I was so happy and am still super happy! Gotta love those packages!

 

WE love packages!!

 

 

 

Well, that's about all I've got for now. It was a great week, I hope you all had a great week also. I love you all!

Have a great week and don't forget to read in the Book of Mormon EVERY DAY! Its really important!

-Sister Clark

 

 

Weirdest dry cleaning sign ever. We crack up every time we see it.

 

 

 

We found the cutest kittens. I was DYING!

 

Some Fun Stories

Hey family and friends! As I already told you all in my letter on Thursday! It has been such a GREAT week! Being a missionary is the best! I love every minute of it. I love what I do. I already shared all of my spiritual stories from the week with you, so I really want to share some of my fun ones. I sat down last night and thought really hard about some of the fun things and and some of the really neat things that happened this week, and chose some stories to share with you about my teaching and about the people here. I think it's been a while since I have really talked about the people here. The people are what it is all about. I cant even express how much I love these people and stories that I will be sharing with you!

Our area is pretty large, we cover all of the towns that surround Perth Amboy. There is a member named Irma who lives in Carteret, an area at the top boarder of our area. She is so much fun. We visit her every single week and we are helping her through some hard times and trying to help her prepare to go to the temple soon. She is from Puerto Rico and has so much fire and sass. She loves singing hymns and being bold about her testimony. Her testimony just radiates from her, she laughs with us and tells us stories about Puerto Rico and when she joined the church. I LOVE IT! She has taught me a lot about being bold with what you believe. A couple of months ago, she found out that she had cancer and she was devastated and went through some hard weeks of depression. She was so low and it was so hard to cheer her up. She asked us to come see her a lot during that time because we make her feel happy. She had a surgery last week to try and remove the cancer. On Tuesday we went to go see her after our district meetings. We went into her humble little home and sat on the couch. She stood above us rocking back and forward with the HUGEST smile on her face and blurted out "me curo!!" and we jumped up and gave her the biggest hug and cried with her! She is free from cancer! I'm so happy for her! After all the excitement we started reading the scriptures with her. Some how we started talking about the FLDS church and how that came about. She started laughing so hard once the subject started and began with this story:

 

 

When she moved here to the United States about a year ago, she asked her son (who is not a member) to go online and find out where the LDS church was. He found some address online and they hopped in the car and he drove her and her grandson down to this church that was supposed to be the LDS church. She and her grandson hopped out of the car and headed into the church, her son would pick them up at the end of the meetings. They sat down and she said she could not feel the spirit and she felt a prompting that she needed to leave. A lady came to her to greet her. Irma asked this woman if this was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The woman said yes, but Irma just kept feeling wrong and uncomfortable. So she asked again. The woman then told her that it was the FLDS church. She then told the lady, "esta no es la iglesia verdadera!" (This is not the true church!) then stood up to leave. The lady grabbed her arm and was trying to get her to stay, but she turned to her and said again, "esta no es la iglesia verdadera, me voy a buscar la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias, la iglesia verdadera" (This is not the true church, I am going to look for the true church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and she took the woman's hand off her arm and they left. Luckily her son hadn't left the parking lot yet.

We laughed and laughed as she told that story! I loved it. Now whenever Sister Throckmorton and I need a laugh, we will wag our finger and say "ESTA NO ES LA IGLESIA VERDADERA!!" the way that Irma did with all her Puerto Rican sass. :)

Last week, we got a call from our branch president and he told us that some less active members had wandered into the church and that they had moved their records from the D.R. into our ward and they lived in our area. We were so excited to have more people to visit, so we called them and set an appointment for this week. We didn't know much about them, but we knew that we had talked to a man named Alex on the phone and scheduled this appointment with him. When we got there, a woman answered the door and she had this huge smile on her face, she said "ah Alex told me you were coming. He got called to work, but you can visit me! I have been waiting for you, come in!" We were confused because we thought we were going to see a man. She explained to us that Alex is her uncle that lives with her and her husband. Alex is a member and she is a member as well. Her name is Isabel and she is 32, she is from the D.R. and has lived in the United States for about 7 years. She was born into the church and grew up active in the Church, her mother and sisters are still active members in the D.R. She grew inactive when she moved out of the house around 18.

 

 

She lived in Perth Amboy for about 3 years and had seen the church, but she thought it was closed because our doors are always closed and locked and it always looked vacant. (We're going to put a sign on the door that has the meeting times so this doesn't happen again because its so true, our church looks pretty vacant). She moved to Avenel, which is in our area, about 6 months ago. 2 weeks ago, she decided she needs to come back to church because she wants her two sons to grow up in the church and be baptized, so they found out the meeting times and came. She is so excited to come back to church and she told us that she wants us to teach her sons. They are 8 and 2 and she has never talked to them about God or Jesus Christ, so they don't know who they are. They were in school the first time we came, so we set a day to come by and meet the boys on Sunday night.

 

 

We went over last night and we met the two boys. CUTEST BOYS I HAVE EVER SEEN! I fell in love with them right then. We brought a picture book and we showed them a picture of the Earth, and taught them about how God created the Earth and how he created us and sent us to Earth to grow with our families. It was the sweetest lesson I have ever taught! They LOVED it. Ysael, the 8 year old had the biggest smile and we asked him the follow up questions to see if he learned and he said "God created the Earth and he Loves us because he is our Father!" Then James, the 2 year old, kept saying "Earth!" and laughing so hard. SO CUTE! Then we taught Ysael how to pray. We taught him using a hamburger - then we asked him if he wanted to try. So we folded our arms, and closed our eyes, and he said, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for my mom and my brother, thank you for my house. Please help the people in the world to be nice to each other and not mean, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen!" T hen he looked up and had the BIGGEST smile on his face and we gave him a high five and praised him. HE was so proud of himself that he said a prayer. I was SO PROUD!! His mom was crying and went quickly to go write his prayer down so she could remember it forever. It was such a cool experience to teach this little boy who had no idea who God was. How he knew there was a God and that he loved him and then he said a prayer. The spirit was so strong! He and his mom promised us that they would pray together every night. I am so excited to keep teaching this family and for this little boy to get baptized! He stole my heart! Isabel is so amazing too! She told us that she wants us to teach her neighbors downstairs too, and that she was going to ask anyone else she knew if they would let us teach them. She also wants us to teach her husband, who isn't a member, and she wants him to get baptized and go to church with them. It was so cool because we didn't even ask for a referral and she just asked us to teach everyone she knew because she was so touched by the spirit!

We are still working really hard with the hermanas (sisters) to encourage them to do their visiting teaching. We had another really neat visiting teaching experience with Hna Cruz. She asked us to come to the hospital to visit a sister who had been in the ward for 7 years, she is on her visiting teaching list, but she hadn't visited her in about 3 years for one reason or another. This woman has been in the ward forever and is family with a lot of people in the ward. I guess what happened was that 7 years ago she was pregnant, but her baby died before it was born, so she had a still birth. When the doctors told her that she had a still born, she went into shock and had a severe stroke. She was in a coma for a very long time and when she woke up, she was paralyzed and she has a bunch of other problems. We went to go see her and she was so tiny curled up in her bed. She couldn't talk or move, and she can't see, but when she heard Hna Cruz's voice she recognized it and she started crying. It was amazing! Hna Cruz just went to her side and stroked her face and told her how much she loved her and how beautiful she was. She couldn't move or speak any words, but she was so excited and crying, trying so hard to smile. I learned so much about Christ-like love and charity from Hna Cruz as she stroked her face and talked to her so lovingly and sang her a song. As we left, we were all so touched by the love that we felt. After that we read in Alma 7 and talked about how amazing it was that Christ suffered for EVERYONE - even for this hermana and how we are all going to be resurrected and perfect again. That is perfect Love.

There is a Hermana in the ward who is a really strong member and she just adores us! Her name is Hermana Angela. She comes out to teach with us a lot, which is so kind. We asked her to come teach one of our investigators with us one night and we texted her the address so that she could drive there. We were waiting outside of the appointment and Hna Angela called us and she was frantically telling us that she was lost and didn't know how to get here. We were having a little bit of a language barrier, so she just stopped someone at the store that she was at and put her on the phone with us to translate. IT WAS SO FUNNY! We got her some directions and hung up. We were waiting on the street for her and it had been about 20 minutes so we were scared she got lost again. We called her and she was like, "hermanas I'm on my way. I'm on main street. It's close to mains street, right?" Then she pulled over and got another lady to translate for us! This woman cracks me up! We got her directions again and we saw her car coming about 5 minutes later. She saw us and she started laughing and rolled down her window and waved! She pulled over and let us in the car and embraced us and said "ahhh mis angeles, me perdi!" (oh my angels, I got lost!) and we laughed and laughed! She is way to cute. It was such a good thing we had her in that lesson. We were teaching a very strong progressing investigator. When we got there, she had just gotten in a fight with her husband, who doesn't want us to meet with her, and doesn't want her to get baptized. She told us that she was ready to just leave him and get a divorce because she wants to get baptized and go to church. IT WAS SO COOL! She knows its true. It was good that Angela was there because we didn't know what to say...were only 20. :)

We went to go visit a hermana in Perth Amboy and she had a cat with 7 fresh, little teeny kittens!! I almost died of cuteness! I was having a heart attack. I held some. It was the funnest thing! This member was laughing about how excited we were! I'm glad she let us hold them.... I might have to go back there to see them soon. They were only as big as my hand and they made the cutest squeaking noise! It made my heart so happy!!

Our neighbor has an MRI and chemo today, so pray that it all goes well and that the tumor is shrinking!

 

OOHHH I can't forget, our investigator Celnia! She is leaving for the D.R. this week to go get married and she is coming back in May, then she will get baptized! I'm super excited that this whole marriage finally got worked out. She really wanted to get married before she got baptized. FINALLY! We have been waiting forever!

Well, that's about it for now! Love you all! Have a great week!

 

-Sister Clark

My Half Way Mark!!

Hola familia!!

Today is my halfway mark!! I cant believe it! 9 months down, 9 to go. I texted Sister Schaefer this morning (my MTC companion) and wished her a happy half way mark. She called me and we talked a little bit about our good times in Mexico. I LOVE that she is only like an hour away from me. We've gone through this whole mission together and its good to have someone to talk to about it.

So, it has been a crazy and eventful week... I didn't get to send out an email on Monday because we went to Morristown to listen to Elder L. Tom Perry. Yep, that's right. You read that right. An apostle of the Lord came to the New Jersey Morristown mission to talk to us! It was the NEATEST experience I have ever had. I got to shake his hand! His hands are HUGE. He is also older than Elder Smith! For once Elder Smith wasn't the oldest man in the room. It was so funny!

But, I didn't get to email on Monday and now its Thursday, which means that I don't even remember what to tell you all about last week because the last 3 days have been SO INCREDIBLE! SO i guess ill just talk about the last 3 days... it may make next Monday's email a little bit boring though because these past 3 days have definitely been the highlight of the week.

So as I mentioned, on Monday we saw Elder L. Tom Perry. We left for Morristown at about 11 and we got to the Stake center at around 12:15. Almost all of the missionaries arrived at the same time.  I LOVE meetings where we are all together. WE pulled into the parking lot and right then I saw Sister Schaefer and we ran across the parking lot to hug each other. Then I saw Sister Martin, then Sister Orton, then Sister Weinstock and the Sister Training Leaders then Elder Blanco and Elder Cuevas and Elder Benson and Elder Christensen and the list just goes on and on. It is a crazy party when we are all together because we just love each other! I love it. We were in our seats by 1230 and dead silent studying and praying trying to invite the spirit. Elder Perry arrived around 12:50 and we all stood. There was an amazing spirit in the room. HE was so fun! He wanted to meet all of us so we stood up by rows and walked up there and shook his hand. IT took about 30 minutes to meet all of the missionaries. 

Then we opened the meeting and President Jeppson introduced the mission to him. It was so fun. We have the best mission! He would say something like, stand up if you are 20, or stand up if you are from South America and things like that. It is always so fun to see all of the diversity in the mission. Then he gave his speech that he always gives us about how God only sends his finest missionaries here because it is the best mission in the world. Its always really awesome when he does that because we have some great New Jersey pride and it is 100% true! 

Then Sister Jeppson spoke, she is always so cute and she always writes songs so she just breaks into song in the middle of her talk and it is so cute! We all just crack up laughing. This time she sang little mermaids "part of that world" but she sang "look at this book, isn't it neat" as she held up a Book of Mormon. Then Elder Perry spoke and he spoke a lot about the priesthood. It was so awesome. President Jeppson promised us that if we opened our hearts, that our faith would be strengthened  by 3 o'clock.. It was so true. I felt my testimony and my faith strengthening by the second.

He talked about the priesthood keys and how the apostles hold the priesthood but only the prophet holds all of the keys and they all work under his direction. He talked about how he was visiting Rome and how all of the statues of Peter depict him holding keys and how he was there with President Kimball and he told the people that he held the exact same keys that were given to Peter and that he is holding in this statue and now President Monson holds those keys. He also spoke to us about how the apostles interact with each other and mentor each other and exercise their priesthood. I learned so many things that I never new! He said they all have their number and order that they sit and walk and go through doors. He said he would never think about entering a room before Elder Packer or sitting in a chair that wasn't his. He also talked about how the church receives revelation and how the Prophet is the only one who can approve new doctrine. He talked about what he is doing with the different governments right now and things like that. It was proof to me of how much the work of the Lord really is hastening in every land. There are some incredible things coming in the future! I was just AMAZED by everything he told us. He also talked about what it means when the general authorities bear their "special witness" That was really neat. I know that he is an apostle and that we have a living prophet today who does hold all of the priesthood keys. It is such a huge blessing! I am so thankful for this knowledge that I have. I just learned so much. I took about 8 pages of notes! hahaha. I have been reading them all week too and learning even more as I study them and the scripture references he gave. IT was the greatest experience.

Then Tuesday we had our district meetings and a pretty average day. District meetings were really good though. We were all still high from the spirit of hearing from an apostle. We all had that fire and we renewed it in each other. We talked about our consecration contracts and what we need to do to become a better missionary. There are A LOT of things I will be working on this week. I am seeing such huge changes in my self as a result from consecration. It is neat. I have been memorizing a scripture every day and it has made such a difference in our teaching and we have been striving our hardest to get out of our apartment on time and to stay out proselyting until 9. IT is way cool to see the blessings from this consecration. This week Elder Christensen, our district leader, committed us to invite at least 4 people to get baptized this week. He promised us that if we would do it, we would find one person who was prepared to for baptism. I AM SO EXCITED to do this. I TRUST in these promised blessings that our leaders give us. I have seen the hugest miracles from them. When president Jeppson promised us that our teaching pool would double if we contacted 10 people a day, it happened. Our teaching pool is SIGNIFICANTLY larger and then when Elder Christensen promised us that if we asked everyone we talked to for referrals we would receive a referral every single day, then we got 7 referrals that week. I have seen NEAT miracles as a result of having the faith to do the things that my leaders ask of me. I love those promised blessings, they are 100% real. I love giving promised blessings too. Giving promised blessings is my favorite part of teaching.. So, when you are taught by a missionary, take the commitment they leave with you and pay attention to the blessings they promise you, they are VERY inspired and they WILL be fulfilled according to your faith.

Yesterday, we had zone conference for zones 9 and 10. IT was the most powerful meeting I have been to on my whole mission. The spirit was so strong throughout the whole thing. Sister Jeppson ALWAYS begins zone meetings by doing something silly. When it was her turn to speak, all of the missionaries leaned forward just waiting to see what she was going to do. My first zone conference she dressed up like a hot dog for Halloween, then my second zone conference she dressed up like a pirate and talked about manners. This time she took of her suit coat and she had a blue tee shirt on that said, "this looks like a job for superman!" and she put on a cake, then began. "THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SUPER AWESOME!!" it was hilarious. She talked about "drops of awesome" and how awesome we really are. How in fact we really are SUPER awesome. Then President Jeppson gave the most amazing practically two hour training on the atonement and consecration. IT WAS SO NEAT! WE reviewed the things Elder Perry taught us and how we can apply it to our area. We talked about how the time is now to hasten the work. There is a lot of things we will be doing differently to improve our work. It was awesome. One of the highlights for me though was the discussions we had. He had some scriptures and he chose a couple of people to read them out loud then say their thoughts. We read in Heleman 5 and the spirit was so strong. The sister reading it broke into tears at the end then president Jeppson asked her, "Sister, what are you feeling right now" then in a tearful voice, she said "I feel like I LOVE what I do" and we all tearfully nodded and cried in agreement. She said "last night we talked to a man who was just so mean to us and it was so hard, but that is not important. I still just love what I do with all of my heart". It is so true. It is so hard, but I realized in that moment, that I really do love what I do. There is nothing better.

I LOVE what I do because I know it is so true. I know Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he suffered for me in Gethsemane. Without him, I would never be able to return to live with my Father again. He taught us exactly what we need to do. We need to have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the holy ghost and endure to the end. That is the only way we can ever return to our Heavenly Father. So many people do not know that. I am so happy to be sharing that with them. I hope you can all share that with them as well. They need it. It doesn't matter if they are mean or if they judge us. It simply does not matter. Christ payed the ultimate price for us and people need to know about it and come unto him. Like it says in Alma 7:13, this is the testimony that is in me.

I love you all and hope you had  a great week! I'll talk to you on Monday!!

-Sister Clark

Week 2 Down!!

The weather in New Jersey right now is so INCREDIBLE!! We had the most beautiful week! Easter time generally has really beautiful weather though. It has been blue skies and sunny and in the 70s. I am loving it! I am soaking up this sun that I missed so much! It's still not the same as my Arizona sun, but I'll take it!

 

I am IN LOVE with these trees. They're everywhere and they're blooming.

I looooove sister Throckmorton. We are getting a long really well and we have the potential to become a really powerful companionship. Yesterday we took a look at the numbers we have gotten throughout our missions and we identified our personal strengths as missionaries and how we could work together and use our strengths together this transfer. I'ts going to be awesome! We both have very different strengths that combined are going to help this area blow up. Our zone leader, who has worked with us both before, told us that he was so excited when we got put together because he thinks that we have the potential to be one of the most powerful companionships in our mission. I'm super excited.

 

On Tuesday we had a particularly good district meeting! It was the first district meeting of the transfer so as usual for these district meetings, we introduce ourselves a little bit because the districts change up a little bit due to transfers. I still have Elder Christensen as my district leader, which I love. He has been my district leader for the past two transfers here in Perth Amboy. This transfer is actually his last transfer, which is sad to me. He is training a new missionary that just came in from Canada. He is so shy it's adorable. I like being around new missionaries because it makes me look back on when I was new and realize how far I've come and how much my teaching skills and Spanish and everything has grown.  We had a really good meeting about teaching the whole restoration in one minute to a contact, then asking for a referral. It was fun, it's hard to teach the restoration in a minute, but it is so effective! We practiced it for a long time and it was really fun. Elder Christensen promised us that if we asked everyone we contacted for a referral, our teaching pool would double. Sister Throckmorton and I took that to heart. I really put the things that I learned in District meeting to the tests and we saw a ton of blessings! We got 7 referrals this week, it was awesome! The highest amount of referrals I've gotten on my mission is 4 in one week, so we did really well. It was cool to see that promised blessing fulfilled.

As I've been mentioning, we have a mission wide goal to do 10 contacts a day or 70 a week. This week sister T and I contacted 82!! It was so much fun! We just went out and contacted all day every day! We talked to some of the most hilarious people. I think about half of our total lessons this week were contact lessons where we actually taught the people the restoration in a  contact, gave them a pamphlet to read or the Book of Mormon, set up another appointment to come and teach them again and said a prayer with them... All in like 10 minutes on the street, or in their yard, or somewhere random like that. It was so fun! We met a ton of crazy people, too, though. Crazy contacts are the best though. It is our best source of entertainment as a missionary. We have the goal to talk to EVERYONE we see, which can be fun. We're always looking for the chance to talk to someone, which is hard in our area because it's mostly neighborhoods and we don't see a lot of people walking outside... BUT, there was this one day that we picked out a neighborhood that looked pretty Spanish to proselyte in and we were walking down the street and we saw this guy drive by. Then we kept walking and he drove by again and was stopped at the stop light next to where we were. He kept looking at us, so I walked up to his car and started talking to him through the window... he wouldn't roll down his window though, so I passed him a pass along card through the sunroof then he drove away.. It was so funny. We were cracking up.

Yesterday all of our appointments juked us so we went out to Cartaret to contact people. We stopped in this little neighborhood that is next to an apartment complex and we saw a few people from India sitting outside. We went and talked to them for a little bit. It was this really old man and he was so nice! He was telling us about his beliefs and how they believe in Christ. He asked for a Book of Mormon... We gave him one, we're not really sure if he'll be able to read it though, because he could barely speak English, but he wanted one. He was so adorable though. He was telling us about how his people just want to have peace with one another.. we taught him about God and Jesus Christ and the restoration and stuff. He didn't really understand English very well, but he kept saying that he was so happy that we came and that we gave him this picture of Jesus Christ. but we were about to leave and so we put out our hands, but he told us that in his culture, elderly men don't shake women's hands, they pat their heads, so he patted our heads. It was cute!

After that we went further into the neighborhood and we contacted this man who was outside doing some yard work with a little girl. He wasn't really interested but we asked him if he knew anyone who would be interested - then the little girl just blurts out "MY GRANDMA WOULD BE!!" so she went and got her and she was the coolest lady! We briefly taught her the restoration and she accepted a Book of Mormon. We read a little bit of the introduction with her and she invited us back over. It was cool that we got a referral from this cute little girl. Her grandpa would have never referred us to his wife, but the granddaughter did because she knew that her grandma had beliefs in God and Jesus and loves going to church. I love kids!

After talking to that lady and her cute granddaughter, we went back on our merry way down the street and we ended up at another apartment complex. I saw an elderly woman with a cane walking up a curb, so I offered to help her. Once she made it up the curb I told her I was a missionary and stuff then she said kind of threateningl,y "Well, you happen to be talking to a Jehovah's Witness" and she got a little bit sour... I didn't know how to deal with the situation so I just said, "That is so great, you must have such strong beliefs in Jesus Christ" and she said yes of course then she started preaching to us, then her friend got out of the car. Her friend was crazy! She was older too and she was really outgoing and loud and happy. She said, "well aren't you two girls so charming! Do you mind helping us carry in some groceries!!" So we agreed. Then this lady looked at our tags and how they were Spanish and gasped then said "Yo hablo espanol! Yo fui a espana por 3 meses!!" (I speak Spanish, I went to Spain for 3 months) It was so random and funny! Her Spanish was hilarious sounding. She definitely wasn't very good, but it was impressive for only having 3 months in Spain. Then some Indian guy passed by and she started talking to him in another language and they laughed and he walked away. Then she just goes "I just love languages!" and she listed off all these random languages that she knows. She was quite the character. So we help these two ladies carry their groceries inside and one just wanted to preach to us, and the other just wanted to be friends with us.. It was the funniest situation. Then they just randomly said," hey we got some Jewish matzos from a friend, do you want them? We want to give them to you." So they gave us some matzos.... So long story short, We got some Jewish food from two crazy Jehovah Witness ladies. It was fun. We said a prayer with them and they were touched - then they insisted on driving us to our car because Cartaret isn't safe at night. I loved it though because we turned what could have been a negative situation into a positive situation by serving these two ladies and strengthening their own faith in Christ. I hope they have a different perspective of who Mormons are instead of the perspective they started out with, with how the JDubs look at the Mormons as a type of enemy.

 

Just chilling with our Matzos that we got from the JDubs.

 

Random funny story, on Thursday we had our walking day, so we drove to Woodbridge and walked around there all day. As we were driving back home to Fords from Woodbridge, sister T took a wrong turn and we ended up lost in this random neighborhood. We were driving down a  dark street and suddenly we saw something jump in front of our car so we stop and we look over and it was a bunny!! We got so excited so we stopped the car and got out and tried to take pictures with it! We found the Easter  Bunny. It was hilarious. I'm glad Sister T took the wrong turn because we got to find this little bunny, it made our night.

 

The bunny that we found.

I was trying to get it.

OOOOOh we also got to go visit that family that sister Weinstock and I found by contacting the neighbors of a media referral. They are so cool! We went back and we started teaching them again and they had read in the Book of Mormon and they had all of these questions and we basically taught them all about the Book of Mormon and the history of that time and they had really good questions. They are way into it! This guy loves the Book of Mormon and he invited us to come over as often as we can so we made some more appointments with him for this week. He said he wants to learn everything that we can teach him because he thinks the message is really good. He said he wants his sons to listen too, but he's not sure if they will want to. He also told us to visit his dad, which we will be doing this week. SO COOL!! I'm really excited to keep teaching him. I'll let you know how it went next week. His name is Ramon and his wife's name is Estrella. Pray for them!

We were messing around with the GPS a couple of days ago to see

how long it would take to drive home...it was really far. Kinda cool though. I <3 NJ.

 

That's about it for this week! We have a great week coming up and we have plans to get a lot of new investigators and we have a lot of lessons scheduled with potential investigators! I'm so excited, the work is going smoothly here in Perth Amboy, and the Presidents promise that our teaching pool would double if we contact 70 people a week is definitely being fulfilled!

I love you and miss you all, I hope you have a great week!

 

 

Pictures!!

Me and Sister Haddock

Me and Sister Schultz. I cried when she went home this transfer. It was lame.

Hermana Angela bought us Ice Cream last Saturday night before the 

Relief Society session of conference. She's so cute!

This joke was hanging up in the Shorthills apartment. It made me crack up. 

Spanish missionaries are the best!

Thanks, Sisters Smedley and B, for the laugh.

Shout out to my best friend, Kaela, who is leaving on her mission TOMORROW!!

 GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!!

The Smiths! They gave me this cute teddy bear.

Sister Smith is the luckiest grandma!!

Last week, Sister Weinstock and I bought coconuts for a dollar.

they were super yummy! I twas a good weekly planning.

 Being fat during weekly planning is just one of my talents.

I was just born with it!

I'm gunna get me some coco!

We love coco on weekly planning days.

It was a long day.

 

 Chillin in the car.

 Running at 6 in the morning has never really been one of my favorite activities.

Coloring eggs with the girls!

Our zone has a hashtag called #spiritanimals . . . I don't know. 

Our zone leaders make us do weird things.

Our fun Eternal Family lesson. My favorite Family Home Evening.

Ice Cream lesson with the Sotomayor family and Sharon.

My true love, Ice Cream . . . I mean the Gospel!

Cutest Family! I love the Martinez family.

Elder Christiansen's birthday. He's my district leader and plays the guitar like a Boss!

Transfer #6

This has been such a crazy week! Its hard to believe that everything happened in just one week. Monday we barely even had a P-day because we had so many appointments with people who wanted to say goodbye to Sister Weinstock.

Me and what I like to call  "The Stock" since no one can say her name.

 

 

We went from house to house and wished farewells. Sister Weinstock was super sad! I was really thankful to be staying here. I love this area. It is a really great branch. Tuesday morning came to fast. Sister Weinstock had to be leave by 9 to be at the training meeting at the mission home at 10:30. She hadn't finished her packing yet because we were so busy. We spent the whole morning packing. There are some Sisters who are down about an hour further south than us in Toms River who were headed to the training meeting as well. They came and picked up Sister Weinstock. Sister Houghten and Sister Weinstock were training, so they drove up together and Sister Houghten's companion Sister Bair stayed in Perth Amboy with me for a few hours until we needed to leave to Morristown to make it to the transfer conference at 3.

 

I had a fun morning with Sister Bair. We just had our studies, then we did my laundry which I had failed to do on our way over packed P-day then we headed out to lunch then from there headed on the long drive to Morristown for transfer conference. I had never really met Sister Bair because she is an English sister, but she was super fun to spend the afternoon with. This transfer conference seemed so different than all of the transfer conferences. I don't really know why because we did all of the same things. I think its because it was in a different building though. It was in Morristown rather than in Shorthills where it normally is. Its so weird how little things like that can throw us off. Sister Jeppson cracks me up though, she came up to talk to us and she just goes, "well, this transfer conference is going to be a little bit different than all of the rest" then she looks at the back doors as if she is talking to some elders out there and says, "OK, do you want to roll in the iPads now?" We all gasped and kind of lost our breaths. We were so excited! But Sister Jeppson couldn't hold in her giggles that long before she blurted out "APRIL FOOLS!" We all just started cracking up. She got some of us pretty good. She told us that April fools is one of her favorite days of the year and that President Jeppson dreads it and can't wait for it to be over. She's so funny. Well, now the information you have all been waiting to hear. I am serving in Perth Amboy with Sister Throckmorton. She has been on her mission for a little over a year and has served in Eatontown and in Dover. She is from South Jordan UT and is about the same height as me and is so sweet. Its going to be a great transfer! I'm excited. I had never really considered having her as  a companion!

Me and Sister Throckmorton

The first week of the transfer is always kind of interesting because you have a lot to get used to. It didn't help that it was such an odd week either. Thursday we had our zone conference, plus our no walking day and weekly planning. So we didn't really get any lessons in. It was fun though. Our zone goal this week is consecration, so we are all leaving be hind 3 things that keep us from progressing to consecrate ourselves more fully to the work. Well see how this goes, its going to be hard for me. I need to learn how to be a morning person. I'm going to work on it.

The Saturday and Sunday conference sessions were so amazing! General conference is one of my favorite things in the whole world. I took like 15 pages of notes or something. Its harder when you cant just go look up the talks on the Internet the next day. I do have to say my notes are very impressive, color coated and creative. I had to keep myself busy. I have never colored on my notes so much. I would have to say that I loved the talks by President Uchtdorf, Bishop Stevenson and, of course, our sweet prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Elder Bednar had a really great talk as well..... They were all good :) I am excited to be using them in my teaching. I love it when the apostles and prophets give commitments to the members.... Speaking of commitments. I have to do as Elder Ballard said and FOLLOW UP with all of you. How is your sharing the gospel with 4 people a year going? hmmmm? I hope you're thinking about it! Also, do you all own a Preach my Gospel? Its time to get one if you don't! Such an incredible manual that will bless your lives. I know it will because it has blessed mine!

Other than that the work is still going! It's getting a little bit rough around here. We are finding people, but they're not all really people who are willing to act and do what we ask them. So, we are going to be dropping lots of investigators, leaving us with very few and doing some major finding. We need people to teach. If we're contacting and talking to everyone, we'll find someone, I'm sure. We do still have some very, very good investigators with Celenia, Maria R and the new family that we found a couple of weeks ago, Ramon and Estrella. They're all progressing very smoothly. 

P.S. Y'all remember my trainer, Sister Martin? She's in my zone now! She is in East Brunswick with sister Haddock!! I am so excited that she is right next door and I get to see her every week at district meetings. Woooooo. I also have to give her a shout out for being a GREAT missionary and having baptisms for the last 3 weekends in a row!! She's the best!

 

Well, that's about all I have to report on this week! I hope you all have  a great week! Love ya!

 

 

-Sister Clark