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

The Last Week of Transfer Number 5!!

So the last week of my fifth transfer is now over. It went by fast. Unfortunately it wasn't really the best week we've ever had. As far as missionary work, we didn't get a whole lot done. I mean, we worked, but we have just been so successful lately that it seemed like we didn't do much even though we were just doing the mission standard. If that makes any sense at all. Although it we didn't have any huge miracles this week like we have had in the past, we enjoyed all of the joys of being a missionary. I really learned how to enjoy the small things like pillow talk with companions, running out of money because its the end of the month, being really creative with food because you have no money, end of transfer apartment cleaning (TAC), transfer planning, eating too many dinners and deserts in one night and paying the price, awkward street contacts, exchanges, awesome neighbors, listening to the lower lights in the car, fun Hispanic parties and the list goes on and on and on. When times are hard here on a mission, enjoying these small things are crucial! I had a lot of fun this week even though the work was really slow. I really do have a lot to be thankful for. Being a missionary is the BEST!! 

Story time: During the last week of the transfer, missionaries are the most anxious people ever!! Seriously, our lives are just a mess because we are wondering what is going to happen with transfers the next week. I cant even explain what it is like to be in one area on Sunday having no idea where you re going to be in two days on Tuesday. ITS CRAZY!! Like you want to pull your hair out crazy! And we just have to pack up everything in one day and say goodbye to everyone that we learned to love so deeply and leave, just like that. It's so hard, but it is so fun at the same time. All the things missionaries do that some people just don't realize. Well anyways, rant over. So, we were going crazy all week, wondering what was going to happen to us. Sister Weinstock and I have been together for 2 full transfers now and Sister Weinstock has been in Perth Amboy for 4 transfers or 6 months, which means that the chance was pretty high for her to leave. BUT, our area is doing so well and we have been working so hard, so that meant that she had a chance to stay too, so we were just going crazy with the suspense. On Friday night we were at a members home. We call them the Abuelos because they're super old and all of their kids and grandkids are in the branch as well. We were over at their house and Abuela was getting her hair done, she had all of these curlers in her hair (she has nappy Dominican hair) and we were just reading with her and her little granddaughters while she was getting her hair done. It was about 5 o'clock. We were deep into reading and discussing when all of the sudden our obnoxious phone starts ringing. I grab it out of my pocket to silence it (we don't answer phone calls during appointments). When I grabbed it I saw the words lit up on the screen. 0.0 President Jeppson. MY HEART SKIPPED A BEAT!! I realized that it was Friday and that training calls go out on either Thursdays of Fridays. Without even thinking about it further I jumped up off the couch and ran to the kitchen to answer the phone. I answered the phone "Hello this is Sister Clark". I heard these words: "Hello Sister Clark this is President Jeppson, I am calling on behalf of the Lord to extend to you a call to train a new sister arriving from the Mexico MTC on Monday"......



SILENCE

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.........


..........


..........

SILENCE

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............

CRICKET

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.............

APRIL FOOLS!!!

hehehehe ahhhahahahahhahahahahahaha I crack myself up!

But really though, this is a true story. We were at the Abuelos and President Jeppson called, my heart skipped a beat, I jumped up and ran to the kitchen like a crazy lady. I answered, we talked about my medication and the weather for a second, then I heard the familiar words, "well Sister Clark, may I speak with your companion for a moment?" I walked back into the living room. Sister Weinstock was sitting on the couch. She looked super scared. Her face turned white when I told her it was for her. We put the phone on mute. We freaked out for a second. Then she answered. He called her to follow up train a sister who has been in Princeton. She accepted so she will be heading off to Princeton this  Tuesday and I'll be heading down to Morristown to get a new companion. I'M SO EXCITED!! I love getting new companions. All of the Spanish sisters are excellent so I'm not to worried about it.

I really thought I was going to train though. I'm kind of old and I haven't trained yet... Actually the mission is really weird right now. Me and Sister Schaefer and none of the sisters who are two transfers above us have trained yet... Sister Weinstock is the first of her generation to train. Then the only generation older than her are the 2 above that... so there is really only 4 generations older than me.... And there are like 8 of us who haven't trained, but then Sister Martin's generation, the ones who are the oldest have trained like 2 or 3 times and are sister training leaders. IT IS SO WEIRD!!! We have to be training soon. There are 4 Spanish sisters coming in next transfer. A lot of people have told me that they think I'll be training. We'll see. I kind of want to train. We have to be training soon. We're the only ones left. If we don't train, there will be no one left to be sister training leaders. You have to have trained to be called as a Sister Training leader. Oh well. I'm not going to worry about it. It will all work out. But, I'm just guessing that I'm training next transfer or the next. It has to happen.

Well, as far as training for sister Weinstock. You get training calls on Friday and you usually have to attend a training meeting the next morning in Morristown. So we were up bright and early to head out to Morristown (an hour and a half drive) to make it to the meeting on time. ew. ew. ew. It was raining so hard. I hate driving in the rain. Especially to Morristown. The roads are crazy. My theory is that someone dropped spaghetti on a map and called it good. But really though. That's what the roads look like. So we headed up to Morristown and I stayed in Shorthills with the Sister training leaders up there while sister Weinstock was at the meeting. Their names are Sisters Smedley and Boudesoque. Its always fun to get to know some sisters better. We had a fun morning together. We did studies and they made me gorditas for lunch. SPANISH PROGRAM IS THE BEST. We always have the best leftovers in our fridge. Sister Smedley is getting released as an STL this transfer though so that means that she could come down to Amboy with me. That would be super fun. I would really enjoy her as a companion. That is my transfer wish..... but well see what happens. I'll be happy with whoever it is. THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!! I just wanna know already. blah.

After that we headed back to Amboy and got some ice cream with a member, then headed off to the Relief Society Broadcast. WOW such a good session. One of the best ones I have seen by far. I loved it so much. I loved watching it and knowing that my family was watching it too. Especially my two cute nieces Savannah and Ava. I hope they liked it. It was very inspired! I especially loved how they talked about teaching and learning from generations of women. It's so true. I was sitting right next to cute Sister Smith. I am so thankful for her. She is 79 but she has so much to offer us Sister Missionaries. Then I looked around at the other people I was sitting with. We were at the Scotch Plains stake and it was PACKED! We were sitting with a couple of other missionaries. And I looked and I saw some of the other sister missionaries who were sitting ahead of me. There was just so many of us!! The sisterhood was so real. We need each other. I'm thankful that I felt at home in that moment, like I was with my sisters in the mission and with my sisters at home.

Well, other than that, we just had a pretty normal week. Teaching, studying then teaching some more. I loved every second of it though.

I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you can all listen to general conference this weekend. Ill be listening too! I love you and miss you!

-Sister Clark

Feliz Cumpleanos Hermana Clark!!

Hey friends and family, guess what!! Today is my 8 month birthday in the mission!! Can you all believe it has already been 8 months!! I can't believe that. I feel like the weeks are just going by faster and faster. I love it but I hate it at the same time. Next month I am going to be at my half way mark. We made it half way, family!! Now we just need to do that all over again, then I'll be home. See how easy that was? hahha Just kidding, definitely not easy, but I know there are GREAT things in store for the next 10 months. Things are still just getting better for me! Every week gets better and better, I don't know why but I'm thankful.

This week I started out with the goal of either giving one Book of Mormon away every day or setting one return appointment every day. President Jeppson promised us that if we carried a Book of Mormon in our hands every second and if we contacted using the Book of Mormon, contacting at least 10 people a day, our teaching pool would double. I made myself trust in that promise and I really wanted to put it to work. I gave out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon this week! It felt good, I felt like with that goal that I had the Lord was putting me in places where there were people who were prepared to receive the book. 2 of the people were English, so we had to give them as a referral to the English elders, but the elders are actually teaching them now and one of them is still texting us, telling us that she is reading it and meeting with the elders and she likes having them in her home and having them pray for her. The English one we were led to in a really weird way. We had planned to go to a specific apartment building where there are a lot of Hispanics and just knocking around and contacting, but for some reason I was just not paying attention and I missed the turn, so in the process of trying to turn us around to get back over there, (which is impossible with these crazy New Jersey roads, but that's another story for later) We had to turn onto this street which led to a jug handle. While we were on that street, we found some apartment buildings we had never seen before. We got lost down there trying to find the jug handle to lead us back to the other road, so we decided to just park and knock at least 1 door. We parked and we walked down a couple of rows of doors looking for one. We chose one and rang and this young girl answered. We talked to her and she was so sweet. We explained what the Book of Mormon was and handed her a copy.. She looked at it then looked up then looked at it again, then looked up at us and just said, "is this really for me?" and we said absolutely, then she got the hugest grin and said THANK YOU SO MUCH SISTERS!! and gave us a big hug. We gave her information to the elders. :)

My favorite Book of Mormon miracle for the week: On Saturday we started out the day fine. We had two lessons with members by 3 o'clock and it was just an ordinary day. After our lesson with the second member, I started feeling so weird. I just felt so unmotivated and just down right WEIRD! No words to describe the way I was feeling, but it wasn't good. So we just kept going for 2 more hours doing our normal stuff then we came home at 4:30 for dinner, we had planned 30 minutes of phone time before dinner at 5. While we were on our way in, our neighbor girls and their mom came out and they were talking to us for 30 minutes which took our whole phone time. Normally I wouldn't care, I love playing with them and talking to them, but I was just feeling so irritated. I was so bugged! I was just so bugged about everything and I had a bad attitude and I had no idea why! I came inside and I just layed on the floor and I was just whining and acting like a child on whining on the ground flailing my arms and legs around.... Funny right? hahahaha My companion was just laughing at me because I was acting so weird! I didn't know what was happening to my mood and we were just laughing. Then she started feeling that way too. So together we were just feeling weird and unmotivated. We took an extra 20 minutes of dinner time and we were contemplating just going to bed because we just felt so weird, but it just didn't feel right! So we just pushed ourselves out the door, turned on our favorite CD and blasted the music and made our way up to Carteret.

 

 

We had it in our plans to visit this member named Irma who is ALWAYS home. We planned her because we were both just feeling so weird and we decided that we would rather be at an appointment than just knocking doors. So we get to her house and her son answers and told us that she had just left to go shopping, so we couldn't come in. We were so bugged!! But we had some other people to try. We looked at our backups and we had the media referral penciled in for that time. We didn't really want to go over there, but we decided that we had better follow our plans. It was so weird, we just had these random ideas to go to different places than to this lady's house, but we had decided a few weeks ago that we were going to try our best to follow our plans without changing them, so we went to her house. We knocked and she wasn't home, like always, but her neighbor answered the door. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him. We asked him if he knew when his neighbor would be returning, he told us she was working in New York and that she was only home on certain days.

 

 

We then introduced ourselves and we told him that we help people come closer to Jesus Christ and we teaching using a book called the Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Jesus Christ. He looked at us for a second then he said, "excuse me for one second" he opened the door and yelled in to his wife and said "hey, there are two young girls here who teach people about Jesus Christ, is it ok if they come in for a couple of seconds?" She came up to the door and said "oh claro que si!" and they invited us inside. We sat down and they had 2 bibles sitting out on their coffee table. He explained that he had just bought his wife her own copy of the bible and they were studying together when we had knocked. I explained to them that the message that we teach is very unique and a little bit different, but it was still centered in Jesus Christ and we asked permission to share it. They anxiously agreed, so we began the restoration. They were listening very intently and on the ends of their seats. They were asking questions and they understood everything so clearly. We were talking about Jesus Christ and how he organized his church and how there was one lord and one church and how he gave his apostles the authority called the priesthood, then we talked about how the world fell into apostasy. We explained what that meant, then he looked at me and said, "so this means that the church I have been going to isn't true, doesn't it" And I said yes. We told him that all of the churches teach good things and they have incredible people, but they don't have the fullness of the truth. They were in deep thought and it looked like they were accepting this concept. Then he asked "so wait, is the world still in apostasy then?" I LOVED THAT QUESTION!!! THEY UNDERSTOOD SO PERFECTLY!! We told them about Joseph smith. We read in James 1:5 and we recited the first vision to them. It was completely silent for about a minute after that. They were just so deep in thought. Then he just let out this "wow, that is so incredible". We taught them about the Book of Mormon and how it was written by prophets and how it contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it tells us everything we need to do to receive salvation. We gave him a copy and he held it and looked up and said, "Sisters, I have seen Mormons in the Dominican Republic and I have heard of the Book of Mormon before, but I did not know what it was, I thought it was a book about Joseph Smith. I thought you worshiped Joseph Smith, I am so glad that I know that is not true anymore." We asked them to be baptized after that. He thought very hard about it and said that He wants to be baptized, but that this was a lot to learn in one night. He said he was going to read the Book of Mormon and ask if it was true and keep learning from us. They said that if they keep going and they feel like it is the only true church on the earth, that they would absolutely be baptized. We left them with a chapter to read and they invited us back this week. We were there for almost 2 hours and they didn't want us to leave, but we were going to be late getting home. We ran to the car and on the way home, (about a 20 minute drive) we were just so full of joy and happiness and the weirdness that we were feeling earlier that day was gone. We felt that they were very specifically prepared and that our Heavenly Father was very pleased. We know that there was so many weird forces against us that day trying to keep us from finding them, but I am so thankful that we went anyways. It truly explains the weirdness that can't even be put into words that we were feeling that day. That night we experienced one of the neatest miracles I have seen on my mission.

Second neatest Book of Mormon miracle: The Z family. I'm not sure if I should put their name on here because they speak English... But the Z family is what I will call them. Their last name starts with Z :) The Z family is a family in our branch that have been less active for a couple of years. We have records of the missionaries visiting them frequently for the past year and maybe a little bit longer, but they really haven't come to church very much. So they really weren't progressing towards being active very much. They prefer English and they love having us over for dinner usually about once a week. They would usually end up arguing with us during our lessons though because they are very intelligent and full of character. They don't usually read out of the Book of Mormon and we have been trying to get them to read for AGES!! Last week we visited them and we were talking with them and Sister Z said that she was ready to start strengthening her testimony and she wanted to know for sure if this church was true, because she didn't actually know for sure, she just felt like it was good, but she didn't feel like she had gotten a real answer. We asked her to read Joseph Smith history. She said she might, but hey that was good enough for us. We came back and she had  actually read. That week we asked her if she would start reading the Book of Mormon. She said absolutely. She texted us during the week and told us she had been reading. We had an appointment with her on Thursday and since we knew she had read, we planned to teach her how to apply the Book of Mormon. We go over and we talk a bit the way we always do (they're so fun to talk to) then she just says, Ok, sisters, so when are you going to ask me how my reading was? she had the hugest smile on her face!! "I read 4 chapters of Nephi and I read Enos and Jerom and Words of Mormon and all the small ones!! She was so excited!! She said that she had prayed the way we said before she would read and asked that she would be able to understand the words on the page. She said she had read 1 Nephi so many times but she just didn't understand what was being said. She was just reading words on a page. But this time she actually understood the story! That Lehi left Jerusalem with his sons, then Nephi cut off Laban's head! She said that as many times as she had read that she had never actually understood that story!! Her face was just lit up!! Then we asked her, OK so now you know what is going on, so now how do you apply it. She said, "I really have no clue, I guess don't get drunk or else someone will cut off my head?" then we all laughed and we just said, you know what, its perfect that you don't know, because that is actually what we planned to teach you.

 

 

I felt really impressed to share this random experience from this week. It goes like this: We are teaching a family and we are trying to get their kids to read in the BOM so we promised one of the kids that if he read every day last week we would by him a 3 musketeers bar. He did it so we bought him one and we were planning to give it to him the next time we visited them. We had an appointment with that family the day before and Sister Weinstock set the candy bar next to the phone, thinking that when I grabbed the phone to leave I would just see it and remember that we needed to take it. As we were rushing out the door to the appointment I grabbed the phone and we left. While we were on our way there Sister Weinstock asked me if I got the Candy, I said "No I thought You had it" She told me that she put it next to the phone because she thought I would see it. Well, I didn't see it because I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for it, I thought she had it. So, this experience relates to studying the scriptures because we only see the things that we are looking for. There is this huge candy bar in the scriptures but if we aren't looking for it, were going to miss it. She just looked at me and said, wow that is such a funny story, but that actually makes so much sense!! We taught her about reading the Book of Mormon with a theme or a specific question that you want to learn about it. She was so excited to get started. Then at church this week she was excited to tell us that she had been reading more and that she is trying to look for specific things! SHE IS SO AWESOME!! Her whole demeanor changed. Instead of arguing with us, she is truly searching for the truth and putting in the effort. She has changed so much! It is so cool. I don't know how many times I can tell you all this, but THERE IS GREAT POWER IN THE BOOK OF MORMON!!

Well, those are pretty much the highlights of the week. It was a pretty good week full of learning for me!

Well, gotta go, my times up! I'll talk to you all more, probably with many more miracles from the power of the Book of Mormon. I hope you all are reading every day. If you're not, repent. I am calling you to repentance. START RIGHT NOW! I promise you that you will be blessed.

Love you and hope you have a great week, and read the Book of Mormon!!

-Sister Clark