I Heart U.C

Hey familia!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Sister Clark

My Life is so Weird

What a week. I don't even know what to say except that this week was pure craziness... in a really good way though. My life is honestly just getting so weird now. I cant really remember pre-mission life... and I don't really like thinking about home. its so strange. I used to think about home ALL THE TIME... but like, it is just not appealing anymore.... in the least offensive way possible... Anyways. I just had to get that out. I just feel weird. So now, the moment you have all been waiting for! TRANSFERS! So Monday was Sis Haycock's last Pday and last day as a missionary. She still had  lots of MSF money, so we headed to Walmart after emails and bought like 7 galleons of ice cream to take to the zone activity. It was great! all the ice cream We had a lot of fun with our zone. Zone 1 had some good times together, I miss those missionaries a ton!  Zone 1 We just played soccer and we played the guitar. There is a lot of really musically talented missionaries in that zone, so I loooved that. Elder Perez (my district leader) and I brought our guitars and we sang with Sister Webb and Elder Aspinall. Elder Aspinall is the zone leader in zone 1 and he is Samoan and he has the most amazing tenor voice. It is so clear and beautiful, so us four sang together and it was sooooo beautiful. I loved every second of it. Elder Perez has a fantastic voice too... his voice is kind of old fashion sounding... kind of like Michael Buble but better. Sis Webb sang the Melody and I sang the alto. We sang the song "Angel band". It was sooooooo beautiful. I miss them! Needless to say it was  a great last Pday in zone one.  Elder Flores and Elder Perez Sister Haycock's bday party. We made her this cake! Then she shared it with Elder Perez because it was his Bday, tambien Our last dinner appointment with the Lazaro family. We had our last lesson in Passaic with the Mooney family. They are the part member family where the husband is really sick and he has been really humbled recently by his illness so he has been listening to us. It was such a good lesson.  Last Lesson in Passaic We have grown to love this family so much in the past few weeks that we have been teaching the husband. The spirit was so strong, and he had been reading the Book of Mormon! Marcial convinced him that he needed to read! AHHHH CLASSIC! I am so excited about that. Marcial is seriously the best member missionary I know. Tuesday morning we woke up and started packing. We packed until 10 then we went to McDonald's to get breakfast with the zone. Our last activity together. It was so fun. We all just talked, laughed, took pictures and signed each other's journals. Elder Obley is so cute! He drew some really cool Samoan flowers in my journal! I was super excited about that.  Elder Obley After breakfast we kept on packing and we cleaned the apartment pretty good for the new elders who were gonna come in. It took FOREVER!! Then we left..... It was the weirdest feeling.... I had never been doubled out before. I didn't like it. Its not the same as just getting transferred. When you get transferred, at least your companion is still in your old area, so you kind of trust them that they know what they are doing and that they know the needs of everyone you are teaching... But getting doubled out of Passaic was so hard because we just had to trust the Lord. We put everything we had into that area and we were blessed so much because of it. That area was blessed and we had really strong connections with the people. It was really hard to just leave it and trust some Elders that we don't even know to take care of it... Hmmmm. I still don't really know how I feel about it. Anyways. Driving to transfer conference was great. I drove and Sister Haycock let me drive on Her Tiwi card because she was never going to drive again so it didn't matter if she got red dotted... so basically we got to speed all the way to transfer conference. It was the best! I haven't sped since I was at home. It was thrilling. hahaha Tiwi was having a cow though. Transfer Conference was different. It was my first transfer conference with President Taggart, so of course he did a couple of little things different, but it was still a really good meeting. So many good friends left this transfer. I feel like I don't even know any of the missionaries in the mission anymore and that is kind of gross. Oh well.  When transfers actually start though, it is so stressful! Seriously the worst anxiety ever just waiting for your name so you can know your destiny.... and for me it was even more stressful because I knew this is probably going to be my last area... so it has to be good.... Oh I wasn't disappointed. It's definitely a good one. Get this. I am serving in..... UNION CITY Yeah. CLASSIC. Remember how I was born in West New York 49-62? Well, I'm back!! Hello Union City 37-49 I'm back on the lovely Hudson front and it is just as beautiful as when I left it. I have mixed emotions about this. Part of me is super excited... well actually most of me is super excited... then there's this other part of me that is like "Wow, God must have a sense of humor sending me back to a walking area in the winter.... yeah, real funny." GAH flip. I hate the winter. Just kidding. I am going to love it. But really though. It's gonna be so cold. I need some boots. Winter is sneaking up on us here in Jersey. It all of a sudden got pretty chilly this week. The weather is giving me whiplash. It was so hot 2 weeks ago that I had to shower twice a day and now I need to wear a jacket outside. Really Jersey? Over it. I am so stoked to be out here serving in Union City. My companion is great too. Get this, I am still the junior companion! YESSSSS. Been the Junior Companion my whole mission and I'm not even mad about it. I just like being a missionary :) My companions name is Sister Jorgensen and she is so great! Loooove her. She goes home this transfer, so I get the lovely opportunity to kill my companion again. Missionaries are going to start thinking I'm like a serial killer or something. Noooooone wants to be my compa. Sister Jorgensen in Passaic So Sister Jorgensen is from Vegas and she is 10 inches taller than me and she has glasses like me and she is super outgoing, funny and she is  a great missionary. Were gonna have a lot of fun together. I'm stoked. She started her Mission in Passaic and she stayed there for 6 months, too, so we are both obsessed with Passaic, which is fun because we can talk about the people and stuff like that. Also, on Saturday I got to go back to Passaic for the "Passaic day of service". It was so fun. Hna Jorgensen and I were so excited to see everyone. A bunch of the members of the branch showed up and were helping and 4 zones of missionaries went too, so we got to see all of them.  Mi compa Hna Joregenson Y yo Best part though, MARCIAL CAME!! It was so good to see him! It had been like a whole 4 days. haha. But really though. It was good to see him and to introduce him to my new compa and everything. He is the best.  Marical and me at Service (don't judge, I didn't shower before and it was windy) After service some of the other missionaries who had previously served in Passaic went over to the Bravo's house for lunch. She made us tacos. I seriously love tacos. Y'all don't understand. Real Mexican tacos are my favorite thing ever. She made such yummy tacos. It was so fun going down there and just chillin' with her family and some other missionaries over there.  It is fun being back over here on the Hudson because I have seriously seen so many people from West New York. I saw Hna Suarez and Hno Paillaman and the Obispo and Schoendorf families, and the Cedillos. The Cedillos literally live one street out of my area.... I might just have to go see them again for my birthday :) hahaha. hmmmmm. But really though. It might happen. I was so excited to see them. They all just gave me the hugest hug and they were excited that I actually speak Spanish now! I could barely say anything when I served there, but now we can actually communicate. It felt nice to talk to them. :) There is this West New York member named Hermana Teran. I don't know if you remember the story about how Hna Martin and I lost our phone and we were freezing cold and she came and saved us and gave us coats? Well, that's her. She moved to Union City so she is in my area now. We went to go see her this week, and when she came to get the door for us and she saw me, her face just lighted up. She was so excited! She squeezed me so tight and we talked for a long time. She was really excited about my Spanish, too. hahaha. AHHH I love this. My first day of church was great. Union City has a ward, which is different. I haven't served in a ward since WNY. It's definitely a lot of fun though. We have 2 really really good investigators here. I love them already. One's name is Byron and he is so prepared. He is this cute little short guy from Guatemala. He wants to get baptized so bad. He has been having some baptismal interviews and he is going to have to wait for a while... which is sad. We don't know how long he'll wait, but we have a feeling it might be for quite a while. But in the mean time, we'll just keep teaching him. The ward loves him too. We also are teaching a 16 year old girl named Sedney. She is so stinkin' cute. She is so prepared. She goes to seminary and she reads the Book of Mormon. She would be baptized but her mom wont let her, so she has to wait until she is 18. It's the worst. Oh well. It will be fun teaching her though. She is so cute. Other than that we are just in the finding stage. It is so different in a walking area. There is always 100 people within your vision, so you have to pick and chose who you are going to talk to and that is really hard. Ugh - it is so hard to contact here. It's going to take some getting used to. I love how everyone speaks Spanish here though. I seriously can't wait to bring you all down here to the Hudson.... oh it is so great. It is SO HISPANIC. Everyone Hispanic lives in either Union City or West New York. All of the propaganda and everything is in Spanish. I'm loving it. It's kinda sketchy though. My compa and I get along pretty well. I am teaching her how to play the guitar. It is way fun. Every night at 9:30, after planning, we just hurry put on our PJs and lay on our beds and play the guitar and sing and write in our journals. It's super fun having someone to do music with. You all know how much I love music. I taught her a Jimmy Eat World song and a Taylor Swift song this week. She is making good progress! Well, that's about all I've got this week. I'm just learning the area and the people and I am loving it. Change is hard, but it is good. Hope you all are happy and that you have a good week. Love you! -Sister Clark Sister Haycock's and Sister Webb's hotseat. It was a good one :)

Taco Queen

So.... I have some bad news.

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

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

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

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

Silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me and Sister Haycock's mouths dropped... 

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

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

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

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

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

We had a fun weekend though!

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

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

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

After the kids did our makeup.

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

Me and the Garcias (our branch mission leader)

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

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

Sis Haycock is my hero!

haha

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

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

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

-Sister Clark

"You're Killin me Smalls"

Hey there familia.

It was really kind of a slow week. I don't really even know what to write about, haha. I feel like time is just going by so fast now, its kinda trippin me out. It was kind of a rough week, but it was still good. It was just rough because the fact that Sister Haycock is going home is kind of starting to hit us. She had her departing interview with President Taggart on Saturday morning and that is when it really hit her. She basically got released... but not really. Idk, its weird. She came home and she was just exhausted after that. Emotionally, physically, mentally. When she got home from her interview, she just laid on the floor and started laughing. She was laughing so hard and she couldn't stop. It was hilarious. She was like delirious. She is honestly losing her mind because she just doesn't even know what to do with herself. I have a video of her laughing :) hahahaha

Sister Haycock and I started up an English class up here in Passaic. I haven't taught an English class since I was in West New York, I forgot how much fun it is! We have like 3 or 4 regular students right now since it is just starting, but were trying to get the word out. It is so funny because one of the counselors in our branch presidency comes to the class and he doesn't speak ANY English. We had to teach him how to say hello. hehe This week we taught them the alphabet. They have a really hard time pronouncing the letters, so we spell them out phonetically and they get so excited. When the hermano finally got through with the whole alphabet he had the hugest smile on his face and he was telling us how he was sure he could have a conversation in English now. Bless his heart.

On Wednesday Sister Haycock and Sister Webb had their departing missionary temple trip. A week before you leave your mission, all the departing missionaries go to the temple with the Taggarts, so they got to go to that. Sister Webb's companion and I were companions for the day. It was fun because we have the exact same area the only difference is that we are Spanish and they are English. They live a couple of streets down from us. Anyways, we had two appointments for Spanish and two for English. They were all really good appointments it was just a little bit crazy trying to balance both of our areas. We had a lot of fun together though. Sister Greenall is so funny. We went and got sonic after our 4th appointment while we were waiting for the sisters to get back. It had been forever since I had sonic. It was nice to have a cranberry limeade. It reminded me of home after a long day at school.

Thursday was pretty crazy. We started the day off with a noon appointment with this family in the ward named the Calderon family... They took us to a buffet in Lodi. It was crazy. They thought it was the coolest thing that you could eat all you want for the same price. They made us get 3 plates of food then they made me eat two bowls of ice cream. hahaha they're so funny. We were so full though, and it took way longer than we thought it would and we had  the Echeverrias after that, and she always feeds us a ton of food.... So we were kind of dreading that. We were so full from that Buffet. We went to the Echeverrias like 30 min after that appointment. Hna Echeverrias grandkids were there again. We seriously love those little girls so much, they are just so cute. I will have to take a picture when we go see them tomorrow. She made really yummy spaghetti. I don't understand why everything that Hispanics cook is so yummy. I don't normally like spaghetti. hmmmm. We had a really fun lesson with the Lopez family. We talked to them about how to set goals. We had a lot of fun just joking around with them too. We made Abby sing for us. She has such a pretty voice. I'm going to try to convince her to sing with me at church. Then.... They fed us too. We weren't expecting that. They have never feed us before... well except for ice cream sometimes, but that doesn't count. So basically.... we were just dying at the end of the day. We had major Hispanic tummy.

Saturday Sister Haycock and Webb had their departing interview with President Taggart, so Sister Greenall and I got to hang out again for the afternoon. They left the apartment at like 7, so we just did our studies... but Sister Greenall was sick, so she was in bed all morning and I did my studies... For like 4 hours. It was beautiful. Probably the most peaceful 4 hours of my mission :)

Saturday night we went to our correlation meeting and we had to stay at the church for a while while we filled the font up for Marcial. Our baptismal font is kind of cool. You fill it up the night before and it heats up over night. It takes a long time to fill those things up though. Then we went to see Marcial. It was so fun. He was so excited for his baptism the next day. He was so happy. When he said the prayer before we left he thanked God that he was finally going to be a member of his church. He is seriously the best.

So now for the moment you have all been waiting for.

          MARCIAL'S BAPTISM!

Definitely the highlight of my mission and probably my life. He came to church all dressed up in his suit. He looked so good. He was GLOWING. Everyone was talking to him and congratulating him. He fits right into this branch. Its like he has always been a member of the church. After the second hour, Sister Haycock and I headed into the kitchen to make all the sandwiches for after the baptism. The Garcias brought the sandwiches. They were super yummy. I don't know why Hispanics make such good Hispanics... but they were ham with this weird cheese and of course, jalepenos (the Garcia are Mexican). So yummy.... but while we were in the middle of making the sandwiches and the elders come into the kitchen. They had a baptism that day as well, so Marcial's baptism was a double baptism. The elders baptised a cute 15 year old girl named Alexa... so the elders walk in the kitchen and were just like "uh sisters... we need your help. Alexa is having some trouble changing into her jumpsuit" So we go into the changing area by the font and cute little Alexa is in there and she is just standing there looking at the jumpsuit. We ask her "did you bring an extra pair of underwear?" Her: "no, the Elders didn't tell me!" ahahahha classic Elder Baptism fail. haha. We asked her where she lived. She lived like 30 minutes away walking and we weren't allowed to drive her.. this was a problem. We asked her if there was anyone at her house. She said her grandma would be there.... so Sister Haycock and I jumped in our car and sped to her house. We got there and explained to the grandma the situation praying that she would let us in. Just picture us standing in this little hallway explaining to this little Mexican abuela that we needed to come in and look through her granddaughter's underwear. It was quite comical. She just laughed and let us in and helped us find some underwear for her. We made it back just in time. She changed and the program started. Her and Marcial sat up front. I led the music, a hermano in the ward gave a talk, then Alexa was baptized. Then Marcial. It was amazing. The spirit was so strong. The whole branch was there to support them. There wasn't enough seats for them. 

After the baptism we all had the sandwiches and soda. Marcial was so happy. It was the perfect day. 

Monday was super fun! Sisters Haycock and Webb had their Ellis island trip, so it was another day with Sister Greenall. That's why I didn't get my emails done. We had fun though. We went to the Patterson chapel for the zone activity. We also got to do some secret Birthday shopping for SISTER HAYCOCKS BIRTHDAY!!! Her birthday was Tuesday. So we got some decorating stuff and we decorated the church for her so that when she came to district meetings the next day we could surprise her, then we went down into Passaic to try to find this store that sells new jersey merchandise... we couldn't find it anywhere. We were driving/walking around Passaic for like an hour trying to find it.... which if you don't know what Passaic is like, just picture Mexico. :) It was crazy. We finally found it though at 5:30... so we only had 30 minutes to get by her birthday present then get back to the apartment... we barely made it. haha. It was a struggle hiding that stuff from Sister Haycock since they were waiting for us at the apartment. I did it though. She had no idea I planned stuff for her birthday. She forgot it was her birthday. hahahaha. I got up in the middle of the night and I made her a card and got the stuff all ready for her when she woke up in the morning. 

Tuesday, she wakes up and walks right past all of the stuff, still drowsy... then she comes back into the living room with her exercise stuff on and she was just like... WHAAAAAT? Its my birthday? hahaha. i got her an I <3 Jersey shirt and some hipster glasses. She was super excited. It was a fun morning. Then we went to district meeting. Sister Haycock bought everyone Little Cesar's pizza because its her last week and she has so much MSF money. The Shaws (the senior couple) brought cakes then Sister Webb and Greenall brought the cake that Sister Greenall and I got on Monday.... So there was a lot of pizza and cake. Then Sister Haycock and Sister Webb had their hot seats. It was so fun. She was so surprised when she walked in there for her hot seat and it was all decorated for her birthday. hehehehe. Their hot seats were so good. They are super great missionaries and they had some GREAT stories to share with us about their missions. We didn't even get back to our area until like 3:30 because it was just such a huge party. It was way fun though. Then last night, we took Marcial with us to go teach with us. It was his first team up experience!! He was so excited. He brought an AMAZING spirit into the home when he shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon with this family. We took him to see a part member family. The wife and kids are members and the husband isn't. They are going through a really hard time because they think he has stomach cancer and they are doing all these tests and things. He is pretty strong catholic, but he has been reading the Book of Mormon with his wife and we have been visiting them often for the past couple of weeks. We couldn't get him to read on his own though... But Marcial just shared his story and told him about how he had to read the Book of Mormon by himself. The spirit was incredible. Marcial is seriously the coolest! They were really touched by him. Hno Mooney is excited to read the Book of Mormon now. ....

gah. I am obsessed with Marcial. He is way to cool. haha You all have to meet him. You will love him.

Well that's all for now family. I don't have very much time this week. I love you and miss you all so much! Have a good week!

-Sister Clark

Busy Week!

Hey family, wow, we had such a busy week down here in Passaic. It was one of the best weeks of my mission though, that's for sure. We had so much fun and saw so many blessings. We were really into our zone goal of getting at least 70 contacts a week and 700 as a zone... It really shouldn't have been - as hard as it was, it was only 10 contacts per companionship, but there was a lot of companionships that just weren't doing it, which is dumb.. but Sister Haycock and I were in contact with the zone leaders constantly, who would let us know how many contacts we had as a zone every day and how far behind we were from the goal, then Sister Haycock and I would pick up the slack and do their contacts for them. It was a lot of fun for us. We got 285 contacts, so that was super awesome.

 

On Sunday night we still needed almost 200 contacts as a zone to make our goal of 700 for the week, so Sister Haycock and I set a goal for ourselves to beat our high score of 107 contacts two weeks ago and to get 108 to help save our zone. We walked to and from church, then all of our appointments juked us so we were on the streets for the rest of the day. The weather here in New Jersey is so weird, it cannot make up its mind. It was super hot and sticky in the morning on our way to church and it was a bit over cast, then when we left church it was hot all the way home. We took an hour for lunch and went back outside and it was perfectly clear outside, then within 45 minutes of being outside it started pouring rain, and of course we didn't have our umbrellas with us because we were walking and the skies were clear when we left. We got SOAKED. It was so fun. New Jersey rain is incredible. It pours and there are just huge rivers in the streets. Sister Haycock and I were in Garfield in this interesting little neighborhood/community where there are a lot of Hispanics, Italians and Polish people. When it started raining, we ran to take shelter under a shade thing by the door to some Italian thrift store. While we were standing there looking at our planners trying to decide what we were going to do this cute little old lady walks out of the store and was standing under the shade with us. She barely spoke any English, she spoke Italian, which we actually understand pretty well. She was absolutely adorable. She had these big glasses and just talked and talked to us in Italian and we would show her pictures of Christ and she got the hugest smile on her face, so we taught her a little bit, were not sure how much she understood, we were speaking half Spanish, half English, which ever she understood better, since Spanish is closer to Italian than English. We prayed with her and she got the biggest smile on her face and gave us big hugs. She wanted us to come into the store with her so that we wouldn't be out in the rain, but we told her that we needed to go. She told us to wait, she ran into the store and came out with her umbrella for us. It was so nice of her! She made us take her umbrella with her, we told her we would bring it back, so that is on our list of things to do. We made a really cute friend because of the rain. :)

 

So after the random 30 minute downpour, it was an absolutely gorgeous night. We went home, changed our clothes then got back to work. We ended up getting 108 contacts and 9 lessons that day and we found 2 inactive members that weren't on our branch records because they were baptized at a young age in their own country. That was really cool, we were definitely guided by the spirit to find those people, they were complete miracles. One of the less active members actually has two names, so she was in our area book under the potential section, but we had actually contacted her on the street a couple of weeks ago and got her address without knowing it was the same person, so when we went to her house we found out that she was actually already a member and her mom is a member as well, but her little brother is not, there could be some potential there. We found 2 new investigators who had sincere interest in the book of Mormon and we found a really cool guy named Will. He is a high school English teacher and he promised us he would read the book of Mormon cover to cover and that he has a strong testimony of the power of prayer. He was way cool, we passed his info along to the English sisters. Hopefully they will get in touch with him soon.

 

We have just seen so many blessings from contacting and making spiritual connections with people in contacts. Our zone leaders promised us that if we did our contacts every day we would be blessed with more investigators, more baptismal dates and more happiness. We have definitely seen all of those things. Our teaching pool more than doubled, we are being led to amazing prepared people and inactive members. We are seeing miracles every day. This month we will be focusing on inviting more people to be baptized. We know that we will see that increase in baptismal dates as we teach the people that we have found this month and continue to find more people. It's amazing how many people there are who want to know, we just have to find them and have the faith to talk to them... whether we are missionaries or just friends.

 

So, basically, Sunday was one of the best days of my whole mission. We worked so hard and we were on our feet the entire day except for the 3 short hours we were in church.... which I actually taught gospel principles, so I was still on my feet, ha ha. Sister Haycock and I got home and we did our nightly planning in 10 minutes then just passed out on the floor. We were dead tired and we agreed that it was probably the most tired we had been. While I was laying there on the floor, this random memory came to my head. When I was younger, my parents got my brother Nick and I Disneyland passes for Christmas for new year's weekend. We had so much fun that weekend. On New Years eve, my mom and Rod left Disney land early because they were so tired and they didn't want to stay up until midnight. Nick and I stayed out in Disney land until midnight that night and we had so much fun. That night when Nick and I came into the hotel room I took of my shoes and my feet hurt SO BAD and I was just dead tired, so I climbed into bed as quick as I could. My feet have never hurt that bad until Sunday night after that huge day that we had. Literally, I couldn't feel my toes. :) it was awesome. We took showers and went to bed early.

 

So, that was basically the highlight of the week. Oh yeah, Marcial passed his baptismal interview, that was cool. We have his recommend stuck to our fridge so we don't lose it between now and next Sunday. :) He is so excited and everyone is excited for him. Everything is basically ready, there are a lot of people participating. It will be a great day, can't wait to tell you all about it next week.

 

We also got to go up to Hewitt to go see Sister Haycock's family for the last time before she leaves. It was so much fun. They took us to this cute little town and we had lunch and went to go get ice cream at this really cool little ice cream place. Where they live is right at the top of Jersey and this ice cream shop was at the top of this big hill where you can see an incredible view of New York country side. It is so incredibly beautiful and green. I'll send a picture next week.

 

Oh big news! I finally mastered rolling my "r"s. I am officially Hispanic now :) Marcial helped me out and showed me how to hold my tongue. He is the BEST! He and Sister Haycock kept on laughing at my face when I was trying to do it because I was so concentrated, then when I finally did it we cheered. It was like when a baby says their first word or something. hahaha

 

We had some really weird contacts this week. We contacted some guy named Reynaldo and I'm not entirely sure he was accountable... He kept trying to preach to us and he gave us these pamphlets and he read Matt 12 to us. The whole chapter... it took forever. we kept on trying to stop him but he just kept going. Then the best part, while he was reading, a few kids passed us in bicycles and he looked up and said, "God and Jesus love you kids, and so do I!" Then he just kept on reading. Sister Haycock looked at each other and we had to concentrate so hard on not just dying laughing. Then we met this crazy guy in Passaic that told us that he was "the messenger" then he asked us if there was anything that we wanted to ask him. we were confused so we asked him what people usually asked him. He said people don't ask him questions, he usually has to ask them questions, so then we were just really confused. Then he started talking about a swear word... the B.S. swear word. He just kept on saying it, so we were like, don't say that, then he was like, God says that word. Then he was like, "If God came down and said B.S. would you believe he was God?" and we were like.... uh... bye. ha ha he was so weird.. He said so many weird things. He actually thought he was one of Gods messengers. Bless his heart.

 

I have been practicing my Dominican accent. It is getting pretty good. Today we had zone meeting and during our role plays, I was pretending to be our investigator, Tanya,who is Dominican and the elders were teaching me about baptism and so while they were teaching me, I just blurted out randomly "Tu estas bautisado?" in a really good Dominican accent and they just cracked up. They lost it. They said that it was really good. ha ha. Now we just keep saying that to each other.

 

Sister Haycock and I found this really good gelato place down the street from our house. It is seriously amazing. We decided it is probably better than Rita's. They have really good lemon, coconut and hazelnut flavors, plus a bunch more, but those are my favorites. We are eating so much ice cream because it is so stinkin' hot and sticky outside. We have just come to peace with the fact as soon as we walk outside, we will be wet for the rest of the day because it has been so humid lately. It is disgusting! We just keep laughing because at the end of the day, we come home and take our purses off and we have this huge sweat stain across our bodies from where the strap for our purses go. It is quite humorous.... we just can't take our purses off ever throughout the day or else people will see it. ha ha

 

I love you all and miss you like crazy! have a good week!! Pray that Marcial's baptism goes well! I'll talk to you next week!

 

-Sister Clark

Flood the Earth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Sister Clark

Long Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Sister Clark