This week has seriously been full of miracles, and really this whole area I have been in, my comp, and all of the members and investigators and treated me so well to help me adjust, and I am starting to see that my mission probably will be the best two years of my life. I am starting to love it here in Mexico, loving the language, and really loving the people too. Every person I meet whether it is an investigator, inactive, or even a member, I really just feel such a strong love for them and I realize I am here to help strengthen them and lift them up with whatever problems they may be having. That is where my motivation has came from. The other day we were walking and I started thinking, wow, I only have two years to bring all these people unto repentance and baptism and change their life. I won't have any other opportunity like this so I made it my goal to just work as hard as I can. Not to mention this week has gone by sooo fast! I will try to hit the highlights of this week in my email, but every single day, I have had so many crazy and beautiful experiences. Also... this week we had to slow down on the street tacos because my digestive system started having a say in things, but they are still the love of my life.
So, last Monday we went over to Esteban's house for breakfast since he is in our zone. I've always loved waffles, homeade waffles from scratch are amazing, but Esteban's homeade waffles are heaven!!! I ate so much, and it was super fun to talk and hang out with Esteban. He is super cool, and I think it is awesome that Allison saw him this week too!! He said we could come back around my birthday and he would make me an awesome cake! I am stoked for that.
On Tuesday, I started to question and even ask Elder Johnson, I still can't tell if I am really happy here, or if I just keep telling myself I am happy. But Heavenly Father definitely answered that question real quick. The first appointment we had right after that was with a 60 year old man. He was super accpeting of us, and we put a baptism date with him on February 4th! Then, later that night, we taught the sister of a member. At the end of the lesson, she was just crying, and said she knew it was true already. I almost started crying just because I was so happy. We prayed with her and set her baptism date the 18th of February. After that, Elder Johnson and I walked outside and were so happy! We started laughing, giving eachother high fives, and gave eachother a hug. We ran back to the house just super pumped and motivated, and that was only the start of an awesome week. The next day I got bit by the very same dog that bit me the first week. This time it tore straight through my pants, and I thought it was going to hurt really bad. When I looked, I had a big hole in my pants, but my leg didn't even have a scratch. It was actually a pretty neat experience and it will be a good sewing lesson to fix my pants! We also had a big meeting with everyone being trained so I got to see my old buddies from the MTC again!! That was pretty cool, and fun to share stories with them. Then, that night, we met with a 17 year old girl who is currently living with a member family. She is really cool and interested in our message, so we put another baptsim date with her for the 11th of February. The next day, we had a meeting with the Ward Mission Leader. Before, he hasn't really been open to help us, but through our hard work we are gaining the trust of the members again. He was soo surprised that we had 10 baptism dates and ALL of them have just been contacts of people we have found in the street except two! All of the sudden, he offered to come out with us whatever day we needed, and we worked on pairing each investigator with a hermanamiento (Kind of like a friend in the church and the investigator can relate to so they can stay active even when we leave!) Every morning we have been working our butts off calling members to come help us teach, and since then, it has been a miracle. The member's testimonies are so strong, and it is powerful to have someone else telling our investigators that we have been called of God to help them. All of the sudden, all of the members want to come out with us and give us references to their friends! Our schedules are soo booked, we barely have time to contact or even just go back to the house to study now, are we are still finding new investigators through members. Also this last Sunday 19 inactive members came back to church! Elder Johnson said that was the most he has had his whole mission, and God is truly working miracles through us in this area to reactivate and bring more people to the church. So we went back to Las Vias (The super poor area) and met with the Grandma of the super humble family. She can't read but we taught her the restoration and she was so accepting too! We put her baptism date the 25 of February, and she is going to have her son read the Book of Mormon to her so hopefully we can put some more baptism dates with her whole family! One last miracle of success came one night when we went to go visit a member. We taught her daughters English classes and then she said she was bringing her friend over. She brought her friend over and her friends daughter who is turning 8... February 3! So we talked with her and then shared our message with her too. It was amazing, because after talking about Joseph Smith, we asked her if she had any questions. She said no, and she insisted we keep talking because she felt so happy and peaceful and had never felt this way before. We shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and our church, encouraged her to read it, pray, and attend church. She was soo happy and excited and asked where she could buy one of these 'Libros de Mormon'. She was shocked when we said that this copy was hers. We put a baptism date with her and her daughter for the 25th of February also. So we ended the week with 12 baptism dates, 6 more from last week, and we still have sooo many other cool investigators too we haven't put dates with! This isn't even including a girl who is on vacation right now but when she gets back, she is already prepared for baptism. So every weekend in February is going to be full of baptisms!!! We worked our butts off last month contactng and finding people, this month we are putting goals and helping people change their lives, and next month we are hopefully going to baptize everyone. I hope Johnson will stay with me a little longer to watch all of these people change and enter into the waters of baptism.
So this week was just crazy and filled with success. We have more dates already than Elder Johnson said he has had his whole mission, and he is just shocked at what is happening. We were even wondering what we were doing to deserve all of these blessings and success. Then I started to realize that it wasn't even for our benefit. We are just doing what the Lord wants and what makes him happy. And the baptisms are for the people and for the lives we are changing, not for us, but we just feel so humble and happy that we are working good together and I have already been privildged to see a lot of lives changed. Elder Johnson and I also teach super well together and in the mornings we practice our lessons sometimes, but mostly, we just follow the Spirit. We have been doing really well at establishing expectations, and talking about how baptism is a blessing, how they can actually know for themselves that this message is true through faith, reading, and praying, and that they can one day enter into the waters of baptism. We teach all of the points clearly, and have several different object lesson ideas depending on what the investigator needs. It was also pretty cool this week, when we met a new investigator, they asked where we were from and how long we have been there. They were confused when I said I have only been here six weeks, and they they thought I didn't speak english back in Arizona in the United States. I guess they thought Spanish was my native language! That was pretty funny. I have been working super hard to increase my vocab this week because I think that is where I am lacking the most. Grammar has been pretty easy for me so far.
Well, cool or funny things this week? We playing basketball with some little kids in the street. They saw us walking so they threw the ball at us. It was good to shoot again, and then I was throwing alley oops to Elder Johnson and they loved watching us. I love the little kids here! Also this morning was a dream come true. We went to some indoor baksetball courts in our area (even though they don't have nets- no hoops have nets here which is kind of annoying). It only cost one peso to get in (about 5 cents) and I just had the time of my life. I miss basketball so much, and I am not giving up on my dream of playing college basketball yet either. I have been working out hard every morning and I was super excited to see that I can grab the rim now! My goal is to be able to dunk it by my one year mark, that would be dope. Also at the indoor court we went to, they were having a zumba session. It was just a bunch of old ladies but I got in there and showed them some of my moves. I think they all thought I was weird though.... Elder Johnson and Elder Cherrington were laughing the whole time lol.
Afterwards we bought some fresh orange juice and steak street tacos!! It was probably my favorite P-Day here so far especially since I have been missing basketball this week...One morning I also put stain stick on my armpit because I was half asleep and it looks just like deodorant lol. Elder Johnson has also bought Risk and Monopoly with his Christmas money so we have had some fun game nights with my Christmas games too! Life is just great. Other than that, I am doing amazing and I hope everyone of you are too! I keep you all in my prayers, miss and love you guys!
-Elder Clark
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