Christmas came early this year!! I finally got all those letters my best friend Elder Nielsen had stuck in Africa with him, I was so happy!!!! And I got a Greenie Package from my family, full of green mints and green paper plates and a green necklace and green balloons and green straws.... thanks guys!!
Here's Sister Hoffman and I in our PJs! I love her to death :D The poor girl has been sick a lot this week so she's taken the time to rest more in the mornings... pray with me for her. She's getting better now though so I'm super stoked to get out even more and meet more and more people :) Sister Hoffman and I have a goal of making our area into a stake, and it's completely possible!
Trying to get warm by the fireplace during planning
So while this week was a good week, I got a little frustrated with myself, because I keep expecting perfection. I had to sit back and come to terms with the fact that I can't be a perfect missionary right off the bat, or even ever. I have to be patient because sometimes I push myself too hard. While I was praying one morning, words came to my mind saying, "Work better, not harder." I realized that I was working on 20 goals at once and I was frustrated because I wasn't achieving any of them. The Lord helped me realize that I need to work on 2 goals at a time, max. I've been SO much happier ever since :) Prayer works! It also carries you through mealtime when you've had nothing but potato dinners and spaghetti since you arrived :D
This week we were teaching good old J____, our amazing golden investigator, and it came time to teach the Law of Chastity... it's just as awkward as you'd expect it to be. But! J____ is amazing, he has so much faith! He accepted it all, and we're hoping that him and his fiance will be married by Valentine's Day! and then baptized on the 27th!! I'm so excited!! He's struggling with smoking still, so we bought him a giant bag of Dum-Dum suckers as a replacement, and there were some weird flavors in there.... he gave us the pizza and bacon flavored ones.... they tasted like vomit. Ick! But it was hilarious. His little girl then put stickers on our foreheads and we were told to go the rest of the day with them on. I still have that sticker, but now it's on the back of my name-tag :)
Oh, and I wrote a song out here :D Sister Hoffman has her guitar here, I love it so much. I'll see if I can get my song recorded and I'll try to send it home soon :) Also, look up a song called the "Idaho Song" on YouTube. It's a hilarious song for Idaho to Frozen's "Let it Go" :D And if you're wondering what kind of music we listen to out here... we listen to a lot of Mormon remixed songs like Justin Beiber's "Boyfriend", but this version goes like "Convert, convert, I could be your convert..." It's great.
One thing that I'm really coming to realize is that no matter what you experience with the Gospel, whether you see an angel or serve a full time mission, you can still fall away from the church. We find so many people out here like that who have just fallen away, even though they still believe in it. What you need to stay with the church and receive all the Lord's promised blessings is to keep doing what you know you need to do! Action leads to conversion. Having a testimony and believing in something is the first step, but if you get lazy and never do anything about what you know, what good does that do for anyone? Actively following Christ is the only way you'll ever get closer to Him. I'm working hard on converting myself to Christ more and more each day, and what's awesome is by doing that, my testimony is only growing too :) I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Even through the tough times, I'm happy because I'm serving Him.
The only thing that could possibly make me happier is sending me some Texas stuff I can wear with pride..... :)
Keep safe everyone, I love you all!
Sister Clark
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