Thursday, January 22, 2015

My nights after planning have become the busiest times of the day because of all the district stuff to do. So I have been slacking on my journal writing. I usually make it to about Thursday and then go a few days without getting the opportunity to write again so I have make up entries and what not. Haha not that a rant about journal writing is what you wanted to hear but it does influence my emails home. SO my excuse is being super busy which missionaries always are. Ignore that.

We have been working out every day or two with a member over the last month-ish, which has been awesome. I love it. It is almost like a pride day, just a little less intense, so I am getting back in shape. But it is not helping my weight still being low I am in the low 180's at best haha. I need to put some muscle back on eventually. So anyways that's a major highlight because I get to work myself to pieces in the morning and then I am really motivated the rest of the day haha.

We have had some milestones in the work this week! I am really excited. Two referrals from members that have become great investigators so far, one of them even was at church yesterday! This weekend we also have an 'invitation sunday' which is a church meeting devoted specifically to visitors so that members can invite all of their friends to 'Come and see!' There has been a great response from the ward so far because of the simplicity of giving someone an invitation to come see what a service is like. I am really excited and will let yall know how it goes next week!

Overall I am just feeling great. There is a greater power from the Spirit that is coming into my life as the mission moves forward. I love the Savior. His power has been changing me a little bit every day. Like I always say, every day gets better. Peace and strength just build up and I am becoming a much better version of me. I am not worried about after the mission. I know someday I will learn how to talk to girls again and be a student and what not but I will get to attack it with a different perspective. For now I get to focus on the Lord and His work and I love that. I love you too! Thanks for being you!

Love,
Elder Clark
Things that happened this week.... Well we had a deep clean day! That was much needed as usual. Also I got to teach the entire zone on wednesday. That was pretty fun. I used the Fisher Space Pen as an object lesson on how to teach people. It was super awesome. I showed how their pen can't write underwater, and a sharpie can't write underwater, but the Fisher Space Pen can. We read a bunch of facts about it and showed how it was a huge analogy of the scriptures and converting people to Christ.

I went on a Spanish exchange and got to teach a little bit!!!! That was fun. My Spanish is much better and I can understand most of what people say. Thursday morning it was 12 degrees and we did a cross fit work out outdoors. That was crazy cold haha. We were on bikes last week too. So we got cold let me tell you. We share the car with the Spanish Elders and switch off every Monday so car week begin!!!!

I still haven't been able to set up golfing yet, but I have been working on it. Not a lot of opportunities so far but it's going to happen before I go believe you me.

I love you! Sorry it's so short this week we gotta get going and I accidentally lost track of what I was doing. SORRY.

<3
Elder Clarky
So yeah it's 2015. That's kind of crazy.

Our New Year's Eve was pretty great! We are not supposed to proselyte that night or New Year's day so a family took us to the church for a glow in the dark nerf war inside the gym with all of the lights off! That was really fun. We tried to be really sneaky. New Year's day we starting making some shields and lances out of bamboo so that we can joust on our bikes one of these preparation days. Pictures and videos to come when we suit up!

We tracted a few hours this week. It's not been looking great as far as tracting goes lately! We need members to make invitations. Luckily we are having an Invitation Sunday, a special church meeting dedicated to letting community members and nonmembers learn about the basics of the church. It will be awesome! It is a yearly event out here.

I can't think of much else that happened this week. I am getting behind on my journal writing because of how much I have to do out here! I will catch up though. I have written an entry for every day of my mission and I am not stopping now!

LE AMO MI FAMILIA FAVORITA!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Clark

PS any requests on questions to answer for next week?
I don't remember if I told you but I got food poisoning Tuesday night last week. That was crazy. I think I am pretty well recovered now. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning we helped with the bikes, then good naps at home, then skyping YOU, then hung out with and had an awesome dinner with the Bishop's family, then we drove up to the zone leaders' apartment which is about an hour away so that we could sleep over and go to a meeting Friday morning. That was an all day endeavor. We had the 4 hour meeting and then between lunch and travelling back from the other side of Raleigh we really couldn't do much. Saturday was a great day of work though! It went really well. We found a new investigator and taught a few lessons. That pretty much sums up our week! We didn't have much proselyting because of sickness, Christmas, and the meeting. Still good though :)

This morning though, was awesome. That's why I am writing right now. We got to play rugby for about 2 hours. That was the best. We had a lot of members go out with us and I was basically in charge of teaching everyone how to play. It started out chaotic but we learned as we went. The only people I tackled are my companion and another missionary who is going to thow javelin and shotput for UVU when he goes home. It was for fun. I of course tried really hard and dove many times and kicked and ran and everything so my once white KU shirt is now brown. It lived a long, wonderful life. It may survive I don't know haha. It feels good now to have some turf burn and scrapes and tender spots once again. Oh how I have missed that.

I love you! That's all.

I love Christmas! It's a lot of fun. Last year it was really relaxing. This year we are eating at Bishop's so that will be fun too! We get to help out this year with a bike donation organization that is donating over 1000 bikes to kids in need on Christmas morning. I don't remember if I said already that we are helping with that but we are haha. We are going to help Christmas eve night and start really early Christmas morning. So I might be just waking up from a nap when we skype.

Brief update on this week! I will try to be detailed. But I will be talking to you in 3 days anyways haha.

We had a Christmas zone conference on Tuesday and I got invited to sing with 3 groups that were just throwing songs together at the last minute so that we could fill all of the time we needed to for our zone. That was hilariously bad haha. We had 7 of us singing O Holy Night and everyone except me just sang the melody. All a cappella too. I had my companion record it so we could laugh at it later. So that was fun. Then we sang We Three Kings like 9 octaves too low and I realized while we were singing that I had no idea how the chorus actually went so I just kind of stood there and tried not to laugh. There was some good talent but luckily for us there were also a lot of people in the same situation as us so none of it sounded too good haha. It was just fun. Everyone laughing with everyone at everyone else and what not. We all sang the 12 days of Christmas led by our mission President at lunchtime, and I did a really interpretive dance to each of the 12 days. Only 2 people got decapitated but luckily we had duck tape.

My favorite food over the last few weeks has been onions to the point that I am starting to smell like onions. We even made deep fried onion rings this week. That was potent. I feel bad for the poor sister that had to sit next to me in the meetings that day but she never complained. Maybe her nose doesn't work. I forgot to ask her.

I think that the thing I have loved most about being on a mission this Christmas season is the 'He is the Gift' video!!!! I hope yall have seen it and shared it quite a bit because we have and it has been super successful. It softens everyone's hearts and reminds them why this season is really important. I am so happy to have the peace of the Atonement in my life. Jesus Christ has done all and more for me and I am happy because of Him. Everything good in my life I attribute to Him. Which is everything because all is really great in my life. It's humbling. I love my Savior.

Excited to see yall in a couple days!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Jefftoe