Thanks for those scriptures, I'll definitely check them out while I'm doing personal studies. As far as treats go I'm in the mood for fruity things and individually wrapped stuff is better because I don't eat it quite as fast that way. Also do you think you could order two or three short sleeve shirts and have them mailed here? It's pretty hot even though it's late October.
So this week the boundaries for a couple of the stakes in our mission, so we had transfers last night so that the mission areas match the new ward boundaries. We got the calls where they told us who's going to be where last night, so that's what is on everyone's mind right now. I'll still try to remember some of the stuff that happened the rest of the week though.
On Tuesday we were able to do the Skype lesson with the missionaries in Romania. It was pretty cool, even though we literally just set up the call and then sat there and listened while they all talked in Romanian. We also had one of our investigators drive by while we were waiting for the Romanian investigator to show up, and he stopped and got out of his car to talk to us! He was cool, he's a little taller than me and says "dawg" every two sentences or more. We gave him a tour of the church building and talked to him a little about our beliefs. He had a few questions, and as we were answering them he kept saying that he way we did it made a lot more sense than the church he went to. It was really good, he seemed to have a much bigger desire to learn more when he left than when he got there. In the afternoon some members of our ward fed us a big, delicious dinner which I was barely able to finish. Then we went to the birthday party of a new investigator, and they fed us another dinner! I don't think I've ever eaten that much in my life, and I still wasn't quite able to finish it.
Wednesday Elder Maynes visited the mission, so he talked to us for most of the morning. He talked a lot about the importance of always trying to find new investigators, even when you already have people to teach. That way you're always able to teach the people who are most prepared to hear the gospel, and you aren't spending too much time with people who are letting you teach them, but aren't prepared to change. He gave us a whole bunch of other really inspired advice, but I'm not going to talk too much about it. After that, we went out looking for new investigators.
Thursday we did exchanges, so Elder Mills left and Elder Baker and I worked with Elder Jorgenson. We spent the entire day trying to find potential investigators and talking to people on the street. We were able to set up quite a few return appointments, and Elder Baker taught me how to introduce us in Spanish. You say, "Hola, somos misioneros de la iglesias de Jesucristo de los santos de últimos días." It means, "Hey, we are the missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." That's all I know, so after that I'm pretty useless, but it's still cool.
Friday we had interviews with President Golden and did a ton of finding and setting up more return appointments. I don't remember too much of it to be completely honest.
Saturday we did exchanges with Elder Tousley. We were able to teach a lesson with a guy named Juan (I'm not technically supposed to use people's real names, but we've literally met at least eight people named Juan in the three weeks I've been here, so I feel like it's fine). Elder Mills had talked to him before Elder Baker and I got here, and he felt like we should stop by. He let us teach him about the restoration and it was super powerful. He wants to read the Book of Mormon and we set up another appointment for Tuesday. He seemed like he really felt the spirit in our lesson. From there we did some more finding, then tried to teach the drunk guy from last week. He was asleep, and he asked if we could come again next week because he wanted to read more of the Book of Mormon before he talked with us, so we rescheduled for next Saturday. On the way out we came across a man selling Elote, or as Elder Tousley called it, "Corn on the Curb" basically there was a guy who was pushing a cart with a bunch of food on it, and we asked him for tres Elote. He pulled out three ears of corn and put cheese and chili powder and other cheese and some white pasty stuff on them, then we gave him six dollars and ate the Elotes. It was delicious, definitely well worth the two dollars I payed for it. Later that day we visited Grandpa, who's a 93 year old man that Elder Mills taught and baptised last transfer. He's really funny, and since he's 93 years old he tells some pretty incredible stories. But anyways, we were visiting him to check up and see how his Book of Mormon reading has been going, and he pointed us to where he was keeping his book and told us he had some pictures in there to bookmark his spot. We pulled out the Book, and his bookmarks were on page 624 which, in case you weren't aware is in the index in the middle of the H's. It was so funny, we all laughed for a minute or two, then told him that he was finished and helped him start it over.
Yesterday we went to the stake meeting where they told us what the new stake and ward boundaries are. They completely disbanded one stake and made the stake we were In into four wards. Then we just went proselyting like normal while President Golden and the APs decided where to put all the missionaries. We were able to do a lot of finding, we talked to a lot of people and were able to share good, quality gospel conversations with three or four people. Then we got back to the apartment and waited for the APs to call and tell us where everyone was going. The called us, and we're being moved to the YSA ward. It's pretty crazy, we're not even going to be teaching most of the people we were talking to for the first three weeks of my mission, and we're going to have to do a lot of stuff this week with the sisters who they moved into our area to introduce our investigators to them and do pass off lessons. We also don't even know what our boundaries are as of right now, but we'll probably end up covering about half our mission, and it's not going to include any of the area that the rest of our zone is in. It's pretty crazy, we really have no clue what's going to be happening this week. Basically our plans as of right now are to go to the FHE activity to meet ward members and figure out what is even going on, and decide what to do from there. So yeah, we'll see how all of that goes.
Today we ran a few errands and went to the mission office to pick up supplies. When we were about halfway through shopping we saw a gigantic pillar of smoke a little ways away. Apparently there's a big fire in Anaheim Hills, so some Sister missionaries got evacuated out of that area. We had ash falling down on us while we were at the mission home, so we're pretty close to the fire. It should be fine though, they were talking about it while we were in the mission office and it's plenty far away from where we're staying, but aparently it's the new area we we're going to be proselyting in. So yeah, it's been a crazy couple of days, but I'm doing great and I'm excited for the new area!
Love you guys!
Elder Clark
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