Hello! We are having a stellar time here in the Anaheim 3rd and 8th ward. We can barely even keep up with all of the work the Lord has blessed us with. On Wednesday we literally had four lessons in three hours, it was crazy! But more on that later.
So, to start out the week I went on an exchange with Elder Israelsen who just came to the mission. He's from Chicago, and he, believe it or not was captain of his high school's ultimate frisbee team! Needless to say, we hit it off right away, and had a great day of missionary work too! He's currently working in the Anaheim 2nd ward, which is where I spent the first 3 weeks of my mission. It was pretty fun to go back there now that I sort of know what I'm doing a little bit better. We met taught a pretty cool woman in the morning and spent some time contacting at the college. We met quite a few people who were really cool, and it was nice to spend a whole day just talking to and meeting new people, we don't have a lot of time to do that with all of the people we've been teaching, which is an okay problem to be having, I'm not complaining or anything. ;)
More adventures started when I got back to our area. Elder Vaivai told me they had gotten a call from the Huntington Beach missionaries that they were apparently teaching someone named Rod who was working towards getting baptized in his friend's ward, but actually lives in our area. So, they wanted us to drive down way outside our mission almost to the beach and have a pass off lesson so they could introduce him to us. We figured that President Golden would tell us we couldn't do it because it was so far out there, but we called him up and asked, and he told us we should definitely go and do it. Which was great! Except, like I mentioned at the top of my email, we had three lessons already scheduled that night and there was no possible way we could cover them all on our own, so we ended up having to call up our zone leaders and split with them so that we could make it to everything. It was crazy, but we were able to make it all work out. So, out of nowhere we were given another person who's working towards baptism! So many blessings! And all these people are totally just being given to us by the Lord, we're just instruments in His hands to help and guide them along.
Then, behold and lo, Friday morning we recieved a referral for Julian who had been on one of the churche's chat rooms with other missionaries and learning about the church. We sent him a text and talked to him a little over the phone, then we asked him if we could meet the very next day because he seemed so excited to talk to us. Then, get this, he asked us if we could meet that night instead! As in less than 12 hours after we first texted him!! We went over and taught him the Plan of Salvation in his front yard, and he told us he wants to get baptized! He's pretty much the coolest, every time he asked a question about the lesson instead of saying, "So what do you guys believe about...?" Julian would say "So we believe that...?" Then our answers just made him even more excited!
Then, to cap the whole week off, Jeff, the returning member who came to church last week with his daughter Carissa came to church again, and we were able to meet with them later that night and they set a firm baptismal date too! It's unbelievable, I never thought a missionary would ever be this busy in the middle of Southern California, but Heavenly Father has blessed us with so many people who are so ready to make changes in their lives to follow Him! I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to play a part in these people's lives, and I'm super grateful that he's given me such an awesome companion to work with while we're in the midst of all this craziness! Elder Vaivai's the best, I don't think I talk about how awesome he is often enough.
Anyways, I think I've blabbed on enough. I hope you all have an awesome week, I know I sure will!
-Elder Clark
Pictures:
I have more, but this is all that will load, so it's what you get.
1. Elder Vaivai and I
2. A visual I drew up for a lesson
3. I think you're supposed to put a bomb here.
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