Serendipity Supper

We had a pretty action packed week this week! I'll just hit a few highlights. 

On Monday we had dinner with one of the members of the ward. We normally try to not have dinners on Monday so we have time to clean up after the activities we did for P-Day, but the person who runs the missionary dinners forgot about that and signed someone up. She asked if she should reschedule it, but we told her it we would just make it work. So, we left our sports early to make it over there, and we were so glad we did! The members who fed us recently had their granddaughter Emily move in with them for a little while, and she grew up outside of the church. So, near the end of the dinner Brother Hall leaned over and told us that we needed to set up a time to teach Emily because they'd talked about it and she said she would be willing to hear the missionary lessons! We asked if we could share the message right then and there after dinner, and she said yes, so that was super awesome, we were able to set up another time to teach her later in the week. It was a great way to start off the week!

Tuesday we met someone really cool on exchanges and sent his information over to the JAS (Spanish YSA) ward. It was really neat, because their target demographic is super small here and they're really grateful when they have people help them out with finding people. 

Wednesday we taught four lessons and had three people from those lessons set up a baptismal date! It was crazy, everybody wants to get baptized! We really are so blessed to have met all of the people we're working with right now, things are just so good. :)

Thursday I went on an exchange, then in the evening Elder Vaivai and I got a call from the assistants. I'm released as a district leader, and we're both training new missionaries this transfer! I'm super pumped, we're actually both staying in the same ward, but instead of one companionship covering all of the Anahiem 3rd ward and all of the Samoan ward, Elder Vaivai and his new missionary will be covering the east side and the whole Samoan ward, and my new companion and I will cover the west side of the 3rd ward. And... my companionship will be on bike! So that's pretty exciting, and the really good thing is that somebody donated a bunch of bikes to the mission, so we don't have to buy one, and the bikes we'll be riding will be new and functional, not like the missionary bikes we usually inherit that we have to repair once or twice a week. So, Elder Vaivai and I are still together until tomorrow night, then we'll get to meet our new missionaries.

Then, to close out a great week, Grace got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was so good, and she brought her whole family to the baptism and church! It was the first time they came to church because she was really nervous about bringing them, but they liked it a lot, so we should be able to start teaching them pretty soon here! It's so good, Grace has so much faith, and it's just been so awesome to see the Gospel changing her. :)

So, that's our week! I'm excited to keep working here, and super excited for my new companion who gets to start his mission in the best ward in the world! Make your week the best, I love you all!

-Elder Clark

Pictures:

1. Grace's baptism

2-3. More fruit, I don't know what this one's called either. Persimmon maybe? Which reminds me, this week some members took us to a Korean BBQ. It was pretty interesting, they had a little grill thing in the middle of the table and you grabbed your meat and cooked it yourself. I ate a little bit of beef tripe, which if you don't know is cow intestine. It was absolutely terrible, never eat that. All the other food there was much less weird and very yummy though, I'd go again. :)

4. The poster for someone who's running for city council. I'd vote for him.