Week #30

Hi mom!

 

We had the craziest week.

Monday we had dinner with our new investigator Robin. She has the CUTEST little boys on the planet! So she gave us left overs and after we got home we had a really strong impression to take it over to our neighbors because just that morning an ambulance came and picked him up! I guess he's okay because he answered the door and was very grateful for the food because then his wife wouldn't have to pick it up after work. It was already 9 by then. And they have a little boy too. I want to teach them! Nicest people ever. Tuesday we made contact with a part member, super less active family. Guess where they're from? Washington!!! Whidbey and Arlington. Made an awesome connection with the wife, who is not a member. She is hilarious and kind of looks like Tessa Schraeder. They're feeding us this Saturday for lunch.... also the Seahawks game will be on haha. They're die hard fans of just Washington in general.

 

We got a media referral! Except totally not for the right intentions. So his name is Brett and he's going to Bible college in Spokane. We figured maybe he's genuinely interested... or maybe he needs to write a paper.... So our first lesson went great. We answered a lot of questions and talked about the restoration and his parents sat in and listened also. They were super excited to have us back and to hear about the Plan of Salvation. So we went back Thursday night, were there for 2 and a half hours! And all they did was pull us from bible verse to bible verse to the point of when we left I had no idea what we were even talking about! So there's my first experience with bible bashing. We had to cut them off and they wanted us to come back Saturday. We went Saturday with Sister Stoddard and she really brought the spirit and was so good at answering their questions! THEN we made breakfast for them Sunday because they wanted to come to church and when they blessed the food they pretty much just stomped all over the plan of salvation. I have NEVER had my testimony attacked more in my life than in those 4 days. They even "invited" us to reevaluate what we're doing out here. Are you kidding me?! I was livid. I didn't know what to do. We have an appointment today but we're not going. We're just going to call and stand our ground because it's a waste of every body's time. There's no change or wanting to change going on there. They argue with every little thing so I have no idea what their purpose was in filling out that referral or really for us going back as many times as we did. I guess I was still just hoping and praying that at some point they could feel the spirit and open up their hearts. Nope. And church was even fantastic. It was testimony meeting and the spirit was super strong. But do you wanna know the funny thing? Although I felt like my testimony had just been thrown to the dogs and spat on, I always came out of that house with an even greater assurance of what I know to be true. This is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It's easy to lose sight of that until you have to defend your faith. So that's probably the biggest thing that happened this week.

 

Also turns out I like sauerkraut. A neighbor of one of the members made us pork and sauerkraut for New Years. It's a German tradition I guess. It was delicious. Thursday morning we had such a big snow storm and we had to drive to Springfield! We left at 8 to get there by 9. It's usually just a 30 minute drive! We had interviews with President and he told me "you're too good to not be great, relight the fire". Okay okay President I'll be better. It's pretty intimidating going into interviews. Then Friday and Saturday we had exchanges with the Piqua sisters. That was interesting. We had homemade egg rolls and cream cheese rangoons from the Tiptons! SO GOOD. I love Chinese food. And we had the best lesson with our investigator Tiffany Saturday night. She is so smart and just reads and reads the Book of Mormon and remembers everything and applies it in her life. We're going to extend baptism this week. She's so wonderful.

 

Let me tell you a little bit about the weather. I will never complain about it being too cold ever again. First of all, we were being told there was going to be the storm of the century with 12 inches of snow. We only got 3. BUT on Monday it was about -10 degrees, with the windchill it was -38. The airforce base shut down! We of course still went out but everyone we saw told us to go home because they put out a warning to not go outside. If we were to be outside more than 5 minutes, we could get frostbite. Good thing we went where we knew we could get in. It was so cold. Yesterday was okay.With the windchill it was only -20.

 

We have found so many people this transfer and both Sister Loder and I are staying for another transfer! I'm super excited to just get all of these people moving!

 

Sorry this letter is so long.

Love you!

Sister Clark