Week #68

Hi mom!

Well to start off I weighed myself the other day and I lost more weight. That makes over 20 pounds.... not sure if I'll drop more before I come home. I can't believe it's already October, that this transfer is almost over, and that I only have 2 months left here. 

Conference was awesome! Except that it was in Portuguese so I couldn't really understand the interpreters very well. I understood Elder Godoy's perfectly, though. So I'm now sitting reading emails and listening to conference in English. 

Okay this week was something else to say the least. Monday we ate homemade pizza. It was pretty delicious. 

It was another week of challenges and I am very very tired. But ya just gotta keep on going. Tuesday Sister de Jesus and I made a goal for 5 baptisms this month. We had 3 people basically already set in stone and a married couple that we were working with. The couple and 2 other baptisms fell through. 2 were two children that the mom said there's no way she would ever give permission for her kids to get baptized. Even though they go to church every Sunday with a member. So after this happened we made plans to be as obedient as possible to make sure nothing else falls through. Well, we got back to the house Tuesday only to be informed that we had a mini transfer because more Americans arrived and I was being transferred. Sister de Jesus started to cry and I was just like what? So the zone leader called and said it was true and I started to pack my bags. 5 minutes later the sisters come in and tell me to stop because it was all a joke! I'm still in Oriximiná for another 2 weeks until the transfer. The jokes in the house are wearing me down a little bit haha. One time they woke us up at 6:30 pouring ice cold water on our heads....... 

We've met some really great people this week. We met a really humble couple but I think the husband is a little more interested than the wife. He's way awesome. We also received a referral from a member.

Thursday we went to Santarém and Friday we went on exchanges. I went to the other side of Oriximiná with Sister Mendoza. It was weird to be back in that area and we met some really awesome people. They had a referral to contact and this young man paid a lot of attention. The spirit was super strong and he is very smart. I'm excited for the sisters to teach him. Also, it rained a lot and afterwards we were standing on the street looking at our planners when a bus drove by and hit a pot hole filled with water..... that splashed all over us. It was like a movie. We were so dirty. We also met a hippie in the park whose wife was from Spain and they had just arrived in Oriximiná. Turns out he's a member of the church! 

Conference was awesome. Although it was hard for me to understand it, I still felt the spirit. Just goes to show you that just looking at the prophet and the apostles today, you can really feel that they have been called of God. We have a prophet today and 12 apostles. I didn't have to understand what they were saying to feel the truth of their calling. And I sat there thinking about the members of the church in other countries. It takes a lot of faith to believe in a prophet that doesn't even speak their language and lives in the states. And yet, they have a testimony. 

Unfortunately, we had nobody come to conference. People give the same excuses over and over and over again. I think in a year and a half I've probably heard every excuse under the sun. I don't remember who said it but in conference I remember a speaker talking about taking time to read our scriptures and how many times we give the excuse that we don't have time but of course we have time to watch our favorite show on TV. As missionaries we hear so many excuses from people and I thought about how Heavenly Father must feel when we, as "faithful" members of the church, give excuses to not do our part to help build ourselves spiritually, or help build the kingdom of god. We give the reason that our lives our hectic and we never have time to stop but how much time do we spend on facebook, watching TV, movies, listening to music, driving. 30 minutes of our day we can't give to help build our faith and testimony? I do not want to go back to the life I lived before my mission. Pure laziness. I want to let my mission change my life and attitude. 

Another thing I noticed this week. The sisters made a contact with a couple on the street and came to church the last two weeks. Turns out they're super good friends with the bishop and his wife. But every time we ask members if they know anybody they all say they only know members of the church. So I was thinking..... how many doors are the missionaries knocking on and talking with people that we know?  People that are our friends? And how many times do we tell the missionaries that we don't know anybody outside of the church? And how many people would come to church, if we as members JUST ASKED. Are we going to leave it to the missionaries to find and talk to our loved ones? or are we going to speed up the process and help them out a bit? Missionary work is not just up to the missionaries to knock on doors or make contacts on the street. When we are baptized, we receive a missionary tag on our hearts. We make a promise with God that we will help build his kingdom. 

So that's pretty much all I have to say for this week. We basically have to start from scratch this week again but we're going to keep working because there are people here prepared! We just have to find them. 

Love you!

Sister Clark