rachael.clark@myldsmail.net
Mission address:
Sister Rachael Geniel Clark
California Long Beach Mission
6500 E Atherton St.
Long Beach, CA 90815
I got to work with horses this week!!!!!! There is a service project that this area regularly does and this time they wanted anyone who has had experience with a horse to help groom the horses. It was so much fun, I didn't get tie to check out the petting zoo part of the service Project, but that was OK for me. We also did exchanges that day so I was with sister Fredrickson. She had a horse named Duke and was a little unsure of what to do since this was her first time, but I was real happy to step in and give directions on how to catch the horse, tie them up, groom them, and even help out putting fly masks on them too! My horse was named Isabelle, the oldest horse their that had real bad sway back, but a sweet horse. I was also one of the few people who was even allowed to pick out their hoofs, they were so well trained! Very different from the horses of Ching farm back home that I had worked with previously, they were stubborn and hard to work with most of the time. That was so nice to do, last thing we did was clean out the paddock and let them loose.
Sister Fredrickson and I also had been asked to help cook a brunch for the group. juice, french toast, and 6 Lbs. of bacon. Goodness do some of the elders love bacon.... they could each eat 3 lbs. by them selves. I had to keep them out of the stash while cooking them because when the sisters came, 1 lbs. of bacon was already consumed by three elders alone while my back was turned. Thankfully a recent convert who was helping knew the elders would do that sort of thing and brought more.
Sister George had a recent convert who meant a lot to her die recently so we were able to go to the funeral. Rose cemetery in Whittier is MASSIVE, it could be a city within its self!!!!!! 20 lots (or called gates here) that are each the size of a large cemetery in Utah. Its so big it has an information kiosk, maps, and colored line systems you follow to get to the correct chapel or cemetery gate. We were following the blue lined road, not yellow this time XD. Such an amazing lady, she had MANY of her fellow spinners, quilters, and knitting ladies who came and shared stories about her. She was a teacher, professional clown, grew her own cotton and would spin it into yarn, teach how to work with spun yarn to crafting groups, and strong LDS woman who came back after leaving the church years ago due to confusion on some doctrine.
This week overall for finding was dead slow, nothing, just nothing, then finally Sunday we felt like visiting this certain area where we had found gabby, and across the street and a few houses down we met Luis, he even wants to bring a friend or two to our lesson come Tuesday. He is interested in learning more, but is also one of those people who want to learn about all religions too, but hopefully he will progress.
Its a miracle as well with Amelia, she is craving the spirit that we bring and loves talking about god, still confused about things, but she loves having us around and is progressing Slowly but surely! She even asked us to meet with her more often, she gets so tired of not feeling the spirit around the people she takes care of so it is a real treat to spend time with us. She even treated us to McDonald's Smoothies one day when she told us," Hey come over sometime, I have something for you!" Boy does she spoil us, Golden investigator for sure!!!! I am so happy to have just her right now to teach, but more is always better.
Things with the bugs are improving as well, We think they were hiding out in all the old furniture and kitchen stuff in the spare room, but now that it is all gone, deep cleaned, and we are good at keeping the rest of the apartment clean, we have only seen 1, other than that, things are settling down a bit and we were finally able to put all our kitchen wares away after a deep cleaning of chemicals, bleach, and who knows what crawled on that surface the past month.
Now I am infamous for my cleaning abilities in the mission head quarters of long beach, they have been half joking about me doing a cleaning demonstration so that our mission has cleaner apartments and to boost the health of everyone. Lots of missionaries have been getting really REALLY sick because of the conditions of the apartments lately.
I also got to do splits with sister foster from the MTC and her companion sister paw. Their Car was Recalled for brake troubles, Their poor Chevy car has gone back for tune ups, car troubles and recalls TOO OFTEN. They finally just asked to do splits this time with us next door (area that is) Sister foster and I taught Terri at heritage park, I found out that the missionaries only taught her the last three lessons and counted the sorta there lessons she was in the room with from a year ago then baptized her. No wonder she has been feeling the way she has! She needs all the lessons again as if she were an investigator! She does have so much faith though!!! Such a strong lady. Her son is doing many things that she started doing years ago and she was so worried that he would go down the same bad spiral she did and hit rock bottom, so she had to kick him out of the house, but she also is so loving and was so worried about her son being homeless for awhile since she was once their. In fact, she almost laughed about the time she finally had the turning point in her life was when she was so high on drugs, then going through withdrawals so bad that she couldn't move and just looked up and prayed to heavenly father to send someone to help her, she was feeling so bad and hurt so bad from the drugs. Next thing she knew the sheriff came and took her to jail and she got sober then. "darn it all, I can't even get up if I wanted to, but when they get over here to me they will make me. I have no choice" she thought. She was so upset at that moment because all she wanted then was more drugs to make the pain go away and was praying for some dealer to come her way. She told us heavenly father has such a sense of humor, but that he loves us so much that he knows what we need. thought it may not be what we want and we fight it,but it is what we absolutely need in our lives to make us happy again and closer to him.She has come a long way since that over 9 years ago. Its hard being a mom when you need to kick your own child out because they are taking such advantage of them and being disrespectful/disobedient to the rules of the home. At least she was able to see him again for fathers day and spend time with his dad as well. After the lesson she brought bread and we all fed the ducks and turtles. I almost caught a turtle! So close.. next time I will. Such strange goose duck hybrids here, took some photos!
There are lizards here, everywhere. Not very often do you see one, but boy do they sound like mice or quail scurrying around like back home in the bushes. I almost caught one of them too! No snakes yet, but I will leave them alone if I ever see one, I heard that there are some venomous ones that look strikingly similar to non venomous ones here.
How are you doing, I haven't really gotten much in the way of replies back, so if you do have a spare moment, I would like to hear back from you.
Here are some photos! I wish you the best of luck in your day, Thanks for having interest in me.
Also went to a park and saw this massive tree with some neat looking roots. Little odd, but cool looking, I might use is for reference in some future painting or mural.
Birds around that park are so cool too! This blue bird kept flying down, hovering in flight while looking around like a humming bird does, then would fly off. It did that a few times just a few feet away from where we were, SO COOL! Then this sparrow was doing laps around some trees like some sort of a race track or something. Kept flying around and around just so happilly with only a flap or two is all. Just kept soaring and soaring close to the ground. I have never seen that sort of behavior for a bird before!
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