Monday, July 27, 2015

11 - I can drive!

Email address (preferred):
rachael.clark@myldsmail.net

 Mission address:
 Sister Rachael Geniel Clark
 California Long Beach Mission
 6500 E Atherton St.
 Long Beach, CA 90815

I wouldn't say this has been my best week ever, but you need one every now and again I suppose.

We got quite a few referrals, one named Aaron who said he would get baptized (that's what the elders said when they passed him off) but he was unable to go to church this week, we stopped by and found he wasn't there but his brother was and he said he would like to have a lesson this week. He was drunk and high, but surprisingly coherent. He even ripped up some music posters that weren't the most appropriate. He loves cars and sometimes drinking, but said he honestly needed to change and stop doing those things. He hoped we could help him do that and agreed to be sober when we see him next. He is though a very skilled and talented car repair person and loves fixing old classic cars up and making them new for clients. next door where some kids and they loved listening to Sister George and I sing a child's prayer to them. We even met a veteran across the street with his little boy and talked for awhile. he was Buddhist, but he sometimes listens to different faiths. It wasn't till I said thank you for his service that he surprised us as we were about to walk away and said that since we went to the trouble to talk with him that he might as well accept our plan of salvation pamphlet. I hope we get to see him again. I think he has PTSD (though I could always be wrong) because he had a service dog with him and the dog quieted down once we had a normal conversation and it wasn't making him nervous (most people who meet us expect us to act like Jehovah witness around here, apparently they have a bad rep in these parts for being obnoxious)

Other than that Sister George has been needing to meet with the councilors lately and having trouble with anxiety with going home. I have been trying my best, but some days I can't handle the mounting stress and anxiety of trying to help her and its been getting me hard this week. 

We didn't do much service this week other than the final touches on the flowers for the luau for the Olympics, never got a final picture, but a member said they would try and get one to me. Chances are though I won't get it.....

We have been watching during lunch and dinner the D&C video's and they have been so wonderful! Already we have seen a third of them and have used several in lessons. Amelia was so touched by one last week. I don't think she fully understood the video, but she did feel the spirit strongly from it. Hopefully next week we can set a baptismal date for her!

Luis has been so kind in helping a friend move this week, so he wasn't able to come to church this time around, but he will try for next week. Either way he won't be baptized on the 9th, so we will set a new date for him as well. Good news though, he finally got a job at a food prep warehouse nearby and has all Sundays off, so we are so happy for him and that Sundays won't be a problem. He was definitely happy that heavenly father answered his prayer for work after searching for a couple years for work! Goes to show that heavenly father does answer prayers, and this job is exactly perfect for him! He even is excited because of a friendship with a girl, not a girlfriend yet, but possibly. Even the possibility is perking him up!

I miss the dry heat of Utah..... its been so humid that I never feel dry this whole month. Hopefully winter gets better.

My training is almost up and I am the designated driver now. SO NICE, Sister George is so relived since that was a huge stress to her. Also she kinda makes me nauseous when she drives, so not having that is nice!

Monday, July 20, 2015

10 - Clothing, junk

Email address (preferred):
rachael.clark@myldsmail.net

 Mission address:
 Sister Rachael Geniel Clark
 California Long Beach Mission
 6500 E Atherton St.
 Long Beach, CA 90815

Things are going well for the most part this week. Sister George and I have been cleaning our apartment and de junking it finally. Lots of clothing and, well, junk. She is leaving for home the end of this transfer so I will be getting a new companion, many people are saying I will probably be put with Sister Paw (an Asian sister that Sister George was companions with and we did splits with awhile ago) I will also most likely stay put since if I go almost our entire area will be white washed and that is just NO GOOD for an area we worked so hard to build up during the rebuilding phase.

We got fed every day this week by members, last week we got none so it was certainly interesting. I did exchanges on Monday-Tuesday with Sister Fredrickson again, that was so much fun. I stayed here this time and we found three very good potentials, two were Spanish though. It was sure stressful though handling the phone all my myself and we had text messages for Sister Fredrickson off the hook during all our lessons which wasn't helping. We also met up with an either unfortunately cranky or atheist lady near Luis, we were early for his lesson since dinner canceled (the went on vacation and forgot to cancel) so we though about going around to contact people. That lady thought we were solicitors, which we aren't, and we only went up to her to ask if we could pet her three cats who where laying around in the grass when she came right up to us and was informing us that we were doing illegal solicitation in the area and that is was private property (the condo area) and we are never allowed to be there EVER. We just left her be in her cranky self and moved on, then she started to follow us, then we just left and parked elsewhere away from her. Sister Fredrickson just kinda laughed after that later, she had never met such an overtly cranky lady before. Even if she called the police, we have all the rights in this world to be there. Now, if we were perposely bothering her, that's another story, but to go up to her and say hello, that is overkill. Either way, we avoid her when we go to lessons with Luis.

Luis is going along pretty well, we just need to get him to church. He couldn't this week because his mom wanted him to help around the house..... which means we need to talk to mom before going further it looks like.... I hope we can meet with him still and have him continuing progress soon.

Amelia is doing well too, She comes to church every week, but modesty is still a bit of an issue with her sadly. Still no baptism date. She is still so spiritual.It's amazing the testimonies she writes down so she can show us each Sunday! So sweet and loving!

Not much contacting or lessons this week, TONS AND TONS of service though. We helped Sister Frosty clean out another storage closet, Sister Becker around the house, Betty with her family history, and decorating for the Special Olympics that will happen this week. I made three neon tiki boxes and am still working on the neon flowers. They want things to glow like crazy and have dancers, monkeys.... Yep, the dancers are sure happy for the non traditional luau (they were livid about the monkeys in the banana tree's). Oh well, the kids will have fun either way!

I got so tired of standing forever painting, and hear some ladies gossip that I wanted to quit half way, but I did three, then quit to do some cutting and painting flowers instead. I feel bad for them. They had only us and two other helpers to put up and decorate everything. The paint was so thin that you had to go over it again and again, and wait forever to paint, and some people were impatient to say the least. We did finally get it done though!!!

Honestly not much more, its just been so humid (monsoon season they call it here) it is wreaking havoc on my hair and I constantly feel sticky and HOT, imagine walking out of the HOT shower and that is the weather WHILE it is raining. It was miserable yesterday getting rejected constantly while contacting in the rain. Even in the car it would fog up, and with the air on cool full blast, it didn't relive the heat and humidity. Oh, and the smells that come up, that is another thing I didn't know about humidity, it brings out smells you would never have thought existed there. Its like constant wet dog all around you.. I MISS UTAH"S BONE DRY WEATHER!

Today is much better though. We needed the rain here, but not the humidity.
Here are some photos of the koi pond at our complex that they finally finished.
Betty and I, and one from the tiki painting (mine are the bottom middle three)





Wednesday, July 15, 2015

9 - We met Jesus!

Email address (preferred):
rachael.clark@myldsmail.net

Mission address:
Sister Rachael Geniel Clark
California Long Beach Mission
6500 E Atherton St.
Long Beach, CA 90815

Another week has come and gone. Time flows so strangely here on a mission. We didn't have any of our investigators come to church this week sadly, things out of their control happened to keep them from coming. Terri came though despite the extreme pain in her back. She found out from her doctor that her neck vertebrae are backwards, her bones are disintegrating and that is causing her discs in there spine to bulge out and pinch nerves everywhere, and on top of that their are places where her nerve is bare next to her skin. I can't imagine how much pain she has been in this week, I can sort of imagine since that sort of happened to me on a MUCH smaller and reversible scale. She spends most days laying down, crying in pain. She will get another round of temporary relief shots today, I hope she will be alright. It hurts a ton because it's straight into the nerve. We tried to help by heart attacking her trailer door with notes of encouragement; that helped a little. She told us that she came to church this week just to take the sacrament since she was in too much pain the last few weeks, she can't go without the sacrament for too long and had to force herself to church for it, all three hours too! She is such a strong woman.

We met a new investigator, Jesus, a 14 year old boy who recently moved in. His family is familiar with Mormons from their friends at their previous home so they let us right in. He is so prepared and is so willing and eager to read the book of Mormons and keep us coming back each week. He loves video games and sports so both Sister George and I had something in common with him. He even mentioned that one day he would love to go on some sort of a mission, right now he seems to be searching for which church to join and follow, but is very interested in what we have to say from his best friends back home and their mission experiences too!

Luis is progressing very well, he wants to be baptized and now we are just getting through the lessons. Now to just get him to go to church for three more weeks for all three hours. Just sacrament is OK, but all three is the best and I am sure he would LOVE them. We will talk with his mom who from what we have heard and know of now, is supportive of his seeing us, but we need to make sure just in case.

Amelia is going through a lot since she is a caregiver for a grandmother who came back from the hospital. The grandmother's family has been around lately, and things have gotten hard for her to come visit and come to church this week, but hopefully it will settle down a little bit soon. We need to work on modesty and word of wisdom with wine with her, but other than that, she told us she wants to read the ENTIRE book of Mormon before she gets baptized. She knows our church is true, and has such a strong testimony of what she knows right now, she is just stuck on wanting to know everything before hand. She will come, just in her time, hopefully sooner than latter. She loves our visits because she can feel the spirit so strongly. We will try next week to try again with explaining how she can get that for herself and not just through us if she gets baptized and confirmed. Getting through the lessons are slow with her language barrier, but we are surely but steadily getting there.

Doing a bunch of service with family history with Betty. WE visit and give service by being with her, then we take her stories and put it online to family search. For now I put it on ancestry until we can weed out the wrong names (her memory isn't the greatest, sadly). Hopefully, I can get a break through soon and be able to find census records and help her memory of her sisters' names.

We helped out the Baxters, a young family with 3 girls and a newborn baby boy. Sister Baxter has her hands full and we helped sort through her kids' school projects and make photos for a memory book of their school work, then organize the kids craft items.
Sister frosty has her family coming soon for her great grand children's baptisms. her grandson finally relented and said they could so that is exciting all around for the family, especially the kids. They are so happy! We helped tidy up a room for them to stay in.

I will have exchanges again this week so I am looking forward to staying put this time with Sister Fredrickson again this time around!

Things are going well for the most part. Just trying to work with the ward leaders and have the things we need from them is a challenge, but I guess that's what happens with an area in MAJOR rebuilding. Also trying to find new investigators, but we will get there.

Thanks for your support, I appreciate it!

Monday, July 6, 2015

8 - More than just Snake fireworks in Norwalk

Email address (preferred):
rachael.clark@myldsmail.net

Mission address:
Sister Rachael Geniel Clark
California Long Beach Mission
6500 E Atherton St.
Long Beach, CA 90815

Things are going well here, now that the fourth of July is over. Man oh man did the fireworks go on and on through the whole night and a few in the morning. Around here, they shoot them off even in the daylight. I swear they buy the biggest and most expensive high caliber arials that go BOOM so loud everything shakes when it goes off in the air and dozens of car alarms go off its that big! It was so funny hearing the car alarms go off. They sure do look pretty though, you can see them no matter where you are they go up so high, even past the 80+ foot tall palm trees and buildings. Even though they regulate fireworks in California more than Utah ever has, in Norwalk, that is kind laughable since all throughout even day light you will hear them. During the evening when the shows in the parks start off is when regular people have them all go off a ton! It was like a non stop grand finale here! Didn't get much rest that night till 11pm or so, it was sure fun though.

We got two BBQ's here, such a blessing since the fourth of July is one of the hardest holidays to be a missionary on to find, talk, or even get someone to stay with after 6. We aren't allowed in our apartment after 6 because we have to be teaching, so we spent it with the Pontons and their kids, then with Angel, Jeff, and Sister Becker. They sure do love ribs around here, instead of hamburgers back home, they do hot dogs, ribs, grilled vegetables, potato salads, and watermelon. On the fourth we did get to visit betty and talk about her childhood and her experiences of the fourth of July in Tennessee. We found out that there, they didn't do it till she was about 7 or 10 years old, and she would watch them and boats go by near a river. That would have been fun to watch back then!

Luis and Amelia are progressing so well this week! Amelia bore her testimony on paper and showed it to me after testimony meeting. She is so amazing, loving, and kind. She feeds us dinner sometimes which for an investigator, that is almost unheard of! She Knows this church is true now, still a little confused, but slowly learning things.She even asked us why others don't join our church and are so self centered and say that coming towards Christ has no monetary value, so its no good. We told her we are wondering that ourselves and we have a lot alike in that regard. She is so missionary minded, she worries about her family back home and how they aren't following her and her brother to be baptized in the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, but the best we can give to her is for her to show by example and just like you followed after your brother, they will too someday. Be patient with them, love them, support them, and over time they will come around!

 Luis loved that people in our ward can even do that, in the catholic churches you can't do that, in fact when he was asked to leave by the bishop or pastor from several churches because he would teach the youth and kids, but his beliefs are so close to ours, that beg catholic, they hated it and exiled him. He is so special, he is only a little handicapped, but honestly not that much. He is smart as a whip about gospel related things and is so receptive to the gospel, it is amazing! He said that he wanted to open a new chapter in his life and hopes our message and becoming baptized will help him in doing that.
With both Amelia and Luis we have had members present, which is almost unheard of for our area, its so hard to get members to come to lessons.

I got to do a talk on baptism for Tamila, an 8 year old we have been teaching lessons to. Her parents are converts to the church and fully reactivated less actives. They are so wonderful and give us insights of what it is like to be all of the above and how to better help those who are going through that currently so we can get them active and feeling loved in the ward. Tamila said that she has been waiting to be baptized her whole life! She has such enthusiasm. I did a picture with a gate to represent baptism and did a small plant design on it to symbolize faith, I cut out everything above that so you could see the picture behind it (This was in a booklet form) that picture was the temple which represented the second ordinance and covenants you can do in this life to return to our heavenly father. I cut out the sky around that and some trees and clouds. Peeking behind that you can sort of see the sun and a tree with fruit. The last page I planned so that you can put a picture of your family beside a tree with a path leading from the beginning to the tree of life which symbolized living with our families and heavenly father for eternity one day in happiness. the Sun is fully seen in this one too and represents being with Jesus Christ as well fully! I will have to get photos of it once it is finished with color, for now I left it with outlines so it could be copied off and colored for children or recent converts. It looks super cool though. I went through that and told her that all those things at the end can't happen without taking that first step of baptism (or gate) on the straight and narrow path to exaltation and life with our family and god. I went on further about baptism and about the sacrament briefly. It went well, I was a bit stressed out about giving it though....

Got to meet with the sister training leaders and cook with them, that was so much fun! Lots of Filipino foods and rice! I like my rice cooker, Heavenly father knows the desires of everyone's hearts and certainly blesses those who even if its a little thing like the convenience of a rice cooker, he will provide.

Other than that, my week went pretty well, we had transfers and I stayed put with Sister George as my trainer. Though when she and elder nye leave, it will be hard taking over the area since I will have been there the longest and honestly feel like I have a long way to go towards knowing everyone in the ward.