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!