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
This week has been interesting with how everyone is getting back into school, finishing their summer vacations, or labor day trips. That translates to NO ONE to teach other than our ever faithful Amelia who is happy to see us any day for the most part. We also helped tile Sister Bosse's floor. She sadly is in the hospital with pneumonia, so Brother Baxter and some other members of the elders quorum had to sort of break into her home to finish the tile job, then afterwards re-secure her home and feed her dogs and make sure they are OK. Thankfully the neighbors look out for her dogs for the most part when they find out she goes to the hospital. The last time she was there she was gone for over a month. She now has beautiful tile floors, and I cleaned the hallway walls and started on cleaning out her fine china in the cabinet that was being moved for the tile work. Lots of eager do it yourself dads were present, and despite experience, they helped out. Wasn't the most pretty job, but I went behind them here and there and straightened a few tiles out so it would fit better down the line while they were busy and put in spacers too so they wouldn't budge if someone accidentally moved it (which happened every now and again). In the end it looked real good. Sister Paw and I mostly took rags and cleaned off the tiles once they were placed and dried for awhile and got any grout off of it before it dried on. Hopefully today they will get the filling grout in. We would have helped if it weren't our P-Day. We were told by the stake president, bishop, and through the zone leaders about area restrictions, which we were already following as it was (to Sister Paw's annoyance) so nothing new about that. Looks like Elders may take over, or they will put them in and split the ward again. Better get finished with the book soon and make copies for some people both sets of missionaries seem to visit due to circumstances.
We finally got a lesson with Luis and his mom of all people. She is curious about what we believe but made clear that she believes what she does and won't budge, but hopefully with the next couple times it will soften her heart. Already the lessons with Luis have softened her to join us at the very least. She told us her experiences with Jehovah witnesses and how she couldn't feel the Spirit of Christ around them with their yelling at her after she disagreed with them. Thank goodness we don't do that. She said she felt the spirit so strongly when she watched us from the upper floor window while we were studying scriptures with her son and she said just that alone said to her what we teach is good. I sure hope we can get her help in getting Luis and her to church later on. Slow but steady wins the race, not fast, so be it with them. But this is far greater a cause than any race.
We talked with Amelia about the 10 commandments and her trouble with keeping the law of not saying the Lord's name in vain. She tries so hard. She goes above and beyond the call of duty. I wish all members where like her. We also calmed her worries of passing the baptismal interview. She is also getting her citizenship interview on the 16th so she is extra worried about passing that test too. I know she will make both, though!
Other than them, it has been a discouraging week of no shows, cancellations, and no one at the door, forgot our dinner plans, no answers to phone calls, texts, and to little to no lessons. Its just that kind of week. I hope next week will be better. Lately it seems like everyone keeps putting more and more restrictions to our area because we are Sisters, I am getting quite tired of things. I somehow wonder if that is the secret plot of the ward to force president to give this area Elders again. I just hope it means Sisters stay too; this area NEEDS Sisters desperately too.
Today we were doing laundry and accidentally got locked out of our apartment. Sadly, the closest "member" was our ward building, and we walked half an hour to the building (made some of it up by walking through the statue garden along the way and to get my mind off of the situation too), and we used the zone leaders' phone to call the office and waited to get a ride to get the space key. Normally this would never happen, but I suspect the lock got jiggled and when the door closed, it slipped into lock position (it happened before in the past, only that time we had the key with us). Quite the experience without a phone, neighbors having no phones either odd enough, and even if we did have one, no numbers memorized other than our own to call. So frustrating, but we did get back after spending a third of our day doing that. We live in the middle of nowhere as far as members in the ward boundaries, which makes things so hard. What a way to start our week.
Other than that, things are going well. Sister Paw and I are getting closer than before, but we still have a long way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment