Holy Cow! I can't believe it's p-day again. I can't decide if time is going by fast or slow. I think both. It is really difficult to only be able to write on Mondays. Monday night is when I got the first package and a million letters and it has been super difficult to wait a whole week to respond. But obedience brings blessings. So it will be ok.

 

Monday p-day ended at 5:30. We went to dinner and then we went to class. Brother R was our teacher. He was being really hard on us and we were all struggling so he pulled out his scriptures and showed us Malachi 3:2-3. It talks about refining silver and gold. It's a long, difficult process but in the end the results are worth it. He told us that is why he is being so hard on us. The harder we work now, the better the results will be later. Funny lanuguage moment of the week. In order to get us to learn things we like to play games. So we were having competitions on the board. The phrase was something about I write on Mondays. The verb for to write is Pisati but when you conjugate it you change the a to an e. So Elder S was up at the board and when he conjugated it he didn't change the a to an e. Brother R started cracking up and we couldn't figure out what was going on. Apparently when you don't change the letter instead of writing to write you say to piss (pardon my language). So Brother S wrote I piss on Mondays. Needless to say we all double check our spelling everytime we write that word now.

 

Tuesday was the best food day at the MTC so far. For lunch they had Macaroni and cheese and for dinner they had hot dogs. And to top it off they had chicken strips on Saturday! Awesome! This week I have definitely experienced the rollercoaster of emotions that happens here. Tuesday day was awful. We taught our investigator and it was miserable. We had basically written on our paper exactly what we were going to say to him like a script. We didn't go by the spirit and we were more concerned with saying everything we had written down than saying what he really needed to hear. Needless to say we left the appointment feeling really down on ourselves and feeling like we had completely failed. Tuesday night we had a devotional with Elder Ringwood from the seventy and he lifted our spirits right back up. His talk was on Enduring to the End. He talked about the most important thing is that our investigators can endure to the end. He also talked about how our missions will prepare us to endure to the end. My favorite thing he said was that when we are having a hard day and feel like giving up to picture our family back home kneeling by their beds praying for us. And so that is what I have done the rest of the week when I have a down moment. I know that I have a big support system at home of people praying for me. And as Dad mentioned in one of his letters this week I have a big support system in Heaven of people praying for me and watching over me. As hard as it is to have all of them gone I know it will be a bigger blessing to me know when I need all the help I can get. Most of all though I know I have a loving Heavenly Father who is praying for me and watching over me and with his help I can make it through hard times. And when we have difficult days with our investigators we can use it as a learning experience to make the next appointment better.

 

Wednesday was a much better day. We started out the day with a service activity. We got to clean the bathrooms in the gym. They actually weren't that bad and we actually had fun doing it. Wednesday was a much better day with our investigator too. I guess I should explain the investigator situation. Our teachers play the role of our investigators. They choose people that they taught on their mission and act as if they are them. So they are progressing investigators. Wednesday I decided that all I was going to take in to our appointment with him was a small sheet of paper with a list of words. And as we were in there I went by the Spirit with what I felt he needed to hear and I made up sentences as I went along with the words I had. I can guarantee I had horrible grammar, I can guarantee I pronounced words wrong, and I may have even made up a few words but it went to much better than when I had a prepared script. I was telling the investigator exactly what he needed to hear. I was communicating with him and even though I could only pick out a few words of what he said I could tell he was listening closely to what I was saying. He could feel the spirit, and I could feel the Spirit. I left the room feeling like I really can do this and it will be ok. I am still trying to convince my companions that this is the best way to teach it but they are struggling to have the confidence that they will be able to figure out what to say. I know through the Spirit that we can do it though. So that's our goal for this week. We are all going to take only a few notes in and just go with the Spirit. One thing my Branch President told me this week was Pray like it depends on God, work like it depends on you.

 

Thursday was a good day and not much happened so I am going to skip to Friday. Friday was a super relaxed day. We had a lot of down time just in our classroom studying whatever we wanted to. I was able to use it to study the language which helped a lot and I am learning a ton. I feel like I know a lot for how long I have been here but I still feel like I have a long ways to go. I am picking up on the language fairly quickly. I know I'm not supposed to compare myself to others but it makes me feel really good when I can do better without looking at my notes than some people can while looking at their notes. The language is a difficult one. The nice thing is every letter of the alphabed makes only one sound so when you see it in a word you know exactly how to pronounce it. The hard part is some of the letters make different sounds than they do in English. For example c makes a ts sound and h makes the sound of ch as in Bach the composer. Those are the two hardest letters for me because I always want to say them how they sound in English. But each day I get a little bit better. I know how to sing head shoulders knees and toes in Croatian. We have also started reading the Croatian Book of Mormon in class. I don't really understand it but it is good to help with pronunciation.

 

Saturday and Sunday consisted of Conference and eating. We seriously had breakfast, conference, lunch, conference, dinner, and then Saturday we got to watch the YW broadcast from last week while the Elders watched the Priesthood Session. And Sunday was the same schedule. We got to watch Music and the Spoken Word. And instead of the YW Broadcast an accapella group from BYU came to sing, Vocal Point. They were pretty good and it was fun to just sit and listen. After they had Sunday night movie which was Legacy. it was really funny to listen to the reactions of the missionaries during the movie. You could tell none of us have seen a movie for a long time. Mom asked about what we do on Sundays. I am going to wait and tell you that next week because from last week being Easter and Fast Sunday and this week being conference we haven't had a "normal" Sunday yet. Conference was good. It kinda sucked to have to sit on hard chairs and by the end of last night my rear end was super sore but I definitely paid better attention to conference than I ever have before and I definitely got more out of it. It's hard to say which talk I liked the most because I loved them all! And like I've been told I felt like every talk applied to Missionary Work and directly to me. It was awesome! We did get to watch the inbetween session thing on Sunday because some of the missionaries in the MTC now were in it. It was a little bit hard to watch and made me tear up a bit. The commercials were great though. It's the closest to real TV we have gotten wo we all though it was great! haha! I thought it was super funny that when they would go to break they had in the corner #LDSCONF. I also laughed really hard when Uchtdorf got up to talk and said I am going to tell a story. Let's call the girl Jane. It reminded me of Jordan's story. I don't know if Mom and Lex went to the YW broadcast but the chorister was the crazy lady that gets super into it which made me laugh pretty hard. I noticed that Jordan's mission President got called as an area seventy. I was also not surprised that they changed the YW general Presidency. I also found it interesting that they released the second counselor in the YM but didn't call a new one. I also hope Alexa paid attention to Elder Scott's talk. If she would take his advice and read a verse of scripture everytime she sends a text she would have the whole thing memorized in no time! Haha!

 

Now I will just tell some stories. My first pen ran out of ink last night. It was my journal pen that I had used for awhile before my mission so it wasn't all completely used here. I am actually really good at writing in my Journal. I write multiple pages a night! I am going to try to send my MTC Journal pages home before I leave the MTC.

 

I love my district! Our Elders are awesome! One of them turned 19 this week and the other 2 are 18. It seems so weird that they are younger than me because they don't act like it. Sister M is 21 and Sister P turns 21 this month. Sister R is 19. The rest of them are 20 but they all graduated the year after me. Sister  is probably my favorite. She is crazy but she is funny. Wednesday when the new missionaries come and wear a dork dot and so everyone is constantly saying hi and welcome to the MTC. However, she was saying Zabavno smrt which translates Happy death! And she was saying it as cheerful as can be. And none of the new missionaries or actually no one in the MTC had any idea what she was saying except for us. We thought it was pretty funny. I really just don't know how to explain her. I sit next to her in class and just crack up the entire time. She actually lived in Old Farm last year. I asked her if she knew Jordan and she said she didn't. I told him he lived in building E and her response was oh, that was the hott guy apartment.

 

I have seen sister Barker a few times. It is hard to see her because our meal times don't overlap at all and my classroom is in the building with all the weird languages that only have a handful of missionaries learning the language whereas Portugese is a fairly popular one so it is in a different building. I will probably see Joe Giacalone quite a bit because the Hungarian classroom is right around the corner from mine. I still see Elder Worthen fairly often and I have actually ran into Ryan Tucker a few times. I haven't seen anyone else that I know.  Sister B has started teaching us now and I absolutely love her! She gives us great advice and is super helpful!

 

A few answers to questions. If we are on our floor in the dorm we don't have to be with our companions. So like for bathroom and shower we can go alone. But the second we leave our floor we have to go everywhere with them. They don't have kiwi for breakfast so I have had to go with pineapple. The bagels here are actually super good too so sometimes I have those. As far as shoes though they are good. I rotate between both pairs as well as my boots. As far as Sandals don't worry about them. We can't wear them in the MTC anyway so if I decide I want some I can just get some there. For devotionals and stuff they have us in multiple rooms. There are too many of us to all fit in one room. The only time we get to leave the MTC is when we go to the temple which happens twice a week. Once on P-day and then on Sunday they have temple walks.

 

Well, I'm about out of time! It sounds like things are pretty normal there. Jordan is still lame and doesn't respond to texts. Tyson still doesn't go to school and is still annoying but funny at the same time. Alexa hangs out with her friends a lot- how did you spend hours at the Aquatic Center? Justin is still kinda annoying from what I have heard but I'm not going to lie his letters are my favorite ones to get! I hope you all have a great week! I don't have much more to say so there may not be a hand written letter this week! I love you all and I am praying for all of you!

 

Volim te puno! I love you a lot!

Sestra Clark

 

Shoutouts!

 

Thanks to everyone who sent letters this week! I got them from Justin, Mom, Dad, Tyson, Alexa, Grandpa, Carrie and notes from Brianne and Kaitlin on Carries! I love you all and I love your letters! I am trying my best to respond to them all but just know it may take a few weeks! And yes I got the dear elders you sent on Friday.

 

The easter package was awesome and the treats were awesome! I still have plenty! And thanks Justin for the Lotion and Handsanitizer! The handsanitizer is actually a lifesaver because they have them all over the place here but they are always empty. And they smell delicious!

 

And I did get the package with the doughnuts and had them Friday night. I shared them with my class cause there was no way I could eat a dozen by myself. I thought about saving them until Sunday morning but then decided they probably wouldn't be good by then. This was the first conference in a long time that I didn't have to worry about smelling like grease!