Alright...here goes another weeks email.
Tuesday...we started out with reading with B. They had me translate for him but he would say something in Croatian...I would translate it...and then he would proceed to say the exact same thing in English and it is the same thing he says every week. So my translating was pointless. But it was good practice. After we had district meeting which went well. I decided that for role plays we would just start with the first lesson and work our way through the lessons but do it a little different every time. So this time we did the first part of the first lesson in a paragraph or less...so basically just getting to the basics. Knowing how to teach each lesson is what we need to most...so hopefully it helps. After district meeting we went to a members house, N, who lives in a village outside of Osijek. He has a ton of plum trees and I am pretty sure he calls me every day telling me that we need to come pick more plums. He always says that we need to come see paradise on earth. So we went out with the Prestons to pick plums. It was fun but we got a ton of plums...I am kind of sick of eating plums. We had English class Tuesday night. We are starting a new English program mission wide and President asked us to start it and kind of work out all of the bumps before everyone else starts using it. It is a good program but it kind of contains a lot of stuff and sometimes I feel like we are rushing through things. But the students seem to like it and they are learning so hopefully it turns out good. I get to teach the beginners class which is a bit difficult because I dont know how to explain English grammar in Croatian. So I just speak in English and I just talk really slow and if they have questions then I try to explain it in Croatian. But I figure it is good for them to have to pay attention and try and understand in English and it pushes them a little bit.
Wednesday...We had scheduled appointments but everyone cancelled. So we just decided to just go visit people without appointments. We went to visit M and decided to talk to her about the third lesson The Gospel of Jesus Christ and to have her help us teach it and then to focus on the enduring to the end part. It ended up being really good and got her thinking because we were asking her a lot of questions about it. After her house we were at a tram stop and started talking to a lady who made it clear that she did not want to talk to us. So we got on the tram. And after about 2 minutes the lady came back and started talking to us. So we talked to her the entire tram ride.
We have a girl in the branch who is 12 and we decided we wanted to start doing Personal Progress with her each week. We talked to her Mom about it and her Mom told us she would love us to do it and she wants us to do it at the church so that she gets in the habbit of coming to the church. So we did Personal Progress with her and she loved it! We gave her a for the strength of youth pamphlet and she was so excited about it. She told us that she had started reading the Book of Mormon and she pulled out her scriptures and she had been marking them too. So we worked on Personal Progress with her for about an hour. All we did was read scriptures and talk about them but she loved it. She asked when we could do it again and yesterday at church she asked when we could meet again. I am happy that she is so excited about it!
Thursday was hot. It was 40 degress celcius plus humidity. It was ridiculous. We werent very smart and decided to go contacting along the Drava. It was really quite humorous because there was not a single person there...not one. It was completely deserted. But if you looked across the river at the swimming pool there were a million people. Needless to say contacting was unsuccessful. But...we had a lesson with S! He is the man that we met on the street and then he came to church. We texted him to set up a time to meet and he responded that he was glad to hear from us because he feels goodness in us and he wants to meet with us more often. So we met with him on Thursday and taught the first lesson and he was really accepting of it. He told us he had looked up information about President Monson (it made me a bit nervous that he was looking on the internet but he seemed to only find good things). He said that he would read from the Book of Mormon and pray about it and he came to church on Sunday again! And he really does love it! I think we have a lot of potential in him but we are going to take things slow because we have seen from other investigators that we need to take it slow and make sure they have that firm foundation before taking the next step. We arent going to baptize people just to baptize them. We are baptizing people to Endure to the End and even if it takes time its ok.
We had English again on Thursday and then after we taught B. He doesnt get why we left America to come to Croatia for a year and a half. We talked to him about how we know that it is true and we know how much it can bless the lives of others but he still just doesnt get it. We told him that if he read and prayed about the Book of Mormon he too could know it was true and could understand why it is so important to us. We were able to have a member present on the lesson and he did a good job of explaining how it was hard for him to understand too and that at first it was weird but once he understood it just made sense and he knew that he needed to be baptized. So once again we are back at the basics and helping people to understand and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon.
Friday...was zone conference. I think it was kind of a last minute thing because we didnt find out about it until Tuesday and on Thursday afternoon they called and asked us to teach part of it. President Rowe wasnt even there but it was still really good. We did a lot of role plays and practice and a lot of talking about working with Members and Less Actives. Even though we had short notice our teaching part went good. We talked about Recieving Revelation Through Church Attendance and the importance of getting people to come to church. Coming home from zone conference only took 5 hours this time as compared to the 6 hours it took last month even though it should only take 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It was ridiculous.
Saturday...we cleaned the church and then we had a lesson with N and V. When we got there N wasnt there so we taught V. We talked about the Restoration and had her explain it to us and if she didnt know something we would talk to her about it. It went really well. As soon as we were about to leave N got home. We didnt have anywhere to go so we stayed and taught him too. Then we set up a time with them for this week so that they both know about it.
Saturday afternoon we went tracting. There was a street that I decided would be good to go to. We were seriously having no luck...no one would talk to us. But then a man walked by on the street and we said hi to him and he stopped and started talking to us. We talked to him a little bit about the Book of Mormon and he asked if he could have one. So we gave him a copy. We asked him if we could get his information and we could meet sometime to talk about it. He thought about it for a minute and said ya I would like that. It was one of those moments of being in the right place at the right time. We didnt have any success with any of the houses but if we wouldnt have been in that area we wouldnt have met him.
After we went contacting at the Drava. We talked to a few people that were really nice but no one was interested. We started talking to a girl who gave us weird looks and acted like she didnt understand what we were saying. We found out that she is actually from Hungary and doesnt speak Croatian but she speaks English. So we talked to her in English. She is only in Croatia for this month but she was really nice and seemed interested. So...I got her information in Hungary and am going to pass it along to Elder Giacalone for when she returns.
Sunday...was a crazy day. First off Sunday morning the lady that was supposed to teach Sunday school texted and said that she wouldnt be there. So I called the Prestons and they had to quickly prepare a lesson. It ended up being perfect. Elder Preston taught about the gathering of Israel and the lost tribes. There was a couple visiting from Dubai. He is from Croatia and she is from the Phillipines but they are members living in Dubai. They talked about how in Dubai they have a stake and how the church is growing there and they dont have missionaries because they arent allowed...it is growing because of the members alone and even they could get in trouble for talking about the church. I think it really opened the eyes of the members. They were asking a lot of questions and were really interested in how they did it. I hope it makes them want to go do missionary work because if the church can grow so much there without missionaries it can do the same here. We just need the members to share the Gospel with their friends.
Church was crazy though...I was playing the piano, I had Sister Preston asking me to translate for her, and my companion kept calling me to talk to people to tell her what they were saying. I was running everywhere like crazy. I actually really like translating for Sister Preston during sacrament because 1 it is good practice for me and 2 it helps me to focus better and understand what they are saying.
Sunday night we were contacting and we stopped a guy and were talking to him. He was asking us questions about the church and I would answer but he didnt like the questions that I was giving and he wouldnt agree with anything that I said and to top it off his dog kept jumping on me and we all know how much I love dogs. I didnt want to get into an argument with him so I stopped him in what he was saying and bore my testimony. I just told him I knew it was true and why I knew it was true and if he didnt agree with me that was fine but I didnt want to argue with him. It softened his heart because he then stopped trying to argue and listened to what I had to say. He took a copy of the Book of Mormon said that he would read it and gave us a date and time to meet with him again to talk about it. Its amazing the change that happened when we first started talking to after when I bore my testimony. Through the Spirit miracles can happen.
This week really has been a great week. We are still working hard. We are still exhausted but its ok. The language is coming more and more every day and I am realizing more and more how I am able to say things correctly without thinking about it. When I say something wrong I notice it and after I can usually correct myself to how it should have been said and then the next time I know. Its a work in progress but I know that if I put in all the effort I can the Lord will step in and fill in the rest. We are seeing miracles every day from all the effort we put in and it is such a great feeling when those happen. I know that if we keep working hard and being obedient we will see more miracles every day. I hope that you all have a great week. Love you lots!
Sestra Clark
Shotuouts...
Emails from Lex, Jordan, Mom, Carrie, Dad, Grandpa, Allie
Good luck to Tyson moving out this week...thats so weird that it will only be Justin and Alexa at home
Good luck to everyone starting school...is that this week or next week?
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