Don't take this personally but I hate writing emails on Mondays. I love being able to read your emails but writing stresses me out. We had a good week this week. It was a bit exhausting but they all seem to be like that. We were crazy busy which is good.
Monday...Monday night is always hard getting started after pday. Monday as we were getting ready to walk out the door Sister Frampton said to me..."I have faith that we will find someone tonight. Do you?" I gave her a half hearted reply of ya. She looked at me and said "No, you have to mean it." So I paused for a second and then said "We are going to find someone. Lets go." So we headed out the door to go check up on some of our potentials and former investigators. The very first door we knocked on let us in. It was a woman named M. Her husband was there and her 16 year old son. We got to know them and found out what they knew about our church and what they had learned from other missionaries...which turned out to not be very much. So we started at the beginning and gave them a first lesson. They focused intently on what we had to say and asked questions. We left them with a Book of Mormon and challenged them to read it. They said that they would and we have an appointment to go back and see them this week.
There are stands that sell chestnuts on every corner in Osijek. Seriously every corner. People sit out there and roast chestnuts and sell them. We have been wanting to try them for awhile but have always been busy or heading somewhere or not hungry. Anyway...Monday night we started talking to one of the guys working one of the stands and a family came up and bought some chestnuts. We started talking to them and they gave each of us a chestnut to try. They were disgusting. Seriously...I do not like chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Ok, it wasnt really an open fire but thats the only time Ive ever heard of chestnuts before in that song...needless to say chestnuts are gross...but we tried them. The people here love them though. They have plain chestnuts, chestnut cake, chestnut icecream, chestnut everything...its all gross.
Tuesday...was an interesting day. I woke up with a toothache. We went to the church and I told the Prestons and they had me call one of the senior missionaries who is a dentist. So we called him and asked him a few questions and he had the Prestons take some pictures (we have a funny picture of this that I will send) and send to him. He looked at it and said he couldnt see anything so he told me to go to a dentist here just to be sure. He recommended a dentist so we went and they were completely rude to us and told us they couldnt get an appointment for 3 weeks. We were talking to the Prestons and they decided to call their landlord and ask her for a suggestion of a dentist. She was so nice and called one of her friends and got me an appointment for the next morning. We went in, she looked at my tooth, said nothing was wrong and didnt even charge us. Not really sure why my tooth was hurting but it doesnt hurt anymore.
Anyway...back to Tuesday. We read with B and then had district meeting. We then had an appointment with one of our members who said that he had a friend that wanted to meet with us that was going to be there. We got to his house and he said my friend cant come today so instead you are going to have a lesson with me So we taught him with the Prestons. He had some questions from his Book of Mormon reading so we answered those and talked about the Book of Mormon with him.
Tuesday night we had English. English classes are still going good. Last Thursday after English we had handed out Book of Mormons so on Tuesday we told everyone that if they had any questions about the Book of Mormon to come up and talk to us about it. One of the cute little old ladies raised her hand and said I read it and it is very similar to the Bible. She said then I went and looked up your church on the computer and did you know that your church is the fastest growing church in the world. It is growing the fastest in America and Brazil but it is growing everywhere else too. We tried to talk to her a little more after but she didnt really seem to want to talk to us anymore.
Wednesday...I had the dentist appointment Wednesday morning that went well. We then went to visit M, her granddaughter and is a member was there sick so we got to teach both of them which was good. M loves it when we come visit and we always have really good lessons with her...but she wont come to church. She comes maybe once every other month but other than that she doesnt. So we are hoping that if we keep working with her she will start coming more.
We then checked up on a few potentials that lived over by her. Neither of them were home. One of their parents were home and they let us in but after a few minutes it became very obvious that they werent interested so we left.
We had Family History which went good. I am learning a lot more about family history because these members really are starting from scratch. It really is interesting and it is exciting when we find things. After family history we had a return appointment with someone we had met a few nights earlier that told us to come back a different day. So we went back. Her daughter and granddaughter were there so it was a little bit chaotic. But we talked to them all and had a good discussion with them. They told us that we could come back to visit with them but they arent interested in the church...so we wont be going back.
Thursday...was Halloween. We dressed up as each other...I wore Sister Framptons clothes and she wore mine. No one noticed we were dressed up. Im pretty sure we were the only ones in all of Osijek that dressed up for Halloween. We started out the morning with weekly planning which went well. Then we went out tracting...with not much luck. We had one guy that opened the door (Im pretty sure he was waiting for us) and before we could even say hi he had the biggest grin on his face and was shutting the door as he said Doviđenja (Goodbye). Another lady told us that we werent allowed to go door to door and that we had better get out of her apartment building immediately. Thats about how our night went. But we had English class which went really well! We had fewer students than usual but it was good. After M, the same lady from Tuesday, told me that she liked that their were fewer students because it was easier to learn and went better. She told me though that I am the perfect teacher because I am patient with them and even when there are 12 students I dont get stressed...I told her that we are hoping soon to have another set of missionaries so that we can have 2 teachers per class...she said she doesnt want that. So that made me feel good. I was also able to talk to her about the church a little bit which was good...we are making baby steps with he which is good. Because we have noticed that when we try to take things too fast people get scared. For our spiritual thought Thursday night we decided to read part of the introduction to the Book of Mormon which was really good. They were all focused intently and nodding their heads and really liked it. I think we are starting to get to even some of the students that have been coming to English for years. The English program that we are using right now is one that President Rowe found and we are trying to get it used mission wide. He took a lot of time deciding on a program to use and I know that he was definitely inspired to use this one because it really is bringing amazing results!
Thursday night we were home and someone rang our door bell...that never happens. We opened it to find A and L and each of them had a friend and they said trick or treat. Luckily we had some oreos to give them. We asked them how they knew where we lived and they said they just asked people around our building where the 2 Americans lived. We were the only house they trick or treated.
Friday...we had zone conference. Zone conference is always really good but it is also really exhausting. We had to wake up at 5:30 to get there on time and then they ended up starting an hour late anyway. But between that and the 6 hour car ride it is a little exhausting. But it was good. They talked about finding and especially finding through members and gave us some good tips on how to better get our members involved and make them feel like we need them. They also talked a lot about finding through English classes. They suggested doing a church tour after English classes. The only problem is our church is two rooms. One English class is in one room and the other class is in the other room. The Chapel is the same room that we have Aktivnost, English, Meetings, everything. We need a bigger church...its just a lot of work to try to find one and we dont really want to do it. :) But zone conference was great and we learned a lot and it was a lot of stuff that we can apply to our work. At the end President Rowe showed a film that had clips of talks from President Eyring and Elder Holland that were talking about the Atonement and it you could just hear them talking in the background and it was showing video of the Savior. The Power in their voices was incredible and it was an amazing film. I have always known that the Atonement was real but each day as I am using it more and more in my life I am seeing how incredible it really is. We can use the Atonement in almost everything we do. Christ is our perfect example of everything...obedience, enduring to the end...and whenever I have a hard time or a down moment I think of the sacrifice that he made for me and what I am doing is nothing compared to that.
On the way home we tried to visit a less active member but she wasnt home. We also stopped at a cemetery because it was The Day of the Dead or All Saints Day which is basically like Memorial day. Its where everyone goes and puts flowers on graves. But they also light candles so the cemetery was really cool to look at...I will send some pictures.
Saturday...We cleaned the church and then we met with F...I am still not completely sure what his intentions are. He keeps coming and says he wants to meet with us but then he doesnt act on any of the things that we ask him to do. He agrees with what we say and says that he has a good feeling about it though. We also met with N and V which went well. We did some tracting for the rest of the night...we had some people tell us we could come back...we werent sure if they were serious or if they were just saying it to get rid of us. But we will go back!
Sunday...was a great day! Church was great...our numbers were small (probably the smallest amount of people since I have been there) but it was a great meeting. It was fast Sunday and most of the members that bore their testimony were ones that dont usually do it rather than our regulars that go every month. Cute little A bore her testimony...she had asked us a few weeks ago if anyone was allowed to do it, we told her yes. She is going to do amazing things in her life. Since we have started doing Personal Progress with her she has been reading from the Book of Mormon daily. She always tells us about what she is learning. We love it! The Spirit in the meeting was so strong. It really was amazing. Each Sunday and each Aktivnost, etc. my love for these members grows stronger and stronger. It truly is amazing the changes that they are making to come closer to Christ. After Church we had branch council which went well. The Prestons invited us over for dinner so we went over there and ate and then we went tracting for the night. We found one girl that is probaly in her 20s that told us she would love to talk to us and so we are going back this week. Sunday night was super windy so it was kind of interesting when people would answer the door and you had to keep your skirt from flying up and your hair was in your face. Luckily it didnt start raining though until it was time to go back home...I had my umbrella but Sister Frampton didnt so we had to share. Im sure we looked pretty funny running back to our apartment in the pouring rain! Im just glad it wasnt snow!
This week was a great week...there were several times this week that I told Sister Frampton I was the tiredest I have ever been...she didnt think I was very funny. But then I would go to bed and wake up the next morning and forget how tired I was and we would just get to work. It is amazing how we just keep going even though sometimes we feel like the walking dead. I am excited for this next week...we already have a full week planned and if things go as planned it is going to be a great week!
I love you all! I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here serving. I know without a doubt that this is exactly where I need to be right now. I am learning so much and seeing changes in so many people that I know is not because of anything I am doing...it is 100 percent the Spirit.
I hope that you have a great week! Love you lots and lots!
Sestra Clark
Shoutouts!
Thanks for the emails from Mom, Dad, Lex, Grandpa, Carrie
Sretan Rođendan...Kelsey
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