January 23, 2017

Hey! So our investigator Vesnel is loving what we're teaching him. He is the one from Haiti, he will probably get baptized soon. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation this week, he was in aw over it, he loved it and he made the connection that the reason we know all about the Plan of Salvation is because of the Restoration. His friend also wants to come to church! "Teach when you find, find when you teach"

So this week we're out walking around, and somehow the conversation came up and Elder Abhau's like "You know it's the dirt that gives you Tetnis, not the Rust? Usually rust is associated with it because when something's rusty or in the ground, it usually has dirt on it?" I said "So it's not really that bad to cut yourself with rust?" Elder Abhau responds "Well I'm sure it's not a good thing to cut yourself with rust" Hahaha it sounded good in my head, but when I said it, it just wasn't the same. Monday after a good long day of playing basketball, and getting some burritos at Moe's, we changed into our Proselyting clothes and went out contacting referrals with Elder Kretschmer and Elder Caldon (The White River Missionaries) and then we went to a Single Adult Family Home Evening that the 60+ women in their ward have. After that we spent the night with them in their apartment. Tuesday me and Elder Caldon we're with each other all day, such a good day. Elder Caldon is one of my favorite people out here! We went to this mexican restaraunt, taught Vesnel about the Restoration and Book of Mormon, and made sure he understood that, and visited Sam Ferguson (he's been a member for 2 years) and his wife just got baptized.

Alright now here's a good story, time for story time, and I forgot to tell you about it last week. So 2 Monday's ago me and Elder Abhau were walking to Buffalo Wild Wings in downtown Indy and there are always Jehovah Witness missionaries that stand on the corner with there stands and books and stuff to give out, so we're about to cross the street and then I told Elder Abhau I was going to have some fun :) So I walk up to them and act like I speak no english, Only Yoruba, and I start pointing at my nametag. The one guy, tells the other 2 missionaries that he's got this one, and he asks me if I speak English, I tell him no and say Bawoni, Da da ni, (The only Yoruba I know) to him and I say it like someone from there would, he tells me to flip through this folder to look for the language, I nod my head and say no, and he says "Okay, can you spell it for me?" So I spell it for him, and he looks it up on his phone, but his phone was being slow and I acted like I was in a hurry so I start walking away and said "I COME BACK?" and he's like "Okay okay ya come back!!" but I did not come back.. anyways a week goes by and I'm in different clothes, in the middle of downtown Indy, walking to Buffalo Wild Wings with Elder Caldon, at night, and 1 of them spots me! Hahaha they ran up and stopped me and told me they found the language, except then I started speaking fluent English to them, and Elder Caldon is wearing his nametag in English that says "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" hahaha. It was hilarious.

So on Tuesday we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for Elder Burnett's birthday. We parked in the mall parking, the only problem was me and Elder Caldon parked in a different parking lot then Elder Abhau and Elder Kretschmer and Elder Abhau had to get all of his blankets and stuff he packed for from that car to our car, so here you see 2 Mormon Missionaries in nice clothes, but carrying there stuff through downtown, we looked homeless and we knew it hahaha so funny.

Wednesday we had to get our car oil changed, it's easy to be a missionary and do that because the Church is so organized that we just take it in, all the information is in the computer and they just pull it up and fix the car haha. Sheila (the investigator who is trying to quit smoking before she gets baptized) had us over for dinner that night, it was kind of a late birthday dinner for me and she made enchiladas, spinach and rice pudding!

Thursday we spent the whole day at Interviews with President Carlson, since me and Elder Abhau are the zone leaders we were there from 10-5 at the White River building! All the missionaries practiced teaching us the Restoration, while they waited for there interview, each interview is about 10 minutes or less and there are 34 people in the zone. That night we had dinner with Coralie, she will probably get baptized soon!

Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Allred, he's a funny kid. He came to me in our area, and Elder Abhau went on an exchange with Elder Burnett to there area, since Elder Burnett is the District Leader. On Saturday we helped Sheila out, we broke down boxes and helped her organize her house, and then she fed us lunch, and we went to Costco with her! Costco reminded me of home, in a good way :) we went and got all the samples, and it was set up just like the one in Bountiful. Saturday was just an all around good day!

Sunday was kind of a funny day, so.... we went to a rougher part of our area, mostly because I wanted to go there so I told Elder Abhau we should, and earlier in the day we found out from Brother Enos that in Hawaii they call Marijuana "Paccololo" so me and Elder Abhau call it that whenever we smell it, it's a good code word because other people don't know what we're talking about haha so we decided we're going to go to a place where he smelt a lot of "Paccololo" because that's usually where the more fun things happen. So we go there and sure enough we have a fun experience, we knock on this door, this lady opens up and says "Come inside Come Inside!!" I asked if a man was in the house and slowly walked in, Elder Abhau was hesitant, let's put it this way, most of the people in there were drunk, 1 had Alzheimers, 1 told us she got out of prison a year ago, but still, they recognized we were sent from God to knock on their door, they were all arguing and they were so excited to have us come in. 1 of the people there, she could not read well, and we told her she didn't have to be able to read, to be able to pray to Heavenly Father for help. After talking to her for a minute she told us to come meet her mom and dad. She walked us back to their room, me and Elder Abhau are both hesitant to walk in, but the lady tells us to, we walk in and the Mom says "What are you doing in my room?!!!!?" I thought to myself "I'm wondering the same thing" then she yelled to her daughter (Who was about 35) why'd you bring them in here?" After a lot of yelling, they calm down enough and realize God may have sent us there, we said a prayer with them and got out of there :)

Safe to say I love being on a mission, and love going to those kind of places hahahaha. I love you guys and miss you! - Elder Jared Clark