February 6, 2017

Wow oh wow this week was one for the books! So from Monday to Wednesday I was with Elder Ebeling on the East Side of Indianapolis, sooo much fun. We went to the Rio Grande Supermarket to get some authentic tacos and talk to people there, Elder Ebeling would translate for me to the Spanish people. 1 of the guys was trying to get me to buy a lot of food by saying stuff in Spanish and trying to get me to agree. So the East Side is really dangerous, and we went to this apartment complex named Spanish Oaks which is supposedly pretty dangerous, they try not to go there in the evening hours, but that's when we were there :) At the supermarket though we ate tacos and drank Horchata and talked to the spanish people around us about the gospel, on the way out we were walking out and I said Hey to this guy that was ordering some donuts and after talking to him for a while we found out he really needed help in his life, and he'd talked to missionaries 2-3 years ago and wanted to talk to them again. The cool thing about this happening is a lady we talked to an hour before told us if we wanted good pupusa's (Spanish food) then we should go to this Pupuseria and we looked for it and then decided to go to a different one and God led us to talk to these people :)

hahaha also this was hilarious, so earlier in the day we were at the downtown library and there was this minister from another church sitting across from us, and people kept walking up to him and they'd see all of us, 1 lady came up to me and Elder Abhau and all the other missionaries and asked us why we looked so happy and then went on to tell us we're a cult and then when 6 of us were getting on the elevator a guy was getting off and said "Wow the devil's already arrived" hahaha! Anyways that night I didn't bring any of my sleeping stuff, no pillow no blanket and I was FREEZING! I was expecting Elder Cox to leave his bedding and so I left mine and I froze, oh well it's mission life :) The next day me and Elder Ebeling went to the Lavenderia (Laundromat) and did their laundry and talked to every hispanic person there (A LOT) and while we were there we ran into a Less active member in their Spanish branch that he had no idea about! After a couple hours there we were driving down the road and he says "We're going to go knock that door" and it was because they had a sign to be a hispanic house (2 dish network, 1 for the spanish channel) and he followed the spirit and he went. We knock on the door and a black lady answers with her baby and we were both kind of surprised but we started talking to her and her boyfriend comes up who is hispanic and Elder Ebeling says "Ola Hermano" haha and they let us inside and there is 7 people living there and they want us to come back! After that we then started knocking doors, looking for spanish people, he's so funny he runs to spanish people when he sees them. We saw one walk in a house with a red door, so we walk to that house and no one answered, so we go to another house that looked hispanic, they weren't but they said their neighbors were so we went to their house and they were happy to have us come back again and told us to go knock on their neighbors door (the red door) and they answered the 2nd time! After talking to these people we drove to Flores, Flores is someone they found a couple weeks ago, Elder Ebeling and Elder Cepeda were driving and Ebeling said "Alright keep an eye out for a house you think we should knock" and later at the same time they both point to a house and say "THAT ONE!" and she came to church that week and is now learning :)

We then went to a members house and had the best mexican food I've ever had!! Such a fun dinner, they didn't have a sink so we washed our hands in a bucket with a hose :) We then had a way way good lesson with Mario and Juan, Mario will get baptized soon :) Alright more fun stuff, so Friday morning at 4 in the morning the White River Elders call us and their house was flooding! Their upstairs neighbors pipe broke, and so they've been living with us for the weekend. Another flooding happened at the baptism, the font overflowed haha it was bad they had to grab buckets and scoop water out into the toilet. And it happened right after one of the guys in the bishopric told us it had happened before and none of us believed him. It's been a way fun week, now today the plan is to drink gatorade all day and watch everyone play basketball :) Something I learned this week, "More importantly then receiving an answer to prayer, is recognizing the answer and thanking Heavenly Father for it". I love you guys and miss you! - Elder Jared Clark