Nobody Likes the Crust

Hola Hola, otra vez!

It's been another great week here in la mision!

I started by going on an exchange to Casas Grandes! It's about a 4 hour bus ride from Juarez to Casas Grandes. My companion is an Hermana Capacitadora (Sister Training Leader), so we do a lot of exchanges so she can train the other Sisters. Usually the HC's train Hermanas a bit closer to them, but for some reason she is assigned to some Hermanas in Casas Grandes. So we traveled together and I got put with another companionship over there. It was so fun. The whole pace of life there is different. It's a cool place.

Preface to Spanish Lesson:

I had pizza for dinner when I was in Casas Grandes, and I asked one of the Hermanas what you call the crust of the pizza. She said "It's called the 'suegra.' Nobody likes the suegra."

Spanish Lesson with Hermana Clark:

Suegra- Mother-in-law. As in..."Nobody likes the mother-in-law..." (Luckily, I already knew what suegra meant, so I just started laughing a lot and she joined. Then I informed her that my future husband will like his suegra.) I asked several other missionaries though, and people actually do call the heels of a loaf of bread "suegras" as a kind-of joke. So that's fun.

Crema- cream. Any kind of cream. Soup that is cream-of-something, cream you put on mosquito bites, neosporin, body cream, sour cream. Everything is "crema." Watch for context.

Arrepentimiento- Repentance. As in "Repentance is the joyous opportunity we have to change and become better as we align our lives with the teachings of Jesus Christ and use the gift of His Atonement."

Spanglish Quote of the week:

"And through His prophet, Joseph Smith, God restored the Gospel in it's plenitud." -An Elder in my District 

(plenitud means fullness)

Sometimes it's hard to give a Spiritual thought at a District Meeting in English when you are just so used to Spanish.

So it's time for a couple stories about finding people.

Monday night after our District Meeting we went to find a lady named Lupita. We don't have her address, she just told us vaguely what part of the subdivision she lives in and that her house is under construction. So we'd been knocking at this one house all week thinking it was hers. Well, Monday night the lady who lives there answered. She wasn't Lupita. But we talked to her anyway, and she's super cool! We had a sweet conversation about how knowing that God has a plan for us helps us find peace and guidance in this life. She said we could come back and teach more tonight, so that will be nice.

One of my first days in the field, we were walking down the street and this kind looking man waved at us. So we talked to him and he realized we weren't the Misioneras he had met before. He talked to us anyway, though, and said we could come by "whenever he was there, but he was gone a lot." So we usually don't ever see people again when they say that. But last week we here at a taco stand talking with the owner who is a member of the ward (he gives us free tacos. We love him.), and this kind man and his wife walked up to order tacos. I was like "Hola!!! Como ha estado??" (Heyyyy!! How have you been??) Because I recognized him. We talked to them a bit and he said we could come by Sunday. He wasn't there Sunday when we came by.

So Saturday we're walking by his house and the door is open. So we knocked. And He let us in. His house is also his acupuncture clinic. We talked to him a lot about his life, which was really interesting. We sang a hymn, and He said that He felt the Spirit very strong. Which was good, because we did too. We talked a lot about how important it is to have Faith in Christ. Then we gave Him a Libro de Mormón, and invited Him to read Ether Chapter 12. He was super interested in learning more. We're going to teach Him again later this week.

And one last story from when I was in Casas Grandes.

We visited a member family, and one of their teenage sons is having a hard time with the decision to serve a mission. He has learned a lot of English in school, so his mom told him to ask me in English why I decided to serve a mission, and translate my answer from English into Spanish. So he asked, "Why did you want to serve a mission?"

There are a lot of reasons. So I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to say to keep it simple so he would understand it. So I opened my mouth and out came "I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That testimony has made me happy, and I know it can make other people happy. So I want to share it and help them receive a testimony too." He understood.

Our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them to receive the retored Gospel through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We are here to invite. We obviously teach, because you have to teach someone how to do something before you invite them to do it. Ultimately, though, we always need to invite others to act if they are going to come unto Christ and feel the joy that He can bring them.

So I invite everyone to do something this week to invite others to feel the love of Christ in their life. There are so many things you can do.

I hope everyone has a lovely week. Thank you for your continued love and support! :)

 

~Hermana Hannah Jo Clark

 

 

 

 ​A couple weeks ago I went to the border with another Sister to do some immigration paperwork. We may have stepped into Texas for a few seconds...​