Animo!

¡Hola, queridos!

I hope everyone had a lovely week! I had a crazy one. We went on a trip to Juarez for a day, and travel always makes things a little wild.

Bueno. Spanish Lessons with Hermana Clark:

Lluvia- rain. As in ¨That is a lot of rain. Looks like we´ll have to stay in your house for another hour until it stops so that we can go home. Want to sing a hymn?¨

Murcielago- bat. As in "Something flew by super fast when I was turning on the boiler. Do you think it was a bat?" (Apparently bats are a theme of my mission.)

Ánimo- um...excitement? Cheer? Really positive outward emotions? I don´t know if there´s a word for it in English. Which is why my Zone Leader says, even in English, "We need to have animo!"

La oracion/orar- prayer/to pray. As in "Prayer is the way we can communicate with our Heavenly Father. Since he is our Father and we are His children, He wants to have communication with us. That is why He has commanded us to pray often. When we pray, we are truly communicating with our Father, and He will answer us."

So remember that awesome investigator I mentioned last week who came to church with her cousin? She´s super cool. She´s made changes in her life already that are making her more happy. She reads the Book of Mormon with the desire to learn. She prays with her children every day. She´s stopped doing things that really don´t need to be a part of her life. And she accepted a baptismal date! So We´re working with her to help her prepare to make that covenant.

Rewind to that day when she came to church. Another member of the ward brought a friend to church that day. He´s a teenage boy, and we taught him that week, but he didn´t seem all that interested. However, we set another teaching appointment with him for the next week, and when we showed up we met his older brother. They both had read several chapters of the Book of Mormon and they were very interested in learning more. It´s crazy how we never know who is ready to learn more. That lesson was awesome. We were at the church and the youth activities had just ended, so 3 of the youth asked if they could join us in the lesson. Typically when we have members in lessons with investigators, we call them "lessons with members present." This lesson was more like a "lesson with missionaries present." These youth are incredible, and they bore such powerful testimonies. 

You don´t have to be a full-time missionary to share the gospel in a powerful way.

Which reminds me of a funny story. We were reading "Preach My Gospel" this morning, and every time it said "full-time missionaries" I accidentally said "full-time members." It was actually really funny and we were laughing a lot. But it got me thinking. All members of the church are full-time members. We should always remember to make the required effort to fully live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There isn´t "normal life" and "church life." There is "mortal life" and "eternal life." Let´s always remember to dedicate our lives to our Father in Heaven who loves us more than we can comprehend.

I´m sending photos today! Yay! I´ll probably send more to put on my blog than I will on this email.

Thank you for your continued support. I hope you have a fabulous week!

~Hermana Hannah Jo Clark

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Photo 1:​ The day after we were in Juares, I was on an exchange in Colonia Dublan. Those sisters have some neighbors... I was pretty excited to see them. 

 

 

Photo 2: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!