My first area is.....

Hey everyone!

Well, I'm officially in my mission now! We woke up at 4:45am on Tuesday morning to take a bullet train to the Mission Office in Barcelona. It took us just about 3 hours to get to Barcelona. I just love Spain! It is so beautiful! After the train, President and Sister Dayton came and picked up us 8 missionaries at the station. Then they took us to a castle! I believe it's called Castle Montjüic (not sure how to spell that). It was amazing! So beautiful! Then we went to the Mission Home to have trainings, interviews, and dinner. Fun fact: there are 5 missionaries in the Barcelona Mission (including me) that I went to high school with at Fremont. Silverwolves, way to represent! ;) haha Anyway, after dinner, I was picked up by Hermana Pratt to stay the night with her in Badalona. She didn't waste anytime putting me to work! We went contacting and taught a lesson.

After I stayed the night with Hermana Pratt, she took me back to the Mission Office so I could be assigned to my first area and get my trainer! All the new missionaries and trainers had lunch together, another training together, and then we were assigned! My companion is Hermana Anderson from Layton, Utah! She is so wonderful! I just love her! And my first area is Hospitalet!! I just love it here!!! This work is amazing!! We do a lot of street contacting and knocking doors, and we teach a lot of lessons too.

Right now it feels pretty cold in Hospitalet, mostly just because of the humidity. Oh, and it rained BUCKETS on Friday. Hermana Anderson and I just died laughing because we were so soaked! We must have looked so funny running through the streets in skirts in the pouring rain trying to get home at night haha! But I really love it here! I have never been busier, but I have never been happier! I just love teaching people about the gospel, even though we get rejected a lot. But it's okay! I really just love the people of Spain! Until next time, nos vemos!

-Hermana Clark :)

Ps- A guy tried pickpocketing me on my first night on the metro...

Pss- The picture is of me on our little balcony with the pouring rain behind me

I'm a gypsy now!

Hello everyone! Well, this is the last time that I will write from the MTC! I will be taking a train to my mission in Barcelona on Tuesday. The train is one of those fancy bullet train things. We've been told that it goes like 160 mph and instead of taking 6 hours by car, it will only take us about 2.5 hours by train to go from Madrid to Barcelona. I'm suuuuper excited!! I can't wait! I love the MTC, but I am so excited to actually get to my mission and start to really feel like a missionary! So, just to explain how missions work a bit, I am in the Spain MTC in Madrid for six weeks learning Spanish and other stuff. But I will actually be serving in the Barcelona Mission. That includes Northern Spain. So in my mission are areas like San Sebastian, Valencia, Barcelona, Pamplona, and other cities. Anyway, after I leave the MTC, I go to the mission office in Barcelona for a couple days. There I will meet my Mission President and his wife, and I will receive my trainer (who I will be with for 12 weeks), and I will receive my first area that I will live in for at least 12 weeks. That area will be a city in Northern Spain. I can't wait to know where I am going!

Anyway, this week was pretty fun! Last week for p-day we went to a ton of places in Madrid. We went to El Palacio de Madrid (The Royal Palace of Madrid), a really cool cathedral, the Royal Gardens, we had really yummy gelato in the shape of a rose, a really famous statue of Don Quioxte, a mercado (market) where I bought a really pretty scarf, and some other places too. It was a super fun day!

One of my teachers, Hermana Notario, told me the other day that I look like the gypsy character Esmerelda from the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She told me that because I have dark hair, clear green eyes, tan skin, dark eyebrows, etc that I look Spanish. I was so happy that a Spaniard thinks that I look Spanish! So it's official! I can now officially say that I look Spanish because a Spaniard told me so! haha

So here we do something called SYL (speak your language). Normally we have to speak only Spanish everyday from like 8am-4pm or something. But all this week we have to speak only Spanish from 8am-9pm. My brain has never been so confused haha. It's really hard, but it has been super helpful.

This week I finished reading the Book of Mormon! President challenged us all to read the Book of Mormom in our native language before we left the MTC. I have never understood so much of the Book of Mormom before! It's awesome! Next my goal is to read it in Spanish! I also brought a Book of Mormon in Catalan with me, so maybe I will try to learn Catalan someday haha.

Oh, we also got five more Russian learning missionaries this week. Four sisters and one elder. They've only been here for a day, but they are awesome! I'm excited to get to know them a little bit before I leave next week! So I won't be writing again until Monday the 27th. That's when my next p-day is. So y'all won't be hearing from me again until then. From now on my p-days will be every Monday instead of every Thursday. So yep! Thanks again everyone for all your emails, love and support! I love you all! Nos vemos!

-Hermana Clark :)

I placed my first Book of Mormon!

This week has just flown by! I can't believe that I only have 11 days left in the MTC, then I leave for Barcelona! Woooo! I've been here for a month now! 17 more to go! So last week, I didn't enjoy the Reina Sofia Museum. I am not a huge fan of modern art, but seeing a lot of Picasso stuff was cool. But other than that, eh. It was nice to get to leave the MTC again though. We really do get to leave a lot though, it's really nice.

We had a really good day at the park on Saturday. I placed my first Book of Mormon! Wooo! It was such a good feeling. I'm slightly less nervous about contacting now. So that's good. But it's mostly just that I get nervous for conversations with people in Spanish. Our mistakes in Spanish are hilarious though. The other day my companion and I were teaching a lesson, and between the two of us, we accidently taught that we pray to Jesus Christ and that God died for our sins, and that after we die we go to queens of glory. We had a good laugh about it all haha.

Today we are going to El Centro de Madrid. Not sure what we are doing exactly, but I'm still really excited! I really love shopping for clothes in Spain, European clothes are just the best haha. I haven't actually let myself buy anything yet, I'm trying to wait until I get to Barcelona to buy stuff, but I am really wanting a floral dress. And there are soooo many Zara stores everywhere, and I just really love Zara now. Shopping in Spain is just the best!

Not much to talk about this week, same old same old. Sorry! But soon I will have tons of fun stories once I get to Barcelona in 11 days! I still love it here, and my testimony has seriously grown soooo much. I just love this gospel and all that it can do for us. El evangelio es verdadero! I love you all! Thank you all for your emails and love and support! Nos vemos!

-Hermana Clark :)

Churros and Chocolate!

y everyone! I've made it to my second p-day! Wooo! I'm still alive! haha I am still loving it here. A little info about the missionaries in my MTC, there are only 42 of us in the whole MTC. Most of us are Spanish learning, but we have a few misionaries that are French speaking and Portuguese speaking. But they are leaving for their missions on Monday. On Tuesday we will be getting Italian and Russian missionaries. I can't wait! It's super cool when we all sing together, because you can hear Spanish, French, and Portuguese all at the same time. You are just hearing so many different languages in Spain all the time though. So many people from so many different countries. I love it! 

Last week on p-day we went to Plaza Sol in Madrid, and we ate churros con chocolate! It's amazing!! So don't worry Brother Roundy, I have churros crossed off my bucket list now! The churros are super good, and the hot chocolate that you dip them in is amazing. The consistency is a little thinner than nutella, but thicker than American hot chocolate.

Last Saturday when we went to El Parque Retiro (the park) my companion was the Hermana Clark! She's also going to Barcelona, and we are both descendents of Erza T. Clark! So that was way cool to be companions with her for a day! We call ourselves Las Clarks haha. She's super sweet though, and says hi to everyone. We came up with a plan when we were contacting, that she would say hi to everyone, and then I would start a conversation. It was funny haha. There was this one group of guys that she said hi to, and they got all excited and asked me for my number. I was just like, "uhhhhh no." hahaha And then they asked to take a picture with me and Hermana Clark, and it was super awkward haha. We took an awkward selfie stick picture, cause we didn't know what to do, and both of our Spanish wasn't good enough to really explain stuff haha. So that was an interesting day haha.

Later today we are going to the Prado Museum, and I am sooooo excited!!! I love that we get to go places in Madrid every p-day!! It's the best!! I will actually get to know Madrid a little bit before I leave to Barcelona. It's awesome!

Well, I need to wrap this up. I am loving my time here in the MTC! It's the best! My testimony has grown soooo much! I love this gospel and how happy it makes me! I have never been busier, but I have never been happier. I just love life :) Until next week!

-Hermana Clark :)

I'm in Spain!!

Oh my goodness!! I can't believe that I am actually in Madrid! I've been here for a little over a week now. It's actually been pretty cold here. It snowed last week. We get to leave the MTC pretty often. Mostly to run errands or go play futbol or something. So that's really nice! Also, playing soccer with Brazilians is terrifying haha!

I love the food here so far. I had salmon for the first time the other day, and it was good! I've had fish fairly often since being here, and it's pretty good. Later today we are going out for churros and chocolate. I'm sooooo excited for that!! It will be awesome!!

Learning Spanish has been going pretty well so far. My brain is so confused though haha. I can understand pretty much everything everyone at the MTC says, but we will see how much I can understand once I talk to people in the "real world" haha. I can hold conversations pretty okay. My Spanish is really broken, but that's alright.

We get to go to the Madrid Temple every Thursday, so that's really nice. We will be going today after we finish emailing. And the session is in English, but President Packer has challenged us to use Spanish headphones, so that's what I'm going to do :)

I really am loving it here! It's been hard, but soooo good. We teach investigator lessons almost every night, and on Saturdays we go to El Parque Retiro to do contacting. It's a really pretty and big park where we just stop people and talk to them about the Church. It's really hard, but fun. After that we sing in the park.

I really like riding the metro, it's so fast and easy! I wish we had public transporation like that back home. You can get anywhere. Oh, and random fun fact, I've lost weight since being here. So that's cool I guess haha.

Oh, I had to speak in Sacrament meeting on Sunday in Spanish. That was fun! There's another Hermana Clark here, and she translated for me as I was speaking. We actually found out that we're related. She's a descendent of Erza T. Clark as well. Oh, my companion Hermana Johhson and I have been called as the music coordinators. I enjoy that a lot.

Well, I don't have much time left. I will email again next Thursday! I love being here, I love my companion Hermana Johnson, and I love my district!! They are seriously awesome!! Buenas tardes! Nos vemos!

-Hermana Clark