I climbed a waterfall!

We had our preparation day today, because yesterday we had our zone conference. It was amazing! But more about that later. This morning we went a huge garden, forresty area. It was my favorite preparation day! It was soooo nice to just get out of the city and be in nature and smell the trees and fresh air. We spent hours exploring this forrest area that has a little castle, a maze made out of those tall hedges like in Harry Potter, tons of old architecture, and tons of gardens with little winding rivers and waterfalls. It was seriously so much fun.

Yesterday we had our zone conference with Presidente and Hermana Dayton. And let me tell you, they make an amazing couple and team. They get things done! I learned soooo much! A lot of things that are going to help me after my mission as well. Hermana Dayton taught us how to create our own personal mission statement for our life. I started on it last night. I am soooo thankful that I am here in the Spain Barcelona Mission. We have the most amazing and wonderful President and his wife. President Dayton said, "We do the things in life that we really want to do." I always learn so much from them. It makes me excited for life after the mission. I just want to grab life by the reins and take off running! It also makes me want to be a better missionary. More driven and focused. I'm not here to waste my time and the Lord's time. I did not come here to fail. Barcelona isn't a vacation for me. But, if we aren't having fun, we're doing something wrong. We're here on this earth to have joy! And so we need to have fun in the mission life as well. Same goes for all of you! Don't forget to pause for a few minutes and take a breather or just have some fun! Take care of yourself too! I've learned on the mission that we need to be focused, but we need to enjoy ourselves too. Take a moment and buy that icecream. Or stop and sit in the quiet for 10 minutes and just think. I've found that I need to do that here because being in the city all the time and talking with people literally allllll the time stresses me out. Sometimes I just need to be quiet and take a moment. That's perfectly okay.

This week was a good week! We have some baptisms coming up in June! I can't wait! Thank you all soooo much for your love and support! Also, shout out to the Berrett family! Your parents have been great missionaries here, and I will miss seeing them and talking with them, but holy cow they are going to be an amazing couple as the Mission President in Mexico! I have learned so much from them! Well, until next time! Have courage and be kind! (Name that movie!)

-Hermana Clark :)

Ps- Spaniards and Latinos know how to party. Has anyone seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding? If you have seen that movie, that it what even church parties are like here. Food, people, food, more people, loud music, and oh did I mention food?, and dancing. Seriously though, so much fun! 

Sometimes the metor doesn't work

I have a crazy story for y'all this week. I'm not sure why, but there have been metro strikes for most of the time that I have been here. It causes some problems because on some days the metros stop early or don't come every few minutes. On Monday, we were coming home from a noche de hogar (family home evening) at the Mission Home, and we were just switching metro lines, just normal stuff. We got to the next platform, and there were tons of people there. We thought it was a little weird that there were so many people, but didn't think much of it, until we looked at the time clock. The next metro wasn't coming for over 40 minutes! Normally they come every 2-5 minutes. We were shocked. And then we remembered hearing about the metro strikes. We had been affected by them before, but not this badly. So when the metro finally came, it was already crammed with people. So, like a bunch of sardines, we just crammed ourselves in there with everyone else. My companion and I held hands the whole time just so we wouldn't lose each other. It was intense! Also, the smell was absolutely awful. Apparently there isn't a Spanish word for B.O. But anyways, we made it to our stop and squeezed our way out. Trying to get off was actually harder than getting on. Cause everyone else is trying to get on while you're trying to get off. It's like a whirpool or vortex that just sucks you in. I pictured some dramatic movie moment where someone is hanging over a cliff, and there friend is holding onto their hand, but their fingers slip and they fall to their death. Like in the movie Prince of Persia. Anyone seen that movie? I like that show. Anyway, it was like that trying to get off the metro, except I didn't die. After that, since it was past curfew, we had to run home. Normally it takes us about 10-15 minutes to walk home from the metro, so it's a bit of a distance, but not too bad. After that we finally made it back to our piso at around 10:50ish in the night. We were exhausted. So we did numbers real quick and decided to hang out with the other hermanas on the roof of our building. We brought snacks and Hermana Spencer played her accordian. Then we went to bed. It was an exciting day, that's for sure.

Well, not much else to tell about this week. A lot of our investigators came to church yesterday, so that was super exciting! But it really was more of a slow week. But I love you all! The life is hard, but we can all do it! Have faith!

-Hermana Clark

Ps- We ate a member's house this week, and she fed us beef stomach and intestines. But it was actually pretty good! It was some traditional dish from Ecuador. Shout out to all my friends who served in Ecuador!

Happy Mother's Day!

First off, shout out to my mom! Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Love you lots! It was sooo nice to be able to talk to you yesterday. Definitely the highlight of my day yesterday.

Well, this week was super busy, but good. We have two investigators who are progressing, and we invited them to be baptized, and they said yes! But then when we set a day with them, it scared them a little bit, and so we haven't set a day yet. But we will keep teaching them :) We have also started teaching a family from Honduras. They are all Evangelicals and are super nice. They have a lot of questions, but really like to learn. Yesterday when we were knocking doors, we knocked the door of a man and his wife who are both from Nepal. His wife is due to have their first baby in two months. They practice Hinduism. They are seriously sooo nice. They invited us in and we talked about our religions for about 15 minutes or so. I don't think that they are interested at all, but it was still just nice to have someone be nice to us. The other day we also knocked the door of a family from Romania. They invited us back, but when we showed up they weren't home. That happens a lot. So I'm used to it. But I would love to be friends with Romanians. They're super nice.

Our ward had a party for Mother's Day on Saturday, and let me tell you, it was a party! So much food and dancing! Soooo much fun! Of course, as missionaries we didn't dance, but it was such a good time! 6 of our investigators came, so that was super good! Such a good way to show that we are normal people and have fun and stuff.

Well, that's it for today! I love you all! Be good! Ciao!

-Hermana Clark

Ps- The hotter it gets here, the less clothing people wear... Not my favorite thing... So many awkward moments...

Gizzards and the Gospel

So one thing that I forgot to mention last week, was that for my birthday, the other Hermanas came in mine and Hermana Anderson's bedroom at 12am playing the accordian and signing Happy Birthday. It was just the best! So funny! And then in the morning, they blind-folded me, put a birthday haton me, brought me into the kitchen, sang happy birthday while throwing confetti and balloons. They had decorated the whole kitchen and then fed me cake for breakfast. It was seriously so much fun!

This week was a really good week! We had some slow days when literally nobody would listen to us, but that's okay! We still work hard because we know our purpose :) We also had a baptism on Saturday. We will call her Alice :) She is just the sweetest. She is a daughter of a member, so it's not a "real" baptism for us, but her dad asked to teach her all of the lessons. So we did. She gave me a sticker one day and so I stuck it on the back of my chapa (name-tag).

We are teaching an lady from Nigeria right now. And last week she fed us a food called fu fu. Weirdest food of my life. It is this giant ball of raw dough, and you pinch off a piece with your fingers and dip it in this spicy fish sauce. Then to eat it, you aren't supposed to chew it, you just swallow it whole. It's really weird, but I did it! I was so proud haha But then this week she fed us spicy chicken and gizzards. Hermana Anderson wouldn't eat the gizzards, it grossed her out too much haha. So  guess who got to eat them all? Me! Haha I think I ate at least 8 gizzards. They're pretty chewy. But pretty good. I wouldn't choose to make them for myself, but I could eat them again if I needed to haha.

That is one thing that I love about my area. There is soooo much diveristy. So many people from so many different countries. It's really neat to hear so many different languages everyday. I've also learned a lot about many different religions. Life is so different here, and I really love it, but I do miss the calmness of West Haven back home. I miss the space of the country and being able to see the stars at night. I also miss the fresh air and the smell of cows, actually haha. But I really do love it here and all of the people we meet everyday. I just love missionary work! It is stressful and hard, but there are so many blessings. It's definitely worth doing! Well, I love you all! I'm going to sign off because for our preparation day today, we are going to go and do an escape room! I'm super excited! I will tell you all about it next week! Nos vemos

-Hermana Clark :)

Ps-  people here blow their noses differently. It's kinda funny. Instead of one long, hard blow, they do a bunch of short little blows one after another. It's almost a bit of an ab workout

Birthday Week!

This week was such a packed week, holy cow! Where to start?? Well, I guess I will start out by telling you all that I got sick again this week. I didn't sleep at all Tuesday night because I was up all night throwing up. That wasn't very fun... According to our nurse, I had the flu, so I wasn't supposed to eat any food for 24 hours. Not fun. Especially since a lot of members had planned on making us food for my birthday. So most of them got canceled. We had to stay in our piso all day. I mostly slept.

But I am super happy that I was better on my actual birthday! Some members had a family home evening/birthday party for me. It was so much fun! And of course, like tradition, they shoved my face into the cake. It really was so much fun! 21 has never felt so good!

We were able to teach a lot of lessons this week. We had one lesson with a family, and the father was giving the prayer and he started to cry. I just love missionary work! It's the best! Sometimes we have good days, and sometimes we have bad days. But the good days definitely out-weigh the bad days. There are a lot of very rude people, but it's okay. It doesn't bother me a whole lot, you get used to it.

Well, I know that this Church is true. There are miracles all around us everyday. Don't let Satan get you down! Because everything is going to be alright. Jesus Christ has felt every emotion, heartache, sin, and pain for every single one of us. I know that that can be a hard concept to grasp, that one person has felt everything for everyone. But it's true. How do I know? I have prayed and asked God myself. And I have felt Christ's love for me. He loves you so much. Because of Him, everything is going to be okay.

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week and don't be sad! Be happy! Well, until next week! Ciao!

-Hermanita Clark

Ps- My companion is blonde, so she stands out a lot. And this week on the metro a man asked if she wanted to have a family with him. Interesting things happen when you're a missionary!