6.30.14 Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked....and Walked....and Walked!

New companion Sister Allen from American Fork 

Greetings family! Lots of changes from this last week but good changes nonetheless:) OK I guess I will start with the question where am I? Ha-ha I am now in Short Hills.. It literally is bordering my last area but I'm happy to be here. My new companion is Sister Allen from American Fork. She has been out for about 3 months and she is a rock star! I love her to death she cracks me up.

My new address is 

2 Honeyman Place 2nd floor

Berkeley Heights, NJ
07922

Tuesday

So Tuesday was a hard day, transfer conference, saying goodbye to people in Caldwell. Also transfer conference. Saying goodbye to President and Sister Jeppson. I love them both so much and will miss them tremendously. I'm so excited to meet the Tagarts, (no I have not met them yet but they seem pretty awesome).

But we had a great meeting hearing all the departing missionaries dying testimonies then hearing president Jeppson and sister Jeppson talk to us for a minute.

I was placed with my new companion Sister Allen who is hilarious our first time we were standing trying to get to know each other we were standing by the car and sister Allen was waving her arm back and forth with the phone in her hand and ended up throwing flinging it towards the car and it hit the car and fell on the ground. Yep we are going to get along just fine ha-ha.

Our area is the Short Hills area. Which has recently been combined from 2 areas into 1 so we have a lot of area to cover. We are pumped. And good news, apparently Eli manning lives in our area, we know what street but not the house.. we will find him, everybody needs the gospel right? 

Wednesday

District meeting. Our district is great and our zone is really fun. One of our zone goals is to make up a companionship handshake and do it everyday before we leave the apartment. And today we are playing volleyball against another zone. I'm very excited. I love being able to just focus on our area and get really deep into the work. There is a lot of work that needs to be done but we are excited to do it:)

After district meeting we went and dropped off our car in the shop... so for 3 days I was a walking missionary (thus the title) it was neat. When I walk as a missionary I feel like I’m fulfilling my purpose. We’ve meet some amazing people as we've been walking and lots of new potentials. We also did some service for a member of the ward who has lots of cats. (Back to the days of tom’s river:)) (Thus the picture with the cat tree and the cats.) My poor companion is allergic so she's been sneezing the past couple of days. 

Thursday
So Wednesday night at 10:15 right before bed we got a call from the assistants saying they had an emergency and they needed me to give a training the next morning to the new district leaders of how to work with the sister training leaders.. #calllingneverends ha-ha it was a strange day but it was good. I learned a lot from the new leaders of the mission and they are going to be great!

So I gave the training and also brought stickers to keep the elders focused ha-ha (it worked) then we went to teach a lady named Irma. There are a lot of people in this area who are very 'Jersey' they are not afraid to tell you what they think of you and your beliefs. So we sat and taught Irma (older German woman) for a while as she talked to us about her tree's and her plants then she looked at me and just started going off about how we are so wrong and started going on about Joseph smith etc. It's amazing how in those moments when I want to just pull out scriptures and prove her wrong. But when I turn the other check my testimony of the principles they don't agree with grows stronger.

As we were walking home, it was a long, hot walk home, we got picked up by a member who took us to her house and feed us dinner. It was delicious. When she drove us home that evening I realized that my jacket was gone. I had taken it off earlier while we were walking and the thought went through my head. 'You are going to drop your jacket, take off your tag from it" so that was a weird thought but I took of my tag and walked with my jacket on my bag. When I told sister Allen that I remembered where I dropped it she was laughing at me for dropping it and we started to trek out again.

On our way there we met a man sitting in his car named Montana. We ended up talking to him for 40 minutes. And he wants to learn more. By that time we had to head back home but losing my jacket lead to finding Montana. Aka miracle aka awesome! (We found my jacket the next day no worries)

Friday
more walking and meeting members

Saturday

Every Saturday morning some of the ward gets together and plays ultimate Frisbee.... and it gets SO INTENSE there is no rules in this game. They take up a full football field. It's almost like initiation into the ward to play competitively it's funny. Then after that we went and helped a member move. So needless to say my body was just so exhausted after moving. Luckily we were able to get our car back Saturday morning! No more walking wahoo! (I love cars, and ac)

Sunday
The ward is great, they are all really tall! I love it. It will take some adjusting from my last ward but I’m excited sister Allen is a great companion and loves to talk to everyone I am going to learn a lot from her. Our day ended with a member quizzing us all night about random bible trivia and telling us we need to be better. So I am excited to grow and improve this transfer and I think this are is defiantly going to help me do that. I'm so grateful for prayer this week and help through changes and whatever the mission throws at me. I'm excited to hear from you all! Love you

Love,
Sister Clark

good-bye Sister Shear

Sister Richardson is going home!