November 26, 2012 letter

November 26, 2012

Hola Familia,

Well these past few moments have been really sad, as I just found out about the passing of someone who I really looked up to, and had so much respect for, Yvonne Williamson. She is the mom of my friend Brette, and so it isn't so easy to sound so rejoiced for the week when the funeral is occurring as I write this letter. But I was able to write them a little message, and I pray they are doing well. I feel as though I have lost someone close as well, and I cannot contain my tears. I'm grateful you are all doing well, and I'm so grateful for your messages to me each week. I love you!

My companion got really sick at the beginning of the week, good news though he feels perfect now! Unfortunately I think I got his cold, sickness thingy that he had! Hopefully I feel better for the week, we have a lot of plans, this week is Mariana's baptism! so we are really excited for her. 

Her husband Oscar is doing well, really progressing with the commitments we leave him. A tough thing for him is going to church on Sunday. He works all night until 6 in the morning, then church starts at 9, so that's pretty tough. His car keeps breaking down and having problems, and so I learned that temptations to stay away from church and be baptized come in many ways. I love this family so much, it's been really great to see them progress. Elder Mera from Mexico is in our district this transfer, used to be in this area, and said that they wouldn't listen to missionaries or do anything. So it has been a miracle how far they have come :) leaving behind addictions and problems and comforts, to follow Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for the blessings that God pours on his children. 

We were at the church on Wednesday waiting for an 82 year old man to come by, which he did! He wanted to do his genealogy work, he was trying to find his aunt. It was really neat looking through the church records and all the names of people who lived in this area before. Unfortunately we couldn't find her, but a neat little surprise, the old man softened his heart toward us and the church and said he would be fine with having us over to teach him! I think he lives in another area though. I feel like we keep finding some great people who end up living somewhere else haha, but it is neat to get to know these people first, as they gain interest in the church.

Thanksgiving was Thursday! I am so grateful for so much, it seems overwhelming. I'm so grateful for a loving family, and especially for the restored church upon the earth, that the heavens are now open, and that God speaks with His chosen prophet. That the Priesthood has been restored and that I have been entrusted with such authority from Heaven. I love you all :) It was really cool to go over to that families house for dinner, and have Thanksgiving with them. It was so strange, I was having a great time! Being with friends and talking and laughing. Elder Argueta just gets an incredible burst of energy when he's around lots of people and just goes crazy haha, so that was fun to see! They didn't have turkey here, they just don't have that sort of thing here, kind of strange! Digo yo, a yankee. But we had chicken and there was awesome dessert. This is the Carbajal family, and I found out that they know the Gomez family! That lives in Lindon! I told them I knew Erik and that we went to school together and that he was like Joel's best friend. Apparently the Gomez and Carbajal family are really close! What a small world right?

We taught some classes of English the other day, and it was super neat! There was a Haitian guy that came and I basically just talked to him the whole time haha. He got baptized like 3 months ago, and taught himself Spanish, he's only been here 6 months and speaks better than I do! And then of course the national languages of French and Creole. It was pretty cool! 

We've been blessed with some asado's lately, I think it's because Argueta has been here so long and he's going home soon, and it's the end of the year. But it's still really appreciated! A lot of fun, that is something I want to do more back home, have some asado's :)

Los amo, cuidense, que tengan una buena semana. I have no idea why I always write this end in Spanish, we're a Japanese (somewhat) family haha. Well I love you guys, I hope you are all doing incredible!

Elder Alek Clubb

November 20, 2012 letter

November 20, 2012

Hola Family! :)

Thanks for your emails! Tomorrow we have transfers again, and I'm with my companion again! So 3 transfers together, and I'm sending the guy home haha, so that'll be fun. I was really worried I was going to be transferred out, but I'm glad I get to stay :) A lot is happening this next transfer and I love this ward so much. 

Last P-day we went to Subway! that was pretty cool haha, of course it's different but I still enjoyed it! Also, best part, I saw 5 black people! It was awesome! And I talked to one for a while, he's from Haiti just hanging out in Argentina. So I guess that makes him Haitian. It was pretty neat. They have these things called collecividades, and it lasted a week long, where people from different countries have food and booths and shows and dances and music and stuff. We couldn't go since it was out of our area and it starts at night, but we did see some of the booths during the day on P-day. Kind of lifeless but it looked like a cool show!

We just found out we've been giving away Books of Mormon that are missing 50 pages in the middle of Alma, that is a little awkward.

We had a mission fast this past week, it was really good. We usually have a mission fast every month, and then the normal monthly fast. So I'm losing some weight I think! Don't freak out, I'm just kidding :)

SO I have mentioned Mariana and Oscar before in my emails. Mariana is the investigator that is super prepared, practically a member already, and Oscar is her husband. They aren't married which is why she hasn't been able to be baptized. We've been praying for this family, as well as the whole council in the ward, they can get married and baptized. And there I learned the teaching of Jesus, to pray even for our enemies. Although Ive always cared about this family, my love for them grew so much! And I  also learned that through constant prayer for people even who drive me crazy, helps me to feel more love for them. 

Well with Mariana and Oscar, the hardest thing has been trying to get a hold of Oscar, since he always left to work or was gone whenever we stopped by. But we finally got a hold of him a couple weeks ago, and then we had a lesson this past week. We got to their house and waited for ever for him, and he was having problems with his car, and it looked like we weren't going to get a lesson with him, but sure enough he came in after a while and we were able to teach him. And WOW this was a really spiritual lesson! It was just so neat, the whole family was there. This was his second lesson ever with missionaries, the first being with us a few weeks ago. He has been reading the pamphlet we gave him, and we were able to talk about the Restoration in greater detail with him. We talked about how they need to get married, and that they can be baptized and all this stuff, so that they can go to the temple in a year and be sealed for ever and ever, so that the greatest joy felt within the family can grow. I showed them pictures of the family when we went to the temple and how my little brother is now sealed to my family. It was really neat and he accepted everything! We talked to someone in the ward next to us, who has connections with a judge, and they're getting married on the 30th! And Mariana is getting baptized the same day! And that's the day I hit a year in the mission :) Happy birthday to me haha, I'm just so happy for them. 

It is so fetching hard to get people married here. They have huge problems with divorce and with people getting married, it takes so long! Usually for that reason nobody gets married, which is why everyone we talk to lives together. So this is really exciting for them :) Oscar has been telling his non member family that they're getting married and getting baptized :) Their kids have been members for a year, and they are all active, and during the lesson while I was talking I looked over at the kids, and they were all really serious and attentive, more than I've ever seen them before, and I realized how big of a deal this was for their family. Oscar didn't want to say the closing prayer, but little Santiago was like 'it's easy dad, you can do it, it goes like this', and he eventually said it, and it was great! This has been an incredibly joyful experience to be with this family and teach them. If all goes well, they can be sealed right when I go home :) I love this family so much, and I'm so excited for them. 

Later that day we were in the church building and we saw some of the members from the ward council, including the bishop and his counselors, and when we told them they jumped up and celebrated and were super happy. It was really neat to see all of our many prayers answered in this way :)

We did a lot of service this week as well, I tried blood sausage! It is really weird, I wouldn't say bad, but the texture is strange haha. I can say I've tried blood sausage now :) 

Last Saturday we had a mission activity, combined with the ward next to us and it went so well! The Primary President is like 20, the one who lived in Lindon before! She went to the activity and brought a friend from school, who was really interested and said she was really happy :) She doesn't live in our area though, but she liked the activity we had. It was a talent show and then halfway through we had a tour of the church, and in various rooms we had people talk about the church organizations. It went really well :) Elder Donjuan did breakdance with some other guys, and my comp did a rap and I was there too and dancing (I can't dance so I was just moving around doing weird stuff haha), and we have some investigators who came, one of which is Pablo and he sang. This guy can freaking sing holy cow, like he can be famous if he wanted. He's really humble about it, but he sand 'nessum dorme' I think I spelled that wrong, but everyone jumped up and gave him a standing ovation. He just rocked it. We didn't get as many people as we would have liked at the activity but I consider it successful. I have all of the talents on video to show you all later :)

All of these things only add to my testimony that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ, and that this is the work of God, to touch the hearts of so many and push them to change their lives.

I got invited to a Thanksgiving this Thursday! The family that lived in Utah invited me and my companion over :) I'm pretty excited, it should be good. That was nice of them to invite us. They don't have Thanksgiving here so this will be neat! 

I love you guys! Thanks for writing me and letting me know how you're all doing. Hearing from you really helps a lot and I love it. 

Cuidense, Los amo :)

Elder Alek Clubb

November 12, 2012 letter

November 12, 2012

Hola familia!

Thanks so much for all of your emails! Ive been trying to write back to all of them! It was really great to hear from all of you! 

Last P-day we cut it off a little shorter and had a lesson with Oscar and Mariana. We were only able to talk for 15 minutes, but we left him with a commitment to read the pamphlet and pray about it. It's been super hard to get a hold of Oscar so it was good to finally talk to him! We have another lesson planned this week. 

I had a great birthday! :D Thanks so much everyone! I could feel all of your prayers for me on this day, and I felt really happy all day, so thanks so much :) I got pooped on by a bird for the first time in my whole life on my birthday (what are the chances...) and I was totally fine with it! It was awesome! 

My companion got up early and cut out some colored paper stuff and wrote 'feliz cumple e' Clubb!' and sang to me with another elder on the phone. It was a surprise but it was really neat! I bought some bon o bons and handed them out to some people. For lunch the family we ate with put on some old school bonanza and the Ingalls family haha. 

All of the missionaries seemed to think I was a lot funnier as well and laughed more at the stuff I said. We had a zone meeting and all of the missionaries in the zone sang to me for my birthday, and that was cool! It isn't every day the whole zone sings to me! 

Elder Argueta and I did service for an elderly couple in our ward, we shoveled a lot of dirt haha and that took up most of the day, we got fodged out of a lot of lessons that day unfortunately. I heard about the elections.I got a birthday call from president too! 

I don't know if I've said this already but a few weeks ago they said this is the hottest it has been this early in the year in 57 years, how crazy is that?? I feel like it's the middle of the summer! I get back to the pench at the end of the day just soaking wet. Although it was pouring tons of rain a couple of days ago, and it got super cold haha, so a little bipolar weather moment.

I went on divisions with Elder Donjuan from Kissimee, Florida, and we did more service, this time painting a room! We got pretty covered in paint haha, it was fun though. Some random drunk guy stopped us and was talking to us for a while, saying he was a member and had callings in the stake and talked about how Joseph Smith gave money to people in need, and said missionaries in his area could go to his house if we called them, stuff like that, pretty relaxed conversation. Then he asked us for some money to take a collectivo and chau, his whole attitude and behavior changed and he got so ticked. Asked for his address back, started saying how he's apostate and all this random stuff, so I just shook his hand, said it was a pleasure and we'll see him some other time, and we left. Poor guy though, he seemed really unhappy, the missionaries in his area should stop by him. 

My comp and I taught this guy that's a total alcoholic that is homeless and just finds places to live, so he's told us. He works right next to the church building and we've talked to him before, so we had a lesson there. He said he really likes the church and the message we share, the biggest problem was that he was really drunk :P he talked about the great peace he felt when he walked into the church building, and a few times he just said he was too overwhelmed and started crying. So a really great guy, who's been having a lot of health problems and wants a change in his life, and we're going to have another lesson with him this week.

Last Saturday there was an activity in our church building of all of the young adults attending seminary in our whole mission, there were tons of people! It was so neat! The first thing that happened when we walked in, we were asked to give a blessing. So I gave a blessing totally unexpected to someone Ive never met before, and I felt the power of God in the blessing, and they were His words, I don't think Ive given a blessing like that one before, it was really neat. I saw some people from Pergamino though that I knew! There was even an Investigator of ours who I taught right before I left! He hasn't been baptized yet, but he came to the activity with a friend of his, who is a member but inactive. 

That day we taught 3 lessons in the doors contacting, which almost never happens. One lady was told us she used to talk to missionaries but there were a few things she didn't believe that they taught her. So smiling my companion asks what the doubts were if she didn't mind telling. And she told us and we were easily able to answer her question and clear up the confusion. However no matter how perfectly we can teach a lesson, or how much of the Spirit we felt, people still have their agency. And she said the only reason she doesn't believe us is that she would have to change. So we'll be going by her more and hopefully explain more to her. 

Oh yeah thanks for the miso soup packages! The smell sent me straight home for a little while haha! It was so great! And my comp loves it! He might go to BYU after the mission, so I tell him we'll have a Japanese food night at my house! He'll love the way you make Japanese food! I said I'm the only one who doesn't know anything haha!

Yesterday was super bizarre, there was a baby blessing so a lot of people were at Sacrament Meeting! I met this lady who lived in Lindon for 5 years, by Los Hermanos, which I just barely realized yesterday actually means something in Spanish haha. And then she introduced me to her family who also lived in Lindon, and they live in my ward! I've known them and talked to them and had no idea I live right next to them, and drove by where they lived every single day! It blew my mind haha, they talked about all of their favorite places in the area and all the food. I just couldn't believe they lived there :) It was super cool! Last name is Carbajal, if by some chance someone knew them once.

There was a guy who came to our ward yesterday who had never in his life been to our church before. He isn't a member but his wife is active, and previously went to a different ward. Her husband was super nice, really great guy! He sat by us in the priesthood class, and we had a great lesson! Except the teacher (he does this a lot) started getting really ticked at everyone because the chairs were set up with an aisle in the middle, and went off for a long time on it. I always get really uncomfortable with things like that, especially when we have new people in church, because that will be their first impression of the church and it will last with them. Some random arguments took place during the class. But he seemed to really enjoy it, and said we could go over to his house :)

I love you all so much! I'm so proud of you, for everything you are doing and achieving. I hope you are all doing great, and I pray every night for you. Take care, thanks for everything you do and have done for me, it's something that really humbles me, to have such great family as you :) and friends. 

Los amo, cuidense,

Elder Alek Clubb

November 5, 2012 letter

November 5, 2012

Hola Familia! :)

Thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes! :D It was so nice of you all to take some time and write me an email :) It was so great to hear from everyone! I love you all! I don't have anything planned for tomorrow, although we have a service activity, and two lessons set. So just a regular day :) 

So last week we had a lesson with René again! Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to read and pray about it, which is pretty important haha. Like I said before, her husband was a member, and she pulled out some of the stuff he had and wow it was awesome! There were Liahona's from the 1980's and old missionary pamphlets, and my companion said he saw a booklet that had conference talks from 1918! So this guy got together a lot of random stuff, but they were really interesting. Seeing all of the prophets and apostles back in the day was really neat to see. The problem with René is that it's so hard to get a hold of her! And so she didn't make it church yesterday, so that was disappointing. Of all the people we're teaching, she's progressing the most. So there has been a ton of finding, and not a ton of teaching going on. 

Happy Halloween! :D we had interviews with the president that day, and we went right after the zone leaders, so we got up pretty early to travel to the mission home. It was great though! President is an awesome man and I'm so grateful for everything I'm learning from him. We're still working to bump up the mission and to improve, so that has been a main focus, to individually evaluate ourselves and work to get better and be better. Good news! I got the packages and letters! That was the coolest, thanks so much mom! and everyone that wrote me :) that was a really great Halloween and it was really great to hear from all of you. 

I have found a really great love for studies :) and I love studying the scriptures, and the words of modern day prophets. It really fills me with so much joy and I find everything I read so interesting. Ive been able to read from each of the standard works each day for a few weeks, and well as some books that I have. I finished the Miracle of Forgiveness in English! 

We had a lesson with a woman named Noemi and her daughter. This was interesting because Noemi doesn't believe in God. The biggest thing with her is that she finds it boring or impossible. In our lesson we were teaching with the spirit and with intentions to persuade and we did a pretty dang good job, it was a really good lesson and we could tell that she could believe. It's just easier believing there isn't a God. One of the things we talked about was Love, which is a powerful driving force for us as God's children. And with her daughter there, my companion asked her if she loved her daughter. Noemi looked at her and just said nope! Not at all. There aren't such things as those feelings, and all she does is pity her, so she takes care of her. I was so blown away by that! I cant imagine a life without love. That really just sucks all of the purpose of life and progression. It was really sad talking to her because she could be so much happier. That is something I learn more each day, that the gospel is joy and peace and love and progression. 

Yesterday had some of the most spiritual and joyful moments of my mission. I was fasting for the things President Giuliani asked for, and in testimony meeting, there were three memorable testimonies for me that really touched me. One was our investigator, Mariana, the next our recent convert, Pablo, and then finally our ex-ward mission leader, who has been a member for like 40 years, Hno Sosa (we share the same birthday!). Mariana goes up and was so humble, she began by thanking the ward and for people that have been helping her, and then she says 'I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ' and bam, I started crying. That was her first time going up in sacrament meeting. Then Pablo goes up and also starts thanking people, he looks at us and says he's thankful for us, and said he is so grateful for this church. He was previously an active member of a big church in our area. And started talking about the peace he feels, the closeness to God and the strength he gets. He talked about how he wants all of us to feel that way as well. And wow that was so neat! He got really choked up when he started talking about the peace he feels. And then Hno Sosa comes up and starts off talking about how the prophets speak the words of God, because they are His servants, and how, we at times speak His words as we are His humble servants. And then bore testimony of the prophets and the church with such conviction it leaves no doubt that it's true. I really enjoyed those three testimonies.

I'm grateful for the church because I know it is true, with all the doctrine that Christ taught, and teaches. I know it's a path to happiness and eternal life. I know Jesus Christ lives and that He is my Savior and Redeemer, and I'm so grateful for His example. That He would love one so weak and rebellious as me. I hope you are all feeling and experiencing the joys of the gospel. I miss you all and I love you, thank you for your birthday wishes :) that really means a lot. That's my birthday testimony I suppose, haha. And happy birthday President Uchtdorf tomorrow!! :D (we hang out...)

Los amo,

Elder Alek Clubb