Dear Family and Friends,
I have to ask forgiveness
for not writing two weeks in a row. I
have been working very hard and have been extremely busy and haven’t had time
to be able to write a big letter home to all of you. I have been really well! I am enjoying my time with my companion,
Elder Tornero, he has such a great sense of humor and very good intentions.
I am also enjoying the sector of Canete. Even though when I got here we didn’t have
many investigators, we have been working hard and doing everything we can to
serve the people and we have been able to find some really cool people. I have also been able to meet many of the
members and I get along with them very well.
It’s really cool to see the willingness that they have to work with us
as missionaries. When the members and
missionaries work together, the work really increases and is more
efficient.
On the 30th I did an exchange with a missionary
in my district named Elder Duffin! He
has 5 months in the mission but it already really talented and speaks Spanish
well. We talked about many things but
mainly about the mish and how I remember having his time in the mission and
doing an exchange with someone who had as much as I do now, and talking about
the same stuff, it’s just a big missionary cycle. I really enjoy being able to give advice and
share experiences that I have to people who need it.
We saw two miracles when we were working together. At the end of a lesson that we had with one
of their investigators, a very humble 22 year old girl broke down crying
talking about how much she has been blessed since she had started listening to
the missionaries and how everything was improving in her life, it was very spiritual
and special. I even got choked up which
hasn’t happened very often in a while.
The other miracle that we saw was a new investigator that we
were able to find, who told us that she had shared with a lot of missionaries
in the past but had never really progressed.
At the end of the lesson she said “I finally get it, I understand the
importance of your message and I need to pray so that I can receive an answer,
because it is very important.” She told
us that with the other missionaries she never really understood it very well
and that now she did. That’s a testimony
for me that the Lord is preparing people to receive our message and that
everyone has their own time. Because I
know that the message that we shared is the same one that the missionaries in
the past did. I’m just glad I could be
part of “her time”.
To talk about New Year’s Eve, it went really well. We worked until 8 and then we went to the house
of a member to eat a huge “asado” (barbeque) and have a good time. We had to be in the house by 11 but unlike
last year, I was awake at 12 to see the fireworks and celebrations, not nearly
as close to everything that happens back home, still a lot of fun.
I spent all of the year 2015 in Chile, it’s pretty crazy to
think, and time really did fly this year.
I have had some amazing experiences, met awesome people, served many of
my brothers and sisters and most importantly I have served the Lord. This year was and will be unlike any other
year the rest of my life. Never again
will I have the opportunity to spend 100% of my time in the service of people
the entire year. Although, I have been
able to learn and make it a custom in my life to always search for the people
who are in need and do what I can for them.
I will do that for the rest of my life.
I love God, I love the plan he has for me. I love the mission, and even though it gets
hard and discouraging, I will carry on because the positive experiences outweigh
the negatives, and when the negative comes, I will look for the learning
experiences that can be found in them.
To start off the new year we met as a zone to play
soccer. During the course of the game, I
kicked the ball high over the fence into a yard I would describe with words as “physical
hell”. It was a yard that never had seen what is “yard work”. There were plants and weed that just cut you
to pieces, and were taller than 10 feet high.
We asked permission from the owner to look for our ball and he said “You’re
not going to want to”. We went in anyway
and from the minute I entered to the minute I left, I regretted it. I had never been in so much pain and my arms
and legs got destroyed. The plants were
worse than rose bushes. I can’t even
describe it, but after 30 minutes and a miracle (because this backyard was enormous
and we had no idea where the ball went in) we found the ball. After washing all the blood off my body, we
continued playing haha.
The month has just began and we have seen a lot of
opposition, which I know is normal. We
have done service activities, Dani and Carlos and their family are
progressing! We’ve found a lot of good investigators,
we’ve felt the spirit really strong in lessons, I’ve done a lot of exchanges, I
burned a pair of my pants for my 18 month mark.
I went to the doctors for my allergies, I got my “trunky letter”
(release information). Started reading
the Book of Mormon as a mission, did capacitations, went to compo, realized I’m
old in the mission but still feel new, heard some really strong testimonies and
strengthened my own. It’s been a good
couple of weeks! I hope everything is
going well for everyone back home. Love
and miss you all
Elder Clay
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