Something Different

 Sometimes, missionary work can get really repetitive. I mean we do the same thing everyday for 2 straight years, and sometimes we just get stuck in our routine, so I decided to switch it up.. I said ima try to contact people in different ways ya know, just do something different to try to get them to stop and converse with us haha, these were some of the things I did

-state were the missionaries and want to share a message with them (2% effective, the typical)

-ask if they want to hear a song, then sing them a hymn (a personal favorite, 60% effective and Elder Clouse gets to practice his singing)

-ask for a glass of water (100% effective, works every time)

-ask if they can take a photo for us then take a photo in the middle of the street (90% effective, makes them very confused)

-ask if I can use the bathroom (i have to go alot now a days, 40% effective, can be a game changer if pulled off correctly)

-tell them your looking for the address of the church and then invite them to church (usually takes them 10 minutes to explain how to get there haha and then we invite them and they just be like , 10% effective)

But ya just some fun things Elder Clouse was doing this week, so if you see a bunch of random photos of me and my comp in the street you'll know why

It was a rainy week, ended on a rough note but we found some pretty elect not gonna lie with you, we were walking saturday afternoon and then we walked passed a house and I felt the need to knock it, we knocked it out came a lady, I asked her if we could sing her a hymn, she let us enter the house, we sang a hymn, and she began telling us about herself, and she said the most tender thing ive ever heard, she goes "there's too much confusion, I don't know where to go, I just don't want to be wrong, I just want to be with Jesus when I die", we were able to teach the restoration and give her a book of mormon, she didn't make it to church, but we later found out its because she stayed up until 4 AM reading the book of mormon! Haha, she told us she couldn't stop reading! Made me realize that there really is clarity in the book of mormon! 

The mission countdown be getting too real bruh

Love yall!

All is Well, All is Well

 At the start of this year, i made a goal to lose some weight and well throughout the year i've done a lot to do so, but it seemed like nothing was working. Until a member on Thursday told me that if I drank a ton of water my body would lose weight naturally. So i made a goal ever since Thursday to drink over a gallon of water everyday and i've already lost 3 pounds! Life's amazing! Do i have to go to the bathroom every 2 seconds? Yes, do i knock on random peoples doors and ask to use their bathroom? Yes, but hey its all part of Gods plan!

Now that we got that out of the way onto the week...I can't even describe this week in words, so i'll just share some cool little miracles we found

On Tuesday, we knocked on this one ladies door, she was nice, a little evangelical, but nice. We started teaching her the restoration and I was teaching her and everything was going well and then BAM passed the mic to Elder Smart like I always do right when we talk about Joseph Smith, because you know my boy got that first vision memorized, dogs started barking like crazy didn't matter for my boy Elder Smart, he's got ice in his veins, spit that first vision out word for word flawlessly. Boom he passes the mic back to be after testifying and I start speaking again and 5 minutes later the women stops me and goes "when ur comp shared Joseph's Smith's vision, i've never felt so much peace in my life, even with all the dogs barking I just felt so calm", Joseph Smith=confirmed prophet, did she progress....no... well maybe in the future, but hey church is true guys!

Boom Wednesday morning me and my comp just making goals for the day, they went a little like this... 40 contacts, 8 people taught, 2 people on date for baptism, 2 lessons with members, 4 new people. What's that, Wednesday night at 8:30 and the only thing we lacked was 1 more person to put on date for baptism, nothing a little prayer can't change. Finished the prayer, right before we got back to the house, knocked a door, some old guy walked out, he wasn't interested, then his son next door walked out, his name was Alejandro, he accepted to be baptized

Alright all jokes asides, this week started off great and ended kinda rough, but this last miracle on Sunday was something else..

We have our friend Nora, she's quite the character.... but Nora was supposed to be baptized last week, but she woke up vomitimg last Sunday, well this Sunday we made plans for her baptism, we told her we were gonna pass by at 8:30 to leave in Uber together for church because it started at 9... well we got there at 8:30, she opens her windom and says "ya salgo" which should translate to "leaving right now", ya so we waited until 9:05, then we were like bruh what do we do, we decided to call the Uber and pray, Uber gets there.. Nora is nowhere to be seen, haha I started begging the Uber to wait a little longer, Nora gets out finally, I was like MIRACLE! But Uber man got upset and decided he couldn't wait any longer and cancels i was like bruhhhh, next Uber arrived in 10 minutes, so lets just say we walked into church a litttttleeeee bit late on Sunday, when I say a little I mean 9:40(church startd at 9) buttttt heyyyyyy Nora got baptized thats the important part, and Elder Clouse got a lesson on Pacience, so we all win here

Haha definitely a crazy week but hey the most important is that Jesus Christ lives!!!!

Love yall

Refiners Fire

 

Now, i'm not a military fanatic by no means, but something i've always found fascinating has been Navy Seals. There just the top dawgs ya know. I've always loved learning about them, watching movies about them, its amazing. Something that makes Navy Seals so unique, is the insanely intense training they do. During training they have something called "hell week" which is basically a week of crazy tough training on basically no sleep to "weed out" the weak people, so that there squad consists of only the toughest of the tough. Now as missionaries we don't go through training like that, but I do believe that God sometimes gives us those super tough weeks to "weed out" the weak ones, I personally believe that God gives us harder weeks and trials to see if we will truely be faithful even when things don't go our way

This week was one of those weeks, definitely one of the tougher weeks of the mission. I don't know why, but I kid you not EVERY single person we talked to this week was some crazy evangelical who's read every page of the bible. It was ridiculous.

Thursday was actually the worst day of my life. Like I actually got bullied. I always thought like the persecution of the church stuff ended in the 1800's but wow, i've never been bullied so much for my beliefs in my life. Some guy called me an idiot because the bible doesn't say the word "america" therefore the book of mormon is false. Like literally after a ton of rejection all day, our last contact I went up to this women and she "hey maam how are..." and I could tell she was about to reject me haha and I go "wait, before you say no, today was a really hard day, i just wanted to see how ur doin" and she goes "oh ok", we start talking then she talks about how prophets and revelations ended after the death of Christ, and I go "No god loves us so much he restored his gospel and called a prophet!" And I kid you not this is basically what she said "kid, i hope you wake up one day, when u wake up you'll realize how dumb you look", haha i literally couldn't believe it, i had just finished saying this was one of the hardest days of my life and then she said that haha, so i started laughing out loud and just let her walk away it was funny

Friday ya boy got murdered by alergies, sneezed a good 500 times

I think the hardest part about training is the fact that the kid you trainee copies literally every single thing you do, like i mean EVERYTHING, basically how it works is that, if i'm happy, he's happy, if i'm upset, he's upset, if im complaining, he starts complaining, so i basically have to be on my game 24/7 or we get no where, so this week was especially difficult

This week did end good tho, we had the baptism of Rubi!!! Her dad baptized her it was awesome, and what made it even better was that Rubi's mom has been a member her whole life, and her whole family is active in other wards, and so like during the baptismal service like 50 members from other wards came and brought I kid you not like 20 pies and 20 cakes it was nuts! We also ran out of water in the church filling up the font, she got baptized laying down it was sick, this is the Lord's work!

Sorry long email last thought, but on week's like these, sometimes I find myself asking like "why", like bruh I left my country, family, friends, studies behind to come to Argentina and this is how i get treated, its a very prideful thought I know, but sometimes i start thinking that on those tough weeks, but almost every time those thoughts comes to my mind, the spirit always teaches me about Jesus Christ, if we want to talk about someone who was treated poorly lets talk about Christ, someone who put everything behind for us, someone who suffered everything so that we don't have to. So when you guys have tough weeks like Elder Clouse, and want to complain, just remember that Christ suffered worse, insomuch that we don't even feel the fullness of our sufferings, so I believe after the toughest of weeks, we should always end it with a prayer of gratitude for our Savior

Love yall!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WvF1yDF9QnZbX6KA7

 

 

QUEEN CREEK- THE HOLY LAND

 

This was actually a nutty week of work, you know those weeks where u feel like it went by so fast but at the same time so much happened, that was this week

There I was, sitting at the Sunday Afternoon session at the church with all the members. President Nelson begins announcing temples, and he goes "QUEEN CREEK, ARIZONA", not gonna lie I literally yelled out loud haha I got so hype. All the members came up to me after and were like "well you just seemed happy about that temple", I was mas hype, lowkey felt bad because thats officially 3 temples within 25 minutes of my house and the people here have to go over an hour to get to their temple, but lets gooooo, next temple chandler and were set, but don't worry people of El Cruce, our goal is to baptize so much that God calls a temple in our area

Also if you told me before the mission that I could eat 7 hamburgers in one sitting, i'd call you crazy... but thats exactly what happened Friday night haha, a member invited us over for dinner, it was a long day, we walked quite a bit, ya boy got hungry and the hamburgers just kept comin, then I proceeded to almost die in the middle of the night from a stomach ache, not even kidding saw the heavens open a bit

Also if you told me I could down a whole pizza in 15 minutes before the mish i'd also call you crazy, but thats exactly what happened saturday afternoon, i purposely didn't eat practice because I felt so bad about the hamburgers, but right before we entered the church to watch conference, we passed a pizzaria, and I said "a pizza won't hurt that much", ya literally before Elder Anderson ended his talk my pizza was gone, i've become an animal

I also proceeded to cook up the world's greatest pazookie ever known to man kind, shout to mom for giving me the recipe, I am officially on my road to becoming chef Ramsey

Haha i promise you guys i do missionary but hey as my ZL always says "to work like kings you gotta eat like kings" but this week was nutty, we had a great week of finding, we got some amigos to church it was a well rounded week, also conference was DUMMY lit, Elder Kearon is giving Elder Holland a run for his money for Elder Clouse's favorite apostle, also the little kid Choir singing "Gethsemane" brought Elder Clouse to tears, I love that song so much, but dang ya boy is just happy to be a missionary, i've actually never felt so much joy in my life

For all you non members reading this email (lowkey think every person on my email list is a member), but people are for real missing out for not being members of the church of Jesus Christ, WELCOME TO THE CHURCH OF JOY

I LOVE THIS GOSPEL