Crazy Week Everyone,
This past week has been hectic for sure. On Wednesday was transfers and I left my area to head back to Geneva Heights, only this time covering 2 YSA stakes and to cover a Tongan ward and a Samoan ward. I am now with Elder Barney, who is from Dallas, TX, has been out about a year, and is a great guy. He's an incredible missionary and a hard worker. We were in a 3 some for a day, as we had another missionary with us named Elder Allen who was joining us for his final day before going home. He was with us with as we got everyone in the zone settled from transfers, drove around to different FHC's, and tracked down some sisters since keys were locked in one, found missing paperwork, went to Pleasant Grove to look for a missing card and fill out reports for an hour. After transfers, we were taking everyone's luggage around, and got into a car accident. We were at a red light, to go straight, when the light to turn left turned green. The driver coming up behind us thought our lane had a green too and didn’t slow down – just rammed into our bumper. The bike rack on the back hit into the back window and shattered it. Thankfully we were all ok.
I also had the pleasure (LOL) of dealing with a cut finger from glass, when giving out a copies of the Book of Mormon to other missionaries. We got to finish up the day by driving to the mission home to drop off Elder Allen and pickup some missionaries who were doing departure activities and leaving in a couple of weeks.
Thursday was great as well. Elder Barney and I were in a meeting from 8am to 3:30pm. We got to listen to our mission president with some other missionaries. One of them said something interesting. He said "It's a fact we try to ignore, that the spirit is involved in everything we do." The spirit really is or can be a part of everything we do. It can lead us, guide us and uplift us. Later that day we also put someone on date for baptism which was great. She is from Japan, so we had a translator there, but the spirit was so strong and she really opened up to us about hardships in her life. It is amazing to be able to testify about the peace and hope the gospel can give everyone.
Friday didn't get any less busy. We did about 4 hours of planning, went to an apartment complex to get a parking pass, met with some Samoans, and finished up the night with a lot of knocking doors. Interesting enough, of all the doors that answered, not a single one was a nonmember - which really is a Utah thing.
Saturday was fun. We had a 2-hour meeting in the morning where we met everyone in our zone. Afterwards, we reached out to some members about sharing a message, had some contacts, dinner, then back out knocking doors. There are great people in this area. We went through an apartment complex that was kind of creepy. There were spider webs every 3 feet we had to brush to the side and one door we actually hoped didn't open because of the amount of spiders on it which would have just crawled inside. (Feeling a bit like Halloween around there.)
Sunday was amazing. I've found that fasting isn't too difficult if you’re busy and doing something every moment. We got to go to 5 sacrament meetings, including the Samoan ward. They are such kind and nice people. Their spirit is beautiful and they are so open about everything. I joyfully got to deal with them teasing me due to my lack of knowledge about the Samoan language, me being too skinny for them and my general whiteness. Even as they teased me and my companion it was impossible to mistake the love that they extend towards everyone. I was also able to meet a recent convert named Dee who is epic – although he is leaving to play basketball for college. At dinner I was able to meet someone from Beaverton, a city right next to where I'm from and a sister who knew my brother from his mission. We had a great evening meeting with members, practicing the piano to play in zone conference and giving a blessing to a sister who had moved in recently.
I hope everyone's week has been great as well.
Elder Cluff
