A nice insight

Dear Mom, Dad, Eliza, Ben, Emma, and Dan,

Thanks for all your emails this week. Well, Dan, you didn´t email, but thanks for your burnt letter that I got in the mail last week. I wish I had time to respond to all of you personally, but Sister Pullan and I lost track of time this P-day so we started internet late and have very little time.

I was really excited to hear that Dad is going to be the first counselor in the ward. I am sure he will be great. The new ward sounds nice. I am glad the Fifes, Carmans and Nielsens are still in the ward. It would have been weird without them. Though it will be weird not to have Mark Wray as our home teacher! And it´s weird that the Smiths, Penningtons, Mosmans, etc., won´t be in our ward anymore (if I understood the boundaries right). But I´m sure now you guys (and eventually me) will make lots of interesting new friendships and have lots of interesting, positive experiences being in a smaller ward.

So this morning I had kind of a positive maturity developing life experience. We had a meeting in the mission office for the new missionaries and trainers. I was sitting there having a moment of feeling overwhelmed and under-confident and worried about the last two months of my mission and thinking that I really wanted to have an interview with President Carter to just express all that and ask for advice, when I realized that I was really just wanting someone in authority to affirm that I was doing a good job as a missionary in spite of my weaknesses. And I realized that the real problem is having to look for affirmation from someone in authority instead of taking responsibility for my performance and recognizing on my own what I´m doing well and what I need to improve. And I thought about how much more important it is to figure out if God is pleased with me and my efforts than if the mission president is pleased with me (though I really value President Carter´s approval.) So I decided to stop freaking out and take initiative and responsibility for my own life and my own mission. I don´t need someone in authority to give me the magic vote of approval--- I can decide with the Spirit (and with patience with and kindness for myself) how I´m doing and what I can work on. Not that it is wrong to seek advice from leaders, in moderation, but today was just one of those times I needed to figure things out on my own.

Yikes! Why does introspection have to become so lengthy? Other brief news of the week:

* we found Carmen (45 or 50-ish), who met missionaries 13 years ago but then lost contact and lost her Book of Mormon. She was excited to hear more of the message after so long and to receive another copy of the Book of Mormon. She is a little hesitant about going to church (she wants to know more first), but I think she can progress and get baptized. She has a lot of questions about life after death too!

* we found Ramona, the mother of an old contact of other sisters who we had barely started to teach. She is married, has 7 kids, and really wanted to come to church! She invited herself and repeated several times that she felt she had to go to church even though she didn´t know why. She said she feels good when we teach her. We were disappointed because on Sunday she ended up getting stuck with two grandchildren who weren´t picked up on time by their parents and was afraid to take the two of them plus two of her own kids to church and didn´t end up coming. (run on sentence. oh well.) But hopefully she will come next week.

* Sister Pullan and I are becoming really good friends and learning lots together. I´m going to try even harder this week to be a good trainer and help her start her mission off well!

I got your Christmas packages today. I already opened the envelope, and I´m glad I did because I loved the history of Dad´s mission. I showed it to all the missionaries who were there in the office for the meeting and they thought it was really cool. Thanks, Dad!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I´m sorry I didn´t have time to write everyone personally! I love you!

Love,
Hermana Clark