Happy New Year!

Dear Family,

Thanks for all the news and emails. The story about the uni-teddies cracked me up. It would be nice to have one around to protect me from angry street dogs, just in case (though there are many fewer dogs in Ramos than in my other areas).

Last week went much better than the two weeks before! We´ve been struggling with low numbers of lessons with a member present and doing all our contacts. I feel much happier about our performance last week. Even though we continued to have problems with members standing us up, we were able to achieve all 15 lessons with member by teaching family members of recent converts. We also became bolder about challenging people to baptism and were able to help three new people accept baptismal dates.

I have been thinking a lot about how to help my investigators become worthy converts prepared for a lifetime of activity in the church. I have been trying to explain the why behind the commitments we extend and focus our lessons around the commitment we want them to keep. I´m trying really hard and there have been some good results-- two of our investigators, Aylen and Ariel, have been learning to read the Book of Mormon and pray every day. I continue to search for inspiration to know how to help our investigators be more self motivated to keep commitments. I want them to be more excited about reading and praying, etc, on their own. I think that bearing more powerful testimony and explaining the importance of a personal relationship with God might be some of the keys to more improvement.

Last week my testimony of God´s love for me and for everyone increased in strength. I felt like I understood with more power how willing God is to forgive us, how patient he is with us, and how much he wants to help us progress. Feeling God´s love more strongly helped motivate me to have a more positive attitude and keep trying despite my weaknesses. And it made me want to show my love back to Him by constantly improving as a missionary.

New Years was fun but uneventful. We opted to spend our extra hours knocking doors, then returned to the pension to order ice cream during nightly planning. We even went to bed on time. . . though we woke up at midnight to watch the fireworks again. The goal I set for myself this year is to work at applying the Atonement more fully in my life in three main ways: by finding peace and joy even in times of difficulty (have a positive attitude), by pleading for strength from the Atonement to be more patient, diligent, and kind, and by loving myself and others more completely, with more patience and forgiveness.

I´m doing my best to make this the best transfer of my mission-- I want to do as much good as I can in the next month. Our goal is to help four people get baptized. This weekend Ariel, the grandson of my convert, Andrés, is getting baptized. I´m hoping his grandpa will be able to baptize him. That would be really special.

You´ll be happy to know that Hna Pullan is speaking better Spanish every day, participates fully in the lessons and extends commitments, and is learning to develop good working relationships with the bishop and ward members. We have been teaching with more unity lately too. She is fantastic!

Have a wonderful first week of 2012! I´m so glad the world hasn´t ended yet! Haha. Now people will stop asking me my opinion about it all the time.

Love, Hermana Clark