Zone Conference with Elder Kopischke

Dear mom and papa and family,
Thank you SO MUCH for the so informed letter. It made me feel like I know a little bit more about the family and thanks to Lucy for writing me this week! I do love letters/emails, and get so excited to read them!
So I will try to answer all your questions mum (the way to say it in England), and hopefully I will get to them. And sorry about no pictures last week! Lame, I know.

I am in charge of putting petrol in the tank, and we probably go to the garage to get petrol once a week, or maybe more if we have to be in Birmingham or Coventry. But there is a specific station that we have to get it at, and it's not right in Banbury, so I have to plan it out to make sure it gets done. It’s pretty expensive, about £40, £50 per tank, but I am not sure, I have never waited long enough to have to fill from empty (thank goodness!)


Sister N and Me

We almost always go to the library to use the computers, which is nice because one we don't have to pay, and two there is Picasa on these computers. So nice! They do have hours, and usually we do it in the morning at 11:30.

Thank you for all the information that you sent on all the family! I can't believe Austin broke his arm! So so sad. And I can't believe we are having another boy in the family! How fun! Keep me updated on that! Thank you for the updates, I appreciate them so much!!! I love that you are quilting.

I am so sad to hear about Sister Kincaid. Can you give her my love? I have always loved her so much. I hope she waits around till I get home, I want to see her. I am glad she is in a home now, where she can be well taken care of. Being alone in her house can be dangerous. She is a wonderful woman! And I will always remember her glasses rims!

How fun that you are getting so much work done around the house. That’s so much to do! I am so impressed! And the story about Samuels’s clothes all around DI is hilarious! I laughed out loud in the library! Ha-ha!


I got a FANTASTIC letter from Abigail this week! THANK YOU ABS! It was so fun. I even cried a few times. I can't believe I was in Jerusalem a year ago, and now she is there. I am so proud of her. And then in a year, hopefully she will be on a mission with me. I love that! What a great cousin I have!

So the zone conference with Elder Kopischke was AMAZING. It started at 10:00 and went to 5:00 and we were sad to have it end. We had to get there at 8:30 to start practicing the piece we had to perform. I accompanied ten elders singing Joseph Smith's First Prayer's lyrics to an awesome arrangement to Come Thou Fount. It was pretty great, and after enough practice, the elders sounded awesome, and I got a hold of my part. It wasn't the easiest piano part, but it ended up being fine. Just a lot of repetition. But it turned out to be lovely. The next bit about the zone conference will be from my journal, because that will be the easiest way to do it. So this is my entry (edited for the audience ha-ha) on July 1, 2010, "Elder Kopischke chose to speak on learning by the Spirit. In Doctrine and Covenants 50:17 it states that if we don't teach by the spirit, it's not of God, but the same goes that if we don't receive by the spirit, it's not of God. Our heart has to be open, we have to be willing to learn, and we only receive what we are ready to receive. One thing he started out with was that he asked us to write down a question that we had that we wanted answered in the zone conference. The same idea goes while reading, if you read the scriptures with a question, the answer will come through the spirit and through searching.

So because we all got out answers to our questions, we committed to have our investigators write down a question and think about it during the week, then bring it to church. We can promise they will find an answer to the question. Another thing Elder Kopischke talked about was our dreams. What were my hopes and dreams of coming on a mission? One was that one day all of my family will be able to be in the temple at the same time when I get married one day. Another dream for my mission is that I will be able to find, convert, and baptize a whole family. I think the Aguilars will be that family, or the first of many families. We just need to dream, be believing, and have faith. We need to have prayers that are specific, meaningful, and discuss them with God. God will bless us with all the righteous desires of our heart if we just ask. Ministering angels are out there every day preparing the people we will see and talk to, to receive the spirit, and receiving the gospel. If we don't plan, we don't dream. He talked about the story of the creation, it was so well planned out that it was more specific than the actual event in the scriptures. One thing we need to plan for and dream for is priesthood holders. Dream to find age 18-23 year old men to find, teach, and baptize. Act as if we can't go home at the end of our mission unless we have baptized a replacement missionary. The major mountain we have to climb to the peak of baptism is finding the people to teach. If we don't find, we don't have anyone to teach. We have to plan this. We watched a video of some sisters nightly planning. At the end, they prayed with their planners in front of them. Elder Kopischke stated that every time he saw that, he thought of the Brother of Jared, praying with his stones that the Lord would touch them. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail." it goes on, but needless to say, I wrote 13 pages of notes, and it was an amazing day! We have seen huge improvements in our days and our goals since that day when we implemented Elder Kopischke's words.

So about my investigators. J is still MIA. So sad. But we are still trying hard to see her, and hopefully she will come around. I do love her and her family!

The A's are amazing amazing people! We asked them if when they find out that the Gospel is true, if they would be baptized, and they said yes. We are thrilled for them, and are actually going to see them today, and we are really excited!

We were in the park finding last week, and we met a guy names P, and he met the missionaries years ago in a different city, and he wanted to sit down, and we gave him a book of Mormon, and we had a lesson right then and there. It was awesome! We had another lesson the next day, and then he came to church! We are so excited about him, and glad to have some new investigators! He is hilarious. It was Fast Sunday in church, and Brother G got up and was talking about the blessings of having a little boy in the home, and all that went with it, P yelled out something about having too many toys too. It was so funny. I guess you'd have to be there, not explained well sorry.

And also, sacrament meeting was amazing. Almost every testimony was on missionary work, and we are seeing a huge growth of the people seeing the importance in missionary work in this ward. It is bringing them together, and it is so awesome! We are so excited about it!

Our companionship is amazing. We are working so well together in unity, and we are seeing amazing effects of it. I love it here, and I love sister N.


I love the work, and I am so grateful for it! Sorry about the random letter. Thank you for everything! I love you all, and I know this church is true. If you don't know if the book is true, pick it up and read it! I promise if you pray and really want to know, you WILL get an answer. That’s a promise! I love you all!
Love,
Sister Clark