Zone Conference in Wales

15 November 2010

Dear Mom,
Thanks for letting me know about Sister Kincaid. I am so sad, but at the same time so excited for her. I will miss her though. I love her so much! How sad. I hope Papa is doing ok, I think he was like a mom to her a little bit. Sorry papa!

So it sounds like you are having a good time in Virginia! Those boys are all so cute! I love the pictures that M and R attached to their email! It was wonderful. And their Halloween outfits are SO cute! What cute cute nephews I have!

I hope B is doing okay. I am glad M is home now, and that he had a forced 5 days at home. That sounds really nice actually. And I am glad he got back safe. It made me nervous that he was there, even though I don't even know what he was doing.

So here is the description for where I live. If you are looking at the church, I live to the left of it. I don't know south or north, sorry. But it is heading toward Pershore, and away from Evesham. So just left of the church is a scout building. And then left of that is a little drive that is like a place people can walk their dogs along the river. Then just left of that...barely 10 feet of that bigger drive is where the drive is into my flat. And it looks like it's just a drive up to a house, but it leads to three separate places. You pass a house on your right; it's a bungalow, or a one story house. And then you pass a little set of condos on your right that is white thatched houses. And then at the end of the drive, straight in front of you is where I live. And I live on the top story. On the left. Yep. It’s great. And it has the biggest window and it is the top left window, and that looks straight into our living room and onto our study desk. It’s great!

We had cleaning checks today, and we won. I am pretty happy about that. We have been cleaning a bit each day and then today we barely had to do anything to get it ready for today. Just tidying up and things like that.

This week T H was baptized. That was amazing! We are really excited about him, and we are so happy. He is a 12 year old boy, and he is so clever. He and his dad have us for dinner once a week and we have loved getting to know them. Even though we haven't been around for much of his learning (only a couple weeks) we just are so excited for him!

Also this week we had zone conference in WALES! Yep, we went to Wales, and it was awesome. On all the signs there is English and then there is welsh. Weird language. Zone conference was absolutely amazing. We felt the spirit so strong, and it was so much fun. Because we have always gone to the zone conferences in Birmingham we have always seen those missionaries, but this time we got to know a whole bunch of difference elders. Which was really fun? Zone conference was amazing. President Ogden is so inspired, and I learned SO much. He taught all about how important members are in the work, and how we have to serve the members every day, and we have new goals on how to make our members feel as loved as possible. We started this already. it's actually really cool, because President Ogden brought up a lot of new things that he wants us to focus on, and Sister P and I in the last few weeks have really been feeling inspired to do these things already and already focus on them, so we literally didn't have to change anything from before. We have been so striving to follow the spirit constantly, the spirit must have guided us to do what President was about to tell us to do. It just reconfirmed how led the president is in his calling. Amazing! We had such a good time. And I once again realized how grateful I am to be able to be companions with sister P. We work harder than we have ever worked before, we laugh more than we ever have, and we are led by the spirit more than ever before. We are learning to follow the spirit every day, and it's completely amazing. I am SO happy here. I feel like we are supposed to be here, and that we are really doing our best. And when we do all we can do, God will bless us, I know it.

One cool experience that we had this week was when we were finding on the main street of Evesham. It was on Saturday, and so everyone was busy with their shopping and nobody was really talking to us at all. And so we stopped on a side street and prayed and asked for guidance to which way we should walk back to the car. After not really feeling much of an answer, we decided to go by the river so we could talk to some people that were walking their dogs, and in less of a rush. But then when we started walking, neither of us felt good about it. So we turned around and went back up through the high street. We weren't sure why, and then all the sudden we run into this lady. We didn't know her, and had never seen her before, and we stopped her and talked to her and found out that she is a less active. She was baptized years ago, served a mission in Ireland, and is now living in Evesham. She doesn't want to be an active member anymore, but has no negative feelings for the church. Before we left, she gave us her address and number and invited us for dinner. We went home and looked her up on the ward records, and she wasn't even on them. What a blessing! So we thought that's why we were led that way, but to our amazement, we ran into two more people that we needed to see that day, and it only happened because we tried to follow the spirit. We are striving to be able to feel that more and more, and President Ogden promised us as we follow the promptings of the spirit, we will be able to hear the spirit's voice louder. And we are thrilled that we are trying so hard to do that.

Things are going really well here. We are so happy! We are busy all the time, but striving every day to do what's right. We laugh all the time. It’s sometimes embarrassing. We had to call someone in the ward to make sure we were still having a dinner appointment with them this week. And I left a message, and left it without thinking with the number from Banbury instead of an Evesham number. And when I realized, sister P was laughing so hard, and so it started me laughing, and then I had the giggles and could barely finish the message. Sister P had to call back and apologize for making me laugh and give them our right number. How embarrassing! We had dinner with them last night, and they just said it made them laugh. Oh, the embarrassing moments.

Another cool thing that president has asked us to do is to have a blessings journal. To write down all the spiritual experiences, and times that we know we have been led by the spirit. It’s really cool! So we are starting to do that, and I am excited to see the differences it will make. I am so excited to be on a mission. It’s going by so fast right now! It seems that we just got here to Evesham, but we have already been here three weeks, and transfers are coming up way too soon! I hope we stay here for a lot longer together. I am growing as a missionary so much, and I can really see how the gospel really changes people! It’s amazing.

I love this gospel, and I love love love being a missionary.
Thank you so much for letting me have this opportunity mum and papa. I really am so grateful to you! Without you, I could not have been here. I am so grateful. I love it so much here, and I know this is where I am supposed to be. Thank you!
I love you!
Love,
Sister Ann(ie) Clark

Ps. so my hair cut. I kinda hate it. But I was SO fed up with my long outgrown hair, it's better than that. I decided I just will keep it up every day, and I like my bangs, so it will work out. I hope it grows out well. Regardless, when I get home, I am going to need an emergency repair hair cut as soon as possible! Maybe book Eliza right now? Ha-ha. Just kidding....kinda.