Happy Leap Year

Feb. 29 - Mar. 6, 2016

Cactus in bloom

  On Monday, we arranged with the Winwards (Senior Couple) to meet them halfway between Harlingen and McAllen to get Tom's cell phone.  We met in Weslaco, a city that we are responsible to help people find work.  The Winwards are new missionaries that are also Employment Specialists, who we partly trained the previous day.  What a relief, Tom still has his cell phone.

 Tuesday, Bro. Stotts (Our Assignment Manager) stopped in Harlingen and brought us posters for the Career Workshop that we will soon be conducting.  He brought us a set in English and in Espanol.  Our Espanol needs to be much better before we can teach it.  Perhaps we can get some help in teaching the Espanol workshop.

  Wednesday is one of our days to work in Brownsville.  Bro. Stotts and the Winwards (Sr. Couple Employment Missionaries for McAllen), were in Brownsville, also, for some training.  We were waiting in our office (in same Church bldg) for a couple to make their appointment, who were looking for work.  The couple did not show up to their appointment, so we went in and joined Bro. Stotts and the Winwards for training.  We watched a download of the Butterfly Circus.  Soooooo Gooooood!  It was about self-esteem and finding one's individual talent and worth.  Sister Winward started feeling faint so we gave her some crackers, water, and then went to dinner at the Ultimo
Taco.  The Charo Beans were delicious and Sister Winward felt better.  The Winwards went directly home to McAllen after dinner and she felt better the next day.  Bro Stotts kept us company until 8pm then we went home to San Benito.  The couple that we had an appointment with earlier in the day, never came on Wednesday or Thursday, while we were in Brownsville.

Bridge to South Padre Island, from Port Isabel.

  After work on Thursday, we went to Port Isabel to check on the Sister Missionaries there. Port Isabel is the city next to South Padre Island and is at one of the boundary corners of our mission.  We took the Sisters to dinner and went with them to talk to a 12-year old young man.  He is investigating the Church.  It is amazing how beautiful these people are.  Also, how poor they can be compared to people in Idaho.  We know there are poor people everywhere, but the people here seem to be extremely poor.  The house the young man, his mother and sister lived in, was super small with a small fenced in walkway around it.  Never-the-less, the mother and her children were clean, beautiful, kind, and welcoming.  While with the family, we were asked to bear our testimonies and then the Sisters asked the mother if she would be willing to sign the papers if her son wanted to be baptized.  She seemed OK about it, if that was what her son wanted to do.  This was Sherrie's first proselyting experience.  It was wonderful.

  Friday, we went to inspect four missionary apartments and bicycles.  Tom inspects the bicycles and Sherrie inspects the apartments.  The new apartment coordinators (The Tracys' - Sr. Couple) are trying to determine which apartments need to be closed and others found.  Basic up-keep (painting walls, shampooing carpets, repairing all kinds of things, bug spraying, etc.) is not occurring, because the apartments always have missionaries moving temporally in and out.

Shhhh.  First come first serve!

  Saturday, we took the San Benito Sisters to Los Fresnos for a Sister Missionary (Zone) meeting.  While waiting for the Elders to bring the keys to open the building, we took lots of pictures of the Sisters individually, as companions, and as a whole.  After dropping off the Sisters, we went and got Tom's hair cut and went out to dinner at Olive Garden (delicious).  While there, we found out they were hiring 15 servers and table bussers.  We then called one of our candidates that had not gotten the calling-center job and was now looking for a server job.  We were both excited for her to apply to Olive Garden on Monday.  We'll see what happens about this job. ....  We are all hoping for the best.

Two Zones of Sister Missionaries

  Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting.  We went to the Elizabeth Street building in Brownsville and listened to two Sacrament meetings in Spanish.  We then traveled to the Southmost building (also in Brownsville) for Relief Society and Priesthood in Spanish.

  We love you and hope you will write us once in a while.  We still maintain our email address (clarkida@msn.com) and would love to hear from you.  Love. .......... Elder/Hermana Clark.