Week Nine

Hello everyone! This week has been fantastic. This week was REALLY good.

So yes I got to go to Vinalhaven. Yes, I am never going there again. Wow, it was not what I was expecting. It felt like I entered into an anger management class. Good times, but not so good at the same time. lol. I got a shirt though so I don't forget about it.

Transfers are this week and that's exciting. I’m losing Elder Harper and Elder Wendel. I’m leading out Rockland with a new greenie comp. So that will be real interesting. Stressful, but fun.  I’m up for a challenge.  I guess I’ll be doing the first 6 weeks of my twelve weeks now. haha. I skipped them to be on the same level as Elder Harper.

On Monday we went to district meeting, and we said goodbye to each other and got some good pics. So that day was great.

C is progressing really well. We are baptizing him on October 7th. So that is realllllly exciting. My first baptism in the field.  I don't think I’m gonna actually baptize him though. He’s large in stature, like 6 foot 4 375 lbs. So I think we are going to get a man larger to baptize him. Who knows, he might ask me.

We went on exchanges on Thursday, and that was wayyyyy fun. I went with Elder Loffgreen, and learned a little more about his story, and that was great. We also did some great finding at the harbor. That's probably my favorite place in the area. We taught S, and he prayed out loud in front of us asking if he should be baptized or not.  Please pray for him to help him receive that confirmation.

Then on Friday we went to the food pantry, and helped out. They really love us there, and they give us the hooooook ups all the time. This week they gave us like 12 pounds of ground beef, and a rack of ribs. So of course we went and made ribs with the Ellsworth elders. They stayed the night on Friday because we went and exchanged and basically blitzed Rockland on Saturday. That was way cool. While we were out walking in the trailer park we met a woman, and we taught her the entire restoration while she was waiting for her mail. She asked us to come back next week so that will be cool.  I also got this nice guitar from an awesome man named R. He lives with one of our investigators, and we were talking about the church and all of its history. Then we started talking about life. He brought up his guitars. I told him I play the uke, and he told me to grab one of his guitars and to start playing that and we can jam whenever I come over.  I'll be giving back to him when I leave though. Great guy though. I'll get a pic with him whenever I leave Rockland. 

On Sunday we basically went around saying goodbye to everyone with Elder Wendel and Elder Harper. It was weird because I’m staying. I’m just glad that the branch is really cool.

Anyways we went out on the break water today, and I kinda just sat on the rocks and thought about my life. I thought about how I got in the position I’m in. It took me some thinking, but I realized how much I’ve really relied on the Lord and His power.  I actually hate talking to people, but I know that I am able to be on this mission because the Lord will never test you with something you cannot handle. So I know these next few weeks will be rough, but I trust that the Lord will provide a way for me and my companion.

Anyways, have a good rest of the week everyone!!!

Selfies of the week:

Week Eight

All right, this was quite the week!!!

So… immediately after I finished emailing last week, we went home, packed the car and started heading to Manchester. It's a 3 1/2 hour drive, so you already know I was going to be jamming to some spiritual uplifting music. Lucky for me, I was sifting through my music and found Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors soundtrack. We listened to most of it, and then listened to John Bytheway talks the rest of the night. We slept in Manchester for the night, which was all good. I got to go see the boys (my MTC District) the next morning at the follow up training. It was great connecting with some of the elders I hadn’t seen for so long.

(By the way… don’t be too disappointed in me, because I didn’t take many pictures this week. I forgot my camera in the car, and honestly, during the other days I really didn’t think about it. )

After our training experience, we drove back through Vermont, and into Manchester, New Hampshire. The leaves are starting to change like crazy in Vermont.  Idk what it is with where I am, but the leaves are pretty much still green. I have a feeling that will change within the next week or two though. The drive back from Manchester to Camden was really good. We didn’t stop anywhere and just hit it with a straight shot. We got back at around 10:30pm that night. I fell asleep in like 5 seconds. The next day we did a lot of street contacting. I talked to sooo many people!!! We met some fellow LDS members that were on a cruise. That was really cool. We picked up 2 new investigators that afternoon. We also met a guy that is a Lobsterman (this is the name of a lobster fisherman). That’s some rare stuff, but he was so down to learn some more from us.

Fast forward to Friday and we were driving back down to Manchester for a mission conference. Elder Bednar came to visit the mission. It was the strangest weather I think I have ever seen, that day. Rain mixed in with like 100% humidity. The entire mission prayed for the rain to go away, so we could get a pic outside with Elder Bednar.  Just like that, a sun like no other suns came out and took all the clouds away. But, it was soooooo hot. I was dying as we took pics with Elder Bednar. He had a great discussion with us. A lot of what I took from the discussion was that we need to act on spiritual promptings.

After the conference, we went back to the Topsam apartment to spend the night. We were each given ten dollars to buy some food and go restaurant finding. Well, we decided to go to a food court. So did every other missionary in Maine -  lol. The missionaries were everywhere.

On Sunday, we got to go hear Elder Bednar speak again at our stake conference. C and B attended Stake Conference and that was quite the commitment they kept. It took an hour and a half to get there, and we left at 5:30 in the morning. 

Overall, it was a really fun week! A lot of driving though! Tomorrow I will get to go to Vinalhaven (small island of the coast of Maine) and I’m excited for that. Expect some good pictures this next week. 

-Elder Clifford

BTW…The church flooded this last week, but, it’s fine now. There’s a big bug outside our house too. We named him Larry. (see pictures)

The people that he met that were on a cruise texted Elder Clifford's family a picture!!

The church flooded. 

 Larry

Selfies of the week:

The mission was so excited to be able to hear from Elder Bednar!  There are so many of them this picture had to be taken with a drone.  If you are looking for Elder Clifford, your hint is he has a blue suit on. 

Week Seven

What is up everybody?

It’s been a great week here in Camden. This last week was pretty fun. The weather out here has been pretty weird.

So we started last Tuesday off with an exchange with Belfast. That was a good time. I was with Elder Butikofer and Elder Harper in Rockland. We went, and taught two lessons. While we were beginning to teach S some man called out to us. He yelled and asked if we were Jehovah Witnesses, and we yelled back “Mormons”. Then he yelled “Perfect”, and ran over to us. He then began to ask if we knew who God was. He claimed that God and satan had revealed themselves to him in their regular forms. Then he asked who the most powerful man on this planet was, because he needed to talk to him. Apparently he is a time traveler who is not of this world, and needs to warn our leader about our future. He told us he has an interspace bounty on his head, and he is worth about 21. I don’t know what he means by 21, but I guess that is a high number to him. Well, we gave him a Book of Mormon, and kind of shuffled away in a casual "please don’t talk to me ever again"manner.  He claimed that he was the prophet of every church on this earth right now too. S was laughing so hard though.  Anyways we found a boat after we taught S, and took some beautiful pictures.  I also got to try a lobster roll too. It took me forever to get around to having one. They’re alright, but too expensive for what you get.

On Wednesday we drove to district meeting, and it was perfect weather. Everything was all nice, and dandy. Then as we were getting Mcdonald’s on the way home, a downpour like no other pour of downs occurred. I feared for my life as I ran from the Mcdonald’s to the car. Poor Elder Butikofer had to back the car out in the rain. I managed to only get half soaked from all of it.

On Thursday I got the motherl

Then yesterday was just another cool Sunday. We were walking along proselyting when we got an emergency blessing text. Well we were 45 minutes from the car, and about 15 minutes from the home we were to go to by car. All of a sudden we saw the members I had helped move with Elder O'Rourke the day before. We ran over to them, and they drove us to our car, and we were able to go over and give the blessing. That was a crazy experience, and it ended up working out very good. We didn’t have a dinner appointment for that night because of where we were working Sunday night, but the people we gave a blessing too let us stay and eat dinner. So that was all good.

Now I’m heading out into a verrrrrry hectic week. Elder Bednar is coming, and I’m studying hard as ever to be prepared to learn all that he teaches. Have a good week everyone, and have some fun in your lives. 

They found a boat.

Camden library

Various pictures of the week......

The lobster roll.  Finally.

Washing the car:

 Tour of the barn slash apartment:

Selfies of the week.......

  

This video was texted to us by the family that fed them Sunday night.  We are so grateful to them for feeding them when they hadn't even planned on it.