Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 5 - Pre Storm

Week Fourteen

Yo what's good home slices. This week's been poppin out here in Rockland. We had a week full of good times all planned out. We did a lot of work. It was kinda weird. Like the week flew by. We did some super exchanges with Ellsworth. We showed up to district meeting like usual on Wednesday. It was pouring as we drove there. It was a fun kinda rain though. Very relaxing. It would fall in waves almost. So it would crash onto the car every few seconds. So that was fun. I don't know if I mentioned this, but it takes about an hour and a half by car to get to district meeting. Our district is the furthest most east district in the United States and it’s really long. We are called the down east district. It goes from the humble Machias(a lot of people call that place outer darkness because it's so far from the rest of the mission) to down here in Rockland. It's an all Elders district too so there aren't any sisters to spice it up really. It's a great time. We try our best to have a party even though we are kinda far away from everyone.

This week went very well though. I led out every single lesson in our area. It's part of the 12 week training program. It feels so weird that I'm still in 12 week. That's one thing that's not fun about the mission. Once you get out of 12 week the next transfer you’re a greenie. So it takes about 21 weeks into the mission to not be considered new. It's crazy😂 so you Missionaries that are heading out still enjoy your newness while it lasts. It'll be a while though.

We went on exchanges with Ellsworth again and it was a blast. Elder Swainston is soooo funny. We got to district meeting and we exchanged right after. (Holy cow I went off on a tangent between this story). Anyway we stuck around in Ellsworth till about 8 and went to their branch Halloween party. It was pretty fun. Then we went on our way to Rockland. And got there at like 9:30 at night.  We had 7 lessons planned for that next day and I was excited to get teaching. Well it was pourrrrring that day. So of course the Lord would have it that 5 of the 7 lessons fall through. So we went street contacting in the rain. It was soooooooooooo fun. We got two new investigators in the rain. It's a magical feeling when you're standing there having a conversation about mailing potatoes with a complete stranger in the pouring rain. Also I've gotten really good at transitioning random topics into the gospel. Fun stuff.

This Saturday we had our branch Halloween party. It was amazing. It kills any ward party I've ever been to. It was super decorated and was wayyyyyy fun. There was a chili competition too. We made some chili and entered it into the competition. We got second and the best part is, we don't even know how to make chili. We just dumped a bunch of meat beans and peppers into a pot with tomato sauce. Then dumped some tacos seasoning in it and called it good. I think the only reason we lost is because the winning chili was exotic. He used bear meat. It tasted pretty good though. We had 14 investigators attend the party, and they had a great time. I couldn't believe how many people showed up. That was my miracle this week.

Also right now there is a Nor’ Easter and it’s pretty intense. A lot of the mission lost power. I'm pretty sure the entire city of Bangor has no power at the moment either. So that's fun.

So overall great week and I hope you all back at home have a great week. Btw I don't know if this is an inside joke or something, but literally everyone has been giving me oreos. Idk if I'm not in the loop or something but it's nice. I literally have like 3 packs of oreos right now. Also the mystery oreo tastes like fruity pebbles. You’re welcome.

Bye everyone!!! 

 This is the barn that Elder Clifford and Petersen live in.

Halloween packages and some of the things inside them:

Halloween costumes:

 Elder C says the picture above is his favorite from the mission so far.

Random pictures from the week:

Selfies of the week:

Silent Message

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 4

Week Thirteen

So this week kinda flew by. I was just thinking about how much faster the weeks go by when you're on a mission. Like it will be p day and it will about to end and you'll be thinking to yourself "what in tarnation!" then the week just starts and flies by. I guess I've learned a few things about making your days better on a mission.

1. Really random but honestly helps a lot……
Drink a lot of water. I find when I haven't drank water for a while I'm tired grumpy and don’t want to talk. I've even found when I haven't drank any water that my mind tells me to not drink water. Like it wants to stay in the lethargic state. So make sure you drink water, even if you're forcing it.

2. If you plan very heavily it can be fun. (try and make sense of that phrase😂)
This past week we had appointment after appointment and we were running to get to them. It was insane. Like we are trying to schedule as best as we can but there just aren't enough hours in the day. You're probably wondering when we get finding in. Well if one of the appointments bail that is your golden opportunity to find someone looking for Jesus. So if you can plan a ton of stuff and pray that you don't get too overwhelmed, because honestly the Lord will provide a way especially if you're teaching His children.

3. Make sure you have something you're excited for every day, and even something at the end of every week. I usually write something down on my calendar and I look forward to it every week. This week it's the branch Halloween party on Saturday. I know it's lame right! But hey when you're looking forward to it, it's going to be a fun time.

4. Study the Book of Mormon everyday
It’s something I've done for a while now. I get into the Book of Mormon and I just begin to go off finding things I've never seen before. I mean I have only read it like 3 times but still. I'm in Mosiah right now and I think it's fun that I can actually understand what I'm reading. Usually I feel like there’s too much going on for me to handle, but now that I've slowed down and I pay attention to each verse I can make sense of it. 

Those are my tips for you missionaries out there. Even you preparing to leave could probably learn something from this. It's fun stuff. Don't give up even when you're getting constantly rejected.

That leads me to something that happened this week. It was Friday night and we were walking to one of our appointments like 2 miles away. So not too far, but there's something that we do on this mission that I’m not sure all the other ones do. We literally talk to everyone. So 2 miles can take us up to an hour to walk sometimes. As we talked to everyone we didn't get one person who wanted to listen to our message. It was mostly tourist or leaf peepers who didn't want to worry about religion on vacation. Like literally everyone denied us. Well we got to our appointment on the harbor and the guy we were supposed to meet wasn't there. So that was rough. Well we made the trek back to our car and began talking to people again. We kept getting denied, and finally I said forget this, I need to go pee lets speed walk to our car. Well we did so and as we were we saw a dude with a motorcycle just chilling on the sidewalk. The car was across the street and I was like we have to talk to him. We ran over and started a quick conversation. We talked for motorcycles for about twenty minutes. I thought I was going to pee my pants on the side of the road at 8:30 at night. Well we finished talking and we told him who we were and what we were about and he said he was so down to start meeting with us. So we walked away that night with a new investigator and a new friend.

BTW that's another thing that is funny about my mission. You foreign missionaries might laugh at this, but we got the highest amount of new investigators this week. It was 5! Haha yeah it’s not a crazy amount but it’s a ton for me. We also found that guy that didn't meet us at our appointment while we were walking to a random house. He and his wife passed us on his bike and he about fell off doing a 180. He was asking us why we weren't at the appointment the day before. We were both confused and it turned out he got there a half an hour after us. But luckily we were able to find him and his wife biking, and now we are teaching both of them tonight at their house now instead.

So that was a cool miracle. Anyways not too crazy of a week, but this upcoming week is going to be insane so that will be fun. I forgot to take pictures this week so enjoy the few I do have.

Have a great week friends and fam. 

 Chipmunk trap

Tag picture of the week:

Selfie of the week:

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 3 - Breakwater

Fall Leaves in Maine or as Elder C would say 'Falliage'

Week Twelve

 Hola buenos dias everyone! Guess who was just made a Spanish speaking Elder?!!!

Not me, but I bet someone in the world was. It’s been a great week in the field though. I’d say it was one of those weeks that kinda flew by. We just piled a bunch of stuff on our plate and got to work. We taught a buuuunch of lessons this week too. So that was good. Nothing too special happened this week, but I'll tell more about our investigator K.

K feels the spirit the best outdoors so we always go to the best locations ever to teach. This week he took us up the mountains and we were able to just overlook the ocean and all of the islands while teaching. It's cool to go to little places like that. It makes me more grateful I serve in Rockland. He takes the gospel in slowly so we just talk about life with him while hitting gospel points at the same time. It's the most interesting teaching I've done so far.

I guess Rockland has a huuuuuge problem with drugs, and I didn't really pay attention to that until this week. Since we try and talk to everyone we know I've been learning more and more about that side of the community. It's weird out here. You're either above 60 years old, or you're a lobsterman or something. It's funny. All the old people complain about the young people, and all the young people just want to leave Rockland. Most of them just want to find a better place to live. I guess they think that there is a system the police uses to get people stuck in jail for life. Idk why but they all talk about it here. Like they developed their own theories on why they can't leave. You definitely meet some interesting people on your mission though.

Once again the branch is amazing out here! It got to a point about 2 weeks ago that I thought the branch was angry about how many rides we asked them to give. (a lot of our investigators don't drive so we have to have them picked up for everything) Since C got baptized though everything has changed. They got to finally see the tree bear fruit or however you want to say it  This past week at Branch council it was popping. Everyone wanted to help us and it was great. All of the investigators we brought to church were fellowshipped like mad. It was awesome seeing the branch come together and put in their part. It makes me happy that once I leave Rockland, the investigators won't be forgotten about. One of our investigators liked church so much he wants to come back on Wednesday for mutual, and he's taking off a rowing competition on Sunday to come to church again. It's the small things like that, that make me the happiest out here in the field. (and hand written letters) lol.

Btw Zone p day was a blast. We went up to Bangor (which btw is an awesome city) to do it. We emailed there and that’s why it ended so abruptly. I also went to Walmart with Elder Sabitsky real quick so he could grab something, and the lady I anointed for a blessing was there. She ran up to me and called me her angel in her Ukrainian accent. It was awesome. Then she bought me a ton of treats. Then we went back to the church, and had lunch and finished off emailing. After emailing we went and started carving pumpkins. We were all dressed up in our costumes. I was a cowboy with Elder Petersen. My pumpkin was terrible but it was fun to carve. Then we went and played some chair soccer. That is sooooo much fun. Like I wish I had known about it before I left on my mission. It's crazy. Then we went to Chickfila. It's one of 2 in the mission, so it was a blessing to have a good chicken sandwich again. I’m excited for the next zone p day, even though they happen only once a transfer. I think we are going to do a Thanksgiving one. So stay tuned for that.

I'm finally getting better at loving the people I teach though so that's a plus. I've got a feeling I’ll have to go through this process every time I'm put into a new area though. I think it will be good for me though. I can barely say I love you to anyone. Like I struggle saying it to my family. Lol my poor wife someday. So it's good I get to practice loving random people out here in the middle of New England.

I've been thinking a lot about my other friends on missions recently and as I was laying in bed last night I just couldn't help but smile. It's crazy if you think about it. I've got friends all over the world right now sharing the gospel. I had a similar experience to Mitch this past week. His was about sitting on the side of the curb in Ecuador feeling the spirit. Mine was just sitting on the ledge of a deck in a trailer park. It's just amazing to see how the Lord has prepared us, and the people we are teaching. Like 6 months ago I couldn't see myself ever standing in a trailer park talking to people about Jesus. It sounds kinda funny but it really is true. I'm grateful that I have been able to learn how to open my mouth out here. Sometimes it's scary when you see a huge lobsterman and you don't know what to say. Just trust that the Lord will guide you with the right words to say. You can change lives quicker than you can even imagine, and it all starts with a simple hello.

So there's my inspirational quote of the week.  Anyways it’s been a good week out here in Rockland. We set 2 more baptismal dates with our investigators. They are both 17 and we will need permission from President Blair and their parents to baptize them. So everyone I need you to gather round and send prayers to Rockland. They'll be needed. I think that they will be fine though. President Blair just doesn't like baptizing people into activity so it makes sense. If we want to get a temple in ten we're gonna need all the active members we can get. Btw you heard it here first Bangor or Augusta temple in 2026. So that's gonna be awesome. You already know I'm calling up C the second it gets announced and flying out to Maine to use it. It's exciting to think how much more mission I have left too. I've had so many great experiences and I'm not even a quarter of a way through!

So there’s the positive thoughts coming from Rockland everyone. I hope you all have a great week, and enjoy your October. It's the second best month of the year after all. Oh yeah that reminds me. I was finally able to bust out my flannel. So yeah #blessed. 

Zone Activity

Visited Breakwater for pday today

Random pictures from the week

 (Momma C sent a package with deluxe toilet paper)

Selfies of the week:

Elder Cliffy Mission Vlog Episode 2 - NHMM Cribs - Rockland Edition

Week Eleven

Yo what's good homies?! I hope you have all had a great week, and are looking forward to another great week.

This last p day we went to our investigators house for a BBQ but he had company so we set it up for Tuesday. Then we were driving down the road and I had the instant prompting to visit a sister’s house. She is like the chillest lady ever. She's the one who gave me the scentsy candle thing too. She’s been coming to church a lot lately and it's been good to get to know her. She loves making us food and treats and stuff.

We also bought some good hats for our Halloween activity. We both got cowboy hats, and we're gonna carve some pumpkins in them. So that will be fun. I think I'm gonna carve mine to look like a cowboy that can wear the hat. My zone started its monthly challenge, and they want the zone to do 4000 push up by the end of the week, and find a certain amount of people and what not. Well Elder Christman, my district leader, decided that he thinks our district could do that. So he's having us do a ton. Well Elder Petersen suggest we each do at least 200 a day until Saturday and that would mean we would get at least 2400 of the zones and the districts push ups. So that will be cool. So I can at least say I'm getting fit out here on the mission.

I made some cheesy rice for dinner and had it with a humongous biscuit that sister Emerson gave me. That was pretty tasty. Btw it's great just getting to know the community out here in Rockland. I see people I’ve met everywhere and everyone is nice to us. That's one awesome part about being a missionary. People either hate you or love you. So I've tried to always make people love me. Also I'm still working on loving others, it's a work in progress, but I think I'll be pretty good at it by the time I'm a year out!

A cool story this week would have to be while we were out street contacting in Rockland. We were talking to a few people and walking down towards the dock. Then we finished talking with them, and I decided we should turn around and head to the other park in our area. Well, we began heading over towards this other park area, and there were a few joggers, but those dang ear buds are the best excuse to pretend like you can't hear people calling out to you! So they ran on by. :)  Then we got to the park and there were a few people in the middle of the field taking professional pictures of their pets. We decided it was time to do the awkward contact of the week. :)  We made the trek through the field and they watched us walk up to them the entire way. I could feel the tension building as we got closer to them. It was like a scene from a movie. Like you could have put intense music building up to this contact lol. Well, when we got up to them and asked about their dogs and stuff. Well, we were talking to the camera lady, and she got all angry and told us she doesn't want to talk while taking pictures. The couple who had their dogs being photographed kinda awkwardly stood there and we told them to have a good day. So we made our slow trek out of the field and began walking up the road. Elder Petersen decided to check out the boat I took the Titanic pics on for about 5 minutes. Then we began heading up the road, and we noticed a lady walking down a side street pretty far from us. Well we decided to naturally stop and look at everything we came across to stall and not be obvious that we were waiting for her to catch up. When she finally got to us we stopped her and used the Word of Wisdom as a finding approach. And it worked. She told us that she had been walking to break her urge from smoking. She said as she was walking she was praying and asking to find a good church to join. She had been to the Pentecostal church, but got scared and left when they started speaking in tongues. We told her more about our church and we have a lesson set up for Wednesday this week. She thanked us like twenty times and told us we were an immediate answer to prayers. It’s cool to see how the Lord directs you to certain places at certain times. So that's my cool story of the week.

A fun part of the week was a lesson. So our investigator K  took us down to somewhere he called his sacred place. Almost like Rod’s quiet place. So we stopped by a Subway and embarked on a self reflecting journey with our 60 year old investigator. As we were driving to the spot he was hyping it up, but also telling us all about his interesting past. I’ll tell you more about that once I get home. :)   So we pull up and it's basically a small hike. It's the first hike I've done in proselyting clothes. People were looking at us like "where do these missionaries not go? " Anyways we got there and Karl was like "prepare to have your life changed" then I turned the corner, and this giant rock was just chilling. Idk how it got there. Probably a glacier or something. But it was just chilling on a peninsula in Megunticook Lake. It was the most majestic setting I've taught a lesson yet. Anyways it was a fantastic lesson, and the spirit is just crazy strong in the outdoors.

So prepping for a baptism was really cool. It took a little bit of thinking and asking around, but we eventually were able to get an entire little program going. When the day of the baptism came it didn't even feel special, but when we went to the church to start filling the font it all changed. Idk what it is, but the sound of the water filling for someone’s baptism is magical. That hardest thing I've ever loved to do song was true. Lol. We filled it the highest it could go, and we set everything up. We had quite a few people show up for us giving such late notice of his baptism. We sent an email out three days before. There was sooooo much food too. We even donated the cupcakes that people had donated to us. It was great. Seeing C actually get baptized was so cool though. You could just tell that he was ready. I actually got to begin teaching him on his second lesson so it's been cool seeing the change the gospel has brought into his life. Yesterday when he got confirmed was awesome too. A sister brought her baby to be blessed and wanted us to participate in that, and then C got the Holy Ghost and was confirmed a member of the church. We were running all around in the beginning of Sacrament Meeting. Then when people began to share their testimonies they spoke of C and the one he bore at his baptism and how powerful it was. He spoke of how he just felt like he knew everyone and that they felt like family from the moment he walked in. Anyways pretty cool, and B his nephew is next in line. So I'll keep you updated on that.

Thanks for all the prayers.

Lake Megunticook

K's sacred place, THE ROCK.

C's baptism

The leaves are finally starting to change.

The mission is becoming a social media mission and passed out smart phones at zone conference last week.  You can friend Elder Clifford on Facebook and enjoy spiritual messages from him!

The Rockland District

Selfies of the week: