Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Finally!

HOLA EVERYONE,

I finally get my time to write! So this letter will be for the last two weeks so I will try to get in everything that happened.
 
So two weeks ago there were two deaths in the branch of older women that were both really sick, so we saw it coming but it was still sad. Also, I´m staying here in Sáenz peña until the end of January, at least. But, we had new elders come in so the area boundaries were changed a little and it has been a good change working in a little bit of new area!! Elder Burnham is also staying with me and we are working in part of our area and some new. But, with the change we lost all of our investigators to the new elders because they are all in our old zone so we have been doing a lot of finding new people to teach. Our last lesson with Ivan before we lost him to the new elders was the word of wisdom and it was awesome because he told us that he has drank and smoked since he was a kid but he quit everything when we first met him before we even explained it was bad to him and he hasn´t desired it since because he wants to change his life!!! So it will be interesting to see where he goes with the new elders! 
 
We had a missionary activity in our church where we hid things and the members did like a search for them and that was fun to watch and it went well. Also, we had to clean the church because the president was gone on vacation for Christmas and I also got to choose the hymns for sacrament for the first time because he wasnt there! Then, after church a family here taught us how to make awesome pizza and it was incredible and now we make pizza in our apartment all the time haha. Then, we had the giant missionary activity in Resistencia with all 250 missionaries on monday!! It was awesome because I got to see all of my old district from the MTC, there were tons of missionaries everywhere, they had fun shows with singing and Christmas stuff, a white elephant for eveyone, music for christmas, and it was just a good day. But, the bus to take us back was full so we had to take the later one and didnt get back til after midnight but still had to get up at the normal time. 
 
I worked with one of the new elders a week ago and it was fun and it was a good change from the normal, but he doesnt know a word of spanish so I had to communicate with everyone on that day. We were supposed to have dinner with la familia Mercado on christmas eve but we still have to be in the apartment early until the 2nd of January so we just had a snack with them that night and made pizza in the apartment. I hit my 3 month mark in the mission on Christmas!!! We had some presents to open, mostly food from the states and matching shirts that Elder Burnham´s family sent us, made brownies, and I got to skype my family for 45 minutes and that was awesome!!!! We went caroling the day after christmas because no one could do it before, and then we had a great rest of the week with how many lessons we had and how many new people we found!! I guess people were just in the spirit from Christmas! One day we had 8 lessons and found 9 new investigators with a baptismal date!!!!! (we really found 12 new investigators but 3 of them actually live in the area of the new elders) 
 
Also, We got to baptize Catolina Gomez and her daughter andrea!!! That was awesome. I got to baptize andrea and I also baptized her friend who got baptized the same day and Elder Burnham baptized Catolina! Overall, I've had an extremely busy, but awesome 2 weeks. Sorry, this place isnt letting my camera work so there will be a million pictures next week haha Thank you everyone for your support and I always love to hear from you. Also, if you send me a handwritten letter, it takes about a month to get to me, I will write one back, and that will be about another month. Thanks again to everyone and I will talk to you all again next monday!!!
 
Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine
 
P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! 2014

Important

December 30, 2013

¡¡Hola otra vez!!

I had to give up another Pday today to do a full day training in Resistencia!!! But, I will have a full session of time tomorrow to write to everyone!!! So if you wanted to send me something or had a question, I will be writing tomorrow in the morning and be responding to the last two weeks of emails and sending my letter and pictures for the last two weeks!! I´m crazy busy, but I love hearing from everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas, and will talk to everyone tomorrow when I have my full time to write!!!
 
 Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Notice

December 24, 2013

We had a giant activity in Resistencia yesterday so I wasnt able to write but I have a little time today to explain that. I will write my weekly letter next week and it will include last week and this week. I will also respond to everyones emails next week, we just dont have time today. Also, I would LOVE to hear what everyone got for christmas (and maybe even pictures). Im sorry I dont have more time to write today or send pictures but I will do so more thoroughly next week. Thank you everyone for your support, especially through Christmas, I hope to hear from you soon and I hope everyone has an incredible, Merry Christmas!!!

Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Monday, December 16, 2013

Splitting the area!!

This week was definitely different! After I wrote the letter last week, we got a call that the police were on strike and not working until they got more money like they do in sports haha, So we weren't allowed to leave our apartment more on Monday, any of Tuesday, and then had to be in every night by 6:30 at the latest. So that kind of got resolved Wednesday and now we can stay out until 8 starting today, but we heard that they were going to do it again for even more money this Friday, so we don't know how much time we´ll be out later this week. 

But, one day we found two new investigators, Ivan and Daniel, and Ivan started going on about how he hasn't found the truth in any other church but could feel it when we were talking and then Daniel told us that when he saw us walking down the road towards his house that he saw an angel walking with us. I´m not saying it´s true for sure but it´s pretty cool to think about if we have this presence with us. Then, all of wednesday and part of thursday we weren´t doing normal missionary stuff, because we found out that we are going to get two more elders in our area this week so we had to find them an apartment and buy all the stuff for it! So that was fun and now we will have 4 elders and 2 sister missionaries in our area which is awesome!!

Nothing much happened other than this because of how much we were stuck in our apartment this week, but I had one last thought. This is a gratefulness challenge. To find and think of 100 things that we are thankful for:

10 physical abilities we have
10 material possessions
10 living people
10 deceased people
10 things in nature
10 things about today
10 places on earth
10 modern inventions
10 foods
10 memories

And after you have thought of or written down all of these things, get the Christmas spirit a little more and be thankful for all the things you have and be a little more charitable and willing to give. I hopw we can all do this, especially around Christmas but even during the rest of the year. Thank you to everyone for the constant support and I hope to hear from you soon!!!

Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine

 Ice cream from GRIDO which is like the american equivalent of dairy queen.

 Our glamorous bathroom.

 The outside of our apartment.

Our kitchen/living room where we study.


Monday, December 9, 2013

Last week of the Transfer!

This last week just flew by super fast!! First off, with Catolina Gonzalez there is a story. She is still progressing and she started inviting all of her kids to listen to the lessons too so we have like 8 investigators out of her family alone and now most all of them have gone to church twice so they only need one more to be baptized which is awesome, but we found out 2 days ago that all of them are moving into a house together....that is 3 streets outside of our area. So they are still taking the discussions and still want to be baptized but now other missionaries are going to finish the last two lessons with them and baptize them which is exciting it`s just sad/frustrating because we did all of the teaching and now other missionaries get the baptism so we look bad, but it`s all good as long as their family gets baptized!! It`s kind of sad too because they were one of the only two strong families we had because this week we had to stop teaching a lot of people because they didn`t want to talk with us anymore or they weren`t progressing. 

But, on a happier note, we had a Christmas activity in the ward this week with a nativity by the kids, Christmas music, and all the empanadas we could eat, so it was an awesome night!! Also, we are in the choir for the church so we can sing songs that aren`t in the hymnbook which is a nice change! haha 

The only last thought that I wanted to share that I liked was to acknowledge the gift that Christ gave to all of us, especially in this time of the year. He gave us a great gift, so what gift can we give him in December. An idea that I like is to, with your family, write on a piece of paper a present that you can give Christ, fold it up, and put everyone`s paper into a box. Wrap the present in gold and place it underneath the Christmas tree at the front so that every time you look at the tree you will think of the gift you are trying to work on or give Christ. Then, on Christmas, open that present first and read everyone`s present together to see and talk about the things we can give Christ. I just think this is a fun idea and helps us remember why we celebrate Christmas. I love everyone and hope to hear from all very soon! Thank you for the continued support.

Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine
 
 The small flowers that Andrea, the daughter of Catolina Gonsalez, gave me.
 When we made cow stomach empanadas with Poly last week.

The nativity that was set up at the branch activity.

 The spider we found in the church this week.
 Some giant worm that was in the street one night, the tile behind it is like a 
normal one foot tile, it was seriously like the size of a small snake.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Week 5 in Sáenz Peña

Hola everyone.

This week was a good one. We had our ups but we also had some downs. We had to stop teaching Jessica and Patricia, Melina, and Claudia because all of them can´t progress right now for different reasons, but we are still praying that Poly can get married. We also found some really prepared people this week. A lady named Catalina Fernandez saw us and said ¨Mormones, pasen¨ And said that she has been waiting for her church to send someone because her husband and son both dies in the last year but when she saw us she knew that God sent us because her church wasn't true and she needed our church. This experience was awesome and she is on a trip to Rosario right now but we should baptize her at the end of the month. Also, we met a lady named Catolina Gonzalez who is super prepared and following through with all of her commitments, along with her daughter Andrea, and they both love church so we should baptize them on the same day as the other Catolina or sooner. Also, she isn´t with her boyfriend anymore which means that we don't have to worry about marriage which is good because NOBODY gets married here and the office to get married closes in two weeks and wont open again until mid February which is really upsetting for us because we cant resolve that issue in this time. 


But, with some good news, I had my first incredible Argentine meat this last week and it was absolutely amazing and just so natural tasting. It was awesome! Also, we found out that we will be getting more money every month to buy food which is nice because we can actually buy stuff that isn't the absolute cheapest thing. Also, the schedule is changed now so that we work in the morning and study in the afternoon during the siesta instead of in the morning because in the summer it is too hot too walk in the middle of the day and everybody just goes to bed anyways. 

A couple of weird things this week, I found out that the people just throw away their toilet paper instead of flushing it which I think is weird and I will just continue to flush it haha Also, one girl this week was talking to us from inside her house and when she came outside and saw that we were Mormons she refused to talk to us and would only communicate with us by shaking her head and we found out through our questions that it was because her pastor said that anyone that talks to Mormons will go to hell. I just thought it was weird. We´re just normal people, we don't send people to hell... And, one night I ate mondongo for the first time. Mondongo is cow stomach, so I made cow stomach empanadas, they weren´t all that bad. Also, Andrea, the daughter of Catolina Gonzalez gave me a little present this week of fake flowers in a pot which was cute. 

All in all everything here is good. The only other thing I wanted to share was a quote that says, ¨And supposiing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing called ¨failure¨ is not the falling down, but the staying down.¨ I like that this points out that we choose to pick ourselves back up but at the same time, we are also the ones that choose if we stay down and are defeating. I just think it´s good to think about that in our own lives and how we are choosing to stay down. Thanks for all the support and I will talk to everyone next week!

I couldnt get pictures to work this week, this stupid computer is broken. But that just means that there will be more for next week with this week and next. Sorry again and I hope to hear from all soon.


Les Quiero,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Monday, November 25, 2013

2 Months - I Don't Sound White

Hola everyone, 

I have officially hit two months in the mission. Crazy how time flies!!! My week was pretty good, it went by super fast. Our investigators are all great and we have 18 with a baptismal date right now but a lot of them have big obstacles to overcome, don't come to church, or have work and we can't teach a lot. The ones we are excited for are Jessica and Patricia who are a mother and daughter but don't know if they can receive an answer. Melina is 14 and her dad isn't too excited about us but her mom just died 1 month ago and she wants to be able to live with her mom again so she really wants to be taught. Claudia just moved here from Columbia with her boyfriend and 2 kids. The problem is that people here never get married and just say they are together and the office to get married closes for 2 months in 3 weeks so she needs to get married before they close!! Poly is awesome!! He has every lesson and has read the Book of Mormon and he just needs to get married before they close and we will baptize him right after. Please pray for these investigators as they are the ones that have the most potential right now and need certain things to go their way!! 

This week I found out that my last name is a newspaper in Buenos Aires so that's always what people think of when I introduce myself. Also, this week I had a dog pee on my shoes, drunk people always yell at us and throw stuff sometimes, and one group of 12 year olds kicked a soccer ball into the back of my head but I just smiled, picked the ball up, and walked it back over to them and apologized that I got in the way of the ball and it was just funny to see their expressions. 

This last Sunday there was a big conference for the church and of the 80 that attended 28 of them were missionaries which was just funny to see so many missionaries. Also, in our zone conference during the week, my companion and I won a prize for the companionship with accents the most like we are from Buenos Aires which I think is awesome because a lot of people tell me I don't sound white I just sound like I'm from Buenos Aires. The food is awesome, if you want to look these up I have been eating asado, milanesa, and some pasta type thing that you pronounce nee-yo-kees. 

I wanted to put a quote in here since I haven`t done that for awhile. "Adversity may sometimes come because of others' poor choices and hurtful words and actions." With this we know that our success and happiness are dependent upon OUR responses to difficult things in life. I just hope we can always remember that, no matter what happens we can choose how WE react. Thanks for all the support and the emails, they really do help!! Talk to everyone soon.
 
Sincerely,
Elder Joshua Clarine
 
 Panorama picture before the storm we had this week, clear on the left and death on the right.

 This was the street by our apartment the following morning, 
it was more of a river than a street since cars couldn't use it.

 This was the skyline one of the nights.

 These were the clouds one day.

 This little guy lives right over my bed, but at this point I don't even care about spiders anymore.

 My companion and I with our award for our accents.

 All of the missionaries at the zone conference, I am at the top right 4 people in.

Monday, November 18, 2013

2nd Week - Ensanche Sur

Hola.
I don´t have much time to write but I´m going to try. This keyboard at this internet cafe has been used so much that I can´t see any letters on the keyboard so that plus the fact that every word is spelled wrong because the computer is in Spanish is why I'm sure these letters have a ton of mistakes. My branch is ensanche sur (that is the name of the area that meets together). We finally got AC so now I can live!!!! Elder Burnham is from Arizona and just hit his 6 month mark. We have a lot of good investigators but they are all too lazy to go to church and since they have to go 3 times we keep on having to change their baptismal date which is annoying. We have church in a chapel and I have been getting to play the piano on Sundays. I also don't know what Ive said so sorry if something is a repeat. We are 4 hours ahead here. It is normal to have chickens and goats in the streets and they just go in and out of houses and no one really cares. One day a spider made its nest in my pants so I went to put them on and it crawled out which was freaky. So I killed it and its web and stupid eggs it layed. No one has real chairs and they just sit on plastic lawn chairs or buckets. Babies learn how to drink matte before they can walk or talk. Kids have a break in school from 12-4 for the siestas where all the stores close down and everyone just takes a 4 hour nap. The water isn´t good to drink so everyone just drinks soda and nothing else. Also the ground in houses is usually dirt but they sweep it anyways which I think doesn't help but whatever. Dora the explorer here teaches English instead of Spanish, and I can´t remember anything else I wanted to say about the week. If you have questions just email me, it is easier that was, also if anyone wants to be added to this emailing list just send me their email. Also if you want to send me a hand written letter here it takes about two weeks and my address is as follows--

Elder Joshua Clarine
Misión Argentina Resistencia
Entre Ríos 435
Resistenciam Chaco 3500
Casilla de correo 1
Argentina

Thanks to everyone for the support!! Next week I will try to have more stories and a quote or cool thought, sorry I didn´t have more time!!
 
Sincerely,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Gravity controlled shower that doesn't heat up automatically.
 
This is what you put you put your garbage in for people to pick up.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Address to the Mission Office in Resistencia

Hi everyone, this is an address, from Elder Clarine's Mission President, to the Mission Office in Resistencia. I'm not sure how much it costs to send a letter but he will receive any mail sent here. In his last email he said he'd send his address of where he is living, but this address below is one you can always send mail to throughout his entire mission, no matter what city he is serving in.

Elder Joshua Clarine
Misión Argentina Resistencia
Entre Ríos 435
Resistencia Chaco CP 3500
Argentina

1st Week in Argentina - Saenz Pena

Monday, November 11, 2013

Hola everyone!!! 

These last 10 days have been crazy. My pday changed when I got in the field so I will now be writing on Monday´s for the next two years instead of on Thursdays. The flight over was super long and uncomfortable since I was in between two giant people for 13 hours, but I made it here! 

First off I want to say two things. First, the computers are in spanish so the spell check says that every single word is misspelled so I am sorry if I don´t catch a few words while I am writing. Second, I only have an hour every Monday so I won´t have as much time to write because I also have to do other tasks with the internet in the hour they give me. I got to Argentina and I realized that the people are half what you expect and then the other half are white and they could live in the US and you would think they knew English, it´s crazy.

We got to Buenos Aires on Tuesday then flew to Resistencia that night where we stayed in a "nice" hotel. It was considered nice because it had tile floors, the cockroaches were smaller than normal, they had A/C, and free breakfast. The only problem was that all the tiles were broken, the A/C didn´t even turn on, there were still cockroaches, and the breakfast was only small rolls. The only good thing was that the rolls were the best bread I have ever had in my life. The bread here is better than any homemade or fancy bread in the states. That´s why they have it with every meal. 

MY trainers name is Elder Burnham and we will be in Saenz Peña for the next three months. This is one of the hottest areas in the mission and we are about to start the summer months in December since the seasons are reversed here. The only place that is hotter is Formosa so I´m glad I´m not there right now. And the heat isn´t even that big of a problem, it´s just the fact that it is so humid that it´s just like you are walking through water. You are ALWAYS sweating. It doesn´t matter if you are sitting, walking, sleeping or anything else, you are always sweating. And we also walk everywhere so it is hard with the heat but it is worth it when we teach others and they accept what we have to say. The people here are super humble. Only the really nice houses have walls on the inside. Most just have curtains for the doors and to separate the kitchen and bedroom. They also wash their clothes by hand and then dry them outside. We are lucky enough to have a member that washes our clothes. She is Super nice!! I understand a lot of what they are saying if they don´t talk too fast. My goal is to be basically fluent by Christmas which I think is possible with the amount of Spanish I hear and say everyday. 

I don´t have time to tell everyone all the stories I want to so that will have to wait for after my mission and you will have to come to my coming home party haha. I will tell one story though. This last Saturday we went to the house of a young boy that was supposed to be baptized this week. His mom is an inactive member and he has a younger brother who isn´t old enough to be baptized. But, her boyfriend is abusive and evangelical and hates the missionaries and prays to God for the demons to leave every time we come over and then beats her and the kids after we leave, but she still invites us over because she knows how important it is for her son to be baptized. But on Saturday he made them all hide in the house while he stayed outside, he wouldn´t really talk to us and we were just trying to get the mom and sons to come talk to us to see if we convince her to move back to her Aunt´s house. Then, one of the neighbors that is a friend of the boyfriend came over. He had a tattoo of san de la muerte which basically meant that he worships satan and trades the lives of others in exchange for earthly items. He started shouting that we come to that barrio (or town) too much and started swearing at us and said that we had to leave and if he ever saw us there again then "mataré" meaning that he would kill us. We normally wouldn´t care but we was waving his machete at us and if we hadn´t kept backing up and left it would´ve hit us. So we aren´t going to go there for awhile which is really sad because Ezequiel was so close to his baptism. I don´t know why people hate us so much; we are always super calm and polite (even in this situation). 

Thanks for all the support I get from home! I couldn´t figure out pictures this week with the computer and I have so many that I couldn´t even send them all, but I will figure that out before next week. I will have the address to write to in about a week but I won´t be able to write back a lot because it is expensive. Emailing is better. If there are questions just let me know, I know I didn´t get everything into this email and it is a lot easier to remember what to write if you ask me questions directly so I can answer you. Once again, thank you for all the support and I can´t wait to hear from everyone.

Love,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Safely arrived in Argentina!

Elder Clarine made it safely to Argentina. He left Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday morning, November 4th. Here is a picture of him in Resistencia, Argentina with his companion (trainer) Elder Burnham along with his Mission President and his wife, the Heymans. The first area he is serving in is Ensanche Sur in the province of Chaco. Can't wait to hear from him!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Last Week in the MTC!

October 31, 2013

Hola everyone!! This is officially my last time to write everyone before I leave the MTC! This last week went faster than any other week in the MTC. I loved our last time at the TRC(Teaching resource center) where we go and talk to real people that just want to volunteer to come in and talk to the missionaries. We've been doing a lot of our final things this week with leaving questionnaires and packing and making sure everything is order to go. We've been doing a ton of working and classes to make sure we have everything we need and want before we go. We had a lesson from our Branch president (who is over about 35 missionaries at the MTC) and it was awesome. I can't remember the whole lesson or the quote he gave at the end but it said something along the lines of, "We have the opportunity, every day, to say, "That was the best day of my life", and how sad it would be if we ever had to say, "I will start living better tomorrow.""  And I know that this is true. If we have to say that our lives will be better tomorrow, then we may never get to tomorrow and live with that attitude the rest of our lives. So, we need to be grateful for each day and make the best of it. 

Yesterday was the last day we had with our main teacher, Hermano (Brother) Wiest. He is honestly one of the coolest people I have ever met and he was one of the greatest teachers I've ever had, with spanish and with the gospel. I will miss him but I'm excited to actually get to Argentina! It's crazy to think that I only have 3 full days left and then I will not touch American soil again until the end of 2015. I really appreciate all the support that everyone has been giving me. I won't be able to get any more packages here and dearelder won't work after saturday. If you have the mission home address then you can send mail there but I don't have any information right now for where I will be. So, my first pday in Argentina I will send everyone my address and how much it is for postage to Argentina and how long it takes and everything if people have questions. And, since I am about to be in Argentina, I can only receive 4 packages the entire time I am there. So I will get one package each Christmas and on my Birthday in March. So if anyone really wants to send anything to me that won't fit in an envelope, then just contact my parents and I'm sure they can put whatever it is into the package. You can contact them to callwaitingbytes@hotmail.com but I can receive as many envelopes as possible so I would still love to hear from everyone that way and through email. 

Once again, thank you to everyone and I will be in Argentina as of Monday!!
 
Sincerely,
Elder Joshua Clarine
 
 Elder Clarine with his favorite teacher, Hermano Wiest

 This was the pile of food they took down from Saturday-Tuesday, in addition to
 the buffet we got every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

4th Week in the MTC

October 24, 2013

Hola everyone, it is crazy that I have already hit the one month mark!!! This last week just flew by and now I only have 10 days left in the MTC and should get my travel information either tonight or tomorrow. I probably won't have that much to write this week since the weeks are exactly the same in the Missionary Training Center. Every day is just wake up, workout, breakfast, class, lunch, class, dinner, class, bed. So I'm sorry it's not that exciting. I still get to play the piano every day and I had an awesome special musical number on sunday which was fun. The spanish is still rapidly getting better and now I understand almost everything that is said to me even if I can't always reply with the words I want to. I got to be a host yesterday, which meant that I got a 3 hour break from class to help all the new missionaries. We show the new missionaries where their apartments are, where their classrooms are, and then head back to drop off point for more! It was really fun and it was nice to have some variety so a day. That's pretty much all that happened this week, pretty normal except for hitting my one month mark and hosting the new missionaries. I really appreciate all the support I get from everyone and all of the contact that people have with me. If anyone needs my mailing info. just let me know but it will be changing in ten days so I will put the new address in next weeks email. Thank you again to everyone and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Elder Joshua Clarine
 
P.S. one quote from this week was, "Open your eyes before you open your mouth." Meaning that we can't force our opinions on others and before we try to talk to others we need to open our eyes to their lives and make a real connection with them. This is the key for success in developing a relationship anywhere in the world.


The main structure to the stream Elder Clarine studies by.


Elder Clarine with Elder Roundy his Zone Leader who left one week ago

3rd Week in the MTC

October 17, 2013

Hey everyone! I only have two more full weeks left in the Missionary Training Center! It's crazy to think that I'm coming up on the one month mark! I had a rough beginning of last week after P-day. Some people were whining about teaching investigators and we aren't learning as fast as I'd like to, but everything is okay and everyone kind of changed their attitude about teaching and people have been working a lot harder at the language even if we don't learn at the same rate so it's been going well since that one day! This week has just been a ton of teaching practice lessons and and getting further into the language. Each week here is like an entire year of language in high school. Dallin H. Oaks (One of the twelve apostles of the Church) was at the MTC on Tuesday night for the devotional and it was awesome to have someone so influential so close to us (My district was in the second row). He talked about how we, as missionaries and really at any stage in life, need to constantly better ourselves. We first have to change, even if we are just faking it until we make it. Then we achieve skills or goals through our change and we are closer to being a better person. And then the final step is to become, that once we have change and achieved that we truly become the person that we wanted to be. I liked that message and the knowledge that if we make an effort to be better that we will truly gain those attributes we want. Elder Warth and I are doing well on our goal of reading the Book of Mormon and we are on page 345 right now, which means that we have less than two hundred pages left. Anyways, I'm really starting to pick up the language! I can understand almost everything people say, it's just speaking back that is a problem. I still don't know a lot of words and then I have to put the sentence together in a grammatically correct way. But it is coming quickly and I love learning it. I love being here but I can't wait to actually get out of the Training Center. The schedule is the exact same every single day and there is almost no variety to what we do, so I can't wait to be in the field! I really appreciate all of the emails and the letters (including Dearelder) and I am making my best efforts to stay in contact with everyone. The support I get from everyone really helps and I'm grateful for it. I hope all is going well for everyone and their families. If anyone needs my mailing information or information for Dealelder.com just let me know. I leave here in just over two weeks so my address will be changing. Since the scenery doesn't really change, I think I'll only have one or two pictures this week and I'll get those up in a few minutes.
Love,
Elder Joshua Clarine

Friday, October 11, 2013

2nd Week in the MTC

I love getting to P-Day. It is super relaxing and it is really the only day I have time for a nap! Since I am at the new campus and they haven't quite finished our gym yet, we have to workout outside at 6:30 in the morning and it is starting to get really cold, especially in the morning. But we still have to workout since every meal here is a buffet and we only get 50 minutes to workout. So I have to either start eating less or doing something other than basketball for gym time or I'm gunna get fat haha. Since Elder Warth and I are the music coordinators, I am able to play the piano for almost an hour every day which is super nice to get away from the classroom and language for a little bit. 
For General Conference last Saturday and Sunday we had to walk up to the main campus to watch it, which was like a half an hour walk. A couple great quotes that I liked from Conference that I felt could apply to anything in life were, "What is said isn't as important as what you hear," and "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." I loved both of those. One of the first devotionals we had when I got here, the speaker said that the most important part on a grave isn't the birth or the death, but the dash in between. And then they related that to the mission and how I should make the most of my dash between 2013 and 2015. And that really hit me, as that dash, whether in the mission or in life, represents the legacy we leave behind and all the stories of our life. So we should strive to make the most out of our dash, and I know I'm going to make my dash on my mission matter. 
Our devotional on Sunday was INCREDIBLE. If anyone has ever heard of vocal point, they are an acapella group from BYU that is famous all over the country and has been on TV for an acapella competition and they gave our devotional! The members change every year since they have to be going to BYU so I hope to someday at least try out. But the music was super awesome and they had a really good message.
 We got a new district yesterday, 4 elders and 4 sisters, which is fun, but we haven't really had a chance to talk to any of them yet. Elder Warth and I have a goal to finish reading The Book Of Mormon before we leave here and right now we are on track, we are on page 250 right now. I love hearing from everyone, even if it is just saying "Hi". And thank you to everyone who has emailed, mailed, or used dearelder to contact me, I appreciate it A TON!!And I love everyone and hope that all are doing well with work, school, or whatever else they're doing and I hope to hear from everyone soon. I'll leave you with one quote I got yesterday and it's about a mission and it says, "You have 2 short years to to serve, an eternity to remember." I love the experiences I am having and for all the memories I will have.

With Love,
Elder Joshua Clarine
Elder Clarine's bedroom at the MTC
 Elder Clarine's closet at the MTC
 District at the Map
 Elder Warth & Elder Clarine
 Angel Moroni on top of the Provo Temple
 Elder Clarine & Warth riding bikes at the MTC
District at the Provo Temple

 

Friday, October 4, 2013

First week in the MTC

Hola everyone!!
So I left for the MTC in Provo, UT this last wednesday, September 25th and have now been here for nine days.The first day, before I actually had to report to the MTC, Brian, Jeff, Dave, and I all went to the Pizza Pie Cafe. They have free meals for missionaries who are reporting so I got that for free! For the first hour I just picked up all of my language and study materials and then took a bus over to the west campus to go to my apartment. My roommate/missionary companion is Elder Warth. He is super small so it's funny seeing us side by side. Once I can send off some pictures I will. We had class the rest of the day and didn't unpack until that night. One of my zone leaders, Elder Durham, actually knows Brian Clarine! Thursday is our designated Pday (Preparation day), but because we had just gotten there we didn't have it which was kind of lame. Pday is the only day I can email and it's when we do laundry and just kind of relax. It's awesome being here and I don't have to focus on myself or what I need to do, I just focus on learning for others and teaching others. Spanish is coming a lot easier than it did in higshchool! I've learned more in 10 days than I did in two years of highschool. We've been praying in spanish, talking in spanish, reading in spanish, etc. It's Crazy! Even though I haven't been here that long, time is just flying by! It is super fun here and you don't really have time to slack off since we are in class, study, or meetings for 13 hours a day. on Friday we taught our first mock investigator. He "could't speak" ANY english, so after only 2 full days we had to talk to him and give him an entire lesson in only spanish. Clearly, we couldn't say everything we wanted to but it was still amazing how much we could do. My teacher, Brother Wiest, is a 23 year old student at BYU from Boston who served in Argentina and he can speak english, spanish, french, and arabic fluently. Crazy! I was called as the pianist so I'll be playing the piano for our zone from now on. A zone is 3-4 districts, and a district has 6-8 people in it. Fast and testimony meeting was really awesome on Sunday and there was a cool missionary conference after. There is like a small stream here which is really relaxing to study by (I'll get pictures when possible). I miss everyone at home and hope to here from most, if not all of you, soon! I can only check this email every Thursday but there is a website called dearelder.com where you basically write an email but it gets to me the next day in the form of a letter. I PROMISE that I'll make time to respond with a hand written letter to anyone that writes me! I don't have a phone or internet (outside of this) so I would love to hear from everyone and know what's going on. My mailing address is:
Elder Joshua Michael Clarine
Nov05 ARG-RES
2023 N. 900 E. Unit 812
Provo, UT 84602
If you have any questions about anything here or anything in general just let me know! I hope everyone is doing well and I love being here in the MTC (CCM in spanish) learning about the gospel and preparing to help others! There was a quote in our devotional yesterday that said, "A missionary leaves his family and friends for 2 years so that others can be with theirs for eternity." I love that, and I'll be home before you know it.
With Love,
             Elder Joshua Clarine

Friday, September 27, 2013

Officially a Missionary

It's official! Josh is a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and for the next two years will be known as Elder Clarine. On Wednesday, September 25th, he entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, and will be there for 6 weeks. During the next 6 weeks of training, he will also be learning the Spanish language.

Missionaries LOVE to receive mail, so please take some time to write Elder Clarine.

His address (for the next 6 weeks) is the following:

Elder Joshua Clarine
NOV05 ARG-RES
2023 N. 900 E.
Unit 812
Provo, UT 84602

I will be updating this blog with the letters (and hopefully pictures) he sends each week. On the top right side of this blog there is a place to enter your email address to follow his blog. You will then receive an email letting you know when a new post has been made.

Keep smiling,
Tessa (Josh's aunt)