Made It!

Hello Family!

I have arrived in California and it's been great so far! It was great to talk to both of you today! Not much has happened since then. We came to CA, came to the local church, ate delicious food and have been waiting to be interviewed. I just finished mine and am now waiting for my companion to come. She went to school in Logan and that's all I know. I will talk to you later. P Day is on Monday. Love you!!!!

Love,

Sister Clifton

Love you and I will write you later!!! :)

This is the group that I came out with

LAST DAY IN THE MTC

Hey Family!

Before I forget- mom it was really nice to talk to you for those 2 minutes and I am going to be at the airport around 7am Tuesday morning. Who do you want me to call?

Life here at the MTC has been really busy but super great. I seriously would not want to give it up for anything! I have learned so much about the gospel and myself. And I am SO grateful for the district that I am in! It truly was inspired and each one of them has helped me grow in many different ways! The Sisters and the Elders are amazing! It's going to be really weird not being with them for 15 hours a day, each day. Going to miss that. Especially going to miss Elder Hill and Elder Wilson because the are going to Indiana Indianapolis and there won't be any chance of seeing them in CA. But I hope Blake becomes companions with at least one of them!!!

Anyways. Things are really busy here at the MTC. Elder Kivett was super tired and he said, "Is it 10:30?" because he is super tired and wants to go to bed. Elder Boyle did not pick up the sarcasm and said, "Are you kidding? We haven't even had dinner and it's not even dark yet!" You probably won't find it too funny but we almost busted a gut!!! On Sunday we had a Missionary Conference and it was like a mini General Conference. It was so good. Sunday's here are amazing. Sister Priest bore here testimony and she said, "Sometimes Satan smacks you in the face with a cactus," she was being dead serious but it was so funny. We love Sister Priest.

We have been having several "investigators." Russell (I think I told you about last time- he's our teacher Brother Hitchcock pretending to be one of his envisages) is progressing well. He is starting to understand the Gospel. We taught him about baptism yesterday and it's a desire of his but he does not feel ready quite yet, so he gave us a "Yes" answer but later.... So that's improvement! We also have an investiagor Barbara (a volunteer for the MTC). We loved her so much! She was not raised with religion but has read the 4 gospels. That was helpful. As we were teaching her about prophets and commandments she said that it makes sense. God gave Adam and Eve 2 commandments to start out with and then he gave more. He gave Moses the 10 commandments but when Christ came to the earth there were even more. It makes sense that there would be a prophet today. She related it to a phone. If we were all given an IPhone first we would have no idea how to use it. We first needed to have a basic phone and then we could learn from that. We are not given more commandments until we are ready for them! She had such a willingness to learn and she was understanding what we were saying. I think part of if was having a friendship with her so she was willing to trust us. It was a really neat experience the two times we taught her. We told her we were being transfer ed and she was upset. We are to.. We have loved teaching her!!!

One thing that has stuck with me is "Priesthood power is portable." -Elder Kivett. It's obvious but it's also so true and powerful. Sometimes Elder Kivett will be goofing off one minute and then the next he will say powerful things like that!

Oh I saw Kevin! He was just entering the MTC and going to his classroom and I saw him right outside the building (right after I talked to mom). We in the same building on the same floor so I see him every now and then. Have not seen Steven yet but it was really nice to see a familiar face! And Kevin said that Elder Wilson does look like Blake. So I'm not crazy! And I showed my class a picture of Blake and they put it next to Elder Wilson and everyone was shocked! It's Blake's long lost twin! AND... both of his parents are converts too and he was also born September 1994. I really am hoping their companions. He has such great spiritual insight- I have learned a lot from him.

Oh funny story. I was getting lunch one day and this one Elder comes over and he asks me if I know the Shropshire Family and I say yes. He asks me if my first name was Audrey. Yes... Turns out that he was in the Shropshire's ward and remembered me. It was so nice and I remembered him, vaguely. He told me that I looked familiar but he was not sure if it was me. He's going to Brazil.

Love You All.

Love,

Sister Clifton

First Week in the MTC!!!

Hey Family!

I am alive! Time here is so limited and so busy! My companion is Sister Larrabee (prounounced Lairabee). She is so sweet! Our first day we sang Called to Serve and it was a great feeling singing with hundreds of new missionaries (I think over 800 came in on the 3rd). The closing song was the Army of Helaman. Instead of singing "And we will be the Lord's missionaries" we sang "And we are now the Lord's missionaries!" What a statement of truth and joy!

We are busy from 6:30 until 10:30 and most of the time is in class. It's a meal to class, a meal to class but I love it! I don't realize how much time we spend there until I start writing in my journal and I realize that pretty much all the day we were in class. It's so amazing and I am learing so much. The scheduling here for the first two days was a little off because of the 4th of July-- they had to rearrange the schedule for the holiday. On the 4th we ended class and personal study and had a fireside. It was packed and we needed to go to the overflow room.We sang many hymns which is such a blessing. The spirt and joy I feel when singing with everyone else is amazing! We had a mini talk and then watched "17 Miracles" and I love that movie. It was so nice to take a little break and not do anything for a few hours. We also got permssion to stay up past 10:30 and watch fireworks. Even though it was allowed I am never going to break that rule because getting up the next day was so hard.

Yesterday we taught our first "investigaor" (aka our teacher acting like on of his investigators from his mission). There are so many things that I wish that we could have done better but it went pretty well for our first lesson. He in currently unemployed, single, and has a 3 month old daugher Sophie. We taught him about our Heavenly Father's love for him and also about the restoration. He belives in a higher being but belives that He just left us to our own devices. We did our best to explain that our Heavenly Father loves us more than we can understand and we created this great plan for us for our experience so we can learn and grow and become more like Him. He said we could come back sometime and we are teaching him another lesson later today during our classtime. After the lesson our teacher talked to us after and he said that we loved the way that we bounced off from each other. So that is a confidence booster!

We had gym time yesterday and played Beach Vollyball across from one of the temple parking lots (the one we saw last Saturday). It was so much fun to just get out and joke around. It was much needed and very appreciated!

The other sisters in my District are Sister Priest and Sister Aholelehi (like Aloha Lei Lei- she's from Hawaii). We have a great district! Funny story one of the Elders is Elder Wilson and he is going to the Indiana Indonaplios mission and everytime I see him I think Blake is here! He looks so much like him- especially from the side! So Blake when you you go out in the mission field look for an Elder Wilson! He's amazing and brings great insight to our lessons! Well I need to go! Love you all! Miss you and thanks for your Dear Elders! I love them!!!!

Love,

Sister Clifton