Entry Twelve: Double Loot Weekend

April 07, 2025

Entry Twelve: Double Loot Weekend

4/7/25

To whoever told me time flies by on the mission: yeah, you were right 😂

We’re already to the end of my first transfer, which is pretty neat!

But hello everyone! This week has been pretty chill for me! There’s been a lot of tough moments, and especially a lot more opposition than we usually find out here in Forest City, but overall, we pushed through and got some good work done this week. Actually, despite opposition and difficult people, we have had a lot of finds. Here’s to hoping the majority of them will reach the waters of baptism! 🤞

So before my last email, we got a referral from this guy named Don. We did the standard strategy of trying to contact him, and he immediately picked up the phone! However, it turns out he’s already a member, and he called us because he needed help with a storage shed. 😐

But it was actually a good time helping him out. He’s definitely a… less active member… but he showed us some cool building projects he’s worked on in Nicaragua and we invited him to come to church since he’s moving into the area and building a home for his family when they get here.

This week we’ve been eating GOOD. From ribs, to sourdough, to chili, to cocktail weenies, to POTATO SALAD! (Idk why but I’ve lowkey been obsessed with potato salad the past year 😅) Oh, I also got to try cookout for the first time (literally the greasiest fast food place ever imaginable) so that’s a thing too.

On a silly note, Elder Driggs and I got a 3lb rump roast the other week, and we realized we had to use it this week. We decided our best option was to put it in the crockpot and make some roast beef to use for meal prep. All was well until it came time to actually cook it. Now, I don’t know why, but Elder Driggs trusted me with plugging in the crockpot. This may seem like a simple task to delegate, but to someone who has a kitchen curse like me, this was a grave mistake for my dear trainer.

Yeah, I plugged in the blender on accident and we lost the roast :/

TO BE FAIR, the crockpot had no light to signal that it was plugged in, but yes, it is safe to say I will avoid putting the crockpot next to the blender in the future.

We got to watch conference this week! 🥳

My trainer was telling me that conference is great because it counts as church attendance, member lessons, member/missionary moments, etc. I then joked that it’s like a double loot weekend, and the name kind of stuck. Normally, we spend the week inviting everyone to church, but this week we invited everyone to watch conference with us. Unfortunately, only one of the friends we invited was able to make it, but we had a lot of people tell us they tuned in on their own time! (including some people we met the day before conference)

Speaking of conference, probably one of my favorite talks was the one by S. Mark Palmer of the Seventy. I was lucky enough to hear from him back in the MTC, and so when I heard his name I got excited. Boy, did he deliver. I love how he emphasized the importance of looking for faith. In Alma 32:27, Alma says something that is very crucial about faith: “But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” (emphasis added)

In order to build faith, (which mind you is kind of like the currency for becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ) we need to do things that require faith yes, but we also need to want to have faith. It would be pretty useless if we had a lot of faith just for us to want to live in sin and darkness. I want to promise to you all that when you want to believe, the Lord recognizes it, and will let that desire work in you. You will wax stronger and stronger in faith, and from there miracles happen.

I love you all so much! Thank you for any and all emails, it is very much appreciated! Also, if you had the chance to participate in the choirs this conference, (shoutout to Viewmont! I saw so many friends on screen) y’all did amazing, and I’m very excited you got the opportunity to do that!

Little steps in the right direction will lead to huge strides down the line.

Remember the Lord loves you!

-Elder Clayton

Photography Time!