So
that guy who came to church with his aunt last Sunday? We taught him
twice this week and he's basically the coolest person I've ever met. I
know it probably seems like I say that about everybody, but it's true.
In the very first lesson he told us he believed everything we were
saying because it all made sense and he was feeling a peaceful feeling
he's never felt anywhere else before. We invited him to be baptized in
the end of May and he said yes! He's the first person who's committed to
a baptism date in Birch Hills in a long while, and I think he's going
to do it. 
I don't think I've ever seen someone who's so excited to learn more
about the gospel before. Plus he answers my text messages and makes me
feel like there's someone here in California who actually wants to talk
to me. 
His name is Ali, keep him in your prayers, we're really excited to keep teaching him!
After we taught Ali on Thursday
we met two cool people who mostly spoke Spanish, but knew enough
English for us to have a pretty good conversation. Both of them were
pretty interested in learning more about our message so we got their
contact informantion to send over to the Spanish speaking missionaries
who cover our area. Before we sent it though they called us and
excitedly told us that they had just been able to contact another
Spanish referall we'd sent over there and they were able to go inside
their house and teach the entire family. It was cool to hear that they
were teaching one of the people we'd found because we usually end up
sending off referalls and never hearing about them again.
In the evening still on Thursday
Elder Baker (one of the assistants) called us up and told me I'm going
to be a district leader now! I'm nervous, but also excited. I'm sure it
will be a good experience for me and I'll learn a lot, I just hope I'm
able to help the missionaries in my district learn a bit too along the
way, because I still feel like there's so much about missionary work I
still need to learn. I'm sure as long as I do my best and put my trust
in the Lord I can't do too bad of a job though, so it should be fine. 
Saturday
we stopped by Ali and read a chapter of the Book of Mormon with him and
he loved it and told us he was super excited to go to stake conference
the next day. Then, while we were out tracting I stepped up to a door
and knocked on it. As I stepped away I noticed a spider moving around up
above me. I kept an eye on him to make sure he didn't try anything
funny, and after a little while he stopped moving. I stepped forward to
ring the doorbell and as I passed under the spider it lunged off the
ceiling and repelled down towards my head! I jumped out of the way just
in the nick of time and stared at the creature dangling in front of me
for a little while. Since then I've been checking all of the doorways
for spiders before we knock, lest one takes me by surprise and comes
down on top of me. You might say that's pretty paraniod of me, but
that's actually the second time I've had a narrow miss with a spider who
spiderwebbed down way too close to my face, so it's not an irrational
fear, it's a reality.
On Sunday
we went to stake conference and it was super good. One big thing that
stood out to me was when the 1st councillor in the Stake Presidency
mentioned the value of re-reading/re-listening to things because
different stuff sticks out to you and you'll see stuff you might have
missed the first time. I thought that tied in really well with President
Nelson's last message from general conference. In response to his
committment at to study the messages of the conference
frequently/repeatedly over the next six months I've started listening to
a talk and reading along each night before I go to bed. As I listen
I've been especially looking for the times when they gave us specific
invitations to act. I highly recommend giving it a try, it's made the
conference a lot more real to me and I have noticed a diffence in my
life as I've focused on not only listening to the words of our living
prophets, but actually going out and putting them to use.
I
know that this is the Lord's work and I know that he's going to keep
helping me as I try to further it more this transfer (Oh, to answer your
question from last week, no we don't get to pick if we get tranfered or
not, and this time around I get to stay here for another one). I love
you guys!
-Elder Clark
Pictures:
The
first two pictures are of our zone at district meeting and at a
breakfast we had with President and Sister Golden. Three transfers ago
our zone got 39 new investigators in the transfer, so we set a zone goal
to really step it up and get 50 investigators. We got 54 the next
transfer and the zone leaders made us breakfast to celebrate. The next
transfer President Golden told us if we could beat it the next transfer
breakfast would be on them at the mission home, and we tied it at 54
again. They said the offer still stood for this transfer and we swept it
with I think 68 new investigators, so that's why we had breakfast
there. The next one is a door mat I saw. Elder Durtschi didn't think I'm
very funny, but I thought it was clever. The last one was my dinner on Wednesday,
because I had cheese and crackers and it made me super happy. it's
probably because I'm super childish, but it was one of my favorite meals
on my mission to date.
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