Baptism

I don't have a bunch of time today, but this week was so good! Gina and Zoila got baptized on Saturday!! They're so cool, and the baptism was just the best. Their dad, who has been getting back into the church was sitting there crying after they got baptized, and it was just so cool to see him feeling the spirit and happy. :) 

Then, we had a lesson with Grace, who's the next one who's getting baptized. She's so cool, every week she tells us something new she did to follow Christ, and it always blows us away. This time around we asked her where she's been reading, and she told us she is all the way in Alma 8. She's just so ready to follow Christ, and it's awesome to see how much faith she already has. :)

Elder Vaivai and I went to drop a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, and while we were there we discovered that Goodwill had a bunch of really nice, good looking ties that ranged in price from $1.50-3. So we bought quite a few of them. I got eight for a little less than 20$. I'm pretty satisfied, done splurging for a while.

That's all I've got for now! Love you!

-Elder Clark

Picture from the baptism!

The Lord has blessed us

Hello! We are having a stellar time here in the Anaheim 3rd and 8th ward. We can barely even keep up with all of the work the Lord has blessed us with. On Wednesday we literally had four lessons in three hours, it was crazy! But more on that later. 

So, to start out the week I went on an exchange with Elder Israelsen who just came to the mission. He's from Chicago, and he, believe it or not was captain of his high school's ultimate frisbee team! Needless to say, we hit it off right away, and had a great day of missionary work too! He's currently working in the Anaheim 2nd ward, which is where I spent the first 3 weeks of my mission. It was pretty fun to go back there now that I sort of know what I'm doing a little bit better.  We met taught a pretty cool woman in the morning and spent some time contacting at the college. We met quite a few people who were really cool, and it was nice to spend a whole day just talking to and meeting new people, we don't have a lot of time to do that with all of the people we've been teaching, which is an okay problem to be having, I'm not complaining or anything. ;) 

More adventures started when I got back to our area. Elder Vaivai told me they had gotten a call from the Huntington Beach missionaries that they were apparently teaching someone named Rod who was working towards getting baptized in his friend's ward, but actually lives in our area. So, they wanted us to drive down way outside our mission almost to the beach and have a pass off lesson so they could introduce him to us. We figured that President Golden would tell us we couldn't do it because it was so far out there, but we called him up and asked, and he told us we should definitely go and do it. Which was great! Except, like I mentioned at the top of my email, we had three lessons already scheduled that night and there was no possible way we could cover them all on our own, so we ended up having to call up our zone leaders and split with them so that we could make it to everything. It was crazy, but we were able to make it all work out. So, out of nowhere we were given another person who's working towards baptism! So many blessings! And all these people are totally just being given to us by the Lord, we're just instruments in His hands to help and guide them along.

Then, behold and lo, Friday morning we recieved a referral for Julian who had been on one of the churche's chat rooms with other missionaries and learning about the church. We sent him a text and talked to him a little over the phone, then we asked him if we could meet the very next day because he seemed so excited to talk to us. Then, get this, he asked us if we could meet that night instead! As in less than 12 hours after we first texted him!! We went over and taught him the Plan of Salvation in his front yard, and he told us he wants to get baptized! He's pretty much the coolest, every time he asked a question about the lesson instead of saying, "So what do you guys believe about...?" Julian would say "So we believe that...?" Then our answers just made him even more excited! 

Then, to cap the whole week off, Jeff, the returning member who came to church last week with his daughter Carissa came to church again, and we were able to meet with them later that night and they set a firm baptismal date too! It's unbelievable, I never thought a missionary would ever be this busy in the middle of Southern California, but Heavenly Father has blessed us with so many people who are so ready to make changes in their lives to follow Him! I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to play a part in these people's lives, and I'm super grateful that he's given me such an awesome companion to work with while we're in the midst of all this craziness! Elder Vaivai's the best, I don't think I talk about how awesome he is often enough.

Anyways, I think I've blabbed on enough. I hope you all have an awesome week, I know I sure will!

-Elder Clark

Pictures:

I have more, but this is all that will load, so it's what you get.

1. Elder Vaivai and I

2. A visual I drew up for a lesson

3. I think you're supposed to put a bomb here. 

Carpet 10/16/2019

I got the package today actually, so it showed up pretty fast. Thank you much! I was super excited when I saw something in a mason jar, homemade jam/juice/other fruit stuff is always the best. 😄 I did have a request this week. Our mission president reminded us we should only be listening to music that is legally obtained, so I deleted mostly everything from my USB because I had just taken it from other missionaries. I got quite a bit off of lds.org, but that's all we have access to on our devices so I was wondering if you could look at the website for the Tabernacle Choir and see if they have any music that's free to download on there you can send me. I feel like they'd have at least some, their website just isn't on our approved list. If you can't figure it out, don't worry about it. We can always just listen to the conference talks while we're in the car. :)

I'm finally mostly caught up in my journal, so I actually remember what to write about this week.

First, we got a notice that our carpets were going to be professionally cleaned. Which meant we had to move all of the furniture and everything off of the carpet. We don't have a lot of hard surface flooring, but after dissembling our beds and putting our bikes out our window onto the decorative patio thing, we were able to make it work... and we also got a notice from the leasing office the next day that we were not supposed to put anything onto the decorative patio thing. But, we saw it after the carpets were cleaned, so it's all good. We talked about how it was going to be a great opportunity to rearrange our furniture, then when it was time to put everything where it went we discussed for a while, then put everything exactly where it was except for one lamp. Change is hard sometimes. 😉

On Friday it rained! And there was thunder and lightning and everything! It was the first time I've seen lightning since I came to California, and the first time it's really rained since like, January. That night we also had a really cool contact with a woman named Ana. We knocked on her door, and she said she was super busy and couldn't talk to us. So we asked if there was anything we could do to help her out, and she asked us if we could go and pick up a cake because it was her boyfriend's birthday and she was running late on getting ready. So we ran over to the grocery store and bought a cake! It was really fun, and afterwards we set up a time to come visit this Sunday! She's really cool, we're super excited.

Then, to finish out the week a less active member we'd been working with and his daughter finally came to church, so that was really neat. I was happy.

And, that just about wraps it up! Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

-Elder Clark

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Wow Conference

Got the tablet back! Our maintenance guy knocked on our door during personal study on Tuesday and said, "Is this yours?" He's my favorite person now, I gave him many thanks. 

Conference was great though! And all our people that watched said it sounded like they were talking right to them, we're so blessed to have the opportunity to listen to God's words so frequently. We didn't watch the Woman's conference, but I am planning on listening to it in the evening later. I'm super excited to hear Dannika's been reading the Book of Mormon. The Gospel really is such a big deal, it changes lives more than anything else out there, and it is the only thing that can bring us true, lasting joy.

The people we're teaching are all super awesome right now. We had three lessons scheduled on Tuesday and all three of them actually happened! They're just the best, we're seeing very obvious changes in their lives as they start living the Gospel and it's so cool. 

Today we found out that our trio life was short lived. One of the Elders in another zone went home, so Elder Tua'tonga is going over there to be with his companion. So, we haven't had much time today for emails. But, I'm doing great out here. Conference was great, the mission is great, everything is just great.

I love you all!

-Elder Clark

Lost and found

Hello! Lots has happened this week! First off, the family that came to the English ward the last couple of weeks set a date to be baptized! And they are inviting a bunch if family to come and be at the baptism, so they're really committed to it. They're such an awesome family, we're really excited for them. 😊 Then, a few days later, another person we're teaching in the Samoan ward also set a baptismal date! We showed him a video of the Savior being baptized, then at the end we asked him how he felt, and you know what he said? "It makes me feel like I want to get baptized." He's so ready to take this next step towards Christ!

Then, in other news, transfers came. Elder Vaivai and I are still in the same wards, but the English ward used to be split in half with another set of Elders, and now we are covering both half and we're in a trio! Our new companion is Elder Tu'atonga, and he is also from the islands. That's 4 Polynesian companions in a row! Definitely not what I was expecting when I got called to California, it's pretty neat. 😃

We also had a Vietnamese person give us another dragonfruit! I was asking him about how he grew them to start a conversation, and he didn't really understand what I was saying. Then he said the ones on the vine weren't ripe, and he walked inside and grabbed one from his fridge to give to us! They're super yummy, it's texture is like a kiwi, but the taste is more tart. They're really delicious if you sprinkle them with a little sugar. There's a lot of Vietnamese people here in Garden Grove. They are always super nice, they're just super bad at speaking English, and I'm even worse at speaking Vietnamese. So, our conversations never go anywhere. 

Then today we had more adventures. I finally went and bought brown shoes. I also bought two pairs of slacks because I ripped a pair and a belt that matched the shoes, which came out to about 90$. It's crazy how fast that stuff adds up, the prices were super good on everything, but it still came out to be a lot. But anyways, we got back and realized I left my tablet in the laundry room at our apartment, so we rushed back to look for it, but it seems pretty gone. So we're going to wait a few days and see if it shows up at the leading office, but if it doesn't I might have to buy a replacement device. I'll let you know. It's unfortunate, but the rest of the week was so good it's be a shame to let one bad thing ruin it! So yeah, I'm excited for our people, and I'm excited for conference! It's a good time to be a missionary here, I'm really enjoying it. 😃

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Let me know what you need. Tablets are spendy but who knows maybe it will show up. 

Yeah, we'll probably give it about a week and then see about getting a replacement. I think since all the new missionaries come in with smart phones instead of tablets now I'll end up with one of those. Which is too bad because I like the tablet, but at least I'll be up to date with what all the kids have these days. 😉

Love ya.