Christmas2018

Hello! I hope you had a happy Christmas! Ours was pretty good. We delivered some cookies we had made on Christmas eve, and we had dinner with our ward mission leader. 

After Christmas the week was pretty much back to normal. We were able to teach Julian on Wednesday and on Thursday, and he told us that his plans had changed and instead of moving at the end of January he was going to move that Saturday, and he was moving outside of our mission. So we told Julian that if he could do a lesson the next day we could bring the missionaries who are in the ward he is moving to. After we left we got right to work setting up a pass off lesson. It was short notice, but after much prayer and a good amount of phone calls we were able to get everything all good to go. The missionaries we passed him to are great, and the lesson went really well. They even brought their bishop so Julian could meet him right from the get go, so that was pretty neat! I'm going to miss teaching Julian, he's definitely the most enthusiastic person I've taught in the mission. But, I know he's in good hands, and he's definitely going to make it to baptism.

We finished off the week with a lesson with Grace and her kids. It went really well, they are such a great family! Then, after the lesson Grace was talking about how she was pretty behind on making these moccasins that she sells online, and how her least favorite part was tracing the patterns onto the leather to cut out. So, we decided that once we came in for the night we were going to ask her if we could take some of the patterns up to our apartment, trace them onto the leather, and bring them back down in the morning. So, we spent our evening before we went to bed doing that, and she was super thankful. It's a real blessing to be able to serve. :)

And, that is how our week went! Happy New Years! 

Elder Clark

Pictures: 

•Tag for a shirt Elder Wagley got for Christmas'

•Another new fruit. It tastes kind of like an apple, but I didn't like it very much. We also ate cactus. I didn't like that too much either.

•One of the traced moccasin patterns

•A plan of salvation visual I drew up this week.

Happy Birthday

Hello! Thanks so much for the birthday package, it was perfect. The cake in a cup things are awesome, because that way my companion and I don't eat a whole cake in a week. The CD is great, it was just a good birthday gift. :) Thanks so much for all you do to support, I love you guys so much!

It sounds like you guys had a very good week! I'm glad to hear that David is doing well. If being bored is the biggest thing he's complaining about that's pretty good. 

This week was quite nice, I was still recovering from being sick at the beginning of it, so I spent a good amount of time reading the Book of Mormon and sleeping. But, by Wednesday we were right back to it, so it's all good!

Wednesday we went to an apartment complex on the edge of our area. The first person we talked to was a woman walking to her car, and she turned out to be the apartment manager. We were thinking she was going to kick us out because it was a gated complex and we had sort of snuck our way into there. But then she told us that we were welcome to go around and do our thing, she herself just wasn't very interested in talking to us. From there we talked to a few people who didn't speak any English, then came across a young boy wearing a Black Panther jacket. We asked him if his parents were home, and he told us his grandma was, but she didn't speak English. We asked him if he knew any of his neighbors who did speak English, and he pointed out all of the apartments on the building he lived in who could speak English. We thanked him and started knocking on all those doors and were able to have some pretty good conversations, then we moved on to the next building. As we knocked on the door, I heard something behind us, so I turned around and saw the same kid hiding behind a bush. As we went to the next apartment he went along behind us darting from cover to cover so we wouldn't see him. He continued to do this throughout the time we were at the apartment complex, sometimes making high pitched noises from his hiding places. It was pretty funny, but not very helpful as far as teaching people, so we decided to go and try a different apartment complex. On the way out he told us to wait because he was going to grab something. He ran off into a nearby apartment and came out with eucalyptus flavored gum for the two of us, and we went on our way. I think we made a friend, so that's pretty cool. :)

The rest of the week was pretty nice. We have someone we're teaching who's really interested and wants to get baptized, but has troubles commiting to things come, and he came to church for the first time this week! We had a lesson with him on Friday and talked about what baptism is and what he needs to do in order to prepare himself for it, and he seems a lot more committed now that he understands it a little bit better. 

The other cool thing from this week was that we got to teach someone we met about two weeks ago. He isn't really sure about God, and he doesn't really feel like there's anything after this life we're living. But, he does have a little daughter and he feels like his purpose in life is to raise her and help her to grow up right, and since he's heard that members of our church tend to raise their kids with pretty good values he wants to learn about our church so he can be a better parent. It's not exactly a testimony, but it's a good start. :)

And, that was pretty much it! Today we went the mission office and helped sort mail. Since our mission is so small all of the mail goes to the mission office so the zone leaders can pick it up and distribute it from there. So, since missionaries tend to get a lot more packages and letters around Christmas time there is a lot of mail there to pick up. After that we went shopping at another Korean marketplace and got more asian foods. This time we bought spicy ramyen (super yummy), cola flavored chips (not so yummy), and milk candies (pretty weird, but also pretty tasty), as well as some bamboo chopsticks, so that was fun, and now we're just relaxing a little bit at the apartment because we finished everything we need to get done today. So that's pretty much our week! Thanks again for the birthday wishes, hope you all have a great day!

Elder Clark

Pictures:

1. Our Asian foods

2. The seal of authenticity

3. A section of wall that got totally obliterated. I guess any street's a through street if you're going fast enough.

the biggest nutcracker collection one I've ever seen

Hi there! I'm glad David is doing better, still sending lots of prayers his way. 

This week was pretty good overall. It rained some more, so that was great. Then I got pretty sick Friday and it's been kind of rough since then. We did have a pretty awesome miracle Sunday though. In the morning I decided to tough it out and go to church. It was alright, but by the time it was done I was feeling pretty crummy. We had an appointment set up with someone we met on Thursday though, so we hopped on our bikes and peddaled on over. I admit I had a bad attitude at first and I was hoping the lesson wouldn't happen at first so I could go back to our apartment and nap. But then on the ride over there I realized that if that was when the Lord needed me to reach out to that person that I should be grateful and ready for Him to use me when and how He wants to. I still felt sick, but I I was a lot happier to be going to the lesson, and it went really well! We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and she loved it! She wants to be with her family forever, and she was exited to read the Book of Mormon and meet with us again next weekend. She's so cool, it was definitely the highlight of the week.

That's mostly our week! We also had dinner with someone in the ward, and they have the biggest nutcracker collection one I've ever seen. I took a bunch of pictures, it was pretty neat.

Love you so much! Also, if you're able I was listening to an album called Finding Christmas by Gentri on exchanges the other day, and its basically the best. So if you could find the mp3 for that it would be cool, but don't let it stress you out or anything. I can certainly do quite all right without it! :) Have a good week! Best of luck with the 3rd graders next week!

Elder Clark

Thanksgiving 11/28/18

We had a great week here, we started out with Zone conference on Wednesday, so that was nice. They had two people from the mission department at Salt Lake come and talk to us about setting goals and making plans, and it was a really good training, I feel like I learned a lot. Then we went out and got to work. We met a couple cool people that night and the next day. It was a hard couple of days at the start of the week, but then I had a really good study after Thanksgiving dinner, and it's been really great since then! Always remember to read your scriptures, you'll feel happier, I promise! 

Unfortunately I left my journal at our apartment, so I can't remember too much of what we did. We were able to teach some really cool people for the first time this week though! The first one is Alex, we knocked on his door at about 8:50 one night and his dad answered and told us that he's really been wanting to have someone talk to his son about God, so he invited us in, and we were able to sit down with Alex and teach him the whole restoration! He's a super cool kid, he's kind of quiet, but really smart and understood the message we shared really well!

Then last night we were able to teach these two people Elder Vaivai and I met a while back. We taught them most of the restoration, and they said it was so cool to know that God had called 12 apostles and a prophet today just like in ancient times! So we said, "Yeah, it is super cool!" Then we taught them about the Book of Mormon and set up an appointment for next Sunday, it's super great.

We had a pretty traditional Thanksgiving dinner at our ward mission leader's house, so that was great. And that's pretty much it! Happy Thanksgiving, I love you all!

Elder Clark

Rainy Days 12/3/18

I was trying to get the pictures from the rainy day attached, but they aren't working. I wrote an email though:

We had a good week here! We've been meeting a lot of people who seem interested when we talk to them and set up a time for us to come back, then don't answer the door when we come back. But, in the midst of all those we had a few lessons that happened and they were all super good lessons! My favorite one was with a guy we met Friday night. We were knocking on doors in one area, and hardly anyone spoke any English. Most of them were Vietnamese, so I couldn't even fake it with the little bit of Spanish that I know. Out of the whole night, we had one person who very briefly told us he was busy that day, but that we could come by the next day at five to share our message with him. So the next day we went back and knocked on his door. It started out the same way as all the other lessons from that week. We knocked, his wife answered and told us that he wasn't home. But then as we were walking away he pulled up in his car and told us he just had to run in and drop some stuff off and he'd come out and talk to us. He came out a couple minutes later holding his Bible and something to write with, which concerned me a little bit because I had almost exactly the same situation happen with a different guy a while back and the person sat down and tried to argue with us for the entire lesson. But blessings happened, and that was not the case this time! He was so cool! He listened to the whole thing, he asked great questions, he marked the scriptures we shared with him in his Bible, and he told us that everything we shared with him made a lot of sense! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd like to talk to us again next week! It was superb, definitely the highlight of my week.

In other news, it rained a bunch on Thursday, so that was super fun! We haven't seen a real rainstorm like that since last year. Then today, Elder Wagley, Elder Vaivai, Elder Strongo and I went to the dollar tree and bought some super cheap Christmas decorations. So now we have a tiny tree we decorated on our table and a couple other little things we still need to set up. 'Twas a fine time! Loving the work and loving life, it's a fine time to be a missionary.

Bye til next time!

-Elder Clark

Pictures:

They had Spikeball for $4.99 at the grocery store, so I bought myself an early Christmas present. It's under the tree here, but I probably won't wait til Christmas to open it.