Coming Home!

Hey friends and family! Just thought I'd let you all know since I don't ever say much about going home in these emails, but I am in fact going to go home next Tuesday, the 27th of August, and I will be speaking in my home ward at 150 S 100 E, Richmond, UT on September 8th. Our church starts at noon, I'd love to see you all there!

Whew, now that we have that out of the way, let's get to how the week went! It was pretty solid Monday thru Friday, we had a good amount of time to go out and talk to people, and we got to have a lot of good conversations come from it. We found someone from India who let us teach him the restoration, we talked to two different people who had just moved here from Spanish countries, and we were able to talk with them and invite them to hear our message from missionaries who actually know how to speak Spanish. Then, on Friday we went to a gigantic apartment complex in the middle of Downtown Fullerton. We got there right as someone was walking in, so we went through the open door and went all the way up to the top floor and started knocking. We got about halfway done with the doors on that floor when the manager came up to us with a big, scary looking security guard and told us we couldn't go door to door in there. We said okay and started talking to them on the way out, and they were actually really nice people! We probably had a better conversation with them than anyone we talked to when we were knocking doors in the complex. 😆

Well, looks like I'm out of time. I love you all! 

Elder Clark

Pictures from MLC this week and from our visit with Elder Curtis last week!

8/6

Wow, sounds like lots of adventures for you guys. You cannot do bowties on the mission. The goal is to not wear anything that distracts from the message. One way I heard someone say it is if they look at your tie before they look at your nametag, you should probably wear a different tie. That was a good call to have Brother T drop off the stuff at Grandma and Grandpa's, I'm guessing they were a lot less out of the way. He said he enjoyed talking to them. He was telling me that throughout the whole thing Grandpa was offering him BYU merchandise and Grandma was telling Grandpa that he doesn't want all of that, so he definitely went to the right house. ;) 

This week was really good for us. We got to teach two more people from the football team this week. We went over to visit Najee, the one from last week, and he told us he had to run a few errands. So we started talking to his roommates, Khadafhi and Tony, and we ended up sitting down and teaching them the restoration! When we finished up we walked back outside and as we were about to leave the complex Najee was walking back in and asked if we still had time to do a lesson. So we turned around and went right back into the apartment and read a chapter from the Book of Mormon. It was really cool. They're all super sincere and it's just awesome to help them to learn about the Gospel. :) 

I think that was pretty much our week. Love you lots!

Elder Clark

Pools and adventures

Hi there! We had a really exciting week this week. I'll just jump right into it. on Tuesday we stopped by someone named Corbin, and he and his friend both let us teach them! It was really cool, they had a lot of great lessons. We taught about Jesus Christ and His church and were about to teach about the great apostasy, then Corbin asked, "Wait, so if you believe you're Jesus Christ's church, what happened to your church between Jesus Christ's time and now?" It was pretty perfect, we were excited. 

Later, we were able to teach one of the people from the football team we met last week. He was really sincere and liked the message a lot. He opened up about some of the struggles he's been having with moving to the new school and everything, and we were able to read some scriptures from the Book of Mormon with him. It was so cool to see him finding peace from the Book of Mormon, he told us he's definitely going to be reading more on his own. 

Then on Saturday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Vaivai, and we met a lot of interesting people. We had one super cool guy who we met as he was getting off of the bus, and we were able to sit down with him on a nearby bench and talked to him about the Book of Mormon. It went really well, he's pretty cool. Then we went around the corner and started knocking on doors in a complex over there. The very first person we talked to let us in! We were excited... until we realized that he had been using a fair amount of Marajuana and was not in a state of mind to recieve the gospel. He beckoned to a table completely covered in stuff and said "Go ahead, sit down." We didn't sit down, but instead offered to share a scripture. He declined and offered to watch TV with us. We declined and began laboring to excuse ourselves from the situation as quickly as we could. It was quite an adventure. 

Finally, we finished out the week by going to the baptism of someone in the ward who the sisters have been teaching named Daisy. The baptism service started with a really nice talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost, then they announced that they were going to proceed with the ordinance. Daisy went her way, the person performing the ordinance went the other way, and the two witnesses opened up the divider to the baptism font. It was completely empty. No water at all! The drain hadn't sealed properly, and all the water had emptied out. So, they started playing some interlude music and the bishop and his counselors discussed for a minute, then they decided that rather than waiting 2ish hours for the font to refill, we would drive 10 minutes to Bishop's house and do the baptism in the swimming pool. So we all hopped in our cars and drove over there to finish the baptismal service. It was a beautiful ordinance, and the spirit was very strong. After the baptism Daisy bore a beautiful testimony and we sang I Believe in Christ while we were all gathered around the pool. As we finished up, I thought about the scripture in Mosiah 18:30, after Alma's followers were baptized in the waters of Mormon. Mormon talks a little bit about the place where they were baptized, "Yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever." I don't think any of us are going to forget how we felt gathered around that little swimming pool in the bishop's backyard, and I am grateful that I had the chance come to a little greater knowledge of my Redeemer so that I can sing to His praise forever. This gospel is true. This work is the Savior's work. I know that as we follow Him we will always be blessed. 

Have a great week this week!

Elder Clark

7/22

Hello, thanks for the update. It's good to hear Jessica's back at church, that's awesome. I'll keep praying for Norm and his family. 

We had a lot of the usual start of transfer business this week. A couple meetings, driving some people around and that sort of stuff. But, we had some good stuff happen with one of the people we are teaching named Alex. He said he likes listening to us, he just has a hard time remembering to read and stuff when we aren't around. So, this week we decided to try to have a lot more contact with him to try to help him out. We went with him to a ward activity on Monday, taught him a lesson on Tuesday, took him to institute on Wednesday, and taught him again on Friday. He works on the weekends though, which makes church a hard thing for him. 

Aside from that we had one of the main people we're teaching get a new job where he works seven days a week. He still likes the church and wants to get baptized, but he's a lot harder to meet with now. Then the other solid person we were teaching just up and moved out on us! We taught him one day, then came back a few days later and his apartment was empty with a "For Lease" sign outside. So that was a bit of a bummer. But, the work continues, and we did find a couple of neat people to follow up with this. We were finding at a complex near the college and there was a group of guys from the football team and a couple of girls with them. Elder Del'pontone asked if we could share a video about Jesus Christ, and right away one girl said no. But, another guy said he'd watch it, and his friend came over as well. We got talking to them after the video a bit about what we do and about the Book of Mormon, and they were really excited to learn more.

Well, outta time. I love you!

Pictures:

Stairs to nowhere

Park that is prejudiced against golfers

Elder Del'Pontone putting tortillas in the toaster

Probably the tightest parallel park you'll ever see. We had less than 6 inches total between us and the other cars. When the Lord needs you to park, you park. 

7/17

This week went well! It was a pretty hectic first week of the transfer, but we had a lot of good stuff happen too. There was a really cool little miracle on the first day after we transfered. We dropped all of the stuff off in our apartment and drove a missionary companionship on bike to their area, and when we got back all we had time to do was eat dinner and go out to talk to people. We decided to just walk down the street from our apartment and talk to people in the neighborhood down there. We had some really good conversations on the way down, including a woman who we talked to while she was sitting outside who wanted to have a tour of the chapel. After we finished talking to her we asked if she knew anyone who we could talk to. She told us that she hears the people upstairs yell a lot, so we should go talk to them. I've gotten similar referrals to that before, and usually the person is not very excited to talk to us. But, we went up and gave it a try, and he was super interested in our message! He invited us in right away and told us he's been having a lot of questions about God lately and he'd love to hear what we had to say. He asked us a lot of really good questions, and we were able to answer a lot of them and most importantly, teach him about the Book of Mormon. He was so excited to start reading it and by the next day when we followed up he had already read the first 60 pages or so! He's such a sincere guy, and he really is going to grow a lot by having the gospel in his life. 

We had another awesome miracle at the end of the week while we were knocking doors in a really big apartment complex by the college. We knocked into a man named Ferris and he told us he was busy but asked if we could come back the next day. We came back and he told us he had just started learning about God and was excited to keep learning more. The member we brought to the lesson invited him to a ward activity the next day and church the day after, so after meeting him on Thursday, we taught him Friday saw him at the activity on Saturday, and sat by him at church on Sunday. It was really awesome, he's super prepared to hear our message. 

That's pretty much our week! I love you all!

Elder Clark

6/17

 It was a pretty hectic first week of the transfer, but we had a lot of good stuff happen too. There was a really cool little miracle on the first day after we transfered. We dropped all of the stuff off in our apartment and drove a missionary companionship on bike to their area, and when we got back all we had time to do was eat dinner and go out to talk to people. We decided to just walk down the street from our apartment and talk to people in the neighborhood down there. We had some really good conversations on the way down, including a woman who we talked to while she was sitting outside who wanted to have a tour of the chapel. After we finished talking to her we asked if she knew anyone who we could talk to. She told us that she hears the people upstairs yell a lot, so we should go talk to them. I've gotten similar referrals to that before, and usually the person is not very excited to talk to us. But, we went up and gave it a try, and he was super interested in our message! He invited us in right away and told us he's been having a lot of questions about God lately and he'd love to hear what we had to say. He asked us a lot of really good questions, and we were able to answer a lot of them and most importantly, teach him about the Book of Mormon. He was so excited to start reading it and by the next day when we followed up he had already read the first 60 pages or so! He's such a sincere guy, and he really is going to grow a lot by having the gospel in his life. 

We had another awesome miracle at the end of the week while we were knocking doors in a really big apartment complex by the college. We knocked into a man named Ferris and he told us he was busy but asked if we could come back the next day. We came back and he told us he had just started learning about God and was excited to keep learning more. The member we brought to the lesson invited him to a ward activity the next day and church the day after, so after meeting him on Thursday, we taught him Friday saw him at the activity on Saturday, and sat by him at church on Sunday. It was really awesome, he's super prepared to hear our message. 

That's pretty much our week! I love you all!

Elder Clark

6/24

We had an extremely busy week this week, even more so than every other week when I say it was busy.  We had zone conference on Thursday, and the way they stuctured it this time had us teaching a workshop about sharing scriptures and teaching simply so that people understand. We were really busy with meetings and teaching people for the first week and a half, so we did most of our preparation for the workshop Wednesday. We got a lot done in the afternoon, but we had to go out before we finished, so we went to the Fullerton Junior college and talked to some people on the sidewalks by the college, then went to an institute class at a different college. After the class we had a coordination meeting with our ward mission leader, so we got back from all that at a little after 9 and kept working on our zone conference planning. It was like all of the projects I did last minute in high school, except this time around we were actually busy with a bunch of stuff, I wasn't just lazy. The training went really well though, aside from the slideshow we made not working for the first group that went through our workshop.

Then after zone conference on Thursday we went on an exchange on Friday and an exchange on Saturday, so those were both really good. We met quite a few really awesome people this week who we sent off to family wards, so that was neat. One in particular was a really neat experience. We were driving and Elder Del'Pontone pointed down a road and said there was someone down there who we should visit. So we turned around and parked the car to follow up on the spiritual prompting. The person he had thought of wasn't home, but we stayed in the area and knocked on a few doors, and we met a woman who had recently moved to the area. She's met with missionaries before and liked it, so we asked if we could come by and she said she'd like that a lot!

Other than that, the really neat person we met last week was in New York all week, so we called him once, but that's about it. He's excited to meet with us this week though, so that should be really good!

A little thought before I go. In the institute class we went to we talked about the signs of the second coming of the Savior. One person made a very profound comment that I thought I would share. We were talking about what it means when Christ tells the apostles to "Stand in the Holy Place" when they see the signs of His coming, and somebody said that we'll never have to get ready for Him to come if we always stay ready for him to come. We can't be hanging out in Babylon until we see him on his way and hurry and try to clean everything up. We need to have a repentance attitude and seek the Lord's forgiveness and mercy every single day. Don't ever forget to repent!

Love you guys!

Elder Clark

7/1

I don't have a lot of time again, but this week was great! Ferris came back from his trip to New York, and we we're able to teach him three times, and he came to church, and to an institute class that was all about the first vision! He also told us he believes that Jesus is His Savior and Joseph Smith is a prophet without us even asking him about it, he's a pretty amazing guy! He's got a couple hurdles to work through in order to make it to baptism, but man is he prepared to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Other than that we're just working hard and talking to everyone we can. I love my Savior and I love this gospel! Make This week a great one!

Elder Clark

7/8

Our week went well, the California Anaheim mission and the California Long Beach mission are officially combined into one mission. Transfers have not happened as of yet though, so things haven't changed much yet. We did have a big combined MLC with all of us together though, so that was pretty exciting. Two missionaries who I had a pass off lesson with back in A3 were there, so it was cool to see them again. We got to talk about how to help the two missions merge as smoothly as possible, and it's really exciting. We have different strengths throughout the two missions, and I think with the merge we'll be able to learn a lot from each other.

We also had two earthquakes this last week. They were really big, but far enough away from us that they didn't hurt anyone. We definitely felt them though, they were pretty hard to miss. The second one probably lasted between 45 seconds and a minute, which is quite a while for the earth to be shaking. We did get to have a pretty good conversation because of it, it happened as we were talking to someone outside their house, and she told us to get under her doorway 'cuz that's what you're supposed to do. Then we got to talk with her for quite a while after that, and she ended up saying that she and her boyfriend should have us over for dinner so we can share a little more sometime, so it was pretty cool!

One other wild adventure from this week, then I probably have to go. I was on exchanges on Wednesday with an elder named Elder Feldman, and we had district council. We decided that after we finished planning we would go over to the church building and do our personal study there so we weren't late. It was a good thing we did, because otherwise we would have been suuuuper late. We walked outside, and I opened the back door of our car to hang up my suitcoat because I don't usually wear it while I'm driving. Then, lo and behold where I wanted my suitcoat to be hanging there was a gigantic, circular spiderweb that had been spun overnight. The architect of which was nowhere in sight. Elder Feldman and I looked around for a bit and brainstormed what to do. We decided we weren't adequately equipped, so we went back into the apartment to see what we had available to us. After poking around a bit we found a nearly empty can of raid and a couple of tennis racquets. So we ventured back out with raid in one hand and tennis racquet in the other. We opened all the doors and decided I would spray a little raid on the web to see if we could draw the spider out. So I gave it a little spurt and a gigantic, striped monstrosity crawled out from behind the handle above the door. A tremendous battle ensued from which we we're gratefully able to emerge victorious. So, we ended up showing up just in time for district council without any time at all for personal study. It was quite an adventure.

Well, gotta go! Love you all, make sure to make this week a good one!

Elder Clark

June 3

Hello! That's exciting for David and Rachel. Good to hear things are going well. It was a little cooler this weekend, but this week it's supposed to be up around the 80s. I probably won't call on Sunday, but I'll make sure to call Monday to wish Ammon a happy birthday. 

The family we teach on Mondays is doing really well. This last week we taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was a very spirit led lesson. We asked them if they would be baptised as they came to know that what we shared is true, and they said yes! We were able to set up a tour of the chapel for this next Sunday, so we're really excited. 

On Wednesday we planned in the morning to go to a park in our area and talk to people there. When we drove over in the evening we discovered that there was a high school graduation going on right next door and some of the roads were closed. We realized too late that the traffic in the area was an absolute disaster, so we spent the first hour of proselyting time in the evening trying to escape. It was a pretty wild experience. 

We had some other great teaching appointments and a lot of exchanges, but I am out of time to write, so I'll leave it at that. Remember to read the Book of Mormon every day! It makes a big difference, I promise!

-Elder Clark

May 27 2019

Oh, there's one other funny thing that happened this week that I forgot to say in the call. So we ran into a woman who was deaf and knew ASL, so we called the ASL sisters who work in our area. They didn't answer, but instead of their voicemail playing when the call ended like normal, it told us to enter our password like it does when we are checking or changing our voicemail. With the mission phones, the password for the voicemail is almost always the last four digits of our phone number, so I tried entering in the last four from their phone, and it let us in. So, Elder Vaivai and I decided it would be super funny to try changing the voicemail to something, so we changed it to say we were the missionaries in the branch instead of them. Then we called again and it actually worked! They were so confused, it was super funny. 

I got a paper today that's titled "Info Request for Travel Arrangements" 😓 It says my scheduled departure date is August 27th and I'm supposed to check with you to make sure there isn't a conflict with that day. It feels super weird how close that's getting. It doesn't feel like that long ago that I was one of the newer missionaries out here, and now basically everyone out here hasn't been here as long as I have. It's alright though, we'll just keep on working as hard as we can. 👍🏻 Here's the group email I'm sending:

Hello! We had a very good week this week! I'll go ahead and get to it. 

On Monday, we were able to teach Manny, and he told us that he had brought the Book of Mormon with him to the DMV to make sure that he had the chance to read it. It was super cool, he's such an awesome guy, we just need to get him and his family to come to church and things are going to be good. 

Tuesday I was in the next ward over for a little bit because one of the companions is still unable to go out. We were driving to a contact there and looking for a place to park, when suddenly a rooster walked out into the middle of the road. I hit the brakes so as not to hit him, and he kind of stared us down for a while. As we sat there we cast our eyes around and realized that there was not one, not two, but seven or eight roosters in the surrounding area. We couldn't believe it, normally there aren't any animals at all in our part of California, let alone 8 roosters in one place. 

We also met a bunch of new people who we were able to start teaching this week. Heavenly Father blessed us with a lot of opportunities to share this message, and we were able to find a few people who want to learn more. It's cool to see how He can put us in people's paths right at the time that they are ready to change, it's one of the many things that strengthens my testimony that He is there and that He is mindful of me. 

-Elder Clark

Pictures: 

Selfies after district council and out finding.

Elder Hart opened his fruit rollup, and there were two inside. That's what you call pure happiness.

Breakfast on the last day of the week before we go shopping on P-day when rations are scarce.

May 20

Hey everybody! This week was really busy for us. We have an Elder who's foot is in a boot in the zone, so he can't go out. So when we can we've been doing little exchanges with them so that his companion isn't stuck in the apartment all day. We went out with them on Wednesday, Friday, and a little bit on Sunday. Then in between we went on regular exchanges on Thursday and Saturday. So from the end of the day Tuesday until the evening on Sunday Elder Hart and I were never actually out working together, we were just working with all the other missionaries on exchanges. It was quite an adventure. There was some cool stuff that happened, I got to meet a really cool person they are teaching in the Euclid ward. She is working towards getting baptized, and she had a notebook out and was writing down all kinds of notes during the lesson. She's super solid. Then in the exchange on Thursday I was working in the Spanish area, so I got to talk to a lot of people in Spanish, which was pretty neat. We had one wild lesson where the person was just making jokes the whole time, and also met a lot of really cool people who we had the chance to teach a little bit. 

I'm out of time, so that'll be all this week. I love you guys, have a good week!

May 6 2019

Hello! We've been doing well, we had a very busy week, but it was pretty good. We had a great lesson on Monday, we were hoping to invite them to have a tour of the chapel and then they asked us if they could have one before we even invited them! It was pretty neat, they're an awesome family. Then we had a super cool miracle on Tuesday/Wednesday. We were leaving an apartment complex and there were two people on their way back in. Right away the first of them told us they didn't have time to talk, so we asked if we could come by at a different time. The first guy said no, but his friend behind him said we could come by tomorrow if we wanted. The next day we were driving down the same street and we saw him sitting outside by the sidewalk, so we parked the car and went over to talk to him. He seemed like he'd been having a rough day, so we talked to him for a while to figure out where he was coming from. He said he felt like he wasn't on the path God wanted him to be on and wanted to change, and we had an awesome conversation with him. It was a great day. 

That's all I've got for this week! Plus some pictures from service and some other stuff. I should be calling on Sunday for Mother's day, we'll let you know what time. I love you! Have a great week!

Elder Clark

Easter

Our week was wild, we had all kinds of things happen. I don't have a lot of time to write though, so I won't go into too much detail. At the start of the week we had an awesome lesson with Manny and Faye AND their son Kercy. Kercy is about 11, and he just jumped in on our lesson this week. Manny told us Kercy's started asking about us after our last visit with the family, and he's super interested in learning! He's so cool, and he understands things really well even though he's only 11. We gave him his own Book of Mormon and he's really excited to read it!

Thursday was when things got really wild. We got a call from President Golden that one of the missionaries in the Korean ward was pretty sick and he needed us to spend the night with him and his companion, Elder Jeong over at the mission office. We're not sure what was happening, but he really wasn't acting like himself and we ended up needing to stay up most of the night taking care of him. It was crazy, but long story short he's back home now getting his medical things figured out and we are in a trio with Elder Jeong covering the La Habra Ward, the Acacia Park ward, and the Korean branch! So now I've officially served in a Spanish ward, a Samoan ward, English wards, and the Korean branch! It's pretty neat, it's been quite an adventure. We've been super busy, and even though it was sad that the other missionary went home, we're having a lot of fun. Elder Jeong is great, and being in the Korean branch is pretty cool. Elder Jeong is teaching me how to read Korean, so that's pretty neat. 

Anyways, thanks for all you do, and happy Easter! I'll write more next week when things are a little less crazy. I love you!

Elder Clark

April 7

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I wrote because we've just been crazy busy, but things are going great over here! I can't write about everything, so I'll just share two or three of the cooler stories from the week. 

So, last Monday we had a fantastic lesson with Manny and Faye. We've been working with them for a while, and they've been reading the Book of Mormon, but we were thinking it would help them to talk about who God is, how we can communicate with Him, and how we can hear and understand when He speaks back. We just focused the whole lesson on that, and it went extremely well. It was probably the most Spirit led lesson I've had on my mission so far. Everything just flowed really well and they understand what they need to do to grow closer to Jesus Christ now. The Lord was definitely giving us the words we needed to say, because there were parts where I wasn't really sure how to tie things together, but I just said a prayer in my heart and opened my mouth and was able to say exactly what I needed to say. We should be having another lesson with them tonight, so we're excited to talk to them.

We also had a really good experience doing some Sunday finding a week or so ago. We went to an apartment complex, and it was essentially the city of Ammonihah. Aside from one person who gave us some water, every single person we talked to was very unhappy to see us. We got barked at, yelled at, sworn at, and someone even hit me with their screen door, it was pretty crazy. But, the really neat thing was that we never let ourselves get angry or discouraged. Elder Hart pulled out a scripture from the Book of Mormon and said, "Hey, charity suffereth long. That's us right now., we're suffering long." So we just laughed it off and kept going onto the next person. And the next person. And eventually we did the whole complex and went to a different complex that was right next door. It was like night and day, we talked to so many awesome people, sent a referral to the Spanish missionaries, set up an a couple return visits with people, and it was just great all around. I remember being super grateful that we hadn't let ourselves get angry or discouraged, because if we were angry we wouldn't have been able to feel the Spirit and it wouldn't have gone nearly as well. 

It's looking pretty long, but I'll share one more because it was great. So right after the priesthood session on Saturday we went out to try and visit someone Elder Boss and I met a little while back. While walking over there, we saw two people loading a U-Haul, so we walked down to see if we could help out. At first they said they didn't need our help, then one of them named Fabian asked us if all we were doing was wandering around trying to help people out, so we told them that was correct. He considered for a second, then told us we could go and move a dresser for them. They wanted us to move it with all of the clothes and everything in there, so it was quite a chore, but we got it over and into the truck. Once that was loaded up we started to talk to them by the truck. They had a lot of good questions and one of them told us that he had talked to missionaries like us before, but he hadn't liked them as much because they just started preaching to them right away, but he really respected us because the first thing we did was ask if we could help them out. Long story short, we were able to contact the missionaries where Fabian was moving to and they helped us unload the truck over there. They got his information and they are going to go back this week to share more of our message. The whole experience made me think of Elder Uchtdorf's talk from conference where he talked about sharing the restored gospel. Elder Uchtdorf said one of the greatest things we can do to share the gospel is to live it the very best that we can. As we try to follow the Savior's teachings, people will notice the difference, just like Fabian and his friend did. Then, if we pay attention and listen to the Spirit, we will have opportunities to share with them why we do what we do, which is always a big blessing.

That's not all that we did, but I don't want to make this email too much longer, so I'll call it good right there. I hope everyone got some things that they can take home and apply from conference this weekend, I sure did. I know that this really is Jesus Christ's church and I know that those men are called by God to lead it. I hope you all have an awesome week this week!

Elder Clark

Conference 4/15/19

Well, this week was a good one. We started off the week by meeting a really cool person named Victor. We went to his street to visit someone else I had met a few weeks back, and Victor was out in his garage with the door open, so we walked over to talk to him. Near the start of the conversation he told us he believed in God but he had previously had some bad experiences with church and had stopped going to church and let his relationship with God slip. He hadn't gone to church, read the scriptures, or prayed in a while. We had talked to him a little about that and he expressed that he knew it was something he needed to get back to, so we offered to share our message. He said yes, and we we're able to say a prayer with him and teach the restoration. We focused a lot on our relationship with God, that He really is our Father and we are His children, and we talked about why prayer was important in the context of who God is. At the end of the lesson we asked if Victor would be willing to say the closing prayer, and he said yes. Then he said one of most sincere prayers I've ever heard and talked to God about how grateful he was that we came today and how he wanted help as he tries to come closer to God again. It was really special, the Spirit was very strong. 

The other big things from this week happened over the weekend. It started out on Saturday when we had a lesson with Nick. Nick has probably been the most solid person we've been teaching since I got to the area. He loves reading the Book of Mormon and he is starting to get really good at feeling and recognizing it when he feels the Spirit. The biggest thing he's been having a hard time with is just coming to church, so we've been trying to help him with that for a while. Last week though, he came to the stake center to watch the Saturday morning session of general conference. (He didn't tell us he was there, and he actually went into the wrong room where they were showing it in Korean, and rather than texting us he just stayed in there and watched the whole thing in Korean! It had English subtitles, so he just read those and liked it a lot, but it was pretty funny.) We followed up on that in our lesson on Saturday and asked Nick if he was feeling ready to come to church. He said he wanted to come! We had two members at the lesson, and they offered him a ride right then and there and just did a great job of helping him feel welcome. Then, it got even better after the lesson when the member who was giving Nick a ride asked us if it would be okay for him to invite Nick to the baptism happening after church in the YSA ward! We told him that was more than okay, and the next day Nick came to church and to the baptism! He had a great experience at both, he felt the spirit super strong, especially at the baptism, so we think we'll probably be able to help him set up a date to be baptized in our lesson this week.

That's all for now, love you guys!

Elder Clark 

Skate Park

Well, this week has been pretty great. Elder Hart and I just jumped right into it, and it was a blast. Tuesday was pretty wild, we were doing stuff with the truck all day Tuesday until the evening. We had a really good lesson with Santiago, and he has been reading the book of Mromon and liked it a lot! He feels like it's true, so all we have to do now is help him make the connection between the Book of Mormon being true and the restoration happening. So he's making a lot of progress, we're really excited to keep working with him! we also had another lesson with Manny where we read the Book of Mormon with him and he was asking a ton of questions because he just really wanted to understand what the chapter meant. It was pretty cool, he's a very humble guy who has a strong desire to learn, and it's nice to see. We met a couple really cool new people who are really excited to hear about the gospel, I wish I had time to talk about all of them, but there were quite a few and I don't.

We also had a couple fun little experiences this week. We got home on Sunday and Elder Hart wanted to have a peanut butter and banana sandwhich, but we didn't have any bananas. So we walked around to the other side of the complex because there's a set of missionaries working in the next ward over who live in that complex and we were going to ask them for a banana. But, they weren't at home, so we walked down the stairs and there was an open door on the right. Elder Hart just turned the corner and said, "Hey, is there any chance we could have a banana?" The people thought it was really funny, and they did give us a banana, so it was a score there. 

Another thing that was kind of cool this week was we went to a park to try contacting some people there. We started talking to a group of highschool kids at the skatepark, and after a little while we asked them if they wanted to hear a message about Jesus Christ. One of them said he'd be down to do it, and all his friends said they'd listen too! So we went around into the skate park and the next thing we knew we were standing there with a group of 7 or 8 people preaching soapbox style to the whole group of them!! It was super duper fun, I've always wanted to do something like that, and now I have.

We had some other good things happen, but I'm really out of time to write, so we'll call that good for this week. I love you!!

-Elder Clark

Exchanges 3/11

I've kind of procrastinated writing this, so it'll be short. This week we had some good stuff happen, particularly on Sunday afternoon. It's seems like it's a really good time to try to catch people we meet who are a little hard to get in contact with. We just swung by someone who we'd met a little while back and tried to set something up with, and we were able to teach him the restoration. Then we went to an appointment we'd set up with someone else earlier in the week and we had a super cool lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him.

I also went on exchanges with Elder Lillywhite and with Elder Feldman, and they both were really good. With Elder Feldman we went finding at a park with a ton of people to talk to, we had a ton of good conversations and it was a really fun time. 

I have to go, sorry! I'll probably call next week, we should have a little more time later in the day. Love you!

Elder Clark 

Minni miracles

Hey, sorry I didn't get to call sooner. We've been running all over the place today, it's been pretty hectic. On the forth week of the transfer (which is next week) we are usually a lot less busy. So maybe I'll try to make that the time I call. The only problem is all y'all have work and school. So if you think we can make that work that would be cool. If not though email is still cool. I went to the dentist this week. They were going to check our insurance and get back to me. I followed up twice and they're as hard to set up appointments with as the people we're trying to teach. I'll keep working on it though. 

This week went really well, we met quite a few cool people and found two new people. We had a couple cool mini miracles throughout the week. One cool one happened yesterday near the end of the night. We went to an apartment complex with a couple former/member dots who Elder Boss didn't know and started visiting them. We knocked on one of the member doors and met a really awesome family who had not been to church for a good while. One of the daughters in the family had her boyfriend there who isn't a member and we got to know them a bit, shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon, and set up an appointment for next weekend to teach them all. They said missionaries hadn't come to see them since they moved here and were surprised we even got in the gate, but it was wide open when we got there so it was pretty cool.

Sorry again I didn't get to talk more. Let me know if there's a time during the day I could call next week, I'll try to make it work. I love you! Thanks for all that you do!

Zone

-We taught someone named Cecilia the restoration. She seemed pretty interested at first, but then when we explained the idea of there being one true church she acted a lot less interested. So we gave her a Book of Mormon download card and invited her to read so that she could find out the truth of our message for herself. Fast forward to friday, and we get a call from the YSA missionaries asking us if we remembered giving someone named Cecilia a Book of Mormon card because she had gone to mormon.org and requested a copy of the Book of Mormon! We're planting seeds every day, and it's really cool when the Lord allows us to see some of the good that we're doing for people.

-One of the recent converts we've been working with, Paul, got his temple reccomend!

-Another of our recent converts, Rod, got sustained to recieve the Aaronic prieshood yesterday!

-We read a chapter in the Book of Mormon with one of the people we're teaching named Victor, and he was super into it. He was asking us questions about Jesus atoning for our sins and just eating it up. Super cool lesson. 

-We went to visit someone with Brother Wardle from our ward, but they weren't there. He said he still had time if we had anyone else to go see, so we visited a few more people. The first one we went to wasn't there either, so we tried to go see Manny, a person we taught the first lesson to a few weeks back. Manny's girlfriend Cynthia answered the door and said he was sleeping because he was sick. We talked to her for a little bit, then asked if we could share our message with her instead. It was a super cool lesson. She's been on a search that is pretty similar to Joseph Smith's story, so she loved the message we shared. She wanted to read the Book of Mormon and learn more about Joseph Smith, so we gave her a Book of Mormon and a link to Joseph Smith history. She's even more interested than her boyfriend who we were there to see, and he's pretty cool too, so we're really excited for them.

And that's been our week! Transfers are kind of a mess since we're on bike. right now all my stuff is packed up and we are waiting on some other elders who are coming to pick us up to go meet my new companion at the mission office. Hopefully they get here soon. I love you! Have a great week this week!

Elder Clark

Pictures:

-Late picture from Rod's baptism!

-Myself and Elder Wagley

-We found these cactuses with faces poked into them. They are pretty funny

-There are black widows everywhere here, but this one was a monstrosity

Grace

Hello! This week was good. The podiatrist appointment was pretty fast, they just took a 3D scan of my feet and told me the inserts would be ready in about two week.

Grace and her kids, the part member family we've been working with made a bunch of progress this week, Grace's teenage daughter Taylor hasn't been super into the church stuff since we started teaching the family. Then this week Grace called asking if we could give her a blessing. So we hopped on our bikes and rode over there to give her the blessing. I'm can't say for sure that it was the blessing that did it, but in the next lesson Taylor was a lot more involved then she had been before. Then the real miracle came on Sunday when the whole family came to church for the first time since Grace got baptized. And not only that, they stayed the whole time and really liked it! It made for a really great week. 

It's been a busy day, so that's all I've got to write. Love you!

-Elder Clark 

Pictures:

-This palm tree has a face

-We made some super yummy food. Ot was like a professional made it

-I also was making garlic toast and forgot about it. It was not so much like a professional made it

-There was a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing in the bushes at the church before district council. He was just a little one

Even

Hello! The podiatrist called, so they're having me come in tomorrow. I'll let you know if there's any information they need that I don't have, but it should be good. This week was an adventure, it rained a bunch which was super cool. We had so many people asking us what we did instead of working on rainy days, or telling us we were crazy for being out there and the like, but we were loving it. It was pretty cool to actually have some weather for a change. 

We didn't have to much happen aside from the rain. We have some cool people we've met, but we're having a hard time helping them come to church. So, the real highlight of the week came today while we were shopping. We grabbed our groceries and took them to the front to be rung up, and it came out to exactly 20$ of groceries. That my friends, is true success. I took a picture of the receipt, and we're probably going to hang the receipt in a place of honor on our wall. 

That's pretty much it! Sorry I don't have more to share, but have a great week!

-Elder Clark

Growing testimonys 1/14/19

I don't actually know when our next trip is. It's every six months, but I haven't been keeping track that well. And yeah, I've been hearing a lot of good things about the new come follow me helping a lot with families, so we're excited for it. I'm glad it's working for you guys too! Keep at it, it's going to keep being a great thing.

We had a really busy week! With Rod's baptism on Saturday, Presidents interviews on Friday, and a handful if other random stuff, every day there was something different for us to get done. It was really good though. We found a really cool new person in the middle of the week, and Rod's baptism was super good. He has been so solid since we first met him with coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and everything else we invited him to do, he just kept saying he didn't quite feel ready for baptism. It's been cool to see him change little by little since then to be where he is today. It's a powerful thing when we are faithful to the little things in the Gospel. It's definitely built my testimony of what it says in Alma 37:6 about small and simple things. Rod was so happy to be baptized, it was great to see him sitting there with a big smile on his face. :)

I'm outta time, but I love you guys!

Elder Clark

No Snow here 1/7/2019

Wow, all that snow looks super weird hahaha. Now that Christmas is done there's no indication of the season at all, so it's weird to think it's so cold for you guys. This week was quite a good one. I don't have a ton of time left, so I'll be sort of brief. 

To start off, Julian moved back! He texted us and told us he had moved back into the same home as before because the one he moved to wasn't in as nice of a neighborhood and he didn't feel very safe. So we're teaching him again and he's working towards a new baptismal date on the 19th! We're pretty excited, he's really awesome.

We also are teaching Rod again, he was away for the holidays. He's currently on track to get baptized this Saturday, so we're really pumped for that. He was telling everyone he talked to about it yesterday at church, so it seems like he's really looking forward to it too, which is awesome. 

We almost helped a homeless guy dig a hole in a random person's garden. We were calling up a member to bring over a shovel and working on everything we needed to get this thing done. Then as we talked we realized that this guy didn't live in the house and wasn't all there, so we ended up withdrawing from the situation and letting the police know we had just talked to someone who was roaming the street trying to plant his bush in other people's gardens. We had an appointment that we left for before anyone got there, so I'm not really sure how it turned out.

And last, but certainly not least, we found a really cool person named Mario on Saturday. We had actually met him about a week and a half before that, but he cancelled the appointment we set up with him. We remembered him while we were working close to where he lived Saturday night, and we decided to drop by and pay him a visit. He was so prepared to hear our message! He was asking great questions, talked about how he had really been wanting to start going to church, and he accepted an invitation to be baptized! We are so excited to be able to work with him, and it seems like his family might be pretty interested in learning too! It was an awesome miracle, and it was in the middle of having a bunch of things we'd planned on doing fall through, so it was really special.

Well, that's our week. Keeping all you guys in my prayers, I love you!

Elder Clark

Also, here's the pictures of the Mexican lemon I told you about. It's quite large.