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This has been yet another interesting week at the MTC. On Saturday, we had a sub that was a native speaker, and Native speakers talk a lot faster and are harder to understand. He made us feel like we didn't know Spanish at all. He wasn't trying to, he was just so good at it, and his presence seemed to make us all start failing. District members were making mistakes they had never made before, it was like mass carnage of our pitiful attempts spread all over the classroom. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but we all felt like we had a so much longer way to go after his class. The great thing is he comes back on Saturday for another round of destruction.


On the bright side, Sunday's fireside was awesome. It was about God's love  and Charity. The speaker explained that since God's love is endless, we should have endless love too. We are commanded to have charity. Charity doesn't run out and get restocked over night. The more you give of it, the more you'll be able to give. Obviously, charity is super important to missionary work. If we don't love the people, we won't be good missionaries.

Monday was another day with a little bit of failure. We were teaching another sub for the first time. when we first knocked on the door, he asked me what message we had, and i wasn't totally ready to answer that, which was failure #1, so I said we wanted to talk about how Heavenly Father has a plan for us. So we went in, I was thinking we were going to teach about the plan of Salvation, which not usually the first lesson. I didn't know where to start, because he didn't know anything about the church, (it didn't help that he cut off all of his s's while speaking.) so elder Spear starts talking about the Great Apostasy, and how the all the Apostles were killed and the priesthood authority was taken from the earth. Elder Spear did this to lead me in to talking about the Restoration of the Gospel, but I didn't talk about that. For some reason, I wanted to talk about the Atonement of Christ, which is not what should come after talking about the Apostasy, because it doesn't make sense to transition into that. I did anyways. Elder Spear led right into the Restoration, and just threw in the Atonement out of who knows where. Yeah, that was failure # 2. Don't worry, I won't do that again.

Later that week, we made up for it though. We were teaching one of our progressing investigators about the Word of Wisdom. The lesson went so well, and we were asking her questions, and we committed her to live the Word of Wisdom, and it was just awesome! I felt so good to do that here, I can't wait to do that in the field.

Anyways, another update will come later this week, including my travel plans, which are probably the most exciting thing ever!

Hasta luego

Elder Clark




(Here is some from a handwritten letter we received this week)
...

To encourage you to have family prayer, and to complete my purpose of bringing people unto Christ, I'm going to share a scripture with you:  3 Nephi 18:21 "Pray in your families unto the father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed." There it is, in the Book of Mormon.  You have to do it now!  (a reminder is always good)

One of my teachers was gone for a few days and my other one is going to be in Mexico for 10 days, so we're getting some more practice in teaching new investigators.  We've been taught a lot here about finding out the investigators needs so we can teach them what will help them th most.  Of course, a lot of discerning their needs happens in the first lesson.

On Tuesday, Elder Judd (Cousin, now also left for the mission field) and I said our  last goodbye to Elder Blake. (College roommate)  He is going to the California Fresno mission, Spanish speaking.  He's going to be a fantastic missionary!

Tuesday's devotional was given by Dennis M. Simmons of the Seventy.  He talked a lot about how the Mission is also a time for sanctification of ourselves, or the beginning of a life long process of sanctification.  He also told us that studying was reading 12 times and wrestling it to the ground.  After the devotional, our district had and awesome testimony meeting.  It's always amazing to hear each other's testimonies.

My testimony and love for the Gospel have been increased and strengthened as I have been here.  I love "Preach My Gospel" (PMG).  Every sentence in PMG is Inspired.  It's so much more than a training manual.  It's for everybody.  I'm so grateful to be serving a mission right now.

Elder Clark