Buenos Dias!
Hey, speaking of food, this week I had some amazing hispanic food.
Homemade tortillas smothered in baccon grease, layer of black beans,
queso fresco, and beef. Yep, super healthy food. Appearantly they just
buy bacon grease in a can. That's so awesome.
Anyways, exciting news about transfers! I'm not gonig anywhere, and
neither is Elder May, except he's going district leader, which is
something nobody expected, especially him. He's going to be an awesome
district leader though. Our district is going to be a lot of the same
missionaries, just trading places with others. We're also going to get
a greeny! Wow, I wasn't a greeny that long ago.
Awesome thing #1: We had a lesson with somebody who's been
investigating the church for over a year. That morning, we were
thinking about what we were going to teach her, and we thought about
the Book of Mormon and the important role it plays in the conversion
process. We went to the lesson, and in the first 5 minutes, it seemed
like we were going to drop her (tell her we couldn't teach her
anymore,) because she wasn't keeping her commitments. But then she she
starts talking about how she's still confused and believes the book of
Mormon is true and reads it to find answers she can't find in the
Bible. Needless to say, we didn't want to drop her anymore. So now
we're focusing on getting her to understand the importance of the Book
of Mormon.
Awesome thing #2: We had a regional stake conference, where we and
about 50 other stakes in the South East watched a broadcast from Salt
Lake. Elder Ballard spoke about missionary work, and rescuing Less
active members. This was really cool because just the week before, our
branch presented our branch mission plan and goal for this year, and
it included a lot of things Elder Ballard talked about. Our branch is
ahead of the game. :)
Nos vemos
Elder Clark
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Latter Stack
Bueno
Here in Georgia, things happen. It must mean we're doing something right.
A lot of cool little things have happened this week. We found out of of the investigators we dropped 4 weeks ago has just been searching and been a little confused with everything. She goes to a Catholic Chruch, had a Cristiano preacher come over and give her daughter a blessing, and she is being taught by us. Everybody had been telling her to pray, so even she doesn't want to pray becuase we asked her to, she's got other influences. She really is searching for the truth right now, so thats another plus.
We had another great first lesson with a former investigators from about 4 years ago. She was super attentative to the lesson, and her family has a lot of faith. In that same complex, we had a lesson with a less active who nobody had seen for a few years. Him and his wife have been praying to help him over come some problems that he has, and then we showed up.
I got to go on exchange with Elder Laney. (my last companion) He served here over a year ago, so we were able to meet with some super awesome investigators that he taught that never got baptized. One of them told us he got a bike, and wants to help us teach people Monday nights. So cool!
I know that you would all rather look at pictures then read my post, but I have again been lacking at takeing said pictures. :)
I hope everybody is having a wonderful time living life. I'm having a wonderful living the missionary life. =)
Elder Clark
Here in Georgia, things happen. It must mean we're doing something right.
A lot of cool little things have happened this week. We found out of of the investigators we dropped 4 weeks ago has just been searching and been a little confused with everything. She goes to a Catholic Chruch, had a Cristiano preacher come over and give her daughter a blessing, and she is being taught by us. Everybody had been telling her to pray, so even she doesn't want to pray becuase we asked her to, she's got other influences. She really is searching for the truth right now, so thats another plus.
We had another great first lesson with a former investigators from about 4 years ago. She was super attentative to the lesson, and her family has a lot of faith. In that same complex, we had a lesson with a less active who nobody had seen for a few years. Him and his wife have been praying to help him over come some problems that he has, and then we showed up.
I got to go on exchange with Elder Laney. (my last companion) He served here over a year ago, so we were able to meet with some super awesome investigators that he taught that never got baptized. One of them told us he got a bike, and wants to help us teach people Monday nights. So cool!
I know that you would all rather look at pictures then read my post, but I have again been lacking at takeing said pictures. :)
I hope everybody is having a wonderful time living life. I'm having a wonderful living the missionary life. =)
Elder Clark
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
What's 7 divided by Jueves?
Buenos Noches!
I love my mission so much. Sometimes I feel so incompetent and like I have know idea what I'm doing, yet we still see amazing miracles. :)
On Tuesday, we had a District meeting with President Wolfert, and he emphasized the importance of talking to everybody. He also told us that even though we are the Spanish missionaries, we need to talk to English speaking people too. It has beeb easy to use the "they don't speak Spanish" excuse, but not anymore. About an hour after that, we were in an apartment complex, and we were trying to visit a couple people, but nobody was home. We were then walking around outside looking for somebody to talk to, and of course there was absolutley nobody. We start walking back to the car, and we saw this man that didn't speak Spanish, but we went and talked to him like we were just told to in District meeting. Turns out he took the lessons from the missionaries over a year ago in California, had been to church a lot, and was still reading The Book of Mormon. He was going to call the missionaries in California that day so he could get the number of the missionaries here, but we went up and talked to him, so he didn't have to. Definitly a testimony that this is the Lord's work, and He is really the one that leads it.
In Norcross, the English and Spanish Elders help each other out a lot. They recently found somebody super awesome for us. This lady has so much faith in Christ, and she has told us she will do anything to follow him. She even accepted the invitation to be baptized before I finished saying it. I said "Seguira el ejemplo de" (Will you follow the example of) and she said yes. She also has a married son and a daughter that have listened to a bit of the lessons. The whole family is just a great family.
And then at the end of the week, our car broke down, our bikes were being slighlty problematic, and Elder May got sick, but that was all totally okay. We had such an amazing week, and even with those problems, the work continued. We could have found somebody else to be baptized in those few days. I say that pretty much makes up for any problem.
Yep, awesome week. Today, I'm actually back in Cumorah on exchange with Elder Spear, my companion from the MTC. This place is a like a second home almost.
Hasta luego
Elder Clark
I love my mission so much. Sometimes I feel so incompetent and like I have know idea what I'm doing, yet we still see amazing miracles. :)
On Tuesday, we had a District meeting with President Wolfert, and he emphasized the importance of talking to everybody. He also told us that even though we are the Spanish missionaries, we need to talk to English speaking people too. It has beeb easy to use the "they don't speak Spanish" excuse, but not anymore. About an hour after that, we were in an apartment complex, and we were trying to visit a couple people, but nobody was home. We were then walking around outside looking for somebody to talk to, and of course there was absolutley nobody. We start walking back to the car, and we saw this man that didn't speak Spanish, but we went and talked to him like we were just told to in District meeting. Turns out he took the lessons from the missionaries over a year ago in California, had been to church a lot, and was still reading The Book of Mormon. He was going to call the missionaries in California that day so he could get the number of the missionaries here, but we went up and talked to him, so he didn't have to. Definitly a testimony that this is the Lord's work, and He is really the one that leads it.
In Norcross, the English and Spanish Elders help each other out a lot. They recently found somebody super awesome for us. This lady has so much faith in Christ, and she has told us she will do anything to follow him. She even accepted the invitation to be baptized before I finished saying it. I said "Seguira el ejemplo de" (Will you follow the example of) and she said yes. She also has a married son and a daughter that have listened to a bit of the lessons. The whole family is just a great family.
And then at the end of the week, our car broke down, our bikes were being slighlty problematic, and Elder May got sick, but that was all totally okay. We had such an amazing week, and even with those problems, the work continued. We could have found somebody else to be baptized in those few days. I say that pretty much makes up for any problem.
Yep, awesome week. Today, I'm actually back in Cumorah on exchange with Elder Spear, my companion from the MTC. This place is a like a second home almost.
Hasta luego
Elder Clark
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
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como como como
Hola mis siguentes de blog. (Thats supposed to mean hi blog followers, but I don't think it does.)
So probably one of the Coolest things this week is that we had 7 less actives and one investigator attend church. The total count in Sacrament meeting was 65, which is also super high for our branch. Our branch has a goal of reaching 100 active members by the end of this year. That equals about 20 new members and 20 reactivated members. Elder May and I are doing everything we can to get those baptisms we need. Most of our branch members are recent converents or recently recent converts, within the last 5 years.
This week we've seen a lot of both sad and amazing things happen. We saw 2 people being or having already gotten evicted, one other almost evicted, and so many people in our branch or investigators that don't have work. One of members told us his story about how his wife and kids are in Mexico, he hasn't seen them for over 15 years, and he doesn't have job right now. Yet, this Hermano has such an amazing testimony of the Gospel. It's amazing what people go through to live here, and understand the gospel supports them.
Other amazing things include that we're finding more people to teach. One of our investigators told us she really wanted to get an answer from God if the church was true, and another one is starting to really understand what we're teaching. Even with all the bad happening, there is so much good to see.
Also a miracle, my abilitly to speak spanish has jumped like crazy. No, I'm still not fluent, but I'm lot better than I was 3 weeks ago.
I know that this is the Lord's work, His Church, his Gospel.
I hope you all have an amazing week!
Elder Clark
So probably one of the Coolest things this week is that we had 7 less actives and one investigator attend church. The total count in Sacrament meeting was 65, which is also super high for our branch. Our branch has a goal of reaching 100 active members by the end of this year. That equals about 20 new members and 20 reactivated members. Elder May and I are doing everything we can to get those baptisms we need. Most of our branch members are recent converents or recently recent converts, within the last 5 years.
This week we've seen a lot of both sad and amazing things happen. We saw 2 people being or having already gotten evicted, one other almost evicted, and so many people in our branch or investigators that don't have work. One of members told us his story about how his wife and kids are in Mexico, he hasn't seen them for over 15 years, and he doesn't have job right now. Yet, this Hermano has such an amazing testimony of the Gospel. It's amazing what people go through to live here, and understand the gospel supports them.
Other amazing things include that we're finding more people to teach. One of our investigators told us she really wanted to get an answer from God if the church was true, and another one is starting to really understand what we're teaching. Even with all the bad happening, there is so much good to see.
Also a miracle, my abilitly to speak spanish has jumped like crazy. No, I'm still not fluent, but I'm lot better than I was 3 weeks ago.
I know that this is the Lord's work, His Church, his Gospel.
I hope you all have an amazing week!
Elder Clark
Restoration in a box. This could be the next best thing since typewriters
Elder Clark had to give up the computer last week before he got to write his email home, so here is the letter he sent home:
The title is a direct quote from my companion, Elder May. He has a wall of quotes, said by him, in our apartment.
We had a really amazing start to the New Year. New Years Eve day was another one of those fun days where everything doesn't go how it's supposed to. About 6:30 in the evening the people we have planned to visit were not answering their phone, so we just went anyway. When we got to this family's house (they're less active because they have to work every Sunday) we found out that their home teacher had just finished giving them a lesson and left. Then we arrived to share a message. The family shared their testimonies and how they felt so blessed by the Lord to receive 2 messages in one night. It's crazy how perfectly timed our arrival was at their house. It was absolutely perfect! It is amazing to me how the Lord makes things work down to the second.
After that visit, we went over to a less active part member's house. We were supposed to go over at 11:00 a.m. that morning, but they all weren't there so they told us 3:00 p.m. We went back at 3:00 and nobody was there, even though we called them and they said they were inside watching TV. But when we knocked again they didn't come to the door, so we thought they didn't want to see us. Despite this, we tried again at 8:00 p.m. and they were all home. We had talked to one of them a couple of days before about how their power had been shut off because they couldn't pay their bill. When we walked in that night we saw thy had nothing - no chairs, no couch, not table, no t.v. In one room, the only source of light was from the Christmas tree. We were able to share a message with them about faith. During the lesson, all the little kids were running around screaming while all the rest of us were sitting on the floor. One of the parents, through all the noise, turned to us and told us that they couldn't believe we came back that night after trying 2 times that day. She also told us that she had prayed for a sign of hope for the New Year, and that us coming was her answer, and she knows the church is true because of it.
That night, Elder May and I left feeling like we wanted to do something to help them, like find them a couch. As we were walking in the same complex we saw a couch by the dumpster. Elder May thought maybe we should take it over to their apartment, and I just thought we could get front row seats to the dumpster. Anyway, we left without doing anything with it. A couple of hours later, Elder May convinced me that the couch was really for them. So we went back and the couch was still in really great condition and even had the pop out foot recliner thing. Right when we were about to carry it over to their apartment, this nice hispanic man came by and helped us carry it. The family wasn't home, so we just left it outside their door in the apartment building. It was a fun adventure!
Later we snuck garbage of an investigator's porch because they told us not to take it, but we wanted to. (We're assuming this was an act of service)
So yeah, there is my awesome New Year beginning.
Muchas gracias a todos por todos,
Elder Clark
The title is a direct quote from my companion, Elder May. He has a wall of quotes, said by him, in our apartment.
We had a really amazing start to the New Year. New Years Eve day was another one of those fun days where everything doesn't go how it's supposed to. About 6:30 in the evening the people we have planned to visit were not answering their phone, so we just went anyway. When we got to this family's house (they're less active because they have to work every Sunday) we found out that their home teacher had just finished giving them a lesson and left. Then we arrived to share a message. The family shared their testimonies and how they felt so blessed by the Lord to receive 2 messages in one night. It's crazy how perfectly timed our arrival was at their house. It was absolutely perfect! It is amazing to me how the Lord makes things work down to the second.
After that visit, we went over to a less active part member's house. We were supposed to go over at 11:00 a.m. that morning, but they all weren't there so they told us 3:00 p.m. We went back at 3:00 and nobody was there, even though we called them and they said they were inside watching TV. But when we knocked again they didn't come to the door, so we thought they didn't want to see us. Despite this, we tried again at 8:00 p.m. and they were all home. We had talked to one of them a couple of days before about how their power had been shut off because they couldn't pay their bill. When we walked in that night we saw thy had nothing - no chairs, no couch, not table, no t.v. In one room, the only source of light was from the Christmas tree. We were able to share a message with them about faith. During the lesson, all the little kids were running around screaming while all the rest of us were sitting on the floor. One of the parents, through all the noise, turned to us and told us that they couldn't believe we came back that night after trying 2 times that day. She also told us that she had prayed for a sign of hope for the New Year, and that us coming was her answer, and she knows the church is true because of it.
That night, Elder May and I left feeling like we wanted to do something to help them, like find them a couch. As we were walking in the same complex we saw a couch by the dumpster. Elder May thought maybe we should take it over to their apartment, and I just thought we could get front row seats to the dumpster. Anyway, we left without doing anything with it. A couple of hours later, Elder May convinced me that the couch was really for them. So we went back and the couch was still in really great condition and even had the pop out foot recliner thing. Right when we were about to carry it over to their apartment, this nice hispanic man came by and helped us carry it. The family wasn't home, so we just left it outside their door in the apartment building. It was a fun adventure!
Later we snuck garbage of an investigator's porch because they told us not to take it, but we wanted to. (We're assuming this was an act of service)
So yeah, there is my awesome New Year beginning.
Muchas gracias a todos por todos,
Elder Clark
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