WP!!

Well hello there.

This week has been awesome, and I'm stoked for these up coming weeks.

Mariano, our top investigator, is remember things we teach him! Sure, we've taught him the same things a few times, like 5 or 10, but he's getting it! He should be getting baptized in August! He's really funny, and repeats what we say, but he's an awesome guy. This week, he even asked to his boss to get Sunday's off before we told him to do it.

We found a new awesome family this week also. They're in a tight money situation, and one of the members of our branch was able to help them get food from the Bishop Storehouse. We delivered the food to them, and we were able to go back and teach them again. Only the mom and the kids were able to come to church, but she said she had read in the Book of Mormon, and we heard from her Husband that he was reading and liked the Book of Mormon. We also have some other awesome people to work with, so a lot should be happening this transfer.

We also had the joy and pleasure of helping set up for a pre-wedding party of a recently returned missionary in our branch. After we 3 tries of putting and taking down the decorations, we decided just to do it completely differently, and it turned out pretty awesome. Life lesson: life doesn't go the way you want it to, but it turns out better that way.

I found this week that Elder Cram has an incredible ability to kill hornets on people's porches with his shoes, taking care not only of they're spiritual needs, but also physical and pest control needs. We have a lot of fun together. :)

Awesome quote about the Savior

"Even as He calls us to come unto Him and follow Him, He is unfailingly running to help us." - Elder Holland

Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark

P.S. For you sports fans out there, the Atlanta Falcons had they're first practice this week

The Clarks are big here in Georgia :)

The aftermath of all of our hard work for the party

Elder Cram and Me with grumpy old man in the background 

 "Fire in the Sky." I seemed to be obsessed with pictures of the sky recently 

Las Families pueden ser eternas

Buenos dias! Como le va?

So my new companion, Elder Cram, is from............ UTAH! who would have guessed! yep, Riverton, Utah. He's been out 16 months, just 2 more transfers than me. He is 6' 4", played college basket ball in California, and was the leading scorer on the team. I'm 6' 3" and can't score, so in that way we're very different. Elder Cram is a witty guy, very funny, encouraging, good teacher, all those other good characteristics. Its going to be a good transfer. Elder Cram is a really good people person, and seems like he can get even the most uninterested of people interested, unless they're really uninterested. 

We've found out that Mariano, our top investigator, doesn't really remember what we teach him. I can't blame him, he's old. But he does have a string desire to keep learning and and attend church. He won't be ready to be baptized by the end of this month, but someday he will be. 

Antonio, our recent convert of a about 2 months, got the Aaronic Priesthood this last Sunday, and he got to bless the sacrament for the first time, and did it flawlessly. Antonio is a great kid, and we're working on getting the rest of his family interested. 

I got a letter from one of my friends a couple weeks ago, and they something a really liked. If we were the only person to come to earth, Heavenly Father still would have sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone just for us, because we're that important to Him. I know its true 

Elder Clark

 My last companion, Elder Andreasen and I

Did you forget how to say hi?

Hi!

For all of you who aren't counting, I hit my 13th month mark yesterday, on the 15th.

Today, we found out about transfers! Well, I'm not going anywhere, but Elder Andreasen is. He's going to Norcross, my last area! My new companion is going to be Elder Cram. He was in my last district, so I've been around him before. If you can believe it, he's taller that me. Elder Dudley, my son (the missionary I trained) is going coming up here and going to be in the same branch as me with another missionary. Its going to be a good transfer. I'm sure Elder Andreasen is glad he only had to put up with me for one transfer. :)

Mariano is a really awesome investigator. We found him last week and he seemed super elect and ready to accept the Gospel, and he came to church yesterday and still seems that way. Every time we taught him this week, he talked about how he invited his friends and family and neighbors to church and how he wanted them to listen too. He was the only one that came to church, but it's still way awesome. The Jehovah's Witnesses showed up to one of our lessons to teach somebody else while we were teaching him outside, and they talked to us for a few minutes, but Mariano was unconvinced and still wants to get baptized. Right after we taught him, we contacted this crazy guy that believed that religion and the bible were created as a business by really smart beings, and how we'll all have our own gardens to tend after this life. Well, I'm sure if we wanted, we could all have our own gardens to tend.

Random fact: I love our branch president here, and he greats everybody with hugs.

There used to be a member that lived in this branch, but he moved to Puerto Rico a few months ago. Well, he called us yesterday and told he has a bunch of family living in this one apartment in our area. He basically told us to go over, knock on the door, say we knew him, and teach anybody in there that would listen to us. Well, amazingly, it worked. Everybody there speaks English though, so we had to pass them to the English Elders.

I hope you all enjoy your week!

Elder Clark

You can count the number of seeds in an apple....

.... but you can't count the number of apples in a seed."-- A very wise return missionary that went on a team-up with us

Como le va?

Well this 4th of July was pretty awesome. Apparently when people are full of American pride, they actually like us! We had like 20 people give us water and another 20 tell us to keep cool and "God bless you." I definitely felt loved that day. :)

Sunday was also super awesome day, and it was Elder Andreasen's Birthday. We went on a team up with a return missionary guy who lives in Organ but is out here selling pest control. Yeah, weird story, anyways, we went looking for a former investigator, and ended up finding this other man who said he wanted to come to church, and that he wanted to invite all of his friends to come also. We thought that was pretty awesome. We ended up teaching him a lesson outside, and it went super awesome. Our team up, Adam, did an awesome job. He hadn't practiced Spanish in a while, so when he talked, you could tell he was concentrating really hard and putting in a lot of effort into what he was saying, and that really brought the Spirit into the lesson. Later that night, in just 30 minutes, he had gotten a man to agree to fix his car, and then gave him a Book of Mormon. He was definitely working the Spirit that night.

Pues, que tengan un buen semana

Elder Clark

Pictures: Its not the sun, it was an awesome lightning storm.

Impossible is not a word, its just a reason for someone not to try

It’s been a record setting week, as my parents have informed me that Friday, Atlanta had a record setting temperature of 106. I don't why anybody would want to be outside in that heat, but there are people, and it makes me happy because it means we have people to share the Gospel with.

Last Monday was kind of like a big slap in the face/ turning point for Elder Andreasen and I. You could say the first part of the transfer here hadn't been the most exciting of times, or least frustrating either. We both felt like absolutely nothing was happening. A big part of the reason was we had been a falling back from talking to everybody we see like we're supposed to. The slap in the face was when President Wolfert messaged us and told us very nicely that we weren't meeting the expected requirements, and that we needed to do better, and we would be blessed for doing better. The turning point was that night, when we decided we were going to talk to pretty much anything that moved. We went crazy, and had a crazy good time doing it. When the night was over, even though we had no new investigators, even though we had no return appointments, we felt better, like we had accomplished something. I know that when you do what you're supposed to do, what you've asked to do, you will be blessed, and you will be happier. That night, everybody we talked to was super nice, multiple people telling us that even though they weren't interested, they appreciated that we were doing the Lord's work. There was even a lady that pulled over to talk to us, to tell us that she really respected us for what we did, and wanted to have us come over for dinner sometime. She said she wasn't interested at all, but I'm pretty sure she'll get there someday. :)

So we're opening our mouths more now and talking to everybody enough that's crazy enough to be in the heat with us.

Disfruten sus semanas

Gracias!

Elder Clark II