Perseverar hasta el fin

       Just like every other week I've had in my mission, it's been a great week, and it ended with the baptism of Griselda and Delia. The baptism went great, the spirit was there, we had good attendance, and the water was warm. After the baptism, both Delia and Griselda told us they felt fresh and Griselda she felt the Spirit strongly as she got into the water to be baptized. Like mother like daughter, the first time we baptized them, both of them let their knees come out of the water, so they both got to be baptized twice. Double the blessings!

      We had 2 other investigators at church this last Sunday. Our English investigator Chris came to the American Ward, so we went with him. Then our investigator Rodolfo came to church as well and dressed so well that he looked like a member. In Sacrament, I got to give a short talk on how the Gospel changes people, and told stories of how I've seen people change during the mission. Since no one could make it to see my talk, I hope you can make it to my talk this Sunday. :)

      Elder Vance is going to take care of the Cherokee Spanish branch, wwwhhoooo! He'll do a great job. This branch has a lot of awesome members and I've enjoyed my time serving here.


Well, this is my last email as a missionary. :(

Nos vemos pronto!

Elder Clark

Trunky, who's trunky? !!!

No Driver

Wow, this is really the final countdown, and by that, I mean its the week before Griselda and Delia's baptism. It has nothing to do with me coming home next week. :)

I'm so excited for them! They've been making so much progress and have really come a long way, and they're going to be so blessed to receive the Gift the Holy Ghost. I love the gospel, it makes everything better! They're going to be great members. We've taught them everything they need to know, now we just have to make sure the baptismal font isn't cold, and we'll be all set. 

We had another awesome Miracle this week. We were teaching a investigator that was a referral from a member in a different area. We invited to the member to come teach with us and he was able to make it, right after we had finished teaching the whole lesson. Well, better later than never I guess. Anyways, he come in and we all shake hands, and then another van pulls into the driveway. Our investigator said "did you invite somebody else?" Well, we hadn't, and it turned out to be a surprise visit from a neighbor. The Neighbor had with him is brother-in-law, Luis, who nobody else knew. Well, Luis walks in the door, looks at us, walks up to us and says "I've been looking for you." No, he wasn't a cop and we weren't guilty of any crimes, Luis was just a less active member baptized 20 years ago. He had left the church, but has recently been looking to get back in it. Well, he had an honest desire in his heart, and the Lord put him in our paths in an answer to his desire. We sat down with him yesterday, and he has a sincere desire to change. He had read a little in the Book of Mormon, the first time in a real long time, and said he felt the peace of the Spirit. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the Lord's work.

I'll be privileged to give talk this coming Sunday for my last Sunday in Georgia, and I'll have the privilege of giving a talk next Sunday as well, for my first Sunday back in California. Those of you reading this are invited to attend either one, which ever one you wish to attend.  

Gracias amados hermanos mios 

Elder Clark

Guitarist in the woods

Yesterday while we were tracting, there was a man walking around in the street and the forest nearby playing the guitar and singing songs about Christ. (only in the south) He was really nice, gave us water, and let us come into his home and pray with him. 

The Griselda and Delia have been progressing poco a poco. One of the times we taught her this week, Griselda was not feeling too well due to allergies, so we gave her a priesthood blessing. We swung the next day just to see how they were doing, and she was feeling completely better. Now she has a testimony of the priesthood. 

Our English investigator, Chris, has also been going strong. He really wants to understand the Book of Mormon, and receive an answer through prayer that it's true. We'll be taking him on a church tour this week and he should come to church this week for the first time.

This week we also took the 140 mile round trip to visit our member that lives in the middle of nowhere, and we helped him paint. :)

Well, thats all folks. Until next time, 

Elder Clark

:)

The Big Chicken

Well hello there.

We had a fantastic week. Our investigators, Griselda and Delia, are still going strong. We've had some awesome lesson with them this week, they're reading and praying daily, keeping their commitments, came to a baptism on Friday and came to church on Sunday. Griselda had a close call and almost drank coffee, but her son grabbed it out of her hand and poured it down the sink before she drank it. 

Another one of our investigators came to the baptism, and a different investigator came to church, so we've seen a lot of awesome things this week. Our English investigator, Chris, is also reading. We invited to be baptized, but he basically told he's not ready for that, or to come to church, but he's reading.

This week we also had Zone conference, where Elder Ellis of the 1st Quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us. For those of you who watched general conference, he was the one that cried a lot during his talk. Its always awesome to receive instruction from a general authority. 

I feel like the more time goes on, the worse I get at writing emails, I'm sorry. 

Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark

We're in the hood

Hello wonderful people that read these letters.

 

Happy late Mothers day to all the mothers out there.

 

The subject line of this email is derived from the fact that our english investigator, Chris, called us brothers, they bye initiating us into the hood. We had a really good lesson with him this week, and Elder Vance was teaching with power and authority the whole lesson. We were teaching the plan of Salvation, and Chris had some doubts about his own faith and whatnot. The whole time, Elder Vance was being bold, and even shared a scripture that when Chris heard it, he said "ah, so you ganna put me in my place." He wasn't offended, but the Spirit definitely hit him and helped him get over his doubts and made him more committed to read the Book of Mormon.

 

We've also taught a lot this week Griselda and Delia, a mom and daughter, who agreed to be baptized. Its been great to see all the progression they've made as they're learning about the gospel. They're soaking it all up, and are keeping their commitments. Griselda always asks good questions showing that she really wants to understand. Everything has just been falling right into place with them. She got a new job where she doesn't have to work on Sundays and has time in the evening that we can come over and teach. The Lord works miracles. :)

 

Another exciting thing that happened is I became an uncle! That also means my parents are now grandparents.....

 

Anyways, thanks everybody

 

Enjoy your week!

 

Elder Clark

I want to know more about this Nephi Cat

This Another awesome week down, and I know my parents are counting down the days.

So our top investigator doesn't actually speak Spanish. He's a 30 year old man that we found knocking. He's really interested in learning, but refuses to let us pass him to the English Elders. When we were talking to him about Nephi, he got excited to read the Book of Mormon. He "I want to learn more about this cat Nephi." 

We've also been teaching a whole lot this week, which has been awesome. We've even been able to get back in with people more than once! Unfortunately, nobody was able to come to church, so we're waiting for that, but we've seen a lot of progress this last week. :) 

I'm also extremely grateful that summer has not arrived and that the weather has stayed cool. Georgia is treating me my last transfer. :)

Thanks everybody!

que tengan un buen semana 

There is somebody in your life right now

Good day to all.

Another fantastic week here in Georgia, Wednesday.  We went to the trainer/trainee meeting, which took up a good part of our day, but it was really motivational and gave me a little boost for the end of my mission.

Sunday was the day the real action happened though. On Sunday we had Brother Zeidner with us all day, he even drove us around day... in a Dodge Charger because the rental place didn't have anyother cars. Brother Zeidner is a Director at the Provo MTC.  He has done a little bit of traveling around, working with missionaries to research the impact of the shortened time the missionaries stay in the MTC on readiness to be in the field. It's not so bad for missionaries learning another language, because they're still in the MTC for 6 weeks, but English speaking only go in for 2 weeks now instead of 3, about only 12 days. So before he was with us, he was in Argentina a couple weeks ago, then in Kentucky, then came to our mission to go with a couple of sets of missionaries. Brother Zeidner was such a help, had so much good to say. The whole experience motivated me even more to work my tail off until the end of my mission. We had an interesting experience together when we went to visit an investigator, and another man waved us over. He was drunk, and said "other missionaries from our church  had called the cops on his friend and now his friend is in jail and might get deported. We assured  him about 100 times that it wasn't missionaries from our church, and he kept going on about how bad it was. He told us that "he had told everybody around to not open their doors to us" and that if we wanted  people to open their doors, we had to come over Monday (today) to his trailer and tell everybody it wasn't us. Well right after that, we went over to our investigators house and invited her to come to the meeting, but she didn't want to. Apparently his large group of friends doesn't include our investigator. :)

We also taught an awesome lesson together, we went to a person we had left the Savior's peace and blessings with the day before, but she wasn't there. We ended up being able to teach her daughter though, who at the age of 17 has such amazing faith in Christ. She firmly believed in needing to following Him to be able to live with Him, and everybody she knows can tell. In the end of the lesson, she was really unsure about praying to know if what we had taught was true, but brother Zeidner reminded us that we had done our best to invite her, so we had fulfilled our purpose. He told us that as long as we teach by the Spirit and with love, we've done our part. I'm going to be focusing on doing that for these last few weeks.

Thanks everybody!!

Elder Clark

to quote Elder Clark "This is what happens when lots of missionaries get together!"