Mormon Power

Hola!

Well, this week went by super fast. There wasn't even anything super amazing, it was just a good week.

It was really cool to see the Lord bless us this week. We were striving to talk to 70 people during the week, but on the last day, we were short 17. Well, me being of little faith thought we wern't going to be able to get 17, especially since it was Sunday, and church took up 3 hours of the day. Well, we went to work, and it ended up being really easy to get those 17 contacts. It seemed like everybody was outside that day. I know that when we strive to do something, the Lord will make it possible.

After we talked to one person and started walking away, they yelled "Mormon Power!" I'm sure he meant something like the Book of Mormon gives us Spiritual power or something like that.

People's agency is a real problem, it has been since the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever. This week, our investigators choose to exercise their agency and not come to church. :( We'll be having a little encouraging chat with them this week about that. :)

I love being a missionary, I love being in Georgia, especially since the weather is cooling down a bit, and I love the Lord

Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark

P.S. I want to commit all of you to do something, since that's what missionaries do. I all of you to talk to 1 person this week about the Gospel or your faith in Christ. I promise that if you commit to do it, the Lord will provide you with an opportunity, and you'll be blessed for doing it. I know I'm more blessed when I strive to talk to more people about the Gospel. So, will you talk to one person this week? I'll follow up next week. My parents can also follow up. :)

Ah, Mira!

Hi! :)

Well, this week was awesome, and seemed to go by really fast.

For 2 days, I got to ride a bike again! Elder Cram has to go to leadership meetings, so I got to cruise around the town with 2 other Elders. I'm out of shape.... Anyways, it seems like I'm always district monkey. District monkey is the companion of the district leader, who always gets moved around whenever the district leader has to go to meetings or do or district leader type things. I've been district monkey with 5 of my 7 companions.

We have 2 families that have a lot of potential. We took one of them on a unexpected tour of the church. We had told them we were coming by on Saturday to talk more about church and how to get there. Well, we thought we were just going to explain to them how to get to the church, but when we showed up, they had their keys in hand, and said they were ready to follow us to the church. Well, its a good thing the church is only 5 minutes away from their house. We went around and showed them all the rooms and the paintings. We got to a painting of the story of the 10 virgins (See Matthew 25:1-13), and Elder Cram started explaining it,l then realized he didn't remember exactly what the painting represented at the moment. He made up something on the spot about us being the light to the world, and the family believed him.

The Book is blue, and the Church is true.

Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark

apples, cereal, a sandwich, and a chicken pot pie

Hola! 

You probably all can guess that I had another awesome week this week. It was full of finding new people, speaking Spanish, teaching awesome lessons, and with very good nights of sleep.

Friday evening, we had a Day of Nations event, like we did in my first area. There was food from a lot of the Spanish speaking countries, dances were performed, and tons of people came. I even got to see a few people from my first area that came to help in the dances. There was also one random bagpiper to start the even off. 

Some of the cool new people we found this week include a mother who said she wants to bring her kids to church because we have good morals, an English girl who has been wanting to go back to church, and took it as an answer when we knocked on her door, and the Brother of the Cordova family, who should up in the middle of the lesson with them, and told us he wanted to participate in further lessons. 

The Cordova family is the awesome family with the mom and 2 daughters. The younger daughter came by herself to church 2 weeks ago, and both daughters were supposed to go to church this Sunday, but the aunt decided to take them to the dentist instead. I've noticed that lot of Hispanics go to the dentist on Sunday.  

On Sunday, following the tradition of missionaries giving talks on every second Sunday, I talked about Charity. Charity is the pure love of Christ, is greater than all, and endures forever. Christ was and is the ultimate example of Charity. Everything he did was because he had Charity. He never complained, never thought "uuhhggg, I have to heal this person now." The Atonement, His great and last sacrifice, is the ultimate expression of Charity. The Atonement is the pure love of Christ, it is greater than all, and it endures forever. This is the work of the Lord, so we have to do it how he did it, with Charity. 

John 13:34-35

 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all menknow that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

When we have love, charity, all men will know we are disciples of Jesus Christ.

Love everybody you see!

Thanks to all

Elder Clark

The kids from our branch that danced

Great attendance, great decorations, and the bagpiper on stage

8 is a magic number

This part is from Jordan's letter to us.

Nick

"The Library may be closed on Labor day, but the stake center's family history center isn't! Ba-ha-hahahahaha

 I've gained like 12 pounds in 6 weeks, and its all MUSCLE!!!!! Well, maybe not all of it, but most of it"

Jordans Letter:

Greetings from Georgia :)

Well, we finished out spree of baptism this last week with the Jaramillo Family. The Mom and her 2 kids were baptized on Saturday and Confirmed on Sunday. The baptism went really well. Hermana Jaramillo invited her sister, mother, and boyfriend, and they all came. The Jaramillo family is another very special family. Hermana Jaramillo already acts like a long time member, helping serve the food and clean up at her own baptism. They're definitely going to be strong members in the church. 

We had another really cool experience with the Perez family this week. We asked how things were going after having been baptized and confirmed, how they felt. They told us that they felt completely different. They felt more happiness, more peace. One of them had been stressing about a lot of things, and they told us all that stress just went away. Satan had been working hard on them the few weeks before their baptism, even to the point that 1 hour before, one of them almost backed out because of the stress, but afterwards, it all left. That was a testimony builder to me, the importance of the decision to be baptized, the importance of the Gift of the holy Ghost and the comfort it gives us.

We've been really blessed by the Lord, and we're are continuing to be blessed by Him. We've continued finding awesome people to teach. We found a promising family that moved here form El Salvador 4 months ago, a mom and 2 daughters. Only the 12 year old daughter could come to church, and she came by herself. Church will be a little interesting for the 2 daughters because the youth are combined with the English ward, and neither of the daughters speak english due to the lack of time they've lived here. Somebody gets the fun job of translating.

Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark    

The Familia Jaramillo in white

The gateway 

We're tracting in the rain