You just got plumed

Hola Hola Hola!

Well, this is one of those weeks where we had a little bit more time than usual to contact new people because of lack of other things to do, but hey, its awesome to talk to new people. Its amazing to be able to walk up to somebody for the first time, sit down on their porch, and talk about faith in Jesus Christ. Some people can talk about it for a really long time. We've decided that we're going to use the quotes we read on church signs in our contacts, like "God doesn't forget the sinner, He forgets the sin," or "Sin is the disease, and Christ is the cure." 

Marcos crazy story continues. He ended up loosing his job this week and got kicked out of where he was living. We told him he should move back to Guatemala because he has family there and can get food. He said he was planning on it, and he started his Journey back yesterday. He's a good guy, and I hope he finds the missionaries, or they find him. 

Its just good to be a missionary. I love sharing my testimony with others, I love the Lord, and I love everybody! (well, almost) 

Thanks everybody

Elder Clark

Sleep over in the Hospital- Rated Pg 13

As you can tell by the title, we had an interesting week...

Thursday was a good day, we spent a lot of time knocking on doors talking to people, and we talked to A LOT of people that day. Around 6, we taught Marcos the Plan of Salvation, and he told us he had read a lot of the Book of Mormon. Well we went home happy that night. We settled down to plan, took off our shoes, and then came the phone call. Marcos was living at the house  of a brother-in-law to a less active Sister in our branch. She called us, and told us that her brother-in-law called her and told her that Marcos had fallen over in his chair, had a seizure, and was bleeding from his mouth. Well, we through on our shoes and were out the door at 9 PM to go back to see Marcos. We got there, and the man he lived with said he was in his room when he heard Marcos's head hit the floor and came out and saw him shaking on the floor. The ambulance came, and we translated for the paramedics what happened. They told us they were going to take him to the hospital, and that we needed to translate for the doctor. So at 9:30, we headed to the hospital, which gratefully located right down the street. The doctor said the Marcos had a seizure because of an Alcohol withdrawal. When people that are heavy drinkers stop drinking, the sudden lack of alcohol can cause a seizure. One more reason to not drink. :) So we were there at the hospital with Marcos until 2 in the morning, but when it was all over, he was fine. :) The seizure does mean that he has stopped drinking (or at least cut back a lot) since we started teaching him, so that's good. He was bleeding from his mouth because he bit his tongue

The sad news is he won't be baptized this coming week, the 23rd. He's made so much progress, but he still has a hard time understanding everything. One thing that makes it hard is that Spanish isn't his first language, some other dialect they speak in his part of Guatemala is. He learned Spanish when he came to the United States, but doesn't understand a lot of the gospel words, so we're going to have to wait a little bit longer.

Well, that story about takes the cake of the whole week. Thanks everybody!

Elder Clark    

Hispanics with southern accents

Howdy y'all. I'm fixin to write a good email today. 

Last week, I talked about Carlos and Marcos, and I'm going to do it again. 

Carlos's parents had been thinking about sending him to live with his aunt in Arizona because he was have problems in school and was causing some trouble. Well, we had another little chat with him this week, about being a better kid, and his parents are pleased with the change they're seeing in him. We just have to get them involved in being a good example to him and helping him stay out of trouble. 

Marcos disappeared to Alabama for a couple days this week looking for work, and we lost contact with him for a few days, but he came back and was able to come to church again. We visited last night and taught him about the Gospel. About 10 minutes into the lesson, Elder Neri felt inspired to ask him if he knew that what we were teaching is true, and he said he did! He said he feels good when he goes to church, and thinks about it all the time. We invited him to be baptized the 23rd of February, and he accepted. :) 

The English Elders also found us another amazing investigator named Jose. We've kind of taught a jumble of stuff, not a complete lesson yet, but he's committed to be baptized, and brought it up the second time we came over, talking about how he was ready and willing follow through with it. Jose just got out of jail last week, and he changed a lot in there. He told us about his past life, and about how his time in jail made him search for God, so he's really looking for the truth right now. 

This Saturday, a select few of us had an opportunity to go to Atlanta and hear from Elder Soares (pronounced Suarez), a president of the Quorum of the 70. So yes, it was a big deal. He talked about how we as missionaries are to build up, or edify, the church. That doesn't just mean baptizing people, but rather helping them become converted. We don't just baptize people then throw at the ward and say, "now you can deal with them." We need to help them stay converted, help them prepare for the temple. He also talked about the importance of being obedient and worthy as representatives of Jesus Christ, and talked about the importance of planning. All in all, it was an awesome week. 

Thanks everybody! 

Con amor, 

Elder Clark  

The escape plan

Jordan's birthday is on Feb. 27th. If you would like to send him birthday wishes, his current address is:

1126 Keswick Village Court

Conyers, GA 30012

No, the title is not referring to me escaping from the mission early.

(Note from Lisa, the title probably refers to the day the missionaries in Jordan's area all had to return to their apartments due to an approaching storm.  Quote from his letter to our family: "Don't feel like bad parents just because you didn't check the weather. At around 2:30, President Wolfert told all of us to get back to apartment because the storm was getting bad. We had just started teaching a lesson to, but we fled for our apartment. We got home before the rain and the wind picked up. Once we were in, we were told that the storm wasn't going to get bad for another 30 minutes, so we were in in plenty of time. All it did was rain hard where we were. I was on exchange with Elder Moore, and we got to spend more time together than planned because we weren't aloud to leave the our apartment the whole day.

Extra responsibilities I have as district leader is go on exchanges with each member in the district, collect key indicators (or numbers) Sunday night and report them to the Zone Leaders, plan district meeting, stuff like that.")

We had an amazing, fantastic, absolutely wonderful week. 

We've been teaching a young boy named Carlos, and this week we saw a big change. Last week we talked about things like not swearing at school, and he's completely stopped. This week, we showed him the video "Finding Faith in Christ." His friend happened to come over about halfway through the video and watched it with us. After the video, Carlos started crying! He felt the Spirit so strongly testifying to him that Christ was his Savior. I don't think he'd ever felt the spirit so strongly before, so it scared him just a little bit. We told him not to worry about crying, and asked him how he felt, and what he described to us was the Spirit. 

Another miracle happened with a new investigator named Marcos. The English missionaries found him, and he ended up calling us and telling us he wanted help to stop drinking. So we helped him, but from there his story and the miracles that followed just exploded. It turns out he was living in a really bad environment and was going to get kicked out on Sunday. He didn't have a job, didn't have a place to stay. Well we searched, but couldn't really find anything. On Saturday, a member invited him and a less active and part member family (Carlos's family actually) over for lunch. Turns out Marcos knew the part member family, and the less active family found him a placed to live. We ended up going on a wild goose chase to find him again that night after the lunch and tell him they had a place for him, and being guided by the spirit, we found him, and got him out the terrible place he lived in.

Both Marcos and Carlos came to church on Sunday. :)

Well, that was our awesome week.

Thanks Everybody!

Elder Clark

Baby elephants and broken chains

Hi!

The best part about this week were the Talks Elder Neri and I gave in Sacrament Meeting. Ok, what wasn't the best part, but we gave some pretty awesome talks on missionary work, rallying the members to share the gospel. 

We've had some awesome days this week. On Friday, we got call from a member to go visit a less active family. Their son had just gone though a really difficult situation, and we were able to show up right when they needed help. We've been gaining a lot of trust with that family recently, so things are moving on. The same day, we taught an 11 year young man about not swearing and doing other similar things at school. It seemed to be a real problem from what his mom had told us, we were able to help him, and Elder Neir was so convincing that I'm pretty sure the young man is going to stop swearing. :) Elder Neri seems to have a lot in common with many of the people we teach, especially among the less actives. Its a great way for him to finish off his mission. 

I was also privileged to go on exchange this week with Elder Yellowplume (Isn't that an awesome name? He's native American) The exchange meant I got to be on bike and speak in English all day whooo!

This week, we had a couple of conversations with people that had me thinking a lot about the importance of prayer and receiving an answer from God about what the truth is. We had a couple of interesting discussions with people that believe differently than us based on just facts and research or bible verses. Well, I believe in what I believe because I prayed and asked God, and He told me it was true, and you can't really argue with somebody about that. I would much rather put my faith in God than humans. I'm also not saying bad about the bible either, but God is still the Ultimate source of truth. So if you have a question, do what Joseph Smith did, as directed by James 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God..." and ask God.

Have a wonderful week everybody!   

Elder Clark

Yo no se porque el rio es amarillo

Hello to one and all from my new home for the next few months, Conyers Georgia! (Have you ever heard of it? No? Well that doesn't surprise me, because I didn't know existed until I got here. (Its basically south of Atlanta) :) Talk about more rural than my last area. We've got some true southerners down here.

My Companion is Elder N*** from Arizona, who's parents are from Mexico. Like I said last time, I lived in the same apartment with him 4 months at the beginning of my mission. He's got about 3 month left, and then he's off to home again. Me, I have 5 left, and then I go home. They stuck two old geasers together. Don't worry, we won't be getting trunky together or anything, especially since they made me district leader. I know, right? Giving Elder Clark authority and responsibility over other missionaries, weird.

Anyways. Elder N*** is awesome. He's has one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen. He wants to do so much good and help everybody, and he bears testimony with so much power and boldness its hard to tell him no. :)

The Yellow River Branch (the one I'm in) Is the smallest I've been in, with about 30 people or so, but that doesn't make it less special. I met about half of the members just going to dinner Wednesday through Saturday, and then I met the other half at church, so now I know everybody. Elder N*** and I are going to double the number of members! Well, that would be cool, but probably not.

We found this one trailer park here that is the biggest trailer park I have ever seen. Its is totally a mini Mexico in there, and we could knock doors in there for the next 6 weeks, but there would still be more doors! It made me so happy to find it. :) In that complex, we found this one English man named George. While we were teaching him a Spanish man, Jorge, came to take their dryer. He saw we were "Preaching the Word" and came into the room and started talking to us in Spanish about visions and dreams he's had. Meanwhile George is sitting on the couch without a clue of what Jorge is saying, so I start translating for him. Jorge shared his thoughts for about 10 minutes, and then we were able to wrap it all up and leave with a new investigator for the English Elders and for us. Talk about weird lessons.

Thanks everybody,

Que Dios les bendiga!

Elder Clark

enough said

Bye Bye Pollo

My time has come to an end here in Gainesville, the poultry capital of the world. It been a glorious 13 weeks, and a total of over 7 months in the same branch, my favorite branch of them all. Alas, the time has come to leave, and to continue my service in The Yellow River Branch. (La Rio Amarillo.) My companion is going to be Elder Neri, a native Spanish speaker! WHHOO! I lived in the same apartment as Elder Neri for the first 3 transfers of my mission, So I know him a little bit.

The whole last 2 transfers I've felt like we start seeing progressing investigators and people coming to church right before I left, and I was right. It is hard to leave these people behind, but that's all right. It was amazing to be answers to some of their prayers by knocking on they're door at the right time, or randomly arriving just in time to help them move, or to eat with them and talk about where we learned spanish and why we speak it so well (That topic comes up a lot.)


We'll sum it all up by saying. "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord."

Hasta luego!

Elder Clark