Mission Week #26

Sent: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 1:22 pm
Subject: Hola

Hola,

I really don't have too much news this week. However, I did experience two notable things for the first time on the misision. The first was getting bitten by a dog. That event occured in the town of Goshen. Goshen is a lovely little town past Genola and before Elberta. We were there knocking doors in a trailor park during the week and as usual 6 or 7 small, loud dogs ran up right when we entered the trailor park to let us know that we were in their territory. I guess one had some extra energy that day so he decided to try and bite me. It was a pretty small dog and I moved my leg so it really wasnt even that good of a bite but like I said, there isnt too much news this week, so that makes the email. To add to the story, we were with the English Elders later in the week and I looked in one of their backpacks and saw dog treats. I asked why they had them and the simple reply was, "Goshen." We borrowed some dog treats and returned to the trailor park. When all the dogs ran up we gave each on a dog treat, which they took, and silently trotted away. We will always bring dog treats now.

Also, Sunday we gave talks in an English ward. Pretty awesome I had made it 8 months without giving a talk right? Brother Gibson, who we live with, is on the High Council and asked us to speak with him in the ward he was assigned to.  We both just gave short talks on the importance of the Atonement.

Most of the investigators are doing well. We had a couple of good meetings with Angelica. She has always said how it would be really hard to leave her traditions and go against her mom. We actually met her mom during the week while we were knocking in Elberta and she opened the door 2 inches and told us to go away. This gave us a better understanding of where Angelica was coming from. Bro. Munoz said he is too tired from work to keep meeting with us. The mom is awesome but for some reason really does not want to go to church. Her sister got baptized a year ago and before church every Sunday goes to her house to try and get her to go. She wasnt there yesterday but the Munoz's 9 year old daughter showed up with her Tia. We havent heard anything about Alejandra yet. We drove by her house during the week and her husband was outside and gave us a nice little stare down.

I hope you all are doing awesome! This week we have Zone Conference which are always great.

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #25

Sent: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 1:35 pm
Subject: Another Week

Whats up?

Last week was pretty good....

Tuesday night I had a trainers meeting at the mission home with the Pitts. Sister Pitts made us dinner then President talked to us for a while. Every time he speaks I learn something new. He is definitely quite the knowledgeable guy. Elder Wallace stayed in the area with a split because we had a bunch of lessons planned then spent the night with some other Elders in an area near Santaquin. After the meeting I went and stayed the night with the American Fork Elders. It was really awesome to kind of re-live the whole experience of my last night in the MTC and the anticipation of it all....just this time from the other side of things. When I came out there was like 20 of us but this transfer there was only 2 Elders and 2 sisters. The other trainer was from Panama and of the new Elders one was from Mexico and the other was from Indiana so we kind of already knew how things were going to go. Anyways, my new companion is Elder Ramires from Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. He is the man! Missionaries knocked on his family's door about 20 months ago and they all got baptized and now he is on a mission. I think the branch was getting tired of having Americans and they were all very happy and warmly welcomed him yesterday at church.

The area is doing pretty well. We had quite the not fun experience Friday though. Alejandra is having some very serious problems with her husband and we met back up with her Friday at the church. We started teaching and we see a car kind of circling around and Alejandra is like..shoot, it think thats my husband looking for me. Evidently she had told him she was going to a school meeting and he followed her. After a couple minutes he parked and came and knocked on the door. Luckily we had another member with us there and Alejandra and Sister Soto went out and talked to him. He started freaking out and getting all mad then after some arguing, left, and we continued the lesson. Shortly thereafter, he returned again, more mad, and said that she had to go home right then. She was crying and left to avoid further argument. Elder Ramires and I were still there like ten minutes later and he returned for a third time, this time wanting to talk to us. He went off about how we were ruining his marriage, brainwashing his son, and how she was probably dating one of us. We were just really calm and explained what we were doing and he kind of just had nothing to say to the questions we asked. He said we were ruining his traditions and family religion and when I asked him why he was a member of the church that he was he couldnt answer...and all he could say is that he would never change. The main problem is that he is cheating on his wife, is insecure, and is looking for excuses and people to blame for his problems. Yesterday she had to go to Salt Lake to meet with a lawyer so she couldnt make it to church. So, that is the update on Alejandra.

Everyone else is doing alright. They all are pretty connected to their traditions so we are trying to help them understand the importance of following God and not just traditions because that is what their Grandparents did. It really doesnt matter what religion someone is in...you cant just do things because you see other people doing them. At some point you have to figure things out for yourself.

I hope you all are doing excellent! Until next week..

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #24 TRAINING!!!!!

Sent: Mon, Mar 14, 2011 1:23 pm
Subject: Transfers

Hola!

This last transfer flew by. Saturday night we recieved our transfer calls. I was waiting by the phone around 9 and the call didnt come until like 10:20. The suspense always kills me. I was hoping that Elder Wallace and I would just stay together for another 6 weeks but we received the the news the he would be going to Spanish Fork and I would be staying. I don't know who my new companion will be yet. There are 4 new Elders coming fresh from the MTC. Three Americanos and one Mexicano. Wednesday morning we will meet up and all the trainers will sit one one side of the room and the new ones will sit on the other and then President will announce who it is. It feels like I was just sitting on the new side of the room! It should be a fun experience to train though. New missionaries just have the fire.

Everything is going great in Santaquin. Alejandra is having a lot of problems with her husband but she is moving along nonetheless. I guess her husband was out of town the first couple times we went but this week when we went he was there. We went in and said hi to him and went over to shake his hand but he just grunted and wouldnt look at us or shake our outstretched hands. She said she was going to the lawyer this week and I think they are working on getting a divorce. However, she came to church yesterday and is doing awesome. Yesterday afternoon we met again with her and watched the Restoration DVD. She said she believed everything so we started talking about baptism. She was kind of unsure about it at first but we were able to set a date for April 9th. The Branch President's wife, Sister Flores, called her later to see how she was doing and I guess somehow her family in Mexico found out she was talking to us. Her mom was upset that she would consider changing religions but I think Alejandra will be able to just keep moving forward.

The Munoz family and Vasquez family are both doing alright. We havent been able to meet with them as often as we would like and it will be hard to get them to church but we are continuing to work with them. We had a Branch tracting activity on Thursday and it was only the mission leader and a priest but we got some good knocking in.

I think thats it...It should be a interesting upcoming week!

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #23

Sent: Mon, Mar 7, 2011 1:41 pm
Subject: Hi

Hola,

Hows it going? It was a good week.

After I sent the email last week we went to the llama farm in Spanish fork. It was pretty fun to relive the memories of going to the llama fest like 6 years ago. The only disappointment is that they did not have adult size llama fest shirts.

We had interviews with President Pitts on Wednesday. It is fun to be around him and learn from everything he says. He is very knowledgeable! During the interview he talked a lot about how he feels that there is something more in Elberta that needs to be done but he doesnt exactly know what it is..... At the Bateman Ranch out there they have a big recreation building for the workers and upstairs have a movie room thing. We are probably going to plan a movie night and watch a church movie and have food with all the workers. I am not an event planner so we will see how that turns out.

Most of the investigators are doing well. The familia Munoz have always been busy or not at home so we werent able to teach them last week which was pretty dissapointing. Angelica was really worn out from work when we visited her but we had a good lesson on the Book of Mormon. We met with Danis again and he is the man. Last time he asked if he needed to get married to get baptized and we told him  yes so we have been trying to work on how to get that done. We may have to go get a sam's club membership or something because he needs some sort of photo I.D. He has been reading what we have left though and the night of our first visit they started praying as a family which they have never done.

A couple weeks ago we were knocking an apartment complex and there werent any hispanics but someone pointed out a house that was hispanic. We had gone twice before and nobody was home. Saturday night we went back and a really nice lady named Alejandra let us in. We started talking to her then after a couple minutes she just started crying. She said she had talked to missionaries like 8 years ago but she is going through a really hard time in her life and it was a sign from God that we were there to help her. We talked to her for awhile and explained how the Gospel can bless her life and invited her to church. Sunday morning we stopped by just to remind her and she said she wanted to go but didnt have anything to wear. We told her just whatever she had was fine and she came with her 6 year boy and and 7 year old niece. It was a good week at church and she said she really enjoyed it!

Good things are happening overall in the branch. Thursday we are going out with a bunch of branch members and knocking a trailer park for an hour. Sounds like things are going well at home. Glad Ashlee found a job!

Love you!  Elder Clark

Mission Week #21

Sent: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 1:38 pm
Subject: Hi

Hola,

How's it going? There isnt too much news today but some good things are happening...

A couple of weeks ago we were getting our hair cut and we started talking to this guy named Danis from Honduras. We works at a farm in Mosida but lives here in Santaquin and has been living with a less active  for about 3 years. We got to know him a little and he said we could come over sometime. We stopped by last Sunday and he was busy so we stopped by again on Thursday and had a really good lesson with him. He had tons of questions about the religion in general but is really sincere and wants to learn. We basically talked about everything from temples to authority. He grew up with Evangelical parents and was baptized when he was little but we talked about being baptized the same way Christ was and the importance of authority and gave him a baptismal committment. He said he wants to but just didn't want to set a date yet. He also asked if he needed to be married to be baptized if he was living with his girlfriend. We explained the importance of that and his girlfriend who was there didn't seem to excited about getting married. We will see...

This week we were pretty straight up with some people who know they need to change but don't want to. We found this older guy named Juan how lives in a tiny trailer in the yard of a less active family. He said he was almost baptized awhile ago but since then has started "hanging around" with an amiga. The problem is that he has a wife and kids in Mexico who don't know about it. He said he knows he is doing bad things with the amiga but doesnt want to leave and offend her. We explained to him how he was offending God and that he needed to change. I think he was pretty humbled because he came to church yesterday for the first time in years. There is also another Juan who is married to an active member and knows everything but has problems with some of the commandments and thinks his friends will annoy him if he gets baptized. We told him he was putting his salvation in the hands of his friends and that he wouldnt live with his family after this life unless he changes. He also came to church yesterday and looked like he was listening pretty intently.

We had good lessons with the Vasquez and Munoz families. We watched the Restoration DVD with the familia Vasquez and I asked them after if the believed it. The mom was kind of unsure but the nine year old daughter said loudly "Yo lo creo! (I believe it!)" Hopefully her mom will have the same attitude soon.

That is about it... I have been studying about authority/church orginization/apostasy lately. It seems like it is all more clear and true the more you study and preach it. I am glad I don't have any doubts about telling people that Christ's church has been restored to the Earth.

I hope everything is going great!

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week 19

Sent: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 1:50 pm
Subject: Hello

Hi family. Como estan?

Santaquin is great. We found a couple of awesome young families this week. We had lessons with both of them last Monday. The familia Vasquez was found knocking doors in a little trailer park and the familia Munoz was found when we went to visit some less actives, and they happened to be living there. Sis. Vasquez is a single mom with kids of ages 13, 9, 6, and 2 and the Munoz are a young couple with three little girls, and the youngest is about 2 weeks old. I guess Br. Vasquez has a lot of member friends but has never talked to missionaries. He was basically like...I know of lot of Mormons and I have seen a lot of people change...I just want to find out for myself if it is true. I was happy to hear that.

Tuesday we went out to Elberta and met with one of the Managers of the dairy who is also the Elders Quorum President and he pointed showed us where most of the hispanics live and gave us some good referrals. As we were leaving town a mini van came speeding up behind us and honked at us until we stopped. Renee's friend Ann had seen us walking out of a house and tracked us down. She invited us over for dinner a couple days later. Small world.

Fernando is doing well. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon last lesson and are still working on getting him to pray more. Tonight we have a family home evening with the branch missionaries, stake language missionaries, ward mission leader, and hopefully tons of investigators. We have invited everyone.

Thursday I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the church dairy with Armando, Ann's husband. They have quite the setup there. I never could have imagined such technology for milking cows. We also had dinner with Ann and Armando. It was nice to have a little break from tortillas and have spaghetti.

Pedro is progressing little by little. He read what we left him but has a ways to go because of the drinking, smoking, and fear of going to church. He is still struggling with his recent divorce and is scared to go to church just as a single guy.

We had a pretty good number of people at church Sunday. Jose Sanchez and another older Guatemalan guy who lives in the same house, Gabino, came too. They both went to the back corner and set on different rows. I sat with Jose and Elder Wallace sat with Gabino and helped them sing, etc... It seemed like in Orem it was tough to get people to church but once they went they would progress really fast. However, here a lot of people just go to go and aren't really interested in learning more.

No training with the UFC trainer yesterday. We have to wait a couple more weeks because he is busy. It was pretty crazy though. Definitely the best workout I have had in 7 months. He has these bands attached to his wall and makes us do all kinds of different workouts with them. I thought he'd take it easy on us but he is a serious guy from Alabama with a deep southern accent and he wasnt messing around!

I hope you all are doing excellent!

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #18

Sent: Mon, Feb 14, 2011 1:46 pm
Subject: Hello

Hola Familia,

How is it going? It was a good week here in Santaquin. Monday night we visited a new guy named Pedro Figeroa. He is younger and recently devorced and just going through a rough time in his life. We basically told him if he was willing the Gospel could change his life and get him through his challenges.

Every Tuesday the district does service at the local food bank for a couple hours in the afternoon. We helped fill orders and it was fun to help out. Also, every Tuesday night we eat with Sister Flores, the Branch President's wife. She is quite the cook. I am growing accustomed to, and enjoying, eating piles of tortillas with every meal. There was really no need for all the table manners I was taught. Most people don't use eating utensils, instead, they rip the tortillas apart, then grab each bite of food with a piece of tortilla. Also, intead of using napkins the proper method to remove grease of food particles from fingers is to lick them off. It is very enjoyable. Later Tuesday night we visited a guy named Fernando. We found him my first day when we went to visit a recent convert. He looks like he is in his forty's and is here working and his family lives in California. He is possibly the most hospitable person I have ever met. The first day we went he gave us water bottles, then some tacos, then some soda, and as we were leaving, fruit. Anyway, we had a good lesson with him on profetas and he seems pretty interested.

Wednesday after our district meeting we headed out to Elberta. That is where the Church dairy is as well as some other large operations. President Pitts wants us to focus some more out there becuase there are tons of hispanic workers. However, it is about 30 minutes from the chapel in Santaquin so we are working on a way to have a meeting closer to them. We met with the bishop of the ward out there and we are considering having a translater with headphones for everyone. We are meeting with the Stake President tomorrow to talk more about the situation.

Thursday we went to the temple as a district. Our assigned temple is Provo now. It is always fun when the workers ask "Where are you headin' Elder?", or when MTC missionaries ask "How many weeks have you been out?" Way out near Elberta there is a "town" called Mosida. It consists of a large landfill and the Bateman Ranch. The Bateman's are members and have a huge ranch and have four or five duplexes where most of the workers live. We talked to them and they said we could try and teach some of the workers. So far we are in the process of teaching William, Juan, and Rafeal, who all live in the same building. We initailly found William last week then Thursday we also taught Rafa and Juan. Additionally, we had a first lesson with Jose Chavez, who is living with a member and showed up at church a couple weeks ago. He is a short guy from Guatemala who seems to be kind of angry at the world. At one point in the lesson he went off talking and mumbled about who knows what for like 15 minutes. To finish off the day we had another good lesson with Pedro.

Friday we had an awesome lesson with Fernando. The Spirit was really strong and we finished teaching the Restoration. At the end we talked to him about getting baptized and he said it was something he wants to do, but he just needs a little time to think because it is so different from his family traditions. I was teaching with a convert during the week and he said some awesome stuff to a catholic lady. He basically said the Hispanic catholic traditions they have such as praying to Mary aren't religion, just tradition. He invited her to open up and think about the Restoration. It was cool to hear that coming from someone who gave up family traditions to follow his testimony of the Gospel.

Saturday morning we got to go the Temple again. In the mission we are now allowed to go twice a month. Once as a district and once as a companionship. We chose to go with the Branch Saturday morning and it was awesome to experience a session in Spanish. We taught Jose Chavez later on during the day.

Yesterday there were several people who came to church so that makes the week feel successful. We had an appointment with a guy named Santiago but a guy named Omar answered and said he wasnt there. We told Omar who we were and asked if we could talk to him instead and actually ended up having a great lesson with him and his wife.

There is a family history center here so that is where we do emails. In a couple hours we are going with Jeff Pereda, who is in the branch and leaving for his mission in a month, to work out with a UFC trainer. There is a guy here who trains fighters in a gym in his basement. We arent allowed to spar but it should be fun.

Thats about it...everything is going great!

Love you, Elder Clark