Mission Week #30

Sent: Mon, Apr 25, 2011 1:14 pm
Subject: Hello

Hola,

This week was transfers but it was quite uneventful. We are supposed to receive the calls Saturday night so we got home Saturday and I waited anxiously by the phone for an hour and a half and the call never came. We had a correlation meeting Sunday morning in Goshen at 6:30 so we had to get up extra early. Upon return I talked to the AP's and they said that we are both staying in the area.

We had a good Easter Sunday yesterday. I don't think I have ever mentioned a guy named Jose Catalan but he came to church yesterday with his family. Him and his wife are like 25 and have been dating since high school and aren't married but have two young kids. His wife is a member but has not been active for years. We have visited them off and on the last 3 months with not much progress but in the last little while he has had a change of attitude. He has never been religious but after losing his job and looking unsuccessfully for awhile he said he started praying for help and was able to find a good job. Since then he said he has been praying daily. It has just been cool to see the change he has made. A couple months ago Elder Wallace and I were teaching him and one conversation went like this.... "Will you read the Book of Mormon?" "No" "Why?" "Because I have no desire and am not interested in religion."

Every Sunday we eat with the Torres family and we had a nice dinner with them. Them, and the Flores family, who we eat with every Saturday are the members we are closest with.

We met with Pilar, Raul, and Sebastian, the workers, twice this week and taught about the plan of salvation. One of the hardest mindsets that people tend to have is that everything that comes from God is good and that basically all religion is equal. While it is definitely true that everything about or of God is profitable for man that mindset kind of takes away from the necessity of priesthood or ordinances. I can certainly understand why it is so hard for people to grasp the Gospel and change though. Generally some of the biggest truths have been rejected. The Earth being round.... Jesus being the Christ. Anyway, Raul and Sebastian, and pretty much everyone else, have that mindset so we are working on that. 

Thats it for this week. Today we are going to the trainer, Wal-Mart, and apparently there is a "Jerusalem" site near Elberta where they are re-making all the New Testament church movies so we might check that out.

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #29

Sent: Mon, Apr 18, 2011 1:20 pm
Subject: Hi

Hello again.

It sounds like you had a good stake conference back home. It was also stake conference here for all three of our stakes. Elder Ballard and Elder Doxey (an area 70) were going to be at one of them so it wasn't too difficult to choose which one we wanted to attend. We have been working with Hno. Albor, an investigator, and trying to get him to come to church and he decided that this week was the week he wanted to come. We went to his house early so he could follow us and him and his 18 year old son Marcos came. Elder Ramires stayed with the dad in the Spanish translation room and I went with Marcos to the main room to watch. It was great timing as we made our way to the chapel because we crossed paths with Elder Ballard and Marcos and I got to shake his hand. I would consider Marcos' first time entering a church building pretty good; within the first 5 minutes he met an Apostle. President and Sister Pitts ended up being there too so it was great. Elder Ballard spoke on the importance of the Plan of Salvation and families. Sister Pitts thanked everyone for feeding us and mentioned that the average weight gain in the mission is over 30 pounds. I have gained 20 pounds since entering the MTC. That may seem like a lot until you find out that Elder Ramires put on 35 pounds in his 9 weeks there.

Monday we took advantage of the excellent scenic exploratory sites that Eureka has to offer. There is a mountain you can drive up to Eureka and near the top is what we call "The Bottomless Pitt." It is a large hole and there are metal bars across the top so nobody falls in and dies. We lowered down string with glow sticks connected to it and concluded that it is more than 500 feet deep. It is definitely a must see attraction.

The investigators are doing well. We met with the 3 workers workers again and they have been reading a little in the Book of Mormon. Angelica talked to her mom and has been considering changing religions but she said she needs to be completely sure. Sister Munoz said she believes everything in our visit this week. She somehow has a mental block in her head that is impeding her from going to church but I think once she goes she will be able to take some bigger steps.

I hope you have a great next weekend remembering the Savior. It has been great to have to opportunity to expand my knowledge and gratitude for Him, and to help others do the same the last 9 months. Love you all!

-Elder Clark

Pictures from Lunch

Tanner had lunch with Julie, Cliff and Grandpa and Mamo

Mission Week #28

Sent: Mon, Apr 11, 2011 1:01 pm
Subject: Hello Again

Hola,

Hows everything going? Last week went pretty well....

Monday afternoon Sister Smith called from the Mission office and told me that she had talked to Julie and had cleared a lunch with Presidente and all that was left was to chose between Wednesday and Friday. I chose Friday and Friday we had a good lunch at the "Family Tree." Julie flashed her ring from across the table and that was certainly quite the fun surprise. It was great to see Grandpa and Mamo. They have eaten there before.

The Wilkins sent funfetti cookies with Julie and they were awesome.

Tuesday we were with a member and we were looking for more people to teach in Genola. Genola is massive geographically but the are very few populants. However, hidden deep into the town we found a fruit orchard with several small apartment things that house all the workers. In one of the apartments we taught three guys and they seem pretty interested. We knocked on their neighbors door and we could hear rustling and the back windows open. A guy cracked open the door and asked who we were. We told him we were missionaries then he opened the door and relieved explained that he thought we were immigration. This actually happens a lot. I guess you cant blame them...we wear suits and drive a nice car.

A couple weeks ago we went over to see Pedro and only his mom was there. She is the nicest old catholic lady ever. She calls us muchachos and then always feels bad because she feels like she should be calling us Elderes but insists on calling us muchachos. She was going through her schedule to set up an appointment and happened to mention that this past Wednesday was her birthday. I wrote it down in the planner and last week we made her a nice card and took it over on her birthday. She opened the door, we gave her the card, and then she cried a bunch. As we expected nobody had remembered her birthday, not even Pedro, and we were the only ones to wish her a happy birthday. Even old, single, catholic ladies need some love.

Thursday we did some fun service with Hno. Guerra in the branch presidency. He has a bunch of land and we went out and planted some peas with him. He is quite the funny guy and the 4 or 5 times we walked by him yesterday at church he was excited about how delicious the peas were going to be.

Angelica read in the Book of Mormon by herself for the first time. She kept saying how she was forgetting so we committed her to keep it on her pillow. It worked. The Munoz family has been busy but the daughter came to church again with her aunt and uncle.

Thats about it... We had more snow last week but today is pretty clear. Adios,

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #27

Sent: Mon, Apr 4, 2011 1:35 pm
Subject: Conferencia

Hello,

Wasn't conference pretty sweet? I definitely appreciate it more as a missionary. For the Saturday morning session we went to the Bing's house. They are the family who the English elders live with. We went a little early and they made us an awesome breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast etc. I don't think I had had a warm breakfast since the MTC so that was quite enjoyable. A little before the afternoon session was going to start we went over to Pedro's to see if he had watched any of the previous session. When we got there he was just getting out of bed but he invited us to just watch the session there with him. He would pause it every now and then and ask questions so it was good we were there to help him out. It was cool to hear both Elder Packer and Nelson mention the Word of Wisdom which is one of the things Pedro is struggling with. After about 45 minutes in he paused it and asked a lengthy series of questions and we got into a pretty big discussion about a variety of gospel subjects. By the end we were talking about the Plan of Salvation and he was crying about how his trials were too much and that his kids shouldn't have to live in a bad situation because of his choices. It was pretty sad to see a 39 year old crying about his divorce and his kid's situation but we told him the only answer is through the gospel and he needed to live it in order to see the blessings of it.

Sunday morning we initially didn't know where we were going to watch conference. The Gibson's (who we live with) were planning on going to Salt Lake to watch it but a large amount of snow changed their mind. Thus, we ended up watching both sessions with them.

Thursday we had an awesome Zone Conference. The talks and trainings were great. A ward relief society always provides lunch for us and I think my favorite part of zone conference is when we all finish eating and the relief society introduces themselves and we say thanks. They never know what is coming next but President counts us down and we all sing "Called to Serve." It is little funny how quickly they all start to cry as we sing. The majority of them usually have their own sons or daughters out on missions so they don't stand a chance of not crying.

We had a district lunch this week and I think we have the most diverse district in the mission. In the district there are representatives from South Africa, Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Spain. Its pretty cool to hear everyones background and how their families came into the church.

Not too much new news about investigators. We taught Fernando about the 10 commandments and he didnt know that worshipping idols was bad. We are working on clarifying the difference between traditions and customs and doctrine and truth. Hopefully he'll get it.

I hope you are doing great and had an excellent time listening to the chosen leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Love, Elder Clark

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