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

Mission Week #17

Date: Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 1:49 PM
Subject: Hola
To: bclark8@aol.com, Bruce Clark


Hello!

Greetings from Santaquin! I must say, it is quite the place! For some general information... We are living with the Gibsons, a retired couple. It is a nicer house and we have a room in the basement and share the kitchen with them upstairs. We have a silver 2010 Malibu. We cover Santaquin, Genola, Goshen, Elberta, Eureka, Mosida, and Manmouth. The "towns" go down in size with Santaquin being the largest. We have a Subway and a Family Dollar. Genola's main attraction is a large fruit stand. We ventured out to Elberta which takes about 25 minutes on Friday and it is very reminiscent of Wheatland. There are some large ranches where there are workers that live in duplexes on site. The new companion, Elder Wallace is the Man. He has just been out 6 weeks more than me so Spanish is a fun adventure, but we get by without to much difficulty.

It was pretty wierd packing up and leaving Orem. It felt like I had been there forever. Monday night we went to family home evening with the Huertas. It was sweet because everybody that was there just went around and gave me advice. And, Sister Huerta bought Pizza. Tuesday night we had dinner with la Familia Retamales. Bro. Retamales was probably my favorite member I got to know. After we went and visited some families. We talked to the Romero's for a little then went and visited Uriel. Uriel had drawn a picture of us and it said "Best Friends Forever." Bro. Esquivel brought out one of his masks and signed it and gave it to me as a goodbye gift. It was sad leaving but awesome to see how people had changed as they have accepted the gospel in their lives.

Wednesday we met in Provo for Transfers. It was fun to see everyone. Driving away was wierd not only becuase it was my first time with a car, but also becuase I am not used to looking at another gringo companion. I still do double takes at times because Elder Wallace is extremely blonde.

Overall there is tons of work to be done. There are a lot of people who are being taught but not too many that are interested. There is just one very small branch the people are awesome. Saturday the Branch President's 8 year old daughter was baptized and there was a huge party after at the church. There were about twice as many people at the party as there were at the chapel a day later for Sacrament meeting, which isnt too great. There was a new Branch Mission Leader called on Sunday as well and we seems like a good guy. We had two dinners yesterday, one with an awesome family from Puerto Rico, then an hour later with a family from Mexico.

I think that's about it. I am excited to be here with a great companion. I love you all!

Love, Elder Clark

Mission Week #16

Date: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 4:51 PM
Subject: Transfers
To: bclark8@aol.com, Bruce Clark


Hola,

It was a pretty crazy week! First of all, Transfers. We got our calls Thursday night and I am staying! Just kidding... I am going to Santaquin! All last week we had done a lot of speculating and that was actually where we guessed I would be going so it should be pretty fun. My companion will be Elder Wallace, who is from Arizona and has been out around 7 or 8 months. I have met him before and he seems pretty cool. It should be quite the experience both being pretty young and not having a native speaker to look at when people go off and ask random questions. And, I will have a car which I am quite happy about.

On to Tomas....well, Thursday night he had his baptism interview and there was a small issue so we had to move the baptism to next Saturday, the fifth. However, we were glad that he was honest and told him we would be coming back on Saturday to visit. We got there Saturday, Juan invited us in, and then we asked him where Tomas was. His answer of "He left to Mexico" was very unexpected and surprising. Evidently there was some family problems and he just left Friday morning. Hopefully he comes back sometime or is able to get in contact with the missionaries there. There is a new Romero living there now though, a cousin or something... and I guess he has been asking about the church so while Tomas left, there is more possibility.

Marisol's family is doing awesome. Her 3 kids are named Quiavet (14), Ruben Mar (12), and Norvin (6). We had 2 appointments with her during the week and both times when we walked in the 3 kids were all sitting on the couch quietly with the pamphlets we had left and a copy of the Book of Mormon. It is interesting teaching them because the mom is golden, has a strong testimony on prayer, and knows the scriptures well while her kids basically know nothing about religion but are very open. She straight up told us that she felt that she had failed as a mom because she had not taught her kids about religion but was glad we were there to teach them. It is also interesting teaching them because the kids don't understand Spanish very well so we have to teach everything in Spanish then go back and talk to the kids in English. I am surprised how many cases there are of parents who don't speak English and kids who learned Spanish when they were younger but can't speak it anymore because they use English all the time with their friends and in school. A couple weeks ago in one of the wards a kid got up to give a talk but he had to have his dad translate for him because while both of his parents are from Mexico, he can't speak Spanish.

Sunday a couple of cool things happened in the Timpanogas

Mission Week #15

Date: Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Subject: Hi

Hola familia,

It was a good week. I dont have a lot of time to write so here are some of the highlights...

Tomas is doing awesome and this week we taught him all of the commandments (Tithing, Chastity, and Word of Wisdom). Tuesday we taught him the Word of Wisdom and at the end we asked him if he was willing to live it and he replied, "Hermanos, esa pregunta no es una pregunta" or, Brothers, that question isnt even a question. It has been fun to be back in the Romero's house often because of the lessons with Tomas. Two out of three times we went during the week they fed us. The second time was tongue, which actually wasnt too bad.

Thursday we found a family of five who seem like they have some very good potential. The mom's name is Marisol and the three kids have names which will be difficult to remember.

Friday afternoon we had our district lunch at none other than the Super Gourmet Chinese Buffet that we always used to go to.

Laysha's baptism was Friday night. She chose me to baptize her which made it extra sweet. There was good support from the Primary and a bunch of kids were there to sing a special musical number.

I can't believe in four days it will already have been 6 months...the time goes by too fast! This week is already transfer calls, who knows, I may be going to my second area. Tomas will be getting baptized this Saturday in the same font as Juan and Maria. We have been informed that the font will probably take around 6 hours to fill so we will plan on not having to ask the firemen.

I hope you are all doing excellent!

Con amor,

Elder Clark

Mission Week #14

Sent: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 3:25 pm
Subject: Hi

Hola!

No firetrucks this week, but it was a good week nonetheless.

Tuesday morning we had Zone Conference. There was a theme scripture and a bunch of people got called up randomly to give talks one it. Luckily, I was not called upon. Monday a couple of the Elders in the zone had been scavenging the tie section at D.I. and somehow found and purchased 21 matching ties for the zone to wear. We had some good trainings and as always it is fun to see everyone.

Thursday morning we went to the Timpanogas temple as a district for the 8:00 session. We had exchanges that night and Elder Barrera went with the two zone leaders and I stayed with Elder Best in our area. It was different having to talk the majority of the time but the Spanish is coming along more and more and it wasn't too bad. We met with a new family, Adriana and Leopoldo and they seem to have some good potential.

Friday Elder Best got a call that his visa was in. He is very lucky seeing how it took Elder Covington 13 weeks compared to Elder Best's 6 days. Remember Elder Hudson from my first transfer? He has been out over 6 months now waiting for his visa to Spain and the Spanish consulate told him last week that it would still be another 3 months. We decided to celebrate the arrival of the visa with a trip to Cafe Rio, and went again Saturday just because.

Yesterday went well. Adriana and Fidel finally came to church. I may have lost track of everyone and not told you about them but we have been working hard with them and it was good to finally have them there. We found out Enrique got a job and started working Saturday. They are definitely being blessed for their decisions. We had good lessons with both Laysha and Tomas. Laysha should be getting baptized this Friday and Tomas the 29th. We stopped by Juan and Maria's and they gave Elder Best a huge list of referrals filled with family and friends for him to contact in Mexico. The last week was a big testimony builder of how we are assigned where we need to be at the exact time and exact place. Elder Best came to us Friday, Saturday we had the baptisms of Juan and Maria who happen to be from the exact part of Mexico where Elder best is going. Then, the day before he leaves he gets a big list of referrals. He came to our area for a reason. We went to the MTC last night around 9 and dropped him off. As we were standing in the lobby I saw President Nelson, my MTC branch president walking up. It was very fun to see him and talk to him for a little.

Thats about it.. hope you are doing awesome.

Much Love,

Elder Clark

Mission Week # 13

Sent: Mon, Jan 10, 2011 3:36 pm
Subject: The Mission is the Best

Hello!

It has been an incredible last week.

Friday morning we recieved a new companion. His name is Elder Best and he is waiting on a visa to Mexico. He is directly from the MTC so it has been fun to think how I was in his shoes 3 months ago. That night I went on exchanges with one of the English elders and it was nice to say whatever I wanted but I still prefer Spanish.

Saturday was probably the single coolest day of my entire life. I have thought before how I would like to have at least one incredible story to come home with and the story of Saturday is that and more. So, Saturday night was supposed to be the baptism of Juan and Maria at 6:30 pm. We had a couple appointments in the morning and early afternoon and after that we headed to a chapel with computers to make the baptism programs. We made those and then called our ward mission leader at about 2 pm to make sure he was going to take care of filling the font. He said that he would and that actually he was at the church when we called him and the font had been used that morning for an 8 year old baptism. Thus, it was emptying from earlier but he put the plug on the drain so it was still about halfway full. The plan would then be for him to return at about 4 and put hot water in for about 2 hours to fill it the rest of the way. We went and saw some more people then at about 4:30 recieved a devestating call from the ward mission leader, saying that he was at the church and the font, which takes roughly 4 hours to fill was completely empty. Evidently someone did not read the note saying that there would be another baptism and not to empty the font. We told him to just start filling it and we would see what would happen. The most likely result being that we would have to move the baptism to 7 or 8. We then went to our dinner appointment and got out at about 6 to some missed calls. The WML had left a message saying things were not looking good with the font. We headed to the chapel and things definitely did not look good. The font had about 4 inches of water and by that time it was about 6:15. Jaun and Maria were there unaware of the situation but we told them and they were still positive. Everyone was thinking of what we could do and Maria even got one of her friends to start filling trash cans full of water. The trash cans didn't do much so we had to turn to a different option. A block away from the chapel there is a fire station. On the way to the chapel we had passed it and the thought had come into our minds but we really didn't think we were going to come to that. However, it is Orem Utah and we thought we would give it a shot. I stayed with Elder Best at the chapel and Elder Barrera went with a member and knocked on the door of the fire station. He told them the situation and they said yes. Minutes later to fire trucks and about 12 firemen were at the chapel. Elder Barrera had to go back and get our baptismal clothes so I worked with the firemen on getting the hose to the font. Miraculously where the font was situated there was a small window that is perfect for circumstances such as we had. They started shooting water into the font and within ten minutes had it full. By that time a bunch of ward members as well as friends of Juan and Maria were there and everybody was going crazy with excitement. Including me. The firemen packed up and headed out in a surprisingly business-like manner but we all definitely thanked them a lot. The water they used was pretty cold so we threw a couple trash cans full of hot water in as well to try and make it a little more enjoyable. We ended up getting started at about 7:30 and it was an awesome program. Elder Barrera baptized Juan and I baptized Maria. And of course, we ended the night off with some excellent Mexican food and a cake.

Thats about all the time I have. We are teaching a 9 year old named Laysha and she should be getting baptized the 22nd. Also, Juan and Mario Romero have been bringing their uncle Tomas to church and we started teaching him 2 weeks ago. Friday he accepted a baptismal date for the 29th. Things are going great! Hope you all are doing well.

Much love, Elder Clark