Pavo (Turkey)...Pork...and Tamales!

Hey everyone! 

I hope you all had a great week and lots of turkey and some good football.

Due to the wicked traditions of our fathers we were able to have our own turkey bowl as missionaries at six in the morning! It was super fun and brought back all the great memories of doing it in the ward. i.e. Running over Brother Allen on accident, I think. Kado tearing it up. Bro Ginos thinking he stills plays middle linebacker and is in his high school state championship game! Yep, great times and lots of sore old men! Here we just had grumpy sisters that didn’t want to play football but they were all good sports about it!

Thanksgiving is a day they tell us to talk to everyone and work super hard because everyone is at home. But let me tell you, no one that is a non-member even wants to see you that day.  Luckily, we had nice members that gave us a huge feast. We had our first dinner with the Retis family and they are from Peru. We had some amazing pork and turkey and tons and tons of other food. They are a great family. After that we went over to the Sanchez’s home for our second Thanksgiving dinner which consisted of chicken and tamales! Not the traditional, but still awesome! Well that wasn’t all, the next morning for breakfast the Retis family invited over to eat a black Friday family breakfast Peru style and let me tell you they know how to eat. I have never been so full in the morning in my entire life! I didn’t even need food the rest of the day! It was awesome. 

This week has been super awesome because we have found a lot more people to teach. We have three families now that will hopefully be progressing. One family came to church on Sunday. One way we got a family super excited was by doing a visual lesson. It was about faith and we did a faith rocket. I remember this one from my childhood. It is where you basically burn a tea bag in someone’s palm and right before it seems like it will burn them it floats up into the air. On exchanges one day my companion and another elder tried to do this with a family and they used the wrong tea bags on accident and it ended up burning the lady’s hands (she wasn’t hurt)!! hahaha So much for a good lesson on faith. So we made sure we got the right tea bags and we did this with visual aide lesson with one of the families. The kids were scared at first but once they finally did it everyone was super amazed and loved it.

It is really cool to see all that the church does over here. A stake in the Las Vegas West Mission is putting on a free nativity and so we can send over all our investigators to see that. The members here truly are excited about missionary work. It is inspiring to see all that they do and to have the church be so strong in an area of the world that is known for being very far from the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was reading in the Ensign for this month and I liked a story about how a five year old boy was looking for arrow heads with his dad. At the end of the day his dad asked him if he found any. The boy answered that he had not, but found a really cool rock shaped like a Christmas tree. The young boy hadn’t realized that he had actually been holding the thing he was looking for. We, at times, might not realize the promptings we receive from the spirit, but if we just take some time and listen for them then we will begin to realize who Jesus Christ is and what He can do for us. That is why this time of year is so exciting. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas without the zero degree weather and snow (sorry for all you over in Cali, but a real Christmas needs snow) but I know people’s hearts are turned to Christ and it is a great blessing to be a missionary during this time of year. 

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!!

Elder Clark

Matching ties with Elder Sawyer (not planned).

Thanksgiving Dinner, 2014

Rugby in the mornings.