Splash

March 23, 2015

It’s already almost General Conference time and Easter! How crazy is that?

Well this week was another week full of things going on! We always have things to do whether it is helping people, or our investigators, or just walking around talking to new people. It’s amazing how every moment of the day something is planned for us to do. I think it helps bring down stress when things are planned out! I know I never used to plan before my mission!!

One major miracle that we had this week was a Spanish girl that we had begun teaching who had wanted to get baptized, but then she had moved to Mexico. Well this week, while we were serving at a food bank fundraising dinner, we saw her there. She is moving back here and we are already starting to teach her and she is already committed to be baptized right before we leave!! So that will be really exciting! It amazing how the Lord will just try your faith a little bit and then bring them back just like that!

And then another miracle was made final (Until a year from now when they enter into the temple), but our investigator Shadoe was baptized this weekend! I was honored to do it for him and it was my first one, although I have performed baptisms in the temple. Of course I was a little nervous, but all went well. He was under and then up just like that and it went real smooth! It was great to see him make this step in his life and I just hope he can continue learning and growing in the gospel. His wife wasn’t able to attend because of something with her son, and so that was a little bump we had to work through but the spirit at the baptismal service was strong. 

After the baptism we had a BBQ at our park we live at, and I was the assigned cook because it was my idea! Haha So we grilled up some burgers and hot dogs and had a really good time. Lots of laughter and good fun! We kept bugging one of the park managers, whose wife is a Mormon, to come to church to hear us speak and he would always joke with us or put us off! But man, oh man, did we have a miracle.

We were greeting people as they came into the church and we see George, our park manager, pull up in his dune buggy - all dressed for church! Oh man-we were smiling and laughing as he came in. We were so excited and surprised he was there! It really made our day! It was awesome. I don’t know when the last time he stepped into a church was so it was a really big blessing to see him there.

We were really blessed because we were speaking to get a lot of our investigators at church! It was awesome and with one it was a miracle. We are teaching this wonderful lady. She’s 40 so she’s super young! She has a very strong Christian background and has really been at a point in her life where she is ready for the gospel. We had invited her to hear us speak and we were praying she would come and have a spiritual experience. Saturday night we had just came in for the night and were doing our nightly routine and I just felt we need to go see Diana right away. She just lives up the street. So we went to see her and she said that she was on the fence about church but since we had stopped by she said she would come! We were excited and I was praying fervently that she would feel a confirming feeling at church. When she arrived at church we found her a seat next to someone. It wasn’t the fellowshipper we wanted, but it’s what happened. I guess during the sacrament, Diana had wanted to take the sacrament and the lady didn’t let her and so she felt very excluded and said it really disappointed her. That night we had dinner with her and some other members and we talked about it. My understanding is that she was praying really hard before church thinking this was going to be the moment that changed her, and so we were all a little disappointed since she didn’t have the experience she had hoped for. We know that the lady at church didn’t mean it in a bad way, but it really got to our investigator. So that was really a bummer, and we had a really good talk about it. Hopefully all goes well with her. I really think she needs the gospel she would just love it!

I hope you all have a great week and welcome everyone you see at church, member or not!

Elder Clark 

Shadoe's Baptism

Cooking at the BBQ

Helping the Boyce's with their sewer.

Our nice reward-a T-Bone steak!

With the Boyce's.

Our park manager. We staged the picture!