August 3, 2015
WOW!
I thought this day would never come! I remember in my first area someone
telling me one day you are going to wake up and be out for a year. I never
believed them, but I guess it’s here. I feel like I have no time left on my
mission. It is going to go so fast and I really don’t want it to end.
Looking over the year, I have seen a lot of growth in myself.
Never before in my life have I looked so inward to help others - to become
better myself, but not for my recognition, but to help God’s children. I
still have so much I want to work on. We had a member of the seventy tell us, “This
is the time. Now is the time! The mission is the best place to grow!” It really
has changed me and I hope to go home a better person from when I started.
I guess looking back, I can already see how my mission has
changed my life. Elder Holland said that no other young man was as changed as
he was by his mission. All the apostles speak of their missions as truly the
best two years of their lives. And I believe why it is called the best two
years is not because there are not good things to come, amazing things to come,
but because this sets the foundation for life. How you serve as a called
representative of the Lord will determine your life. Sure you can change after,
or not serve a mission and be a great person. But I am coming to understand the
importance of the decisions I make now. And this is a turning point in my life,
it’s now or never. I am sure you remember, Dad, how I hated making decisions
back home! I don’t think I like making them anymore now, but I understand the
importance.
The vision our mission president has for us is to become Preach My
Gospel missionaries for life. This means a lot of things. But what I really
think it means is letting ourselves be changed by our missions. Whether it is
this full time mission I am on, or a calling, or being a mother or father, or
any other call from God; putting our wants on the altar of sacrifice and really
consecrating ourselves to the Lord. This is what it takes to truly be like the
missionaries of old. Lehi and Nephi baptizing thousands, Parley P. Pratt
serving missions for 25 years saying "I'll go where you want me to
go". We are given the authority through the priesthood, by the laying on
of hands, but the power of the priesthood comes by who we are, and what we do
and say and think. This is when we can cause "earthquakes" in the
lives of those in our stewardship.
3 Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your
mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you
shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.
I rejoice for this chance I have to serve my mission! I will be
forever in debt for what I do, but I now Christ has paid in full, and all I am
left to do is accept that gift and show my love and appreciation of His
infinite and great sacrifice by who I become with His enabling power. I have
come to know Jesus is the Christ. He died for all! And this week has
strengthened my testimony even more. I have been praying again to have my doubts
washed away and a confirmation that what I am doing is right, that the gospel
has truly been restored by the prophet Joseph smith. And again, my Father has
answered my prayers.
This week the Lord blessed us with so many miracles. I don't
even know if I have time to write and share all the experiences I have had.
Just yesterday, we had some amazing experiences.
On my exchanges with the APs, I learned this really cool way to
get our members involved when we are knocking doors. You ask them who they know
on their street you can knock on and then you ask them if you can say a prayer
that they will be open to our message and then invite them to pray while you go
talk to them and keep a prayer in their heart and that you will come back and
let them know how it went. If they don’t have a door for you to knock, then you
ask them to pray to find someone that is ready for the gospel. So yesterday we
went and saw a less active couple that our ward mission leader sent us to. We
began talking with them and they told us they were on a spiritual path and that
they didn't believe in organized religion. The wife was only baptized a year
ago. They were very less active, and so we did the pray and knock thing with
them (I call them MIK..Member Inspired Knocks). We knocked some doors and
nothing really happened. And then we saw this lady smoking outside her house
and went up and talked to her. She was a chorister for the Nazarene church in
town and she was very friendly. We told her we would help her quit smoking and
gave her a Book of Mormon and testified that Christ and his gospel could help
he. She also gave us a referral! We went back and talked to the less active couple
again to tell them how things went. The husband was so, so excited to hear
about our miracle. He just lit up and couldn't stop shaking our hands. He was
so excited and he said would come to church. Just as Joseph smith had Satan try
to stop him during the First Vision, I remember that while we were on our way
to the less actives house, I really didn't want to go see them. I almost didn’t
follow our plans and wanted to go somewhere else. But I am glad I trusted in
the planning we had done, and the Lord blessed us.
Then at church, the miracles just kept on coming! We have been
meeting with a woman who lived in Utah for the last 20 years. She is related to
Joseph smith III. She said she would never go to church or get baptized, but she
knew everything about the church, so we called her the grand master! Well, we
did a church tour with her earlier this week and had her pick out her seat and
everything. And then for the first time in her life, she came to an LDS service
and she loved it!! She loved Fast Sunday and everything!! It was so amazing. We
went by her house after church and committed her to be baptized on September
5th and she was like, “Yeah that sounds like a good date.” It was so awesome!
And then the last miracle I will share was the one that was the
answer to my prayer about the truthfulness of the church; the answer to my
effort of having continuing revelation and that this is the restored church of
Christ. We have been teaching another other couple at a member’s home and we
have had some amazing lesson with them. They finally came to church. They are
super shy, and so it was a miracle they came as they have canceled in the past.
And they loved it! That night we watched the movie "Joseph Smith: The
Prophet of The Restoration" with them at the members home and I felt the
spirit so strong during the movie, bearing witness to me that joseph smith is a
prophet of God. After the movie we talked a little bit and the testimonies that
were shared were so powerful! I got teared up, that’s for sure! They said that
they talked after church and that they really want to join!! They are getting
baptized at the end of this month.
We have seen so many miracles and I am so grateful for them! It’s
like Ammon boasting of his God again. It was really nothing we did, but it was
all in our Heavenly Father’s plan. All we have to do as missionaries is strive
to be obedient, work hard and have the spirit, and the Lord will bless us. I
love my mission and Ii am going to just get better and better, and as my last
year comes and goes, I hope to always keep this missionary spirit with me and
pray that I can be an effective instrument in the hands of the Lord. We used to
always say in football at half time "its 0-0" and that’s exactly
right – it’s time to show my Father in Heaven that I truly love Him. Forget
yourself and go to work. That’s my plan. I love this gospel with all my heart
and I would never change the chance I had to be a missionary in the Nevada Las Vegas
mission. I know this is where I am supposed to be! I love you all! If you have
any doubts put them aside. "Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive
no witness until after the trial of your faith." (Ether 12:6)
Elder Clark
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| We went to a referral, but it had burned down. |
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| A training I did about building our foundation in Christ and using his atonement to change our weaknesses into strengths. I had the bottom person crawl out and we all fell! |
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