Converting Vegas One Casino at a Time: Thanksgiving and a Hike

Well this week was a great week! They always fly by so, so fast.

I was able to go on exchanges with my MTC comp and that was really cool! I haven't served around him my whole mission, so it was really cool to see how much we have both grown in almost a year and a half. We had a great time catching up and doing missionary work. We even taught a lesson in Spanish! Man, that was way different then our first lesson in Spanish in Mexico. haha!

Thanksgiving was great! We had a great dinner with a Polynesian family. They are just wonderful! We played the Glad Game. It's where you go around the table and say something you are grateful for. Just one word, and really fast. If you hesitate, you’re out. And if you repeat something, you’re out. So that was really fun! We talked about how what if you could only have the things you thanked God for the night before. It was a fun dinner. Afterwards, we visited a few of our investigators, and sadly two that were going to get baptized this weekend won't be able to. The boy can't get permission from his dad and the mom want get baptized without her son. It was heartbreaking for us and them.

But the real fun didn't start until Friday morning. I was privileged to go down to the Havasupai Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon. I went for an overnighter there and it was quite the trip. We stayed the night in Peach Springs where the elders on a different reservation live and then left early that morning for the trail head, or known as the hilltop. Because of the holiday season, there were already a lot of tourists there getting ready to hike down. It was a pretty brisk morning. It is about an 8 mile hike down to the village and we got down in just over two hours. The elders live in the church there, so we dropped off all our stuff and got some food in us and headed out. The view is breath taking! I loved being in that canyon. I didn't even think I was in my mission. I was called to the Nevada Las Vegas mission and where I was at was definitely not Vegas! I felt like I was in a foreign country. The main transportation was horse, mule, or foot.

We had a very successful time down there! We found 8 new people interested in the gospel and set three of them for a baptismal date in January. We got to hike to the falls and gave a lesson to a part member family that sells fry bread to tourists down there. We even got free fry bread! It was so humbling to see how these people live. There is a lot of sadness and depression there. It's so wonderful we have a church there to help them. We had to clean out this guy’s cabinets and they were full of cockroaches and cockroach dust! It was pretty crazy! I am grateful for the chance that I had to serve there. I felt like Ammon when the Lord told him:

"11 And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."

We then hiked out the next day and it even snowed on us! It was quite the hike out. We ended up hiking about 25 miles in two days! The last mile outside of the canyon was a 8000 foot elevation gain! It was brutal! It was even snowing on us! I was so, so excited I forgot how much I missed snow!

Everything else this week was good! Our recent convert had to go to the hospital yesterday during Sacrament meeting; she was having bad chest pain. But luckily she is ok!

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Clark