Converting Vegas One Casino at a Time: Vegas Bound Again

It is always so bittersweet leaving and getting transferred; especially this transfer for me. I have served in this zone for seven transfers of my mission, and I have loved all three of the areas I have served in. Lake Havasu, the one I am leaving now, has been so fun and I am really going to miss so many people here. I feel like I could just fit in with this ward and be perfectly happy! The only problem is that it’s way too hot here in the summer, but this time of year is great!

I feel like I was just leaving Quartzsite yesterday, but that has already been over 8 months ago and now I am again heading back to Las Vegas. My mission president knew I needed to spend a lot of time out of the valley as I can only handle so much of Vegas. So I am grateful for the year I have spent in this zone, and all the different areas and people I have met. I just want to say thank you to all those that made my time here so special. When I come back to visit my mission, I will definitely come to visit here as served half my mission here in Arizona!

I was able to end my last weekend here with a baptism. It was awesome. The girl was deathly afraid of water and so that was a little interesting, but she was baptized! And their family has just grown so, so much! It’s been incredible! They have family prayer every night and watch a Mormon message or read the scriptures. It has been so cool to see the change the gospel brings into people’s lives. It makes it hard to say goodbye to all these people you love; especially when you just want to stay and see them continue to grow. I will be missing a few more baptisms this coming week and so that will be sad, but the Lord has blessed these people so much and so I am excited for them.

I am going to a new zone to be a zone leader with someone who is currently serving as a district leader in my zone, so that was a cool surprise. We will be getting double transferred into the zone and a new area. They did a swap with the zone leaders and sister training leaders so I will actually be going to where the sisters have been serving. It will also be in an area I covered in my first area on my mission. My first recent converts live within the boundaries of my stake so I am so excited to see him and a lot of other people I knew from my first area. This time I won’t be in Spanish though, but I am still excited. I am going into the lowest producing zone of the mission right now and so this is definitely a challenge the president has given me. I hope I can be able to help it grow and improve. Once again, the Lord always humbles you. I have never served as a zone leader in Vegas and I feel much more confident here in this zone, and so I will be on my knees a lot asking for guidance and direction.

This last week we had a zone conference. It was our Christmas conference. Our mission president talked a lot about the atonement and our Savior and that was really neat. We did a talent show and it was super funny. We were the MCs for it and they told us right before, but we still had a great time. It was fun to just see everyone do something. There was some talents shared, but mostly just comical things and skits. So it was a fun time to bond as a zone.

We also had a really fun youth activity that just finished up. We played Christmas themed minute to win it games and they earned points and then added those points to the points they had earned from doing missionary work. If they hit 250 they got to pie the missionaries in the face, and if they got 750 they got to pie all the youth leaders too. So in the minute to win it games I made sure they got enough points to pie the leaders! It was great!

I am excited for what the future holds and I am grateful for the time that I have had on my mission. I just hope and pray I continue to learn the things I need to learn and that I do what the Lord would have me do.

I hope you all have a great week and enjoy the holiday season.

Elder Clark