The Fish That Got Away

Hola!!!

Yep that’s right; the fish that got away....all of them. We asked president today and fishing is a no go, so I will be gladly sacrificing that for two years!! That mean Elliot, JD, and Bishop you have got to pick up the slack for me and Dad send me some pics of giant pike!  

That was the worst thing that happened this week! We had a truly amazing week and lots of crazy stuff mixed in as well.

Today it is 50 degrees so all of Las Vegas is freezing, haha, but I like it a lot!!  

One morning, we biked over to a lesson and I had my bike parked on the rocks (most all of the houses have rock lawns) and our investigator didn’t answer the door. All of the sudden we hear this really loud hissing noise…and you can all guess where this is going...I visibly watched all the air leak from my tire in a matter of seconds. When I took the tube out the valve had erupted and the air flew out!! It was so flat that we couldn’t even walk the bike home, so luckily my comp is smarter than me and instead of me carrying my bike all the way home (it really wasn’t that far) we attached the two bikes so that only one of my wheels was on the ground. We got some pretty awesome looks from people.

Then, later that night we took a member out with us and, oh man, it was an adventure! We were on our way to our appointment and we got stuck in traffic. We were able to see that a car was stopped in the middle of the road with the hazard lights on so we pulled over and went to help. I knocked on the window (it was a sports car with tinted windows) and this young college age girl was in the driver’s seat, but she couldn’t drive it because it was a stick shift and she didn’t know how to drive a stick. She was just married and the car was all decked out, so I think it was a gift. She was super embarrassed and almost instantly our member says, “Well the missionaries can’t drive it, but I can!!” He jumped in the car and took off. So we followed him all the way until he could drop her off. Man, it was crazy. And then at our lesson, (he knew the family really well) he was talking to someone in the kitchen and eating food!! Haha He didn’t get the point of a member present lesson. So that was crazy and I had to yell into the kitchen to have him bear his testimony! He’s a great guy, we were just laughing. Hopefully we can help him stay in our lessons a little more. 

One of our investigators is getting baptized this weekend and he is a super awesome guy! I am so happy for all the wonderful people that I get to meet on my mission. We have one family that we are reactivating and the mom is a non-member. They gave us so much food this week. They told us they were going to make us lunch every day! People are so nice and loving towards missionaries. We also helped a guy with his car the other day and just talked to him. There are just really good people in the world so hopefully we can continue to work with these people and share the gospel with them.

We had a very interesting lesson where one of the priests from our branch had a really good learning experience. We went to one of our lessons and this lady always comes to church and loves church and the people, but she says she is not ready to be baptized. We had a super good, spiritual lesson which I felt really good about. We weren’t super pushy, but just trying to help her understand and act upon her faith.  The priest bore his testimony and asked her a question, and it got really quiet for a bit and then she grabbed her Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets and said, “Here-I don’t want this. Take them.” We were all shocked. Well after that, we salvaged the lesson a little, but almost worse than that, I had accidentally dropped my keys during the prayer and so I didn’t pick them up right away and I ended up forgetting about them after she flipped. Once we left, the priest felt really bad and we were encouraging him, but then I remembered that my keys were in there. We ended up calling her, but she didn’t answer her phone. We called many times and knocked on the door a whole bunch and she never answered. Finally she came. She had been in the shower, but we were all freaking out not knowing what was going on.

We also had Zone training meeting this weekend and it was super awesome! We were edified in both spirit and with trainings. And then that night at stake conference they talked a lot about hastening the work and what members can do. It was super cool to see what the General Authority had said last week and how the stakes and the mission all implemented it right away. 

On Saturday I was on exchanges and we didn’t’ know what apartment number our dinner was at. Elder Smith and I prayed and tried to start narrowing down where it might be and we couldn’t find it. We finally were able to call her and get the apartment number. Turns out that we had walked right by it and almost knocked there so that was a little funny. 

Hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Clark

A General Authority Visit, An Amazing Birthday Party & More!

Hey everyone!!!

I don’t have a lot of time to write, but I will try and write as much as I can in the next few minutes. 

This week has flown by, as usual! But it has been awesome.

So the highlight for the beginning of the week was obviously the General Authority coming to speak to our mission. He was super awesome! His name was Elder Foster. He took my middle name!! 

His wife gave a super cool talk that had to do a little with football. She told a story about how a team was down 41-0 at halftime and when they came out second half, the losing team started playing better and started scoring. The running back ran for a touchdown, and another player said to him, “Great job, but where were you during the first half?” The running back answered that he had forgot to lace up his shoes. She told us not to wait until the middle of our mission and be down 41-0 to lace up our shoes, but do it now and get to work. She was awesome and had some really cool stories.

Another big topic that they talked about was the power of exceedingly great faith and that with this faith many miracles have been wrought. Then Elder Foster went through Doctrine and Covenants 31 with us, verse by verse and we spent a lot of time talking about it. In verse 3, the one that I chose for my mission plaque, I made a comment about how sharing glad tidings of great joy reminded me of Christmas. I said that we are all so excited Christmas morning to wake up and open presents and there is a spirit in the air during the holiday season, and that we should wake up every morning with this spirit because we are sharing the good news with people. In another training, he talked about three columns with the headings: Missionaries, Members helping Missionaries, and Missionaries helping Members. He said that missionaries need skills and the Spirit and members need the same thing. Right now, he said, our mission is in the second column. The members help the missionaries in the work of the Lord. But how it should be is members calling missionaries and saying we have a family we are teaching could you help us. The members should be inviting the missionaries to do missionary work and if we did this the number of baptisms a month would be off the charts. That was a really cool exercise to think about. He also talked a lot about how family history and the temple can be used in our teaching. He also used an analogy that we can't start a fire with the big logs, but that we have to start with the small kindling and that involves bringing in less actives back into the fold.

A pretty cool story: My comp accidentally left his scriptures at an investigators home and he asked her to bring them to church for him. Well on Sunday the investigator texted us and said she couldn’t make it. Since he still needed his scriptures he asked her if she could just drop them off at the church. She did and then ended up staying for Sacrament Meeting and afterward was attacked by the Relief Society!! It was pretty awesome.

We also have another investigator that should be getting baptized in the next two weeks and he is doing super awesome! He brought his grandchildren to church on Sunday and they loved it!!

On Saturday we attended a birthday party for a girl in our branch. She just turned 7! It was the biggest birthday party I have ever been to, period! The entire branch came and she was seven! It was awesome. There was food for days and tons of people! At first they were blasting some pretty bad crazy music, but then they changed it to some nice Mexican songs. We had a huge feast for dinner and I just started talking to everyone. We were able to talk to a lot of nonmembers so it was really cool. And then they pulled out a giant piñata and the kids went at it, but they don’t blindfold them, they just sing a song and once the song is over their turn is over. Well it was so heavy (full of candy) that the head just popped off and all the kids started rushing for the body and tore it to shreds! It was pretty gruesome, but awesome. We then put the head on our heads as missionaries!! Mom, I better get a party like that when I get home! ha

So one last story real quick! We went to this person’s house and started talking to them and they were from Cuba so it was hard for me to understand, but they just went off!!! They talked about how the Sabbath day was Saturday and how an Emperor Constantino had changed it from Saturday to Sunday and so they hated my companion because that’s his name. Then they said he was pathetic and they wanted to talk to our leader!! The whole time I just wanted to leave; it was bad!

Well my times up!! Have a great week!!

Elder Clark

Photos from the Birthday Party...

Things are Cool in the Desert

Hey everyone!!

This week was transfers and so that was crazy. We were at the mission office all morning on Tuesday waiting for one Elder’s companion to show up but it was still fun. The weather is finally starting to cool off here - it feels so nice outside.

On Tuesday night we had the Branch Trunk or Treat with another English ward for the candy part. I was able to try Mexican hot chocolate and it was super yummy and there was lots of pan dulce. It is super yummy sweet bread stuff. Sadly, they had no pan muerte, but it was awesome! I loved all the kids and talking to everyone in the English and Spanish wards.

Then on Friday we had our missionary Halloween party as we weren’t allowed outside. We watched some funny skits that each zone prepared. There were 6 zones there, so like over 100 missionaries! It was awesome. The theme of the skits was supposed to be about the worst member present lessons. I was in one and was the investigator which went well, but we only had one microphone so that made it hard! We had a ton of candy and desserts and watched 17 miracles. It is really cool to be with so many missionaries - truly inspiring and fun to see people.

We have one investigator who is doing really well. We have been praying and fasting for him to get a new job as he works crazy, crazy hours. He said, though, that he will take his last vacation day for the year to go to church. But he really needs a new job so that he can attend every week. He said something really cool to me on Thursday. I was on member splits and took a priest in our ward (who is actually only 6 days younger than me). We were able to teach a good lesson and at the end of the lesson our investigator said that even though I don’t speak Spanish well, he knows the things I say are true. He told us that he talked to some other missionaries a month ago or so that he saw on the street and they didn’t convince him and he was sad that they didn’t have the spirit with them. He went on and talked for a while about how he knew everything was true. It really showed to me that I am not the teacher, rather the spirit is. I am just the conduit for the light to flow into the investigator’s life. That experience made me want to be even better and have the power of the spirit with me more.

Saturday night was truly a miracle. We had some appointments fall through and we didn’t have anything else to do.  All our plans we had originally planned were ten miles away and the people we were to meet with weren’t there.  As we were thinking of where to go after dinner, I couldn’t think. My mind was just dead. I could barely even remember our area. It was a major brain fart! So we pulled over into a nearby church and said a prayer. Instantly, as I started praying, a name came to mind. As I was praying, I pushed it back. In my prayer I even asked "that we will be able to follow the promptings we receive" and their name popped back into my head. Still, I ignored it. I told my comp of another family we could go see and we headed out to see them. It was unsuccessful. My comp then said the name of the people that had popped into my head earlier and we headed out on bikes to their house. He said he had thought of them earlier too but pushed their name back also. Once we got there they were having dinner and they invited us in. We ate dinner with them (our second dinner, ha!). They had a lot of extended family over. The carne asada was so good but the Lord didn’t send us there for the food. The grandma of the family had just broken her toes and we were able to give her a blessing. They had one son who only speaks English and we talked to him and he is going back to the YSA ward. The mom who is not a member thanked us for getting him back to church as he has been going down the wrong path. And that’s not all. They had their aunt and uncle over who aren’t members and we gave a quick spiritual thought about the power of faith and we were asked to say a prayer. We asked the aunt what she needed us to pray for and she broke down and cried. We said a prayer and the spirit was so strong.  It was truly a miracle. The rest of the night all our potentials turned into return appointments.

I hope you all have a great week!!

Elder Clark

Branch Trunk or Treat

 Pan Dulce - yum!

 

 

District Meeting

End of Transfer #1 - Wahoo!

Hola,

Wow!!! I have already been gone for 12 weeks-that is just so crazy! Time flies when you are having fun, I guess, or more just like super busy. I am staying in my same area with my same comp. Things should be really good this next transfer as we have some great potential in our area. As we strive to work as hard as we can I know we will be blessed.

So a tender mercy we had this week was with a part member family. The husband is less active and his wife is not a member. They have two great little kids. They are a super awesome family. We rode by one day and saw the wife working in the yard and we stopped and starting helping her and her husband trim trees and do some yard clean up. After we helped them, they really opened up to us and it was amazing. The husband even said he would fix up our bikes whenever we needed it. Later in the week, a member (splits) and I had another appointment somewhere that fell through. II could have stayed in the apartment complex to contact people like I would normally do, but I decided to just go see this part member family again. We got there and they were home and we were able to give a lesson. It was a powerful lesson and the spirit was super strong. The husband was even teaching the wife about the church. It was truly a prompting from the Spirit that led us to them. I had been praying that day specifically for a prompting from the Spirit. At the time I didn’t know I received one, but it truly was! And the family came to church on Sunday, so there is a lot of hope!!

My District leader is completing his mission and going home. His name is Elder Puga and he is from Mexicali! He is a great guy and super nice. Very humble and a great missionary! We also have an elder in our ward leaving for his mission this week so at Sacrament Meeting both Elder Puga and the new missionary spoke. It was cool to see both sides of the spectrum! The spirit was very strong. It is crazy that my farewell was only three months ago, and in not a very long time I will be leaving. It makes me want to make every day count, but man that can be hard.

We have another investigator that is just a miracle. He is the one that came to church last week. We stopped by his house and he wasn’t home, but we gave his son a Book of Mormon. His dad texted us later that night to say thank you and that he was going to start reading it! We had a great first lesson with him and committed him to baptism on the 15 of November!! The gospel is perfect for him and we are really excited for him. He also came to a fireside called Porque Creo (Why I believe). Our mission puts on this fireside for our investigators. It is recent converts in different areas that share about the experiences they have had coming into the church. This one was all in Spanish and the Spirit was very strong. I really felt at home. It was the first time in a long time our branch put it on and my love for the people grew so much! They are all just wonderful people. One speaker talked about the family feeling they felt was at church and how they felt welcomed by everyone. Five little primary girls sang a couple songs. It was just all so pretty, especially in Spanish.

One last crazy story - a priest in our ward got jumped the other day! His dad works with ICE (the immigration people) and so they caught the bad guys on camera somehow. It was pretty crazy going over to do service for them and hearing the story. Even in our nice area. So hopefully something crazy will happen to me!! Just messing! Chiste! 

I hope you all have a great week, and take time to ponder on the scriptures. I love my personal time in the morning and my knowledge grows so much! I love the power of the priesthood and that all of us can feel of it in our lives and feel of God’s love. I know that the Lord is on my left and my right and that His angels are bearing me up. I take great comfort in that. 

Elder Clark

-The Spanish is coming - a quote from Logan to his dad: Yo estoy muy agradecio para usted y mi mama y mis hermanas. Yo se que este obra aveces es dificil pero yo se que mi salvador es conmigo siempre y si tengo fe y dilegencia en este obra, tenere mas exitoso y paz en mi vida y su vida.

These are some English elders. Two are getting transferred. One is Elder Siilata and he grew up with Elder Kanahele and the other is Elder Oveson -The RAM!!! He always rams people on accident when we play sports!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miracles upon Miracles!

Hey Everyone-

I am not sure if we had 17 miracles this week, but we definitely had a few. There are a lot of things going on in our area to try and help find more people for us to teach. We had our first two classes to teach people English. The classes are free and anyone can come. They were actually pretty boring, so I am thinking of some ideas to spice things up!! I remember how boring Spanish class was at school so hopefully ours can be a little more fun! The sisters in our ward are starting a Zumba class and we are talking about having a tri-stake cultural night. We have big plans and a lot of them probably won’t happen until we are gone, but it is exciting to find creative ways to find more people to teach. 

On Thursday, I went on splits with the DL. He is going home in a week so I tried to learn as much as I could from him. We went to see a referral and it was amazing. We went over and the mom of the family answered the door. We talked to them and invited them to church. The crazy part is that they have a son in the MTC right now. He is the only one in their family that is a member, and he is going to South Korea on his mission! He sang in the Elders choir during General Conference. And so my comp and I were just like WHAT!!! It was so crazy. I know the Lord blesses families of those who serve, so hopefully I can be an instrument to bless this elder’s family. 

Friday the Lord put so many people in our path! We talked to 80 people about Jesus Christ or the church!! We just biked around everywhere and talked to everyone we saw on the way to our citas (appointments). Not very many accept us, but we got some good referrals for the English missionaries and a couple potentials. I even helped this one man carry his groceries across the street! It is just amazing what the Lord does when He trusts you. We have been talking to everyone for the past few weeks. Like I mean everyone! If we so much as see someone we try and go talk to them!! We are finding that then the Lord puts people in our path for us to talk to!

Saturday morning we went to the temple with members from our branch. A young man is about to go on his mission and he was receiving his endowment. I’ll send the pics next week!! It was a Spanish session and I did all of it in Spanish. They had subtitles so that helped me a lot, but I had been praying that I would understand and be edified by the spirit. It was so amazing. I learned more than I have in English and just felt the spirit so strong. It’s amazing how deep you understand things when you understand them in two different languages, It just gives it so much meaning! 

And then on Sunday we had even more miracles!!! I had texted a reminder to one of our potentials who was a referral from a member in an English ward to go to church. He never responded back and so we just figured he wasn’t coming. But it turned out he just walked right into church!!!! It was awesome and he said he really enjoyed it! He is golden and ready for the gospel. It just shows how powerful member referrals are. We also had a less active member and his non-member wife come to church! It was the first time we had any investigators at church. We were so happy! 

Sunday night I went on member splits and took our investigator to night church (a Spanish Sacrament meeting for those that work or can’t attend a morning session). He has been doing really well and the only reason he hasn’t been baptized is because he hasn’t come to church. He loved it! After the Sacrament meeting we took him to the temple and took pictures and walked around. The spirit there was amazing. I told him a little about temples and what they mean to us and he said it made everything make sense and that his previous doubts made sense now because of the temple. I honestly don’t know how my explanation answered his questions, but I know the spirit was there!

That is all for this week!! Nos Vemos! Que tenga buen semana!!

Elder Clark

Logan sitting on a member's Charger in front of the beautiful Las Vegas Temple.

Pictures with a member and investigator

Breath taking!

All of the new missionaries attend the Temple on October 10, 2014

 

Meet the Mormons and oh so much more!!

Hey everyone,

Wow this week has just been a crazy one!! Lots of crazy stories to share!

My companion and I enjoyed making some authentic Mexican food this week. We made empanadas one day for lunch and another elder’s bday was on Friday so we threw a little lunch party for him and made Gorditas. He is from Mexicali and so he really enjoyed that. It was fun. It really helped me speak better Spanish also. I received an authentic sombrero from a member that was moving so that was, way cool!

We had a blitz day on Thursday where we went to the sister’s area and went around and tried to find people for them to teach. They are in a very rich area and the only real Spanish speakers were the workers. They were all super nice, but most lived far away. It has been a struggle for the sisters in their area, but hopefully as we help them out and they work hard they will see miracles there.
Friday was the little party and there is an Elder Siilata from Hawaii here. He is a big boy!! He is so awesome and we are getting super close. He may even know Elder Kanahele if we are both talking about the same George Kaka - so that’s pretty awesome!

Then Friday night we went to the movie, Meet the Mormons with one of our investigators. That went really well! The movie was amazing and I highly recommend it to everyone. Our investigator gave us a ride and on the way there, since the theater was sort of by the strip, I was trying to take a cool night picture of the strip. Our investigator said that he could just take us there for better pictures, and we were like, “Oh no! We can't go on the strip!” So he said he would just take us on a highway after the movie so we could get a better pic of it. So we went to the movie and had a great time there. Lots of missionaries and members were there! After the movie he reminds us of the picture and so we head out onto this highway. The whole time my comp and I were thinking that it would be a quick pic from the highway and then back home. Well, there was a little misunderstanding. He took an exit, that to him wasn’t going to take us on the strip, but oh man we started freaking out. We were driving past the stratosphere and explaining to him more that we couldn't be on the strip. I even told him we were like Nuns in the sense we didn’t do anything! Haha He reassures us that we are not on the strip and that all is good. But we continue to keep driving around and I am just so ready to get out of there. He was talking in Spanish and so I was just hoping I could explain nicely to take us home, and that my comp would help out in the language department. After about 20 minutes of driving we started heading home, but at one point he wanted to park and show us something. We avoided the main part of the strip, but I am pretty sure we were on the boundary the entire time - definitely not the place we wanted to be! So, we have repented of our sins and are never going to ask an investigator help us get a better picture, because to them the strip is, well, not what it is to a missionary!

The final story is about another investigator we met this week. He is actually English speaking so that is super nice for me. He was sitting on a step outside his apartment smoking a cigarette and we approached him and asked if we could share a picture of Jesus Christ with him. We talked to him for a while and he invited us into his home. He had met with the sister missionaries in the area that are in the English ward, but he told us he didn’t really like them even though they were amazing people, just too pushy. He said that my comp and I were the two people that were going to make a difference in his life. I bore testimony about the power of the Book of Mormon and talked to him about some questions. He needed things taken slower and I think the sisters overwhelmed him with commitments; but they were just doing what we normally do. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he would offer the prayer and as he was praying he broke into tears, and he told us that he was so grateful we had come that night, because he said he couldn’t have made it much longer if we hadn’t had come by. After the lesson, we called the sisters and they said that we could teach him and bring a member from their ward so that he had someone to go to church with. So that was one miracle we experienced this week!

Hope all is well and everyone is safe!
Hasta luego! Nos vemos!
Elder Clark

 

Cooking Empanadas

 All ready for the Birthday Party Luncheon

Wow! Lights, flowers and goblets!

Happy Birthday Elder Puga!

 

At the Sanchez Home for dinner on Elder Puga's Bday. 

Me, Elder Puga and the Branch President. 

Meet the Mormons

 The Strip - A little too close for comfort!