Dear family,

 

Thank you so much for the emails! Mom... You have a busy busy busy busy life but i guess whats new? Hopefully Kyle and Austin should keep doing tennis! Thats another life goal! Convert people to tennis! Infact I got to hit with these two kids 13 and 11 years old who I saw playing and I went to talk to them and stuff so I got to hit a few balls and that was fun! Then the kid asked me what the purpose of life was and I wish I woulda said a more direct answer becuase I started to talk about how we dwelled with God before we came here to get a physical body and how we needed to learn and grow and the 11 year old said, "well mine is to Glorify God and Praise him forever!" I was like Sweet! me too! haha but the other one really was nice to me and he was like "keep going with this mission thing because I am Christian too and your doing Gods work" that was nice and cool to hear!  

 

Good luck with the preschool license mother! I just said a prayer right after I read it but I will continue to pray for you! I love you and your willingness to do so much for our family and sooooo many others. Youre service will be rewarded I promise you! Maybe you should take a night swim real quick after a good days work! :) But I'm right there with you I can't read a book or swim either except when I baptise and when I study BOM or something ;) haha however your work is definitely not as fun as mine so that is unfortunate...

Some of my mundanes... We eat a lot of random food... like a lot of curry chicken, some ponse(sp?), I am trying not to get huge so I set myself a workout program and I have been following it pretty well! but we get fed almost every night and I actually eat a good breakfast now so as I sit in a car its hard to keep off the gordoness... There are 4 in my pretty big apartment (biggest in the mission) and one of them is Michaels friend Elder A
so that has been super fun! The new MP is a stud! He is soooo on top of things and so organized and he is probably one of the most powerfull speakers and strong hearted people I have ever seen! It's really cool because he mixes love with a lot of expectations. But him and his wife love us already so much! mundanes mundanes mundanes... well I am getting a lot better at talking to people and not being scared at all! Thats been good and I'm confident so that's also good! I could definitely improve the simplicity of what I say... On P-days we play basketball, do laundry at a members house, write letters, get the car washed, and that usually fills our day... However much I like P-days really it's not something to look forward to... because normal days are so much more fun! The work will never get boring here... Elder B and I have been working hard and we have been blessed. We had 9 lessons last week, and a couple new people to teach. I was able to give my first baptismal commit and we had two in the last 3 days! These were both random and super unexpected but I guess this happens in the Lord's way and not our planned way! I am really excited to continue to try our best in the next transfer and hopefully the Lord will bless us with a lot of success because I know he can and most likely will! But let me tell you it is nothing that I am doing that is making things go well I do not glory in myself but I glory in the Lord! These people just needed to hear the gospel! He has blessed me with the opportunity to teach them

 

Thats so exciting that you are hosting a foreign exchange student! Does he know much english? How old is he?

 

I don't know if I told you but one of my favorite things about the mission so far has been the street sweeps where we hand out english classes cards to the chinese and spaniards! It is sooooooooo fun! Me-in Fay Ing-wan Baan! (free english classes in chinese) and I'd look under the umbrellas to these smiling older chinese folk and say Nee-how! and hand them the card. But gosh it is soooooo fun just talking to people and seeing how they respond!

 

By the way there is this sweet man right next to me right now that has a giant mustache going to his earlobes! He's a spaniard and his hair is gray it is amazing...

 

We are gaining the trust of members pretty well so that should help the missionary work a lot! We have been getting creative in the way that we hand out cards... its fun! I have ran by people on the boardwalk and giving them a jogging quick message, put cards in the basket of bikers, did car to biker hand off's, pulled over at bus stops and handed people cards, taught kids how to throw cards (crabtree's real good at it and im learning) and gave them the cards to give to their parents, walked along the boardwalk talking to people (so fun and scary but not after I lose myself) We have yet to join a ghetto basketball game but soon we will! I just wanna be careful to make sure the spirit tell's us to do that so I don't confuse it with what I want to do. But something I have learned is to let silence happen. Silence is great for the spirit! I am working on that! But anyways if you ever feel like you want to buy a whole bunch of EFY music and send it to me I wont get angry at all ;) Because I love it :) Everyday I get excited to have you all meet some of my new friends here! We always get this 20 year old reactivated soon to go on mission stud little man to come on splits with us and I love him like a son. even though he is older than me. Haha but he is so awesome and he will be a great missionary! It is going to be sooooooo weird coming back to normal life... I'm so glad that is over 22 months away I am scared to death of it! I hope I can still give a decent hug when I get back... I don't know at the moment... haha and it will be weird not being around ghetto people... they are truly somethin else! Oh and there are a lot of Jewish areas... Jewish towns... 

drivers here are mean. They don't like people I'm convinced... I've learned a lot about other religions so thats cool :) It's really interesting what they believe and why they believe it (they don't even know!! They need to ask God because he will tell us the truth!)

 

It's so fun to get to know the other missionaries here! They are awesome! I hope I can have a good effect here on them as well! I'm a baby... But it will go by soooooo fast as it already has! Life is really short and we aren't prepared for it! Thanks to God and Jesus Christ who love to help us out! Thats where we need to trust! I hope you know that the purpose of life is described in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our purpose in life is to focus on the atonement in the way that we live and emphasizing faith, repentence, baptism, recieving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end! It is an amazing, everlasting, real, and exciting plan for us! Endure it well! I love you all! Keep asking questions!

 

Love,

Elder Clark