I

love love love my mission president. He is the most organized, prioritized, patient, and loving man I basically have ever known hahah. he is a good representative of our Heavenly Father. and ya Sister Kapisi loves the Clark family... Its been really fun to hear stories about my cousins and tell her stories about them haha

So this week has been taken up with a lot of service and then a lot of preparation for Rs baptism. We didn't get to teach much this week but it was still good!

So R is a stud. I was able to baptize him and he was telling me how good he felt and that he felt like this was something right and then later he texted us and said "thanks guys so much I feel lighter, like my burdens are gone". He is such a freakin stud! He was so prepared for the gospel its amazing! He will strengthen the ward a lot.

So also crazy news! A came back from the military. He had an Asthma attack during training and so he has to be home for a couple years in order for him to possibly go back. It's kinda sad but we are so happy to have him back here.

 Man I love Bay Shore! There is so much work to do here and it will be able to get done with the members that we have and the strength of the area. Seriously at church the only problem we have had with fellowshipping is new people being overwhelmed with how many people come up to them and introduce themselves. its a fun problem to have.

We are hardcore preparing for the Musical Fireside were having now! I'm super pumped about that! President is going to come and there hopefully will be a full house! I'm in the choir so that will be cool.

I'm super excited to go to the US Open. enough said about that! hahaha I'll take lots of pictures!

So spiritual message for the week. Elder Legere and I have been figuring out life. haha we have decided that obedience is the most important part of life because it

So this week we have been able to teach a lot more! We came upon this less active family with Brother J (an awesome Haitien in our ward) and we met the mother and the rest of the family. They are so awesome but the husband isn't too into the church we found out. That's why they don't go. But we were able to really help them and it was the necessary time for us to be there. They were so happy that we came I loved it. Theyre the G family from Africa somewhere :)

We also did a lot of service again this week. Lots of shovels and pullin weeds and such! We destroyed a giant wasps nest with white tailed wasps that scared the blank out of me. But that was all just fun and games.

Ronald asked me to baptize him this Sunday the 18th so that will be a really good experience. I'm really excited for that! But also A came to church! That is the greatest thing ever! I'm super excited for him! That was the first time he has come ever! Finally after like 5 months of working with him! He is a stud and I love that 75 year old.

So pretty cool experience yesterday... we got to go do service for a fair type occasion at a jewish temple! That was really really cool! We got a lot of good community presence and service for a lot of different vendors and the directors of the fair! I loved to see how nice all the jewish representatives were to us. They invited us to come worship with them so I guess we will see what happens with that haha. They just didn't know how to thank us for the service.

We are also planning to have a religious fair with all religions having a booth type occasion. The representatives invited us to this interfaith meeting so we will be presenting our plan for the religious fair to that counsel and were hoping to raise religious excitement in the area. This hopefully will be a big hit. That is what we are going for!

Also we are planning a HUGE musical Fireside that were calling "Families; God's Gift to Us" "a musical celebration of families" So we are hoping for good results with that as well! We have a lot of talented musicians in our ward.

also when I get home remind me to tell you Elder J story. He is a stud and because of him his whole family has been baptized. This was finished with the baptism of his Dad yesterday. So Cool. He was baptized about 2 years ago.

I just want to say that the Gospel is more real than we realize and we need to strive to recognize how often God's hand is in our lives directing traffic. In all the craziness if we just trust in the Lord we have peace. I know that is true.

Thanks for everything! 

I love you all!

If you read this whole thing you deserve a cookie.

Love,

Elder Clark

This week was weird. We did a lot of service and got a lot of community presence going so that was good. But we went on 2 exchanges and we had service to do in the morning 3 times this week so we hardly got to do much studies. We had set 4 or 5 appointments that didn't work out but we were able to teach R once this week and he came to church again and loved it. He is still excited for his baptism in two weeks! With it being fast and testimony meeting he wrote on the program that "when it time for my testimony, I will make everyone cry. because i have been through a lot and i am lucky to be here. success story." He is amazing. A definite tender mercy as I have said before. He is a little bit worried to speak in church though because he thinks he cant speak english very well bit I notice no language barrier.

I have been teaching Gospel Principles and I just love that class. It has been a humbling experience for me just learning from these people who are new to the church. They have full lives behind them and they are very very strong in the faith. They have a true understanding of simple doctrines that they know and trust more than many active members. Simplicity is great and powerful.

We also were able to go to Port Jefferson (beautiful) and we did a singing street sweep in the rain. Our whole zone got on this street corner and sang hymns for about an hour with a giant mormon.org sign in front of us and it was super cool. Very very fun. (i even beatboxed as a background to a few of the songs... haha ya Dad I haven't been the greatest at stopping beatboxing... sorry :) )

You decide whether you want to share this next paragraph to all or not I don't mind either way:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to fast for miracles. I did not realize the huge blessing that would come from it. Elder M and I seemed to have a normal missionary day until we got a call around 9 to give a blessing to a single lady in our wards non-practicing Muslim daughter. We felt it necessary to go but we did not realize the magnitude of the need. She had tried to kill herself 2 times in the past week, by divine intervention she is still alive. So we gave her a blessing and felt the Power of God's indescribable Love for her. She finally felt some peace. She then opened up to us and told us of her life story and we were then able to testify of the same simple amazing truths that brought me out here on my mission and she felt the power behind it. Elder M and I had a really great experience with helping her out and now we have a lot of hope for her.

I testify will all the power of my soul that Heavenly Father knows us. But he doesn't just know us. He is our number one fan. He follows us better than we could possibly follow our favorite sports team. He is there for us always whether he intervenes or not. But he ALWAYS does what is best for us and what eternally will make us the Happiest we possibly can be. I promise that if we choose to follow him and submit our will to his loving plan for us we will receive a fulness of joy, love, and peace. More so than we could ever imagine with our temporary minds. It's worth it.

The pics are of when i was justin beiber for a companionship study and when i saran wrapped Elder M earlier this week. :) haha

Alright I got the look to go from Elder M hahahaha just kiddin i got to go though.
I love you all!
Love,
Elder Clark Sr.