Tuesday, March 25, 2014

This week we drove the sisters crazy by having to drive them
everywhere because their car was in the shop. We had a sweet Zone
conference this week also and it's was really powerful! I loved the
analogy of 'the spyglass' which is a short story book thing that one
of our APs shared :) it is amazing because it talked about how much
the right perspective can change.

This is about a king who is sad about how his kingdom is doing so bad.
Then this guy comes around and makes a deal to show him why it's not
successful. He then gives him a spyglass in which he sees the future
possibilities of the kingdom. In seeing this, he shows the villagers
and tells them about it intern getting them excited and hopeful. This
then later translates into his Kingdom flourishing as he had seen in
the eyeglass. It is a powerful story and a very very good lesson for
us.

As we look at our faults and our weaknesses and our trials we will
become as them, less than who we are, but as we look with an eye of
faith and hope seeing the eternal perspective within ourselves we see
truly as God sees us. That is who we can become. It only takes this
vision, this eye of optimistic opportunity for good. This is exciting
and true. This is how God wants us to feel. He truly loves us for who
we are as his children. He will take care of his children. Always.

Things are really good here. I thought today was going to be my worst
day on the mission because I just wasn't doing well and time went to
fast and I felt like I got nothing done and it's cold and then to top
it off we got in a nice fender bender which I caused... I wasn't
driving but I was messing around and it caused it. Ya I felt awful.
However after writing this email to you, thinking about this
perspective, prayer, and taking care of what I needed to with the
accident report I truly have hope for a better today! It will be
awesome! I'm about to go do some GREAT work of The Lord! The day is
young!

Love you guys!

Elder Clark!
y hey heeeyyyyyy!

How are you all doing? I'm doing great if y'all were wondering! :) Ya
sorry this email is coming late we got caught up a little bit
yesterday... But anyways! I LOVE YOU! I guess I just wanted to say
that.

I got a SUPERCOOL new companion! His name is Elder M! He is a
stud of all studs. I'm really excited for this transfer because we can
have a lot of influence. Mostly because we both know why we are here
and are willing to work at why we are here. The blessings of obedience
and diligence :) My new companion is from Haiti :) Soooo guess what???
We get to teach/ Re-open the area in Creole! Yay for my little
knowledge of creole! I've been trying to pick it up again a little bit
:) for some reason I think I understand more than I did before... So
that's pretty cool :) Who knew I'd be right back in it again!

We have actually been teaching quite a bit more. It has been really
fun because we have a lot more people to teach than before. A lot of
miracles are happening in our ward and area! I know that Christ is
hastening the work by sending us people to invite to Christ :) We were
in the library this week planning to put together a PowerPoint about
how The Lord is Hastening his work and ironically a guy walked up to
us and said "hey you're the elders from the Mormon church" and he told
us he read an article in the New York Times about there being more
sister missionaries out on a mission. (Then talking to the sister
missionaries in my district who are the newly called 3rd companionship
of sister training leaders for the mission) We now will hopefully get
to meet with him. Get the point?? The Lord is hastening his work. No
ifs ands or buts. You can choose to be a part of it or not! I'm not
saying you have to be called to it as a full time missionary, but even
hastening the Work of Salvation in yourself will be a major part.
Start with yourself and Refine/Build by sharing. Maybe also sharing
will build yourself! Whatever you do, do something good. :) If you do
so, you will be happy. :) that's in the book of 1st Clark 2:3 :)

Let me just say that unplanned and planned miracles are happening! :)

Wow. So that's the update on Elder Clark the elder.... Love you guys!
:) Thanks for EVERYTHING that I don't appreciate enough. Ha :)

LOVE,
ELDER TYLER CLARK :)
Hey Everyone!

So this week was a pretty good week teaching wise! We had a lot of
appointments and a couple with new people which is awesome! :) The YSA
sisters in my district had a baptism on Sunday and that was my first
baptismal interview that I have conducted! So that's kind of cool! A
little scary but also not because it just means you have to follow the
spirit. But anyways the baptism went really well!

But we had transfer calls this past week and Elder B in my district
(who played for the state of Arizonas rugby team before the mission)
got called as a district leader. Then we were told that he was
leaving, and sister van Langen is going home (because it's her time to
go! haha). So that was the only changes up until Sunday morning...
When we got a phone call from the Zone Leaders saying that a last
minute change had happened and that my companion Elder P was
leaving... I was so sad. Still am :( but hey that's transfers for ya
:) So that's the latest with us!

So on Tuesday I'll find out who my new companion is and where my last
companion is going and with who. I truly care a lot about him so I
hope things are good for him! :)

So things are good here. I'm still LOVING the mission. I am super
excited because even though I still am making mistakes... I'm on the
right path to be where I want to be. Both physically and spiritually.
I know that it isn't how fast you go that matters, but it's that you
GO in the right direction! :)

Love you all!

Elder Tyler Clark!
Hey Wonderful people that I love!

I'm sorry I didn't email ya last week :( But this week I can tell ya what happened! I'll tell ya what happened! Miracles happened! Milagros! Everywhere! So we had a great great two weeks! Ever since we had interviews with president and our district just upped our level in work and unity with the ward! We talked a lot about setting goals and about purifying our works to allow Heavenly Father the opportunity to bless us! We started working just a little bit harder with just a little bit more fire and suddenly our work has been doubled because the solid people to teach have doubled!

We had a day with 3 lessons on it scheduled last week! That's almost as many as we get in a week. We taught all of them and all of them went BEAUTIFULLY. Heavenly Father has been blessing us. H (an investigator who just got back from china) accepted to be baptized on the 8th of March. Then we had an AMAZING and unbelievable change of heart in an investigator who made the decision to get baptized! She has so much hope and light now it is amazing. The sisters investigator who has been investigating awhile, whom they had worked so hard to help recognize the testimony he had turned around and said he wants to get baptized on Sunday. We met with bishop and he gave us great instruction on how to help the work progress. We met with 2 less active members who have made the decision to make getting to the temple their goal! 3 people our district has been working with from Plainview went to do temple baptisms on Saturday. I'm smiling often because of the righteous choices of my New York friends. :)

We then had an amazing ward counsel meeting and stake president spoke to us about love. This again re-emphasized the importance of love. He made a comment that love between each individual is literally what holds the world together. In the New Testament it says "on this hangs all the law and the prophets" talking about love. He said that it should be the purpose and reason for everything we do in life and it very well should be. We need to have the kind of love for people like when we first fall in love, where we look past any faults and would do anything for that person. This really hit me and gave me another reality check! Made me ask myself if I really do love the people I serve. I want to tell you that I do, however there is so much more love for me to grow. I need to love them enough to be bold with power and authority to help, I need to love them enough to improve myself to benefit them, I need to love them enough to make even large sacrifices to make them feel of the love and joy of Christ.

This is the kind of love I want to have. It will take an eternity to learn to be that charitable but I hope to work towards it. So I'll start on that path by starting with who I already love so much! By telling you that
I LOVE YOU!

Love,
Elder Clark

P.S. Are you ready to love today??

So this past week has been busy! We shoveled A LOT of snow... We
played football in the snow... We helped an investigator of ours pack
everything up and move to Florida. (She has a lot of stuff) Needless
to say I was over there for quite some time these past few days!
However! We acquired their couch and a lot of food! It was in our
kitchen but we made room for it in the study room. All other
missionaries might end up being jealous now... Oh well... It came with
a price... Both my companion and I are sick :( Life Happens. But
that's alright! I'll be fine :)

I also did karaoke with the Martinez family (awesome family in my
ward!)... They told me about their karaoke tradition with missionaries
over a year ago when I was here and I left for home before I ever got
to do it! So that was fun!

We saw a sweet blessing from going out to work when we didn't want
to... It was awesome. We went to look up some people I had taught
before and after knocking on one door we decided to knock on the
neighbors... First door... Got inside and talked to for a good while!
So sweet! Second door... Got inside again!! Elder H in my
district ended up teaching them in Spanish! It just worked out
perfectly!! That doesn't happen very often... In my whole mission it's
probably less than 25 doors that I've been invited into! And that
night we had it back to back!!! Crazy cool!

I feel like I'm getting to know the members pretty well which is
awesome! That's what separates my favorite areas from my less favorite
(yet still favorite)! So that's good! I hope to make Plainview a more
favorite.

Another cool thing is I know it was revelation for me to be here.
Despite me being sad to leave Rego Park! I needed to be here. It's an
awesome opportunity! Thanks for all the support!

Love!
Elder Clark