Letter #11

hey everyone!!! we had another trying week. not really this one was easy but yesterday everywhere we rode on our bikes, the wind was blowing against us. it was hilarious but hard to ride. we just had interviews with president! he is so powerfull. he made everything so clear why i have been with my comps that i have been with. so not as many letters this week! but i just got a dear elder from matthew. i love the pictures ashley! that hike sounds so fun and i hope you are all there when i get back so that i can come visit and we can go hiking together. so this week we saw a dog get ran over! it was buy a huge tour bus. we havent had power in like 4 days! its so sad. all i can use is my flash light and it got dim pretty fast. but our frig is so warm so nothing kept and we had to move to another room so the light could go through the window so we can see. its dificult. so this month we have not had anyone come to church for the first time... until yesterday! they are an awesome family. well woman. her husband died not to long ago and she is so sweet. the next p-day we are going to learn how to make tortillas. i cant wait. then ill come home and make delicious tortillas. but she is awesome and i know that she will get baptised this coming week. im not going to doubt one bit. president helped me see how my experiences and shaping me and how i am bettering myself. its like i never want to baptise so that i can always find something to improve. everyday im going to give up something to improve. or im going to ride faster or im going to contact with love. something along those lines. we just got challenged by the APs to not speak in english only in spanish so we are going to do it. so we can improve. we need some revelation this week to help us with the work. we are doing a special fast this week. we are only going to eat during the scheduled comidas during the day. and not at night or in the morning. we are going to continue to drink water so we have some energy but its still going to be hard. we need revelation on how we can improve. we are also doing it so we can find people to bring to church and baptise. so if anyone wanted to keep us in your prayers that would be much appreciated. we are going to see miracles this week!!! i love my personal studies in the morning but i want to learn more and faster. its frustrating studying in spanish because i dont understand all the words while im reading so it takes me a while. but i love this quote about prayer! i feel like we can all improve our prayers, so here is this quote "la comunicación con nuestro padre celestial no es un asunto trivial. es un privilegio segrado." piensen en eso. and translate it hahah. so i got in an accident on thursday. i was flying around a corner and another person was coming around the adjacent side, and BOOM. elder slade was amazed. he had no idea how i dropped so fast. i slammed on the breaks and layed my bike over and somehow the only thing was i hit his front tire and got a tiny scratch on my arm. the other guy was still on his bike and nothing happened to him. so it was a miracle... but he was on my side of the street. i love the bread here. there is this bread in the shape of a football that is just soooo delicious. also this morning we found donuts!!! they actually taste good. that is a miracle. and that pig is ginormous!!! its the size of that truck bed. it was three times the size of the biggest hog i had ever seen. its snout was bigger than my palm. and that is how we are studying without light. so i need the recipe for the waffles cd player. the mp3 cd player walkman is fine. no ipods or any mp3 players cds. only motab and artists that are playing church songs. and lots of them rain coat! i dont have one yet and i have gotten wet many of times. reeses they are like gold here and so are snickers. journal simple blue one make sure it is easy to right next to the spine. memory cards!!! i cant think of anything else. im sure ill think of something as soon as i leave and i wont be able to get it for a while. HA

Letter #10

hola everyone!!! i got bombarded with emails this week!!!! thanks so much :) and all the pictures are amazing thanks for everything. i am super blessed for my family and friends! grandpa thanks for the email but i cant watch youtube videos hahah. maybe in twenty months we will have to sit down and just talk you and me! thanks tim eisenhower for the letter and the update on your fam! i will keep your family in my prayers. matthew!!!! what happen crazy dude! you look like me now ;) you told me you wanted to do alot of the same stuff as me but i didnt think this was part of your plan. i want to hear all about colorado and i want to see alot more pictures of colorado. when i get home im buying a nice mountain bike and im going to ride that, not a car. man emily! life is pretty crazy! and its crazy for me too! so mike we had a funny story yesterday. we had some golden investigators planned to come to church... we went there and they werent there. we went to the church to look for them and they werent there. we did that five times and we ended up riding over 15 miles that morning before church all on a fasting stomach. im going to be the worlds best faster when i get home. we fast twice a week and for twenty-four hours each time. and thats riding bike and working like crazy! i love my comp! he is so humble. it was a different adjustment for him to get a comp that wanted to work. im his first one since his trainer i think... he is a great example. there are always things we could improve but i need to improve more! so on tuesday night it was raining so hard and it was so dark we were walking down a muddy hill and i fell and got super muddy! later i realized that i had a huge cut on my left palm and i just washed it in a puddle on the side of the rode and worked till 9 oclock. the next morning i went to the president of the ramas shop and they did some sketchy treatment. they grabbed a needle and scrapped out all the rocks and infection. it hurt so bad especially the scrubbing and recutting it open and pouring soap in it. but its clean and looking better. so why the title doubt? well i figured out that the single most powerful thing that satan uses it DOUBT. doubt and faith cannot coexist. for that i want everyone to try super hard to not doubt anything! and pray with all your heart. the miracles will come! so dont doubt or they wont. peter had amazing faith and for that he walked on water until he doubted. so what ever it is... family members, loved ones, a house for sale, or anything dont doubt satan is winning. that is one thing i was studying this week and thought about it. it changed my out look on my life. yesterday we drank bad water again. so this morning in studies i started to feel it... i ended up throwing up and elder slade and i, after our studies, we slept till 3. waking up to use the bathroom often we are both so dead we are going to do our groceries and then we are going out to work. not doubting in anything. we are going to have the strength to find miracles. and we are bringing toilet paper for emergencies. the tacos were good but they made me sick. hahah i love you all so much and i am so greatful for everything. especially pictures, letters and prayers. have a good week Elder Clark

Pictures

Letter #9

hey everyone

so yes its going to get cold here especially if i go to toluca. right now its still pretty warm and my face is burning. sunscreen here is 200 pesos

i dont know if im losing weight... idk probably. but i love eating and cant stop but i have no time.

sorry about not answering your questions... i dont have a lot of time but i promise i will be better at answering them.

but i need a new journal. a hard back that is durable. elder juergens had some good ones that were blue that just said journal on the front and if you can find one or two like that it would be perfect.

the language... im feeling it explode. i gave a talk on sunday for 10 minutes and i couldnt think of anything to talk about so i just got up there and spoke. it was the easiest 10 minutes of my life. i talked a tiny bit about persevering to the end. but mostly of the words of living profets and the liahona and how it can bless their homes. we had awesome investigators with baptismal dates but they all fell and no one would come out of their houses. and we waited there for and hour and got to church a little late.

so i love marbles!!! its so fun. i would play with the kids while my comp was doing baptismal interviews. also the trompo... its the coolest thing in the world. its a top and you can do tricks with it. i can throw it in the air and catch it and it spins in my hand. or i just throw it on the ground and scoop it into my hand.

we got our areas changed around a little bit so we got more area... because we were working harder and one lady said we could go by and get tacos any day of the week. she just told us yesterday so we havent gone yet but also she is feeding us on monday.

this is the greatest mission in the world. we get the most baptisms per month. this month we are going for 500. crazy!!! i love the president he is rediculously strict on obedience and its amazing the blessings. im working my but off everyday. we got over 200 contacts last week. we just need more people to come to church and to get baptised.

so elder slade is my new comp. from arizona. sounds exactly like cameron clark and reminds me of glenn. he is super different from elder juergens but its not bad. he is still obedient and works hard but its just not the same. he interrupts me a lot when im doing contacts and when we are teaching lessons but i yelled at him and he is getting better. he was so used to talking all the time because his last comp was dead and left just this last change. so he was so used to it. but i love teaching and teaching with enthusiasm. but no one wants to change there religion its super sad. we are like " do you want to follow jesus christ and be baptised like him?" and they say yes but my church doesnt allow me to... THEY DONT GET IT!!! so elder slade is from a farm and he talks about his truck and cattle. and cow wrestlin

this whole week he didnt have any food so he ate mine and peanut butter is so expensive!!!

mom you would be so proud of me! im getting more organized and im picking up after myself.

i am changing a whole bunch. i want to come home but never leave my mission. it is a great experience that NO YOUNG MAN SHOULD MISS.

im glad to be here. i have learned more then i could have ever hoped for. and i still have 20 1/2 months. next week is mexican independence day so we get the whole day off and we get to watch 2 movies(so ive heard) but we will see.

tell glenn i love him!!! thats so awesome! im so proud of him and im excited to see what he will become. but tell him he is speaking drunk spanish :p

tell everyone hi for me and i love them. i dont get mail very often bc even when it gets to the mission home every week it still takes 3 or more to get out here.

i love you everyone. the gospel of jesus christ has been restored..

Letter #8

hola familia!

i am super disappointed in all the letters im not getting from my family but its ok

tell hayden to send me an email with some quotes on it.

also i cant have an mp3 only a cd player. and only hymns and motab. anything under those two things. it is super strict here and i dont want to be disobedient. so send me a whole bunch of songs on cd!! its ok if its a mp3cd player like that walkman but noooo mp3 players.

ok ill try writing a letter for enrique!!! i love that kid tell him he needs to start planning to go on a mission. its hard for recent members to stay on missions. almost everyone i have seen or heard going home were recent converts and kids with out strong parents. so tell him to prepare now.

i want to hear about glenn as well!

we had changes this morning. my comp elder juergens went somewhere else to be a zone leader! he only has 13 months. but im staying here in maravatio. i love it here. im getting a district leader for this change. it is his second change as district leader so he is young as well. he has maybe 9 months... idk

last month we had a solid goal of 31 baptisms but we had... 1. we worked so hard last change and probably some of the hardest in the mission. i know we were the most obedient in the mission. we followed everything with exactness. i learned so much about obedience and diligence. and hard work. we worked our butts off but i felt good saying we had one baptism. we had so many possibles and so many people asist church but no one got baptised. but i worked for that one.

so this month our goal is...31. and we hard going to continue to work as hard as possible. bc i know if i do my part the lord will do his.

so this was my last week with elder juergens and im going to miss him a lot. but im going to take what i learned from him. and im going to carry it for the rest of my mission.

so funny lessons we taught this week... we taught one guy in his combi while he was on break. we hopped inside and taught him. we taught this one lady that was dying from diabetes and was blind because of it. her house was super smelly. also we saw two people out side there house to we presented ourselves and they let us come in. little did we know it was a huge family eating. and they sat us down and shoved food infront of us. we arent supposed to have more than one dinner appoinment and it was awkward but it was fun we didnt stay long. we ate super fast taught a lesson and left. it happened to be a family we had met earlier and we had given their son a bessing because he was injured in a car accident.

i saw a awesome demonstration of faith this week. we are teaching these two solid families together. we were teaching the commandments and one lady said "im quiting my job so i can come to church with you guys!" i thought that was amazing! also we said she was going to quit drinking coffee and stop doing other stuff. i thought that was amazing. if only everyone was that humble and had that great faith.

i love fried peanut butter and jellies!!!! they are delicious.

so my pictures this week. one is of our zone this week right before changes. also some pictures of elder jurgens and i.

Elder Clark