Last Week at the MTC (or CCM)

Elder Pardo, Boyer,and Tyler

Hey Mom and Everyone!!

I can´t believe I am actually leaving this place in a few days and am going to be an actual missionary! Apparently this morning I was so excited, we left our house and got to the classroom and everyone was laughing at me because I forgot to put a tie on lol!  So I had to go back and get a tie.  This week has been pretty good though, not a ton happened since last P-Day.  On Sunday I blessed the sacrament in Spanish with Elder Boyer which was pretty cool!  My Spanish is going really well, I am working super hard and learning 25 new vocabulary words every single day.  I am trying to be as prepared as possible for the field!! I am pretty confident in my abilities to teach or talk about anything in the Church but some of my grammar is bad and street talk will probably be a little difficult to pick up on.  We got our visas and green cards this week so guess what!? I am officially a Mexican Citizen for the next year!! How neat is that??  When I get home I am going to have such a great Mexican accent lol, all of you guys will probably make fun of me.  Yesterday, we had to say goodbye to our morning teacher, Hermana Barraza, because she is heading to Idaho to study at BYU there! It was actually kind of sad to say goodbye to someone again since my last goodbye was my family!  I will attach some pictures with her.  We don´t have to say goodbye to our afternoon teacher, Hermano Rodriguez, until Saturday though, and he is just the coolest guy.  We tease him a lot and it kind of reminds me when we used to prank Seddy, but we sewed a tie for him, and yes I sewed a few stitches! (Are you proud of me mom?)  We also figured out our mission lasts for just under 1 million minutes, and we have already been out here for 40,000!! Even though the first week here was the longest week of my life, these last 6 weeks have been the fastest by far, it is crazy how fast time goes especially when I am teaching a lesson! I think the time will flyyy out in the field! I got Jon´s letter this week and was reminded that he is the reigning Clark Open Table Tennis Champ... It is okay though because I am training really hard.  I also found some pretty sweet hiding spots for Allison!! I am so excited for her to get here I wish we could be here together though!  I also got your package barely today MOM!! The post office lady was looking for the right Elder Clark here because there are a lot haha but I got your package and it is sooo cool! The Nativity Set is sweet, I can´t wait to set it up in my first area, and the notes were great, and everything! Love you MOM!! This morning, Elder Hickson, Elder Jorgensen, and I went to go work out and it felt sooo good.  I am still going strong on my pushups (56 today) and I am going to be rippped when I get home!! Haha jk, well... hopefully... Anyways, I want to end on a cool experience I had this week, and then my testimony in bad Spanish (I wrote it all myself so sorry if Google Translate fails you)  On Sunday I ready through 3 Nephi where Christ comes to the Americas and I just got this crazy overwhelming feeling.  I miss basketball a lot and the excitement and happiness I got through that, but this feeling I got when I read the Book of Mormon was 10 times stronger than any excitement or thrill I got from basketball... I absolutely KNEW that the Book of Mormon was true, that Christ lives, and that this was the most important work I could ever do, and my testimony grew sooo much.  My one and only goal is to share my burning testimony of the Book of Mormon and have all of my investigators feel that fire, a truth for themself.  Here is my testimony in Spanish:

Yo sé que esta iglesia is verdadera y me trae tanto felices.   Estoy muy agradecido por esta opportunidad servir un misión y mi Padre Celestial.  Yo sé que mi misión me traerá pruebas, y desfacios, pero tambien, Yo sé que my misión me traerá mas grande bendiciones and feliz cuando confiar mi Señnor y Salvador y trabajo diligemente.  Tengo un testimonio fuerte y verdadero en El Evangelio, mi Salvador, y en El Libro de Mormon.  Mediante estudiando El Libro de Mormon, he aprendado, he orado, he obtenedo un conocimiento perfecto que estas cosas son verdadero.  Ahora, esta es my deseo mas grande a compartir mi testimonio con todas my investagadores.  Estoy muy agradecido por El Espiritu Santo, por esta iglesia, y por todas las bendiciones El Evangelio me trae.  Estoy muy muy agradecido por familias eterna, porque yo amo mi familia muy mucho, y quero compartir esta mensaje de esperanza y paz con todos los hijos de Dios.  Estoy agradecido especualmente por my Salvador, Redentor, y Hermano, JesuCristo, El Hijo de Dios.  Sin JesuCristo, no puedo ser aqui ahora y mi vida no tiene un propositó o esperanza.  Estoy muy agradecido por La Expiacion, y la sacraficio de JesuCristo entonces peudo arrepentirse por mis pecados y regresar a mi amoroso Padre Celestial otra vez con mi familia.  Yo animo todas la personas leer El Libro de Mormon y orar si estas cosas es verdadero.  Recibirá un respuesto, porque Dios nos ama todas los hijos.  Mucho gracias, madre y padre por esta opportunidad y por todas sus apoyos.  Yo espero todas my amgios y familia son bien en Los Estados Unidos! En el nombre, de JesuCristo, amen.

Have a good week everyone! I am not sure if I will be able to email this Monday so it might be a while before my next P-Day, but wish me luck and I miss you all! I will keep you in my prayers, T-Clark OUT (of the CCM)

-Elder Clark

Thanksgiving

¡Hola! Mom and Everyone!

I hope everyone had a greeat Thanksgiving!  This week has been pretty good for me too, although it is almost time for me to get out in the field and do some real work!  I am super excited and know I will love it, but I am pretty nervous and I really hope I have a good first companion (someone who speaks English preferably).  I have also grown to be pretty comfortable here so it is like I am just leaving on my mission again.  A lot of people have told me that my Spanish is ready though and that I will be a good missionary so that is reassuring.  In fact, after one of our lessons, our teacher pulled us aside and said that he said that during out lesson, he felt the Spirit so 

strongly, and told us how great we did.  He said it was a "muy bonita lección"  He never told anyone else that so it really helped boost my confidence and help me know what I need to do to be a better missionary.  We didn´t have TRC this week though, so we never had the opportunity to teach real investigators... It is okay though because that is all I am going to be doing for the next two years and I couldn´t be more stoked!!  Last friday we went to the Mexican Consulate (not the fake one in Vegas) to get our visas. The bus ride was actaully super sweet, we got to see a lot of the city and made me really anxious to get out there.  Everything went smoothly and on the way back, Elder Boyer and I made friends with Elder Pardo, a latino who only spoke Spanish.  It was pretty fun to talk to him and I found out he likes the OKC Thunder.  We made plans and are going

to play basketball later today, it seems like a lot of latinos like basketball which is pretty dope, and we passed many basketball courts on the bus ride.  I was missing basketball a lot this week though, especially with Mohave season starting, I remembered all the sweet memories I made during basketball and the excitement of playing.  I hope Mohave does well this year, wish I could be at the games!  I definitely love being a missionary though, and the blessings I have already recieved are incredible.  During my personal study, I learned in Alma 30:9 that it is a privilege to be here and to serve God and that anyone who has the desire to serve is called to the work.  We have had a lot of uplifting devotionals lately, and yesterday we got to hear from Elder Neil L. Anderson for thanksgiving!! Everything I hear helps me become more humble, and recognize my blessings.  I have learned that all the trials we are put through are so that we can be prepared to be blessed in the future and that sometimes we can´t even recognize the blessings we receieve until the are in our rears.  So if I have a bad day, I know I will have some pretty dope blessings on the way.  Anyways, Thanksgiving was awesome, we  had a huuge feast and the food was amazing!  All of the latinos were confused about why we were eating so much lol.  There is chef named Estaban, he said he found me on instagram because I am going to Mexico City Southeast and he lives in that mission! He is soo cool, he always hooks me up with extra food and says he has the missionaries over every P-day.  He shows us videos and stuff of missionaries making homade donuts, brownies, pizza, and lasagna, whatever we want.  He made us a homeade donut to try one day and it was sooo good, and he said on Christmas he has a huge Christmas feast with all of the missionaries! I am way pumped.  He also said he always posts pictures on Instagram 

(EstabanNava) and Facebook (Estaban Nava).  You guys should go check him out.  But Elder Hickson´s mom sent him a football as a package so we are going to have a turkey bowl

today!  I´ve never seen someone so excited to get a football lol but I am excited to play too.  Although it may not work out because we aren´t allowed to play even catch with a football here, we were playing catch early and they got mad at us so we will have to find a secret place.  I also played cage soccer earlier this week and scored 7 goals! It was super fun, Talmage would be proud.  But today was great so far! We played basketball all morning and took some videos, I will attach them.  I hope you had a great birthday mom!!  One last memo, we have a bunch of orientation for the field next Friday so our P-day will be on Wednesday next week.  Email me by then por favor!! Have a great week guys! I will talk to yall for the last time in the CCM on Wednesday!

-Elder Clark

Hey Mom and Everyone!!!

Holy cow this week went by soo fast I can't believe it is already P Day again!  Time has already started flying by and I'm not even out of the CCM yet!  I am almost finished with my 4th week, it is nuts.  Anyways, this week was pretty darn amazing.  The temple trip was super great again and on the ride there and back, Elder Hickson and I (He is the guy from Texas who I can talk sports with) had a challenge and tried to see who could get more people to wave at us.  It was pretty fun, and most of the people were super friendly and happy!  It made me so excited to serve and I already love the people here I just want to talk to them.  As we were walking into the temple, a member was walking out and said in Spanish "I want to touch the hands of angels" as he gave us all high fives.  It was super cool at made me feel happy because in some people's lives we really are angels.  I bought three new sweet ties at the temple store because they were less than 4 dollars each and some people brought like 20 ties!  Everything is so cheap here, our teacher said you can get a really nice suit for 50 bucks.  I said bye to Brigham on Monday, and we got a picture.  I hope he does well out there in the field! I wonder how his first week went, I heard it is hard in the field your first week so I hope he is okay.  I continue to laugh and share stories with my district and roomies, and I have got really good at waterbottle flipping lol.  My record so far is 10 in a row, but I have also done some pretty cool waterbottle flips.  I wish we had snapchat lol.  My Spanish is getting better and better each day my testimony is growing equally as much.  I have seriously learned to love the Book of Mormon, it brings so much hope and joy in my life, and the stories in it are pretty interesting too!  I invite everyone to read this amazing book.  We had a devotional broadcasted from Provo this week and heard from Elder Gary E. Stevenson.  It was pretty cool and it helped me realize that I have so much to be thankful for in my life.  We watched some more movies on Sunday and one was the story of a man named John Moyle who lost his leg.  Even after that, he limped 23 miles every single week to the Salt Lake temple to work on the stone.  As he explained to his wife why he still did this he said, "callings are seldom convenient."  How true is this, I will be the first to tell you the calling of a missionary isn't convenient or easy, but as we put our trust in the Lord, and work dilligently to magnify our calling, we will recieve blessings and growth inteded for us when God gave us this calling.  Whether you are a nursery leader, home teacher, or the prophet, everyone's role is important and we are given our calling for a reason.  As I was reading out of Preach My Gospel this week on page 2 I read, "As your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ grows, your desire to share the gospel will increase."  How true is this, I love this gospel and the more I learn about it, the more I want and feel obligated to share this brilliant message of hope and happiness with as many people as are willing to accept it.  Yesterday we had something called TRC.  It was our first TRC and let me just tell ya, it was one of the most amazing experiences I have had here in the MTC.  I was super nervous going into it, because we were going to be teaching real investigators or inactive members who only spoke Spanish.  Elder Marker and I first got put in a room with a man named Tony.  The spirit was so strong as we taught about prayer and as I bore my testimony of prayer.  He said a prayer at the end of the lesson and then he gave me a huge hug that lasted like 30 seconds. I knew he felt the spirit and I could feel mine and Heavenly Father's love for him as we taught.  It made me feel soo happy and excited to teach, and I have't gotten a hug that big since I left my mom haha!  We also taught two teenage boys which was humbling becasue I realized my Spanish wasn't that great then because they kept correcting me.  I think I said something funny too because I asked them a question and they just looked at me and started laughing as they realized I was waiting for a response.  So that was a pretty cool experience though.  Anyways thanks so much for the package and pictures and letter mom, it made me soooo happy to get mail and I love you so much.  Thanks for the scripture, I really have learned to appreciate every single day, because God created it.  As we were doing a service project this week we were singing and laughing as a district and I felt so happy and ready to work hard.  How is everything back home??  How are the lessons going with Michael? And how is Mohave Basketball season?? I am waiting to hear from some teammates or coahces!  This week we had fajitas and it made me miss my friends a lot.  And I was right, the fajitas down here aren't quite as good as the amazing ones I got back home.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone and Happy Birthday Mom!!! I hope you guys have a wonderful week and have some fun for me, I will be thinking about you guys.  Love and miss you guys, have an awesome week!

-Elder Clark

Tyler loves mail.  Email is great, but he loves to get stuff mid week when he cant email too. He leaves for his first area on December 5th.  If you decide to mail a letter after he is in the field, you can mail it to his mission office address which is:

Mision Mexico Cuidad de Mexico Sureste 
Elder Tyler Clark

Av. del Taller No. 540

Col. Jardin Balbuena

Delagacion Venustiano Carranza

C.P. 15900 Mexico City, Distrito Federal Mexico

Another Week in the MTC

Hi Mom and Everyone!!

Still alive and healthy down here in Mexico! This week was pretty darn great! So much has happened I dont even know where to start (sorry having a hard time finding the apostraphe again) First of all the temple was amazing!! The Mexico temple is super sweet. I will attach some pictures and one of the happiest I have ever been since I have been here came when I was in the temple.  I felt so much peace and blessings and I learned a lot.  If fact, we are actually going to the temple AGAIN today in just a few hours and I am pumped.  The next week we will have our first normal p day though because the temple trip takes 6 hours.  The bus ride there is kinda sketchy too haha it reminds me of when we were riding on the bus in Jamacia!  On Sunday I bore my testimony in Spanish, which was cool not a lot of new people did, and I also found out Elder Marker and I are teaching this Sunday in priesthood meeting... I was a little scared at first but now that I have studied our topic I learned a lot and am excited to teach!  Fasting went great too, I felt a lot of peace and blessings from it, thank you so much to everyone who included me in their fasts.  Of course I have some hard times every once in a while and homesickness comes every now and then but each week I am learning how to better adapt and deal with it, and each week goes by faster and faster already.  Some scriptures that helped me a lot lately are (Alma 26-27, D and C 100-1 and D and C 31-1-5) you guys should look them up.  I know my family is in the hands of the Lord the best place they can be.  This week we watched some videos of some pioneers (specifically John Tanner) and about Jesus Christ.  After seeing what some people have sacrificed for this church i realize my sacrifice is nothing and that 2 years is so small in the eternal perspective.  My roommates and I have shared a lot of laughs this week and my district is fun to talk to.  We have talked a lot about Psych lol and pretty much all of them are obsessed with the office.  Every single night I dream soo much it must be because I am tired i guess but it is always about being with my friends and family so it is kind of a dissapointment to wake up and have them not be there haha.  It has rained a lot this week too and one night we didn't have our raincoats so we were running through puddles in the rain to the cafeteria.  I don't know why but I felt just super happy and I knew life was such a great blessing.  I am super thankful for my raincoat though and it isn't even rainy season!  Also I have played basketball pretty much everyday too haha it is sooo awesome and it makes me happy and I can shoot just as good down here.  I will miss gym time out in the field.  Also Spanish is coming along greeat! I have seen my hard work pay off a lot, and I feel like I work harder than most of my district because my Spanish is really good and I have memorized so many more scriptures and stuff.  My testimony has grown a lot too.  Although, I thought this was a coincidence at first but our teacher ALWAYS pairs me up with a missionary in our district that doesn't really have a testimony and is not willing to work hard.  I pray for him and try to help him but it is tough.  Anyways we found out Donald Trump won here and there were protestors outside the CCM gates! Apparently someone let out the beans a bunch of white americans are in here.  Also, I would love to get some letters from people!!!   Also send me some of your guys adresses and I will try to send you some letters too! I know it takes a long time to send them but I will try my best.  One kind of silly but aweseome experience I had this week was when I lost my watch and it didn't show up at lost and found for a couple days, but I prayed and had faith and when I went back a couple days later they had my watch! I was seriously so happy I yelled "The church is true!" Or "La iglesia is verdadera!" Anyways my testimony has grown a lot.  When I was reading the Book of Mormon this week, I just felt an overwhelming feeling of happiness and I knew it was true.  Thank you so much mom and dad for giving me the opportunity to serve a mission, I know these two years won't last forever and I will only be in the MTC once so I am trying to make the most of it!  I am glad Lindsey is okay, that is kind of scary.  Also super happy for Michael! That is awesome dude the gospel will be such a huge blessing in your life.  Also happy Grandpa and Grandma Metcalf got to go see Grandma one more time, that is touching.  Anyways love you guys, have a gooood week!!

-Elder Clark

At the Mexico City Temple

(they are doing construction on the angel Moroni)

Tyler and his companion

He's Alive!!

Wow that was a long wait for a mom to hear from her son.  Here is his weekly email.

Hi Mom and Everyone,

   Waking up today was like sooo happy me and my roommates were singing and excited to email our family and friends.  Ugh I have so much stories and things to tell I will try to get most of it and I am sorry if I did not get the chance to reply to everyone´s emails today, we have very limited time and I will  try to get around to everyone.  Anyways, Mexico is awesome and beautiful.  The birds are so colorful, there are palm trees everywhere and it is so green.  The MTC (we call it the CCM) is really nice.  Sometimes it still feels like I am in America because there are so many white people around haha. I am both excited and scared to leave here and go to the field.  The houses are so close together and packed, it looks so sketchy to drive and stuff. Also a teacher here knows a lot about our mission.  He said it is really cold, and it is one of the smallest missions, our area will only be a few blocks it is almost like Utah! He said everyone knows the missionaries but I asked him and he said we will have no problem finding investigators so that was a relief.  MOM!! Thanks so much for the donuts!! I was sooo happy when I heard I got a package, I was the first one in my district.  The donuts were a bomb and a tender mercy to me! If anyone else wants to send me packages feel free, missionaries love packages! 

(I ordered from some missionary delivery service in Mexico...If any of you want the info, i ordered from missionarypackagemx.com.)

 I got the package in just 2 days so whatever strategy you used worked! Also I love getting letters too, letters make me happy too because I do not have to wait a week to read them.  My roommates, companion, and district are awesome though.  My companion is named Elder Marker, and I am in a room with Elder Boyer and Elder Metcalf! (No I don't think we are related to Elder Metcalf he is from Syracuse, Utah) But they are so funny!! My companion is positive and also goes along with me.  We work really well together especially teaching investigators who are really just our teachers.  But it is nice, I kind of take the lead and he compliments and supports me, but we have to do it all in Spanish... Ahh! He is not athletic but he will pretty much do anything with me.  My best friend so far though is Elder Boyer though, he is super cool and happy and funny, we get along really well and we are in a room together so hes basically like my companion too.  The four of us roommates get along so well and I am always so happy at night because we laugh and tell stories and just have fun! We even made a 10 commandments for our room lol.  Maybe I can tell you more about that next week.  But the MTC here is such a cool expérience.  We live in little houses and I am super comfortable I have pretty much everything I need! On the night of daylight savings, we set out clocks back an hour so we got an extra hour to sleep and me and Elder Boyer were so happy we ran out in the hall screaming and dancing! The food is really good here too, I have enough to eat and can always find something I like.  The beans and rice are always available of course and so far my metabolism has handled everything great haha.  For those wondering I have played basketball pretty much everyday we have gym time I love it! They also have ping pong tables here but we are going to try and set up my portable ping pong net soon!  I also do push ups every single night with Elder Boyer.  I do one more every single night so at the end of my mission I am going to be doing 750 in theory haha.  We will see how that goes.  The devotionals are awesome here, we had a visiting athourity in Provo speak and it was broadcasted to all the MTCs.  It was Russell M. Nelson.  Spanish is a little frustrating at times, but the gift of tongues is so real! I have picked up a lot and I am trying to learn as much as I can but I never really did suspect how hard learning a new language would be... And honestly, when I opened my email one of the first messages I saw was from Cole that the Spurs won, I was soooo happy and I yelled to everyone in the email room that the Spurs won haha!  And then I saw the pictures of Grandpa I am glad he put my shirt to good use! I repped my Spurs shirt out here on some gym times and everyone tells me what a sweet shirt that is.  We have a couple guys in our dirstrict from Texas and New Mexico and they love the Spurs too but no one can love them as much as me. My district is awesome though I got super close to them and they help me a lot when I feel discouraged.  Everyone is pretty much from Utah though haha it is weird.  But for our first P Day we are going to the temple! I am pretty excited for that.  Sorry for my grammar everyone I know it is bad, I am trying to just type as fast as I can maybe my mom can fix it.  I will attach some pictures in my next email but I will end on a spiritual thought I guess since I am a missionary.  In 1 Nephi 9:5-6 it hit me a lot because Nephi did not know the blessings his words would bring to sooo many people, but he obeyed God and trusted in him.  I may not know all the blessings I may bring on my mission but I am trying to just trust that God has a plan for me and I think of that whenever I get discouraged. Reading the Book of Mormon is kind of like our new source of entertainment since we don´t have phones anymore haha. I can´t wait to read all of your emails, thanks everyone! 

(I just copy and paste his emails as he sends them. There are too many mistakes to correct. :) I can tell his mind is moving so fast and his typing cant keep up.)

Tyler and Elder Boyer

Tyler and his companion Elder Marker

Tylers District (Just the Boys)

Tylers District

Tyler and his roommates (Elder Marker, Elder Boyer, Elder Metcalf)