I remembered singing put your shoulder to the wheel with my friends on our cruise this last summer and I thought it would be a great title for this weeks email! There is literally sooooo much work here!! We have been recieving and contacting a lot of references from members, finding lots of new investigators and the work is just great!! Almost too great... haha. Since our area is so big we have to take a TON of combis now. It is great that we have a ton of investigators, but we are always running around now, taking combis, and don´t have too much time to study throughout the day, which is good though. I wouldn´t really want it any other way, especially because we have 2 for sure baptisms coming up before the end of this cycle, and many more planned for the future! I am pumped. On April 7 we will be baptizing a 14 year old boy named Yael. He lives super far away, but is really awesome, he understands the Gospel really well and his friend Diego brings him to church. I am also teaching him English (A lot of people are more accepting and willing to listen and keep our commitments when I offer them English classes for some reason...). Then we are baptizing a 45 year old man named Henry on April 8. Yes, the same Henry the first week I was here I prayed to find someone we could teach in the area book, and his named popped up. His wife is already a member, and I am so glad we could find them. We are still having a lot of progress with all of our other investigators like Ramiro (another 40 year old man, whose wife is already a member. We are actually going to the visitors center of the temple tomorrow with him and I am excited for that!!), Alejandra, a 19 year old girl who we contacted one of my first weeks here, Guadalupe, and more!! I have even felt a little stressed and overwhelmed this week on some nights because there is just so much to do and so many people to worry about. I feel like I have taken more of a lead role too, now that my Spanish is pretty solid and I can communicate with everyone, I have to organize appointments, call them to see how they are doing, lead the planning sessions, and pray for them to know what they need. It is definitely more responsibility but I feel more satisfaction too. More responsibility=more blessings! I can´t imagine how the Prophet must feel! It is a great and marvelous work though, the Lord and The Spirit are definitely guiding and leading the work here in Atlicpac, and I am putting my shoulder to the wheel and pushing along!
So with sister Ramos and her mountain of dog poop and millions of dogs... The elders and high priests all went over there one day, we were really busy, but they took our the huge pile of dog poop we accumulated last week, and they actually got rid of almost all of the 36 dogs, except for 4 that she insisted on keeping. I guess all of her dogs they took away were put down too, they were just too poor and suffering and there are millions of dogs to go around here in Mexico. We went to visit her the next day, and she was pretty sad about her dogs, but it is muuuch better for her. It is a lot cleaner, less work for her, and she already looks a lot better. We will keep helping her.
A few days this week we went with sister Conception (Yeah, it is actually a common name here...) She is a 74 year old woman who LOVES the missionary work. Wow, she is such a huge blessing in our lives. We go over there, and she takes us around to ALL of her friends and people she knows, and we have a lot of success with her! We even taught a drunk guy who lives next door to her I think, I didn´t know how much he was understanding, but he surprised us both by showing up to church on Sunday! We met with him again, and I was determined to help him change his life and come unto Christ. He told us he was willing to change, and said that we are angels sent from Heaven in his life. How cool it was to meet him, his name is José and I hope we can keep working well with him.
This week was really fast but really awesome too! I think Elder Lopez thought I was a little weird when I was super excited for weekly planning session. I had cleaned and mopped the floors in the morning, organized my desk, and we started weekly planning for our mountain of investigators. I could feel the Spirit strongly influencing the planning session, and it felt so good to think and oragnize each one of them, I felt so happy. It just makes me feel really good to organize and feel like everything is under control haha. We also had a zone conference this week which was great! I got to see some of my old friends like Elder Marker, Metcalf, Fitzgerald, Robinson, and Lara!! It was great to see those guys, but also great to see President and Mama Stutz!! Pres gave an awesome lesson about monster trucks, specifically Grave Digger, and made me think of the few times I went to some monster truck shows with my Dad and Grandpa back in Houston and how I was concernced for the people in the school bus that they ran over haha. Good thing we have the Plan of Salvation so the lives sacrificed in the monster truck shows aren´t in vain. I also got 3 more birthday letters from Tara and Joey, Grandpa and Grandma, and the Kellis family!! I give God thanks every single morning and night for such a wonderful, awesome, supportive, and BEST family IN THE WORLD!! I miss you and my friends a lot, but I am loving the work too and the time is going by super fast. In fact, I reached 5 months out here on Saturday!! How crazy is that??
Well I am doing pretty great. Not a ton of interesting stuff happened this week, but I hope my email was still interesting. I will try to have more adventures and memories this week. I have been eating a lot of street tacos this week though, I think my count is at 83 or something... I am also very healthy too thankfully. I made some pretty bomb breakfast smoothies this week with bananas, citrus juice, and one of my favorite fruits down here, mangos!! They are sooo good. I also started a GIGANTIC book titled La Historia de la Iglesia en la Cumplimiento do los Tiempos. It is a huge book about the History of the church and Joseph Smith which I have learned to grow a huge fascination for in my mission. It took Elder Lopez 9 months to finish it, and he as already a Spanish speaker so I will see if I can finish it by the end of my mission. I am also super excited for General Conference this week!! Although it will be in Spanish, and I it will be sad to not hear the voices of some of my favorite speakers, hearing from Apostles and Prophets of God has taken on a whole new meaning since I got here in the mission. Be sure to send me links of all your favorite confernce talks this conference so I can download and listen to them as I get ready in the morning! (One of my favorite things I have started doing lately). Have an awesome week everyone, and HAPPY CONFERENCE!!
-Elder Clark
P.S. I ate something this week that looked a lot like brain. I will open and willing to try it, it was actually at a party for a homecoming of an elder, so it must be some kind of celebratory food or something, but man, it was probably the hardest thing I had to eat. The good thing was we were at a party so I could eat what I wanted or could and we left. I have done pretty good and enjoyed almost all of the food down here, but this was just horrible, pretty bad, and hard to get down. It made it even worse that we had to take a combi right after, and my stomach was really struggling, BUT I am happy to announce, I didn´t throw up!! Have a great week!
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