Well it sure hasn´t been that long since I last wrote you guys!! The crazier part is that I will have talked to my family for Mother´s Day before the next time I write!! Ahhh crazy, I feel like I just talked to you guys on Christmas and I am so excited for this Sunday! The temple was great last Friday like always, and we went to Burger King for lunch so even better!! I got to see Elder Boyer there and it was really nice to talk and catch up with him. I hope with all my heart we are companions one day, we relate super well and I miss him a lot. I also realized that I actually probably won´t be going to the temple here that many more times in my mission! We only go every other cycle, so if I don´t go very any special reasons to see Allison again or for any converts I only have 6 more sessions there!! Kind of crazy to think of it like that.
This Saturday was pretty sweet. We finally has someone show up for our guitar class after putting a poster outside of our church. We have got a lot of calls this week from people wondering about English/Guitar Classes and I am hoping we can start to gather a good group together. I feel like it is a great way to attract investigators and a lot of people seem interested. Afterwards we can give them tours of our church and invite them the next day for the Sacrament services!! A lot of people want to play basketball too, so what we have started is that every Saturday at 8:00 for our exercise we have "Basketball Classes", at 9 we have guitar classes, and 10, english classes!! I am pretty excited, it will make Saturday mornings fun, attract new investigators, and a fun service project!! It is just down here in calle Morelos in the Magdalena in Los Reyes and all you guys are invited too! I hope you can come haha. After the activities in the morning I always do a district attack with the area in our district who needs the most help for the week to achieve the goals of finding new investigators and it always turns out great!! I feel like we have a pretty good system going on. Saturday afternoons we usually have at least one, sometimes two baptisms in the district so that is fun too!!
Speaking of baptisms, yep, we had another one this last Saturday!! It was for an 11 year old girl named Evelyn. It has been a lot of fun teaching her, she is just so cute and sweet and was really excited to get baptized. It was a little frustrating, not very much ward support this one or for Javier´s, I think we have had so many baptisms lately the ward is getting burnt out haha. We had pretty much all of our speakers fall through which was rough, including her dad who just forgot to prepare something, but good thing we have the Spirit and are always prepared to fill time with something!! We had a technical difficulty too, someone took a video during the baptism and we didn´t know what to do- if we needed to redo it or just delete the video- so we were waiting around a while. It was a little stressful, but after making some phone calls, it all eventually worked out. I was feeling a little bad since it just didn´t all go as planned, but like always, the important part was that we had the baptism and Evelyn was really happy. At least we had hot water. But it was awesome, I let Elder Achá baptize her, his first time baptizing and he was excited and I was happy for him. I also had him confirm her on Sunday! That marks the 5th baptism in the last 5 weeks which is awesome!! The work is REALLY going forth here in Atlicpac and I know it is all thanks to the guidance and direction of our loving Heavenly Father. I give him all of my heart in gratitude every night in prayer for His tender mercies and personal inspiration that I need.
Well, I must admit, I am really happy with some of our recent converts too. Yesterday (Sunday) after giving him the Priesthood a Sunday before, Yael passed the Sacrament. Even cooler was that Henry blessed the Sacrament!! I was so happy the see them already fulfilling priesthood duties and it brought a warm joy to my heart seeing our recent converts really having the conversion process and finding their place in building God´s Kingdom. I am still worried for Javier, he is a really cool guy, but he just doesn´t have a lot of friends in the ward and is still having a lot of family problems. Please pray for him and I am hoping with time, he will be able to enjoy the whole conversion process too.
I must admit, these last two weeks have been a little long, with the temple trip and everything we didn´t get too much of a P-Day. But we sure worked our butts off, had a ton of success and have been able to complete every single standard of excellence in our area, I am so grateful for all of our success. I have been pretty exhausted and drained lately though and today was much needed. This morning we went to go play soccer with some other missionaries and members and it was a lot of fun!! I brought my basketball, but sadly everyone thought "futbol" was way more fun... lame... I did have fun though, and all of those years of playing AYSO soccer have payed off, I can hold my ground with some of these guys. I was also able to witness a huge milestone in Elder Achá´s mission, his first goal scored in the mish. I was happy for him and we all celebrated haha. Afterwards we went shopping and I got some ice cream (YUM!- That helps me get through those hard days) and some candy for the little kids! I have really enjoyed passing out candy to the little kids down here, when we earn their trust it is way easier to earn the trust of the parents and when we are contacting and some little kids run to the door and we give them candy, their parents can´t possibly shut us out so quickly haha!! I love making the little kids happy, and I certainly do miss all of my little cousins back home. I also forgot to mention that I held a goat this week- random fun fact. There are definitely a lot of interesting, funny things in Mexico, especially the driving, that I can´t help but be so glad to have this experience of living down here for 2 years of my life, seeing a new culture and lifestyle, learning a new language, a ton about the Gospel and myself, and changing lives!! Even though it is hard sometimes, in the big picture I have nothing to complain about and always try to focus on the positive. After all, I know that only Satan is trying to get me down, so when I remember that, it gives me enough motivation to cheer up, just to displease him.
Well, I think mostly, I am pretty good. There was actually a worldwide change I found out yesterday to the missionary work in all the world, that the investigators only need to go to church 3 sundays before their baptisms. We were all pretty pumped with this change Dallin H. Oaks recently made and I think it will help is a lot go forward with the work. I am hoping that maybe we can baptize Julio pretty fast, the awesome investigator that we found contacting last week, so he can change his life and enjoy the blessings of the Gospel. I think more than anything though, this change made me realize something. I will not explain the title of my email too, but the seconds are definitely winding down in the game. We are in the last days. The Lord his hastening his great and marvelous work and He needs ALL hands on deck. I have already realized how much of an instrument I have been in helping His children come home and He needs every worthy young man to serve a mission in these times. As the seconds are winding down, Satan is playing harder too. He is trying to discourage us more and more, trying to drag away more and more of our brothers and sisters into the "Gulfs of Misery" and we need to step up our game too. We need to be stronger in the faith, fight harder against him, and seek to do the Lord´s Will. He is our coach, our captain, and I have definitely learned that when I follow and focus on Him, I am the most happy, have the most hope, find the most success, and am able to counter every single one of Satan´s plays. After playing a bench role before my mission, I have learned to step up in the Lord´s work too. I will admit, training has NOT been easy. The mission has NOT been 100% easy either. But it is worth it, I have been blessed, and know that I have been a key player for the Lord´s team. Even though it hasn´t been easy, I am often tired, discouraged, and even homesick every now and then, I have learned so much. Heavenly Father has taught me so many valuable lessons that I can apply for the rest of my life. Just in my 4 short weeks as trainer and district leader, I have learned to have soo much more patience, so much more love for my companion and investigator. I have learned how to step up, be a leader, trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in everything I do, and rely on His Atoning Power. I have definitely been trained and born by the BEST goodly parents and family in my youth. I have been waiting to do this work my whole life, and now my time has arrived. I pray Heavenly Father will continue to guide me in the work so that I can make a difference in these critical final seconds of the game. We are in crunch time and we all need to give it our all. I know the end is soon, that one day we will all be able to live peacefully, rest from all of our pains, troubles, and heartaches; a time when Christ will reign perfectly upon the Earth, Satan will have no power over us, and we will be able to enjoy the blessings of Exaltation FOREVER, if we can just keep fighting and playing with everything we got until the final buzzer sounds. What a great time we live it, what a great blessings and knowledge we have, and what a great responsibility and privilege we have to share it with the World. The Lord´s team WILL win, I know it, and I know this church to be true.
I love you all immensely, and pray for each name of my entire family every night and prayer. I miss you tons and hope you are all doing great. Talk to you next week!!
Elder Clark
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