Happy Holidays and I hope everyone had a very fun-filled, safe, and wild thanksgiving with lots of pie and turkey! I also hope the best mom in the world had the best birthday ever! Happy Birthday mom! So this week at nights with my companion, Elder Boynton, and the people I have been doing divisons with I have been getting really good at chess. I never really knew how good until now and I literally just beat everyone. I´ve never really practiced in my life, but currently I am on a 4 game chess win streak and don´t plan on losing soon. Maybe ever since I finally lost in Ping-Pong I have had to find something else to boost my confidence and to be proud of. But of course I am still playing basketball lots, and with all the strength I have been getting in the gym, I feel unstoppable. Today we played basketball and it was a ton of fun. So I am just feeling at my peak spiritually and physically on my mission right now and I am super happy. Especially after this week we have been having a ton of success here and I just LOVE being a missionary. Sometimes I feel like I´ve never had more happier times in my life apart from not being with some of my favorite people, but I am definitely going to be sad the day my mission comes to an end. There is no more satisfying work than this and it is sad thinking I will only be a missionary once in my life... But my mom did send me a lot of videos this week so I was also reminded of how fun and awesome my family and friends are back home. I sure miss you guys too. Time is flying by right now and lots to look forward to ahead, can life get any better right now?!?! Plus I just got a call and found out that I have 2 PACKAGES!!! WOOO!!! (disclaimer- I promise I am not on drugs right now)
So this week I was really happy to meet a "golden" investigator named Joaquin. One day, my companion and I were walking in the street and someone yelled at us, "Hola Elderes!" We kind of waved back because we had some other appointments but as we were walking we both stopped. We stopped and thought about that maybe we should go back and say hi, I mean we had never seen him before, and why not?! So after a few seconds we decided we needed to go back, and boy am I glad we decided to go talk to Joaquin. He was very friendly at first and told us he would love to talk to us. We set a return appointment for the next day (Friday), and went back to teach him the next day. We taught the Restoration and man was it one of the most powerful, spiritual lessons I had ever taught. He was so interested, asked a lot of questions and understood everything perfectly. And after the lesson he told us a really cool story. He said a few years ago, he was in the hospital with a serious illness. I think he said that his pancreas or something were expanding and the doctors couldn´t do anything about it, in fact, they told him that he had only 1 week left to live. He said that during this week he was a little uneasy, he wasn´t really satisfied with his past life and had a lot of regrets. He said that during this week he kept having dreams where people dressed in black would come by his bed and tell him that he was dying soon and was going to be miserable forever. He also said that people dressed in white, that looked like us with our white shirts, or sometimes angels would come by to help him, comfort him, and make him feel better telling him everything would be alright. The doctors came back a week later and were completely shocked. They asked him what he had done because he was 100% cured. No sign of disease or illness, or any problem with his organs and that he was free to go. He started crying at this point, a big tough guy with lots of tattoos and lots of piercings (It is always so powerful when those big tough guys cry), and told us that he knew that miracle was from God because he had a purpose to complete in this life. He said before then, he never ever believed in God, thought that is was made up, but now he can´t deny the miracle that God did in his life. And in his final prayer he thanked God for putting us in his life to complete his purpose and find the happiness he was looking for. We left him with a Book of Mormon and a few chapters to read as well, and a couple days later we went back to check on him and how he was doing. When we got there he had all of his family over and was teaching them about the Book of Mormon!!! I was SOOO HAPPY!!! I knew that the Spirit touched his life that day and I am beyond grateful that the Spirit guided us to go back and talk to Joaquin when we first say him. Like I said, there is no more satisfying work than to be a missionary! Honestly, with Joaquin, I know that he is going to get baptized, and to me, he is already another Ramrio, or Dimas, or Damian, who I know that I was preordained in the Spirit World to come serve them, love them, and bring them the Gospel. I am so excited. Dimas should also be getting baptized in the coming weeks.
We also had our ward activity this week and with a ton of planning with our ward mission leader, and support from him, it turned out GREAT!! We had our best converts from our ward come share their conversion stories and even had President Mann and his wife there to give a talk!! Everyone told us about how powerful our mission President is, and I was so glad he was able to come. A member even brought tamales for everyone afterwards! Ever since then the members have LOVED us! We got about 7 references the next Sunday, people bringing their family members to church and now this ward is really rolling. We have been able to put 3 more baptismal dates this week and I hope they don´t change me for a while here because the work is awesome and the members are working well to support us. We were able to have some investigators at both the ward activity and at church and especially the Lopez family is progressing great, especially the dad, Fernando. We went with them yesterday in the evening and taught the Word of Wisdom which they accepted without any problems. Fernando told us that he read all the chapters in the Book of Mormon that we left him with and understood everything perfectly! He gave a great summary of the chapter and now they are falling in love with the Gospel as well.
So as you can see, it was another great and successful week. I am so happy and cannot believe Christmas is just 4 weeks away!! Definitely time to get into the Christmas Spirit! As for food this week I had some really good tacos again (of course, life every week), and one time at lunch this week, a member gave us some of the spiciest food I have ever eaten! I still was able to put down 2 plates, but it sure was hot. Afterwards, the sister said, "sorry Elders, I think I might´ve accidentally put in double the chile that it called for haha", I was like, yeah, I could tell. But it was still super good. Other than that I will keep on working hard and praying for you guys back home! I didn´t get any turkey for Thanksgiving, but that is alright, next Thanksgiving I will be home with all of you guys! What a time that will be. I hope you guys have a really fun and safe week and that you start getting snow soon! (Especially down in Bullhead City!) Have a greeat weeek!
Elder Clark
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