Volcanic Rock Surfing Part 2!!!

Buenas Tardes Amigos y Familia!

Hey guys! This week was another really fast one and I can barely remember what happened and where it all went!! As you can see, today, we went back to the hill we hiked a few months ago, and went for round 2 of Volcanic Rock Surfing!!! We brought a little bigger of a squad this time and I think we all decided we are going to train and make it an olympic sport.  It was seriously so fun, just like last time haha, and there were no injuries OR broken cameras this time! (Woo! I know my parents will be happy haha!).  Running down, like always, was definitely the funnest part, and we definitely got SUPER DIRTY. I don´t think there is a better feeling in the world than coming back and taking a nice, refreshing, clean, cold shower... And of course, after hiking, we ate tacos and I put down 15!! It was a great day, and that is only the start to the next few fun P-Day plans we have (Esteban´s house, ping-pong, maybe more basketball...). So life is just great right now, I am enjoying the mission, P-Days, my buddies out here, and just being a missionary in general!!

This week the work was great as well. We had another lesson with our only English speaking investigator, Tiffany, and taught her the Restoration.  She seems more and more interested each time, and we already have plans to go to the visitors center in the temple with her and her family, AND she is excited to come to general conference since I told her there will probably be an English broadcast!! It is even more perfect because she said she is looking for some friends here who she can actually communicate with and there is a sister in our ward that served her mission in the USA and knows English so we are excited to take her to visit Tiffany.  Also this week, some members took us with some of their friends who "want to learn English" (I say that because, sure we always are willing to help others and teach English, but it is just a good way to find new people to teach as well and most of the "English students" later on become investigators and some faithful members of the church!"), so when we got there, they became super interested in who we were and what we do and didn´t teach a bit of English, but taught a little bit more about the Gospel and we were surprised when they so willingly accepted a baptismal date towards the end of May! So we are starting to get some momentum now, some investigators with baptismal dates, and hopefully the success keeps rolling because we are working hard and trying our best to be the missionaries the Lord would have us be!! 

This Saturday I also had the great blessing and opportunity to go back for Jonathan and Andrea´s baptism which was AWESOME! They were both super happy to see me, and I was so happy to see them.  Jonathan ran up and gave me a hug when I saw him again, and also saying hi to all of the members from my old ward in Neza, and feeling how much they truly loved me just really gave me more motivation to keep loving and serving this people will all my heart.  I truly do LOVE these people so much, and with some of them I will have relationships that will last eternity.  After the baptism, Ricardo (Luz´s husband)- I´m not sure if I mentioned him before but we took him to the visitors center in the temple on my birthday last cycle- but anyway, he happily told me that they were finally making plans to get married in May and he wants me to come back and baptize him because he´s always felt a "special love" from me.  It made me super happy and I just hope all of my converts, investigators, and the members here can feel that same love and charity I have for them.  In my personal study this week, a scripture really hit me, and reflects my thoughts and feelings in Mosiah 23: 10-11 which says, "10 Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth. 11 Nevertheless, in this I do not glory, for I am unworthy to glory of myself." So that is my scripture and spiritual thought for this week. 

So yeah, it is pretty crazy Elder Moody has already been in the field for 2 weeks.  We are working hard, having fun, and I am already seeing a lot of progress in his Spanish and in just about everything it takes to be a missionary.  We had some fun making some boiled eggs this week, went out for tacos again, of course, had zone conference which was really great (our district did a special musical number in there), and that is pretty much our week.  We also found the PERFECT spot for my nerf hoop, nailed it into the wall, and set up 3 point lines of course, so we´ve had a couple of 3 point contests haha. What would life be without basketball to relieve all of your stress? And of course I am continuing to go to the gym hard every morning to prepare my mind and body to with the family ping pong championship, family superbowl, shredding the slopes with my dad and sisters, and whatever other fun crazy games and things we will do when I get back haha. Pretty crazy to think that yesterday I hit 17 months in the field... Time is flying to I better get back to working hard while I can! Catch you guys next week, thanks as always for everything you guys do for me, love and miss you, continue enjoying March Madness (I heard it has been crazy even though it doesn´t really exist here), and most importantly... GO SPURS GO!!!!!

Your favorite missionary,

Elder T-Clark

Spider Exterminators

Hello Family and Friends!!

WOW! Has a week really already passed by??!! If time keeps going as fast as it does, at this rate I will be home tomorrow! I was just thinking one night about how much little time I have left to be a missionary and was thinking, I don´t want to ever stop being a missionary!! Elder Moody and I are doing great, he has already gotten a lot better at Spanish in just one week and seems to be adjusting good to missionary life. Our area is going GREAT, this week we found a ton of new and really cool families to teach.  We are truly seeing the blessings for our obedience, diligence, and faith.  

So as you have read in my weekly email title, Elder Moody and I have become official spider exterminators.  Sometimes opening an area can be a little rough, and the house can be pretty dirty... I tried dealing with it for one day, but on Tuesday night I decided something had to be down when I found 4 or 5 spiders right above my bed, and a cockroach in my bathroom when I was showering haha. Don´t ask how I killed that thing! But anyways, Wednesday, I told my kid that we are going to the store, buying a BUNCH of cleaning supplies, bug spray, and whatever else we could find, and we were going to PURIFY the house.  So we spent all of Wednesday cleaning, and it was really nice because there is a lady that lives above us who is a recent convert who came down and was so happy we were clean and orderly missionaries and she helped us clean pretty much the whole day.  Moving everything out of the bedroom, and moving room by room, I am pretty sure we cleaned and sprayed every nook and cranny of our house and on Wednesday night I felt much better.  I think it helped Elder Moody a lot adjusting too, imagine a brand new missionary getting to his house for the first time that is dirtier than the high school locker room... Haha, yeah so it was pretty dirty but that is alright, it was a good experience for us and we were able to finally unpack our bags, feel comfortable, and most importantly, invite the spirit into our home.  Although I think Satan wanted to play a prank on me because Wednesday night, literally right after we finished cleaning, a cockroach came crawling up from behind my clothes rack... Ugh, I hate bugs.

So as I was saying, Moody and I have been killing it finding new investigators.  This week we found Tiffany, who literally doesn´t know any Spanish!! It is pretty rare to find someone like that here in Mexico City, but she was really surprised when two white, Americans, knocked on her door who both spoke Spanish and English.  Elder Moody enjoyed that a LOT too and always says "finally I can understand what someone is saying!!" haha. So that was really cool, she is not a member but her husband is, and they recently moved here from HOUSTON TEXAS!! It was really fun talking about Houston with them even though I don´t remember too much when I lived there but they are a super cool family who will hopefully progress fast. We are already planning a day to go visit the visitors center in the temple with them and hopefully we can get them to church, although Tiffany is a little shy since she won´t be able to understand anything.  We also found another father and son, Manuel and Ian this week. They were just some contacts we found knocking doors and we were able to teach the Restoration with them! It was one of the most powerful lessons I´ve ever taught, and the little boy, Ian, who is only 8 years old understood everything perfectly.  He kept repeating back to us what he learned and understood and I think his dad was literally just SHOCKED at how much his son understood from what we taught.  The dad,Manuel, really liked our message too and was super happy and excited to read the Book of Mormon.  We have an appointment with them on Friday and will hopefully meet his wife and other kids.  Elder Moody and I left that lesson super excited and filled with the Spirit and he said, "This is why it is so awesome being a missionary!" It is definitely true, it is moments like these that I will treasure and remember forever and these are the people who I will never forget.  I am so grateful for so much love that I feel for all the people I serve, including my companion.  Jonathan and Andreas´ baptism got postponed to this week but they definitely want me to come back and baptize them which will be really exciting, and Saul seems to be doing great too.  It is always great to hear about your old investigators and converts who continue to learn, grow, and progress.

Well that seems about it for this week.  I have also been cooking a lot more lately which is pretty fun.  One night I made some good BBQ chicken and on Sunday, we had bought things to make pancakes so I made my kid some Sunday morning pancakes for breakfast!! And of course, we already found one of the BEST tacos places right outside our house that I took my kid too and he said that they were "AMAZING!" He can´t wait to go back for tacos again.  Yeah, I think I am pretty much the best dad ever haha, just kidding.  Also I can´t believe I forgot to mention this a few weeks ago, but shout out to the Frank Family, Jon, Larissa, Karli, Krista, and Sam (And Allison) for the fun birthday package that I got a few weeks ago! But seriously, this week I was just pondering and thinking and am SOO SOO SOOOOOO grateful for so many amazing people that I have always had surrounding my life.  Of course my family back home, extended family included, who have always been there for me, and who continue to support and love me, but also all of the my friends back home and so many amazing and fun friends that I have met here on the mission.  Today we played basketball with some of my best mission buddies which was SUPER FUN, one of the best basketball days I´ve had on the mission, and afterwards we went to Little Caesar´s and were talking and sharing stories.  I think a lot about too, coming home, seeing all of your guys again, and then going to college where I will also have a ton of fun family and friends there to continue to support me and party with me.  I am just so grateful to my Heavenly Father because it just doesn´t seem like there is ever a dull moment in my life, nor a dull moment in my future, and I am very grateful and happy to be here on this Earth as one of Our Heavenly Father´s children.  Well, I hope you guys all have a fun and safe week and are enjoying MARCH MADNESS!!!

Your favorite son, brother, couisn, nephew, grandson, friends, and b-ball player,

Elder T-Clark

Having Another Son!!!

Helllooo Family and Friends!!

Well this week I got some pretty exciting and unexpecting news... I'm going to have another son!! Yep, I'm going to be training a brand new missionary again for the next 12 weeks and I'm so pumped. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting, and I haven't been in this area for too long, but I have changes already and am going to open an area with my kid which might be a little tough at first but will be an awesome opportunity and blessing. I'm soo excited and grateful to my Mission President and my Heavenly Father for this opportunity. His name is Elder Moody and he is from Cokesville Wyoming! He is super excited and a great guy and I am super excited to be did "dad". It will be fun and a great opportunity for me to help him learn Spanish and show him Mexico.  Of course, we are going for tacos tonight and I hope I can be a great example and be a good support for him. Now Elder Acha will have a brother which will be exciting too. Hopefully I can see my mission family grow a little bit before I leave! I will also be opening a new area, so Elder Moody and I will both be getting to know the new members and investigators together which will be a good learning experience.  Wish us luck and lots of success!

I must admit though, I never thought it would be this hard to say bye to this ward... Even though I wasn't here for much time (6 weeks) it is crazy HOW FAST those 6 weeks went by (literally FLEW) and how much I really loved all the people I served, the members, missionaries, and investigators. Saying bye to everyone is when it really hit me... When I truly realized how much I love these people and was just pondering that if I can feel this much love and charity, how much love and charity our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel towards us and all of his children. I'm starting to see soo many promises in my patriarchal blessing come true and it is soo true, you definitely grow to love those who you serve. I have so much love for everyone I've gotten to know in my mission and am only even more excited to get to know more people even though saying goodbyes is always a little hard.

Well, teaching the little kids, Jonathan and Andrea, is going great! In fact, they are getting baptized this week and we're devastated when they found out that I had changes but were very excited to know that I could come back to baptize them. So that should be good, as you all know, I love the little kids a ton. Also, things are going GREAT with Saul (the guy in his bed who got shot in the street). He is recovering way faster than the doctors thought and said that he will probably be going to church this Sunday!! Woo!! He's soo excited to get baptized and whenever we go over there he is always so sincere and asks so many questions. He's truly a golden investigator and plus he has a lot of crazy, funny stories he was telling us of his past life last time when we went over there haha. He will be an AWESOME convert. We also went with an 85 year old lady named Antonia this week. I always say that every ward in the mission has that one old lady that is just like the sweet, old grandma to the missionaries. One day we felt like we needed to go over and see her and when we got there she was SOO excited to see us. She was soo happy in fact that it brought tears to her eyes. Of course, she talked forever telling us everything that is going on in her life, but it was great. It is definitely moments like these where I just feel so much compassion and LOVE what I do. It reminded me a lot of home teaching with my dad which I don't think I appreciated  quite enough. It's true though how much happiness serving and helping others can bring you but ONLY if you do it with the right attitude, I think that is the key to happiness, successful service, and finding joy in helping others. Then when I was saying bye to Antonia yesterday because I have changes, she was looking all over her house just to give us some chocolates. And of course, saying bye to the bishop, relief society president, and our go-to ward Mom, Cecy, who took us out for crepes on Saturday night was all hard. But hard goodbyes only means that there were great memories, and now I'm on to make some more memories in a new wars with new people who need me! So I'll work as hard as I can to find the people waiting for me.

Well I really am pretty excited for this change even though I'll miss this ward. I'm going to Palmar 2 which is in the Pantitlan Zone, and I'll be reunited with my awesome district leader, Elder Diuguid, and one of my best mission buddies, Elder Stone. In fact, Stone and my areas are touching so we are going to the same gym together and I'm so pumped!! One day this week I went on divisions in my new area for a half day to get to know the area a little bit, where the house is, basic needs, and of course the most important things, where the best gym is and where I'm going to take my kid out for tacos on his first night!! That's definitely a must. This house also has a washing machine (Yes!! I've been sooo lucky in my mission with washing machines!) and it even has a WAFFLE MAKER!! I'll have to clean it up a little bit but I'm definitely making waffles with my kid one of these days. So yeah, I'm really excited for this upcoming cycle, we've got some P-Day plans of lots of basketball, visiting Esteban, celebrating Kay's birthday, bowling, and hiking the volcanic rock surfing hill again, I'm going to have a BLAST with my kid so he can see how awesome the mission is. And of course we are going to work out butts off to baptize millions. So I'm feeling pretty great right now, I also maxed out this week in the gym and I must admit, I'm getting a lot stronger too haha. I'm so grateful for the impact this ward in Nezahualcoyotl in the Benito Juarez made on me and how much I've learned and grown in just these 3 weeks. I'm thankful I had the opportunity to be companions with Elder Palacios and I'm even more grateful and excited for the opportunity to train again and open a new area!!! So many wonderful opportunities and experiences ahead, so I guess I better get to work! Thanks so much for everything, love and miss you all tons, and have a great week!!

Elder Clark

The Return of the Ping-Pong Champion

This week perhaps may have started the return of the reign of Ping-Pong Champion T-Clark in the land of Nezahualcoyotl. We had divisions again this week and the Elder who came with me was talking it up about his ping pong skills so I had to humble him a little bit haha. And thanks to my mom I have brand new paddles for Christmas. So now that the off-season is over, T-Clark might be coming back to take his place as mission pong pong champion. Plus I figured it would be a good idea to start practicing so when I get home I can beat Jon win the CFFPPC (Clark-Frank Family Ping Pong Championship) and rightfully claim the championship pumpkin seed. I imagine some of my uncles, my dad, or maybe even Grandpa Metcalf have been practicing too, but just so it is known, I will be coming back ready to take the family crown.

This week we also had some cool experiences working with the members and finding new investigators! Things are still going great with Jonathan and Andrea and looks like they will be getting baptized in a couple of weeks! One day when an appointment fell it came to my mind that we needed to go with an old contact who wasn't there when we went back for the return appointment so we just let him go, but I felt strongly that we needed to go look for him again. I felt guided by the spirit as I did so because we got there and immediately got accepted in. Apparently, just the night before, he was walking home in the street and got shot in the leg! (Welcome to Mexico haha). No major injury happened but the bullet hit a bone in his leg and now he has to stay in his bed for a while to recover. It was strange though because he was super happy to see us, and kind of realized that maybe what happened to him was a sign he needed to listen to us and come closer to God. Of course I felt super bad for him and he can't really move for at least a few weeks (there are other people in his house feeding him and taking care of him) which would be really boring, but I suppose God works in mysterious ways for the Salvation of His children. It was a great opportunity we had, we went with him 3 different times this week because he loves it when we visit him, he's taking advantage of this time reading the Book of Mormon, and he promised us as soon as he could get out of his bed and walk again, he would go to church with us. We were able to set a baptismal date with him too for late in April and gave him a blessing of strength so that he could get better and be baptized on this day, and I am so excited and happy for him. His name is Saul, apparently the missionaries were teaching him in Tennessee a little bit too when he lived there, so he speaks English, and I can't wait until he gets baptized. I am so grateful the Spirit guided me to go find and help him. We are also trying to get the sisters of the ward to make and take him food every once in a while so he can get to know some more members!! Sometimes trials and tribulations in life are great opportunities for God to help us and mold us into who we can become if we humbly and patiently let him, enduring our trials with faith. We also had another cool experience working with a young men (16 years old), Aldo. He agreed to come out and do visits with us on an afternoon and when we picked him up we asked him if there was anyone he knew that we could visit, but he just didn't have anyone in mind who he could take us with. We contacted a little bit and then went with an investigator and taught the Restoration. After leaving the lesson he was so excited. I could tell he was feeling the Spirit and experiencing the joy of sharing the Gospel too! It seemed like something just clicked in his head and he understood the importance of of our message. And then he excitingly told us that he knew who we could visit! He took us with his friend from school, Aileen, who gladly accepted another return appointment. I learned that sometimes we don't quite understand how important it is to share the Gospel with our friends and family, and sometimes we have to first just get out and do some missionary work to see why it is so important and feel the joy of doing it. There is no more important or satisfying work than missionary work!

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for the week! An Elder in our zone this week got the "bean boozle" game in a package so we had some fun playing that. I had to eat a canned dog food jelly bean one time and almost threw up haha. I'm not sure why that game exists, but I guess it is funny watching other people having the eat a gross jelly bean haha. We also had some really good food this week too, one day the members gave us money to eat so we went to a really good seafood place and I got some fish tacos. One day we also got some good BBQ ribs right by our house. And of course, as always, we had our fair share of street tacos this week.  I´m also pretty happy since I got to play basketball today with a bunch of mission buddies. I love basketball so much, everytime I play I just feel like I can release all of my stress. So it was a great P-Day and I wasn´t stuck in my house all day reading the Scriptures for 3 hours (although sometimes it can be a nice break). I'm really not sure how it is March already, but time sure is going by uncontrollably fast! Only 2 more months until I FaceTime my family again for the last time and then I'm almost home! This cycle is almost over too, this is week 6 and I feel like we are just getting started. I guess as I always say, time goes by way faster when you are super busy and enjoying what you do. Love you all and thanks for everything. Have a great week!!!

Ping-Pong Champion,
Elder T-Clark

P.S. Also CONGRATULATIONS to my sister Lindsey who got into BYU this week! It's weird that she's going to be starting college before me...