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