Chapter 103 - COG/Every Area in Vernon

Hey!

This week was crazy! Lots of cool stuff happened, but lots of not so cool stuff happened! I'm sure if you Googled Kelowna and looked at events for this last weekend you would see something called "Centre of Gravity" which is a massive music festival that happens downtown every summer. Last year they had Snoop Dogg, but this weekend we had French Montana, Juicy J, Wu-Tang, and Zedd! They are pretty big-timers, but not the best in the biz right now. So that wouldn't have been so bad, except for the type of people this kind of festival attracts! Namely, buff drunk guys and topless drunk girls! Not cool. Luckily we knew enough about it that we stayed far away and encouraged the Zone to stay far away as well! Problem is, it was a 3 day festival! Super lame.

Oh well, on to more spiritual matters. This week we went on exchanges with Salmon Arm Elders! Salmon Arm is way out there, and the last area in the Zone I've never seen! That is, until Friday! It was pretty fun. Now I can say I've worked in every area of the Vernon Zone. 

Also, we taught some lessons that went surprisingly well, and had some cool things happen. Perhaps I'll fill you in on the details later. But I definitely know that the Spirit is real. God guides this work and if we get out of the way and let Him do His work, we will see many mighty miracles. 

We took a look at our members and realized we haven't been working with them nearly enough. We try to find through them, but we haven't really had a goal that we are shooting for. That makes things way harder. So we made some plans with the Sisters and we will really hit it hard this week!

Church yesterday was actually super good! Bryan is our Elders Quorum president and one of my favourite members in the branch. He spoke on putting the Kingdom of God first, and it was actually really inspiring! He talked about President Eyring and how he was in line to be promoted to a huge position at Stanford but declined it because the Lord called him to work at Ricks. He also talked about his mission president who was a super successful businessman who was plucked right out of college to work at Shell in Alberta. He was 2nd in line to the big manager who was making roughly 250 million a year. Then the church asked him to work for the financial department for the church, and he left his cushy job to carry a suitcase around the world with the Apostles. One of his missionaries said, "President, don't worry, you'll get a mansion in heaven!" He just looked at this Elder and said "When I get to heaven I don't want a mansion. I just want my suitcase back." It was super powerful. I thought, wow, if God asked me to drop everything to follow Him, would I do it? There's a quote: "That's a really great life you've made for yourself. Just be prepared to leave it all when God calls." I was just reflecting on my future plans and how I need to set myself up to be ready to serve the Lord at any stage in my life. I'm pretty sure that's what President Wong did when he planned to retire at 42. He was ready to give the rest of his life to God, and that's what really matters right?

In fact, I remember many times in my childhood and even today when the call comes and you never back down. You have been a huge example of one always standing ready to answer the call. That has brought you tremendous blessings and so much joy! That's probably a lesson Papa taught you as well, since he was a very successful man who dropped it all to serve the Lord. No matter our financial situation, we can still drop whatever we have and follow the invitation of the Saviour to "walk with me".

I also had some interesting things come together finally for me this week. When a missionary is about to go home, his mind starts to wander a lot. It is hard to stay focused and "thrust in the sickle with his might." At least that's what has been happening to me. So anyways, I say this to all people on a mission or about to go: Make sure you give it all you've got for as long as you can! The time will soon come when you can no longer give it your best work. It's really discouraging! It's okay though, because I feel the Lord's trust in me at this time. I still have things to do, and I have the capacity to do it! I may make a lot of mistakes, but I will not stop trying. Jesus Christ knows exactly what it's like to be at the end of His mission and he suffered a lot worse that I will. He can definitely help me and all others to feel of His peace.

That's about it! Have a good week! 

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 102 - Parable of the Spikeball/...and stuff like that

Alright, alright, mom we get it, you're trunky. Just don't spread it to all the rest of us okay? Some people are trying to focus here...

Hahaha just kidding! 

This week was awesome though! We found some cool people and had some people drop into our laps! One was J! He's quite the character. He says funny things, and most of his sentences involve the phrase "and stuff like that" like 10 times. He has a baptismal date though! He is actually really solid! The things he says are actually super on point. But man is he weird.

Another guy was G! He was referred to us by the Sisters on Temple Square. He lives in Westbank, but he's like 70. We technically cover that area so he's our man! He is way solid! Totally going to get baptized.

Also this week we had Zone Conference! President Wong is so good as always. Sister Wong was in the hospital though so she couldn't come. She's better now! But President trained us on a lot of good stuff. One of those things was called the Parable of the Spikeball. He taught us how to teach better and help others understand by relating it to teaching someone how to play Spikeball. The next day during interviews he wanted to help us understand it better so we set up Spikeball in the gym and he played it with us! For a little Chinese guy, he's really fast! To be fair, he had the Assistants on his team and one of them is a BYU football player.... But it was fun! Not too many people in the world can say that a General Authority Seventy took his jacket off and played Spikeball with them. He used it to teach of course, but there was definitely some competition(;

I've really loved my Book of Mormon studies lately and there has been a lot to learn. Today I read 1 Nephi 16 where Nephi breaks his bow. It is interesting because they are traveling and at first Nephi even says they took all the provisions "The Lord has given unto us" so he acknowledges that they depend on God. Then perhaps they get a bit comfortable because they stop for a bit and Nephi goes out to slay food and his bow breaks! God tends to turn up the heat in our lives when we start getting comfy eh? Not only that, Laman and Lemuel get angry at Nephi when his bow breaks, but theirs have lost their spring! I think Nephi was spiritually prepared while his brothers weren't. However, God still saw fit to give Nephi affliction! So even when we are doing all we can and keeping on the gospel path, we will still face trials. That doesn't mean that God has left us alone or is punishing us. He is giving us a chance to practice our Christlike Attributes of patience, humility, and faith.

That's all for the week! President also showed us a video of Cambodia. It hit really close to home because Jackson goes there really soon! I won't share too many details, but he used it to show "The Widows Mite". Really sad. Those people have really difficult lives. 

Well on that happy note, have a good week!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 101 - Jamaican Homies/Bald Stuff

Hey!

This week was fun! We worked hard. The sisters passed us this group of Jamaican guys and it was pretty fun. We taught them in the public library, where we discussed the Bible and the Book of Mormon. They think that the Pre-Earth life makes sense and are willing to find out if there is a living prophet! They are working on farms here in Kelowna picking fruit like Cherries and Peaches. Okanagan fruit is heavenly by the way!

We talked to this guy who was super funny the other day. He is black and was pretty drunk when we met him. He is quite the character and certainly outgoing. His name is M and we met him walking to London Drugs to get a new phone. He is currently looking for a job and said something like this: "Man I want to work as a cashier at this one place but if I can't work there I'll just go apply everywhere, I'm on some bald n---- s--- right now. I know I got a full head of hair, but you know when you're bald and you're willing to take all these risks?" It was the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. We bust up every time we think about that experience.

The fish ladder looks pretty cool. Now the question: will you actually do it?(; Hopefully those missionaries come back to follow up with you! 

Well have a good week everyone!

Love, Elder Clark

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Chapter 100 - "You're a Wizard Elder"/Sidewalk Chalk

Hey!

Zoey's baptism looked pretty fun! Sad I had to miss it, but super excited that she was ready and had such a good experience. I would ask that you help her write her experience down in a journal she can keep forever! I sure wish I had done that. It would be cool to see what I remembered.

Lots of family! Looks cool!

This week was pretty awesome. We had some really awesome miracles. I felt totally unworthy of them! First was N. We were up on Campus and there was nobody there. I looked around and said "Accio, new investigator!" About 3 seconds later, N showed up! He had been in Kelowna for 3 days and moved up here from Florida because UBCO is like the only place that does the kind of Cancer Research he was doing. So cool! He has Mormon friends and even a friend on her mission! He wanted to learn more and he had never been to one of our churches before, so we invited him to Sacrament meeting. He left before we could get his number, but he ended up coming to church! He loved it and we got his number and set up an appointment for Saturday. He's really good and I think he will get baptized.

So not only did he come to church, but S, our Persian friend, and R, our Japanese friend! They liked it, although S is not really progressing anymore. R is really good! The only problem is a language barrier. We found a member who speaks Japanese and he helped us teach him, and he is really interested! He will probably get baptized too. So many miracles!

On Saturday we went to Penticton to do exchanges again and the elder and I thought of getting sidewalk chalk and drawing the Plan of Salvation down by the beach. At first it was a big struggle, but once we had it finished people wanted to ask us about it! It was cool because we had never done it before and we were pretty scared that it wouldn't work. We pushed through and ended up finding 2 people from it! So a lesson for all the kids: when something is scary and you don't think it's going to work, go ahead and try it out! You never know how good it can be. God will help you! All we did was evaluate how we could do better and made it happen! 

Take care everyone! Love you!

Elder Clark

Chapter 99 - ET/Denny's

Hey!

This week has been fun! Elder Whitney went down to Vancouver on Tuesday and I got Elder Oleen on Wednesday. Tuesday evening we spent cleaning out the Merritt apartment, because the area was closed again. It was sad because I opened that area and the apartment! Good memories there. We have been working well here though, and Canada Day weekend was very interesting. So many visitors and most of them are from Alberta. Unfortunately not the best weekend for YSA. But the week wasn't too bad. 

We had a dinner appointment scare the other day. One of the YSA members was feeding us, but the Kelowna 2nd Elders had one at the same time. Meanwhile, we had an emergency transfer! So my companion and Elder Chueh's companion were driving to his new area. Luckily our appointment dropped so I got to go to Denny's! It was good anyways because one of our members was there too! 

So that's about it for the week! I'll send in a separate email my thoughts for Zoey's baptism. I sent a note to her in my email to Greyden.

Well have a great week! Love you guys!

Elder Clark