Chapter 68 - "The Board"/Perfect Week

Hey! 

This week was really good! We had some cool experiences. B had his second interview on Saturday and he passed! So he will get baptized this Saturday at 6pm. It will be awesome. We also had transfers this week, but most of the Zone is staying, as well as us so we will both be here for his baptism!

As for the title of my email, this Friday we went to UBCO and did some contacting. I was on Splits with a YSA Elder and they go to UBCO all the time. We brought this White Board up there with the title of "Your Final Day In Life" with 3 questions on it such as, "What do you want to say you have done?" "What do you want to say you have become?" and "What difference do you want others to notice in you from now to then?" and we talked to all the students we could and had them write on it what they thought! We even used it on the bus! We found a ton of people using it as well. Some would answer with "Doctor, nurse, mother, etc." But others would say super profound things like "Immortalized in literature, changed someone's life, or made someone smile" We got like 30-40 people to write on it, mostly girls, but it was really successful. YSA work is challenging but also super easy with the right idea.

And for the other half of my title, no I'm not talking about the same Perfect Week Barney Stinson achieved. We passed around our dinner calendar in Sunday School AND Primary this week and we got tons of people to sign up! Next week we almost got a perfect week. We just need one on Friday and it will be complete. That will be the first time I've had a perfect week on my mission haha!

Anyway have a good day! Be thinking of questions you have for me on Christmas, because that is coming up sooner than we think.

Bye!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 67 - YSA Devotional/"I Felt the Rains Down in Africa"

Hey family!

This week was pretty good!

Do you guys have snow still? All our snow melted and it's raining now. I thought Canada was supposed to be super cold? Hmmm.

So as you already know I have been participating in the ward Christmas Choir! It is honestly so much fun and we practice every Sunday night. We are singing this one song that's pretty hard, but the other 2 are SOOO pretty. I'm a big fan of good harmonies and these songs have that down pat. Plus I'm singing Tenor so it's pretty exciting.

The quote in my title is from Toto of course, but it is in reference to my recent study! In my spare time (the time from 9-10:30pm) I have been memorizing the countries in the world! I started with Africa and I have all of those down, then I moved onto South America and the Caribbean. Next will probably be Europe, and so on. It has been pretty fun.

In Missionary work this week, we almost found an Iranian guy but his beliefs were "good enough" for him. We also have been working with B a lot. He is so solid! He has not smoked for a whole week now, and his baptism is on the 2nd of December. So please keep him in your prayers! He sends us funny texts every once in a while. One of them was "Yes it's Christmas time merry ho ho ho" I guess you have to know him to know how funny that is. He's a bit strange haha.

Also we had to attend the YSA devotional Face to Face with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard last night. It was super good! They answered a lot of good questions about the gospel, balancing life, marriage, dealing with Anti-Mormon questions, and so on. Those guys are so wise and spiritually mature. It was cool to see.

Well have a good week! Don't have too much fun!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 66 - President Soares/Ode to [Gerry] Joy

Ni Howdy!

This week has been pretty good! We had some cool things happen.

So we had a Zone Conference on Thursday, and President Soares came! He is one of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy. Along with President Wong, it was quite an amazing experience. Not too often do you hear from 2 Seventies, not to mention how one of them is the other one's Quorum President! So you could say it was pretty special.

President + Sister Soares are from Brazil, and they were really good! They taught us mostly the basics like repentance, becoming Christlike, effective teaching, finding, etc. It was different from what we are used to and different than we were expecting. But apparent'y we really needed that reminder, so we are all trying to be humble and find ways to get back to basics and build the fundamentals. So it has been fun to apply afterwards. 

The other part of my title is because we have a member in our ward who is a semi-recent convert. He is awesome, but we haven't been able to get in contact with him! It was weird because he pretty much just dropped off the face of the earth. We dropped by like 3 times a week and called almost every day. Finally, we decided to withhold our number and call again. This time he answered! It was amazing, and he told us to call him on Monday so we could come by and see him. The only disappointing thing about this story is we haven't been able to get in contact with him since that first time. Hopefully we can see him again soon.

Well other than that this week was a lot of dropping by members and walking. It was pretty warm this week, but it is supposed to get colder.

That's awesome about Zoey's back handspring! And Baron's video sounds really funny. The Meridian temple looks like the Cardston one a little bit, super pretty. They took a picture of the temple with the eclipse in the background too.

Have a good week everyone! I love you all!

Elder Clark

Chapter 65 - Stretch the Skin/Latin Fiesta

Hey!

This week was good. Yes it has been quite cold and snowy the last few days! Luckily I still have all my good winter gear from last winter. I should be fine, even if I get sent up north again. 

Baron is such a goon haha! They look pretty spooky though. The Ring is a good quality horror film! Halloween was pretty good this week. We had a good district meeting that was combined with the other district. There was a YSA there who bought everyone hot chocolate! And then he offered to take Elder Layer and I out for dinner. So we picked this really good Hispanic restaurant called Latin Fiesta. It is easily the best Mexican food this side of the border. And they have this awesome hot sauce called Valentina! So good. 

But things have been going well. We are working really hard to find ways to find people in this winter season! It will be hard, but it's better than suffering through the winter thinking 'woe is us' because nobody is on the streets and it gets dark at 4. So it will be pretty good. Of course we are still working through the members really hard, trying to make things happen here. It will be a long haul though.

We had stake conference this week, and it was broadcast from Vernon. The adult session didn't work so we just listened to it from someone's phone into the microphone in the chapel. But President and Sister Wong spoke on Sunday. President Wong was hilarious as always. But he had a super bold line near the end, "You are all really strong in the church! But you are not strong enough in the gospel yet. You are not strong enough in the gospel yet." It is so true! We come to church and do what we are supposed to, but are we becoming who we are supposed to become? Is our nature truly Christlike, or just our behavior?

So for the last bit of my email, I have to tell you that we started making drums today! You heard right, DRUMS. This guy in our ward (a former member) is huge in the First Nations community and culture. He had some friends who hunted a moose last month and he offered to let us help him make drums out of the hide! So chances are, Elder Layer and I will each go home with a handmade moose drum--straight from the mountains of BC. What better souvenir could I get from here? So today we started skinning the hide. That consists of pulling all the hair off of it. I came off really easily though because it was soaked in Borax all week. Then we built a frame and stretched it out. There it will stay while it dries until next week when we cut it out and make the drums! It will be awesome. So I don't need any money for stuff this winter, but it would be nice to be able to send another package home in a couple weeks. It shouldn't cost more than like $30 or so. (Canadian Dollars)

Alright have a good week!

Love, Elder Clark

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Chapter 64 - Mem-Bar/Trunk'r'Treat

Hey fam!

This week was awesome!

I'm cracking up at your quotes. Those are pretty good ones! I'm trying to think of good one-liners that are somehow both funny and inspiring. I might have to resort to using rap quotes, like I have been doing in the beginning of each of my planners for most of my mission. This transfer is "I'm just so ahead of my time like dog years"-Lil Wayne. It's pretty good. Last transfer was "I wish a brotha would like a kitchen cabinet"-2 Chainz.

Anyway, Zoey looks taller once again. Greyden and Hannah are slaying. Did Baron dress up? What movies did he watch for Halloween? I saw an ad for a brand new Saw movie! It looks creepy. 

Those are some good insights about the temple and fast Sunday. Preparation and planning changes everything eh! That would be cool about the Spanish Branch! 

This week was so good. We had a district meeting about chapter 1 of PMG: My Purpose! It was good because we have a greenie sister in our district and a bunch of old sisters too, so it was nice to revise our purpose and how to make it a focus these days. We have to plan a 3 hour district meeting on Tuesday because we aren't allowed to be out on Halloween. It will be fun but a lot of work.

We have also been doing lots of finding and walking! My hip is kinda destroyed. Hopefully that doesn't cause problems for me later. But it's all good. We were able to visit a few members who we rarely see and some who we've never met! We had a Trunk'r'Treat on Saturday which was good for that too. We set up some dinners and did some activities. It was fun. 

So we have a plan called the W-MAP (Ward Mission Action Plan). It's basically where we take the ward mission plan undercover and hijack the ward to do missionary work! It was inspired by a study of Alma 47 where Amalickiah takes over the Lamanite armies. It has come down to us through President Wong, and we have to come up with individual W-MAP's for our unit. So our idea is called the "Mem-Bar" which is basically a bar graph that tells us where each member is in their conversion to the gospel and missionary work! It has 10 steps, 1 being active at church and 10 being teaching and baptizing their friends! So we use this bar to plan what to teach each member and what commitments to leave that will help them progress. It is also a long term plan so missionaries coming into the area can see where the members are and they can continue the process! It takes more than 6-12 weeks to change the culture of a ward, so we start small and work with the Core of Strength in the ward (ie, the Ward Council and other solid members). We use them to inspire everyone else and soon the missionary work is taking off!

That's my cool experience for the week! I'll let you know next week how our double-double district meeting goes! (It is 2 districts combined for double the time)

Have a great week everyone!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 63 - Levels of Atheism/Brussels Sprouts

Hey everyone! 

This week was pretty awesome. We have been up to some good recently. Our finding has gotten better, and it helps when we are walking from place to place to look for a specific house or car to go talk to. We try not to knock doors, but we have been doing it more recently due to the weather. Tracting just isn't an effective way to find at all. Tell any and all missionaries going into the field that they need to build relationships with the members!

I will definitely look out for some stuff, but no promises that I'll get anything very quickly. That TV show sounds funny. Yes absolutely get to the temple as often as you can. (President Burt said there's no reason we can't get there every week) Just pick a time and guard it! He suggested 6am.

So this week, as I said, we have been doing more finding. We have been a bit lazy about that lately, and we need new investigators! "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach" So we have been randomly selecting houses to knock on and it was interesting to see the varying degrees of Atheism. It ranged from semi-agnostic all the way to completely against everything religion and everything in between. I really think meeting people and getting to know their point of view is really interesting. Some people just try to make us mad or discourage us, others don't really care, and many people here just think we are doing an awesome job and to keep up the good work! It is pretty nice.

Our investigator R gives us tons of vegetables. This week he gave us a bunch of Brussels sprouts! Then, as if that wasn't enough, he gave us 2 huge stalks of them! Have you ever seen what they look like before they are picked? We didn't either until this week. They are kinda creepy looking. So we hung one of them from the ceiling in our apartment and put the other one in the Zone Leader's tub! Hahaha they got so freaked out it was hilarious. Then I took the stalk and made a club out of it! It was pretty fun.

Yeah this week was good. It looks like you guys are doing well! Have a good one!

Love, Elder Clark

Brussels sprouts

Eating sushi with the boyz!

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Chapter 62 - 4 Hour Hike/Rap

Hey howdy hey!

This week was good, it was transfers! Elder Layer and I are here in Kelowna still. The only difference is I have to train him to be a District Leader! It won't be that different because he thinks he's got it all down already haha. But it will be fun. So we are Co-District Leaders here, even though we are only over 4 other missionaries!

As far as missionary work goes, not a whole lot happened. It seems like everyone is staying inside their homes more and more as fall hits hard and it's getting colder. But one long-time investigator R will be taught more and more because he is a farmer! So he came out to church yesterday, and we have a lesson with him tonight. We will probably set a date with him because he's pretty solid. He was just super busy all summer so we were never able to see him. B is also doing really well. He missed his baptism interview, but he is still going strong. We set a plan for him to stop smoking by the 19th of November. 

So the title of the email is, today we went to the trestles again, with the Zone Leaders because they really wanted to come. It ended up being like a 4 hour walk. It was really pretty, it just took forever. We went to Wendy's right afterwards because we were so hungry. Elder Weli (a Nigerian-born Canadian who lived in Norway for 10 years) and I just talked about rap music the whole time. It was great, I haven't had any companions who like the same music as me. Elder Weli is black too so he loves all that stuff. It was pretty funny.

For District meeting we had a big discussion about all the things President Wong has been teaching us. It is pretty cool to look at because he has been here for such a short time but has taught us so much! Most of it has to do with object lessons, which just proves how inspired he is. He totally teaches in the Savior's way "and without a parable spake he not unto them". He teaches us about things we know, and relates it to missionary work. Like the Master's parables, his object lessons take time and spiritual climbing to fully understand and grasp. That way, we are better able to ponder and apply it personally to what we need. It is really amazing how smart President Wong is. He told us a story once: "there were 10 ladies. 5 had iPhones and 5 had Samsungs. The ones with the Samsungs didn't have enough battery to provide the light needed for their journey home, but the ones with the iPhones did. The ones with the Samsungs asked the ones with the iPhones to give them some of their battery life, but they couldn't. They told the 5 with Samsungs to charge their own phones. Unfortunately, the Samsung ladies missed their flight because they were busy charging their phones." Sound familiar?

So we discussed that for 90 minutes, and it was really cool. We learned a lot.

Looks like you guys have to bust out the shovels! Good luck! I happened to see the Star Wars trailer from a YSA member, and it looks awesome! 

Have a good week!

Love, Elder Clark

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Chapter 61 - YSA Day/3 Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving y'all! (Yeah, it comes early here)

So your question was pretty tough, I'll do my best! I'd say first things first, I'm way more converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that everything is so true and I have felt it to the point where I can't deny it. I also have learned what the Spirit feels like and that it is so so important to do the things we have to do to qualify for Him in our lives! There is such a noticeable difference and I never recognized it before. I've grown a lot socially as well; I can do eye contact, speak up, and do small talk a lot more. Haha I never wanted to admit it before but I was pretty awkward and shy. I have also learned how to set goals and make plans to achieve them. I've learned how to study, the joy of pondering and taking it slow to feel out the vibes. Especially what it feels like to receive a prompting and act on it immediately. I realized there's truly nothing more important than keeping ourselves clean and worthy for God to put us on his errand.

Some of the most memorable people whom I have grown to love so much are the Marks, an old couple in PG who tirelessly work hard on their HT/VT, church callings, helping the missionaries, and various other things despite super bad health challenges (like 5 stints in his heart). They are so Christlike and they really affected my testimony of members. Also, the Goerke's in Mission (pronounced Ger-key). They taught me a lot of how to have fun! How to be myself and joke around with the members. Everyone likes someone who can make them laugh and isn't uncomfortable to relax and be themselves. In Surrey, pretty much the whole ward is my home. Haha I was only there for 3 months but I really love everyone in that ward. The recent converts, long time members, and everyone in between. I'd say above all, the ones who taught me the most were other missionaries. Leaders who helped me grow "from a sheep to a shepherd" and gave me responsibilities when they knew it would help me grow to get pushed out of my comfort zone. I am eternally grateful for all they taught me. 

Also, Canada is legit. I love it so much here. The people either complain about Trump or Trudeau, and they either love or hate united healthcare. But nobody can disagree that the scenery is so beautiful here. I don't even know how to fully describe how awesome it feels to grow so attached to a place so far from home, as cliche as it sounds. But needless to say, BC is the best part of Canada. Alberta is probably 2nd best, but BC is on top! 

I hope that's what you wanted!

It's also so funny that you spent most of your email talking about paint! Hahaha classic.

So this week the Zone leaders went to Richmond for a meeting, and they didn't reschedule their appointments, so we went to go teach a bunch of YSA people and do some errands for them. We hardly got any weekly planning done we were so busy.

We also have had turkey dinner 3 nights in a row, which I won't complain about. You know what's actually really good that I never thought I would like? Cranberry sauce! It just ties the whole meal together. Also yams, Brussels sprouts, and the occasional pickled beets. So strange that I actually like these foods.

This week wasn't super memorable, but it is getting colder. I have mixed feelings about it but I'm excited for snow. It's lower elevation than Idaho, so it's not quite as cold or windy, but we get some wind here, it's just pretty mild. 

Well have a good one!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 60 - 3rd Conference/Farm Life

Hey everyone! this email might be kinda short, but just know we had a really good week! 

I'll get started by talking about the big elephant in the Conference Centre: General Conference! It was amazing as always, how could the words of living prophets not be super inspiring and awesome? I loved the messages of Elder Andersen, Christofferson, and Ballard. But the highlights were Elder Renlund's talk from priesthood session, Elder Ellis' talk, and Sister Bingham's talk! They were all really really good but those were some standout ones for sure. We noticed the theme of the entire conference was focused on President Monson's 2 talks from last Conference: The Book of Mormon and how Charity allows us to draw the powers of heaven into our lives. Some other minor themes were: supporting our leaders, moving towards the light, and how we really are just doing so good and we can't give up! What were some themes you guys found? What are some goals you will make because of what you learned? 

Another interesting insight about Elder Andersen's talk was that I felt like he was showing us that if President Nelson becomes the next prophet we are in good hands. He trusts in the counsel of his leaders, and strives to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost no matter what. President Monson doesn't have much time left, so we need to start trusting in our other leaders too.

Also, Kelowna is a lot like Idaho, and a lot like Prince George as well. There is a decent sized city with enough people, but not too far away is tons and tons of farmland. Orchards as far as the eye can see in some areas. Everytime I go out there to the farmland, I just want to live there even more. And I devised a half-baked plan to make it happen. 1. I will finish my mission 2. I will go to college and finish a degree in accounting and probably take some mechanical engineering and construction courses 3. I will go to dental school and become an Endodontist 4. I will work really hard for 10 years or so, saving up enough money to buy a 30 or so acre farm somewhere in Idaho and build my dream house on it and live there peacefully in retirement for the rest of my life! President Wong retired at age 42 so it's totally possible! Haha let me know what you think. I don't even have to be a serious farmer, I just have to sell enough each year to get the big government tax return! So I'll just have some chickens and apples and corn and stuff. I think it would be really cool.

Anyway, my mission is going great. B dropped his date temporarily but he's back on for the 14th! The District is also doing well. I'm finding it a little easier to talk to the sisters and sound excited and motivate them. I'm hoping to learn from Conference how I can better serve my District so I'll let you guys know how that goes.

Have a good week! Those tweets were hilarious!

Love, Elder Clark

Chapter 59 - Juicer/Coffee Maker

Hello! This week is the week of appliances. Stay tuned to find out more.

This week was also Zone Conference! President Wong is as funny as ever, and in a nutshell he taught us how to help investigators progress toward baptism. He also taught us about more finding tactics, called "Intense Finding" which was really fun to put into practice this week. Basically you go out with a specific group of people to find and come up with specific object lessons or things we can use to engage people when we are finding! It is way better than the standard "Hey how are you? We are the missionaries... blah blah blah". So far it has been working pretty well!

But we have been working with a guy named B. He is progressing really well. Remember when I told you about Sister K giving up coffee before we even got there to teach the Word of Wisdom? Yeah I pretty much expect Word of Wisdom miracles with investigators now. This week we went in to teach that to B, and he was willing to live it. Then Elder Layer asked him to give us anything that might tempt him. So he goes into his kitchen, pours all his tea bags into a Walmart sack and grabs his huge coffee can and just gives them to us! Even better, he walks into his kitchen and says "I might as well give you guys this too" and he pours out his coffee pot and unplugs the whole thing and gives it to us! It was awesome. I've always heard stories of missionaries doing that and now it happened!

In other news, another investigator owns an orchard way outside of town. We went to his house on Saturday so we could figure out how long it takes to walk to the bus stop so we could get him to church (it's a long story). And he gave us a huge box of apples and his juicer! So we took our lunch time and made like 2 gallons of fresh apple juice. It's pretty sour and tastes like the green Jolly Ranchers. Super good.

This week was awesome. We have been preparing for conference and studying President Monson's talks from past conferences. It's pretty good, we are excited. 

Sounds like your week was pretty good! We have never been able to do anything at all with sisters. The most is calling them for missionary stuff and seeing them at meetings and what not. Most of that is the same, except now we can have an activity on P day once a month with them.

Take care! I love you all!

Elder Clark