Week #41

You know a mission is not peaches and creams. We had this guy come up to us yesterday and just swear at us and drop the f word for no reason he just didn't like us. We didn't knock on his door or anything. But it is ok I have learned to be really bold and direct with people...I think I got that from Elder McDanel.

 

It really is hard sometimes to want to tract when you know you're gonna get a door slammed in your face, but you just got to get over it.

 

Well this week was really good. We tracted this week. It had been a while since the mission had tracted. So now, the mission has brought back tracting, but not just like go tract all day. We do what is called smart tracting. We tract around a less actives house or a members house because you never know who is prepared around a member or less active. We didn't find anyone from it, but it was really fun just to get out and tract again.

 

We are still teaching less actives, and it is going great! We also found another less active member who we have been trying to get a hold of. We taught Father Wayne too, the Anglican minister! He has some crazy concerns, he doesn't believe in the atonement, he thinks it was child abuse yet he preaches it on Sunday. he said that the Anglican church is now re-thinking the atonement because it doesn't appeal to the world these days, I personally think it doesn't appeal to his church and members because of their history of child abuse with in the church. In essence we can look at this as Apostasy a turning away from an eternal truth to conform to men's own wisdom in order to bring more people in to their church. We are still working with him until we feel that we should stop, You never know.

 

Also, we Taught Karen this week. Her boyfriend, who is the atheist, sat in for the lesson and even asked questions. We are going to have family home evening with them today and share a spiritual thought. She also came to church this Sunday with her kid, now we just need to get her to keep coming to church.

 

This Sunday was a miracle! We had again 5 less actives with a total of 12 people all together at church, not including the missionaries. The Maki's came to church again for the second time in a row. They have been less active for 13 years! The Lord is good. Also Holly Olson, who is in a wheel chair, said that she wouldn't be able to walk to church with us because it was raining really hard out side and there was thunder and lighting. We told her that god would provide away if she really wanted to come to church. We prayed and asked that it wouldn't rain when we walked with her to church. We walked the whole way to church with her and it didn't rain and then shortly after we were in the church building the rain came down and started pouring. Prayer is real.

 

This morning we taught a less active former branch president. We shared the article "Trial of your Faith". We boldly told him at the end that he needed to come to church and that the branch needed him. He opened up to us, which was good.

 

Well one sad thing that happened this week is that Zach said he wanted to wait until he was 18 to be baptized. He expressed the concern that his whole family is Catholic and that he would lose family over it. We tried to do all we could, bore testimony and did everything, but his choice remained the same. He still wants to meet though and come to church, so we will see what happens. I know and testify that Zach has received a witness that the Book of Mormon is true. These are his own words: "I felt a burning sensation in my heart." I know this work and gospel is true and I love it. 

 

All is well,

-Elder Clark 

 

Week #40

So this week we were able to just teach a lot. On Wednesday however, we had to go into Winnipeg for a training meeting and it was really good. It opened up my eyes and gave me a sharper focus.
So we have been teaching these less active members and we told them that we only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and so they told us to try a peanut butter and mayo sandwich......they said it was really good and that it tastes like a dill pickle sandwich. I said to myself no way!! So I tried it....it was so gross! Man it was nasty. I didn't tell that story last night because I thought that dad would faint because he hates mayo. I'll tell you what though, the only food that members do give us is moose meat! It tastes good too, but really gamey. We helped out a less active and he gave us some moose steak so we will see how it is.

So on Thursday we went to Raine Crest to go meet Father Wayne, the Anglican Minister. We had a great talk with him and at the end we invited him to hear the gospel. He agreed. He texted us later that day and asked if we could meet tonight and we said yes! Because we are missionaries and we do that hah. So we taught him and at the end of the lesson he said "I have doubts about my own faith. I have read the Book of Mormon and it has great teaching in it, and I love that it tells us to seek ponder and pray to know if it is true". He has a hangup with the bible too. So we asked if we could continue to teach him and he told us that we could. So we are going to be teaching him again this week.

We taught Zach again this week and he is still doing really well! He feels the spirit so much in our lessons! He is just prepared. On Sunday we went and delivered a flower to his mom and also delivered flowers to less actives for Mother's Day. They all loved it and it softened their hearts for sure. We had 15 people at church too on Sunday! Wow what a miracle because the first day I got there, there was only like 4 people! The Lord is good.

 

All is well,

-Elder Clark

Week #39

Well this week we have just been teaching teaching teaching! Mainly we are teaching less actives because we need to get them back. But we have been teaching Zach still, the guy that we found on the street. So we taught him and every time we teach him, he just feels the spirit so strong, it is amazing. The first time we taught him he said "I feel calm and peaceful". The second time we taught him he said that it felt like his heart was expanding. We invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He did so, and the third time we taught him hen said he prayed about it and felt a burning in his heart and chills through out all of his body. We invited him to be baptized, he has a date for the first of June! :) He wants us to teach his family, too! The Lord is good.

I had a couple branch presidency meetings......never thought that would ever happen on my mission. I guess being an assistant and consoling with President prepared me for this. But everything is going really good here. We are working as hard as we can, walking everywhere. We got some volunteer service for helping coach a soccer team! Which is great because Elder Camarena loves soccer and can play it good. But think how many families will be at soccer practice! We can share the gospel with them.

So we were able to jam with this less active's boyfriend and he trusts us a lot now. We were having a conversation and some how prayer was brought up and he said "No way, you can't say that. Prayer isn't real, that doesn't happen". I then shared my experience about me crashing my car in the ditch and how the power of prayer helped me. After I was done sharing my personal experience his whole attitude changed, just a complete 180! It was so neat. He is very anti religion. We are slowly working with him.

Well we taught a lot of less actives like I said, and none of them came to church this Sunday. There was only 4 members at church that were sitting in the seats. Zach came though and he loved it. But still, they were all committed to come and then something came up :( it breaks my heart. I think about these people every night. We need to always nourish our testimony and stand strong or else the fiery darts from the adversary will break us down.


All is well,
-Elder Clark
P.S. I was rusty when I was playing the drum, embarrassing.