Week #80

Hi mother,

Well my week was horrible...... I was sick all week until Friday I had the flu.... :( this is the first time I have ever been sick on my mission. I was on my death bed we couldn't keep anything down. We slept and just rested all week, until Friday when we felt decent enough to go paint for service. But it was bad we were so dumb....we figured since we weren't keeping anything down we should just eat some fast food since we have been working out and on a health diet, so we got fast food and it was just dumb, we were just throwing it up.

Steinbach is going good though. We got in contact with our Filipino investigators through the Valdez family so hopefully we will be meeting with them soon. Other than that things are going OK, its just really hard here, I'm not discouraged just confused of what to do next. We aren't really seeing success here at all. This area does not compare to any other area that I have served in. I feel small and out numbered here. We are struggling but Elder Erickson and I keep thinking about ways to improve so we keep trying and trying there is no giving up. I guess trials and challenges like this is what makes men out of mere boys.

I feel your prayers for me so thank you so much. I am still giving it all I have and we are doing our best here. I know that things will get better we just have to have faith and hope things will get better.

I bear you my testimony that we are the only true church on the face of the earth and that no one can stop this work. I love how a group of pastors have to have a meeting and council together on how they are going to stop four 20 year old boys. The restoration is real and Christ lives. 

Love you and all of you so much

-elder Clark

week #78 & 79

Hello mother,

 6  of the main churches have a board where all the pastors meet together and discuss things. We have heard that they are working really hard to not let us volunteer at certain places. We feel this is  one of the main reasons why we are not having success here. The only way for us to succeed here is to go about doing good everywhere we go and to be non threatening. 

So we confirmed it through prayer and through the scriptures and  I called an immediate district meeting and we discussed. And  we came up with......"The Ammon Project" ( I came up with the name)  so basically we are trying to become the communities friends and go about and do good everyday and it is working. So far we have had so many opportunities to serve and do good and more people are starting to like us.  

We shoveled and chipped this ladies driveway and it turns out that she knows Elder Erickson's relatives. She wants to meet with us again. Also the places where we volunteer are going good and we are asking the people there how we can serve them outside of volunteering. We will go to city council and I will literally tell the Mayor that I am his slave and I will do anything for him and ask him how we can serve him. 

This place is the hardest area that we have in the mission. I am serious nothing compares to it.

We have seen a lot of success this week and we are meeting with our Filipino people this week. And we will teach them.

Facebook is going supper good. We have set up so many appointments through it and have gotten other elders referrals through it. It is a great tool if you use it wisely.

I know that Christ lives that this is the lords work. I know by the power of the holy ghost that the Book of Mormon is true I really do. Prayer is real it works. I know that god never forsakes us. 

I love you mom and I love you family

-Elder Clark

 

 Hello mother,

We have a lot of service going on as well as appointments.  We aren't close to any baptisms. It will be hard to have baptisms out here because we don't have a church out here. But we will still expect to have baptisms. So it will be an adventure. I think I will finish , my mission here with Elder Erickson. I wonder if president will keep me here because I am learning Tagalog. But lately we haven't had any success with the Filipinos they are so busy with work.

The Ammon project is going good we are always trying to improve it. We have made a good friend in the community. Her name is Renate, she is a German Mennonite and she stood up for us at the board meeting when they talked about us. We will teach her and her family soon. This area is literally all about building relationships its really different.

We found a new investigator this week her name is Treena. She teaches us how to paint and we just share a little message after. This week we have an appointment with her and I will ask her to paint the restoration for me, so then hopefully she might feel the spirit when she paints. Clever hey?

This whole week I have been reflecting on all the experiences that I have had on my mission and they have been amazing. I am so glad I came on a mission, and that everything I have done out here has been hard. Every area that I have had has been such a challenge and I have been able to rise above and see success. I am just very grateful for this time I have had.  I know the church to be true that the power of prayer is real. 

I love you and all of you so much.

-elder Clark

Week #77

Well our week was busy, which is a good thing.

We had a lot of appointments, they weren't all teaching appointments, but they were appointments where we were able to build relationships, which is exactly what this place needs. So on Wednesday night we went to see our friend Alvin Garcia, a Filipino. He fed us straight pig fat! it was really good, but really bad for us. After he fed us we were able to share the restoration with him. We asked him if we could share more and he wants to have us share more when we teach the De Vera family, so hopefully we will get an appointment soon with them and then we can teach all of them together. Thursday I dropped off elder Wilson at the transfer meeting and picked up my new companion Elder Erickson. We are excited to work together. Right when he got here we were busy with meeting all of the people. We are doing language study every morning,  he is also learning Tagalog and he is doing really good.

Our next door neighbor is Filipino and so we made them pan seit one time and then went to go say hi the other day and she couldn't really understand English so we had to speak in Tagalog as best as we could and she understood. We asked her if we could practice teaching about Jesus Christ in Tagalog and if she could help us and she said yeah! so we will kill two birds with one stone.

Things are starting to pick up here which is good. We have a service opportunity twice a week which will keep us busy on top of all the people that we have become friends with, I don't think we will see a branch out here anytime soon, because all of the ward leadership at the church we go to in Winnipeg lives in Steinbach so the stake president does not want to jump the gun on anything yet, so it will be a slow process but it will all be good.

We are learning the first lesson in Tagalog it is really hard, we asked the Valdez's if we could practice on them before our visit with our neighbors so we don't look dumb and they said yes, which will be good.

 Yes I am now on facebook.  I will be using it to contact a lot of Filipinos. There are two things that Filipinos love, karaoke and facebook. We will be on it for an hour everyday when we can. It would be good if you could have family members add me. I will be adding a lot of people from Fort Frances so I can continue to do missionary work.

I had a good nap today

Well I know that this work is true Thank you for your support and helping me get to this point in my life.

love you and all of you so much! :))

-Elder Clark

Week #76

Hello mother!

Sorry I am writing so late. The Valdezs' took Elder Wilson and me into Winnipeg to go to an Asian buffet. I love that family so much! ha.

The week was actually really busy! We found a weekly service opportunity that will keep us busy during the week.

 Renate, she is German, is wonderful she loves us we go out to lunch all of the time with her and her daughters, and when we are out with them they don't drink coffee around us ha funny hey. we  stopped by Lady and Hanny a Filipino family and the kids want us to bring Finding Faith in Christ DVD, so that will be a good opportunity. Guess what? we met this lady named Trina and she knows how to paint like she is really good, so using my smart brain I said you should teach us how to paint, and she said yes of course. We went over and she taught us how to paint, we are going to love, serve, and teach her. She is great.

This week was just really good it snowed which is the best thing ever! When that happened we went and shoveled the Garcia's, who are a Filipino family. And they love us they want us to come over and have dinner with them. Speaking some of their language is really good! we are winning some hearts here. So this week we should be able to see them. We weren't able to see Marylnn and her family but we will this week for sure.

I really love being out here it is the best thing I have ever done I am always learning. This is one of the hardest areas I have ever served in and it is the hardest area in the mission, but we are making great progress here. Hopefully we will be able to get a bigger teaching pool. We have been able to lay down a foundation of friendship here, so hopefully that will turn into more teaching.

My new companion is Elder Erickson! he is from Cardston Alberta. He is an assistant right now and will soon be coming to Steinbach. He is a really good missionary and I have been on a lot of exchanges with him when I was a zone leader and he was a district leader. We get a long really well. We are actually pretty good friends in the mission, so we are both excited to be together.

We are working with the members a lot here as much as we can so we are just enduring well.

Other than that life is great I love my life, I am also really sad that Elder Wilson is going home we are brothers. But he needs to start his life he is 26 what an old man, he needs to find a wife.

I testify that the church and everything that it has to offer is true.

love you and all of you

-Elder Clark

Week #75

Hello mother,

Yeah the weather has warmed up a bit, it is about -16 today it is nice and warm. Brother Famini died he was an old Filipino member in our ward. Elder Wilson and I mad Pan seit for the funeral and all the Filipinos were impressed.

Well this week was a lot better than the week before, because we didn't have -40 crazy weather. We taught the De Vera family and they accepted the invitation to be baptized, we just need to set a solid date with them. But they are excited. I bore my testimony to them in Tagalog during the lesson! We have been also teaching this guy named Jaryn. He is about our age. He seems pretty interested, so we shall see how it goes. Other than that we have just been trying to stay busy here. I feel like we are still scratching at the bottom of the barrel here, so it is a little bit of a challenge. I contacted 3 people on the street this week in Tagalog and they understood me perfectly, which is pretty good. I have just been trying really hard to learn the language.  The reason  I'm learning the language is because, 1 there are tons of Filipinos here, 2 the pastor at the Evangelical Mennonite Church speaks Tagalog and he is winning the hearts of the people.  I will do the same. 

So we had a movie night on Saturday. Guess what we watched?? haha. We watched Mobsters and Mormons! we thought it would be a good one for the city to watch. We had 2 potentials show up, but if we keep doing it we should be able to get a lot more people. We had 2 member families come too and that was really good. We will have to keep doing the movie nights.

Everything is going good. We are just trying to keep busy here. Hopefully we will see some miracles soon.

I know that this work is real. It is like a roller coaster. And can be so challenging and so rewarding at the same time.

Here are the dates for when the transfers are. We have transfers on January 23rd, March 6th, April 17th, May 29th, & July 10th.

I will send a lot more pictures next Monday, We were in a rush today and I forgot my camera at the Apartment sorry :(

Well I love you a lot mom, and I love all of you.

-Elder Clark

Week #74

Mother,

I have......I have been in and experienced -60 degree weather. I am not talking about -60C I am talking about -60F. I do not want to ever experience this kind of weather again haha. They are saying that this is one the coldest winters we have had in a long time. And it is really making me frustrated because when it is -40 we are not allowed to be outside unless we have appointments and can go to them in the car. So this week was just something else lol.

So this week was just really slow. Monday was p-day, Tuesday we were at a funeral in Winnipeg, and plus Tuesday was New Years eve. We had a lot of fun though on new years eve because the Valdez Family had us over. They are members of the church here, and they are a Filipino family. We had a feast. Sister Valdez made us eat balut so I ate another half way developed baby duck again. It wasn't bad this time I have pictures that I will have to send you. The Filipinos love karaoke....so on new years eve we did magic sing haha it is huge in the Philippines. Oh my goodness it was a blast. And everyone in the family are great singers.

Wednesday no body was out at all because it was new years and plus it was - 40. Thursday was -40 until the afternoon so we had to be inside until then, and then it was just -39 the rest of the day. We had lunch with one of our potential investigators on Thursday she is German and she is the best. Hopefully soon we will be able to share the gospel with her. 

On Saturday we had a neat experience. We went out early to go shovel snow because it had snowed a lot the night before. So we went and shovelled the Valdez drive because brother Valdez hurt his foot. After we were done with that we went to go back home to study and as we were driving home we saw these Filipinos shovelling their driveway and so we flipped a U turn and got out and started helping them. We said magandang umaga ( good morning) and they were like oooooo you know Tagalog. We finished their driveway and they invited us in for breakfast. They are so nice they have 2 kids and their brother in law lives with them. So, the Garcia Family fed us and we talked about the Philippines and about magic sing and told them that we could make pan siet. They were so surprised. We asked them if we could share a message with them and well come to find out.....the mother Is best friends with Marlyn and her family, the Filipino family that we have been teaching. They said that next time we teach Marlyn and her family that they would like to join in. We left with a prayer. I said the prayer and I prayed in Tagalog. 

On Sunday it was -60F walking to the car was very painful. It was so cold that it hurt so bad ha. Today is -46 good thing it is p-day. I can't wait for winter to be over.

Well I love being out here it is the best thing I have ever done. Alam ko na totoo Aklat ni Mormon (I know The Book of Mormon is true.) I have a Tagalog language learning book so I am learning a lot. I am using some of it on the street and in the stores! 

 

Love you and all of you so much :)

-Elder Clark

Week # 's 72 &73

This is from Kay:

 

On Christmas we got to Skype with Robert. It was such a wonderful experience to be able to talk to him and see his cute personality. He is working so hard at being a missionary and because of his hard work he has experienced great reward. He was so funny telling us about all of the different languages he is learning. The Mission President is sending him some language study for Tagalog. He rattled off some words and we were laughing so hard. He is so funny, but knowing Robert he will learn it and will be able to communicate with the Filipino people there in Steinbach. When he got transferred to this new area there hadn't been missionaries for over 20 years. President Thomas said to him, now I will really see what you are made of. His last area 3 people showed up for church and when he got transferred there were 25 and the new missionaries are keeping it going. I am so proud of his efforts and him. Can't wait to see him in July, but I know he would just stay there if he could. Roberts letter for the week is below. A short letter as we just talked at Christmas. Love that boy.

 

 

 

 

 SO we taught the De Vera's family on Monday and we shared the restoration with them. As we were reciting the first vision she started crying. She felt the spirit so much and the it was neat. The family is so ready and so prepared. We also had a giant feast of Filipino food before we had the lesson. By the way I have perfected my spring rolls, they are amazing. And on Saturday we found a new investigator, his name is Jaryn, and he is really interested in what we believe. He comes from a big Mennonite family. He doesn't understand why other churches are teaching about our religion in their churches and want to know from us. And he says that he doesn't really know if he believes in god any more, but he is wiling to learn and read and pray. We are excited. Our next appointment with him is on Wednesday. 

But even with Christmas we still had a good week and found more people to teach. I Know that the work really is true. I can not deny how true the restored gospel of Jesus Christ really is.

Love you and all of you so much.

-Elder Clark :)