December 30th

Hello po pamilia!!!! It is just your Fillipeno son here in the Philippines doing his normal routine on the good ol P-Day! Today has been a great day because Elder T and I played a good game of basketball and I am about to just give you the whole background story right now haha. SO last Monday we played ball for the first time together being companions and we played first one to shoot twenty 3 pointers wins and last week he beat me so he was talking lots of big boy smack to me all that day and so we decided last Monday that we would play again this Monday and whoever won would have to pay dinner at BIG MACS and big macs is like a little burger sit down place that really doesn't taste that great but we eat it anyways haha look it up on google haha you will probably laugh. Anyways all this week we had this bet that if I win then he pays a big meal for me at big macs and if he wins then I have to pay haha so all this week we have just been throwing out jokes left and right about who is going to win and today we played and I beat him 20 three pointers to 11 three pointers so tonight I am about to get fed a bunch of big macs for free haha. Elder T is a great companion and I cant even express how much fun we have together and we have not even once disagreed argued or even felt the littlest amount of anger. For my whole mission so far I have been blessed with the greatest companions truly. But i do have to say Elder T is the one that is most similar to me and just like a brother to me.

So that story had nothing to do with your email so now i will reply to some things you said. First, thank you so much for your email and i truly really appreciate it and I always look forward to the emails that i recieve on mondays so thank you! 

 I am glad that you recorded the skype session so you could watch again haha i am grateful for the oppurtunity for real that i had to skype all of you. IT was so great to see all your faces and just see the changes. The best thing about that whole skype session truly was just seeing and knowing that my family was happy. I can tell that my family is walking in the path that Heavenly Father wants them too. The happiness that i saw in all of your smiles and countenance was true happiness that only comes from God through the atonement of Jesus Christ. There is a big big difference between happiness and true happiness and for people that have truly felt Gods love and have applied the atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives then they know what i am talking about. The happiness of knowing that God has a plan for me and the happiness of knowing what i need to do here on earth and the happiness of knowing that I will be with my family forever here on earth and after this life is true happiness. Gods plan is the plan of happiness and if we are not doing the things on his plan then we will not feel true happiness and that is why i am happy that i saw my family truly happy because that means they are doing the things they need to be doing with their life. Sister B said to us missionaries a couple weeks ago "that our life is Gods gift to us and the way we live our lives is our gift to him." He wants us to be happy and return with him and live with him and experience the life that he lives and the way to do that is to follow is plan so it is really simple, if we want to be happy and truly happy, if we want to see our family after we die, if we want to be married for eternity and not until just "death do you part" and if we want to be guided in every aspect of ours lives, then we need to follow Gods plan and his one and true Gospel here on earth because if we do that, these are his promises to us. I know that Jesus Christ is real and true and he did die for us for everything we go through and we need him everyday and we need his Gospel and we need his one and only true Gospel. I love being a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know that this his the Church of Jesus Christ and I love sharing to people the reasons and feelings and testimony of why and how I know that this is his Gospel.

 I am really blessed in my life and I cant count the blessings that i have received here in the Philippines. I live with no running water, the electricity works half the time, there is no toilet paper, I walk miles and miles everyday I go into houses that people would call a wood fort in a America and these people have money enough to put a little bit of rice on the table and they still invite me to come over to their house and eat. With all these things everyday and I cant express the numerous amount of blessings that i have received. I have learned that I don't need electricity or a nice house or running water or money or cars or a phone to find happiness. These people have nothing and they are happy and they are truly happy. What truly matters is family and our purpose here on earth, the atonement of Jesus Christ and the fact of knowing for a surety that he is the way to true happiness. Ask yourselves if you could be truly happy in your heart everyday if you had no car no phone no running water no electricity no money barely a house and barely any clothes and everyday you are struggling and working hard to put food on the table to honestly survive. Pretty hard to think about that right? If you don't feel that you could find happiness in your life if that happened to you then make Jesus Christ the center part of your life everyday because i know if that happened to me i could and would find happiness and that is because true happiness does not come from money cars houses or anything of the world. I know that true happiness comes from Jesus Christ and only from him and his sacrifice on our behalf. If we are not using the Atonement everyday then we are turning down the gift that Jesus Christ is trying to give us every day. After this life we have family that is it so the biggest thing that i feel that i have learned on my mission is just the importance of putting Jesus Christ first and our Heavenly Fathers plan for us first in our lives and as one family as well. I have been blessed with a testimony and understanding of my purpose here on earth and I know that I am nothing with out my savior Jesus Christ. I love this Gospel and I love meeting people and sharing this message with them. I know that if you will center him in your lives everyday you will feel true Joy and you will not fall and you will see a huge difference in your everyday life. 

I really was not planning on saying all that but I kinda of just kept typing but I will jump back to the email. This week has been really great and Elder T and I made a huge goal of this week to just invite people to baptism and find a lot of new investigators. I think this week has been the best week that I have had so far as work goes because we were blessed with 14 new baptismal dates and we found one big family that is really is excited for another lesson. i remember a couple weeks ago i said that this area in Cagayan, the people are just different and they are really out in the poor poor parts of the Laoag mission but truly these people are so kind and always willing to listen to us and they love listening and just are so receptive to this message and it has been amazing serving in this new area and i love it truly. I am gonna be honest haha i think i like this area a lot better then Bangui but i know that Bangui taught me so much as well.

Life is good and i am happy and i am grateful for the life i have and i love being a missionary and i love you all:)

I do love my family and i miss you all :)

Happy Days, All is Well

Elder Clark:)