Happy 20th Birthday Elder Clark!

Hello Family:)! Gosh I love you all so much and miss you all so much too. Reading emails from my mama about how my family is doing just makes me happy. Thank you all for your happy birthday wishes i appreciate it so much! I had a lot of emails today so that makes me feel pretty loved:) THis is probably the first birthday that i have ever had that i just dont want anything for myself. to be honest, the mission is the best decesion i have ever made because through the mission you learn so much and you truly change. I have never prayed so hard in my life day in and day out and I love everyday in the mission because i always learn something new and even though its my birthday it just doesnt matter because i am a missionary of God and its not about me at all and I just am super excited for later tongight at 6 pm when our pday is over and I can just go teach people. I love teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love figuring out new skills to teach and I love feeling the spirit and I love being in a lesson and my investigator has this big concern and you dont know what it is but then it just hits you and find out their concern and the spirit is so strong and things just work well. This week was probably one of the best weeks i have had in the mission and I will explain why:)

So first we have been preparing all week for our 3 baptisms on saturday and it just couldnt have all gone better and more smoothly. Brother C is a man i found with elder T and we found him on the street and he was just so prepared and he was a hardcore iglesia ni cristo but he let us teach him and he just fell in love with the Gospel! WE have been teaching his whole family and him and his daughter got baptised on saturday and his wife will be baptised this coming saturday. Anyways, I seriosly love this family with all my heart and i cant explain it. I loved my investigators in bangui but gosh it is just different here in Santa Ter. I seriously just want to help these people so badly and I would do anything to help them understand this gospel. When we first met this family they were not that exceptive and they had a lot of problems in their family but now we see them and they are just happy happy happy and they have such strong testimonies of this gospel. We are going to have a FHE over there mamaya:)  I had the oppurtunity to baptize brother C and Nanay A and really can't explain what happened but it just was perfect. When Brother C got baptized he came out of the water with just the biggest smile on his face and he just said like 5 times " i am happy" with a huge smile on his face. Then with Nanay i cant explain either haha she is probably my favorite person in the whole world haha i love her so flippen much. First of all she is an old nanay who just lives by herself and just is so so so funny but she was so excited for baptism and she loved it so much and she cried when she came out of the water and she was just smiling so big and gosh i just cant explain how happy i was and am!!!!! haha

Also the testimonies of our baptims had alot of the congregation in tears so i was overly happy and yeah anyways i am just happy. haha i will send you some pics

I am super happy that my family is being blessed and I just want to let you all know that I am okay here in the Philippines and all my investigators and companion is saying that i am becoming a filipeno and it trips me out sometimes because it is true ahaha i eat every meal with my hands, i crave rice and i could just eat a plate of white rice and enjoy it and i am being blessed with the gift o f tounges and I can understand all my investgators all the time and just be able to talk with them and say whatever i want to say to them in tagalog, The mission life is so sick and I am going to miss the phillippines so much when the time comes when i have to leave but i just am trying to enjoy it everyday.

Hopefully Elder V and i will stay companions because i love this guy so much and we work so great together. Also i just dont want to leave Santa Terresita because we have about 10 baptisms in the next month so we are really hoping that the Lord just wants us to stay together.

This Gospel is true and Jesus Christ is the reason for my happiness. When people say... he is my strength, he is my light, he is my joy, he is my love, he is everything.... its true and i believe in this. If you dont have a testimony in this then work for it because it is true and life is way better when we feel this and inderstand the truth of this.

I love you all and thank you all for eeverything, i have a bunch of emails to write so i gotta go but hey i love you all so much and i am proud of my family!

mama just a note for my next package: childrens hymn book ( maybe a small one)

floss picks for my teeth and ones that are strong and will last. i think the oral B ones are really good.

I LOVE YOU ALL!:)

happy days all is well

Elder Clark