Safe through the typhoon

Wow pops thanks for the great email I just do'nt know where to start. I guess first with the questions you asked me. So, the food here in the Philippines is delicious and let me tell ya dad, you will love these philippino dishes! I will have to make ya a lil somethin when i get back! I will start training on Friday so I haven't received my new companion yet and we dropped off Elder M, my companion at Laoag today because he is the new office elder. So right now me, Elder G and Elder G are a 3 companionship and me and Elder G leave tomorrow morning to Laoag for trainers training. I am super excited for sure but I am a little nervous I guess. Elder G is getting a follow up trainer and I guess he is just a big Samoan guy so I get to come back to Bangui to see Elder G and his new huge Samoan companion haha. Life is so great dad. I have received 2 packages now total so no worries I know all the packages will get here. Thank you mama for your diligence with that and sending off my medicine! Back to the food, the weirdest thing i have eaten is probably boiled cow skin or maybe dugo dugo which is meat cooked in pigs blood and only pigs blood. Dugo in tagalog is blood.

This week has been really crazy, we went to Laoag on Wednesday for a big zone conference with 5 zones and I was able to see Elder T my MTC companion! That really made my day! I love that guy so flippen much. Anyways, the zone conference was an all day thing really and it was a big training with president and we had to do a bunch of practice teaching, I actually was called up to do a practice teaching in front of the Elders and Sisters and I was really nervous and then right as I sat down the thought came to my head to just listen to the spirit and so that is what I did, and not one time in the lesson do I remember thinking about the elders and sisters who were watching and I just was zoned in with my companion and the investigators and the spirit and it was so strong and I don't know it, was just a really cool experience for me.

After the zone conference we were fed a bunch of great food and went home and then we worked all day Thursday and we worked only a half day Friday because of the huge typhoon and then we didn't get to work all day Saturday because of the big typhoon. Lets just say when it rains it rains and the winds were going crazy. It was a little scary but as long as we were inside it was fine. The weather stopped good enough for church on Sunday and then we had a baptism on Sunday and that was super great. It was supposed to happen Saturday but the weather postponed it haha.

Dad thank you for being a missionary and sending RB back with your testimony and a Book of Mormon. I love that kid so much and I know he has such a good heart truly. He is a good man and has a ridiculous amount of potential and with all that potential and with that big heart, there is just one thing missing, he has forgotten that he has a loving father in heaven who wants the very very best for him. What a blessing it is to know that literally God created this earth and created us and sent us to the earth and he has a plan for us here on earth to be able to return to live with him in his presence. One of the biggest things I have learned on my mission is that sometimes we just need to take a step back and get our head out of the worldly things and think about what truly matters. I do love this Gospel with all my heart and I know that these days are very hard but they are a lot easier when you have God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as your back up. That is the strongest back up we could ever have. Through Gods plan for us we feel happiness, joy, peace, comfort, guidance, and much more and that is what truly everyone is looking for and wants in their life. I am blessed to be able to share this message with  these people here in the Philippines.

My family sounds like they are doing great, I have like no time to write again but I love you all and thank you dad for the great email. Coop I am way proud of you and I love you all my siblings, I hope you all know that! Sige po mahal ko kayo at kita kits dating lingo. love ya!

Elder Clark

Happy Days all is well

Sept. 15

 SO coop had a big run huh? 76 yards is a workout and a half for sure that is a great run. Coop your 2 and 0!! thats a great start little brother! I will send Jackson a little email for sure I bet he is pretty shaken up but good thing Jackson is the biggest stud on the Earth, i know he will be alright.

Happy Days all is well here in Bangui still. I am little nervous because Elder M is leaving and I gotta train but he has trained me well so i know I will be fine for sure. This is our last week together as companions and we have 1 baptism coming up this Saturday and we just said we are going to try and make it a really great successful fun week before he leaves Bangui. The work I feel like has kind of taken a turn here in Bangui, we re-split the area so the other Elders have more ground now to take and we are booted out to more of the Jungle types of areas so we decided to start working in the Jungle type of areas when I get my new companion because right now we are super busy just in Central Bangui and in the bigger little city type areas. It is really hard to explain how things work here in the Philippines with like cities and towns and transportation and stuff haha. I am way excited for this next transfer to train and just work more. It will be fun to go to some areas where missionaries have never been before. There are about 6 little barrangays (mini towns) haha that missionaries have never gone to. There is probably 350 people in each one. I dunno for sure but people just kinda live where ever here, i just have to go find them!!! As a companion with Elder M we have been lucky and most of the people we have taught have been through referrals so really referrals are just way easier because finding can be really difficult but it looks like i am about to do a lot of finding but thats okay because i can finally speak the language alright so i will be able to talk with people... 

Anyways for some reason today i am just way hyper so I am sorry if the email was really random but for real I know i say this all the time but I love the mission and everything that comes with it, even if it is washing my own clothes by hand haha. I was going to share a really cool story that happened this week but I have no time, I will share it next week, it was just with one of our investigators:) Anyways I know that Jesus Christ lives and that because of him we are able to feel not just any happiness but the happiness of God and for me that is one of the greatest blessings in my life. I love being able to feel true happiness. 

Mahal ko kayo lahat at sana magkakaroon kayo ay na Mabuting Linggo! INgat Kayo 

Happy days, all is well

Elder Clark

September 8, 20143

Wow I really cant express how much I love my family. For real, I love you all so flippin much and I just smile everytime I read these emails. First off kayley and Tanner wrote me a great email today and that really made me feel good:) and also of course Colbies email was great because it always is! And mama you always send great emails and you are great at keeping me up to date with everthing.

 I am happy for my family and all that is going on! Blessings come as we are obedient. D&C 82 :10 I am bound when ye do what i say but when ye do not what I say I have no promise. He wants to bless us everyday and all we have to do is obey and if we do, he will bless us because he has promised those blessings to us if we obey but if we dont, there is no promise. That scriptue is Tanners favorite i am pretty sure ahah..

Hey i will send pics next week these computers wont let me send pictures!

So para sa akin, buhay ko ay sobrang maganda at mahal ko and phillipnies talaga and lahat ng tao dita rin. so this says haha so for me my life is so wonderful and I really love the Philippines and all the people here too. I have probably said that in every email but its true, for real, i love it here and I love the people even more.  Everyone says that Bangui is the hardest part of the mission and that is why there wasn't missionaries here for a long time because there was no progression. I am so happy i was able to open this area up with Elder M.  We truly have been so blessed by the Lord and he wants his work to progress here in Bangui and it is really showing. Bangui has not had a lot of baptisms for a really long time and I dont know why Elder M and I are being so blessed but we have had 5 baptisms and 1 this coming up Saturday and 6 more in the next month. The hardest part about getting baptisms here is getting them to church because they need to go to church 4 times before baptisms and they have to be in a row haha. well 4 out of 5. You can miss one. IT is really important here for them to gain a testimony of going to church. Anyways, I love it here in bangui and the Lord is blessing us and the people here are really warming up to us. Also a big project of ELder M and I has been to reactivate the less actives and we decided on 3 to start with that are men and priesthood holders and they used to be very active and one actually was the old branch president. Anyways, we have gotten with the Lords help, 2 out of 3 back and the 3rd is really close. You have no idea how much this has helped our branch here, we went from like 40 members a sunday to now pushin 60 and A lot because of these 2 less actives who have returned because now they are working with us and helping us reactivate other less actives.

I dont really know what to talk about becasue all i do is missionary work haha but yeah I can tell you this, I truly feel Gods love for me everyday and It feels so good and my life is really good and the spirit is strong and present in all of our lessons

Mama, I have recieved one of the packages so thank you so much i really appreciate it:) The new white shirt was way needed and the Rittle Skittles are really masarap (delicious) haha

So tagalog is great even though so hard. I can speak pretty well but i am far from fluent but the Gift of Tounges is true that is for real and very amazing.

Really quick i want to bear my testimony that truly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true Church of God.  I am blessed to have been born in this Church and to have a testimony in it. I also know that our message and this Gospel is hard to believe and understand right at first because lets look at the facts, Joesph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and through Joesph Smith God restored his Church back on the Earth and most importantly his Authority to baptise and much more. THis is a hard message to believe 100 percent right off the get go, but the beauty of it all is that we can pray to our Heavenly Father and ask if it is true and he will tell us that it is true through beautiful feelings in our hearts through the power of the Holy Ghost. I am a witness, that I know that this Church is true and is Gods Church here today on the Earth because I have prayed and I have read the Book of Mormon and I can't deny the love the happiness the guidance  that I have felt through the Holy Ghost and i know for a surety in my heart mind and whole body that this Church is the true Church of God.

Happy Days, All is Well

Elder Clark:)

Sept 2, 2013

Hey pops, man it is so good to hear from my dad! I sure do love you dad!. I am so happy to hear of all the blessings going on at home and I know that the Lord is blessing you all everyday. Life is so good! I am way pumped for coop and the team! I am glad they are looking good i know coop will have a bunch of fun this year. Honestly that is the biggest part about it is to just play hard and enjoy and love the game you are playing and if you do that, then success comes. I will be honest, I do miss sports and just being able to ball haha! they play a lot of ball here in the Pines but we haven't as an apartment yet but pinoys love playing bball for sure! I don't have a bunch of time to email this week because i had to do another thing online for the President but I am way happy to hear about my siblings, they are all so amazing and so talented. I am excited for Mac and J to be in a house, that is so exciting and they are probably gonna get that baby room all decorated cool haha mac is gonna love being a mama for sure. Tanner and Kayley i miss from time to time because i spent a lot of time with them this last year ahaha but I know they are missin me too. I love Bret & Chels and miss Nik Nak so much. Coop is just my little brother who i love so much and i am proud of him and my mama and pops, you two are awesome and even though it is a lil weird hearing you say you are just so so so in love with mama, it truly is amazing and a big example to all of us. One thing that has really been drilled into my head since the mission is just how much i have learned from home and from my family and how blessed i have been to be raised in a home that i was raised in and how blessed i am for being taught all that i was taught. You two prepared me so well for the mission and i am very grateful for that. There are a lot of missionaries who really struggle out here but i truly have been prepared and I am blessed for that.

So i am still in Bangui and I still am loving it. The people here are just great even though sometimes real stubborn. We have a bunch of great potential investigators that we are going to visit this week and i am way pumped. So last week our whole apartment got sick and we were out of work for a day which really frustrated me because i just felt like a waste of a missionary but its all good because i am healthy and back at it now. So transfers are in 4 weeks and we had interviews with President this week and he basically just layed out some of my future for me, and he said that I will be training in 4 weeks and that I will also be the district leader here and he said that he really likes missionaries like me hahaha so yeah I am a little nervous to train and i was not expecting to be a district leader either but I am excited, it will be fun and I know that the Lord will give me the strength to do it. President B is a very funny man and he loves his missionaries and he really just lays out your future during the interview and he cracks a lot of jokes and just makes you feel good inside. He is a great President i am really blessed. Well I took some money out my account from home, i think about 120 dollars but I am not totally sure! Just letting you know:)

The language is seriously really coming along and I can speak tagalog and I am really being blessed. Elder M makes me lead the lessons and lead our area which I really like because It gives me a good challenge. Anyways I have to go but I love you all so much and Family: Missionary work is for everyone so please try your best to do your missionary work there at home, and I know that you will be blessed i can promise you that. 

Elder Clark

Ingat Kayo

                                       President and Sister Barrientos.

                                       This is a jeepney.

                                       My bedroom

                                       My backyard!

August 18

Geeesh a lot of new news talaga! wow excited ako na magsalita sa inyo! where do i start? haha well mama i am glad you have a little missionary mom fan club haha that is pretty awesome, and yeah i am pretty sure everybody loves the Phillippines! it truly is just amazing here and i love it so much, the life here in the Philippines is so sick and I aabsoulutley love being a missionary and working everyday and meeting new people everyday. It has rained like crazy this last week and I am suprised i have enough connection to email right now. The rain here is so strong and it POURS! i love it but Elder M doesnt really haha but hey Elder M and I are getting along so well and our companionship is super strong and we have so much fun. Our work is progressing so much and we are working hard and we seriously have to the funnest time throughout our day. The mission is hard as hard can get and there are marrami mga pagsubok(many trials) but Heavenly Father just carries us and keeps our attitudes bright and we just work and we are happy for sure. We have 4 baptisms saturday!!! we cant wait because we have been teaching these investigators for awhile and we love em so much, A and M are sisters and they are getting baptised this saturday and they have 5 kids if you add them together and it is such a blast to go and teach them. Amy has 4 kids and her husband is in Mnailla with another woman and she is only 29 so she is really young to have 4 kids. But let me tell you, this Gospel has givin her so much strength and she has such a strong testimony and one of her sons is getting baptised on the 31 of august and the other kids are to young but one of the best parts of being a missionary is meeting somebody for the first time and then teaching them the Gospel and then you keep teaching and keep teaching and you get to know them better and better and then they decide to get baptised and then you just look back and think about how far that one person has come and you can just feel the spirit so strongly as you teach them and you just know that heavenly father is so happy with them and they are just brighter and happier now that they have heard the Gospel and living the principles of it. This Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint is the true church and only true church of God and the spirit you feel from just reading this email is a witness that this Church is the true church of God. I have already seen so many differneces in people lives because of this Gospel and I absolutley love being a mouthpiece for my heavenly father and sharing is message with everybody i get the chance to share it with.

So my week has been great I ate the famous blood dish here, the just cook the pork in blood only and it actually is super good, everybody in the branch and just people are saying i am starting to turn into a true filipeno so thats good news haha. Oh yeah speaking of being a true pinoy, I dont use toilet paper and i am being completley honest when i say this that it is a cleaner way to do it and it is a lot better then toilet paper for sure. WE expieriance an earthquake lastnight haha but it didnt last to long but it was really cool the whole house shook a lil bit. Mama, I am learning how to cook filipeno food so dont worry i will teach you when i get home. we have a new elder and he is a white boy straight from the MTC like me before haha so it is really fun to have him.

My language........ Thanks to heavenly father, he has truly blessed me with the gift of tounges and i am speaking tagalog. I am far from fluint but I understand what people are saying pretty much the whole time and I can have a conversation and teach all the lessons and for some reason this last week, Tagalog has just clicked like never before and the language is coming big time and I absoulutley love speaking Tagalog it is the coolest language in the world haha.

There are times where the mission is just very difficult and everyday i have struggles and why i tell you that the mission is amazing is because through Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice for me, life is good and life no matter where you are can be good and happy. The mission is so fun and i love the work and i love planning for our investigators and i love seeing the growth in them but it truly is hard and i am always tired and if i wasnt a missionary of God i could not do this haha but i am a missionary of God and I somehow do it and I do it with a smile on my face.

I love you all and thank you all for the news!!!

ps: DAD, you are the man and I am proud you are my pops:)

Love yall

INGAT PO!

Elder Clark!

August 11

Mama,

Have your faith be bigger then your fear is a great attitude mama:) my faith has to be bigger then my fear everyday in the mission field or the mission just doesn't work. Okay so I guess I will start with last weeks email, even though I don"t know where to start. First of all this week I don"t know why but I have been thinking about my family more then ever and especially my siblings. I love my brothers and sisters so much and I miss them so much. Now for cooper, I am so happy to hear that he is safe because that was pretty hard for me to read that email, I am glad Dad is a worthy priesthood holder to give him that blessing, that truly is the power of God. The family reunion was probably so much fun, it always is and what a smile I had on my face when I looked at the pictures haha. We have an awesome family! I received a letter in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa and that was so very comforting to me and they are just the best haha:) I am happy to hear the reunion was great!

So I am going to have a niece or a nephew:) I cried when I read that email from Mckenzie and Jordan, I am so happy for them and I can"t wait to have a Lil Nephew;) I can't even express how much love I have for my family, and I remember Tanner saying this when he was gone to. I have a new perspective of the title of Family and I don't know how to express it but I love my family so much and I am so grateful God has a plan for us and our families. 

So last week we didn't email because Elder M was sick so that is why:) haha but he is doing much better now and we are back at it. He was sick Monday and Tuesday with the flu and i was surprised i didn't get sick! The typhoon in Bangui hasn't hit that bad today so we got the okay to go out and have our p-day so that is nice. This week has been really great and the weeks are just going by way to fast. I already have one transfer under my belt, An ba yan, Crazy huh? Elder W the other white elder is leaving Bangui and going to Sarrat as a Zone leader and Elder G is going to be training so he leaves tomorrow to Laoag to pick his trainee (brand new missionary) up, and Elder M and I are still companions and he got called as the District Leader. Elder M and I are still working hard, he is a lil lazy at times so I really gotta push but we work really well together and the work is progressing here in Bangui for sure. The language is coming a lot better now and especially this week because Elder M wasn't 100 percent healthy so I led the lessons and taught a lot more then I usually do which I liked because it strengthened my faith a lot with the Language. it is good that we still have Elder G at the house because he is the one that cooks haha but I am actually learning a lot from him so hopefully by the time he leaves or I leave, I will know how to cook. We are struggling getting referrals and new investigators but I know they will come. President just raised our standards for the week to a pretty huge goal of 5 new baptismal dates a week and 8 new investigators a week and 5 new investigators at church a week and 32 lessons a week and so other stuff but ya its hard work for sure haha but so much fun and I love my investigators so much, they are so awesome and most of their baptismal dates are coming up soon so I am very excited about that!

I wish I had a lot more time to write but I don't, I hope my emails aren't boring haha. But mama if you would like to send me a package then if possible, i do need some more ties and I have a whole bunch downstairs in the top drawer of that dresser, and also some deoderant like old spice or something because the kind here stains and then also a bag strap just for my side bag:) I am going to look for another long sleeve white shirt here but if you want to send that then you can but i figured that was a lil to much. But yes if you want to send me some candy that would be great:) riddle skittles:) and last thing, some ultra strength BenGay for my knee. The knee I had surgery on is fine and doesn't bother me much but I think I do have a torn mcl in my right knee but its okay I am promised good health during my mission so i know I will be fine throughout the mission so don't worry but I would like some Bengay because that helps a lot.

Dad sorry the email to you is so short!

Thank you mama and family for all of the great news!!! I sure do love all of you and appreciate all of your examples to me:) 

Mahal ko kayo at ingat lahat

Elder Clark