August 24... How we buy fish in the Philippines

My week was really great though and it was a a good last week with Elder E. He is pretty sad to leave though because we have 3 baptisms in 2 weeks so he s a lil bummed that he has to miss those but its all good, at least they are getting baptized cause that is all that really matters. Lat night was Sunday night and we went on splits with the members and 3 members went with me and 3 members went with Elder E and all the fellowshippers were young men and return missionaries. How fun is that? gosh Bacarra really is the best and the ward here is so great and they just want to work and work and help us and we take it to our advantage and we just teach and involve the members in every way that we can in our missionary work. I cant explain the love that i have for my investigators but also the love i have for the members is so great as well. I love walking in to the church and just making members laugh and having fun with them and then also showing the side of " i am missionary so lets go to work" and they come with us and the testify and teach as well and we help them and they help us and because of that, our ward had four baptisms on Saturday and we will be having 3 more in two weeks. Working with the members is the key to missionary work. I love the ward that i am with and my heart is here in Bacarra ward for now, they are who i am trying to build up and help grow. We are helping 4 young men go on missions right now and we are having them come work with us and we are teaching them before we teach the investigators and we are giving them parts to teach and they just do a great job. The best part about it is that they WANT to do missionary work and they want to come with us and it has been such a blessing for me while i have been here in Bacarra, This morning at 6 am about 10 of us all played bball at the church. Two tall white guys and 8 small Filipinos who can ball super well. And while we play basketball we just laugh and make jokes but play hard and it is all in Tagalog and I just cant get enough of it. The feelings I feel as a missionary are indescribeable and I love missionary work. Just imagine having an investigator who has a concern and then you are teaching the and asking them questions and then you find their real concern and you help them overcome it by using a story from the scriptures or an experience but you feel the spirit and they feel the spirit and they follow their commitment and they read the Book of Mormon and they come to church and fall in love with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they are baptized. It is the best work known to man and that is because it is the work of God. He is my boss and this is his business and I know that I am entitled to his help and I know he is helping me and leading me in the work. Dont worry about me because I am happier then i have ever been in my life and I know I am a missionary of God. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ is the true Church and I know that a man will get closer to God as he reads the Book of Mormon. I know that the work I am doing is the work of salvation to the children of men and I love being a missionary. I am grateful for the examples i have had in my life, especially with kuya for serving before I did and helping me understand the importance of missionary work. I am grateful for you mama and pops and letting me and supporting me in the mission because this is the greatest thing that i have done and I am love it truly.

 

Well hey just keep me informed with the family and with what is all going on with you. But hey i am good and life is good.

 

AY one last thing! do you know how we buy fish in the Philippines? well one way, there is guy that goes around on his motor bike with a cooler on the back and he honks his horn and we go outside and he whips out a big ol fish and puts it on the scale and tells us how much and then he puts it on the ground and chops it up puts it in a bag and then we pay him and then we eat fish and we are full and happy:) ahahaha oh how great the Philippines is. the culture here is the best talaga.

 

Happy Days, ALl is Well

 

Elder Cory Austin Clark

August 19,2014

Hey mama:) I sure do love you all so much and I am very grateful for the emails that you send and the detail and time that you put into them. It really makes a difference in my day when I recieve an email from my mama and when i can just feel her love from the words that she sent. I am grateful for my family and I am proud of my siblings and of course i am so proud of my mama and pops and I am so happy that you two are in love and enjoy and want to be together. I will have a relationship like that someday with my wife too, I am going to be a good husband and a good father and I am going to be loving, humble and a worthy preisthood holder. I know that this Gospel blesses families because I have experienced it with our family and also i see the changes in the familes that i teach because of this Gospel. I love being a missionary and I know that this Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ and I know that as we follow the principles taught by Jesus Christ then we will find happiness and peace and love and forgivness in our lives. The Atonement is real, it is not a joke, it is real and it works as long as we humble ourselves and use it everyday. Sometimes I feel like we just want happinesss or peace or a happy family to come into our lives right away after we have said a prayer or something but it does not always work like that. I have really came to know that it is by small and simple things in where we will recieve those blessings. Everyday if we pray for opportunities to serve our nieghbor then the Lord will bless with opportunities to serve and through that, we will feel good that we were able to help somebody else. Everday, we need to read the scriptures because they are so powerful and true and will make a difference in our lives. We need to go to church as a family and read the scriptures as a family everyday and pray as a family everyday and have family home evening because through those things, change comes and it is always a change for better and a change in where we become more like our savior Jesus Christ. I know that in order to have a strong happy family, we need to ACT and work for it and repent. 

This week was really great and the M family came to church again this sunday so that means that they are close to baptism.:) This week Elder E and I did a lot of exchanges and we are gratefrul for the chance we had to really help the missionaries in our zone just become better effective teachers. Our misssion focus right now is teaching skills which is my favorite thing in the world because I love teaching and just trying to improve my teaching everyday. I cant really think about what happened this last week but I am doing really well and next week is transfers so we will now where Elder E is being transfered to. I think he is going to cagayan because he has not been out there yet. That is where i spent half my mission is in cagayan which is like the way poor part of our mission and there is no city out there but it is the best haha. Anyqways i am happy and I am trying to serve the Lord with all i got. I know i have a lot of weakness that i need to strengthen but I am in the best place in my life right now to help me become a better person. I am growing up and I am understanding and learning a lot of good life lesssons. I love you all and I am grateful for you all as well. 

Happy Days, All is Well

Elder Cory Clark

June 8, 2014

Hey mama:) I didnt know that coops graduation was this week. It is way weird to see my lil brother and his friends in the graduation uniform! It is weird to think about them all as graduated. Coop is about to become a man real quick in a couple months when he hits the mission. I am so excited for that kid to step in the mission field and just get to work in the Lords work. Mama, you have no more kids in highschool! how great is that? that probably is a masarap feeling for sure, but hey mama and pops i sure am proud and grateful for you both and your amazing examples to me and us kids. I cant even express how many times i realize things throughout my day and just say...... i learned that from my parents. Everyday you two especially are in my mind helping me with the Lords work as well. 

I bet it was so great to just be wit the whole family:) well not the whole family but hey there was still alot of the family and that is always way fun. I miss my cousins and i am really excited to see them all big and grown up and I hope i can still help them all laugh from time to time.:) HEY CLARK FAMILY............. I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU ALL:) 

Hey so transfers happened and I thought i was really going to miss claveria because the people there were seriously my family and i just didnt want to leave yet....... BUT, my new companion is Elder E and he is the man. I have been blessed and blessed and blessed with the best companions. Elder A who was my last companion, i really thought that it was going to be a struggle but he became one of my best friends and we had the best time. And now, I am with such a stud missionary. he has been in the mission for about 4 months longer then me and he is just a stud missionary. Lets just say we work so good together and I have never worked so well with another missionary. Elder E tagalog is amazing and i am okay in tagalog but our teaching is bomb and the Lord has blessed us a lot this week. Elder E is from Utah and he loves to sing so hopefully we get the chance to sing together haha. Like i said in my last email.... i am really close to Laoag and the mission work is just a lil different out here... its " alot more difficult" but i dont agree haha. When i got here to Bacarra " my area" Elder E said that the area was struggling and we had to pick it up alot. we had 2 baptismal dates in the beginning of this week and no investigators had been coming to church and being zone leaders our area really has to be the example area. Anyways, this week before we started working Elder E looked at the area and talked about what he had to do and get done so ya that is what we did through the help of the Lord completely, and because my companion is way talented. Well we found 7 new baptismal dates this week and 5 of those is this family who literally was so prepared for us missionaries they were just sitting in their house like they were just waiting for us. We walked in and we taught them the restoration and the excepted baptismal dates and it was one of the coolest experiences in my mission because our area was struggling a lot and then in one week the Lord just flipped around our area and we are just was excited to work.

I really love my new area and my new companion and I feel great. I am gaining my weight back and I am super super excited to just work hard and get done what needs to get done. I seriously love being a missionary, it is the greatest privledge that i have ever been given in my life. I wish the mission was 3 years cause there just is not a greater work then this in this day of time. People are crying for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is the best feeling when you find them and help them and teach them and just see their progression  and see the big change in their life. 

I do have a funny story for you though. the first night in baccara we got fed by the bishop and the next day our stomachs were way jacked up..... anyways we worked in the morning and it hit elder E before it hit me haha and again this is really the first day we were companions...... so we went and worked and at the end of the work in the morning elder e just looks at me and says....... " hey, i gotta poo dude we gotta go" and we walked like a mile as fast as we could to our apartment and right before we reached the apartment he just pooed in the pants haha and then that night at work is when it hit me.......... we were in our last lesson of the night and it hit me so bad. my stomach was upside down and just screaming the bathroom and i just whispered to elder erickson in like slang english so they would not understand haha i said " i gotta take a duece." and we tried to end the lesson but it just kept going and in the middle of our investigator talking and explaining something i just kinda yelled and said.... brother do you have a bathroom I need to use and i ran to his bathroom and yep thats the end of the story for now hahaha......... but it is all okay and our stomachs feel good now we are happy haha:) 

I love you all and i miss you all like crazy. I think about my family and close ones all the time and I appreciate your love and examples to me in my life. Life is way good and happy days, all is well.

HEY !!! I just saw ELDER T:) i have not seen him since we were last companions. he was the companion that was with me in the first skype session haha the big samoan. gosh is was so good to see him!:)

I Love you all

Elder Clark:)

March 9, 2014

 My life is so good and I cant explain how and why it is so good. I love being a missionary and I love talking with people in Tagalog and Hilikano and I love sharing this message that we hold as members of this Church. The happiness i feel as a missionary of God is real and true. To be able to wake up and feel happiness and also go to sleep and feel happinesss is such a big blessing. Of course there are times where i struggle and I am firusturated or sad but the best part about it is that I can pray and literally everytime I am sad and then I pray, i feel happiness right away and I know that is because Jesus Christ died for me and not just for my sins but for everysingle expieriance and feelings that i have felt and will every feel. This Gospel is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and every ear will hear this message and I hope that when people get the chance to listen to the Missionaries that their heart is open because I know that if the have an open heart and an open mind to this message then they will come to know for themselves of the truthfulness of this Church and then their life will change for the better and they will feel true happiness everyday and they will feel closer to their heavenly father and they will no of a surety that they are a child of God and he has a plan for them. This Gospel is a amazing and I love being a missionary for the Lord. This is the biggest and best responsibility that I will ever have in my life i think:)

So we got transfer calls this week and I was really hoping that I wouldnt recieve a call but I am and I did! I am transfering out of Santa Teressita and I will be going to CLaveria and I will be opening a new area! President called me on friday and told me that i was transfered and then he asked me of I am ready to open up a brand new area and of course i said i was ready haha. I am really excfited and I will be the District Leader down there and my new companion is Elder A:) he is an american and he is still super new. I think this is his second area and he just got finished being trained so he is only 12 weeks in the Philippines. I am really excited because I know i have a bunch of work ahead of me and I know that the Lord wants me here in Claveria. I actually have a chapel again though which is cool but the only thing is that my area is pretty far away from the chapel but its all good because faith brings miralces:) 

I sent a lot of pictures to you so you can see what has happened over the last week! TY got baptized on saturday and he is the man who has been taught for many years by a bunch of missionaries and we were just the ones to finally see him be baptised. It was pretty difficult to teach him at first but then with a couple good lessons with the Spirit, he desired to be baptised and come to church. I paid for his fix in his motor because he had no other way to go to church but the thing is that not that is motor is fixed , he is taking other people to church now too so thats super sick. Also i just paid for a wedding for out coule ivestigaotrs here and I have a picture with them so you will see them but they will be getting baptised in a couple weeks so we are super excited. 

Elder V will be trainging and so he is way pumped and i am too because Elder V is such a G and is a great missionary for sure and he will train great. HIs companion is super lucky though because he is about to have like 10 baptisms here in the next month so he will really enjoy that, i am really excited for Elder V he is a great companion. 

LIfe is great and I get to go work with Elder T tonight for just tonight because i will be sleeping at his apartment, so i am excitecd for that for sure haha. 

I dont really know what to say except i got a good haircut today by a bunch of gays that dress literally like woman and they try to have women body parts and they called me handsome and perfect like 100 times haha but for real even though they are cross dressers and it freaks me out, bottom line is that they give good haircuts and thats why i was there haha.

I hope you enjoy the pictures and I love you all so very much and I am grateful for the Family that I have. I will proabably have a bunch of news next week, sorry for the pangit email!

Mahal na mahal kita at ingat kayo lagi at excited ako para sa yung susunod emailing session natin! Dad, magaling talaga kayo at maraming salamat para sa inyong halimbawa ng kasipagan. Alam ko na yunf dahilan ne bakit talaga masipag ako ay dahil ang mga magulang ko:) Mahal Kita:)

Happy Days, All is Well

Elder Clark