Time is really going by too fast. This last week was SO fast.  We were busy out of our minds!

So Tuesday we had Christmas Conference.  Basically we came together as 3 zones, not the whole mission, and ate a lot of food.  There was a talent show and I got to be a part of a magic show.  Got to cross that off the bucket list.  Literally, I have a bucket list.  There were some talks and things like that but mostly just a low key get together.  It was really fun.  They got all of us little Christmas mugs, they're made of plastic too thank goodness!  I've used it a few times to shower with.  We also made zone t shirts.  

Wednesday was Zone training for my first time in another Zone.  That was really fun.  I love my zone leaders.  We had some great instruction about the key indicators and redefining them.   Before missionaries would do what they want and now we are all on the same page.

Thursday was a normal day.  A little slow but the usual.  Friday was my big day.  I've been trying to organize a ward Christmas Caroling.  It was set for Friday.  The 4 missionaries showed up and I think 4 members.  It was small but really, really fun.  We really touched some hearts I think.  We went to the Refugee camp to sing which was really interesting.  When we would start to sing it would instantly get quiet and people would start watching us.  Radios would died, conversations stopped, people even stopped moving.  I haven't figured out if it is because we sounded so bad or what... It was a really special experience though.  We visited a lot people.   We visited an old man that lives by himself.  He’s pretty lonely so we went and sang to him.  That was really special.  I think he really enjoyed it.  One woman told us her Christmas was complete now.  It was really fun.  We had a great time.

Saturday we had our open house.   It went really well.  We had about 100 people attend it that we got names and phone numbers from that we get to follow up on this week.  It was pretty cool.

Elder L. is being transferred on Wednesday.  We got the call Saturday night around 11 pm.  Woke me up, haha.  He is going to a new district in our zone.  He is the closest area to me which is pretty cool.  We will still see each other.  He is now my shortest companion at 5 weeks.  A new record.  My new companion is another white guy from America.  I have met him before.  He was up in Kade and came on exchanges to my apartment a few times.  He's a good guy.  We had a short transfer because transfers were on Christmas Day so they changed it.  

One of my coolest experiences this week was with a girl we are teaching.  She is 16 and is in school but was a referral from a member.  We taught here the restoration and while my companion was sharing the first vision she started to cry.  That's the first time I've had somebody cry on my mission.  It was really cool.

Oh, one of the guys I gave a coin to from Byron took it and had it made into a necklace.  Every time I see him, which is about every day, he is wearing it.  Please let Byron know if you get a chance.  

Well, this week was really busy and really fun.  I love it here in Buduburam and everything is going well.  Can't wait to call home next week!

Love,

Elder Clark

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!   

AFEHYIAPA! (Twi, pronounced a-fish-e-a-pa) :D

 Elder Clark wanted to enjoy the lizard for his dinner but alas he wasn't allowed-thank-goodness

making a house call, can you find the missionary?

Hey everybody,                                                                                       Dec 9 2013

Just like that another week has gone by. Last week was pretty busy for us. This week is going to be crazy though. The rest of the year is going to be really busy. We have Christmas Conference, zone training, the open house for the ward, and our missionary sponsored Christmas Caroling this week. Next week will be a baptism and a zone Christmas party too. So we are super busy. Plus we have a million people to see! Man we are so busy.

This week we had a fun week. On Tuesday President and Sister Hill came to our district council meeting. Then they went with me and my companion to see the KAAF University. That was cool. I had arranged for a member to be with us to take us around and it worked out really well. I didn't know but this member is a vice president to the student body and has a very, very good reputation among the staff and his reputation played a huge part in getting us approved. The woman we were talking to just couldn't say enough nice things about him and some other members she worked with. It was a great reminder to me that people do watch us and they see us and associate our actions with the Church. They do that so much more than we realize. It's super important to always live like we are representative of the Church, because really, we are.

Interesting moment this week. We contacted one man a week or 2 ago by pushing his wheelbarrow for him. It was cool and we've been trying to get out to visit him but the schedules just haven't worked out. Friday he called us and said he wants to see us so he isn't going anyway where all day so we can come. We finally got out there around 7ish. It gets dark by 6 so it was already dark by then. Where we went there isn't a lot of electricity so we went to a building his friend owns. We walked in and it was dark because the lights didn't work. The place was a larger room, a single room building that was bigger than most houses.   I turned around and in the dark saw one of those giant church posters they have everywhere. The building is a church.  We shared a lesson with the guy and the pastor of the church in the pastor’s house right next to the church.  

Other fun times, one boy thought I was 50 years one this week, topped my last record by a decade haha. I guess I'm as old as Mom and Dad. I played the piano in Church on Sunday.  I'm going to be doing that from now on. I haven't practiced for years but I figured with faith I could do it. Well, we all have to remember that our Savior is the "finisher" of our faith and we have to do our part first. It was pretty rough. I only made it through one of the songs. It was scarier than anything else I have done on my mission. Really fun though. The Ward was so happy just that I tried so that was cool.

I have seen a general trend in the letters this week. Referring to the drop in temperatures haha. Just so you all know, I lied. When I left and said that that was my last time being cold that was a lie. I do get cold at nights. Even get the shivers.  I've almost had to pull out another sheet... Haha, enjoy those freezing temperatures. I think about the cold and just remember those miserable days working with Byron last January. Yep, don't miss it yet.

Random side note, I quote Father Goose, "Goody two-shoes and the filthy beast" a lot but nobody gets it.

Mom, you can tell everyone I would love real letters, my emailing time is less now and I am more rushed.

Well, this week was really cool. We taught some really powerful lessons and had some interesting lessons.  We were chased by a prostitute one day. We had to be ducking in and out of crowded houses but don't worry, we went by a bunch of guys smoking weed and she got distracted by that. That was interesting.

Just to describe the camp a little bit it's a lot like those Bourne movies. I have been trying to take more pictures of the place to send home but it has lots and lots of houses and low roofs and tight allies where only one person can pass at a time. Lots of low hanging metal roofs and you have to duck to avoid. Hopefully next week I can send some pictures home.

That’s about it this week though. I love you all and of course, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Love,

Elder Clark

What a crazy week! Thanksgiving was pretty awesome.  As you may know now, Brother Hofman took us out to dinner for Thanksgiving. He said he was in the same boat as us so he took the whole district out to dinner. I had to get permission from the zone leaders so I wasn't sure if it was going to work out for us but they said yes which was sweet. We went down to a place near Kasoa called Small Osu where they serve pizza. It was super good. 

 

We went to Shoprite last week to buy food. We also had some random foods in the apartment already. I made breaded fried chicken that turned out was really, really good, mashed potatoes with gravy, bushes baked beans, corn, the corn bread mix that I scored in camp, and then I made a peach cobbler and my companion a small apple pie. It was really good and a lot of fun too.

Last night we also started reading the 24 days of Christmas just like you guys. The guys in the apartment all wanted to be a part of it so I read the story to all of them, felt a lot like Dad. Enjoyed the story last night about Della and Jim. What a great story. It really doesn't feel like Christmas without being cold though. It is really messing with my internal clock.

But Christmas is still coming and we play the limited Christmas music we have. I'm organizing a ward caroling night in a few weeks and we had a small practice yesterday. I end up singing a lot of solos around here... I also taught singing time in primary yesterday. We learned how to sing Away In A Manger. It was pretty fun, I have so much more respect for those primary teachers now! A lot of solos in that too...( note from Mom, Tim always hated singing so this is pretty funny to us.)

 We got caught in a crazy rain storm. It started raining a little bit and I love to proselyte in the rain so I let my companion decide what to do. He decided to flip a coin for it and we went out. We were going and it just started raining harder and harder, then the wind started howling and we got to one spot and both of us just got hit by the impression that we needed to get out of there. So we turned and my companion started running and we ran through camp to get away from that area. Who knows what happened.  We were walking through ankle deep water for a while. I wish I had my keens. In fact, if you ever get a chance to send those that would be fantastic. The blue is even ok now.

Hmm, what else? Oh yesterday we were invited to a members birthday party/ thing, they just had us over to eat food. Basically they always will make us food and give it to us and just watch us eat. We enjoyed some good fish heads.

Well, the computer crashed and I lost all my time so I gotta go. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Clark

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

 

Nov 25, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving this week!  I'm pretty excited for it.  We are trying to be fast fast (In Ghana you say things twice for emphasis, like I understand Twi small small) So that we can run down to Shoprite this afternoon.  We are going to go a get some good food for Thanksgiving.  I'm planning on making cornbread, peach cobbler, breaded fried chicken kind of like parmesan chicken and maybe some other things.  We saved the peanut butter cookies from Mom for then too.  I'm pretty excited for it.  

So this week was pretty big.  We had 3 baptisms on Saturday.  They are all really cool guys.  One I was only able to give one a coin so far from Byron and he was SO happy to get it.  It made his day.  He said he wants to make it into a necklace so he can always have it with him.  Another guy was a Liberian refugee. 

So another highlight of the week is this guy named H.  The missionaries have been teaching him before I came.  One night we walked by when I was still new and he called me over and we just started talking and laughing and having a good time.  We didn't even share a lesson or anything with him.  We just had a good time.  That was Saturday night.  The next day, Sunday he rode a tro tro for 20 minutes to get to the Stake Conference, that was super cool.  Best part of the story is that he calls us all the time,  he asked us to come and visit him last week.  When we got there he had a big plate of cinnamon rolls for us!  I know right???   Man, they were so good.  Not as good as Mom's but they were pretty dang good.  

Good news!  I texted my last companion, yesterday, looks like my man from Oda was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday!!!  I wish I could have been there but I'm so happy he was baptized.  The other man we have been teaching is all ready to be baptized too so that is sweet.  Another guy we were teaching has been coming to church too and is preparing for baptism as well.  

Random funny moment but we were walking one day and I saw this little boy sitting on top a rock hill and he was just taking little handfuls of rocks and throwing them.  Exactly the same as Oliver was doing last year when we were taking family pictures.  Thought that was pretty cool.

Thanks for the Ensign, I'm loving it!  I've read a few talks, they are so powerful!  Elder Vinson spoke in the priesthood session I think.  That is the same guy that we meet all the time.  He's come to speak to us several times.  He's a powerful speaker.  

Well, that's about it for this week.  I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving.   Have a great week, I love you all.

Love,

Elder Clark 

Nov 18 2013

Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hope it’s a great day for everybody. Can't believe it’s that time already! This week was crazy so I'll just jump right into it.

So it was transfers on Wednesday. They took place in a place I that I didn't know how to get to so it was an adventure just to get to the chapel for the transfers. We all gather at a stake center, meet our new companions then disperse back to our new areas. So I met my new companion and the members of my new district. Both the missionaries that stayed from last transfer are very young. My companion is still in training and the other just finished training. So they don't know their way around town or anything and didn't know how to get back to our areas. So I was now with my new district and none of us knew how to get back. I asked some people got up some courage and took off. We got back alright which was a miracle but fun. We have a great bunch of guys. I am the oldest on mission, 3 months longer than the next oldest so we are a very young apartment. We will all be together for Thanksgiving and Christmas so that's pretty cool. We will all do the Christmas stories together so I'm pretty excited.

My new companion is from Logan. He is a big time water polo player. Then we have an Elder from Provo. He is a world record holding rock climber, actually a canyoneerer, I don't know the difference. He shorter than me, I was really surprised. Then we have his companion from Uganda. Then little old me haha. Not much special about me. (We disagree!)

Oh yeah, so my area not quite as large as my last area but still pretty large. We have a university in our area (KAAF) and a Liberian Refugee camp so it’s pretty diverse. The area is called Buduburam.

Oda was a great place to serve. I had some friends there who made me food before I left which was sweet. They are great people.

I hope you all had fantastic weeks. I saw a picture from the Hansen’s with a snowman. Guess you guys are getting some snow now! Crazy it still feels like July over here.

Elder Clark

Oh yeah, I forgot about one of the highlights of my new area! Running water! I love showering!! The best part is that all the water comes from a big black water tank out back. Black and Africa means hot so... I get warm showers in the evening before I go to bed! What luck! We are so blessed in the US. So blessed, remember your blessings this week for Thanksgiving! Something I started is writing down a blessing everyday just like we used to and put them in the basket. It's pretty great how much we have been given.

(Our dear friend Cory Hofman, took a package to Ghana last week for Tim.  In it was a bout 1 1/2 dozen hommade cookies so...)

Haha funny story. We the Hofman's at Stake Conference yesterday. I had no idea he would be there. I was ushering and a taxi drove up and there they were. Bro and Sis Hofman, the kids and 2 friends they brought to church. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been sharing them with the district too don’t worry haha.

I love you All, have a fantastic week!

Hey Everyone,

I hope all is well. Last week was busy and this week is going to be super busy too. Hannah I don't know how you knew but I am being transferred from my wonderful home of Oda to a new place. It's called Buduburum in the Kasoa Zone. I'll be relatively close to where the Hofmans are, I think.  I've been called to be the district leader there so that will be a little busy. I'll be doing the second half of a missionaries training as well. I'm really excited though. I've been saying goodbye to old friends and members here since yesterday. I found out yesterday morning before church so I was able to announce it in church. Lots of people have invited us over to come and eat food with them.  We're going to be busy the next 2 days with me packing and visiting people and then Wednesday we get to get up early to go to Accra again for transfers.  I'm just excited to be going to a place with running water!!

Anyway back to the report. I've got a lot for this week. Sunday we had a missionary Sunday, meaning that we did everything.  Another elder and I spoke in sacrament meeting, and then the branch president translated everything. I spoke about how members can be missionaries. I thought it went really well. I think we all can do better at being missionaries.  It was a really good meeting. The members are really starting to get involved in the missionary work.

We had our 2 regular investigators come to church again.  We felt prompted to visit one of them Friday evening even though we had plans to see other people. We stopped by and found him drunk. It was pretty hard to see but we had a great lesson and then he came to church and we did the same lesson again because last time he was intoxicated. He bored his testimony to us that even though he’s addicted and he knows it will be really hard he is going to do everything he can to stop drinking because he knows that the messages we are sharing with him bring true and everlasting happiness. It's so true; this gospel really is the only source of everlasting joy and happiness. What a great guy. The other guy heard that the branch is going to have a temple trip soon and he really wants to go. He knew that he has to be baptized first so he's ready to be baptized at the next service. They are 2 really great guys.  It's hard to leave them but all that matters is that they truly have embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Speaking of the temple, OH MY GOSH!! I love the temple so much. What a great experience. It was so incredible to be able to visit the house of the Lord again. It reminded me a lot of when I went through the temple for the first time in Logan with Mom, Dad, and Matthew. Man, the temple was so cool. I love the temple. I was so overcome with gratitude in the temple.  I started getting emotional seeing how incredibly blessed we are in America. I had some really sweet experiences there this week.  It truly is the closest place to heaven on earth.  I am so grateful that we have been sealed together as a family for time and eternity. Ya done good Mom and Dad.

Before the temple we had some cooking lessons. I was really excited. We learned an easy way to make tortillas and Bisquick mix for pancakes and other things. We also learned how to make fried rice. I don't cook much but I plan to cook more with my new companion.

 
Hmm, what else? We came across a really cute bunch of puppies with week. We're giving piano lessons to the branch president which is cool. Umm, that’s pretty much it. Lots of exciting work going on here.  I love Oda!  It’s a fantastic place.  I can't wait for you all to see it someday!!

Love,

Elder Clark

PS: Dad, the well is super nice.  It's probably a good 35-40 feet deep. Yep we just have a bucket on the end of some rope that we heave up. I think the idea of a well in the crawl space is great but I'm pretty sure the water table here is a lot higher than in Idaho. Yep, they're dug by hand too. They just lower a guy down in there.

PPS: An Elder from Idaho was telling me how his Dad is a crop duster. He told me he'll give me flying lessons when I get back so that I can get my pilot’s license!! He also builds his own planes so..... (A long time dream of Tim’s)

November 4, 2013

Well Hi there...

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats!  I hope you have an absolutely fantastic day!

October sure went by fast. Seems like every day goes by a little faster than the day before. This week will go by fast also. Wednesday we are going to Accra for a Temple trip. I'm so EXCITED!!  I haven't been to the temple in such a long time.  I love the temple.  It really is God's house on earth.  I remember when the Bishop (Bishop Firmage?) challenged us to double our temple attendance.  I bet that we all can double it again, and then double it again.  It's definitely worth it.  I remember at college I went Tuesday and Thursday in the mornings.  I promise the blessings come.

We had some pretty cool experiences.  In Ghana there are villages and towns. Those villages and towns all have a chief, like a king. The chief owns all of the land and people have to come to him to buy land or do anything.  So we were in one village waiting for a member.  While we were waiting I decided to go out and do some contacting, I hate standing around.  So we were contacting a little bit and one man called us over. Told us his name was Nana and he wanted to join the church.  Nana means chief. The chief then invited us to the palace that night.  We went and it turns out he is a less active member who wants to come back to church.  He’s a super nice guy. Coolest thing is that in his palace he actually has a throne.  SO COOL.  It's not made out of gold or anything but it’s a throne.  

Our dear brother E. gave me a heart attack yesterday. We called him in the morning before church to remind him and he said that he was already at HIS church.  I was SO bummed. We got to church though and there he was, waiting for us. I guess he got to church around 7AM and waited for us.  I made sure he knew we started at 11 and he said "I know but its Sunday, where else should I go?" To quote Mr. Gural, "What a guy!"  I guess on the phone he was referring to the LDS church as 'his' church.  I love him.

Other excitement for the week was the pig. We have a Fijian missionary in our district. We decided to buy and pig and cook it island style. It was a lot of work. We bought the pig Saturday morning, live. Had to build the fire and then kill the pig, it was a lot of work but worth it though. They cook the pig by building a big fire over a pit and throwing rocks in the fire to get them super hot. When the fire wood all burns up the hot rocks are left. We put the pig on the rocks and covered it in palm leaves and let it cook for 2 hours. Man in was so good. So good! So far I've butchered a chicken and a pig and eaten dog.

Hope all is going well for everyone. Have a great week!

Love,  

Elder Clark

Oct 28, 2013

Well another week has come and gone in the wonderful land of Oda. Life is good.  I just got this week’s weather forecast from Hannah, looks like we're looking and mid 80's this week. Not too bad!

First highlight from this week was the package that Hannah sent me, on May 2.  I was very happy to have some peanut butter and coffee mate.  Sweet package, thanks a ton, I love getting mail!

Another great moment was when we went back to see the Queen Mother Honorable Betty.  She was busy and couldn't see us but she gave us a parting gift of juice boxes and bars of soap.  The soap is pretty nice; it’s a good brand for washing clothes.  It was pretty fun.  Another man gave us a giant bag of oranges.  I had to take my scriptures out of my bag to fit all the oranges in there. I ended up just putting my scriptures on my belt.  Looked pretty goofy contacting people that way but I figure I'm white and already look ridiculous so no fear haha.  I got some pictures of me with the scriptures on the belt; I'll try to send them sometime.

We also had a great contact with a drunk man. He passed by us and we greeted him.  I ask him how he was and he said "I'm very, very, very, very fine."  So we got had a conversation with him for a while.  We gave him our number so maybe sometime he'll get curious and give us a call.

I attended my first Ghanaian funeral this week. To my knowledge, that is the first funeral I've been to, or at least remember.  An older man in the congregation died. Everything was in Twi so I didn't understand what was happening but it was cool. There was a little meeting where some members spoke and them we took the casket to the cemetery, right next to the chapel and buried him. The graves are shallow cement holes that are cemented over. We were there and then 3 other funerals came with their trumpets, drums, and loud speakers. Then the next Sunday they always have the Thanksgiving service.  Again, no idea what happened but we had about 40 people in investigators class. They basically just did a Q and A session that was mostly about the Book of Mormon.  It was really,  really cool to see members who attended just stand up and then bare their simple yet powerful testimonies of the Book of Mormon.

The best part of this week was a new man we contacted.  I was prompted to contact this man who turned out to be a pastor of another church but then through that the Spirit got us in the right place at the right time to meet another man. We contacted him and he invited us to his house. We came (he's the guy who gave us a ton of oranges) and just introduced ourselves and the church. He promised he would come on Sunday.   We got to church 30 or 40 minutes early and he was there, he'd been there for more than an hour.  I made sure he knew that it started at 11 which he did but he said he was new so he figured he should be early.  He loved the service and after we taught him with a member in which he told us about a dream he had.  He had a dream where one man kept coming and pushing him over (He's going through some rough stuff in his life) and then 2 other guys came and stopped him. They helped him get back up. The next day he met us. He said he knows that we are those 2 men and that he is prepared to join the church and ask what he has to do in order to become a member. Super sweet experience!  I loved it!  It’s things like that that gives you the motivation to keep getting back up and pushing on everyday no matter how tired you are.

One thing I would share this week though is about recognizing the spirit in our lives.  Preach My Gospel dedicates a whole chapter to.  It was something I really tried to focus on this week. One thing I found that helps is take some time to write down your spiritual experiences.  As you do that I promise you will begin to see all the little ways the Spirit influences you in your life and you will recognize those promptings more and have the strength to follow them more.

Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Elder Clark

PS: Another thing I've learned is that smiling changes lives.  Just smile, it makes all the difference. :D

Oct 21, 2013

Welp, there goes another week! It’s crazy how you can just put your head down to the work and then its Sunday again.  Crazy how time goes by so fast! Well, we had another exciting week in Ghana.

Best contact of the week was an old woman. She was stilling there pounding palm nuts (they use a mortar and pistol to pound these nuts to get the oil from them) we walked up and started talking to her. She is 80 years old and told us she wasn't interested in the church because she's "waiting for God to take her." Yikes, waiting for God to take you?  

Another interesting memory, a few weeks ago we had our primary program. It was very sweet. My favorite part was when one boy gave his little talk  and ended it with "Long live the church, Long live Primary!" while shouting into a microphone.  It was great.

This week we were teaching a great guy. The missionaries were teaching him before we came so we just continued. He knows the church is true and read the Book of Mormon and everything. He's even introducing us to his friends to teach them. The only problem is he won't come to church. I don't know why. Anyway we were teaching him this week and I've been having some allergies, I wish I brought some medicine for that, I found some this week. I took 2 in the morning and I guess I had a little reaction or something because when we were teaching him I started rocking back and forth and my eyes were dilated and I couldn't read my scriptures and I couldn't really see. My eyes started drooping and my companion said I really started slurring my words and everything. He said he thought I was having a stroke. Weirdest feeling ever!  I just start praying to let it stop because I do most of the talking in our companionship and just like that, instantly it went away.  I was so grateful.

And that's about it for this week.  I love you all.

Have a fantastic week!

Love,
Elder Clark

Hello everyone,                                                                                            Oct 14, 2013

How was your week? We had another fun week in Ghana.

We had some great lessons this week.  We met a new person and started teaching him. He doesn't speak English but he can understand it for the most part and I don't speak Twi and I really can't understand it for the most part so it was a fun lesson. We were laughing a lot and had a good time so he asked us to come back. We went back Saturday night and as soon as we sat down I noticed a lot of wine and saw a Word of Wisdom problem and the first thing he did was walk over to a bottle and bring it to me and ask me if it was ok to drink wine. We said no and he had a little bit of a hard time with that but he accepted the no alcohol thing and promise to come to church. Sunday he actually did come too, I was really surprised but it turned out so GOOD. He has a lot of friends who a members and he loved the church.  In Investigators class he was asking questions and making comments left and right.  He loved the church and after church he told me that he was going to keep coming back every week.  Sweet!

Another boy came to church yesterday too. We started teaching him and his 2 friends a few weeks ago but pretty much stopped teaching, yesterday he showed up at church.  He said the other 2 sent him to take pictures of the church and bring it back to show them before they would come. He wanted to leave when one of the members walked up to him and is one of his teachers at school. He took him and made sure he was understood everything and introducing him to the deacons and teachers.  

Those were pretty much the high lights of my week. We found a 2 less actives just through our finding this week which was really cool. One of them is an old man who stopped coming to church 6 or 7 years ago because his family doesn't really like the church.  I guess we just have to find a way to get him back to church.  He said he was going to at one point but he never got around to it.

I experienced the "rain wall" this week. Twice actually. It was nuts. So basically the rain wall is like a wall, of rain.  You can literally hear it coming.  We were walking on a path doing some contacting and I heard it coming.  It sounds like a big wind storm but there was only a light breeze.  I turned around and it was just a wall of gray.  I moved really fast just as it started pouring buckets or rain on us. We ran under the roof of the closest house to wait it out. The second one was yesterday. It was even worse. It moved a lot slower so I got to watch it moved across the yard of a house we were at. The far side it was raining super hard but we were still in the sunlight.  It was nuts!
That's about it for us this week.  I hope you all have a great week!

Love,        

Elder Clark

Hello everyone,                                                                                   Oct. 7, 2013

This week was fantastic in Ghana. We were really blessed as far as the teaching goes. We had some really good lessons this week and were really able to help some people progress. First off though, this week we had some major highlights.  First, I found strawberry jam and peanut butter. It’s the same stuff that Mom always gets from Winco, I'm super excited to try some. Second is last night I took the time to boil some water to add it to the water for my bucket shower. BEST THING EVER. That was the first time I've had a hot shower since I came here and it was fantastic.  I could keep on going on about how amazing it was but I'll stop at that.

We taught some really great lessons this week. One was to a woman that we had been teaching for a while and she wouldn't accept some of what we were teaching her so we had kind of stopped seeing her. We were standing on the road thinking of what to do because an appointment just fell through and she walked up and asked if we could come to teach her again. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she was really interested in the Spirit world and that missionary work goes on there. We read some parts from the Bible (1 Peter) and she loved it. She said she was going to go and ask her pastor about it to see what he had to say. I told her that he might not agree with what we taught her but she said that because she saw it in the bible she knew it was true.   It could be the turning poin. We have our fingers crossed. We taught another guy the same thing and he really liked it too. People in Ghana really like the Plan of Salvation.  Maybe that's just the world.

Oh yeah, we had the best rejection so far yesterday. I've had some pretty good one but yesterday was the one I've been waiting for for the longest time.  We went to meet a man at his house. We contacted him and then he saw us on the street and he asked us to come yesterday. So we went to the house and knocked but nobody answered. So I called the man and heard his phone ringing inside the house.  I figured he probably just left his phone at home and then I heard him answer. Then he explained that he was sorry but he left to go to a funeral.  I heard him talking on the phone and through window.   After I hung up I went to the window and told him to have a great day.

This week I read the Living Christ, I would invite everyone to read that again this week. It is amazing.  I love it!  I also read the chapter from Jesus the Christ about the atonement.  It’s amazing how much Christ went through for all of us. The Atonement is something I really want to learn more about and be able to apply more in my life but I know with all my heart the Jesus Christ IS the son of God. He suffered and died for my sins and the sins of every single person that has ever lived. He is our Savior and Redeemer, our older brother and the perfect example for all of us.

Have a T-rrific day!

Love,

Elder Clark

Wow, October already??

Well, I think we are on top of the world this week. We had a really fun week. When President Hill came into our mission he started having each branch/ward have an Open House in their building. We finally had ours this week on Saturday. We were also able to go the Kade Branch's on Wednesday last week too. They were a ton of fun.  President Hill and the AP's always go to all the open houses and 4 of us from Oda went to Kade and 4 from Asamankese went there too and the office elders so we had a LOT of missionaries there.  The main idea was to have the members stand at different stations in the church and explain things and then just have groups of people rotate around the building.  While the members were inside all the missionaries were outside contacting people and inviting them to the open house and then actually walking them to the building. The mission has an 18 seat van that we were using to transport people. I was in the car with the office elder.  We would just drive up to a group of people that the missionaries were trying to get to come and I would slide open the door jump out and then every person I shook hands with I would just take them into the van with me.  You get 18 plus missionaries doing contacting in one small area and it goes like fire!  Everyone we talked to said they loved the Church so it was good.  We had more than 150 people go through the church in about 2 hours.  It’s a ton because the branch there only has about 40 people.

That was pretty much the highlight of the week. We spent a lot of time preparing for the Open Houses and we weren't able to do a lot of teaching but it was worth it. Maybe you guys could do an open house every once in a while?  It's great to help people with their curiosity. There are a lot of rumors about the Church over here like we have a pool (baptismal font), or we have a secret room that we cut up dead people or we drink blood or... There are a lot of misconceptions so the Open House helped to fix that.

Oh another adventure was we were in a car waiting for it to fill to go to a village called Essam and I was signing to my companion, he taught me the ASL alphabet and I like to practice.  I also had a member teach me the Twi alphabet and I got my hands on a Twi Book of Mormon so I'm trying to learn how to read it so maybe I can speak Twi a little bit better.  My inspiration was from the movie, The Other Side of Heaven.  It's a lot harder than I thought it would be.

That's about it from my end of the world.  Just to let you know that I really do know that this Church is true and everything we stand for is truly from God.  I love this gospel and everything it teaches us.  I Love seeing the difference it makes in people lives as we teach it to them and as they accept it and live the principles of the gospel. True happiness can only be found though the Church and everlasting happiness can only be found in following and abiding by its teachings. I love the Book of Mormon and things it teaches us. I love being a missionary.

Love,

Elder Clark

Hello,                                                                                    Sept. 23, 2013 (Mom forgot to post last week)

Well another week has come and gone.   

Probably the most exciting thing that happened this week was yesterday. We went out proselyting and got caught out in a rain storm. We just left the house of somebody we contacted and it started raining like crazy. One thing about the rain in Ghana is that it is like a sprinter. It doesn't wind up, starting as a drizzle then getting harder. It goes straight to 100% instantly. So we ran with our bikes to a little shelter. Basically it was 4 wooden polls with a tin roof on them. It was an adventure.  After a few minutes we were standing in a small river that covered our shoes. We were right next to a soccer field and as soon as it started raining a bunch of little kids came running out to play soccer in the rain. They were splashing and sliding all over the place and ended up pretty playing in the water and mud.  I was super jealous but I was in my church clothes so joining them wasn't really an option.  I really wanted to though. I took lots of pictures; hopefully I'll be able to send some home sometime.

We contacted some really cool guys this week that hopefully we can start teaching. One contact was really funny. We knocked on the door to a house and a guy came out and we were talking to him and we invited him to church and he told us he was blind and couldn't make it. Then we gave him a Restoration pamphlet for his family and he read the title.... that was pretty interesting.  We've been really trying to go back and see people that we have already contacted in the past which is good. We had a pretty good week.

We contacted one husband and wife. Great people!  They had this really cool quote on their wall. That says "God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I loved it, adds a lot of perspective to life.

Other events in my life, I'm learning sign language from m companion. I've got the alphabet down and during church we'll sign to each other because we can't understand the Twi. He is also teaching me a little bit about how to draw. I finally found a way to get the Book of Mormon in Twi so I've having one brought to me by the Office Elders.  I'm pretty excited about that.  Maybe I'll have an Other Side of Heaven moment and read it all night then be able to speak Twi.  

Anyway, things are going well and we are working hard.

Love,
Elder Clark

Hola ,

What's up?  All is well on the home front. They finally hooked us up to the water so we could have running water. Still don't have any though.  I'm not sure what the problem is this time but not a big deal.

This week was our mission tour. We went to Asamankese(about an hour drive from Oda) to go and hear one of the area authorities in Accra and his wife. They are both from Australia which I didn't know until they started talking,  I love the accents. They taught us some really good stuff about teaching and they really stressed obedience.  It was a great talk, I really learned a lot.

We also had zone training again on Tuesday so this week we had to travel a lot. We have 2 new zone leaders and they are great guys. I enjoyed the zone training and it was my companion’s first one so that was fun. It was weird running into all the missionaries in the zone and having them all go "you're training?" Yep, I get that a lot.

Elder R. is great. I love him to death.  We make sure we have a lot of fun. He's a pretty quiet guy but he's great. 

This week Sister Hill gave us a bunch of recipes for our microwaves. She gave us ones for Brownies and Banana Bread. I'm going to try the banana bread this week for my bump day (Sunday) I hope it works out because I'm pretty excited for it. I can't believe it's already been 6 months! It goes by too fast... I guess that's probably one of the most used phrases by missionaries.

That's pretty much all I have for you guys this week. Not a whole lot happening right now. I'll have to make next week more exciting. It's been a little slow for us.

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark