Editor's note: Elder Clark's new responsibilities prevent him from having much e-mail time so we Loved getting to talk to him on Christmas and were thrilled to receive an e-mail this week.

Happy New Year!

Hope Christmas was very merry.  I still can't get over how cool it was for those guys to get their packages on Christmas EVE!  Mom, you have the best timing.  I was really hoping that they would get here, I was checking the mail everyday but they didn't come.  I didn't even get to see them because the office elders picked them from the post office on the 24th and delivered them the same day. They had just gotten there because they picked up the mail on the day before too.  It truly was a Christmas miracle.  I wish you guys could have here how President and the office elders describe their reactions.  We were eating dinner and telling about our favorite Christmases and I had already gone when they told us about the packages;  if I could go back I would definitely say that this was my favorite Christmas.  It was fantastic.  It was a pretty good day.  That was really the highlight of the week.  Actually Monday was when we went up to the waterfall in Abomosu.  That was sweet.  There wasn't a waterfall but it was really pretty and we had a nice hike through the jungle with a fun group of guys.  It was a ton of fun.  We heard that there is some rope bridge course up there somewhere.  I'm picturing it something like Costa Rica.  We are making plans to make another trip up there next transfer.  Fun in the office. We have to have some fun sometimes.  

Anyway, I love you all, thanks for talking on Christmas.  It was pretty fun.

Love you all!

Elder Clark

Welp, that was one winner of a week!  Last week was pretty sweet.  R. was baptized like I said.  Yes, I did give him the last of my coins from Byron.  He loved it, he was sad to see me go but understood that we have pretty much finished our work and it is up to him to start walking on his own.  Tuesday L., the Chinese man that was baptised took us out to lunch at this great Chinese place in my old area.  They had such good sweet and sour chicken.  I'm going to go back sometime.

Wednesday was transfers and we had to take some missionaries to the airport after transfers.  I got to give some surprise instruction to the trainers and new missionaries.  After transfers President took us to a cultural event thing where a bunch of guys were doing a dance.  It was really like a circus and acrobatics.  They were blowing fire and juggling and standing on each others heads.  You can only imagine the things we were trying after that.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we proselyted all morning until 4 when we went to Presidents house.  They invited the whole area office over. SO GOOD!  I ate way to many pieces of pumpkin pie and I didn't even know I liked Pumpkin pie.  That was a great day.  Friday was office council and out first real chat with president.  We always talk of Fridays after office council about transfers and missionaries.  That was really good.  I really enjoyed the one on one time with President Hill.  That is what I am most excited for.  

One of the best things about the week was at transfers when Elder N. who replaced me back in Kasoa told me that me recent convert D. got the Melchezidek Priesthood last Sunday at Stake Conference!!!  I was so excited.  He is still preparing for to serve a mission.  That kid is solid!  Good good guy.  I love him.  

Dad, we have 3 stakes and 2 districts in my mission.  My mission is tiny!  But was have several Wards and they are really trying to focus on splitting the Wards and making the church more accessible.  Earlier this year the area presidency announced that they want to make it so every member is with in 30 minutes walk of a building where it used to be 45 minutes walk.  There are a lot of new buildings being rented and built now.  

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark    

I am heading, back to the office.  President called me on Saturday and shattered my plans for a nice long stay in Laterbiokorshie.  President asked me to be the new assistant in the mission.  I have really mixed feelings.  I'm pretty excited to go back to the office but I am nervous as ever.  I was shocked when he called me.  I never expected it.   I haven't slept much the last 2 nights.  I'm pretty excited though.  I'll be companions with my former companion Elder K. guess President split us up after 4 weeks for this reason.   We are both new but will be with the former AP for 3 weeks before he goes home and the other one goes tomorrow.  Good thing I got that international drivers license!  So I'll probably die  (aka Finish his mission) here.  That will actually be pretty convenient.  So I'll be driving again and have the AC too.  We're gonna have fun.  Especially because we have Christmas Conference in 3 weeks.  Awesome.  

Highlight of the week was the baptism yesterday.  It when really, really well.  We had a stake baptism that I organized.  The room was overflowing with people, we had special musical numbers and everything.  Very spiritual, very beautiful.  R. was baptized.  We saw him on Saturday and I was telling him that we were thinking that his neighbor, the guy that referred him to us, should baptize him but that he had the choice and he wanted to think about it.  Later he called be back and insisted that I baptize him.  So that was awesome although I left my clothes in the bathroom while I baptized him and somebody decided they needed the 25 cedis in my wallet more than me.   Not a big deal for me, I just feel bad for whoever it was.  I hope it was worth it.  It was a great baptism.  

The talk went really well on Saturday.  I spoke about a program we are trying to do in the mission of Christmas caroling.  I had 10 other missionaries come and we learned a simple Christmas song in Twi and sang that.  It was really, really cool.  They loved it.  Hopefully we can effectively use it in our proselyting.  Should be good.  

Stake conference was on Sunday.  It was an Africa wide broadcast that was recorded in SLC.  President Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar and Elder Gay (former Ghana Accra Mission President) spoke.  Each one had a slightly different topic but all of them very good.  I saw a bunch of my recent converts there too so that was awesome!  

Love you all!

Elder Clark

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sadly we did not get much of a letter from Elder Clark this week.  I guess they needed to deep clean their apartment and shop for their Thanksgiving which they will have on Sunday.

Funny I waited all day only to get a quick note.

Thanks for your support for Tim.

Hopefully I'll send some pictures home this week.  I haven't sent any for a while so I really need to.  Hopefully it works out, computers always have troubles here.  

This week was, well... not very eventful.  My companion was pretty sick all day on Wednesday so we didn't go out at all except for an hour when he forced himself even though I tried to stop him but after 30 minutes he looked like he was going to fall over so I forced him to go home.  He accepted pretty easily.  I love my companion so much.  So I spent the evening going through the 16 pages of our ward directory calling every number that was there.  I thought that it was useless but it was better than just sitting around.  It turned out being really, really good.  Through it we met one less active that referred us to his family and 2 friends that we are now teaching, he came to church on Sunday too and then another less active that hadn't been to the church and they came to church this week too.  He was really cool because on Sunday when I met him he we telling me that literally about an hour before I called he was just wondering why nobody from the church had called him or if anybody had noticed that he was gone.  What a literal answer to prayers!  There is almost no better feeling in the world than knowing that you were the answer to somebody's prayer!  He was like I had to force and push everything else aside so I could be at church!

R. wasn't able to make it to church so we went to visit him after church on Sunday.  We were just talking and just kind of playing it cool and being friends talking about other things then out of the blue he asked us if he was still going to be able to be baptized on the 23rd and what he needed to do to make sure that happened.  That was really good because it was showing his commitment as he brought it us and everything.  I pray so hard for that guy.  

Thursday was MLC.  I love MLC with all my heart.  I wish that you could all be a part of MLC sometimes because it is so fun.  Our mission is just so chill and MLC is so fun.  It is my favorite part of being a zone leader.  At MLC we mostly talked about the Book of Mormon and how we can use it more effectively in our mission.  

This morning we were at this shop that we are using to make zone shirts, which are looking sick!  Anyway, I got a call from President Hill.  Looks like I am speaking at Stake Conference next week.  Awesome.  I love getting up in crowds like that.  I'm pretty excited about it though.  Hopefully I can say something that will affect somebody.  

Love you all!

Elder Clark 

Too bad he split his pants having fun

Happy Halloween!                                                                                                                                                                         

This week was a great week actually.  A lot of things just seemed to go well.  Halloween was pretty awesome.  We carved some watermelons for our jack-o-lanterns.  Pretty creative and worked pretty well.  Really small though.  Then in the evening most of us dressed up and trick or treated in the apartment.  We are 8 in this apartment so we have enough.  There are 4 bedrooms so we each bought some candies and then went around to each room.  I was Darth Vader because we recently have been having a Star Wars phase.  Another guy was Obi Wan Kenobi, we had a wizard or 2 and a Ghanaian Mommy with her baby (the companion) tied to her back.   It was really fun.  When they came to my room I had a treat and a trick.  I sat in front of the door and had one of those elastic bands between my feet forming a sling shot and started shooting them with my candies.  What great fun.   We've got too many Americans together.

I thought that was the highlight to the week until Sunday came around and we finally had the rebroadcast of Conference.  This was the first time I really got to watch Conference on my mission, it was GREAT.  Plus we had R. came to Church and he ate it up!  We watched the Sunday morning then the Sat afternoon.  He loved the talks in the morning about the prophet.  We had a 10 minute break in between the 2 and I asked him how it was and he was super excited.  He said "Today I got to listen to the prophet speak."  Great guy.  Plus Conference was just awesome.  I loved it and learned so much.  Elder Holland's talk really really hit me hard.  There is so much more good I can do in the world.  I'm trying to give in all the ways I can now.  Missionaries are somewhat limited but I want to do more. 

The work is moving along pretty well all things considered.  A lot of the same old things so we are trying different approaches to be more effective.   MLC is this week so I am pretty excited for that.  We met the stake presidency last Tuesday.  That was really good.  We got some good advice from them.  They are returned missionaries so they know how it goes too.  

Love you all!

Elder Clark

Oct 27, 2014

Welp, I'm really ready for November.  October was great but November is going to be better.  It was a pretty awesome and stressful week.

So this week was a really spiritual week for me.    We had a great week and met a lot of new people and extended some sweet baptismal dates and taught some powerful lessons and still, nobody came to Church.  I have a love/hate relationship with Sundays.  They either rock or they stink.  Mostly they are good but every now and then you get a few bummers.  I'm pretty excited for next week though.  We have some great investigators lined up.  We have this one guy named R.  I think I talked about him last week.  We taught him with a member on Saturday and had such a powerful lesson.  Very spiritual other than T. Swift playing in the background.  Seriously it was a fantastic lesson.  He is super smart and has been literally searching for the truth and studying and visiting churches and he just can't find it.  Basically a modern day Joseph Smith.  He accepted to be baptized by saying he knows it time for him to make a decision and stay with it because he isn't going to live forever.  I'm so excited for him.  

We went on exchanges on Thursday.  I stayed in the area with an Elder from Nigeria.   We had a normal day full of failed appointments but had a sweet lesson with a recent convert.  She’s 18 and has some troubles because her mom doesn't like the Church and doesn't want her to go anymore.  I felt prompted to call her and see her because normally we wait for her to call us every Thursday when she is free in the evening.  So I called and  we went over, she just opened up.  So we talked and she said she doesn't know if the Church is true so we basically told her how to know and everything, resolving the concerns, it was pretty spiritual.  Sunday we went back because she didn't come to Church and we sat down and she was quiet and stuff and then told us after Thursday night she sat and seriously thought and prayed about the Church and knows it is completely and 100% true.  Very cool.  Nice work Moroni, gets them every time!

We had a pretty awesome Primary Program on Sunday.  I LOVE primary programs.  Definitely different than back home but just as cool and just as spiritual.  Great hymns, a few that I hadn't heard before that I liked.  I realized just how important Primary is.  How from childhood it is teaching us basic doctrines that are so so critical.  Things like baptism, the Godhead, having modern prophets and so many other things.  Primary is so important.  

Love you all!

Elder Clark  

And October is basically over too.  Everyone goes by faster.                               Oct 20, 2014

Hope everyone is doing well this week!  This week was full of surprises for us.  We have a great Mom and son we are teaching.  They are pretty sweet.  The mom came to Church on her own the other day and then her son came last week.  He is really enthusiastic about the Gospel.  He wants to learn all this stuff about Christ and his life and everything.  He hasn't been baptized before and at first when we invited them he wasn't super excited but now he loves the idea. 

 On Sunday we got a sweet referral from a member, our assistant ward mission leader, Bro A.  The guy is cool.  He met the missionaries 7 years ago and lost contact with them but has been reading from our Old Testament study manual and had a bunch of questions for us.  Not the best place to start for a beginner but we had a nice conversation about Jesus Christ being Jehovah.  That is actually a big concern people have in Ghana.    He's a cool guy.  He actually doesn't go to church anymore because he doesn't believe in any of them but when we met him he basically said "You are the only one that I have met twice so that has to be something different about you guys."  Yep, How about the restored gospel.  I love the gospel.  It's life changing.

That brings me to this sweet guy I met in another area on an exchange this week.  He is 14 years old and is a recent convert.  I have no idea how he joined the Church because his parents hate the Church.  The kid is a stud though and comes to Church every week and passes the sacrament and reads from the Book of Mormon and is awesome.  The faith of some of the Saints here is so touching.  

Sunday I got a visit from some of my friends in the Kaneshie Ward! There is one old couple I was great friends with.  Right when I left they got called to be PEF missionaries.  So I was sitting in sacrament with some members and the meeting ended and I stand up and hear an Unforgettable "Elder Clark."  I turned around and was so surprised to see them sitting there with tags and all.  I tried to get a picture but it didn't work out but they are coming back in a few weeks so we will get one then.  It was super cool to see them again.  I still love Kaneshie with all my heart.

Anyway, love you all!

Elder Clark

Oct 13, 2014

This week was awesome!  I've got another novel coming so get some popcorn.

It all started with our Zone Training Meeting on Tuesday which was awesome.  The whole tine we were broken into groups until the very end and we discussed different topics like what to do when it rains, weekly planning, and singing to investigators and getting investigators to bare their testimony.  Went super well.  Then I talked for a few minutes about using the Book of Mormon in proselyting.  Awesome stuff.  Really hope it worked for them because it did for me. 

We have this one woman we contacted my first day in the area.  She owns a shop across from the house and is super nice and loves the missionaries.  We contacted her because nobody else had for some reason.  This week we taught her the Restoration and invited her to be baptized which she accepted then I felt the distinct prompting to sing to her Come Follow Me.  After to trying to avoid that one I succumbed to the spirit and we sang the hymn for her.  Right there in her shop on the roadside.  Guess what?  We sounded terrible hahaha.  It was still very spiritual and she came to Church yesterday which was also a miracle because anybody else who heard me sing probably will never come.  We had several promising people promise to come to Church and nobody came and after the sacrament I bowed my head and just started praying for somebody to come to Church and be serious.  I said amen and when I lifted but my head I saw her, her name is M, she’s in her 40's, walking up.  Heavenly Father has THE best timing.  Sometimes I feel like life is a movie where you see the hero in the mist of overwhelming odds and then the Riders of Rohan appear on the crest of the hill.  How can they not believe?

We had another answer to our prayers this week too.  We have really been praying for one person that will progress and we can begin teaching and she came to us this week.  Actually she went to Church last week and was referred to us.  Man, she is cool.  We taught her on Wednesday for the first time then on Thursday when we invited her to be baptized and she resolutely said "yes I will."  She said that more seriously than most other people I know that have been baptized.  

Met one member who came to visit.  He is from Ghana was baptized in Germany, was bishop in Ghana and now lives in Texas for the last 11 years.  I asked him how he saw Texas and he said "Texas is big.  Everything there is big.  Big cars, Big food, Big people."  Funny guy.  

Saturday night I found a great use for my laser pointer.  We had some great fun playing the limbo with it.  It was light off so it was pretty dark and you can already see the line from that laser and its super dusty which just made it better.  Had some fun with the apartment doing that.  I cut up my toe pretty good but I still won :D  

I also had an awesome experience seeing a bunch of my old friends from Kaneshie ward.  Since they worship at the stake center I got to go there to meet the stake president on Tuesday and saw a bunch of them at institute and they were like "Elder Clark!  We heard you were back, is it really true?"  I love Kaneshie ward with all my heart.  It's nice to be loved sometimes too.    

That's all for this week.  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark

Heya everyone.                                                                                                                                   

Had a crazy this week.  My heart soared when I heard that Utah State beat the school from down south!!!!  What up!

Anyway, shout out to Nicholas and Sally.  I hope you guys have absolutely amazing birthdays this week!!  I wish you a very happy birthday from Ghana and remember that next year I'll have to pour water on you as per the Ghana tradition.  Any cool birthday traditions in China?

Saw the pictures of Tony and Oli.  I don't know who the second could be because the Tony I know is a baby and is a whole lot smaller.  Great job Matthew and Sandee.  You guys have a great family.  

Life goes on in Lartebiokorshie.  The zone is pretty cool.  I like the missionaries in it and it will be the first time on my mission that I interact with sister missionaries other than the office which doesn't really count.  I'm excited.  We had a sweet MLC on Thursday kind of focusing on the Book of Mormon.  It’s amazing how we can take that book for granted so easily.  It's hard when a lot of people don't like reading.  Not that they can't, just they have been told everything their whole life and are content with just taking what is said.  We're gonna talk about it at Zone Training tomorrow.  

My new companion is awesome!  I was a little worried I have to admit but the way I see it now is either we are going to become best friends or just not click at all and it's looking like the best friends right now.  He is a great guy.  All about the work.  It's good.  I like his fire and zeal. 

The area is cool, we don't currently have any progressing investigators but we have a lot of investigators.  This area has a TON of people.  There are people everywhere.  It's definitely the city, hard core city.  Probably child’s play for Nicholas but yeah know, its Ghana.  The Promised Land : )  We're gonna do some sweet movie nights in the market and get loads of people to teach.  Gonna be sweet!

The apartment is big and nice.  I have a great view of the sunrise right from my bed every morning.  The only problem is that the sun rises at 6 and I get up at 6:30 and we have no curtains so sleeping stops by 6.  And we get light rather frequently and literally the house behind us is visible from my window is on both sides and never has light out. 

Mom, I got your letter this week, and 3 from Granny Grace.  I love getting paper mail.  It's the best.  To answer your question on what normal life is like in Ghana we can take a nice dive into some social trends and some economical and physical factors all of which affect the general population’s home life.  Let's go.

For the younger age groups most are in school.  Ghana has free education until 5th grade after that the ages are mixed.  You'll meet 23 year olds in high school called SHS.  School generally starts early in the morning sometimes as early as 6am.  Closed around 4 or 5 and almost every school requires "extra class" which are an additional charge which are every day for an hour or 2 and a few hours on Saturday as well. 

For the adults most are up and moving about with the sun which rises consistently at about 6:13am everyday depending on cloud coverage.  Most go to bed when it gets dark around 8:02pm.  That excludes the rising generation of young single adults who like to stay up late and get into some shenanigans.

A lot of people are seeking for employment.  A lot of people work in small provision shops selling this and that, things to get by.  What else?  The main form of cooking is on charcoal.  It seems like in families the men go to work all day then come home eat, sleep and do the same the next day.  The women have to do way more than is their share.  They cook everything; they wash all the clothes and do everything for the kids.  That is the life mostly.  Man you guys got a novel today!  I'll continue the saga next week. 

Love you all!  

Elder Clark

PS:  I tried sending a picture to everyone in this email.  Hope it works out.  It's my bed in the morning.  At 6am. :P

                                    Transfers

Yep, as per usual I have been in this area for 2 transfers now so I am being transferred just like every other area I have been in.  I can't even spell the name of the place I am going but it is something like Laterbiakoshie.  Kind of bummed but I am going back to Kaneshie Zone!!!  That was pretty exciting news to my ears but I really love Kasoa and Iron City.  Elder K. is now my shortest companion at 4 weeks.  Previously it was Elder L. at 5 weeks.  Guess he had to beat that one.  I love Elder K.  I am going to another Ugandan Elder K.(a different missionary) who was in my district back when I was in Buduburam.  Good guy too.  I'm sad to leave this area though.  I really like it here, we met some really cool people and made some great friends.  

D. is one on my favorites.  He is SO cool.  This week we saw him and he was telling us how he and one of his friends, who is also a member, are going to start preparing to serve missions and how he can do that.  I got him a triple Combination and Preach My Gospel for him to start studying.  He was confirmed and ordained a priest on Sunday too.  He was on fire in Gospel Principles class answering questions left and right and making contributions like crazy!  I am going to miss that guy and am going to have to work hard to start in touch.   

So this week was pretty crazy.  I went on exchanges on Thursday to a place called Ashtown, reminds me of Pokemon, with an Elder from Logan, UT.  He's super chill. 

Lights off is still rampant.  My new apartment has a TON of windows though.

Friday night it rained super hard while we were in a lesson and we were stuck and had a lake to cross.  I was perfectly okay with walking across it until I learned about these things called hook worms and I didn't want some of those so I bought some cheap slippers, what we call flip flops.  So we threw on those and rolled up our pants and started walking back to the apartment.  That was pretty exciting.

Another night Elder D. and I were having some shenanigans.  It all started when I was laying down trying to sleep with a killer headache and he had to come and undo my mosquito net.  Then it just went downhill from there.  He took my fan so I just went and got in his bed then that didn't work so I had to go and get me fan and it was just a fun night.  I'm gonna miss that guy.  

Well, I spent too much time pondering about life and now I am out of time.  Hope everything is going really well back home.  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark

Hey y'all!                                                                                                 

So H. gave me a really heart attack this week.  We met him Saturday night but couldn't teach him because we were late and we had to go back and do our weekly planning but he promised us he was going to come to Church for sure and asked us to call him in the morning.  So we did and arranged for a member to go and check on him and bring him with him.  For some reason he wasn't there.  We haven't been able to figure it out yet because we weren't able to teach him yesterday.  When we went to his home he was on a walk with him wife (that's a strange thing in Ghana) and we couldn't come back later because we had to go and do numbers.  We'll meet him tonight though.

Big news in Ghana though, something happened with Nigeria and now Nigeria stopped selling gas to Ghana and now Ghana doesn't have any gas to power their power plants so now we spend just about as much time in the darkness as we do in the light.  It was out all day and night yesterday and usually goes out 3 to 5 times during the day for varying amounts of time.  Good thing I love camping!    

We had a baptism this week with several mistakes.  But we fixed it and got it all taken care of.  

We had a lot of rain this week.  

Guess I'm out of time.  Love you all, hope it’s a fantastic week

Love,
Elder Clark  

PS

I am doing Cross Fit with one of my apartment mates and have made our own “gym”  It is lots of fun!

                                            Elder Clark is in his favorite orange shirt

Beach Activity

This week was pretty fantastic.  Full of lots of failed appointments and baptismal interviews and our zone conference.  I really enjoyed the zone conference.  I love getting together with other missionaries and hanging out for a little while. President Hill is probably, no, he is the smartest man I know.  I love him.  We were talking about the difference between character and personality and what we want and what it takes to be a good person.  Really interesting.

We went to Buduburam on Thursday and Friday for interviews and got to see some of my recent converts again. We saw E, the walking man, and all he was talking about is how he is planning to go on a mission when he finishes school in a year or 2. That is awesome!  I can't wait for him to go.  Also got to see B. and his wife that got baptized as well. They are still doing really well and were happy to see me.  Makes me feel good when people remember me like that, not that I need to be remembered but
just to see how they have been truly blessed by the gospel. That's where the real joy comes from.

So we taught H. again on Sunday. I  love that man so much. We followed up on his commitment to pray and find out if what we are teaching is true and this is pretty much how it went:

"So did you pray?" -me
"Well, I prayed, but not about the church," –H.
"Oh man, what did you pray for?" -me
"The same thing I have been praying for the last 10 years, 5 billion dollars." –H.
-muffled laugher-
"Well, did you get it?" -me

H. is a pretty funny guy.  I love H.  Shortly after he told us that he did know that what we are teaching is true and that he thinks he is ready to be baptized.  We set a date for the 25 of October because we have only taught him through lesson one and still have a ways to go.  The gospel is really going to bless his life.  I invited him to the Church and WHO sponsored a "Kick out Polio" thing this Saturday.  Hopefully he comes because he can really use it.

Our man D. is ready to go and is going to be baptized on Saturday.  I'm pretty excited for him to be baptized.  He has really been preparing himself for it and he really studies and wants to learn.  He's really cool and will be a great missionary in the future.

I hope everyone is doing fine back home.  School and work and all is good. That’s about all for this week.  Love you all!

Love,
Elder Clark

Welp, can't believe that yet another month has absolutely flown by.  Each one gets a little bit fast I guess.  

Report: Last Monday was awesome!  We had fantastic activity.  It was a little crazy because we had to arrange all the transportation and everything which was a huge pain.  But we all got there and had a great time.  I mostly just sat on the beach with some of my buddies and enjoyed the ocean sounds and breezes.  Really relaxing.  Wish we could go there more often.  

Got my new companion on Wednesday.  Pretty cool guy but the looks of it.  He is from Uganda.  He's my first Uganda companion.  Now I have had Australian, Ugandan, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Ghanaian, American, and Kenyan.  Pretty cool group of guys.  My current companion is really tall and his stride is the same pace as mine and I have to speed walk to try and keep up with him.  He walks so fast with those long legs!  It's awesome.

We had MLC again this week.  Highlight of that was when president said "we have missionaries from 26 different countries... and Idaho."  Gosh, I love Idaho so much!  President always does like to give me a hard time.  We have a great relationship.  President Hill is a pretty sweet man. 

Last Tuesday we were in the market and I stumbled upon an absolute gem, Fruit Loops.  Got those bad boys for really really cheap.  They were a bit stale but super good.  Eat them with watered down condensed milk.  It was a good time. 

So I have taken up another hobby.  When ever I get into a tro tro I make it my aim to get as many people laughing as possible.  It is so fun!  I just start talking some Twi with some people, catch them off guard a little bit then dive in and they just start cracking up so bad.  It makes tro tros so much more fun.  People are always laughing and having a good time.  Jump on a tro tro and before sitting down and quick "Majo, Akwaaba"  Gets 'em everytime.  Even got a few people we are following up on and hoping to teach!

Not too much other than that this week.  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark

                                                                                                                           Sept 1, 2014……BEACH DAY

Hey everybody,

I came early today because we've got a big day in store and I don't know if I'll be able to get to the cafe later today so I have to make it quick.

Like the heading says, we have been seeking for and finally got permission to take the zone to the beach today for our P day zone activity.  I'm super stoked.  We've going to be playing all sorts of games, rugby, football, American football, volleyball and stuff.  It should be pretty good it all goes well.  It's one last big bang to the biggest zone in West Africa because as of transfers on Wednesday the zone is finally being split into Odorkor and Kasoa zones.  We'll lose 3 districts-16 missionaries and get 4 more and have a district split.  I am so excited for that.  It will make Sunday nights so much better when reporting and talking with DLs.  I'm mostly excited about being able to spend more time with the guys we have and helping them be all that they can be.  Unfortunately my companion is being transferred.  He's been my favorite companion so far and our time was too short but I'm excited for my next companion.  He is from Uganda.  He's a pretty cool guy too.

The baptism went great on Saturday.  We went to Accra on Thursday for an interview at the Temple site which was awesome.  I LOVE the Temple so much.  We took her into the first set of doors of the temple and it’s amazing how once those doors shut all the noise and everything from the city just disappears and the spirit takes over.  I never want to leave the Temple.  Sis. L. said she never wanted to leave.   We have a ward temple trip on the 13th so we'll go then.  The baptism was nice.  

 Our other guy is doing pretty well.  We met him on Saturday and had a nice lesson with him.  

Another cool story was exchanges on Friday with one Elder C. a  cool guy from Phoenix.  We contacted this guy and he didn't seem interested at all or anything  and we were gonna leave but I felt like I should at least invited him to Church on Sunday and then he came!  It's really nice having the Spirit which knows the whole story and how everything is going to work out and all.  It's really nice.

Running out of time so I gotta cut it short.  Love you all!   Love,

Elder Clark  

Well, well well.  This week was pretty awesome but...                                                      Aug 25, 2014

DON'T GET RID OF BUDDY!! Just find somebody to hold him until I get back.  I love that little guy.                                                 

But this week was awesome.  We went to visit my old area in Buduburam.  We were supposed to go there for some interviews but those fell through so we were able to do an open venue instead.  I got to see some really cool recent converts.  I saw P. and her son that were baptized when I was still there then her other son which was 18ish.  He was paralyzed from the waist down while I was there and teaching him and I remember when we gave him a blessing but I guess after I left they were able to scratch together a little bit of money to be able to get a taxi to take him to Church and then he got baptized later and guess what.  We were walking up to the house and HE WALKED OUT TO ME!!!!!  The guy can WALK now!  I was completely blown away.  I still can't really believe that he was walking.  He couldn't move his feet when I was there.  We had to carry him several times.  Nobody can tell me the priesthood isn't real or the Church isn't true.  To see how the gospel has blessed the lives of that family is truly incredible.  If I didn't do anything else for the whole 2 years while I am here other than that I would still be satisfied.  AND I saw my guy P. there too.  That guy is so solid.  I love him.  His life has completely turned around also.  His whole family is coming to Church and has been baptized and they are so blessed for it now.  Also saw Sister S. who has baptized too.  I love that place so much.  

That was kind of the highlight of the week.  We did a lot of service this week.  We did some weeding which was really cool.  I love giving service because it just feels so good! 

Also we found a sweet, sweet man.  We were walking and I saw a man standing by himself and I always have to say some sort of smart remark so I say "look at this guy, he's waiting for us to teach him the gospel."  Turns out, he was.  We started talking and he was asking all the perfect questions, "I feel like life has no point, I get up and go to work then sleep and do the same thing. If I'm not careful I will wake up and be 60 and almost dead."  A lot of other great questions.  The guy is super cool.  I'm so excited for him.  I can't wait for him to start progressing. 

So our good sister L. is supposed to get baptized this coming week.  I'm super excited for her.  We had to get permission to baptize her because she got kicked out of her house and who knows where she is going to end up but Pres Hill said go for it so we're gonna go for it.  She's really cool.  

We found a really cool mother and her 2 daughters.   We had two really good lessons with them this week about the restoration and then the Book of Mormon. 

That's about it for the week!

Love you all!

Elder Clark

Hey everybody, what’s up?

    (A monkey he wanted to pet but was told it would "rip his face off" so he kept his distance, ha)

This week was awesome.  We worked our selves almost to death.  We didn't have to go on any exchanges or any meetings so we had a full week of proselyting other than Zone Training.  We got some work done which was really good.  We needed a good week’s worth of work in our area.  It was awesome.  I love my companion.  I don't know if I have ever told you guys about him but he is sweet.  We do some great work.

First up was a story from last night.  So we were sleeping, I didn't get to bed until midnight because I was reporting to the APs for the week, and it was probably around 3 or 4 and some woman out in the street started going crazy.  I was pretty out of it and I can't remember but she was really, really loud.  It was pretty crazy.  Ghanaians’ love waking up in the wee hours of the morning to "pray" by going out on the roads.  

So last week we were contacting this one house and my companion was talking somebody and I was just kind of playing with the kids and I started spinning around one kid.  Around and around he went for probably about 2 minutes.  Finally we stopped and I let him go and he took one step and BOOM!  He fell.  Man it was so, so funny.  I was on the ground right next to him laughing my head off.  It was so funny.  Every time I think about it I start laughing.

So we have this one really cool progressing investigator we are supposed to baptize this month.  We met her through a less active.  Anyway, this week she got thrown out of her house this week so that really stinks.  We are really hoping that she can find a place to stay.  Hope and pray.

The Zone training went really really well.  It was super spiritual.  It's different from a Zone Conference because those always have more than 1 zone but President Hill did come to the meeting on Tuesday.  It went really, really well.  I was really stressed about it Monday night but it turned out pretty well.  Now we just have to see if it did anything to make a difference.  

I hope you all got the picture from Mom of the USA Bug.  I love that car with all my heart!!!  We found that on Sunday just out in the Zongo (Muslim area) and we were looking at it and the owner walked up to us and told me I should get in.  Then he offered to sell it to me for 4000 cedis.  I'm really tempted; I fell in love with that car.  I sat in it and it just felt so right.  That car chose me... (Only Tim!!!)

Anyway the zone is doing well and the work is going even better.  We are trying to plan a zone activity in 2 weeks.  

Lastly we have started something here we call "The Joy Movement."  It started with us just ridiculously waving at people with both hands and now it has evolved into a way of contacting and "spreading the Joy."  We always greet people by waving both hands.  Shaking hands is a thing of the past; we now do double high fives.  We laugh and smile more than ever before all in an effort to "Spread the Joy."  It's gonna become a big thing someday.  We're going to make shirts and everything.  It makes everything better and it is revolutionizing the world.  Now, everyone is smiling.  Now, everyone is happy.  

Love you all!!!

Elder Clark

SPREAD THE JOY