Note from mom: Elder Clark's birthday is Sunday February 9.  I know he would be thrilled to hear from his family and friends.  Please consider sending him a card or letter using the address to the left . It is easy with $1.10 International stamp from the Post Office.  Thanks!

Hey Everyone,

Sunday we had a baptism for one guy that I contacted back with Elder L.  We had to do the baptism after service on Sunday because he works on Saturdays. Before church I felt like I should bring an extra clothes just in case and it ended up being that I got to baptize him. That was really cool.

So back to B. he is a guy I met on the side of the road. We went to visit the ward clerk for something and I saw him sitting outside so I walked up and started talking to him. He's a Nigerian. We started talking and he's a cool guy and I invited him to church the next day and he actually came. So we started teaching him and now he has been baptized and his wife is taking the lessons and coming to church too! It's a great time to be a missionary. I also got to baptize him which was really cool. I've only done that the one other time and it was good to be able to do it again. It was a really great spiritual experience for me and a huge motivational boast.  After he came up the smile that was on his face... priceless. I love that man.

In preparation of Elder Bednar coming this week we met with President Hill. He gave us an assignment to read one of his past talks.  I invite all of you guys to read it.  It is so good and completely changed my studies in the morning.  It is really very good.  It's called "Learning by Faith." Just put it in the lds.org search bar at the top right and it comes right up.  It really is a fantastic talk, here I'll even include a link, that's how good it is.

http://www.lds.org/liahona/2007/09/seek-learning-by-faith?lang=eng

So that man from Facebook we weren't able to teach last week. He was gone but we saw him on the street and talked to him for a little bit. Turns out some guy robbed him. Luckily he works for Vodafone (a very big phone network over here) and was able to find the guy’s phone number then used the network to track him. Then he followed him to another city in Ghana and tracked him until he saw him then followed him to his house and went and knocked on his door.  That was pretty sweet, like James Bond or something.

So J. is doing great! The difference in his life is night and day. He has changed so much since we have started teaching him.  I'm so happy for that guy.

That’s pretty much it from my end of the world. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Clark

 

Big news! Elder Bednar is coming to visit us next week on the 30! I'm super excited for that. It's also combined with the Ghana Accra Mission so I am going to try my best to fight though the crowds of people to find Elder Didreksen.  It's gonna be sweet.

So, this week was awesome! We had tons of fun and met some great people. The university here is opening this week so I hope that President Hill will be coming and we are going to start our fellowship group there. I think that is going to bring so many people to the gospel. I'm really excited for that too. One of the biggest challenges we face is that a large percentage of people here can't read. Even the ones who speak English and it’s very hard for somebody to gain a true testimony about the Book of Mormon without reading it; possible but difficult.

Before I forget, do you guys have any good FHE ideas? I need help coming up with ideas for the FHEs we do. We try to go and hold FHE with members in the ward.

We also have this sweet little boy at one of our recent convert’s houses. He is probably 4ish and his name is blessing but I love him because he is just like Oliver in many ways. One way is, I always give him our phone and he just sits down pushes a few buttons and then starts talking into it.  It’s pretty sweet.  He's a good guy.

 I can't believe Brother Ririe reads my blog. That's crazy.  If he reads this one; "Happy Birthday!"

So we met and started teaching one guy named Carl. He met a member on Facebook who introduced him to one of the "facebook missionaries" who told him to find the missionaries here and then he saw us and called us over.  He's really sincere. I guess those facebook missionaries do a good job. That'd be so tough to be one of those guys.  

We are also teaching a man that was a Buddhist but now is kind of like a Jehovah Witness. He was a big time Martial arts guy back in the day. Represented Ghana for 3 years straight. He's really cool.  He's really cool guy.

Happy 1st year Tony! Hope it’s a great day for everyone. Eat some cake for me. I celebrated it with my Christmas cheesecake this week. That was so good!! Loved every bite!

So that is some insight into the life of Elder Clark. I love you all. Have a great week!                   

Love, 

Elder Clark

Hey everyone,

First full week on the new year, everyone is back at school and work. That made it a little bit of a rough week for us. Kids here all go to boarding schools so families were gone taking them to school and everything was going on so tons of appointments failed. More than the usual.  Makes it hard to teach people. And its the champions league right now so everyone is watching the soccer games. 

I heard that Oliver got a new bike, pretty cool. I guess its blue and not pink but no worries, my bike here is pink so he got that one right. I'm trying to master the wheelie. I added that to my bucket list. I'm getting better at the wheelie but not to good yet. 
 

So before I forget, thanks so much of the Christmas Packages. The headlight was truely inspired. We had several days of no light. Not because of the electricity but because there was a power spike and it killed all the lights in the apartment and we didn't have any spares. And we had to wait for the office elders to bring us out some new lights so the headlight was truely incredible. I also use it when I have to right the bike at night. The bike lights they gave us suck so its amazing. I love it. Thank you so much. I also got Hannahs package. The chocolates are SO good but I would ask a favor. It is pretty warm here so if you do send chocolates, take them out of the wrapper and put them in the plastic bag because that will be so much easier. So good though. I love chocolate. I'm going to be addicted. My companion loved his too. 

So crazy story for the week. I found out why the Word of Wisdom is such a big deal here, you can buy a joint for 25 cents!! Man, that is so cheap! We were talking to a guy who smokes everyday. We were trying to show him how it is a waste of money and he was like "no its not, I only spend 1 or 2 cedi a day." Yep we couldn't really argue it.   Sometimes it just feels like we're the little boy plugging our fingers in the hole in the dam but its super fun. 

I also spent some time helping a guy build his house. We walked by and they were like obrune come and work. I never really back down and the chance so show some guys that this white man actually knows a thing or two about working with cement (thank you Byron) was appealing so I helped them for some time lay some blocks for the wall of a house. It was pretty cool. 
 

Oh man, yesterday the craziest/funniest thing happened. We went to see somebody but the appointment failed. Then we went to see another person but that one failed too. So I saw a house with these wooden masks, the type of thing you expect to see in Africa but I have only seen this one time, and I said this is the house. There's a golden investigator inside. So we knocked on the door, turns out it was somebody I contacted before but he was pretty interested so we sat down to teach him and there kept coming this farting sound and I thought my companion was farting. I tried to hold it in but I just kept laughing. Then I figured out that it was this chicken making the noise. Oh man, I almost ruined that lesson. It was close.   
 

Well, I didn't budget my time very well and now its up. I love you guys. have a great week!

Love,
Elder Clark

Editor's note, we had a busy Christmas season and got behind on Elder Clark's blog.  We had a great visit with him on Christmas Day!

Well, 2013 sure went by fast! I can't believe it’s already a new year. I bet this year is going to go by even faster than the last year. This week was super good. We worked really hard and for the first time I had double digits for numbers of investigators at church! We had one woman and her son to come to church, the I have been teaching for a while. Last week we went to teach her and we asked if she had been praying about the church and the message. She said that she knows it is true because of the peace and happiness that has come into her life since we have started to teach her. She pretty much bore her testimony to us that even though things are really hard she knows the church is true because the way she feels now and the hope she has.  It was really cool.

I went on exchanges last week with Elder M. again. We were doing some contacting on an estate. We contacted a Prophet and a Pastor right after that. We taught both of them. It was pretty interesting. The Pastor teaches from the Book of Mormon. He's always says, "the Good Book says...” His wife was there and I could see in her eyes that she knew it was true. Oh man that lesson was powerful. The guy was telling us about how he was going to a church in another region but when the main pastor died the church collapsed and he had to leave. I Love those good times.

Another great experience was on Friday, when I was on exchanges. That afternoon I started getting pretty itchy and that night when I got back and I went to go and shower I found my entire body covered with hives. It was the worst Hives I have ever had. My face, arms, back, legs, chest, feet. Man it was so bad. I took one of those allergy pills that I got for Christmas though and it was gone by morning. Pretty crazy.

We also have a schizophrenic guy that comes and hangs around the apartment too. We invited him to church and he didn't come. He said the increase number of people at the church last week was because they found out he was coming and they came to come and kill him. That was rough but I hope that there is something that we can do to help him. I remember the talk from Elder Holland in conference about special needs people and our responsibility to help them. I hope there is something we can do. That’s a major challenge in Ghana. It’s hard enough for normal people so it’s pretty much impossible for disabled. We have one member who is disabled but he has the sweetest heart. Whenever I see him it doesn't matter what I am doing or who I am talking to I always go and shake his hand and try to make him feel good. That is one of my goals for 2014, to make it so that every time I talk to somebody or meet somebody I make them feel better about themselves than before.

Well, thanks about it. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Clark

 

Hey everyone,                                           Dec. 30, 2013

It was nice to be able to talk to you all on Christmas Day.

Anyway this week was pretty much the normal week. The only change is we've had a ton of people invite us over to have lunch with them. It's the same as Europe is where lunch is the big meal. People don't eat a whole lot in the evening time. So we've had quite a few lunches last week and have some more this week. New Years is a lot bigger deal than Christmas here. I haven't made the cheesecake yet. It was a good day. I LOVE the measuring cups. They are so nice! Thank you so much. The beef jerky is way good too.

Saturday we had a really cool experience. We had a lot of time to do contacting on Saturday because of some changes that we made in the mission that I will talk about later. But all our lessons failed that day and so we just spent the day contacting which is kind of rough in the camp. We were farther away from the "party areas" and we walked past 2 men who were sitting and playing draft. We nodded to them and kept walking but then I felt like we should turn around. We went back and started talking to them. They just finished the game of draft and so the winner invited me to play, it’s a way I like to contact people. So we started playing the other man not playing started talking to Elder L. about baptism then brought out a Book of Mormon and a Gospel Principles book so I assumed he was a member that I didn't know. The man I was playing draft with wasn't a member and doesn't go to any church. We played 2 games (I almost beat him on the second one!) and got up to go and made an appointment to come the next day. The man I thought was a member said he is a tro tor driver. We went back on Sunday and the draft player was gone but we met the other man. It turns out he isn't a member of the church but he has a white friend that was teaching him about the church. Then I remember that Cory Hofman was telling me about a man that is a tro tro driver that he was teaching that lives in the camp and he wants to refer to us. MAN! I asked him what his friend’s name is and then pulled out my camera to show him a picture of me and Bishop and he’s the same guy. I couldn't believe we randomly found the guy the bishop wanted to refer to us! Crazy how the spirit works in our lives.

Well, that’s about it for the week. Sounds like you guys are enjoying the cold and the Christmas! Have a great week and a happy new year!

Love,

Elder Clark

 

Merry Christmas!     Dec 23, 2013

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas Season. The bishop and another member invited us over.

But we are making it a little festive. My new companion Elder L. has a tape up Christmas tree that we put up. We have some snowflakes on the Fridge and the mirror to add a little bit, thanks Mom! But that is pretty much it. We're just going to have a nice normal day. We've got some appointments for people to teach, it's not really a big day here.

We did go to a zone Christmas activity at a member’s house. They invited the whole zone over for lunch. The lunch was really good. I just ended up spending the whole time sitting outside with one missionary. He's my zone leader, I love the guy. He goes to USU too so we get to meet up after everything. He also thinks we'll be companions next transfer but who knows. We just had a transfer. With that the other Elder L is gone. I have a new companion Elder L. He just graduated this year, fun fact about him is that they lived in Panama for 2 and a half years. Of course the first thing I said when I heard that is "I think we need to pull a Panama!" (I hope Hannah at least gets that)  He's a really cool guy. He's a good hard worker so I am going to really push us this transfer. See just how hard we can work.

I've learned a lot this week too. We were really focusing on finding through members. That is some powerful stuff! It's so much better than just regular finding, especially in the camp. We had new people come to church this week through that!  I guess my point in saying that is to bring up a point I heard about in the Christmas devotional.  I didn't see it and I guess they don't put it online but, I heard that they challenged us all to give away a Book of Mormon as a Christmas present to a friend. I challenge all of us to do that. Pray about it, figure out who you can give one to and then wrap it and give it to a friend. I know that that will be a really fun experience. We went to visit a recent convert this week. I taught him and baptized him when I first came to Buduburam. He told me had a friend he wanted us to teach. So we went there after Church and we went to teach his friend. He was calling me his companion and bearing his testimony to him the whole time. He can't read or anything but he has such a powerful testimony and he is so willing to share it. After the lesson we were walking back and I contacted a man and we started to teach him. We finished that lesson and he just started contacting people around us. Calling them over to come and meet us and just bearing his humble, simple testimony to them. It was so cool. He is truly converted. He's got it figured out. I hope all of us and take that same spirit and share our testimonies with others. That's what this gospel is all about.

We had a sweet lesson on Sunday too. We just sat down with a Nigerian guy in this nice shaded area. We were all by ourselves in a grove of palm trees in the shade. Turned out to be a super spiritual lesson. The man definitely felt it too. I hope we can see him again.

Well, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas. I only have 30 or 40 minutes to call so unfortunately it won't be as long as Mother's day but that ok. We've got eternity ;)

Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Clark