Hey everyone,                                                                                             

I am now in Iron City.  I am really happy to be here.  I first saw this apartment when I took Elder L. after our companionship ended.  I love this apartment.  It is a second story building and it is super nice.  I love this apartment so much.  I could finish my mission in that apartment.  

The area though needs some work.  I came here and we have no investigators and nothing to work with.  Even my companion doesn't know any of the members so we have to start with nothing.  So we got out and did some work.  Hopefully we can start to make some headway though, we've got a long way to go and we have to get there fast.  We can do it though.  I'm now in Kasoa 3rd ward which was created 3 weeks ago so the ward is kind of crazy too.  But despite all we are going strong.  My companion is Elder T is from the US.  He's a really funny guy and we have a good time together.  This is gonna be a good transfer.

Our area is pretty big.  It is long and skinny and has a HUGE zongo, that's the name for Muslim areas.  For some reason all the Muslims live in the same areas and around each other.  We can stand just about anywhere in those areas and see 4 or 5 mosques.  There are a ton of Muslims in Ghana.   

So since I came here we have only done finding.   Not too many crazy adventures this week.  Saturday we went out finding all day and went way far away from anywhere we knew and got lost.  It got dark on us and it’s not lighted here so we were stuck just wandering around.  Luckily we found our way out after an hour or 2.  We were walking along a road that was completely washed out.  Literally it was a river, there wasn't any road left.  We were just walking trying to find our way out and suddenly we were back at that road and we were like, "Dang it, not again.  We're just walking in circles."  It was pretty eventful.  My companion is pretty awesome.  

We met a man who wanted us to sit down with him.  He just thought we were some small boys who didn't know anything and he was like you guys need to make sure you teach from the bible and not just say things.  We "blasted" him with our testimonies.  It was super spiritual.  My knees were literally shacking.  That was one of the most powerful testimonies I have born on my mission so far.  The spirit was there and he definitely felt it. 

Sunday was pretty cool, we went and visited some members and guess what they gave us.  Welch's Grape and Apple juice!!!  I call it heaven in a bottle.  So delicious.  

That's about it for the week.  Love you all!

Love,

Elder Clark

Missionary on the move

Welp. My time in Kaneshie ward has finished and I am being called away to a no so far away place called Iron City. It is in my old zone, Kasoa Zone. I'm going there to be a zone leader with a missionary named Elder Thomas. It's the biggest and highest baptizing zone in the mission, hopefully I don't drop the ball on that one. I'm pretty excited though. New adventures.

Today was pretty low key, just washing. Last week was pretty good. I went on exchanges with our South African Elders. It was his 21 birthday on Saturday so we woke up early and made him breakfast in bed. I'm getting pretty good at making pancakes now. After lots of lousy pancakes I have essentially reinvented the wheel and a pancake recipe. And making syrup. It was pretty cool. I think it was his first time having breakfast in bed. He was happy.

Sunday I bore my testimony as I am being transferred. Normally I don't bear my testimony when I go on transfers but this time I did. I had to thank the Ward for all the great work they have done. They are the best Ward I have been in on my mission so far. I love Kaneshie Ward. Sunday was a pretty good day. We had some great members present lessons. I had a lot of members come to say good bye. Not to brag but they made me feel really good when they said they are going to miss me because I'm one of the hardest workers they've seen. That's how I want it!

Our good guy Brother E. doing great. I'm sad I will miss his baptism but he is doing great. His little brother is going to be baptized 2 weeks after him and we finally got his wife to come to church with him on Sunday!! Man, I was so happy when they walked in to the chapel together hand in hand. What a miracle! We also got a sweet referral from one member on Saturday while we were cleaning the chapel and were able to see her that day and on Sunday and clear up all her concerns about speaking in tongues.

Sunday I decided to shake things up a little bit. I wore my suit. It was the first time since I entered into the MTC. That was pretty cool. I think I looked pretty good and I didn't even sweat too much either which is good because I can't even wash it. Dry Clean only.

Friday night we had a really sweet lesson. We took an investigator to a member’s house to teach him there. It was a great lesson. Very spiritual which is a nice. Love it.

And that's about it!


Love,

Elder Clark




Hey everyone,                                                                                        July 14, 2014

First things first, I can now do a standing back flip. Yes, I am that cool. Took some practice and I only hit my head twice but I can do a standing back flip. We had a really fun zone activity and that was something I wanted to accomplish.

This week was really average. Had zone training this week. We were asked to sing an intermediate hymn for it as a district. We sang "Oh how lovely was the morning," to the tune of "Come thou fount." It was really good. It was actually really really good. Very powerful. We have a video we are going to try and send but who knows if it will go through. It was so good that right after we called the bishop and told him we wanted to sing on Sunday (yesterday). He was cool with the idea so we practiced even more on Saturday after cleaning the chapel. Sunday we called him to remind him which was good, he forgot but we got it. There were tears in the eyes of those members. And not because it was bad. It was so powerful. We had one missionary play the piano and do an interlude thing in between the 3rd and 4th verse and then we came in with power on the 4th with "Joseph this is my beloved, hear him" I get chills just writing about it.

This next Sunday we had the Famous black stars player Kojo Asamoah(#20) coming to do a fireside. Word got around and we are singing there next. Look out world we've got the biggest thing since Michael Jackson. Pretty cool, I think I am going to have him sign my black stars jersey I bought.

This week was pretty cool. I had a guy tell me that I couldn't really tell him that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Oh can't I? We got to bear him a nice testimony. We'll see what happens.

Our recent converts are both doing really good. We are working to set up a temple trip for them and other recent converts. Brother B. is really really excited to go there. He has been reading about it and is so excited. He thought he was going to have to wait a year but was happy when we told him that he doesn't.

Love you all,

Elder Clark

Hey everyone,                                                                                                                                   

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!  I hope you have a fantastic birthday.  Love you so much!

This week was pretty sweet.  We celebrated the 4th of July Sunday night.  We grilled our steaks and had watermelon with rice and mashed potatoes.  Then we topped it off with a pot oven cake.  Super good.  Today Elder V. and I made cookies with the same pot oven.  Really good.

This week was pretty good.  Wednesday it rained all day which was a little discouraging.  I personally LOVE proselyting in the rain but I am about the only missionary that likes that.  We were able to get out and do some good teaching.  We are focusing on teaching with members and are having some good experiences with that.   We had our 2 baptisms on Saturday.  It was a great baptism.  Really great service.  I really enjoyed it.  Brother B. is one of my most favorite investigators I have had the privilege to teach.  

Monday night last week we had a really powerful lesson with a new guy.  He is really cool.  We just went there and taught him the first lesson and it was super spiritual.  He was feeling it and I could tell so I asked him how he was feeling and he said "touched, moved, transformed."  Really cool guy.  He was busy the rest of the week so we haven't been able to meet him again but we are really hoping to get him this week.

I have really been trying to feel the Spirit more in my life.  That isn’t always easy but I have really been trying to change that.  We've been praying pretty hard for the Spirit and this week we had a lot of cool experiences.  On Thursday we had a member proselyte with us all day because he is preparing for mission and we were walking down the street and I see one guy’s head over a compound wall and our eyes met and I knew we needed to talk to him.  We went over and he was like I always see you guys are round and I really want to know what you are doing.  We had a great 1st lesson with him and he was saying all the right things.  Unfortunately he doesn't live in our area but we referred him to the other missionaries and hopefully they are following up on that one.  That one was really powerful.  

Friday I was asked to do and exchange with another district so I went and spent the night in Mataheko district.  I was with one of my MTC mates.  It was pretty cool.  Kind of spoiled our 4th plans but it opened new windows because they have this restaurant in their area called zoozoos that makes good burgers so we went there for lunch.

Tuesday was a national holiday so we hosted our missionary versus ward football match.  Unfortunately it rained that day so hardly any members showed up but we had some come and them a lot of people from the roadside came to play with us.  Mostly kids but we are planting seeds.  

Sunday night was pretty crazy.  I was on exchanges last week with Elder J.  We contacted one cool guy and he came to Church yesterday and went home and his girl friend had kicked him out of the house. I guess the missionaries went there with him and things were getting thrown thenI got there with a member and his wife. They sat down and there was lots of yelling and all of it was in Gaa (another language somehow similar to Twi) but we got her to give him his clothes back so now he is free.

Welp, time is up and time to get back to the missionary fun!  Love you all,

Elder Clark

July 1, 2014

Another dime another dollar I guess.  Today we went to Shoprite to get some steak for the 4th of July.  Ran into a huge group of white girls from Europe.  Don't worry we kept our distance.  

This week was really good.  I went on exchanges with my boy from Burley.  He was in Oda with me.  I interviewed one of his candidates for this Saturday’s baptism.  We had a really cool day.  We were about to do the interview and a woman walked up with a boy and said he wanted us to meet his father.  The boy took us to his family and we were able to sit down in a nice lesson with them.  It was very spiritual..  The Dad is a less active member and the wife was super interested.  Wonderful family.  That was really a miracle and an answer to prayers.  Hoping that happens in my area too now.

Sunday we were asked to teach the 3rd hour class.  It was on the talk following up by Elder Ballard.  We kind of took it a different way.  We talked about how we need members to follow up with us and teach referrals and investigators with us.  We have 8 so we planned it really well and had each of us talking about different points.  It was really good.  We opened it with a brainstorming session about activities we can do in the Ward.  Then I took it into the follow up and how they need to bring friends to a fun activity and then we can teach them and why we need their help to teach them.  We had our fantastic investigator get up and help us.  We did a little role play where he only spoke twi.  Then we had him bear his testimony about how important members are.  Man, that was cool.  That was the best part of my week and it really touched the members.  I think that the lesson went really well.

Baptisms should be on Saturday.  Both are really cool.  Sunday we went to teach the man after church and he was so happy that he got to bear his testimony like that.  It really strengthened his testimony so much.  It’s so true when they say we find our testimony by bearing it.  It was a great experience.  

Tomorrow marks our one year as a mission.  That's pretty cool.  

Funny story for today.  We were walking to the cafe and a young girl held out some corn on the cob and said white man come and eat. So I went over there and took a big bite of that corn.  She looked pretty amazed at that. 

Love you all, Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Clark