Jesus is real //Week 17 ft. Nelk house

March 15, 2021

So, nothing that cool happened this week...here is a quick run down:

- I made Brownies

- Dropped off brownies to a family that we are teaching tomorrow, sick. I'll let you know how that goes.

- Talked to a few people that want to learn more

- Made wayyyy too many phone calls, haha

- Dropped by the Full Send house, it was completely by accident, we went on a walk in the hills and BAM there she was!

Oh ya, I have some good news for all of you! So if you remember, not too long ago my friend Pete passed away from covid :/ But we now have had the opportunity to teach his in-active wife about Priesthood power, the Plan of Salvation, and temple ordinances so that she can prepare to go to the temple so she can be sealed for eternity to her family. So tender.

One of my favorite scriptures I read this week was 1 Nephi 4:6

"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do" 

This scripture has played a huge role in my missionary work. At first it's a little spooky to talk to random people about God on the phone; but as we follow the guidance of this scripture and trust in the Lord that we will be guided by the spirit we will be! Some of the best things I've shared was when I was 'winging' it, haha probably shouldn't say that..anyways if you trust in the Lord, no matter the situation, you will be led by the spirit and everything will work out! President Nelson reminded us in our last general conference, “The Lord loves effort.” as we do our best the Lord will magnify our efforts. 

Love,

Elder Clark

Also this is a super sick video, highly recommend it. 

https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChrist/videos/1536722349865174/

Zone P day soccer picture

Nelk house

3 minutes to prep a sacrament talk.....

 March 1, 2021

Hey Everyone, hope you all had an amazing week! 

Sorry for the trash emails lately haha can't promise that this one will be better but I'll try.. P. S. It's a long one

My companion and I started off the week with another hike.....well actually it was the same hike as last week, haha. North Hollywood doesn't have many hikes to choose from but we make it work. We woke up bright and early @5am to watch the sunrise, SO worth it! Nothing beats starting the day off with a nice sunrise hike! Peep the sunrise pics below. 

Tuesday we found a friend! From what we hear, he is an eternigator.. (someone who learns about the Church but doesn't take action). It's kind of funny because he has been taught a lot but struggles with some simple things that apparently past missionaries struggled to explain. For example, he hadn't understood that faith precedes a miracle or the fact that faith is a catalyst so we shared Ether 12:12 "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith." With that scripture we were able to solve a concern or two on the first visit, we have high hopes for this friend, keep him in your prayers  

Then Wednesday we were able to get in touch with TONS of members in the new ward we are covering. We have some pretty cool members, pretty stoked to be working with the ward and their friends. One member we had the chance to meet has a garage full of restored old cars and it happens to be a part member family, so you already know I'm gonna be sliding in and preaching to him, haha. 

The LA mission is still pretty uptight with covid rules, gotta love the governor... But anyway, the only way we can talk to members or 'friends' (investigators) in person is if we 'drop something off' haha so my comp and I have been baking tons and tons of cookies for members so we can meet as many people face-face as possible. It's been so nice getting to talk to people in person, makes me feel like a real missionary instead of a 'covid' missionary, haha rip. If you have any good cookie and/or brownie recipes let me know! Or any baking tips I could use them. Honestly, if you have any fire recipes send them on over, haha. 

Sunday was definitely an interesting day.  Because we cover 2 wards we have 2 sacrament meetings and 2 wards to communicate with. 3 minutes before sacrament meeting we got a call from our Bishop and we were asked to speak, so that was pretty fun. I talked about myself and what enduring to the end means, I killed it hahaha

Spiritual thought for the week:

In a Come Follow Me study with a ward member we talked about what the Lord had asked Martin Harris to sacrifice and we talked about what the Lord has asked us to 'sacrifice' in this life. It's funny because we got talking a little bit and in the grand-scheme of things any 'sacrifice' we are asked to make on earth will be so menial that it can't be compared to the reward that we will receive. The suffering that we may feel when we sacrifice something for our Heavenly Father may seem like it sucks, but always remember that his reward that is promised will be greater than all rewards. 

                      Roman's 8:16-18

        16) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

   17) And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

   18) For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

love,

Elder Clark

 

 

 

Moving 400k$ of toy trains //week 15

 February 22, 2021

My dream came true! My entire mission I've been in apartments with just my comp and I, it's cleaner but wayyyy less fun. I finally got put in a four man. Me and my comp (Elder Snooks), then Elder Yost and Elder Vave. Haha, Elder Vave is Tongan with 1 month left on his mission so you can imagine how hard he works, it's cool tho because he is hilarious and he's not my comp., hahaha. 

This week started off really solid, we found a friend and we now cover 2 wards. Burbank 3 and Burbank 2.  It's been pretty hectic trying to learn the 2nd ward while still helping out the Burbank 3 ward but we make it work. We helped a member move 400k$ worth of toy trains out of his garage.

We run a few Bible studies in the Burbank area, one of them being for an addiction recovery home and we studied Matthew 14:22-32, when Peter walks on water. Seeing them realize that Jesus Christ gives them hope in their trials and watching them realize that when they focus on Christ and exercise faith in him they will be blessed and will be able to overcome their trials that they go through was super cool. I know that as we focus on Jesus Christ we will be able to overcome the hard times and that he is always there to save us no matter how far from the path we have gone or 'how deep we have sunk' Jesus is always reaching out willing to help us. 

love,

Elder Clark

The Tongan cooked us lamb and yuka root

Hike

View of the Valley

Pool Party! lmk if u want the Addy, Week 13

 February 15, 2021

So nothing that crazy happened this week, we did some service for a Jewish church, haha, we totally impressed them and we finished unloading their food truck faster than ever, so that was fun. Burbank 3 has been a slow area but Elder Beckstrand and I have been on that grind and finally found some new friends to work with this week!! All the hard work and prayers paid off! Sooo stoked for that!  We also got transfer news yesterday and Burbank 2 was added to Burbank 3, so now my new comp and I have 2 areas to work with and one of them is being white washed by us (meaning a companionship in an area neither of us have had experience with) pretty stoked for that! 2 wards, 2 bishops, and hopefully double the amount of friends.. 

Moving day is tomorrow and I'm moving to an apartment complex with a pool... Catch me throwing pool parties!! haha jkjk

Nearly every single person I have taught or talked to is going through something hard. Anywhere from a death in the family, losing a home and/or losing their job. Yet they all find hope in one thing, the gospel. I've taught what enduring to the end is more times than I can count... it's a simple idea, until you are enduring. I always enjoy comparing it to running or working out, running is easy when we are running on a flat road but how much do we benefit from running on a flat road? How much do we gain from running up mountains? Our spiritual strength gets exercised and strengthened through the hard times and the hard times are an opportunity to become better, earth wouldn't be earth without the trials. Basically trials are for our benefit believe it or not, trials can lead to us becoming better people

Love, Elder Clark

 

 

 

Getting a cut from Elder Lee

Epic sunset

Valentines Day.....

Does time exist? - Week 12

 February 8, 2021

Ok so I thought I was on week 12.. but an Elder from my MTC district sent a weekly email and his email said week 14... So...

Welcome to Week 12's Email!! 

Hahaha

We started off the week with some service and baking cookies.. 

 My Comp and I baked a lot of cookies to drop off to the few friends that we have and we dropped off the rest to some members so we can build those member relations so we can dunk their friends The cookies worked really well, we taught quite a few pretty fun lessons this week with members and planned some for next week. 

One of our friends Wendy, has a pretty crazy story.. I can't really tell you anything about it, but anyways...haha. We have weekly Bible studies with her and she mentioned her son wanted to join our Bible study. We said we would love to have him! Super respectful and cool guy, he is very devoted to his own church (which we respect haha) and he knows tons about the bible and when I say tons.. I mean TONS. So that was a little intimidating but we had a good Study session and he said he would love to join the future studies. I'll keep y'all updated on that. 

Each transfer our Mission President gives us some objectives and things to study, this transfer we have been studying Christ-like attributes and me being me, I chose patience haha. Luckily my companion has given me a great opportunity to exercise patience as I've been companions with him, bless up. Hahaha.... 

This study of patience led me to a quote and this might be my new favorite quote: 

“The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.”

                        -Dallin H Oaks

As missionaries we host Bible studies for our ward (Burbank 3) and the Studio City ward, this week we studied Hebrews 11. Now lemme tell ya if you haven't read this chapter, you are missing out. It starts off by talking about what faith is then it leads into talking about miracles that happened because of faith. If y'all read it then here is another fire quote to think about as you read it: 

"Faith precedes the miracle. It has ever been so and shall ever be. It was not raining when Noah was commanded to build an ark. There was no visible ram in the thicket when Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Two heavenly personages were not yet seen when Joseph knelt and prayed. First came the test of faith—and then the miracle”

-Ensign? 

Anyways if you've made it this far you are pretty cool and I hope your week is amazing 

Also a friend that my old comp and I made in Santa Monica got baptized on Sunday! Super sick!

Love, Elder Clark

 

Pretty cool garage at one of my fav. members houses

 

Super cool sunset

Blurry pic of my zone, haha

 

Making up for last weeks email.. Week 12?

 February 1, 2021

So basically this week sucked for a few reasons... 

     This week didn't start on a good note. Sadly our baptismal date Pete had covid-19 and he passed away. Pete was such a rad guy. Yes, he was our investigator and we had a baptismal date but he was more than just a 'number'. He was a friend, someone who we looked forward to meeting with to not only feel the spirit and share our love for the gospel but to talk about life. Our zoom calls with him were like a zoom call with a best friend, full of laughs, the spirit, and straight up joy.

     I'm grateful for the testimony I have of the plan of salvation AKA the plan of happiness. I know that death isn't the end. Our time on earth is only a piece of a plan. Because of this, I know that Pete will be able to accept the fullness of the gospel in the spirit world. Pete will be taught what we weren't able to teach him here. That brings me so much peace. I know that Jesus Christ broke the bands of death (Alma 7:11) Because of Jesus Chirst, all of us will be resurrected and have the opportunity to live in eternal happiness with our families... Eternal happiness sounds pretty great right!? As we live the gospel and try our hardest to be like the perfect example, Jesus Christ, we can achieve that eternal happiness. I Know that we can achieve eternal happiness, living in the presence of our Heavenly Father. That right there, brings a perspective on life that helps me make goals that lead to the blessing of eternal happiness. 

Now one of my favorite scriptures:

Helaman 5:12

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

    This is a promise to us that if we build our foundation upon our Savior, we cannot fall. Regardless of what Satan throws at us. 

    We will all have hard days and challenges, it's inevitable. I have learned each challenge and hard day is something great in disguise, weird right?! On my mission the hardest days have been the most influential in the way I do missionary work and built my relationship with my Heavenly Father the strongest, my hardest tests build a stronger dedication, my hardest bike races built a mentally and physically stronger racer. We can build ourselves up to endure the hard days of life by building our foundation on Christ. 

Now a fire quote:

"If we have true faith in our Redeemer, we do something about it, because we have real intent." - Weatherford Clayton

Y'all are dope if you made it thus far , have a good week, remember that Jesus Christ loves you! 

Love Elder Clark

 

 

Cool chair on top of a mountain

Cool palms in Bel Air

 

Service and Kobe

 January 25, 2021

Mosiah 2:17

"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God"

  We did tons of service this week. Lemme tell ya, starting off the day by serving others is so awesome. Yeah that's basically all that happened this week. Our baptism date Pete still has covid pretty bad so that's been rough on him and his family. So who knows what's gonna happen with that. 

   No naked tweakers or homeless people trying to throw hands this week... it's been pretty uneventful if I'm being honest. Although, I did whip our Rav4 pretty hard in the rain and whoa she gets down with it.

 "Sometimes it's hard to pick right from wrong. The best we can do is go with our heart and hope it all goes well"

~Mac Miller

Think about this quote for a second..now look at this quote:

"We can, if we live worthy of it, have the blessing of the spirit with us, not only now, but always."  ~ Henry B. Eyring 

If we combine these quotes something amazing happens. We know that the Spirit can be our constant companion, a comforter, a guide and so much more. We don't have to  struggle picking right from wrong when we have the Holy Ghost as our guide and the power of prayer on our side (Moroni 10:5). Imagine how much good would happen if everyone had the Holy Ghost as their constant companion.

Just a thought.

Love you all and hope you are doing good

Love, Elder Clark

 

 

 Mural painted outside of a store

Kobe

Almost had to KO a homeless lady.. not playin. //Week 9? Inbox

 January 18, 2021

Buckle up for this first paragraph, its a crazy one.

         Aight so here we are, Elder Beckstrand and I going on a peaceful, stress relieving walk after a long day of mission work. LA has a lot of homeless forts along sidewalks, but we usually maneuver around them no problem. Today was a little different.  As we are walking I notice some commotion from a homeless fort and next thing I know, I see a homeless lady absolutely bugging out with a pair of gardening shears in one hand and a piece of REBAR in the other, as a missionary, I made the 'smart' decision to walk to the other side of the street. The homeless lady goes running past us chasing a homeless dude...doesn't end here though. They eventually got tired, it seems like heroin addicts don't have much endurance.. ha! But somehow they ended up cornering my comp and I on the sidewalk and they are absolutely tweaking out, yelling at us and such, so I'm getting ready to throw some hands because one is threatening us and the other is talking about how much he loves Jesus. So there is a lot of mixed emotion, I couldn't decide if i was gonna dunk (baptize) him and deck her and dip or what. Hard to pick up on the vibe at the moment.....so I turn to my comp to see if he will back me up if someone starts throwing punches, right? Yeah, no. My comp straight up ditched me and went to the other side of the road without telling me.. so here I am trying to fend off a tweaker who loves Jesus and another tweaker that is trying to kill me. It ended up turning out fine because the homeless dude slowly meandered off while the tweaker lady was walking after me... She eventually backed off, it was what was best for her. I was ready to hit her with a 1-2 Mayweather and finish her with a 3-4 McGregor ha! close call! 

 Hope that made sense, if not... read it again? Hahaha <3

Now the missionary portion of the email:

        One of our other eternigators has started keeping real commitments and reading the BOM on his own, soooo stoked for him! Also our Bap. Date still has covid, he got tested again and it was still positive :/ so it'll be at least 14 days from Saturday. Everything happens for a reason, whether we understand that reason in the moment or not. This has played a huge role in missionary work.  Pete (our bap. Date with covid) has canceled his baptism because of his covid tests coming back positive, but in the midst of him feeling like he is gonna die he got on his knees and prayed and he said he prayed all night long and his testimony grew more than I or he could have imagined. The fact that his baptism was canceled sucks...a lot. But he was able to turn this lame situation into an opportunity, an opportunity to grow his testimony of prayer stronger and stronger. What an inspirational guy.

 

"Rather than being judgmental and critical of each other, may we have the pure love of Christ for our fellow travelers in this journey through life." Thomas S. Monson

^ That's one of my fav. quotes.  Just thought I would share it with you :)

Love you all and hope life is going good. 

Love Elder Clark 

The High School Musical coach is in my ward!

 January 11, 2021

Before I get into the mission part of my email just wanted to um flex a bit.. Coach Bolton from high-school musical is a member in my ward That's all, just thought that was dope, haha

My dream came true! The new apartment has a gym, a barbecue and we have a big single basin sink! Woah, life can't get better. Now if only we could find some friends (investigators) to teach....

The new apartment is in North Hollywood and my new area is the city of Burbank. Burbank has Universal Studios, Disney Studios, and a ton of other studios. 

     This area in terms of having people to teach, isn't the greatest... but we are working to find some! Can't wait til we blow this area up! 

    We already started in the right direction.  We have helped an 'eternigator' (someone who forever investigated the church but never takes action on its teachings) find an answer to his prayers, and he's on date to be baptized.. but then tested positive for covid-19 haha, shoot I will let you guys know what happens with that. We have also been doing some service when we aren't studying or teaching which has been really fun! I love getting out of the apartment and serving, definitely one of the highest of the mission. Bringing joy to someone by serving them is truly a blessing.

 Hope you guys are doing well and loving life.

Love, Elder Clark

BBQ in the apartment

I'm Leaving.....it's been real/Week 7

 January 4, 2021

What's good? Whats poppin? We outta here!

I might have missed last week, so basically here is a quick summary. Lessons fell through because everyone was busy with the holidays but we found a new friend! It rained, it rained some more...kind of weird, didn't know it rained in Los Angeles ha...but we loved it.  We went on a few walks in it and got soaked. #WorthIt

This week was transfers, transfers are when missionaries get a new companion and sometimes a new area, it happens about every 6 weeks. I'm moving from Santa Monica to North Hollywood, kinda sad. I will miss the people of Santa Monica but I'm stoked to see a new area. I'm not gonna say we set up the 'new kid' with some solid friends but uhhh we hooked him up with some really, really solid friends and a few guaranteed baptisms.. 

My companion (Elder Hendrickson) and I had THE most amazing lesson ever! I'm not gonna type it all out because it was a long lesson but I'll give you a run down. She loves Jesus (as do I and hopefully you too) and she was loving everything we taught her and firing back with some HEAT and it was THE most spiritual lesson ever. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Then we finished out the week with quite a few lessons and found a few new friends.

Yeah I honestly don't remember what else happened this week, lots of lessons, a few come follow me lessons some studies and some sports and yep thats a wrap. 

Hope you guys have an amazing week! 

Love Elder Clark 

 Einstein

Hike

Love Your Neighbor

Sacrament Prep

Rainy walk to the temple

Mate

Merry Christmas! Week 4/5

 December 25, 2020

 

What even happened this week?!

Hope you guys had a very Merry Christmas! 

Cool cars, cool sunsets, cool people and more lessons, oh yeah and I cut my hair... it doesn't look good haha oopsie. One of my favorite families that feeds us dinner has a 9yr old daughter and she...ROASTED me for cutting my hair. Rip

We went 11 days without a P-day, tough. Christmas was a much needed 'preparation day' haha nah it kinda sucked though. We had fun, played sports, made a huge dinner and got fed non stop, but it definitely wasn't a good Christmas but we had a good day if that makes sense.

These 11 days were tough.  No one really wanted to talk to us because they were too busy because of the holidays. Lessons fell through, friends stopped talking to us and we didn't find anyone. BUT a miracle happened, one of our longtime friends has been addicted to coffee forever and has finally gone a few days without it, so sick. We did some service this week, started with moving missionary stuff from apartment to apartment, then we dropped off some tacos to a cool homeless guy named Eric who kicks it in an alley near our apartment.

  

 Whether it's feeding a homeless man tacos, sharing the gospel, helping someone in school, mowing someone's lawn or feeding the missionaries;) When we do kind things/serve others we find what true happiness is. The happiness that can't be bought, only found through the pure love of Christ.

Oh yeah,, We also cooked MORE French toast this week but with a skillet. Working smarter not harder... 

love,

Elder Clark

 

At the L.A. temple

French Toast

 Sunset

A haircut.....

What my day looks like

If you know why I sent this pic then you are cool