The week of Emergency Transfers

 May 3, 2021

It's been a bit of a crazy week.  I no longer live in a 4-man. The Elders that lived with us got transferred out :/ that's been a bit of an adjustment, it's very quiet and kinda lame. I love my comp but if you know me, then you know that I definitely do not wanna talk to the same person from 6:30am to 10:30pm hahaha "Miss me with that" but it's been fun. I've gotten lots of extra studies in :) and some great work-outs!

Elder Gollaher (who got transferred out) was my running buddy so I started making my companion run with me, he doesn't like running....yet, haha. He loves it. On our first run we just ran 2 miles and he was killing it! I was surprised!!  Then as we crossed our finish line he drops on his knees and proceeds to puke for the next 5 minutes, haha. I think he woke up the whole apartment complex with his dry-heaving.  Hahaha so disgusting, sorry for that.

Anyway, pray for me so that I will get a comp that enjoys running   

A little side note for this next story, in the Chatsworth ward we have 7 missionaries.. Yeah, it's a lot haha. 

The Missionaries: E. Derhak and I; E. Kim, E. Kellis, and E. Hayward; and the ASL Sisters. 

All The Elders were invited to lunch with one of the ASL members (American sign language) and we don't sign/speak ASL hah, we happily accepted the invitation and headed to the In-n-out. Jose is fully deaf and took all the Elders to In-n-out for lunch haha, he's so wholesome. To communicate we just passed a phone back-and-forth to type on notes, I actually got to know him better than you might think, he's really cool and it was super fun and he was stoked to "hang with the Elders" hahaha. 

Spiritual thought

Gratitude, this is a divine principle. 

D&C 59:7 

 "Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things."

During a talk this Sunday a speaker said "I have a get rich scheme for you, gratitude." Gratitude is shown to increase your happiness and it improves many many other aspects of your life, this is a scientifically proven fact. Powerful right!? 

No matter your situation, no matter your trials in life, you have a reason to be grateful. Search for that reason and thank him for it.

 President Thomas S Monson said "giving thanks unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God's love" he says it best. 

Love y'all and have a good week, don't forget to thank God for all the blessings you receive

love,

Elder Clark

Service, Pies and Seeds 4/26/2021

 April 26, 2021

Welcome to my weekly, I didn't wanna write this but here I am :) hope y'all had a good week! And hope you are looking forward to this email, because I know I wasn't :) haha

This week was super solid, we set up quite a few appointments with people so I'm hoping we can get in contact with them and teach them the gospel

We did some service for a bar haha that was pretty ironic but the guys who ran the bar were super cool. Then we went over to a Jewish man's house named Ike, we helped him clean out his garage (see picture below) it was awful haha. We found a collection of stamps and some really nice baseball, football and basketball cards that he never knew he had.. Then he promised us if he gets rich off of selling that collection that he would buy us BRAND NEW CARS! hahahaha this guy was so funny, we also found a few New Testaments in his garage... If only he had read them.. Nahaha he's a super solid dude, great guy all around.

So to sum up my week in a few words, we had tons of service opportunities and planted lots of seeds. Oh! And I baked a banana cream pie for a PMF and now we have a very wholesome pie trade happening. Every time we teach them we pass the pie pan around haha it's sick. 

Spiritual thought: This week I listened to a devotional by Elder Stevenson, he talked about fear.. Fear is something we all experience in life, whether that is fear of spiders, snakes or fear of change it is all fear. He specifically focused on fear of rejection or failure. 

    In 1905 a Prestigious University turned down a PHD dissertation saying it was "irrelevant or fanciful" The student who wrote the dissertation was Albert Einstein.. He rejected the rejection and went on to be a man we learn about in school. 

    It's important to keep a perspective of reality in times of fear but not letting them define you, let the barriers you face in life be external not internal. 

That's all, hope you enjoyed and I hope you have a great week! 

Love, Elder Clark

COVID Shots and Bomb Referrals

 April 19, 2021

Not alot to report on this week. I got my first COVID shot and I get my 2nd on May 6th so after that I will hopefully be a free missionary  

Quote of the Week:

 "love, patience and meekness can be just as contagious as rudeness and crudeness" - Neal A Maxwell

Hope you all have a good week, sorry for the short email but I hope you take this week's quote to heart. I know as we are more Christ-like we can spread joy and peace into the world. 

Love, Elder Clark

Dinner at the Bishop's house

 

 

Pupusas and Marty the angry Jew 4/12/2021

 April 12, 2021

This week was a crazy one, haha. We met a dude that really, really wants to be baptized, we ate wayyyy too many pupusas, went on exchanges and we found out that park-contacting is now allowed and I also had my first in person Zone Conference! 

I had some very interesting interactions with people this week.  I met a guy who knows the Book of Mormon is true because Joseph Smith was a FreeMason and so was this guy..he also has a tat on his neck of the illuminati symbol, hahaha I love LA! 

Baked tons of cookies so we could stop by some people who had talked to missionaries in the past. One of the most memorable guys was Marty. Marty is the classic old guy: very, very Jewish "but not a good jew at that" according to himself, haha. We knocked on his door and he started popping off about how the New Testament is apostasy and such but by the end of it we were laughing and he took a pass-along card and gave it to his son "who is very christian" haha he is such a homie. 

Spiritual experience of the week. My companion hadn't been endowed yet so as soon as the LA temple opened he scheduled a session.  Because I am his companion I got to go through the session with him, another set of missionaries, some senior missionaries and my mission President. It was really, really cool.  The temple presidency was really excited to have missionaries going through.

Isaiah 64:8

"But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."

We are all examples of Christ. As we turn to God and allow him to 'mold' us, guide us, and help us throughout life we will develop christ-like attributes allowing us to bless others. We were invited by President Nelson to "Get rid of debris in our life that limits our ability to feel the spirit". As we turn to God and allow him to mold us we will become the people we want to become and we will become the examples that our heavenly father wants us to be. 

Los Angeles Temple

 April 6, 2021

Aiden was able to attend the temple with his companion, Elder Derhak

Easter/General Conference

April 5, 2021

 

New comp is nice, new area is slow, apartment is garbage haha life's gooood. There is a blessing in covering an area that has one friend...That blessing is that we can only go up (I hope) what a great opportunity! 

Let's get to the good stuff, Easter and General Conference! I don't know if it's because this is the most engaged I've ever been to a general conference but woah what an amazing conference! Lmk what your favorite talks/quotes are I would love to hear about y'all's experiences this weekend!

I have way too many favorite talks/Quotes but I'll start:

First off, I felt there was an emphasis on families and homes. Learning, loving, spiritual/temporal growth happens in the home as a family. President Eyring said that we may feel of our families embrace forever through partaking of temple ordinances worthily. This was one of my Favorite quotes from conference, it gives an eternal perspective of life and shows the importance of our families and the relationships we have with them. 

Anyway it's kinda late and I'm pretty tired so I'll share some more about conference next week! 

Love yall and hope you took advantage of the opportunity we had to hear from our prophet this weekend..if not, check it out on the lds website. 

Love, Elder Clark

 

Goodbye Burbank, Hello Canoga Park/Chatsworth// Week 20? Inbox

 March 29, 2021

Transfers happened this week and I learned that I'm headed over to Canoga Park. This should be an interesting transfer.. haha moving from one slow area to another rip well keep me in your prayers, we will need them hahaha

We had Exchanges this week, found a few friends, had some Bible studies. Nothing too interesting is happening in Burbank right now so it makes for a boring email, sorry bout it. 

To make up for the lack of anything here are some pics from my third transfer. 

I'm super stoked for Easter and General Conference this weekend! Hope you can all make time to watch it. 

"Amid such uncertainty, there is only one way to feel at peace—the real peace that passes all understanding. That peace is found in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." 

-President Russell M. Nelson

 

 

WhattaWeek

 March 22, 2021

WhattaWeek 

I went on exchanges to the great city of Sylmar and woah that place is not LA.....horses cruising the streets, trucks, more trucks and mountains. Interesting to say the least, felt like I was in Yee Yee town. We saw a bit of success in Sylmar, we had a Bible Referral named Gabriel, we made him a friend! He was talking about baptism and such after the first meeting, anyways he's super interested in the gospel and loves Jesus so he is the perfect investigator. We then headed over to a recent converts house named Gio, she is 21 and pretty sick. She and her family are pretty boujee, haha. They fed us some fire tacos and we got to talk about the Tree of Life and got to know the family over some fine street tacos, pretty dank. 

We finished off the day with some service... We actually started the day off with the service but I didn't wanna rewrite my email so now i'ma tell you about the service we did. we ripped up some carpet in a members house and let me tell you... that carpet was disgusting!  I made the members pick me up some gloves, haha.  There was no way I was gonna touch that crusty, moldy carpet without them. Then Elder Cooper and I headed over to the most yee yee gun-loving Californian I've ever met. The minute I said hi to him he pulled out a glock and handed it to me (allegedly) and by the end of the service I had seen so many guns, and when I say so many, I mean he had at least 20 sitting around and tens-of-thousands of rounds, also saw his 50 BMG, he doesn't have, hahaha I've said too much. Such a wack dude but I loved the guns!

The CLAM (California Los Angeles Mission)  finally saw some covid restrictions relax! About time, smh. We can now visit inside members' homes if they've had the vaccine and can eat dinners with them as long as it's outside.  We had dinner on Saturday and have another tonight! So stoked for some 'real' missionary moments, haha. 

That's basically the week but I'll finish off with a spiritual thought :) 

        Opposition provides choice, we make these choices based on our desires, thoughts and our daily influences. Our choices and actions show if we want to be blessed or cursed, joyful or sorrowful. Always remember that the hard days will get better, you will cherish the good days more after the bad days have passed and you will have grown to become a more Christ-like person. 

 Opposition truly helps us grow stronger: “Life will not be free from challenges, some of them bitter and hard to bear. We may wish to be spared all the trials of life, but that would be contrary to the great plan of happiness....‘for it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things’ (2 Nephi 2:11).  The hard days, the tests, they are all the  source of our strength. 

love,

Elder Clark

Cool sunset

California flag picture with Elder Vave

He really said nah to his confirmation... Week 16?

March 8, 2021

Ok, ok so this story starts off way back in November of 2019.......A guy named Alex was investigating the Church despite his family and his roommates disapproval. He made the big decision to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and due to his family's negative views of the church and many misunderstandings he got anxious after being baptized and skipped out on his confirmation... Homie really said nah to the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Fast forward to this week.... I had exchanges with my Zone Leader and we reached out to him on Elder Nortons (the Zone Leader) phone because he blocked our phone :/   But hey he answered and we talked tons about the Book of Mormon and how he loves learning about it and wants to learn more but due to family pressures he doesn't want to become a member.   So that was really cool and we will be working with him again and I'm super stoked for it! 

Since I've been in Burbank I have met some really cool people in the film industry. We were doing service for a few people that work at the Disney studios as animators, the most recent movie they animated was Raya.  They said they are working on something big but he wouldn't give me any hints, hahaha.  Then another guy that was at the house helped with Alex Honnold's film called, "Free Solo". It's always a fun reminder that I am in LA when I get caught up doing service for actors that have wayyy too much money to not hire someone to do it, haha but hey it'll make for some good stories. 

Also we got rear-ended last Monday and lemme tell ya this crap has taken so much time and paperwork I might just start walking everywhere haha.

Spiritual thought

We had the opportunity as a mission to hear from Elder Cook and his wife. He talked about building relationships with others and staying positive when talking about them. As we talk about others we need to do it in a positive way because focusing on their positives allows us to grow a relationship full of respect for them and we can love them and have a desire for their salvation. It's so easy to talk negatively about others but it doesn't do any good to either person. I know as we focus on the good in others we will be able to love them, hope the best for them and become more Christ-like; which is the goal that we have.

love, 

Elder Clark