A New Year, Same Gospel

Kyra and the Ft. Apache Elders

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know I am pretty late but the year is still young! What a great week (and a couple days) it has been! I love being a missionary! So many great opportunities and adventures happen every single day! Good news is that all the Ft. Apache Elders are sticking together for another 6 weeks! We added the sisters (sisters are women who are serving missions) yesterday!  This area needs some sisters and we are all excited for the contribution they will be to this branch (a branch is a small congregation)! 

New Year's Eve Party

New Years was a lot of fun.  We went to a few parties and we able to make our "grand appearances" and I was able to be the grill master at one! Sometimes service IS really fun! We had a bonfire with a family and just had such a great time! New Year’s Day we went all the way to Snowflake for a activity for the morning! Lots of basketball playing! The best part was probably being able to watch some movies though! We watched "It’s a wonderful life" a super old (and approved) movie. Now all we elders talk about is the stud "George bailey".  If you haven’t seen that movie, it is a must see. So good! So old but, SO good.  

An interesting tradition the reservation has is that at midnight they all shoot their LOADED guns into the air... we were certain that we would be woken up by war sounds outside, maybe even bullets flying through our walls but none of us actually heard anything. So, I guess that was good...

Kyra and Elder Clark at Kyra's Baptism

Saturday was a really great day! I had the wonderful opportunity to baptized little Kyra. She is 10 years old but crazy smart and crazy funny. The service was great and it was great to see the support of all her family members there. Her and her sisters are incredibly strong girls and are such an example of true faith to me. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to be a part of their journeys. They will all grow up to be amazing women.  I know it.

 I love this gospel so much and I know is true with all my heart. A man that we have been working with, since I got here, bore his testimony to me and my companion yesterday. He has become active in the church again. He and his wife are preparing to go to the temple together! After over 30 years of being away! What a marvelous experience it was to hear his testimony and to feel the spirit inside of his home. He is truly a great man and a great leader in this community. I know soon he will make a great leader in this church too! The feeling at that moment was as great of a feeling as I had baptizing little Kyra on Saturday. Bringing someone back into the fold is just as great as bringing in new members. I know that to be true and I know it is the ability of EVERY member to do so. That is what home teaching is for. It’s a necessity.

This gospel is the greatest thing in my life. I am so grateful for it and all it does for me. I am grateful for my family, my happiness, my mission and my Savior. I know he lives and is my older brother who wants nothing more than to see me again and I will do all I can to not only make it back to him, but bring as many people as I possibly can with me. Love you all!

Elder Clark