6 More Weeks

October 20, 2014

Today was transfers and the news is that I will stay here with Elder Mangana for another 6 more weeks! He will become my companion that I have had for the longest time on my mission! We are so excited to continue to work together in our area!!

Elder Clark

This week was really good. We did another trade, but this time with Elder Porter! Remember him; he was my companion in the MTC more than a year ago! He is a district leader in our zone and we spent the day here while Elder Magana worked in Elder Porters area. It was so cool to teach with him and talk with people on the street. I remember when we were in Utah, learning how to speak Portuguese and now one year later we were walking the streets of Brazil talking and teaching people in Portuguese! And when we were alone on the streets and stuff, we just talked Portuguese because it is actually easier to speak Portuguese rather than English.

This week we had a lesson with a family that we are teaching their 30 year old daughter but their daughter is vacationing in Europe right now but we still wanted to keep in touch with her family while she was gone. We visited her parents and we took along with us a seventy; He is an Area Seventy and he lives here in our ward. He finished being a Mission President this year. His name is Elder Pinho. And boy was it intimidating to give a lesson with him there. But the lesson went great and tonight we will have a family night with them!! But during the lesson the parents of Luiza just thanked us so much for the help and the change we have been giving there family. It was such a great feeling because some days here we get home and are totally wiped out but at the same time feel like we didn’t help anyone. So, to hear the gratitude they have for our work really helped me and re-energized me work! We are excited for when Luiza gets home and we can start teaching them again!

Pirenopolis

We traveled to another city, Samambaia to do another baptism interview; I am really liking traveling around and seeing more of Brazil! I am really excited because President opened a new are in our zone. It’s a city named Pirenópolis. There the church practically doesn’t exist and the missionaries will baptize in a river! One of the assistants will be working there this transfer and it is about 2 hour away from our area, so I am excited to travel there. Look up pictures, it’s a beautiful city!

I love you all and I am so happy where I am! The gospel is true and there is nothing better than it! I love my Savior and I am so grateful for him!

Elder Samuel

The Seeds are Growing

October 13, 2013

I can’t believe this is my last p-day of this transfer!! It went by so so so fast. And I am so excited for the next transfer! I am almost positive I will stay here with Elder Magana but say extras prayers for me to stay just to make sure. haha We have worked so hard this transfer because the elders before us that were here really didn’t leave a lot for us to work with so we were pretty much starting from nothing but now we have so much going here that I think the next transfer here in Taguatinga is going to be great! Next week we will know my fate... but it is looking a whole lot like one more transfer here!

Our Zone here has a lot of Americans so the last couple of p-days we have been playing basketball instead of soccer. It’s been so much fun, but the quality of basketballs here are terrible and I think it’s already time to buy a new one.

We have been having a lot of success with members less active and the ward here is becoming really excited. And after conference everyone is ready to work, so hopefully we can take this energy and make some good things happen!

Yum!

We are working with a family that is really great. We found them when we knocked of a wrong gate looking for someone else, but we told them who we were and they let us in. Their mom is VERY active in another church and she didn’t like us too much at the beginning, but now we are good friends! She doesn’t want much to do with the church but at least she likes us! The rest of the family is great. They told us that everyone in their church is telling them it is really dangerous to talk with us, but they told us they like our visits and that they like the things we talk about and they don’t see one thing wrong with it! They even went to church yesterday and they loved it!

This week we traveled and were not in our area a whole lot. Tuesday we did a trade and I went back to Recanto for the day with Elder Knight. He has been in Brazil for 1 month, and it was great to work for him for the day! He has so much energy and already is speaking Portuguese really well! 

Missionary Shoes

Wednesday we had a zone conference and interviews with President that lasted practically all day. Friday we traveled to Aguas Lindas, another city in a different state! It is about an hour and a half away from our house. There we needed to do a baptismal interview. It was real cool to see more of Brazil because I still haven’t seen a whole lot. It was only my second time leaving the District Federal here, which is like DC... it’s part of Brazil but it’s not a state.

Life is very busy and the days are passing so fast! I am so grateful everyday here and every person i have met and every experience I have had. God is so kind and life is sweet!

Love you all and until next week!!! 

Elder Clark

Blessings

October 6, 2014

Elder Clark

This week, and this transfer have been full of difficulties and blessings. I am so grateful to my Savior for the experiences and what I have learned. Until this week, even 5 months later, I find myself missing Scottsdale, Arizona terribly. The experience I had there and the happiness I had there is indescribable and I found myself thinking and wanting to return to my first mission. But this week I really took some time to think about that. I have been a little frustrated here because I have not been finding the same kind of success I found in Arizona. I really have been working hard but not seeing much progress until this week. Although I haven’t had as much success as I would like with the people we work with, the growth within myself I have realized has been incredible. The lessons I am learning about myself and what kind of man I am and will be have been incredible. Although we aren’t finding a WHOLE lot of success here, we have been receiving little blessings for our work.

We worked our nametags off this week, trying to find someone, anyone that we could really teach. Friday, we were walking in the heat, and I told my companion that I have been waiting this whole transfer for a miracle to happen because we have been working so hard, but no one seems to be listening, my companion who has more faith then me told me to just wait a little longer and we will get one! Sure enough, conference weekend was the weekend of our miracle! As we were sitting in conference, a member came to us with a woman and her daughter. The first thing she said to us is that she wants to be baptized... WHAT IN THE WORLD? She just moved here from Manaus, Brazil, her brother is a member and she wants to learn more about our church and be baptized!! The Lord works in mysterious ways for sure. Although she came to us, with no work on our part, I believe that Heavenly Father blessed us for the work that we have been doing. I love my Savior.

Another blessing God sent to us was rain!!!! It rained 3 days in a row! haha and the temperature has cooled off! It is still hot, but just less hot!

I also love my Prophets and Apostles. Conference weekend was great! https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng Questions and prayers were answered!! Our only other investigator and her mom went to ALL the sessions of conference and they said that lots of their questions were answered! We are going to visit them tonight. I know that the Apostle are men of God and truly speak for him. I am so grateful for this Gospel and the direction it has given me in my life. 

I am doing well, I am happy and I am growing more than I ever thought I could. I love you all and thank you for everything!!

Elder Clark

A Special Witness

September 29, 2014

P-day in Brasilia

 This week was the best week I have had in a long time. Lots of things happened, I learned and grew a whole lot, and I had a whole lot of fun doing it all! We are finding a lot of people to teach and have a great group of people we are working with. Although this area was made for a car and we walk miles every day, I love it here. My companion is great and I believe we are going to see a whole lot of miracles in the next few weeks!

Speaking of miracles, one thing I absolutely love about being a missionary is that we see and receive a crazy amount of miracles. For example, one night we had to get to the church because we had to share the message for an activity there but the problem was that we were about an hour and a half walking distance and the activity was going to start in 30 minutes. As we were walking my companion said, it would be real cool if a member passed by and gave us a ride... no more than 5 minutes later, a member passed by and gave us a ride to the activity! Since then, we have received a lot of rides, and food and blessings. I didn’t quite realize how blessed we are as missionaries until my companion and I were talking about all the blessing we get as missionaries, service, random rides, free food, free shoe shines from stranger (happened to my companion) the love of people because of the black tag we have, all these blessings are going to be a whole lot more rare when we get home. The scripture in the Bible, in Matthew 19:29 is so true. As missionaries we are truly blessed.

McDonalds!

We are teaching a whole lot of people, but I just want to talk about a few experiences we have had this week. One man we are teaching is VERY smart, especially about religion. He studied religion in college, but now owns a sandwich business. I don’t know how that happened.... after talking with him for a while; we found out that all his personal beliefs are on the same lines as the doctrines of the church! He then said ``Wow, I am Mormon and I didn’t even know it!” haha Not quite Alberto;) but we have had real good lessons with him, and he even gave us a ride to the church and we gave him a tour, he loved it!

Another cool experience was with a family we are teaching, they brought a friend who also knows a lot about religion but is very different then Alberto, she just spent the whole time asking questions to test our knowledge and she didn’t want to accept any of our answers, especially about the Book of Mormon. Finally I just testified about the Book of Mormon, and its truthfulness, and how it is a special witness of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and how we don’t worship the book, but we USE it to worship our Savior and become closer to Him. After I finished talking, she was silent and barely talked for the rest of the lesson. I don’t know if I will ever see her again, but I hope she was touched and we helped her in some way. ``You can’t argue with a ´´Special Witness`` -Brad Wilcox. I am so excited for general conference, where we get to hear from special witnesses of God!

I love this gospel, I love being a missionary. I have so much more to write about this week but I just don’t have time. We went on a mini trip to Brasilia today to see the sights so my time is very short on the computer. I love you all and thank you for EVERYTHING!

Elder Clark!