Whatta Week!

March 10, 2014

Basketball!

 Wow! Lots has happened this week! And there is still so much more to come!! This week started with a basketball game. A less active member challenged us missionaries to a basketball game vs his rec team. We of course accepted on the condition that he will attend church with his family (His family has just been recently reactivated and his wife was just called as the new young women's president!) so Tuesday night we met him and his team at the boarding schools gym... man... his team was good! We had four high school basketball players on our team and they beat us 102 to 96... with 2 20 minute quarters. It was such a fun game even though we lost! We set up another challenge for next Tuesday with the same condition! We just need to play better defense. We are all so lazy and outta shape though. They ran the floor on us cause we are all just fat missionaries!

Ft Apache Elders at the Snowflake Arizona Temple

Thursday we had the always awesome opportunity to go to the temple as a zone. It was a beautiful day and as always a wonderful experience!

Elder B and Elder Clark at the Snowflake Arizona Temple

The work is really doing well here. Elder Blankenship and I get along really well and are able to just work. We found a lot of people this week and have a huge teaching pool now! With ten missionaries we can get A LOT done! We all are starting to get specific assignments of what to help with the branch and mine is the young men. I love being able to work with them! We consistently have almost all young men pass the Sacrament each Sunday which is a miracle! They are great!

Saturday we had a wonderful baptism for 3 little sisters. They are 12, 10 and 8, and all so bright and just so much fun. We started teaching them when I was with Elder Vete but strange things happened and they left for a little bit but we finally were able to get them in the water. I had the opportunity to baptize the 12 year old, Tiana. I am so grateful to have been able to do so. I think my favorite part of teaching those girls was seeing their mom become happier and happier as she embraced the gospel! They have VERY little, but those three girls and their mom are such happy, shining people now.

Sunday was really good, we were missing some of our regulars and others due to a professional bull riding event, but we still had 212 people. It was fast and testimony meeting and although the kids got antsy because it was about an hour and a half long. It was great because there was a constant stream of people bearing there testimonies.

Beautiful Ft. Apache

We were also able to go off-roading with some member yesterday in search for a trail that we could hike because the zone is coming down today to hike.. haha that was a lot of fun, and muddy!

I love seeing the gospel work in people’s lives. I love my Savior and I love my mission!

Elder Clark

One Small Step for the Missionaries, One Giant Leap for the Ft. Apache Banch!

February 3, 2014

Wow wow wow... I have learned so much this week about myself, about human nature and about this gospel. I love the ability to learn each and every day even though my primary job is teaching! It’s crazy how that works!

This week was crazy full of amazing experiences and miracles. Mostly little miracles, that were such tender mercies. I could probably write a small book on all that happened but aint nobody got time for that. One small miracle was one day we went out to find a house that someone had referred us too, we ended up going to the wrong house, but this man was a less active member and we were able to help him with some yard work. He told us maybe it was a sign that we found him.... heck ya, it was a sign (and a small miracle from our Heavenly Father)!

Another one was that on Saturday we had lessons planned for each hour of the morning but NONE for the afternoon. This was frustrating to me because we usually are full all day. We were able to go to our lessons, but during one of them my companion became really ill. He started throwing up and all the works.... so we spent the rest of the day at home so he could recover. What a tender mercy the lord gave to us so we didn’t have to cancel on anyone. The Lord really does provide for us all the time. We just need to stop and look for the miracles.

Sunday of course was the best day of the week again. We had 190 people at church! THIS WORK WILL NOT STOP! I was so excited, and we had ALL young men passing and blessing the Sacrament which hasn’t happened since I’ve been here, usually one or 2 or 3 of us missionaries are helping out. Great things are happening. I had also been praying ALL WEEK for certain people we were working with to finally make it out to church. We have been working with a couple families that do everything but just don’t attend church. Well they did this week and how great it was to see them there! The first time coming back is always the hardest. I cannot wait to see all of them progress in the gospel and make it to the holy temple!

Gilbert Arizona Temple

For information about temples go to: http://www.lds.org/church/temples

We have met this man named Andrew. He is such a stud, he isn’t a member but he wants to be! He has a testimony of this gospel and reads the Book of Mormon every day since we met him! It is amazing to see him progress and I am excited for him to be baptized and become a mighty priesthood holder.

This work is real, the Savior is real, the happiness through his gospel is real and I want every single person I meet to know that.

Love you all

Elder Clark

The Dog Days Are Over

Reminder if you send a letter or anything else to Elder Samuel Clark please put his first name on it... There are 4 Elder Clarks in the Scottsdale mission.

October 16, 2013

(On Sunday Samuel's father was released from being the Bishop of the congregation back home.)

First off I cannot believe Dad got released! What a strange thought, of him not as the Bishop anymore. Thank you Dad for all the service and the example you are to me! Bishop Duersch, I know you will be an absolutely wonderful bishop! wow... and tell Brother Schilling that (Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy) is one of my favorite hymns because of that experience on High Adventure too! I think about it every single time I hear it! Holy cow what a change...

So, I bet your guessing why I am emailing TWO DAYS LATE!! Well... It was transfer week and we have P-day on Wednesdays so here I am. I was transferred back to my old area with my old companions and we picked up a brand new elder! So, there are now four of us in this area and 6 of us living in our apartment! It’s awesome, I love it here.

Sister Hogenson and Elder Clark
She is the niece (on the other side of the family) of Elder Clark's Aunt Michelle Christensen

The mountains were good, just slow work and really quiet... pretty cold too. We woke up Tuesday morning to head down to transfers and it was 25 degrees. crazy cold... Most of the things we did were service projects, we split wood countless times and moved lots and lots of stuff. The best part of that area was the reservation. We had a lot of work up there, 31 less active/part member families, so we would spend most our time up there walking around trying to find these families. The catch was, there are more dogs than people up there! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! I wish my camera was working at the time because one day we had 5 dogs walking around us following us and then 4 dogs at different houses barking at us. I had to go buy a big knife in case of an encounter. The wild dogs where so kind and the chained up ones were the vicious ones... most rottweilers and German Shepards and a few pit bulls. There was one dog that was huge, we named Bear, and he loved us. He spent most of the time with us and we felt so much more safe because we had this giant dog that all the other dogs seemed scared of... Man I wish I had pictures.

Elder Clark, Ready to Strike

We got a lot of good work going and met a ton of people, so I hope it continues that way, that area needs help, the reservation feels like a whole different country... feels like just a step above a third world country... the natives do not have very much. The reservation was kind of a scary place at night too... we were driving down a road and there were 6 hooded people, walking in a straight line, covering the whole street, with various things in their hands like a golf club, or bat... needless to say, we did a quick u-turn and booked it outta there.  

I made a Navajo Battle Club with "Grandpa" though! He is a native and makes stuff like that for a living. Its pretty sweet, kind of big and heavy so I don’t know to get it home....

Elder Speirs, "Grandpa" and Elder Clark with their Navajo Battle Clubs

I am back in Scottsdale and there is so much work to be done!  The weather has cooled off to the 80s, which I am grateful for because I am now a biking missionary! Gonna get quads of steel!

Life is great in Arizona, still waiting on the visa and still working hard.

Love you all!

HIGH ON A MOUNTAIN TOP

Elder Clark Preaching to All!

What a great week. There is nothing like the life of a missionary. So many things occur in one week that just shift your whole perspective of everything... and I am still in the US! Like I said in my last email, my area is a super poor area, very few houses but a lot of very run-down apartment buildings. The people here are so humble and have some of the most incredible stories. We have met so many new people waiting for the gospel! The work had exploded here!

The first one is about Christina, we met her through a referral from the sister missionaries. She is the most humble woman. We showed up at her doorstep on Saturday and she was just sitting outside her apartment. We started talking and she was telling us about her past and how she was homeless and addicted to all sorts of things. She has a couple kids and they were all really young when she was homeless. She said she knew she needed to take care of these children but did not know how. She said she decided to turn to Jesus (Smart Move). She said what a blessing that has been for her. She said that after she was able to get the apartment she has, she somehow has been able to keep it for these last couple of years, and that food somehow gets to the table. The best part of it though is her testimony of faith. She said that none of this would've happened if she had just asked and waited for God to deliver her out of it all. She said faith is nothing if you are not willing to work for the blessings you want. Even though her circumstances are not ideal yet, she is so thankful for the blessings The Lord has given her for the ability to overcome ALL her addictions, keep her children, and provide for them. She said she wants to help other people all the time and she isn't even to that point. Her three children are so beautiful too. They are awesome. We have a lesson set up for this week! She is so solid and wanted the Book of Mormon real bad because she loves the Bible! It’s amazing how the Lord prepares people! What a miracle!

Celsa and Lance... They are my favorite. Celsa grew up in the church and Lance is not Member. They just moved here from the sticks in North Carolina about a month ago. She said she was driving in Mesa and passed the temple. Which obviously reminded her of the happiness the gospel brought her, and she had the overwhelming feeling that they needed to be married in the temple! So, here we are, teaching the lessons to Lance, helping him gain a testimony and preparing him to be baptized, which we committed him to baptism on Nov. 3! He has a strong testimony of God and that He has a plan for hi but Lance says he doesn't know what that quite is yet. We know what His plan is for you Lance... We know. We think we are going to have a wedding ceremony before the baptism too for them! How awesome is that!?

The last person I will tell you about is 19 year old Courtney, who we met yesterday at church. She was sitting at the bus stop and asked this member if she knew where the library was, turns out that member was going to the library after church! The sister told her that and Courtney asked "Can I come to church?" OF COURSE YOU CAN COURTNEY! We talked to her after Sunday School and she was just in tears. She told us what was talked about in church is exactly what she struggles with and exactly what she has been looking for. She is a senior in high school but lives on her own. She told us about all these different struggles she has gone through. She is so excited to learn more! God has a plan for each of us, the way He works things out is just amazing! This area is full of people like Cristina, Lance and Courtney and it seems like we meet them every day!

I never thought I could be this happy serving other people and thinking about them all the time. It is amazing how much I have learned about myself through all the people that I meet. I love it here, so much work to do! Some days it can be so frustrating though because of how unreliable some people are but we are constantly teaching people either on the street or in their home. Where ever we can!

We were able to go to the temple on Wednesday! That was a lot of fun! The Mesa temple is amazing! 

This morning my companions and I climbed to the top of this giant rock that's in the middle of the valley. We could see the entire valley when we got to the top! What a view that was! 

Elder Clark and his companions overlooking their area

Next week we are moving apartments to live with the Spanish elders! There is going to be 5 of us in one apartment! It is going to be so much fun! The Spanish elders are so goofy, there are going to be some great times in apartment 2003! 

So our mission president and his wife went to Texas for some training this weekend and there is a rumor

that it was training for the use of IPADS and Facebook for missionaries! Everyone is so pumped! Oh and Iphones too!! The church is so hip! 

So that's really all I got for the first week in the mission field! Life is good, God is great! I love and miss all of you! 

Don’t forget to write me!

Quote of the week: Try Jesus, if you are not satisfied, Satan will always take you back. - Bumper Sticker

Eu amo todos voces!

Elder Clark

Scottsdale Arizona Mission Map