SERVICE IN HOLLADAY

So I love my new area of course.... I'm in Holladay now, in the Highland Stake. It's a really nice and pretty area, plus I'm really close to Sugar House so that's nice. It has a big shopping area that makes everything we need in a convenient distance. I really miss my old area, but who wouldn't? I mean, I was so close to everything meaning, Temple Square and church headquarters, and I had so many General Authorities in my area that were all such spiritual power houses. My new companion is super nice and humble. He's been out 5 months, so we’re both in that new missionary phase still. His name is Elder Bischoff. We get along great though. He's from Goldendale Washington, which is a super tiny town in South-East Washington. We're on bikes now in our new area, but our area is less than 1 square mile so it's not bad at all.... haha. We live with members in a part of their house that they've sectioned off for an independent apartment. It's really nice and comfortable. The work has been really good so far. This area hasn't seen any baptisms in over 4 months, and we put twin, 10 year-old girls on date for baptism for the 26th of this month. Their older brother is really interested too. He's 17 and we're gonna play basketball with him and some of his friends along with the young men in the ward. We're excited because we asked if being baptized is something he's interested in and he said yes. He has a really good friend that's about to go on a mission, so that helps a lot. We just picked up a new investigator this week that is super solid. Her name is Hazel. She went to conference, she read the Book of Mormon assignment we gave her, she prayed about that reading, and she's already willing to give up coffee. She's really nice and we've been progressing with her a lot already after just 2 lessons. Conference weekend was so amazing. I don't think I've ever gotten more out of conference than I did this past weekend. It's amazing how easy it is to relate everything the General Authorities say to yourself and what you're going through. We ended up with 14 conference tickets, but gave a lot of them to our investigators that could go with fellow shippers and some less-actives. We went to the Priesthood Session and loved it. We got to watch all of the other ones at members’ houses and our senior missionary couple. We have 2 couples that we work rather closely to, the Henricksens and the Browns. They're both awesome couples and they really help us out a lot. We've been working a lot with members this week and trying to establish a good relationship with them. It's so important to have trust from the members. They're the key to missionary work. If every single member trusted the missionaries enough to have them teach their friends and family, missionary work would explode. So that's what we want, is for the members to trust that we'll do a good job teaching the people they care about. I loved the talk Elder Nelson gave in the Saturday afternoon session. He spoke about the importance of being securely tied to God. We have to ask ourselves what we're tied to. What it is we lean on in times of trouble. He said, "There is safety in the Lord". I love that. No matter what, there's always safety, comfort, and happiness in the Lord. How do we apply this? By living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Striving to follow His example and live the teachings that He taught are what's important in this life. That's what we should be tied to; Faith, Repentance, Baptism (sacrament if we're already baptized), Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost (having a closer relationship with the Spirit if we've already been given the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. These are the things that have helped me in these first 2 months, and they will continue to help me throughout the next 2 years. I can testify of the truthfulness of these things. I can bear witness that if we tie ourselves to Christ and His teachings, that we'll find true happiness in our lives, and that when those trials come, we'll be firm and steady in what we know and live. I love and miss all of you as always, and of course I love and miss Taylor and our not-so-much a puppy anymore, Ralphie, with allllll my heart. :)

Love, Elder Clark