THE ATONEMENT IS FOR EVERYONE

I feel like we had a really good week. Our lessons, studies, and encounters with members have been really productive. We're making a lot of head way in our area. We work with a lot of excommunicated members, here in downtown Salt Lake. To be honest, it's really hard. Their pasts seem to weigh on us sometimes. It's almost as if you can feel a literal weight hanging from you... Most of them are sex offenders that have been in and out of prison. It's really good to see some of them make the right steps and want to get back on the right path. The Atonement is for everyone, and that's something we've been focusing on in our studies. How we can apply that to best help those we are teaching and working with.

We had a really good lesson with Terri this week. She's come a long way in the last month. She thinks that she might want to wait longer to be baptized. She wants to make sure that she's ready. We'll continue to teach her and keep her progressing in the Gospel. We were able to find two new investigators on Sunday!! They sort of just showed up to church. Ha ha. We have an appointment with them on Friday to teach them the first lesson. Their names are Micheal and Debbie. Micheal is from Mississippi and Debbie is from Oklahoma. They seem like nice people that are ready to hear about the Gospel.

We've been teaching a man from Iraq named Abas. He moved here about four years ago, and works as a mechanic. He doesn't know much English, so we're going over there this Wednesday to help him with his homework that he gets from a class that's teaching him English. We have a member from the Sudan named, KuKu, that speaks Arabic, so he translates for us. Abas is a really nice guy though. He came to church on Sunday, and when KuKu went to pass the sacrament, he asked if he could help too. He started meeting with us because he wants to become a Christian. He doesn't like what's happening in his home country in the name of Islam. He thinks it's all a lie and wants to get away from it. We have to be careful though because I know the Church has to be careful when Islamic people want to join the Church. It has something to do with their lives being at risk if they ever go back home. We gave him an Arabic Book of Mormon as well as an English one. Maybe we can go to Conference with him.

I can't wait for Conference this weekend! We're trying to get tickets for all of our investigators; they are our number one priority of course. I would rather give all of the tickets to them instead of us going with them. We'll see what happens though. I've been trying to prepare for conference a lot this last week. Reading past conference talks and identifying questions that I want answered, some for me and some for others. That seems to have really helped though. I hope that all of you have been preparing yourselves for the messages that the Prophet and Apostles have been preparing so hard for us. Think about how much time and preparation they put into their talks... We owe it to them to put a little effort in as well. I have a gut feeling that this is going to be a big and important Conference. So get your spiritual ears tuned in!!!!

I hope that you all know how much I love and miss every single one of you. But as always, I love and miss Lindsey and Ralphie the most!

Love, Elder Clark