October 12

Thank you thank you for all the letters and packages! My district is shocked and in dismay when I do not receive a letter. I know I am loved! I wish I could write to more of you - Preparation days do not factor in how many people you love and want to write to! I love you all!

I had pumpkin cookies, cream cheese (on a bagel), and pie this week! I love pumpkin! This season is one of my favorites because of the flavor!

I think today is the day Grandma and Grandpa start their mission in the temple again?! Wahoo! Things have been rolling here in the MTC. I actually got to go into the outside world this week and you know what .... all I wanted to do was get back to the MTC. I didn't miss it at all! (Doesn't mean I'm not excited to go to Arizona though!)

Sundays are definitely some of the greatest days here in the MTC. More importantly, Relief Society. A woman from the RS board came to talk to us, Martha Johnson. She related Sarah Hughes ice skating (2002 olympics) to us working hard as missionaries. It reminds me every week that we all have a purpose here (as a missionary, and in life) to better ourselves so that we can help those around us. Sacrament was awesome because an Elder gave a talk on obedience and diligence and I actually understood some of it! Wahoo!

Sunday was also cool because I got to say the prayer in Sacrament meeting. I've never had to and this was even cooler because it was in Spanish! If anyone remembers my prayers in spanish before ... they were ... pretty funny and very incomplete. Well they're only slightly better now! I did it with no notes and it was actually a prayer said with meaning ... not just saying all that I can think I know how to say in the language! It didn't help though, that the talk right before was on meaningful prayer - talk about pressure!

Speaking of spanish - we had an English fast on Saturday and .... let's just say there was A LOT of silence. Definitely realize how little you NEED to say in the day but how much you cannot communicate in spanish yet. Oh how far we all have to go! By the end of the day we were all going crazy. So crazy in fact I want to tell you a story about it.

We were going over the Word of Wisdom with our teaching and he started saying he likes relate it to eating a cookie. Imagine a giant, warm (your favorite kind) cookie. Just came out of the oven. Justttt perfect! Now you go to take a bite and all of a sudden you realize there is a little piece of poop in it. Would you still eat it? (SIIIIIICK) This is like breaking the Word of Wisdom, just once. It ruins the entire cookie - no matter how delicious it might have been! So we kind of laugh about it when he tells us. A few hours later (we're really slap-happy tired at this point) our other teacher wants us to group teach her about the Word of Wisdom. She came up with the question "But can't I just have one beer ... only for football games?" One Elders face lit up and goes into the cookie metaphor. We busted up laughing. Needless to say ... we won't use the anaglogy but next time you consider breaking the Word of Wisdom ... think of a cookie with a little piece of poop. Yum.

One of my favorite things this week was teaching in the TRC. We taught a man from Ecuador and another man who we taught last week (these are 2 men pretending to be investigators). Generally we go in there with a lesson outline but then try to answer their specific questions. This week we felt very il prepared. We'd only taught lesson 2 once before and hardly got through the first 3 principles (which doesn't even cover the Atonement - the real point of the lesson). In any case, we went in there with our hearts drawn out in prayer. We knew the Spirit had to be there. Well it was there and it gave us great confidence that when we rely on the Spirit, we really will have words put into our mouths. At the same time, we are working on being more prepared and love every opportunity to teach!

My favorite scripture I read this week was Alma 7:15: "Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by goinginto the waters of baptism." Also the new mormon message "choose ye this day." It's a good one.

I love the gospel. Yo sé que José Smith es un profeta. Yo sé que la iglesia es verdadero. Estamos felic si guarder los mandamientos! Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador! El Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

haha oh Spanish - I have so much to learn but I love it. I love you all.

Siempre amor, Hermana Clark