Tuesday, Nov 29, 2011

Oi Família!

Sorry I didn´t my e-mail off to you guys yesterday. There is quite the epidemic here in the mission. Everyone is catching the Chicken Pox! It all started last month with one Elder, then it spread to another... then to another... and pretty soon we had to put about four or five missionaries in quarantine! Seriously, we had a house right by the Mission Office reserved for the sick Elders and no one could go in if they hadn´t already had the pox. So why does this have anything to do with me not sending an e-mail... well I have a companion who is deathly afraid of getting the chicken pox, so instead of sleeping at the secretaries´ house we had to go all the way back to our area which is more than an hour away from the office. Therefore, I did not get to use the computer there. End of story. The funniest thing is that Elder Fassini is paranoid at the fact of catching the pox that I see him scratching a little bit and he already starts to panic haha.

This week was a great experience for me. This Sunday was the Primary Program for the ward, so we got to see all the kids singing to us. It was such a great program that they all put on, and I was so happy to have brought our investigators to watch it. They all told us afterwards that it was really cute and they all felt really good inside. I know that Christ wasn´t joking around when He said that the little children are heirs in God´s Kingdom. You can just feel such a great Spirit when little kids are singing and baring their testimonies about Jesus Christ or the Book of Mormon or the Church. They really are the most pure at heart. It kind of makes me want to go back to that stage of life. The best part of the program, I thought, was when they invited all of the full-time and returned missionaries to come up and sing "Called to Serve" together. I saw more than 20 men and women up at the front with us all wearing their missionary name-tags, some a little older than the others. I looked out at the congregation and saw about four or five of our converts looking at us. I recognized the look on their face because it was the same look that I had when I saw the returned missionaries that I knew before the mission. That look of "I can´t wait to be a missionary like him!" It was impossible to not notice the way they were feeling because I still feel the same about my own dad who I am so proud to say that really was a true missionary of the Lord. The fact that I am going through similar problems and situations that he, too, went through helps me have a lot more respect for him. Knowing that I am almost finishing this part of my life is something very sad for me, but I am so glad they called me on a mission.

Hope you all have a great week and that the Spirit can help you all in every tough decision you make. Always rely on the Lord and everything will turn out all right. I love you all! Thanks so much for everything.

Elder Clark