April 24, 2017

Everything is alive and well here in Indianapolis! Eagle Creek is a lot of fun :) We spent some time this week with Muslims and I learned a lot! 1 from Kenya, a lot of them from Somalia and Sudan. Me and Elder Chapple went on an exchange (because I love him) and we taught a Muslim. He let us come in an teach him, he spoke a little bit of English but we focused the lesson on the Old Testament because they believe in it up to the New Testament. This week Sheila dropped us... We were trying to help her quit smoking and she said she needs to take time away from Church. Hope everything goes good with her. Here's a funny story. This week we were talking about being tools in the Hand of the Lord and I looked at Elder Chapple and said "You're used for blunt force trauma" and he said "Yep, I'm used for blunt force trauma" hahaha.  

On Tuesday we had a very good lesson with Evan! Evan is someone we found knocking doors. I said "We're representatives of Jesus Christ" and he said "I know I listen to the Book of Mormon on my phone" and he went to the Temple Open House. We had a very good lesson on the Book of Mormon and receiving Spiritual Revelation and gave him a Book of Mormon to read. Elder Chapple and I then went to visit a Liberian man named Samuel. He really wanted us to come by. We sat down and talked to him for about an hour about the Restoration and he told us his life story of how he made it from Liberia to hear and the trials he went through. We contacted a referral later in the day who wanted a Bible and Book of Mormon, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation. Wednesday morning we gave a blessing to a Sister in our ward who had neck surgery so we went to the Hospital and got that taken care of.  

On Thursday the Merrill's took us out to lunch at Teppanyaki a Grill and Buffet. After that all 4 of us went to this Apartment complex and knocked doors and talked to people there. It was pretty much a Somalian Village. We visited Mike and Alice Davis later in the evening, they are a part member family. Alice is a very strong active member, and Mike struggles with Alcohol and Smoking so we visit them and support them.  

On Friday morning we contacted another referral who wanted a Bible and Book of Mormon but we only talked to her for about 5 minutes because she had to get to court. We had District meeting and then we helped some members with Construction on their house. We were on exchanges with the Avon missionaries for the weekend. Also, the White River missionaries had a baptism this week. 2 hours before the baptism, he called and said he didn't think he'd be able to get baptized. Elder Allred and I jumped in the car and went over to his apartment and talked to him and he decided he would follow through with the baptism. He then bore a powerful testimony at the baptism about the Adversary attacking him when he was about to do something very good but the missionaries being right next to him to push him and help him through.

After the baptism we helped a Muslim family move and that took the whole night, but I'm very glad we got to help them because the wife had a baby 10 days earlier and it was just the Husband and 1 other guy unloading the truck, but 6 Mormon missionaries came along and took care of them :) On Sunday Daryl came to church! He's an investigator. He called us at 8:53 and wanted to come to church at 9 so we can with a member and picked him up. That night we taught Josh the Law of Chastity and put him on date to be baptized for May 6 and he asked me to baptize him so I'm excited for that! I love you guys!

April 17, 2017

So this week President Carlson gave us a challenge to pray to Heavenly Father to have the ability to find, teach and baptize families. Missionary work is so much fun. I have a fire to constantly do it, because it can be exciting. This week we brought Elder Kretschmer and Elder Breiter into our area and "blitzed" which just means all 4 missionaries work the area. We had the Read's for dinner and they made a bunch of Salmon and Tilapia for dinner which was good :) We had a normal P-day before that, played 21 (basketball) went to the field in downtown and ran routes and threw a football around and we did some footwork with a ladder! We went on a nice jog and went to GNC, i love P-days :) Tuesday morning we went to the Bishops Storehouse and did service and I got to talk to Brother Lane from the East Side of Indianapolis :) We worked all day, and we had a lesson with Daryl Robinson and he told us his whole story about how he was going down bad roads in his life and he needed help and he prayed and we knocked on his door. We taught him the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ this time, we need to help him understand the importance of being baptized by authority :) We took Elder Kretschmer and Elder Breiter back to their area which is close to downtown and then went to this less active's house to try and mow their lawn.

On Wednesday we went out to the Dobsen's, they are members in the Brownsburg Ward and they are building a house so we helped them paint their house and did some caulking. That night we had dinner at a Mexican Restaraunt with Sister Hodsen :) We then went and visited Coralie the investigator me and Elder Chapple we're teaching! It was good to visit her again. They are teaching her and trying to get her to come to church so she can be baptized. On Thursday we had interviews with President Carlson, I love seeing him. He's such a good mission president. On Friday we had Mission Leadership Council at the Mission Home in Carmel. It was from 10-4:30 so all day but Sister Carlson makes very good lunch :) I also got a Samsung Tablet from President Carlson to give back to Elder Chapple, President had to take it away from Elder Chapple a while ago :) This is a quote from Elder Chapple for the week "I don't always stay on the straight and narrow path, but I cross it as much as I can". He is my favorite person I've met on my mission hahaha. That night we went over and visited Coralie again and taught her about the Law of Chastity and it was a good lesson!

That night Elder Allred and Elder Dunyon stayed the night at our apartment and went on exchanges with us the next day. We had such a good day on Saturday, we got 8 New Investigators! A new investigator just means we taught them doctrine, and set up a return appointment with a day and time and they accepted to it. We knocked a lot of doors! 7 of the new investigators are Nigerian :) One of the coolest things that happened is me and Elder Allred are knocking doors in this apartment complex and the guy answer the door, I say "Hey we are Representatives of Jesus Christ, just sharing his gospel today" and he says "Oh Yeah I listen to the Book of Mormon on my phone all the time" I was like what??? and then he told us he went to the Temple Open house! He ended up coming to church yesterday and we are going back to teach him tomorrow :) Later in the day me and Elder Dunyon were together and a Liberian man answers the door and says "Are you from the Church of Jesus Mormon?" I don't know what that is? "But ya we're from there" He said he was not interested so we said alright and went our ways. About 40 minutes later we're walking in the apartment complex and he started waving us down from his car, it's a good thing Elder Dunyon was with me because I didn't even see the guy. We went up to his car and he said "Would you guys be willing to teach me about the Mormons? Can you guys set an appointment and visit me? I want to know what Mormons believe. Someone gave me a Book of Mormon and I need to read it. When I told you guys to leave the first time I closed the door and wondered why did I do that?" So we are going back to teach him tomorrow :) I told him I have a friend in Liberia (Deion) and I told him the cities Deion was in and he thought that was cool.

Later in the day, Elder Peterson, Elder Dunyon, Elder Allred and I went over to Sheila's and put her on baptismal date for May 6 and helped encourage her to quit smoking :) She is making progress. That night we had a Cookout at the Tingey's (Members) and 3 investigators were there! The next day at church we had 4 investigators at Sacrament Meeting and we had 4 last week as well :) Yesterday we went to a Easter lunch at our Ward mission Leaders house and then went to a Easter Dinner at a Part member families house, and finished the day visiting and talking to Nigerians in this apartment complex :) I know that Jesus Christ directs the work we do and it's because of him we can do this work and this is his church :) He Lives. I love you guys so much and miss you. Happy Easter!

April 10, 2017

Everything is going good in Indianapolis right now. I'm companions with Elder Peterson (whose grandparents live in Bountiful) but he's lived in Jerusalem, Beijing, Niger Africa + more. He's a good kid and we're enjoying our time together! I love it because he'll work out and go on runs with me, which not every companion will do :) We work out twice a day with the little time we have! We work out for 30 minutes at 6:30 am and at night go on runs. We make a couple stops at GNC as well ;) We actually go make friends with the people that work there and they ask about what we do as missionaries and what church we're from. I don't have any more room in my cubbard to buy more stuff from GNC though haha! On Monday we had a lot of fun. We played basketball and went on a run from the White River chapel to downtown Indy! Me Elder Cox, and Elder Allred ran to the City Center Mall. It's huge. It was a good P-day!

Tuesday morning we went to the Bishop's Storehouse and did service there filling food orders! We had a great day, we just started knocking doors in this apartment complex and found 3 new investigators, 1 came to church yesterday! Brother Donaldson from the Missionary Department/70 came and taught us a new way to teach which was completely inspired and changes the whole way lessons go. People we talk to love it and are a lot more interested. It's crazy how much it changed. That day we had an appointment with Daryl Robinson, we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it, towards the end of the lesson he started falling asleep so I was like "Alright, we'll say a prayer and end" but then we found out it's because he took his medicine that makes him fall asleep :) He came to church yesterday and said to me "God answers prayers, that's why you guys knocked on my door and I know this is where I need to be". He has went through a lot in his life. I sat with him during sacrament meeting and had a thought and feeling that he was someone I needed to find and teach and help come to church. I love that feeling. This week I got in contact with a member from Zimbabwe! I was on Lds.org looking through the ward directory and found some names that looked like African names and I wanted to call them :) It's a good thing I did because he wants to start coming back to church! He was baptized in 2007, we had no idea who he was, and he hasn't been able to come to church! We are going to be working with him this week.

This week I gave a baptismal interview to a lady about 30 years old. Her mom is Catholic and on Wednesday the missionaries went over to prepare her for the baptism that was to happen on Saturday and she told them "You know what, I don't want to get baptized, the Catholic Church is for me" they then found out that because there was no church on Sunday because of General Conference, she went to Catholic mass with her mom and the Priest there told her not to be baptized in this church + a lot more. She asked the missionaries all these questions, they answered them and she felt again that she needed to get baptized into this church :) She was baptized on Saturday! We got to attend and be the witnesses for the baptism. She has no legs, but still took the leap of faith and was baptized. It was a special experience and a lot of missionaries were there to support her! On Saturday we got to help out with a Mission Readiness Conference for the youth in the Indianapolis West Stake. We went to the Brownsburg building and we helped prepare the youth to go on a mission. We answered questions, shared our testimony, shared with them the importance of Preach my Gospel and helped them teach a lesson.

Sunday was a very good day! We had a lot of investigators at church! Actually 1 woke up late, we texted her and got her to come to the next sacrament meeting for the Zionsville Ward, where me and Elder Hauck sat by her :) We had our Ward Mission Leader meeting and then Christina and Josh had us over and made some authentic mexican food :) We then went straight to a meeting with President Carlson (Mission President) President Anderson (Stake President) and a High Councilman and the Sister missionaries who are at the YSA. We talked about the people in the Stake that are on baptismal date and being taught by missionaries and how we can help them. They're always very good meetings and I love President Carlson, and President Anderson. We then went to a members house and blessed/dedicated her home, since she just moved in there :) It was a busy week! Elder Peterson says this is the busiest he's ever been. I love you guys and miss you! - Elder Clark

Indianapolis Indiana Mission

April 3, 2017

I'm going to start my e-mail by telling you guys about one of the funniest things that's happened. So Elder Peterson, Elder Hauck, and Elder Chapple and I are in the car, and about 3 cars behind us a car gets hit and there is a car accident. we heard the whole thing because it was pretty loud. I parked the car and we got out to see if everyone was okay (Elder Chapple had a first aid kit) in his backpack. Me and Elder Hauck stayed back so their weren't too many people going up there, but Elder Chapple and Elder Peterson went. They get up there and a police officer got their at about the same time. Everyone was okay and Elder Chapple and Elder Peterson start walking back. Elder Chapple says "If that police officer wasn't there I would have pulled rank and told them I'm a sergeant in the Marine core and everyone needs to calm down and tell me what's going on and I'll them what to do, I have my photo ID on me" hahaha you gotta know Elder Chapple to know exactly how funny this was. He also texted President Carlson and said "You hear that, church sleep is the Healthiest of all sleeps" after President Uchtdorf said it at Conference. President Carlson responded with "That's how I know you're one of the healthiest missionaries". Elder Chapple is one of a kind. I loved Conference, and got a lot out of it. I like what was said "The Lord promises to direct our paths, but first we have to walk". I also really liked President Eyring's talk to open the Saturday morning session of Conference. He taught the Plan of Salvation so well. They are all so inspired. It was a lot of fun to go out and do missionary work in between sessions of Conference. We found a lady as we were knocking on doors and after giving her a #PrinceofPeace card for the new Easter initiative, she told us she is Lds. She just moved here and is not on our records. I think we were led to her. She was sick and not able to talk to us for more then a minute, but we are going to go back soon. We'll start now from the top of the week!

Monday - Monday we played basketball all day, and it was my last full day with Elder Abhau as a companion! It was a busy day, we said Goodbyes to everyone and he finished up his packing. We said goodbye to the Bokish family and they gave him the traditional homemade Cinnamon rolls, they all tried to get me to eat one, but it did not work :) The Fergusons gave him a shirt straight from Liberia! They are converts to the church and live close to us in our apartment complex. Sam has been a member for 2 years and has lived in America for 3 years and his wife Edwina has been a member for just a couple months. We also visited Sheila, and she is still trying to overcome smoking, she has smoked for 40 years.

 

Tuesday - Tuesday was transfer day, and quite an adventure. On the way home from Fishers I got ourselves slightly lost and so we took a nice detour through downtown Indianapolis. I later realized why, and it was because on the way home I had people come to mind, and I felt I needed to visit them. They are in the old Eagle Creek area I was in, after visiting them, I told Elder Chapple and Elder Hauck they need to stop by and talk to them. After going by they found out they really need this message in their life right now. They would not have came to my mind, if I wouldn't have took the wrong way. Sometimes God's plan A is our plan B :) I did not even take Elder Peterson back to the apartment to unpack, we just did missionary work all day haha until 8 pm when we went back to the apartment to get settled in.

 

Wednesday - On Wednesday we got to finally go teach the whole Plan of Salvation to Ose. She came to church and got confused in Gospel Principles because the lesson was on Resurrection, and she didn't understand anything before or after that so we went and cleared things up. We knocked doors and tried to talk to as many people as possible and pushed the Easter Initiative and invited everyone to watch it on mormon.org It's actually one of my favorite videos ever. I like the music! 

 

Thursday - Thursday we went to the Sports complex and did service there for a couple hours! It was a good time. We cleaned up their baseball fields and got to drive golf carts as we did it. After we finished that, I took Elder Peterson to Wal-mart because we had not yet went to the grocery store this week. We then got haircuts from Brother Cheek! He always does a very good job and never charges us. In the evening we had a meeting we went to, and we were the only missionaries there with the Bishops, Stake Presidency, and Ward mission leaders of the Stake, and they discussed the Rescue effort for less active single priesthood holders.

 

Friday - Friday we drove to Plainfield which is about 30 minutes away and conducted 2 baptismal interviews for a dad and daughter. They were baptized the following day. In the evening we got a text and a member needed help moving so we pretty much had to drop everything we were doing and go help with a move.

 

Saturday - Saturday morning we helped another member move, then quickly went home and changed and went to the Merrill's to watch Conference. We watched the afternoon session at the Dresen's and they had a crepe bar which was very good :) In the evening we went and watched Priesthood session at the Brownsburg building. 

 

Sunday - Sunday morning we went by a referral we received and it turned out to be great! We talked to him for about 15 minutes until we had to leave to watch Conference. He said at the end "You guys better come back". We then headed to the Ford's to watch Conference! DeShawn came to the Ford's which was very good. He is an investigator me and Elder Chapple found when we were together. We knocked doors and found some people for the 2 hours in between sessions. We watched the next session again at the Merrill's. In the evening I took Elder Hauck to some people that I taught and talked to a lot in their area, to show him where they lived. It was a lot of fun :)

I love you guys very much and miss you a lot!

March 27, 2017

So here's the news, I will be staying in Eagle Creek (Indianapolis) and my new companion will be Elder Peterson! Elder Abhau is headed to the Crossroads Ward (East Side Indianapolis) for his last 2 months. Elder Peterson is a brand new Zone Leader so I guess I'm training him for that, I don't know if I know what I'm doing though? Haha just kidding. This week was a great week. On Monday we brought a bunch of weights and work out stuff to the White River Chapel and my P-day consisted of working out, playing basketball and going on a run through Downtown Indianapolis. I love this area. On Tuesday we went to the Bishop's Storehouse and did service, it's always a good time and we get a lot done! Later in the day on Tuesday we were trying to figure out something effective and good to do, instead of just knocking on doors, so I thought, "Let's go to the hospitals in our area and sign up for clergy" There is 1 hospital in our area and it's a Catholic Hospital so we searched the hospital for a spot to sign up, and usually they're in the chapel so we went there and found out it's where they hold Catholic Mass, I thought about leaving a Book of Mormon in there but I decided not to haha. On Wednesday we did a lot of planning in the morning, and we dropped off some Cheerwine and Cake to Bishop Stephens at his courthouse! He loved it. Haha I like Bishop Stephens a lot. 

We then had a request from a Less Active member that he needed the presence of all 4 missionaries at his apartment this week. Elder Chapple brought a sword, so that always makes things fun. This less active member is the go to man when you want a fun experience. He went on to tell us "3 people can keep a secret if 2 of them are dead" and then proceeded to tell us a secret. Later in the evening we had dinner with Sheila and then drove way out to Danville which is a small town in our Zone and I gave a baptismal interview to a lady that the Avon 1 Elders are teaching. The best part of the week was going to play some "beat to teach" basketball at this apartment complex with about 30 people. I'm going to copy and paste the way my companion Elder Abhau described it, so here it is

.since it was a really nice day, we decided to go to the park and try some beat-to-teach basketball.  Unfortunately, the wind was blowing pretty strong (I know, excuses), so we had some trouble knocking in our 3-pointers.  We didn't beat anybody, so we didn't teach anybody. We did, however get enough second-hand pakalolo (Hawaiian for a well-known (and, around here, popular) illicit substance) fumes to bring me to the point of nausea.  And so we decided that that was enough basketball. They also thought we were Jehovah Witness and said the reason we were beating them was because we had God, I assured them that we are not Jehovah Witnesses haha. 

We then headed to the other Eagle Creek Elders apartment and picked up dinner from a member and went back to our apartment so Elder Abhau could start packing! While he packed I worked out and ran sprints outside (We opened up the windows so he could see me) so we were still following all the rules! Saturday morning, us and some of the Elders Quorum helped our investigator Sheila move boxes from her storage unit to her house, which went well, but then after that we went to go help another member move and it turned out me and Elder Abhau were the only ones to show up, he did not have a truck and nothing was in boxes so we helped him for about 4 hours getting the necessities to his new place but then had to get going for our dinner appointment! Sunday we had a really good day at church, and Elder Abhau said his goodbyes! That's the week! I'm very excited for it to start getting warmer, everyone will start coming outside and we'll be able to play basketball with them! I love you guys and miss you very much!

Aloha time for Brother Enos, he's going back to Hawaii!

Yesterday with the Pusters!

March 20, 2017

So this week I got the Flu so I was down for a day. It mostly consisted of Sore throat, chills, Fever, it was not fun! All the missionaries make fun of me for how much I wash my hands, and I still get the flu with how healthy I eat! Oh well it only lasted for about a day or two and then I got a lot better. I'm feeling good now. This week we went to the Midwest Sports Complex and did service. A lot of people there drink beer, so much beer, and so they through all their cans in the trash cans there and they sit for months and months and we had to clean them out and it smelt so bad! It was so nasty. It smells worse then just normal beer and the people through full cans away. It spilt all over Elder Quick and he was gagging about to throw up haha.

This week at District meeting Elder Abhau stabbed his hand and had to get stitches. Elder Chapple brought 1 of his huge knives to district meeting for an activity, so Elder Abhau stabbed a cardboard box, his hand was holding the other side and it went through and pierced his hand pretty good. So we ran him to the urgent care and he got 3 stitches. This week we went over to an investigators house, he invited us inside and it smelled like Marijuana really strong. We sat down and started talking to him and he told us about how he wants to quit smoking. We talked about the Book of Mormon and read out of it with him. He accepted it and wants to start reading it!

This week we had a lesson with Sheila, we've been showing her talks from Apostles like Jeffrey R Holland, David A Bednar and Henry B Eyring. She loves listening to them. This week we showed her the Mormon message "Mountains to Climb" because she is now overcoming smoking. We also have talked to her about what David A Bednar talked about when he said "Do we simply just know who the Savior is, or are we continually coming to know of him and are we getting closer to him?"

Also, pretty soon this mission will be getting Samsung tablets and maybe even phones. They want us to have nice technology to help with the work. They want us to be able to skype members into lessons, or make group chats with members and investigators on Facebook messenger, 1 thing it would help with is say maybe an investigator gets anti and wonders about Polygamy, they go to the group chat and ask "Hey I have a question about this, they ask a friend or 2 that are members, the members answer it and everything is better". So missionary work will change a bit. Elder Donaldson said they (The missionary department) and the Quorom of the 12 want us to have technology now, they're just getting everything set up so it will work out good. They said We have to have technology just because the need for missionary work is increasing and there are too many people that are always on phones and media that we have to try and go that route. I love you guys and miss you!

March 13, 2017

This week Brother Lee Donaldson of the 70 visited our mission with Brother Sean Cates. They both work for the Missionary Department. They were hilarious. This was a comment made by Brother Donaldson "A lot of Protestant and Catholics think they won't be in family units after this life, or do they want to be, they are fine being in "Heaven" or in the presence of Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ for a time. He said That's pretty much what we call the Terrestrial Kingdom, and they'll probably get there thinking there in Heaven and be like I knew it! Those Mormons aren't here!" haha it was hilarious. He taught us a lot of new ways to teach people and while teaching us he said, rarely you should ever ask someone you just met, to say an opening prayer before you teach them, In M. Russell Ballard's Apostolic language he says "It is dumb" hahaha just because they won't be comfortable so we should always offer to say the prayer.

Also another funny part from the week, So we spend a lot of time with Elder Chapple and Elder Hauck, and they were tracting and ran into a Nigerian man who wanted them to come back, they gave him a card and on the back wrote "Hauck+Chapple" but the plus sign was slighty scribbled and messy and so he called them asking for Hauckychapple hahaha. I've also been trying to drink a lot of water and yesterday at church I drank a gallon, just at church, plus a bunch of bottles and glasses throughout the day. We went on exchanges with the Spanish missionaries again this week so I was with Elder Cepeda and he is so funny. We were on a doorstep and he was trying to explain what we do in English and after talking and then realizing he didn't know how to say it he said "Oh forget it" to this lady at the doorstep so I had to explain what we do.

Yesterday we taught Josh about Tithing! He is preparing to be baptized on March 26. He is coming a long way! He is married to a member and it will be a huge step in his life! We also went to Buffalo Wild Wings this week for dinner, not to watch basketball or anything ;) We had 3 investigators at church this week, Josh, Ose, and Sheila. Ose is someone I found tracting when I was on exchanges, she is from Nigeria! Sheila is still working on quitting smoking and is planning on being completely done on March 19 :) She really wants to be a member! I love you guys so much! - Elder Clark

We went on a "Mini Mission" with some Young men from the Zionsville Ward a couple weeks ago but I don't think I ever sent you the picture!

This was when I was exchanges with a Spanish Missionary and this is Brother Bello who used to have Kurt Hoyt over to his house all the time in New Jersey. He made us "UNLIMITED" mexican tacos :) Authentic ones

Me and Elder Cepeda