Hello family!

Hello family!

It was wonderful to hear from you guys this week!!!! It sounds like everyone is doing so well. Congratulations to Scotty who had his birthday on Thursday, and received the priesthood on Sunday!!! Wow Scotty, what a wonderful honor that you are now worthy to hold the Power of God. Always stay worthy, and treat it as a privilege, because that´s what it is! You will use it to carry the gospel to God´s children, and to help build His kingdom wherever you go. I’m so proud of you :)

Elder Hill & Elder Clarke in their house.

So as for my week... it was really good!! Part of the week was really hard, but it´s crazy how fast The Lord will deliver us from trials if we humble ourselves and try our best. I think along with faith (I think I really learned about faith in the MTC), humility is quickly becoming one of the best lessons I´ve learned out here. Humility, humility, humility. I was so not humble before my mission!! I have come to realize and truly ingrain in my heart this week the concept of humility. We must ALWAYS remember that we are nothing without God and His Son, our Redeemer. We can do nothing without him. He allows us to live from breath to breath (I think that´s how King Benjamin states it)! I am so grateful I´ve learned this lesson and I plan on using it the rest of my life. Sorry guys if before, I was real, well, not humble. Hah - I´ll be better when I get home.

Allright, so now for some good stuff. We have been teaching a grandma and grandchild for a few weeks now, and I just love them!! Lucía and Michelle are their names. They haven´t come to church yet or anything, so they´re not super-progressful. But Michelle is so awesome!! She has so many ¨questions of the soul¨, as PMG says it. We love helping her with the lessons, and hope she will now take that next step of faith and go somewhere with it. The problem is, she´s kind of young, and so her grandma doesn´t let her do hardly anything without her. It´s kinda a pain. Anyway.

Ok so, another lesson - this one with Shaíd. He has struggled a bit since his baptism, entonces, we decided to go pay him a visit. As we were picking an opening hymn for the lesson, I suggested ¨La Barra de Hierro¨ (The Iron Rod). We went with it, and then started the lesson. The song ended up paving the way for the entire lesson, and we read together 1st Nefi chapter 8, and had an amazing lesson about holding to the iron rod. We also challenged him to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover before I leave here (La Chorrera). I decided to do it with him to help him, and I LOVE it!!!! I just started the BOM all over again, and this time I´m doing it all in Spanish. In a week, I´m already into second Nefi!!! Wow. Anyway, after the lesson, Elder Hill and I were talking, and it turns out that at the beginning of the lesson, Elder Hill was searching for the exact same hymn!!! I then knew that the lesson had been inspired and guided by The Spirit. Super cool. And, I´m loving the Libro de Mormón :) Can´t wait for the Isaíah chapters in Spanish..... yikes.

So that´s all for the cool stories. In other news, we had interviews with Pte. Ward, and they were really good. He gave me an AWESOME blessing. Also, we passed our house inspections and Elder Hill has been studying about marriage for when he gets home. Hahaha. Good week.

Love you all SO MUCH!!!

-Elder Clarke

Bug infestation!  Hard to believe they passed their house inspections!