What a week!

Hoooola amigitos!

Dang..... this week has been a super crazy one. I´m not going to lie..... the mission is tough, and this week was especially real hard for me. It´s crazy how much and how fast your emotions change out here. You can go from cloud 9 to rock bottom in a day - hours even, sometimes. It´s a definate roller-coaster. Such a learning experience though, that´s what I love about it. I learn something every day.

So the past few days, Elder Huallanca and I have REALLY kicked it into high gear - worked real hard. Yesterday after church, we contacted for 5 1/2 hours and taught 10 lessons!!! Fetch... it was nuts. We´ve got some good return appointments to show for it though. We taught 40 lessons this week in all! That was our goal, and we had to work hard to get it.

Allright.... best news of the day? Melánia, if you remember she came to church last week, assisted church with us yesterday too!! And wow how she has progressed in one week. We met with her varios veces this week, and wait for it....... accepted a baptisimal date!!! YES!! The 7th of July :) We had a very special lesson with her a couple days ago and she spilled her guts to us. When we left her with 3rd Nephi 11 to read the previous appointment, we came back and she was so excited to tell us that she read the whole chapter and more!!! She had started to read the introduction and 1st nephi all by herself!! She also read Joseph Smith´s testimony and everything! Wow how we were pleased. She continued to tell us that while reading, she recieved her answer that the book is true. Without skipping a beat, she told us that she knew it was an answer because it came from The Spirit.... feelings of ¨peace, joy, love, faith¨ (Galations 5:22) - she had read that in the folleto we left her. We couldn´t believe it!!! She is so DANG prepared!! She wants to get baptized right now, but we have to get her married. She´s about 28 (?) years old and has 4 kids. She´s been together with her husband for 12 years! So we just gotta get the paper work done and wait on the time. That´s the hard part - I really wanna see her get baptized before I leave here, but sometimes the paper work takes a reeeal long time. I´m pretty sure I´m gonna be moving to a new area the 11th of July, so we´re gonna be cutting it close. She´s so amazing though!! She even brought a daughter to church yesterday and everything. Could be the family we´ve been looking for :)

Ok another cool miracle. Last P-day, we were on a bus going to Panamá with a bunch of other missionarys to go bowling. While on the bus, Elder Huallanca and I decided to contact it and hand out folletos. It was awesome. The cool thing though? While I was talking, a sister missionary (Hermana Fannin - Krissy knows her :)) had the impression to talk to the lady sitting next to her about what I was talking about up front. The lady responded that yes, she was interested, and she´d love to hear more. Now that´s great and all, but usually when we´re on buses, it´s hard to go teach them cuz they usually live in a different area - they´re usually just referrals for other missionarys. But this lady just happened to live exactly in Hermana Fannin´s area!!! That kind of thing is very rare. So we were able to get a great investigator for Hermana Fannin out of it - hopefully something happens there. I´d be thrilled to hear if she progresses and gets baptized.

Allright well, my time is just about up here. I just wanna tell you guys that this morning in the house, we heard ¨Love at Home¨, the hymn. Everytime I hear it I think of you guys :) I love you all SO much!! I don´t know if you understand. But really, another thing about the mission is it helped me realize how much you all mean to me :) I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love, Elder Clarke

P.S.. awesome quote: ¨Parents and youth must stand together in defense against a clever and devious adversary. We must be just as dedicated, effective, and determined in our efforts to live the gospel as he is in his efforts to destroy it - and us.¨ -Elder M. Russell Ballard