wow. heavenly fathers blessings for me have been like a waterfall. on full blast. with extra gravity and tacos. i think that whatever yall are doing right back home has hit me and is now helping me get more blessings. this week we finally have sister g's baptism all set up. she is so ready and really excited, even though she is nervous about being baptized with only one leg. hopefully elder bagley doesnt drop her in the water...

we had quite the weird week though. monday wasnt really a normal preparation day, which is why i emailed tuesday, and we went to the temple friday. i dont know if i said anything last week about it, but we also started to do online proselyting for elder bagley y this week. it is just the district leaders for the next couple weeks, and they get on facebook and are learning effective ways to proselyte on there. its very interesting. i usually just get on mormon.org and help the online work there. i am developing a profile that everyone will be able to look at! and then in two weeks ish i will be getting on my facebook to start cleaning it up and making friends with the local church members and investigators! isnt that crazy?!?! the work really is hastening, so we need to be faster too. but not too fast, "for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength." just keep it under 100 dad.

then the temple! it was amazing. here is elder bagley and i there. its very small, but incredible nonetheless.


and i understand a lot more of it too, especially because there is a couple in our ward that is like really incredibly smart. they both study arabic (hebrew in cursive) and the relationship between early christian theology and mormonism, so i have learned quite a bit. in fact, he has shown me how every religion i can think of branches off from the original church, and has proved historically many many times how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is very very very very very very very very old. very old. its really interesting. one interesting thing is that in older languages, there are two different words for 'hell'. one is hades (temporary hell) and the other is a weird word that i cant remember (permanent). however, in english there is one word, so many people just assume they are always
 talking about the same place. but theyre not! another thing is that the greeks and romans took the concept of human deification and ran with it, which is why they worshiped many many gods. they began to associate great people who had died with objects and praised them as deity. crazy huh? but it all goes back to the truth. one faith, one Savior, one plan for all of us. having already known that spiritually, its interesting to have it confirmed logically as well.

i have learned so much out here. and a lot of it is what i have learned about myself. i think what stuck out to me for this week is that sometimes we are left to figure out a problem or situation for ourselves, but that doesnt mean that God is not watching over us. Even if we do not have the spirit telling us every little thing we should do (which we shouldnt because then we arent choosing for ourselves), we can still trust that as long as we are doing what we know to be right, everything will work out just fine. God will take care of us and step in when we really are in need and have done our part. thats the key though, is doing our part. that doesnt mean we need to be perfect today, but it means we need to make small steps in the right direction every day. i once heard that progression is like a downwards escalator. we constantly need to move forward, or we will be heading back down. and when you get hungry...

sometimes you just need to be a man about it.

well, i know its a long letter, and im sorry because thats so much to read, but i hope its good and uplifting. i love you with all of my heart and pray for you and am doing the best i can to bring a good name to the clarks out here. any questions or suggestions of things to write about let me know!

love,
elder jeffrey clark