Daniel--my favorite Rugby player

Here are pictures of my awesome Daniel. He is a senior in high school and in excellent physical shape. He had a Rugby game last night that I attended.

Scott's 11th Birthday

I am so surprised that it has been 11 years already. Here are the some pictures that show the day's activities:

This is what a quad batch of waffles looks like.  I make them from scratch
and the egg whites are fluffed separately to  make them super good.

cooking the waffles in the very
old waffle iron, that I just
realized needs a major
scrubbing after this picture.

The finished product.  Super YUMMY!

Scott wanted cookies for his class instead of cupcakes, so
cookies is exactly what he received.  I made sugar, oatmeal
chocolate chip with m-n-m's and regular chocolate chip.

Dinner out with Scott.  We went to a place called Ryan's.
We were going to go to Ci Ci's pizza, however we drove
all the way there and it was closed, so this restaurant was
Scott's 2nd choice.  Seen here is is Brenden, Jared and Scott.
Jared is on his 5th cotton candy.

Scott opening gifts.

One of his favorite gifts.  He LOVES legos.

I

Sewer service

We did service on Friday and Saturday helping Brother Weber dig up his clogged sewer line! It was cool that we had the opportunity because we had a feeling that we needed to go over there and talk to him, and it turns out he needed a lot of help. Thankfully we were in tune with the spirit and were able to help out!

Letter from Caleb--April 15, 2013

Hey Mom!

 A few updates, because today is really busy and we don't have much time to email. So first off, Saturday we had two baptisms! It was an amazing experience, and I am so happy that we were able to do it. Things came together at the last moment, and it was a really wonderful experience.

 Also, Friday we were doing service and I whacked my left hand with a shovel. I was told by Sister Bowen to go get it X-Ray'd. It looked like it was broken, but then they realized that the spot they thought was broken was actually where it was broken when I was in 8th grade. It healed funny I guess. So Saturday they diagnosed me with a bad jam, and told me to wear a splint for 2 weeks. So that sucks. My hand hurts really really bad, and biking bites, but its ok.

 My bike. Friday (before my hand) I took my bike to an Anti mormon man, who helped me do things that I don't know how to do. I had a few broken spokes and I have a bent axle from the wreck, and he was able to true the rim up almost all the way without a jig. He showed me some cool tricks, and we had a good discussion about the Gospel. My bike is functional again, even though it still has a bent axle and some rim damage. As long as I stay on the maintenance, there wont be any issues with it.

 I have a lot to do this week, and it is the last week of the Transfer. I will be starting Transfer 5 next week. Holy crap, I've almost been out 6 months! It goes so fast...

 I love you Mom! I loved the talk in conference about how a mission is a family affair. I know I couldn't be out here without the support of you and Dad back home. This is tough work, but it is well worth it.

 Love you! Elder Clark

Look for the helpers

My heart is with those suffering right now in Boston and everywhere else that has people affected by others who have hurt them. I saw these awesome quotes on facebook and wanted to share them here.

Pictures and a letter from Caleb

I did get the package! So excited, I love pretzel M&Ms! So I will be sending pictures today. There have been a lot of cool things that happened this last week, which I will try to explain with pictures, and other things too.

We went to the Temple this morning and that's why I didn't email on Monday. You will always get something from me at least once a week, no matter what!

 You know the whole thing about you hurting after you do a bunch of things that hurt you? Yeah, weird how that works.

 Ok, so last week was hectic. Monday was P-Day, and we played softball. I love playing softball, even though I can't catch anything, and I also can't throw things, but it was still a lot of fun. Tuesday was a busy day that we were supposed to move on, but things happened elsewhere in the mission that were more important. So we moved on Wednesday from our apartment to a new one.

The new one is a 1 bed 1 bath, but its much nicer (do you know what its like to flush a toilet and not have to take the lid off and mess with the float?) and WE HAVE A WASHER AND A DRYER IN THE APARTMENT!!!!!!!!! It's a really big deal. I was spending 45-50 bucks a month on washing my clothing, and now I can do it anytime I want and FOR FREE!!! I am a little excited. I washed my bedding with the right settings for the first time ever. I don't know if it made a difference, but it was awesome.

 I washed my pillow. Wish I hadn't done that (it says to wash it with clean tennis balls; aint nobody got time for that).

Ahh... This is the life. Thursday was Zone Training, where the whole zone gets together and the Zone Leaders train us on something instead of district meeting. Well, Santiago Creek was late picking us up, and we ended up being late to the meeting by about 20 minutes. Of course that was the one time President came to our meeting. Did I mention our shower head is up above my head? I don't have to bend over in the shower anymore! The rest of the week was taken by General Conference and things like that.

Somehow we still pulled 11 lessons out of the week, but I have no idea how. We had 6 until Sunday, and then we got 5 in one day. Even with conference. Today we went to the temple at 7:00 AM. We woke up at 5:00, which is really early for a missionary, and I am surprised I am awake right now. I decided in the Temple that I want nothing more than to be able to be in the temple with a wife.

Everything about the Temple is about family and it makes you really think about where you want to be in life. A few months ago I had decided that I didn't want to get married until I had made a little bit of money so I could support us and not struggle. I realized in conference and at the Temple that those struggles are part of life, and that no matter what you do you will still have to go through them at some point. Those trials are part of the human experience, and they are something that helps us grow.

Having enough money to not struggle would be nice, but there is no point putting off something like starting a family just for worldly wealth. I know that by following the counsel of the prophets that my needs will be provided for, and I will not struggle for those things. Life is an interesting thing. I have a business that I love, but I love it so much that I want to be able to share everything about it; the hardships make the success much sweeter. Ok, now for some pictures:

The OLD apartment we just moved from.

The surprise cookies from Cookies By Design that you
sent me for Easter.  So cool that they made a special cookie
of my name tag.  See how close it is to my real name tag
that I attached to the basket.

Sunset in California.

Our investigator named Sid.  He went on a temple tour with us.

An ice cream cake I made.

A close up of a moth.  I took this cool picture with my great
camera.

A month or so ago, a lot of people had been asking me to help them fix their bikes. I got permission from President Bowen to take a P-day and devote it entirely to fixing bikes. Then 13 companionships brought bikes by. Holy crap! We (Elder Herron and I) were able to fix them all with time to spare to go to zone activity and play football. 

Cool shot of the temple.  I took a lot of pictures of the temple.

View from our apartment.

Sister Hawker and Sister Jensen.

As close to the beach as I can ever get. "The mission ends where the sand begins"

The ocean

Pictures and a letter from Caleb 4-1-13

The following are pictures of my son who is serving a mission in Anaheim, CA and a letter he wrote me me. He is serving a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and he has been out serving for about 5 months. Every Monday he has a Preparation day and writes home. I love Mondays now. Last week Caleb and his companion helped Sister Cannon who is in their Ward (congregation) plant a tree and she took pictures and sent them to me. Below are the pictures and his latest letter. Enjoy!

 Dear my lovely Mom.

 This last week was a bummer, but it only looks up from there! I am reminded constantly how thankful I am for my new companion. Elder Rast is such a blessing in my life, and I love him. He is such a hard worker, and I love his sense of humor. We have gotten a lot of work done together. I took pictures of the easter basket you sent even before you told me to.

I have learned much. I will send them home at some point. I love my camera with an obsession. It is so cool, and it takes great pictures. I am so thankful that I will have pictures to remind me of the things I did while I was here. I wish I could write about some experiences we had this week, but there seriously wasn't anything worth writing about. We had such a boring week, and I thought I was going to loose my mind near the end of it.

I picked up speakers today, and my life is already looking up. If I had had the week I had last week with Elder Healey, I would have died. I'm so glad I have Elder Rast to keep me sane. I have never had so many people be rude to me as I did last week. One cool thing, is that we got a new investigator.

Mike is the last person most people would think would be looking for a life change. He has been in prison multiple times, has tats everywhere, and basically is a loser. He had a kid last year though, and has been looking for ways to be an example. He stopped us and asked us if we would teach him about Jesus Christ. Super cool. There was at least one good thing to come out of last week I guess.

Its like the Hymn "Count Your Blessings." Count your blessings name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Thats just a short part, but its super true.

Sometimes we get so dredged down into the grit of life that we forget to be thankful for the parts of life that we overlook. We should be moving tomorrow which will be really cool. I will be happy to get out of our crappy apartment into something better. its funny because all the apartments I will live in out here are waaay nicer than what I will be able to afford back home anyway. I have come to an appreciation that life is very expensive, and families are even more expensive.

I will have money to spend on things until I have a child, and then out of love, everything will go to him. I say him because it will be a boy. I had a dream about it. Except he was like 6 in the dream. He is named James Ryan Clark. I love this area. I believe it is the best in the mission, but I also believe that it is that way because we are working hard and giving the spirit lots of opportunities to testify of truth. I love the people here, even if they don't love us. I have met some very, very kind people here.

Did you get the pictures from Sister Cannon? We planted trees for her! We have helped a lot of people in the church with things lately, and I think it is starting to make a difference. People are trusting us more, and we have gotten 3 referrals in a week! we never get referrals! I love you Mom. I am so thankful for your prayers, and for your support as I've been out here. This is undoubtedly the most difficult thing I've ever tried, but it is also very rewarding and lots of fun. Hopefully Dan's Birthday went alright. I wanted to get him some shoes to send home (We have Van's outlets all over the place and Van's are popular right now) but I didn't know what he would like :( I pray for you guys all the time. I hope you are all doing well.

 I love you! Elder Caleb Clark