Broken Finger

Hello! 
well this week has been crazy! first off another transfer is all ready over and I'm staying in altus for one more at least. my new companion is named elder bernett. and elder shumway is going to Texas. he is pissed but I'm excited for him. Texas is were its at. but he really likes it here in altus. 
and im going to apologize in advance because of my typing. because my finger is broken. 
so here is the story on that. once upon a time we were asked to help mow a Lady's lawn. she is 86 and a non member so we decided to help her out. after that a lady in the ward, and neighbor to the old lady wanted help building a garden box. things were going well until we brought out the post driver. i was standing on a piece of wood about two feet off the ground and elder shumway was on the ground. we had the post driver on both sides. and we were hammering that sucker fast. but we werent compensating for how low the post was so we kept going up to the same height. well the post was going lower and we were staying the same. so the post driver fell off the post. and we both fell down. my finger got smashed in between the post and the driver. i wasn't concerned at first because elder shumway was in the fetal position grabbing his neck. so i was like flying frog guts my companion is dead! but he got up a second latter. that's when i noticed my hand dripping blood. i looked down and saw blood just flowing out of my finger tip. i almost passed out because of shock. i sat down for about ten minutes while elder shumway finished er up. we put a couple of band aids on it and called it good. the next day i took them off and noticed how ugly my finger looked. crooked, bruised, pussy, still bleeding and swollen. so we called up sister Taylor and got an appointment with the doctors. we went in and waited for about two hours. they Finally let me in and looked at my finger they explained that there was alot of pressure built up under my finger nail. so they had to drill a hole in my finger to relieve the pressure. they took this tool and drilled a little hole, and as soon as it broke through blood came squirting out all over the doctor. it was funny. (blood shot to the face!) then they look X-rays and found out the tip was broken off. so now i have to were this finger cast for a couple of weeks. 
but other than that this week went ok. the Lord provided us with a bunch of people to see. and new people to teach. its a rough area to find new people because it is such a small town. but the Lord provides. 
another kind of sad thing happened this week. so apparently half the mission owns ukes and they decided its getting out of hand so every missionary need to send there ukes home. sad day at least i got it for most of my mission when other missionary's only had them for a couple of months. it was a great instrument and it brought the spirit into alot of peoples lives. but you know what they say for every rule there is there is one dumb missionary. so moral of the story don't be dumb. 
Lauren im sending u a birthday present and one for u to mom. and im still looking for something for dad. so be expecting two packages this week. a uke and other stuff. 
but wow you guys had a crazy week as well. sewing, birthdays, snow. missionary work. and dad im so proud of you going out with the missionaries. they need all the help they can get so if they invite you try your hardest to go with them. o and here is a quote that i heard. "we cant just pray for the missionaries and expect there work to hasten, when we don't even help out our local missionaries. so do your part as well" -Zack Carpenter , one thing president said is that were only part time missionaries. we only serve for two years and we only stay in one place for a couple of months. but the members are there for a lot longer and they know the area pretty well. so use them.
well im going to half to quite my finger is sore. but i love you so much and i will talk at you later. 
Love Elder Clements.  

i guess you say what can make me feel this way. 57

Hello Hello. family.
i say family because if your reading my letters that means were family. So life is great. the mission  is awesome best two years FOR my life. im loving every minute of it. its funny because a typical question people ask is How long have you been out? and when i say 18 months there like wow your almost done then. it makes me sad because this part of my life is coming to a close. you only get this chance once to have this experience and my experience is almost done. makes me sad and i tell people don't remind me. another cool thing is that you can tell which missionary's are out here for them and for there investigators and which ones are out here for there parents. or just because they were expected to. i hope you can tell the difference in me.
well this week has been great. (every week is great you just have to look at it that way.) so we will start on monday. we had zone pday. it was great. we went bowling. most people showed up late so i got to play three games and most people only played two. so by the last one i was nice and practiced up. i found out that my old area isnt doing so well. its what i feared. that the missionaries that are covering it dont have that much time to cover two areas at a time. so ours just gets pushed to the side. :( and the area wont get missionarys for at least another transfer. two of the people that i taught are getting baptized. so thats good. but back to bowling. at the very end most of the people left so i had to cover two people on two different lanes. and i decided to bowl left hand on one lane and right on the other. and i turns out that i bowled left better than right. left i got 138 and right i got 125. then after bowling we had a specialized training with the whole zone. it was definitely the most interactive training that i have been two. we had a scavenger hunt and a surviver like challenges. like one was we were led blind through and obstetrical coarse and another was we had to transport water form one container to another using only straws and our mouths. it was gross three people threw up. then they related all of the challenges to missionary work. it was cool.
we went over to a familys house for dinner and they made us this traditional Russian meal. because there son is going on a mission to Russia in march. it was good a lot better than i expected. and we played a song for them. O that reminds me there is a rumor going around that president taylor is going to ban ukes on the mission.because its just become a mission tradion to play the uke. as soon as a missionary comes into the mission they want a uke. and so its getting out of control. im hoping its just a rumor. and if it is true i hope that he will say for all the missionarys that have had it less than a year send them home. just wishful thinking. if push comes to shove then i guess i will send it home.
this week we did a double exchange. on thursday the zone leader came down to altus with me and shumway went up to lawton. but the funny thing is that elder shumway is the name of the zone leader that came down with me. so there is two in our zone. but we went to dinner with this family in the ward and it turns out they are related to each other. like second cousins or something. so thats fun. then the next day i went on exchanges with elder Garcia. he came down to altus with me as well. it was fun he is a good guy. and i met him when he first came out. most of that day we ended up driving to this little town called Hobart. so total in those two day i ended up in the car about 7 hours. because its an hour drive to Lawton and me made it 5 times. then we drove to Hobart witch is 30 min away. by the end of the week i was sick of being in the car. o one funny thing happened we forgot to put gas in the car and we got about half way to Lawton. and then we realized we were out. so there was no place to fill up and we weren't going to make it to the next town so we ended up turning around and filling up in altus.
on Sunday i was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting if the speaker didnt show up. so i prepared all week for that talk. and was going to give it on what are we doing with the priesthood. but then the lady showed up so i didnt end up giving. it. but i was asked to give the talk that i prepaid in a little tiny branch in hobart. at an old folks home. it had seven people in it. so most of my talk was going to stir the ward up to remembrance. but since there was no priesthood there most of the talk didnt apply so it bombed. and i didnt tell any jokes because they wouldn't have gotten them anyway.
well i guess thats it for this week. i love you all so much and i appreciate all you do for me.
thanks for the love and support.
love elder Clements
P.S.
H       H                        PPPPPPP     PPPPPPP     Y      Y
H       H             A         P            P    P           P       Y   Y
H       H           A  A       P            P   P            P        Y Y
HHHHH          AAAA      P PPPPP     P  PPPPP          Y
H       H         A       A    P                 P                        Y
H       H        A         A   P                 P                        Y
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BIRTHDAY 
LAUREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sorry i got lazy and didnt have time to finish it. 

Subject: global 57

HI family! 
dad happy birthday! (tomorrow) your getting to be an old man now. jk i forget how old you are. 46? 47? idk i doesnt matter your age its how you feel? so how do you feel Old? haha i love you so much your my favorite father. 
so the rest of you sound great as well. things seem to going well in your neck of the woods. thank you all for writing me! that could be the most emails that i have ever gotten. 7, 7 is the number of the day. ah ah ah. i checked the temp for utah today. and its freaking freezing like 0 and below. and then i checked logan ut for fun and it was like -5 wowzza! sometimes im glad im in Oklahoma. 
well lets see what happend this week. well we had pday on monday. we didnt really do anything. there is not alot to do here. so we just kind of sat around and chilled. i roped a little bit. elder shumway made his own cow. out of lots of random stuff. its a good cow but the hay we have to feed it gets annoying and the poop is hard to scrape off the carpet. jk
monday night we went out teaching with bro bolton his a good guy. he is crazy smart. like he has the gift of learning languages. he speaks like six fluently and about ten others a little bit. but we took him and saw this lady who speaks Spanish. she speaks English to but mostly Spanish. she said we could teach her kids that haven't been baptized. so that's good but the problem is that her husband doesn't want the kids to choose a church until they turn 18. but were hoping to change his mind and hoping to teach him as well.  
ive been writing in my journal every night. so you would be proud of me. its a heck of a lot easier to write in it in a two man apartment. in a four there always seems to be something going on and you get distracted but now its easy to just set some time aside to write. 
here are some other things that happend this week. i had grits for the first time. there like and oatmeal kind of thing? there made of ground up corn and stuff. idk it was crazy, good flavor weird texture. it had shrimp in it. i dont know how i would describe it. but they were like do you want some grits? i didnt know what they were talking about i was thinking stuff that gets under your finger nails or something. but still a good meal and a really nice family. 
while were still on the topic of food that i have had this week. a family invited us over for dinner. and they made us cafe rio burritos. the sweet pork. it was so freaking good. i miss that restaurant. i forgot how good they tasted. i haven't had one of those for 16 months. a family made it for me in mustang and thats the last ive had of them. 
but were teaching the same family's. there progressing very slowly. its fun getting to know them but some times i just want to shake them and say this is eternal life not just some hobby or a book that you dont have time for. some peoples kids. but all you can do is love them. and keep sharing them the message of the restored gospel.
one of our investigators were really working with, she is a black lady and a Pentecostal. but she told us she knows the book of Mormon is true. so now were trying to get the point across to here that if the book of Mormon is true than this church is the only true church on the earth and we have the priesthood. she came to church on sunday so thats fantastic. usually when they come to church you have them and thats when you know they are committed. she had to leave early but she said that she loved it and that she is coming back next week. sweet ! 
another one of our investigators is this 19 year old kid that thinks he is  a cowboy and tough. he wants to draw closer to god. but he is not really willing to participate in the program. that fetch. were still working with him though and trying to help him out in anyway we can. 
elder curtis wrote me this week. i havent herd form him in over a year. he is doing good he says life can suck once you get off your mission. but that the mission helped him out so much. i pray he keeps on the strait and narrow. 
we helped paint and texture a house. because it was so freaking cold and all of our appointments were falling through. and a member said well if you need something do do we are painting our house and you can help  if you want. of course we gladly said yes. it was fun we got alot of work accomplished. and that family helps us out so much anyways that we were so willing to help them out. 
this ward treats us really well. i love it here. there really committed to the missionarys. im glad that you guys feed the missionary's because the mission is hard and its good to have a family up your sleeve that you know you can re lie on when things go wrong or you need something. 
ok one more story. so we have to save/ budget all of our miles to travel to lawton and transfers. so we mostly bike. but on wednesday it was raining a little bit. they get this thing her called misting. its like a fog but thicker. you don't even realize your getting wet untill your soaked to the bone. so it was misting and we decied to go out riding our bikes. well about an hour in it started just poring cats and dogs. its probably been the coldest on the mission. i was drenched and the wind was blowing and we were on our bikes. riding into the wind. holy cow it was cold. but its all good now. we made it with out loosing most of our toes and fingers. 
but i love you so much and i greatly appreciate all you do for me. 
love elder Clements
PS Lauren here is some advice that i got form a guy here. you can spend your time taking hard classes and doing hard things. and just put in that effort. and try your best. or you can spend the rest of your life wishing that you pushed yourself and tired your best. pray about it. i don't know Lauren i know your a smart girl and if you put in the effort you will be able to do great. 

New Year

Dear family and everyone else
well today is the first day of the rest of my life. its the start of a new year. a new area. a new comp a new  attitude. all of our sunday school classes were on new years and goal setting. its kind of cool lots of ideas how to set goals and how to accomplish them. one of the things they said that when you make a big goal the first thing you should do is tell everyone you know about it. so that they can ask you about it later. and it kind of gives you someone to report to. and it make you feel accomplished. so that has been one thing i did. i want to work out every single day. so i told elder shumway about it. and when ever i think i dont want to he is right there saying hey you can get fat i dont care. that usually gets me up. and his secret weapon is he will say yea your future wife is probably not working out right now and she is going to start falling out of the habit. that means she will be getting fatter. (gets me every time) 
well this week has been good. and cold. the weather is not as bad as utah it shounds like but its still colder than what im used to. you get acclimated to the heat. and now it's freka freka freezing. its about 12-35 degrees out side. but its the humidity that kills me. i usually were my white shirt, a sweater, a suit coat, and then my big coat, a hat, gloves, and a scarf. no pants though, maybe that's my problem. jkjk i were pants every day. its usually good when im walking but when im biking that's when it gets really cold because of the wind. but the spirit keeps me warm. baptism of fire baby! 
let me think of some things that happened this week. well were teaching a same sex couple. thats really hard. because i dont know how to help them out. i pray and fast for them but what im getting is that is just going to take some time. people don't change instantaneously its line upon line.  so we just reading with them they said that if we weren't men of god that we wouldn't be coming back. so at least they recognize that. 
we are also teaching this lady she is about 60 and she reminds me alot of grandma (but black) she is raising her grandkids and she has a heavy hand. but we talked about the book of mormon with her. and she has all ready read to omni. so thats good. she said she loves it. and it makes the bible so much easier to understand. now we just have to tell her that if the book of Mormon is true than that means that this is a true church and she needs to join. it will be fun. 
but we had some great lesson this week. teaching is were its at. you said luke was scared to teach. that happens at first but once you realize its better than tracking that teaching is super fun. thats were the Lords hand is in. 
so to answer your question we bike most of the time. and then we use the truck for special occasions or when something is far away and we will be late if we bike there. most of our miles goes to district meeting in lawton. its about a 110 miles round trip. and we have to go there 4 times a month. and then we also have to save miles for zone pday, transfers and trips to the little towns we cover like mangum and lown wolf and corn. its good. i like to bike around. my bike is holding up pretty good i take really good care of it. compared to most missionarys. clean it about once a week. and make sure its all lubed up. and its good because every thing is close here the town is like five miles wide three miles long so even if its clear across town its only a twenty minute bike ride. were in texas it was two mile just to get to the edge of our area. and we covered about 60 miles across and 20 miles long. but i miss Texas it was the only area i cryed when i left. just a little bit. but altus is good to. 
me and elder shumway are getting along good. 
i know were all your ducks and geese went. there here in Oklahoma. there is so many ducks and geese here its sick. i don't even think there is more than three lakes here. but they still flock in like gang busters. and there are different kinds of ducks here. ones i don't recognize with little mo-hocks and stuff. and there are some little Canadian geese here. like there a half the size of the normal ones. there cute little farts.  
but i think thats it for this week i love you all so much and i will talk to you all ladder gadder. 
love Elder Clements 

(This is from last week)
ok so i got the another opportunity to write you but sadly this one is going to half to be short as well. 
so the rest of this week has been going great. we were not allowed to go out and work Monday or Tuesday. so when we were not at members houses it was kind of boring. but we had dinner with this family and the kids showed us magic tricks that they got for christmas. it was so funny. and the only reason they got the kit was because i showed them my coin trick where you toss it in the air and catch it with the other had before anyone sees. 
i have almost convinced elder shumway to buy a uke and he has almost convinced me to buy a rope. i dont think i will because i dont know what i would do with it? i told him he could get me one for my birthday. 
so all my clothes fit. and they work great. much needed. all my pants were ripped in some part. and all my shirts have lots of stains on them. ether from sweat or bike lube or dogs. uncle jonny got me a puzzle that looks like a atom and a chess set that is pocket sized. he always gets me the most random things that are cool. you should ask him were he got the puzzle. or if he made it? 
so i guess to explain the duck dynasty/ the web sight. a member here the one that cut my hair. there brother runs the website. and i guess there is all kinds of random hunting stuff. but they only sell it for a day. and they will sell it half price. 
did you ever get lukes address?  i would like to write him and tell him what up. 
but i guess that's going to be it for this week i love you all so much
Elder Clements 

hi family

so this email is going to half to be short because im emailing at a members home. with permission. and they  have to leave in about an hour. 

so here are some things that happened this week. first on Monday we played flag foot ball with the lawton elders and there ward. it was fun but lame at the same time. then we had dinner with this family that night and we sang carols on the uke. 

on Tuesday was Christmas i got to call u im sure you remember that. and so far that was the best phone call of my mission. i dont know what made this one better than the others. but i think i just appreciated it more or something. i feel bad because elder shumways call was not very good.  

they just kept passing the phone back and forth. latter that night we played apples to apples with a family in the ward. then we went home in a snow storm. in a little kia. im sure that if we went in the car that car wouldn't have made it. 

this week has been crazy no one wants to stay in altus for the holidays so half the ward is gone and like three quarters of the town is away as well. all of our investigators are out of town. and when we knock doors know one answers. but o well. its the most wonderful time of the year. 

on Friday we had district meeting in lawton. it was good. and one thing we do is talk about what we learned in our studys and how we are applying them in our work. because were supposed to be on a schedule for reading the book of Mormon and preach my gospel. but everybody else is behind and im ahead. and they asked me what my secret was. i told them to read on the john. it was so funny no body was expecting my answer. 

we had a crazy lesson with this lady. we invited a member to come with us. and this lady is a nurse. so our investigators was sick and our member decided to diagnose her. and ask her about her eating habits and her pooping habits. it was really awkward. and the most off track i have ever been in a lesson. then she talked about circumcision and all kind of other junk that had nothing pertaining to the Gospel. just weird. 

we had some other great lessons this week. one with a couple. they have been teaching her for about a year now. and no progress was being made. but we went and taught them and they said that they knew what we were saying was true. and they could feel a difference when we came over and when they were reading the book of Mormon. so now they decided they want to get baptized. they have alot to work through. 

but i love you so much and i will talk at you latter. if i have time i will email you again but don't super count on it.

thanks for all you do for me and i love you so much.