crazy crazy 57

Hello family

well i guess to start off. i love you and you are the best family ever! dad happy fathers day! if you were here i would hug you guess you will have to wait a month. did you do anything fun? did you get a cheese cake? (i know thats your favorite) it would be cool to call home on fathers day as well. but what ever. in elder kittermans brothers mission. if they only talked for a half an hour on mothers day then they could call for a half an hour on fathers day. me i like the phone calls and everything but its time to focus on the work. ynomsayen? (its, "you know what im saying" in one word. its an Oklahoma thing) 

Sunday was the first time i have been to church in this area. its super crazy. and small. most of the people in the ward are old and older. the primary only has like 8 kids in it. and they are all like 10. the young men and the high priest quorum are the biggest in the ward. but its still good. and it was funny because even though there is only like 75 people there they still had 6 people pass the sacrament. 

then in Gospel principles a old guy told me i need to be a better missionary and if i wanted to have any kind of successes in life i would be a bolder missionary. but the only reason he said that was because he thought i was only 18 and had just barely came out. so he was trying to scare me/fire me up for the rest of my mission. then he asked how long ive been out and i said 23 months and his face was like SHOCKING! it was funny. then he apologized after. 

then that night we went to see this part member family and we weren't going to stop by because by the time we got around to seeing them it was like 8:45 so almost time to go in for the night. but we stop ed by anyways and they were like we were just about to call you and ask you to come over but we thought it was two late so we weren't going to do it. so prompted by the spirit. it was great. 

Saturday we spent all day in the rain. my pants got super muddy. allong with the rest of my clothes. but thats ok it was worth it. 

Friday was district meeting i gave a training on revelation through church attendance. elder kitterman said they just keep getting better and better. so i guess that's good. but who ever is striving for leadership as a missionary is dumb because its just more work to handle. less time to focus on investigators and more on your district. 

so we went on exchanges. my first as a district leader. i went with elder stephen because i feel like he needs to have some time learning his area on his own. it was super hot that day and all of our appointments fell through. so we spent a total of 6 hours knocking on doors. and i probably lost a gallon of sweat. but people were nice that day so i got about ten water bottles form people. 

Thursday normal missionary day. but we saw the other elder's car parked on the side of the road. in our area so we decided that since they were going to poach on our property we were going to get them back. so we stole there cds and camera and sunglasses out of there car. it was funny because they were like guess what we forgot to lock the car and someone stole all of our stuff. so we gave it back so its ok. (borrowed without permission)

Wednesday was the greeny meeting. it was super long. but really good. it was mostly about dont be an idiot. and dont flirt with the sisters. and they were telling stories about how missionaries were doing stupid stuff and how alot of them went home. they didnt mention anyone by name but i knew who most of the stories were about. they they told the story about five missionaries that wanted to do stupid stuff and one of them stood up to the rest of them and saved them all form going home. and im like hey thats me! it was cool because they were like we are so proud of that missionary and we want you all to be like him. (makes me all warm inside)

but on the way there we got lost. on the way back we got lost twice. so most of that day was spent getting lost. so moral of the story. get a map.

pday. we played Frisbee golf it was fun.

but thats about it for this week. is court in the house yet? how is the cat?

well i love you all so very much and i will talk at you latter.

Love Elder Clements

New Area

hi family

so this week has been great. crazy but good. opening up a new area is hard, but fun. its like starting from scratch. we have been trying to introduce ourselves to every one in the ward. but its kind of hard. alot of people we cant get a hold of. and there is a ton of less active people in this ward.

so i guess i will start off with Monday. we had pday and pday here is like ten times better than altus. there is actually things to do and people to do it with. they have a community center here were the missionaries get in for free. so they have pool, a gym, basketball, racket ball, volleyball, and bowling. and there is also a Frisbee golf coarse. so plenty of things to do on preparation day. so on Monday we went bowling. it was fun i got second every time. so at least im consistent. then during bowling my back had a big pinch in it so i didn't think anything of it. until i got home and there was a tick on my back that had its head stuck into me. and all of that stupid stuff about put lotion on him and burn it that's a lie. we just ended up killing the tick so we just pulled it out. dang ticks.

Tuesday we just did alot of finding. because we have no one to teach. (ish) a brother in the Church came out with us and all of our appointment fell through so he wanted to see someone. and we ended up seeing this guy that had probably the third grossest house i have ever seen. and i didnt even go inside of it. you could just see the ticks and flea's crawling on the guys cats that he had on his front porch. but the guy was super nice and funny. he is just old and can't really take care of himself anymore. plus he is willing to give you anything and everything he's got. (which isnt alot)

Wednesday we helped with a service project we helped a member of the ward move about 500 pounds of lava rock out of his yard and into the trash can. so we just shoveled alot and as we were removing the rock is just got muddier and muddier. and we didn't have time to change out of our church clothes so we got those all muddy. good thing i got extras.

and most of the rest of the week we have just spent knocking doors. elder kitterman is pretty sick of it. but there is not really alot else to do. this is the way missionary work is so he better learn to like it.

Friday i had to give another training in district meeting. (uggh) i did it on the book of Mormon and how it is important for our investigators to learn from it and gain a testimony of it. im glad two out of the three people im teaching are new otherwise they would be super board out of there minds. but since this is there first transfer they don't know what a interesting district meeting is like yet.

we had the opportunity to teach a couple of fist lessons though to some of our investigators so Elder kitterman got that opportunity. he is a great teacher all ready he knows his stuff so that's good.

Sunday was this first time i have missed church in two years. the reason is someone needed help with the tornado clean up. so how the tornado clean up is working now is people put in work order of what they need help with and then we will go and help them out. and it turns out that the only day he was available was Sunday morning at around 8. so the whole zone went up to help along with about 100 ward members. it was crazy i feel like a less active missionary.

but that's about it for this week i love you all so very much and i will talk at you latter.

Love elder Clements

helping hands shirts to shirts

hello family

so this week has been super crazy.

well start off the week on Monday i just tried to get everything ready to go. packing and saying goodbye to people. this is my second to last time packing up and moving out. it was sad to leave altus but you know it needed to happen some time. and i guess its good it happened because 8 months in one area would have been crazy. i would have been super sad to leave it then.

on Tuesday it was transfer day. before we left i when to say good bye to one of our investigators but the grandpa came out on the porch and yelled at us and told us to get off the property. it was super crazy i don't know why he did that. but what ever. then we made the long drive up to Moore. its a mad house up there, power is out in half the city. lights aren't working at all. and most of the restaurants are out of power as well. so yea. so a little bit of back ground story, you usually go to a trainers meeting about a week before transfers to help you become a better trainer. but because of all the mess i did not. and then you usually go to transfers early to meet your new greeny. but that didn't happen as well. the new missionaries got right off the plane and came straight  to transfers and to there area. they were interviewed by president and then he sent them on there way. so my new comps name is elder kitterman. he is from Arizona (thats two in a row) and he seems like a nice guy. kind of a dry sense of humor, you know now that i think about it he kind of reminds me of tyler.. anyways he is not one of the 18 year old missionaries but he turned in his papers early so he turned 19 in the mtc. but if you look at him he looks 24. in fact the other missionaries in cushing told the ward that they were getting a new guy and another missionary and one member looked at me and said you must be the new one, fresh off the plane. ugg anyways.

so that night we just spent visiting the members and less actives in our area. the place im at is even smaller than altus. the ward is small. but at least its a ward. but it gets alot of rain up there so its suuuuper green. like definitely ten times prettier than altus and down south. the tree's are green there is water every were. and the wild life if all over. (dad this is for you, i have seen about 50 turkeys in about 3 days and not in the same group or place)

we share a ward with another set of missionaries. so they split the area. and now we get half of cushing and they get half. but half is like two blocks by three blocks. the other elders in the ward is named elder hort and elder Stephen. elder hort i have served around before he has been out almost as long as i have. and elder Stephen is been out only one transfer. he is from the Marshal islands. (just like elder damon my trainer)

so the other elders have been showing us around the area. showing us who our investigators are and who the members are as well. there is only about three investigators that we have so it will be a crazy time until we can find some new ones.

Thursday there was a tornado that hit cushing. so we had to go down and get into a storm shelter for about three hours. it was super crammed with 6 people in a space about five square feet. the storm was very violent but thankfully it didnt do almost any damage to the town. it mostly hit on the outskirts. so after the tornado we went out tracking. i think it humbled alot of people because we got like 6 new people to teach in the space of about an hour.

then on friday was district meeting. my first one as a district leader. so what a district leader does is he basically oversees a group of missionaries. so im like the manager of two sets of missionaries. i just have to make sure there doing ok. but the biggest responsibility is i have to conduct district meeting and do training every week. the training is kind of like giving a talk in sacrament meeting. but you only have 8 subjects go to off of. and also these subjects they have heard every week for their whole mission. so you kind of have to switch it up other wise your going to get people falling asleep on you.

so this week i did a training on giving commitments to our investigators. plus the zone leaders are there (there like a step over me) so its kind of intimidating. but what ever i'll live. then right after district meeting there was another tornados that hit oklahoma. so we spent another three hours at a member house. making sure we weren't going to die.

Saturday we had a special meeting in moore with elder rasband of the seventy. and then after we did service. the crazy part is we did not wear a suit and tie to the meeting we wore our helping hands shirt. we had too and that was the uniform of the day. so super crazy. then right after the meeting we went out and cleaned up this huge park. we did that for about five hours than we went home.

then Sunday was the craziest sunday of my mission. we had an hour church in Norman with a combined three stakes. but it was the same thing as the meeting with the seventy. you didnt wear dress clothes you wore jeans and a t shirt. to church. the deacons passed the sacrament in there yellow shirts. it was super crazy. everything had to be by special permission, President Monson had to approve the whole thing. then after church we went and served for another ten hours in a place called little ax. cleaning up and taking down tree's.

but that is about it for this week, crazy crazy beans. i cant believe all that has happened this week. i wish i could talk to you on the phone and tell you every thing because i cant adequately describe all that has taken place. i will send some pic's or something. because there worth a 1000 words.

well i love you all so very much and i pray for you.

love ELDER CLEMENTS