If you give an Elder a Bread Pan

I don't know about a mouse and cookie but if you give an elder a bread pan, he will never buy bread again! Sister Grosebeck was kind enough to give me one of her bread pans and Ive made home made bread and banana bread so far!! Oh soooo good, never buying bread again if I can help it!!!

Alright today's email is going to be a little "standing-on-a-soap-box"y because I have some things to say. First I met with my mission president this week to discuss my progress and the progress of the missionaries I am in charge of. There is one missionary that the other missionaries joked around with a lot. This person laughs at every joke and is a very happy person. I couldn't understand exactly what they were saying but one time, based on content, I understood and thought it was kinda mean. Then a couple more times I understood and thought again that they were being a little mean. I didn't understand because these are incredible, kind missionaries. When I met with the Mission President he shared with me an experience he had with this particular missionary that was the blunt of all these jokes. He said this person was from the countryside with a very very limited education, of not only the gospel, but life and school in general. He said when he met with them he encouraged them to write their testimony down. As this person struggled to write just basic sentences and as tears poured from their eyes this person was laughing. Their defense mechanism is laughing, so as these other missionaries poked fun at my missionary this person would laugh but on the inside they were crying. I cannot begin to explain how sad this made me, and then how angry. This is something I am ending today with my missionaries, but I wanted to make it a point to tell each one of you the importance of building up and not tearing down. When I was in the MTC we did a lot of negative joking between ourselves, and it began to start hurting us. We all made a goal to only say positive joking. At first it was hard, and I couldn't believe how hard it was but then as we went on it became easier and easier. And now the jokes I tell build up as well as make others laugh. There is no need for negative joking, or "in-between" joking, if its not uplifting its not positive. The picture I imagined of my missionary laughing as tears streamed from her face made me indescribably sad, and while the other missionaries didn't realize they were hurting her this much, they were. Please make it a goal to only positive joke.

Ok so in other news total so far Ive lost 45 pounds. Ive been sick pretty regularly for this last year. Today the church handed out a new booklet titled "Adjusting to Mission Life'. It listed several things that attribute to stress and the affects there of. As I read through it I realized I hit almost all the stress indicator markers. Some of the affects of  stress are weight loss, sickness, easily becomes angry, and others. I didn't realized I was stressed but I was. I want to just remind all of you of the blessing and opportunity all of you have to go to the temple and allow Heavenly Father to ease your burdens and help remove your stress. Stress was something I thought was stupid and not something that needed to be dealt with but it affects you physically as well (as you can see from my 45 pound less body, and the toilet can testify to its never ending torture. Use the resources God has given you and take time out each day to just relax and stop.

Alrighty off my soap box, cool experience that happened to me. A while ago I read a story in the Liahona that related God's commandments to a kite string. The string is what holds the kite up, if the string is gone the kite cannot stay airborn. We are the kite and God's commandments is the string. It may seem to hold us down but in reality it is what keeps us up. As I was teaching this was brought to my remembrance and I was able to teach that. Its sounds kinda small but to me it represented that God keeps His promises, as it says in the Bible:

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you".

Alright those things were weighing heavily on me and felt they needed to be said. This week is great, next email will have some pretty awesome pictures due to an upcoming holiday here, prepare yourselves for awesomeness!!!

-Elder Clement

Love you all