Some Awesome Pictures!

Elder Cluff and friends from his high school (Lone Peak!) all together at the CCM!

Elder Cluff with the 2nd Counselor in the Branch Presidency.

My favorite cookies :) They are like Chips Ahoy and are less than an American dollar for 20 of them.

My closet :)

August 21, 2014 letter...

Mama!

It's super good to hear from you, as always :) I'm glad to here the kids are loving school! I'm also glad to hear everyone is growing up. It makes me really happy! Everyone is at such an awesome time in their lives... I wish I could go back and do high school over again... lucky Zack. Such an awesome time in my life. I'll admit, the first few weeks of LP sucked because I didn't really know anyone from Alpine, and it was a big school, but it turned into the greatest experience EVER. So far, at least, haha :) Tell Zack to make as many friends as possible and as little enemies as possible...it will make his high school experience that much better. I miss little Cameron; that kid is a stud. I love hearing that he's growing up. I love hearing Brigham is growing up, too! And becoming more patient. That's something we all need to work on! And I see Cameron using my old back pack. SWEET. Someone needs to use it! My brothers are studs. I want them all to write me soon. I want Zack to tell me all about LP!

Zack driving.. Sick.. Make sure he takes dang good care of that car, haha. Tell him not to mess with any of the settings on the stereo... keep the subwoofer at zero, the bass at 3, and the treble at 7 for max efficiency, lol. And holy cow that rainbow is sooo pretty, I miss Alpine. It honestly is the prettiest place in the world in my opinion. I will retire there one day with my family!

I'm way happy to hear about you and dad, too! I'm glad to hear you guys are focusing on your health!! Because I'm not, haha. I eat so much junk.. but it's just too hard not to. But wow, keep losing the pounds, and keep it off! I want pics soon! I seriously love my family so much and the support from you guys mean the world.

To Dad:
I'm pumped for you to take the CPA exam soon, I know you'll pass it. I've been praying for you every night. You have put in the work, and the Lord will bless you. I have seen that over and over and over again in my life, especially while keeping my 4.0 in high school, and I know you've seen it for yourself, too! You're gonna nail it! And hey, I want pics of Kula soon, and the pics from Jason of me getting bit before I left, haha.

This past week for me was good. The exact same as every other week, haha, but, it was good. I'm recovered from my sickness which is great. I had diarrhea for a week straight, and then I took this pill and it all went away, and I've never been happier. The food this week was actually pretty terrible. I don't look forward to eating quality food anymore, just filling the holes in my tummy, lol. We are all learning so much here and my Spanish, knowledge of gospel fundamentals, and everything else is progressing very well. We teach an investigator twice a day and it's gotten to the point where we don't read anything in Spanish, which is nice. We planned a lesson for our investigator named Wilson on the Plan of Salvation, but as we got in there talking to him, addressing his needs, we found out the homework we gave him to read Moroni 10 and praying about it, confused him. So we ditched our whole PoS (plan of salvation lolololol) lesson plan and taught him about how he can receive revelation through the Book of Mormon. We walked him through Moroni 10: 3-5, pausing after every few lines to ask questions and explain, and it went perfect! The spirit was very strong during it and even though it's our teacher we're teaching, it is still real. I love it. It's getting much easier to understand people and speaking, too, which is very nice. It is coming slowly, but I get better each day.

Hahahaha, my teacher though... (morning teacher) Hermano Palma is hilarious. His English is getting better and he takes English classes in college. I'm sending a pic of me with him :) He is also like 5'0 hahaha. He is so sick though, we always tease him and ask him how is girlfriend is, but he says he doesn't have one, he just calls girls on the phone, hahaha. My favorite thing he tells us is that we need to work hard because we'll be baptizing Lamanites here in South America.. and he is DEAD serious about it. Another funny thing, he thinks is funny to say "'Hannah Montana"' in English because it has kind of a funny ring to it, and then after he was saying that he was like, in the most broken simple English.."'Hannah Montana is a disciple of Satan" ...... I completed died of laughter.. I don't know if people back home think that's funny.. but here out in the field, that's gold.

Anyways a lot of things happen here, but I always forget because the days are so long.. But I'm liking it more and more each day, even though I'm beyond excited to get to Peru and teach real investigators! Oh yeah, this week we had TRC, I don't know what it stands for, but it's where we teach REAL investigators, and REAL less active members... The investigators I don't think are new, like they're probably ready to be baptized, but they just come here to volunteer and learn more, but the less actives are often people who are referred here or just need help. So, we taught this 16 year old kid named Diego yesterday! It was awesome and it went really well. It was an entirely different spirit teaching someone FOR REAL. It was sweet. We taught him how important it is to pray and how God wants to commune with him. We also taught him how it's important to go to church. He committed to both things! Sweeeeet!

Anyways, I love you all. Mexico is cool, Peru will be better :)

Love,
Elder Cluff

More Pictures!

That's some high quality H2O!

Mexico City Temple! :)

August 14, 2014 letter...

Mom!! How are you?! That sounds like so much fun skim boarding! I'm glad you guys had a blast:) I really do love you all!

Zack.. man I love him. I hope he loves high school. It was the greatest experience of my life so far! I'm guessing this will be better? Lol. I'm glad you guys got to stay at Skyler's and Ashley's! It feels like Candice and Paul's, huh? And Brigham and Cameron.. gotta love them, too. I miss Cameron and his funny little sayings and the funny things he does. And Brigham just being so chill. I hope he loves middle school a lot! And thanks for sending stuff with Zach Framp! That will help a lot :) if you wanna send anything else, please do. I'll be praying for dad on the CPA exam. I know he'll do well. He has worked very hard. And yes I'm so glad Tara dropped the Origination DVD off! Keep it in a safe place because I want to see it someday! It was such an amazing experience and I'll never forget it! It helped prepare me for out here! 

Woww... 2 weeks down already. Time has gone by pretty quickly. It should only get quicker:) Haha. 

I forgot to tell you all the food here is cheap cafeteria food, so most of it has soy, so I have to ask the workers every meal if there is soya. I found out the hard way the FIRST day I got here. I had to take a Benadryl my first darn day, haha. What a joke :)

My Spanish and accent is improving. It's getting a lot easier to understand people and speech also. When people start speaking fast it gets way difficult though. But I'm working hard to keep up on it. We spend literally all darn day in class and it is not fun. I mean it's spiritually fun, but mentally and physically nooooo way. Drains me like a drain.

Today we went to the temple! Just the visitors center, because everything else is being remodeled! But it was SUPER nice. It was fun and spiritual, also. I got some pictures I'll send.  

Highlight (not so much) of my week: I was sick for about 48 hours straight. Like 150 kids got sick at the same time, and I was one of them. I had terrible diarrhea (still kinda do) and the worst head ache and a 102 degree fever. Yes, I went to the doctor and checked. I felt absolutely horrible. I got a blessing though from my comp and some other elders in my room, and also gave one. It was special. I'm better now, but that was the worst thing of my life. I had to lie in bed all day and all I could think about was home. I never want to do that again.

It's crazy to think I'll be doing this for two years.. a little bit overwhelming. But I'm just gonna keep pushing through and work as hard as I can! 

Our teacher in the morning's name is Hermano Palma, he is like 5 foot nothing and we always give him a hard time! He is great though and we learn a lot. Our night teacher is Hermano Salazar, and he was our first investigator, and now he teaches us. It's good! Every day here is the same though... just grindin and windin.

I really do love it here and it's getting so much easier to be away from home and stuff, which is reallly nice. I can't wait to get to peru though, that's going to be the greatest thing. 

Anyways, I love you guys so much and I pray for you all!!

Love,

Elder Cluff

Pictures!

 Viva la CCM!

 Elders in Elder Cluff's district

A view of a mountain in Mexico City 

Elder Cluff's bunk :)

His home, unit #40.  Oddly, this sort of reminds me of the Dharma days. Namaste :)

August 7, 2014 letter...

Mom!!

Okay so P-day is on Thursday.. and I'll probably email around this time every Thursday. Everything is going well, and my companion is Elder Pearce. He is a really good guy from Herriman, Utah. And yes, Hermana Jones took our pic and sent it to you! Yay:) I hope you loved it, haha. She is really great. I'll be honest, the CCM is great, but it's really hard. I miss my family and friends so much. The homesickness just kills me but I have to keep myself busy to get through it. I want you and the family to know I love them more than anything in the entire world. More than anything. There is so much to say about the CCM, I don't even know where to begin. It's great, that's for sure. Our teacher is Hermano Palma, he is like 5 foot, haha, it's hilarious, but he is awesome. He teaches us every morning! Language, gospel, all of it:) It's good fun. Umm.. the food is okay, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. Every Tuesday we have Costco pizza which is really nice:) even though it's like cold. Yeah, Spanish is coming really well, I can hold conversations, pray, bear testimony, and teach lessons in Spanish already! Our 3rd day here we taught our first investigator in Spanish. Talk about CRAZY, lol. It was so difficult and insane, but we made it through. His name is Fransisco, and actually, just yesterday we committed him to baptism! Yay for us:) and remember, we do all this in Spanish... soo yeah it's coming along really well. Oh yeah, Fransisco isn't a real investigator.. but he acts exactly like one would. Like it's set up where we go to this room that's set up like a living room and we knock on the door and he answers and it's really fun and easy:)

The spirit is strong here, but it's also very stressful at times because of how much we have on our plate. I love all my mission stuff we bought it all works GREAT. My ties get many compliments and my shoes are super comfy, I want to like wear them 24/7. The first day we got here it rained soooooo hard and all my stuff got soaked including my suit, but there is dry cleaning here which is great. We share a room with other elders named Elder Tasker and Elder Lemon. We live in house 40. It's a great home. I'd honestly rather have my home in Alpine, but this is okay. Yeah, the first few days here were so hard. I missed you guys and it hurt so much. But like now I'm fine which is good. The time is really flying here too!

Can you believe I've been here for one week? I can't believe it. The days are like 16.5 hours long, but the weeks seriously flyyyy by. Like I can't wait to get out of here though and get to Peru. Mexico city is beautiful, but really different. Remember that appointment I missed? Well, the exact thing I wanted fixed caused problems this week. I bit down on a guava, and I hit a seed, and the retainer broke off my front tooth. I was so mad because I wished I would have gone to my appointment.. but I went to the doctor and scheduled an appointment with the dentist.. which I was so happy and relieved that I could do. Anyways, another elder had the same problem so all of us loaded in the little car, and left the CCM into the depths of Mexico. It was the greatest thing ever leaving here. Not because I hate it, more because I just wanna experience Mexico. So we left the CCM and started driving through mexico to the dentist, and it was crazy. Everyone here drives like a crazed person. There seems like there is absolutely no driving laws and everyone just goes wherever they want at 10,000 miles per hour. And at every stoplight people walk in front of cars and start juggling balls or sticks, or start washing your car, or sell stuff for money. It's sooo odd, but hilarious. We got to the dentista, she was a member of the church, and actually the CCM uses her often for denstiry work. She put glue back on my retainer and fixed it:) it was such a freaking relief to get it fixed. She did a really good job too, like it was just like an ortho/dentist in the US, which I miss soooo badly.. oh and we talked to this member of the church in the waiting room for like 20 minutes in Spanish! Anyways, what a journey. Our driver was funny too. He kept asking if the "n" word was offensive, because he heard it in a movie once, so he kept saying the "n" word while asking us and we were just cracking up saying like, yeah, it's a bad word dude, you''ll get shot if you call someone that. Our district is awesome, pretty small it seems like, but still really good people. We learn a lot here and work really hard. I'm most excited to finally get to Peru, like getting a taste of Mexico just got me pumped for that, ya know? My English has been struggling lately whenever I write, because everything here is in Spanish. Every worker, teacher, everyone is Mexican and speak hardly any English. I guess I'm  becoming one of them, hahaa...WEEEE. My accent is also coming along mama.. you'd love it. My Spanish is rockingggggggg. I have a long way to go, but I'm trying really hard to understand and speak. We have had some really great devotionals here, too. We have a devotional every Tuesday night, and watch a movie every Sunday! It's such a great thing. We watched The Testaments on Sunday and it's a darn good movie. We have it, so you guys should watch it for FHE! Make sure to read scriptures everyday - personally and con la familia! Okay? It's a blessing we have the scriptures, we should use them.

I could write so much more, but time is short and every thing else is just random blah blah. But just know I am doing well, and the CCM pronounced (See See Em) is really growing on me. I have a lot to learn, but I know with the Lords help that I can do it. I know with His help I won't have to worry about home or anything else. 

How is cameron?

Brigham?

Zack?

Dad? 

Skyler? 

Ash?

How are you? How is everyone.

I love you mom so much, I love the family so much, I love the Savior so much and I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve His children.

Can't wait to hear from everyone next week:)

Love, 

Elder Cluff

Surprise picture sent from a Sr. Missionary couple, Brother and Sister Jones in the CCM!  When I received this, I immediately said a prayer of gratitude and thankfulness in my heart that he had made it there safe and sound, and in one piece!  Such a tender mercy!

He Arrived Safely!

Well, we made it to the CCM in Mexico! The airports, planes, layovers, waiting an hour and a half in line, hurting feet, tired, wow. All good stuff:)

It´s seriously weird being a full time missionary. It only became real when we arrived and put the name tag on. But I´m so excited to forget about myself in this work and focus on those who need to hear this gospel. This church is true and it is Christ´s church. I love you guys so much and can't wait to tell you all more about it.

Oh, and the CCM is huge and it's got all these baseball and soccer fields and Mexico City is gorgeous.

I love you, Caden.

Farewell at the Airport 7/30/2014!

We weren't sure we could do it, but we pulled an all-nighter!  Elder Cluff's flight left at 6:00 a.m., so we had to have him at the airport two hours early. We actually started packing his bags at 10:00 the night before!!

 We were all SO excited! {Missing Skyler & Ashley}

Our son is ready to get through security and head on his way to the Mexico CCM!
SEE YOU IN TWO YEARS ELDER CLUFF! GOD SPEED!

We had such a wonderful time the night before Elder Cluff left; the spirit was so strong. When he was being set apart as a missionary the night before, there was not a dry eye in the room! I am so thankful for this gospel and for the opportunity Elder Cluff will have to share it with others and to teach families how they, too, can be together forever!!