Replace word in MS Word with varable from MS Excel

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone could help me with this issue I'm having:

I am in the middle of automating a process here at work, the program takes a word, "pencil" for example, from excel. It will then open up a word document with content already in it (premade template). The program will then find all instances of a string, "placepencilhere" for example, and will replace that instance with the string from excel.

Basically I want to be able to take a variable that has a stored string value from excel and use it to replace another variable in a word document.

I tried recording a replace (ctrl+f, replace tab) macro, copying the code, and inserting it into the excel vba code.. but I get a error message. Here is what I have:

---

Sub Replacing()

Dim xxx As String

xxx = "testing_template"
replacethis = "Pencil"

Dim wrdApp As Word.Application
Dim wrdDoc As Word.Document

Set wrdApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
wrdApp.Visible = True
Set wrdDoc = wrdApp.Documents.Open("C:\Announcement_Templates\BE\" + xxx + ".doc")
    
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting (HERE IS WHERE I GET THE ERROR MESSAGE, THIS SECTION OF THE CODE WAS COPIED FROM WORD VBA)
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
        .Text = "placepencilhere"
        .Replacement.Text = replacethis
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

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Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

odo-