Merry Christmas Week!

Hello everyone!!  Hope you are all doing well and excited for Christmas!:)

My new Christmas tie!

This week went pretty well!  Even though everyone is super busy with the holiday season we still had some good lessons with people!  It wasn't  a terribly exciting week though!

Wednesday we met with a former investigator and he welcomed us right in and started talking to us.  It was a good lesson, he had a ton of questions and he promised that he would read the Book of Mormon again!

Thursday we met a lady who had met with the missionaries in Minnesota and had even gone to church a few times.  She told us that she loved the church and that she would love for us to come back and teach her again!

Saturday was a good day, we had 3 or 4 good lessons and then went to the ward Christmas party.  Luckily I didn't have to be Santa this time haha…

Selfie with the Sisters!

I have seen this video on Lds.org.  It's called "What Shall we Give"  It's awesome and reminded me of my dad and Konner.  Serving people truly brings a greater light into your life as the servant and into the life of the person you are serving!  Alma 7:23-24.  As we do the things listed in 23 we will be in a position to abound in good works.  What better to abound in that?  It's perfect!  Alma 7 is one of my favorite chapters!  One of my favorite scriptures is Alma 7:7.  There is ONE thing of more importance than ALL the rest.  Christ coming to earth to dwell among men so that we would have a way to make it back to our Father in Heaven.  I am grateful for this Christmas Season and I'm grateful for you guys!

The world really is a happier place this time of year and I wish it would be like this the whole year.  I'm grateful that Christ came into this world and showed us the perfect way to walk!

Have a very Merry Christmas!!:)
Love you thanks for everything!:)
Love, Elder Larsen

My New Favorite Shirt!

Call Me Santa Claus!

Hello Everyone!  This week was pretty good!

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the bike Elders and that was fun.  We went to a Pentecostal bible study so that was interesting as always.  Lots of speaking in tongues…..haha…We also met a guy that was a history teacher and had a major in religion so he knew a lot about Joseph Smith ad Brigham Young and said everything about the Mormon church makes sense.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and he is already in 2nd Nephi!!

Wednesday we had to wake up at like 5:00 and go to Hattiesburg for Zone Conference.  Elder Kapishke was there and it was a really good meeting!  We learned a lot about being there to help your investigators and not just leaving them to do it on their own.  I wish I was as smart as him!

Zone Conference!

Friday we had some good lessons and one of our investigators, Joseph, told us how he knows the church is true which is pretty cool because at first it seemed like he wasn't very interested.  We also had a Christmas Party with the Branch and I was able to play Santa hahahaha I probably wasn't a very good  one but it was still funny!  They just said Elder Larsen will you be Santa?  I couldn't tell them no.  We had a really good turn out at the party so it was good!  We had a lot of people there, probably 15 or so more than come to sacrament meeting!

Santa and his Helper!

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference and got to hear from Elder Kapishke again, both were good meetings!  I also got to talk to a few people from Brookhaven like the Webbs, and the Britt Family, they are both awesome!  Also Heath Oglesby, the dad of the people we baptized got ordained an Elder so that was really cool to see them still being strong in the church!

Here is a good verse to ponderize, 1 Nephi 13:37- And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost; and if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be.

This month I have been memorizing the chapter headings of the Book of Mormon and as of right now I could tell you where pretty much every verse in the first 14 chapters are right now!

I am doing good!  That book you sent is like a missionary's best friend!  Dang, I think I'm gonna cry because it's not even cold here, it's like 80 degrees!  I still sweat a lot.  That's so much snow you're getting in Utah!!  I have been thinking about the Christmas season and how it will be hard for everyone.  It probably will be easier for Makalie and I though…We're just lucky for the knowledge we have!

Chilis(my favorite)with the Alhalteh Family!

Dinner with the awesome Ritter Family!

Overall it was a great week!  Hope you are doing good!:)
Love you!
Love, Elder Larsen


"Hi this is Sister Lighthouse from Mississippi.  I took these photos of Elder Larsen at our Branch Christmas Party.  He played Santa!  He was very particular about his hair at first!;-)  but he was very willing and did great job!  Our small branch appreciates his service very much!  The primary kids weren't quite sure what to think at first but he won them over with the gifts! They are the first missionaries that we have had in years.  Because of their hard work we had 2 inactive families join us tonight.  We are very hopeful that we will have reactivations because of them!  Believe me he and his companion are a blessing!  Hopefully we will get to keep them in our area for awhile.  THANK YOU for sharing your son with the Mississipi Jackson Mission!"

Christmas Float!

Hello Everyone!

This week we kind of had a lot going on!  One day we were tracking and I got called sexy by some 60 year old black lady hahahahahaha so that was interesting…

We were back and forth helping with the float a lot and it actually turned out really good!  We did a nativity scene and surprisingly no one else had one and ours was probably one of the best looking!  A lot of people down here don't think we believe in Jesus Christ so it was good for us to get out in the community and show them what we do!

working on the christmas float!

 Elder Clement had some weird obsession with Hispanic people and has been dying to teach them but everyone we talk to that is Hispanic say they don't speak english…but on saturday we were tracting and found a family that let us right in, gave us water and offered us pizza and they were Hispanic!  HE was so excited!  They are a catholic family and they were super nice.  We taught them the Restoration and gave them a Book of Mormon!  They seemed pretty interested and I actually think they will read it!

The float looked really good, the ward did a lot of work on it and it was funny with all of the little kids on there.  It was awesome!  We also had a stake activity called A Night in Bethlehem.  It was pretty cool too!  They had it all set up like it was at  BE2014 (my home ward youth conference)  and had a bunch of different shops, it was cool!  They had a reenactment of the birth of Christ and all the little kids were in it and they did a great job!

Madison Ward Christmas Float!

Christmas Parade!

Parade Selfie!

Chick Fil A!  After the Parade!

At A Night in Bethlehem!

 Sunday we went to the Raytown Branch and after church we went to President Comans house and ate with them then went and visited some less active people.  They have only 20 active members out of the 150 on the roster…after that we went back to President Comans house for dinner and the Christmas devotional!  They are awesome!!

Raytown Branch Building

Elder Clement claims to hate pork and I knew he wouldn't turn down bacon once I cooked it so I cooked some and it's like his favorite thing now haha!  I told him that it was pork after he'd been eating it  and his reaction was pretty funny but he still loves it!  Everytime I cook something he about throws up and then the same thing gets cooked at a members house and he eats it… A lot of members just drop food off for us but he doesn't eat it so I have a tooooonnnn of leftovers I get to eat.  I have 3 huge things of soup and chili in the fridge that I get to eat haha… most people bring goo things!  I have been doing better, I can eat raw broccoli and green beans easy now, I've been doing pretty good with veggies!

Things have been going good!  We weren't able to teach Allyson this week but we talked with her and she told us to come by any day this next week so we will get to her this week!  We have Stake Conference this weekend!  We also have have a christmas party at the Branch.  We also have to drive 200 miles to a meeting so that will be fun…The meeting is in Hattiesburg.  A General Authority will be there so that's why it's so big!  There was frost on the windshield the other day and then it ended up being like 70 degrees so it's not cold yet!  It's crazy how time flies.  It's going by fast!  I've learned to just roll with things and not try to fight with people about beliefs.  It's definitely one. big. 2 year long. learning experience haha!

Hope you are doing great!!
Thank you for everything!
Love you~
Elder Larsen

Koreans Don't Have Facial Hair?

Hi everyone hope you are all well!

This past week was pretty good!

Tuesday we went and did some service at this place called Madcaap and they were doing a thing for thanksgiving and they gave out 750 turkeys and boxes full of other foods.  It was pretty cool, there were sooo many people there!  We also had an argument with a guy about the Nephites.  He said that the American Indians ancestors were Korean people that came over on the land bridge, but then I asked him what about Noah and the flood?  Then he was like well….. it's just like the same thing with Cain,  it says after he was cast out that he begat his wife.  He was saying that she just appeared out of no where, but we know he married his brothers daughter because of Moses.  So that was an interesting conversation.  He just thought the Koreans just showed up on the American continent somehow and the only thing he was using as evidence was that Koreans don't have facial hair and neither do American Indians!  Idk if that is true, that's just what he was saying hahahaha…

Thursday, Thanksgiving was a good day!  We were able to go and play some flag football!  It was nice to get out and run a little bit, poor Elder Clement, he was dying the next couple of days because his legs were so sore from running!  He was dead on his bike!  We had 2 dinner appointments and definitely ate  too much food!  It was good we had 2 meals and they were both really good!  The first one was more of a normal thanksgiving meal with just normal foods but the second one was more of a southern.  They had pastas and BBQ meatballs and BBQ beans and all sorts of stuff but they still had normal thanksgiving foods too just the extra stuff!  It was funny because Elder Clement had never had ham before and he hates eating pork.  The lady who's house we went to just came up to him and put a fork with ham on it in his mouth hahahahaha I was dying!  He didn't like it very much though.

Thanksgiving Day with the Clements Family!

Friday was fun, while we were out tracting we played basketball in the park with some kids.  It was so funny we pulled up on our bikes and they all stopped and looked at us… I was like "can we hop in?"  They looked at each other and were like "You think you can play basketball in suits? Do you even know how to play basketball?" They were all surprised!   My team won BTW. haha;)

Saturday we were tracting and talked to this lady and she said she wasn't interested but her church supported missionaries and had 3-4 missionaries of her own.  As we were walking away Elder Clement and I just looked at each other and kind of chuckled.  We should have told her we have 85,000!!

Out Tracting!

Life is Good!

We had a good week this past week!  We had 2 people come to church on sunday!  We tracted into this lady and her daughter and the daughter is 20, seemed super interested and told us she wanted to get involved like we are involved and she told us she would be at church.  So sunday came and she showed up and brought her sister!  The lessons in combined priesthood and relief society was about the sabbath day observance and when we called her later that night she told us she had requested from her boss that she have every sunday off so that was pretty cool!!

It is transfer week and both Elder Clement and I are staying in Canton!!  I hope I stay here for awhile.  I hate leaving places!  We got the tree and the decorations you sent!:)  They were great!  Our apartment is looking great now, good thing I learned how to decorate things!;)  It is set up in our study room, there is hardly any room in our poor little shack!  But, we got our shower fixed today!!  It has been so hot here, it's like 80 degrees outside!!  I miss the cold!  We have a dinner appointment and then we are going to help with the ward christmas float.  They have a parade this weekend that the church is putting a float in!:)  Yes, we will be in the parade!

A cool wall in the Blues District!

Downtown Canton Street at Christmas time!

Our Christmas tree!

Love you thanks for everything!
Elder Larsen