New Companion, Elder Pierre-Louis!

Hello everyone!! This week has been great!

Tuesday we were able to go get our new companions. Elder Pierre-Louis is awesome! He is from Haiti but has lived with a few different foster families here in the U.S. for about 4 years now. He speaks 5 languages and loves to play soccer.  He is a funny kid and is really outgoing. So that is good.  We get a long really well, it wasn’t a hard adjustment at all.  He has been a member his whole life. His parents were converted before he was born.  He was actually electrocuted when he was younger and has been getting medical treatment from people here in the U.S. that’s why he has been with Foster families!  One of his friends flipped on the Electric meter outside of their house and got electrocuted and then another friend touched him and then he touched his friend and got thrown back and so it sounds like it was a pretty scary story!

My New Companion, Elder Pierre-Louis! 

Wednesday we had District Meeting and the lesson I taught went pretty good. No one said anything to bad about it and we did a fun practice so that made it better too!

Thursday we had to go to a training meeting and then we had interviews with President. It was good to talk to him again and let him know how things are going!  It went well. We just talked about rules and how we needed to help other missionaries keep them. 

Friday we had a decent day of proselyting and taught a few lessons! Crazy to think that I have been out for 6 months!

Saturday we taught 2 Spanish families and I just sat there and listened to Elder Pierre-Louis talk to them haha it was pretty funny!  2 years of High School Spanish didn’t do much!

Sunday was ok, we got bailed on by two people at church but we were able to go out after and visit with some less active members. Hopefully some will start to come back to church!

Yesterday we went and played basketball at the church for a while because everything was closed. MLK day is a pretty big holiday down here! But basketball was fun! It was a great week!

MLK Dinner with The Alhalteh Family!

We had a crazy story happen the other day though haha!...

The other night we were tracting and we knocked on this door and it was a white family. They were like "Hey your Mormons? Come on in!" So we were like dang this is awesome right. One of the girls was like "We have never had Mormons here before but I have a Mormon book." So we were like dang even better... So we started talking to them and they were asking about the church and stuff and about Christ so I was going to read a verse from 2 Nephi 2 and the Dad was like "I don’t think that would really help me or apply to me at all because it isn’t the Bible."  So after that comment things just went downhill. He started asking questions about being saved by grace and stuff. And I was pretty done with talking to him so I said "Hey were not here to bash we are just here to invite you to come closer to Christ".  Then he was like "I don’t want to bash either but I already know Christ, He came to me and saved me."  He went on to tell his huge long story about how he used to be a drug dealer in Mexico and be the drug lords body guard (he is like 400 pounds and like 97% body fat) then he said since you don’t want to listen to us lets just pray together.  So he raises up his arms, and starts speaking in tongues.....  His daughter gets up and came and put her hands on our backs and started blessing us, and speaking in tongues. The other 2 ladies were like yelling prayer talking... That was the hardest I have ever had to try not to laugh on my mission. I was dying hahahahahahaha... and the funniest part is they are from a Pentecostal church that is called something like Church of the Vine, and that sect of Pentecostals have poisonous snakes that if you claim to have the priesthood they will make it bite you to see if you will die, because of this verse in Luke 10:19-  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.   They are crazy... When I walked out of their house I was dying!  Like you know when you are in school and something funny happens and you know you shouldn’t be laughing but its just to funny, that’s exactly how I was feeling. It was the craziest thing.

The weather has been good!  Last week was a little rough for us on dinner appointments but this week we have dinner almost every day! So that is good!:)  I have hardly had to buy any groceries the past few transfers because of Raytown feeding us so much:)  They are awesome!  Joseph is doing good. We talked with him today and have an appointment with him tomorrow!

I was going to ask you for my birthday could you send me some more pants and also could you send me a new bible?  I got both of my suit pants taken care of, the blue ones are fixed and then Sunday I ripped the gray ones again in a different spot. The fabric is terrible or something! I was sooo mad haha.  It doesn’t make any sense because they are my loosest pair of pants and they are the ones tearing....

I am doing great! Being a missionary is awesome. You really do learn so much not even just about the gospel but about life in general!  I have learned a lot!  It's almost like people down here have a learning disability.  They don’t really comprehend what you are telling them.. So it’s hard but its all good!  My favorite part has been the knowledge and the spiritual companionship I have felt!:) The hardest part is definitely the success rate. It’s so hard to see success down here. The funniest story is probably the one I just sent to you hahaha oh my gosh that was so funny hahaha:)  The most spiritual experience was probably when we taught our investigator Wonda and she told us she knew the Book of Mormon was true and Brother Ueki bore his testimony about it too. That was probably the best lesson I have been in!:)

Hope everyone is doing well!:)

I will talk to you next week!!:) Love you and thanks for everything!:)

Love, Elder Larsen

Hey Dad! Things are going well! Teaching has been a little far and in between but its been good! I got your email and I will go and check it out! President told me to start studying the Doctrine and Covenants so I have been comparing your insights to the ones I make and its kind of cool to see that the scriptures can be interpreted so many different ways!