Elder Larsen Servin' in the South: Mardi Gras Parade after Parade after Parade!

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone back home is enjoying the snow while I am here sweating in Slidell! Sadly this week, or maybe its a good thing so we will lose some weight, but we are losing our car this week and are going car share... It will be good though, we will be able to be out and about talking to more people. It’s Mardi Gras here! There have been parades after parades after parades here in Slidell. A whole week off of school for everyone haha and an all day parade tomorrow in New Orleans.. Its a big deal down here, so funny!

This past week was pretty great! I am amazed how many people have connections back to the church somehow. We met 2 people this past week that used to live in Salt Lake. Another couple people that know members of the church through work or they used to live near a church. People that have met missionaries and read from the Book of Mormon before. All these connections and yet they still don’t have a desire to want to know if its true. Its amazing the people that actually have a sincere desire and apply the things that we ask them to do, they see progression. While those who don’t, don’t see it.

In Joseph Smith History it talks about the experience him and Oliver Cowdery had as they translated the Book of Mormon as well as they received the Priesthood and were baptized after this it says:

We were filled with the Holy Ghost, and rejoiced in the God of our salvation.

74 Our minds being now enlightened, we began to have the scriptures laid open to our understandings, and the true meaning and intention of their more

mysterious passages revealed unto us in a manner which we never could attain

to previously, nor ever before had thought of.

Luckily we have the gift of the Holy Ghost to enlighten our minds and open our understanding so we can know the true meaning of things. Similarly people who are just investigating the church must be able to put themselves in a place where they can be influenced by the Spirit as well. How grateful I am for the spirit!

Thanks for all you do, Love you all!

Elder Larsen