SWEATIN' with The Oldies!

Hello everyone,

Time is running out quickly! It is getting hot here and it is not fun haha. The past few days were soooo hot. I get so sweaty its gross. Like I could wring my shirt out.  We had a good week this week though!  Other than being deathly hot and super sweaty we have been fine and continue to work hard. We have been praying for more teaching opportunities and the Lord has answered our prayers. We have been taking more of an advantage of the time we get to teach people and trying to make it as spiritual of an experience as we can. We were able to volunteer at the old folks home and lead a little exercise class they have. It was quite the experience haha!! A bunch of old ladies telling us we are doing the exercise wrong but it was fun haha! 

We have a few investigators with potential to progress though. We had dinner with the Mays on Sunday again. They are doing good.  Memorial Day was just a pretty normal day although President and Sister Olson came down and took me out to lunch!  Everytime an Assistant went home or got transferred they took them to dinner but when I was leaving Sister Olson was in the hospital so we didn’t get to go so it was really nice of them to make the trip down to see me.  It was so good to see them! We went to a place called Southside Cafe. It was pretty good!

Today is P-day because of the holiday yesterday.  Next week is transfers!! I am excited and hope Elder Suapaia and I both stay here!  Today we are cleaning out our car. It needs a good deep clean haha.

Hope you are all doing good!!:)

Elder Larsen

Facebook Cover for The Golden Dragon!

Surprise Birthday!

Hello everyone!!

This week has been good! We started out with Zone Conference, did some service at an old folks home, and Elder Suapaia ripped his shirt while we were playing basketball in the street. Thanks to him and Sister May there was a nice little surprise birthday party for me on Friday. They are the best!

This week there were some really bad thunder storms. Its unlike anything in Utah, the thunder is loud, and when it rains it rains for a long time!  And its been hot! But luckily we had the car so we survived it. We had a pretty normal week and were able to start doing some family history with Blake. He is excited to be able to research his family and then take names to the temple. He is awesome!

Our investigators are doing pretty well. We have a few part member families that we are working with right now.  Im grateful for the lessons I have learned and for the experiences I have had on my mission. Im grateful that I have had the chance to serve.

The gospel is true. Thanks for all your support. Love you all!

Elder Larsen

Heavens Doors were Opened!

Hello everyone!!

This week was awesome! It happened. We were able to help Blake get to the waters of baptism!  Despite his challenges and with odds against him he was able to get there. He even stood and bore his testimony of the gospel and of missionary work and how it has brought him so much joy!  He keeps telling us that nothing else matters except knowing that the Book of Mormon is true. And he is right. Everything involving the Restoration rests upon the one question. Is the Book of Mormon true? I am lucky to have been able to read and pray and gain a personal witness for myself that it is the word of God. Though it wasn’t miraculous, it came over many times of reading and having different experiences here and there. I am grateful for the gospel and for the chance I have to share my testimony with those around me!  

Im excited for Blake.  That day we went and tracted with Blake a few hours before the baptism.  After he said that he felt like it was "different from all the other baptisms I have been apart of". (He has been baptized in some other churches.) He said he felt like heavens doors were opened.  He also was happy to receive the Holy Ghost and the priesthood all in the same weekend!  He's excited because now he can bless the sacrament.

We had Zone Conference this week in Gulfport.  It was good! I can’t believe I only have one more left.  You were wondering about my Southern accent and language…There was a point in my mission where I felt like I was starting or having the urges to talk like a Southerner with words like ya’ll, finna, fixin to, things like that but I really didn’t want to start saying ya’ll so I tried super hard not to say it and its not a problem for me now haha. All the missionaries say it though.

Tyler Comans (from where I was serving in Canton)told me he got his mission call to California Roseville Mission!  Thanks for your support. It was great talking to you guys on Sunday. I was happy to see you!!:)

Love you all!

Elder Larsen

1- Blakes Baptism Day

2- Golden Dragon lunch buffet with Bro. Reyes.  He takes us here every week.  Sometimes more. They know us so well here we are on the cover of their web site!

3- Where I live in Slidell

4- Me, (from Sis. Pippin)

Brother Reyes fills our Stomaches!

Crawfish Boil!

Hello everyone! 

This week has been a great week! We had a crawfish boil as a ward party, there was some crawfish, boiled potatoes, corn, sausage, and mushrooms. It was pretty good. The crawfish are a little interesting haha. I can't eat a lot of them, they are a lot of work to eat and they are pretty gross little things. Next time we go to Lake Powell and find some in a little river we will have to boil some up haha.

This week I was reading in an old Ensign about the journeys of some of the Pioneers settling parts of Utah. It is amazing what they all went through to help establish a place free from the refuge of the world where they and those following them could worship God how they wanted to. I am grateful for the pioneers and what they did and the sacrifices they made. I even read about an article on the "Hole in the Rock" or "Hell in the Rock" to quote my aunt Tara. It probably is a fitting name Tara gives the place because they labored there for 6 months just to make a path through the rock that was wide enough for their wagons, a road that would be able to hold them as they went, and a ferry to cross the river. 

Hope everyone is doing well!

Love you!

Elder Larsen

PS. next week P-day will be Tuesday.  We have Zone Conference in Gulfport!

"Sorry Guys"

Hello everyone!

This week has been good! We had a few days that were suuupper humid. But we survived!  We had a ton of rain down here yesterday. During the final hour of church we could hear the thunder from inside the chapel. When we walked outside there is a walkway that is covered and there was like 2 inches of water already there. It is crazy how quickly the rain falls down here.  We were told not to proselyte yesterday, it was raining and thundering so hard but no bad effects here in Slidell and the sun is out and shining today!

One day as we were out biking around to some of the local businesses looking for service opportunities we stopped at the Bishops storehouse to get some water and just felt like we shouldn’t stop there quite yet so we kept going down the street and rode past the library. As we were riding past we saw one of our investigators out front sitting on a bench so we rode up and started talking to him asking him what he was doing. He kept shuffling the books that he had around trying to make it so we couldn’t see them. Elder Suapaia asked him about one of them and he kept avoiding the question by talking about his day haha. Finally he lifted up the book and showed it to us and said "Sorry guys". Turns out it was a big old anti book. Elder Suapaia had read some of it before and told our investigator that it wasn’t true, and wasn’t going to do any good for him.  So we picked up the book and told him we were going to do him a favor and return the book for him. He said fine. It was funny how the Lord placed us in his path to stop him from doing that.

We also were able to teach some other good lessons! I think the Ward is continuing to get more and more excited about missionary work because they see the hard work that we are putting in. This next week we will be meeting with one of the members friends and teaching her. She has been coming to church for a while now.

The gospel is true! 

Love you!

Elder Larsen

Fun with Elders

Elder Thorley and I

Nametag

Text from Sister May:

We have actually never really had the missionaries over to our home before so this has been really good for my family.  My husband and oldest son (stepson) are not members.  This is the first time any missionaries have even attempted to talk about the gospel with them.  No matter what the outcome, i will be forever grateful to them.  Tonight was the very first time my husband had ever read any scripture in his whole life.  I don’t Know what we’ll do when Elder Larsen leaves us.  My heart will be so sad.