Object Lesson Fail!

Hello everyone!!

This week has been pretty good. We have been able to meet lots of good people and teach some good lessons as well!

Random Guy wanted picture taken with us!

Teaching a lesson!

Wednesday we had an appointment with our investigator Gladys and she was outside smoking (we were planning on teaching her the word of wisdom haha) so we were talking to her outside and her friend named Clara walked up. She started talking to us and asking us what we were doing and then she also asked if we could help her out with her house. She has a bunch of holes in her walls cause of her nephew punching them or something, I think she wanted money from us but we told her we could come by and try and fix them. She kept telling us how we were god sent and that she was going to come to church on Sunday haha it was kind of funny!

Thursday we did a lot of biking and poor Elder Clement he was dying I felt bad for him. We are riding bikes more to save miles.  After that we went to dinner with the Alhaltehs to a place called "Cock on the Walk" or something like that. It’s this place right on the big reservoir. We had some catfish which was pretty good, It didn’t taste different at all from any other fish, and some fried chicken, It was really good!  Elder Clement loved it too. The problem with him is he just won't try anything that’s a little different haha. He is getting better though!!:)  The Alhaltehs are awesome, they feed like 3 sets of missionaries a week!! Their son is in SLC right now on his mission.  After that we went to their house to do a lesson. Their daughter Carly wanted an object lesson so I was thinking and I remembered that a Sister was telling me that if you squeeze an egg that it wouldn’t break. I had never tried it before so they gave us an egg and Elder Clement started squeezing and he couldn’t break it and then the second time he started squeezing his arm was like shaking cause of how hard he was squeezing and the egg cracked and shot everywhere......... I felt so bad... So their house was messy and the object lesson was ruined hahahaha...

Dinner with the Alhalteh Family!

Friday we had ZDM (zone district meeting) and President Olson taught it. It was a good meeting. He talked about being on a mission, being a missionary, and being a disciple. After that we came home and went to an appointment we had with a lady that had told us to come back. Her name is Allyson and she started asking us all these questions and talked about how her Grandma had always taught her that there was a place in between death and the resurrection that your spirit would go, she explained it exactly like we believe it to be! It was kind of cool we asked if her church taught that but she said no, that her grandma talked about it to her and then she started going off about how she hates how churches only teach what please the people. They don’t include everything in what they teach. So basically she is a golden investigator.

Saturday and Sunday were both good, sadly Gladys didn’t come to church because she was out to late partying but that’s alright. We will get her next week!

Things are going good! We have been working hard and trying to get people to come to church. We have a mission goal of everyone getting a baptism in the month of November. It’s so hard because in Utah the missions there are like the highest baptizing and there are so many non members down here you think it would be opposite but it’s because there are so many members there, that the work is doing so good, I wish we could get members to see that and try and get a little out of their comfort zones to invite people to hear the gospel.

We are doing a little better at finding. We found a more upper end neighbor hood that we can start tracting. Less people will be open but they will be more likely to keep commitments. We are having the open house this Friday and we are trying to get the members to bring people. We made little invitations and every door we have knocked on the past few days we have put one on there so hopefully someone out of the 100 doors or so will come haha...

Out finding people!

My Ponderizing scripture last week was Moroni 7:48

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

I have been working on loving people more and seeing them as God sees them not as I see them and this has helped me out a lot!!

My scripture this week was the one I put on my plaque Alma 26:22

Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance.

So we are allowed to listen to music that you could sing in sacrament meeting so like BYU vocal point hymns we could listen to. Do you know of anyone else that has songs that are somewhat exciting that you could listen to in sacrament??

Today we found this store where everything is like super cheap and I bought some pants that reminded me of Ryker for 15 bucks so I'm gonna send them to him you will have to let me know what he says haha. This store everything is like under 20 bucks!! And they have sweaters and stuff like that so I will probably get something from there too! Probably matching pants with Ryker!  My socks are doing good, I haven’t put any holes in them yet!  My eating has been fine I just don’t want to gain weight but it's so hard to find food to eat haha!  My stomach has been doing good! The weather has been so nice. It’s been like in the 60-70 degrees range. It’s been nice!!!  

Today we have done our shopping and then we have a few appointments planned for tonight! Hopefully everyone is home! We have a few appointments lined up for the week and we are having the open house this friday night!  So hopefully people come to that!   

I have been thinking a lot about being grateful lately, and its nice to know how great of a family I have!!:)  Hope you had a fantastic week!!:) I will talk to you next week! Love you!:) Thanks fore everything!!

Amazing Canton sky!

Sharing Our Message with the Baptists!!

Hello Everyone!!

This week went pretty well!

Tuesday we traced for 5.5 hours haha I wanted to kill myself…:))

Wednesday we had to go to the doctor because Elder Clement had an ingrown hair or something that had been killing him.  It was in his armpit and he could hardly move his arm.  So we missed district meeting.  This week was sooooo long because we missed going to it!  Later that night we went to visit a girl that we had met at a store and she and her mom were rushing out to go to their Bible study class so they invited us to that.  When we got there she introduced us to the Pastoress and the Pastor and everyone else and they were asking us questions about what we did here as missionaries, and then they asked us if we would share our message with them and I didn't know what to do so I just told them sure!  We taught them about the restoration and we got some pretty interesting looks!  They started asking us questions about if prophets are the only way we can have a relationship with God, what we believed about the Holy Ghost, and then they asked us if baptism was essential for salvation (implying that they didn't believe in baptism) and I told them yes, and shared a scripture.  Then they asked "What if someone has never been baptized but then on their death bed they say Lord save me?"  I said they would still have to be baptized and taught them about baptism for the dead.  After that the Pastor was like alright that's enough…hahahahaha.  I honestly don't think that they believe in being baptized by water.  It was some little church, I can't remember what they called the church but it was a Baptist church!  They probably wouldn't be very happy if we showed back up haha but I think we will go this week and listen to them talk this time!

The rest of the week was pretty plain we didn't do a lot but tract.

Sunday we had one of our investigators come to church!!  Her name is Gladys and she doesn't live in the best of conditions.  She doesn't have a car so we had to get a ride for her but she showed up and loved it!  So that was good!!

I'm only a little bummed that my family is in Hawaii without me, but it's ok!  I'm in a good place.  It has been raining here a ton lately.  It's hard to get out and do stuff in the rain, especially when all you have planned is tracking.  We traced 12 hours last week, that's almost double what the standard of excellence is.  We are going to try and do an open house and watch Meet the Mormons.

I found someone to cut my hair!  I went to a real barber shop haha!  There were only like 80 year old guys in there.  The guy that cut my hair was 73!  The next transfer is Dec. 2nd.  I hope I stay in this area for a few months!  I have been enjoying being with Elder Clement!  I think it has been a good experience for me.  It is a little hard to deal with his talking, and he likes to be contentious with people but I have kind of helped him with that to see that it doesn't hep with anything!  It has been good though!!  He's awesome!

Hopefully you've had a fantastic week!:)
I love you!
Elder Larsen

Dinner at Cock of the Walk with the Alhalteh family!

Happy Halloween!

Hi!
This week was pretty uneventful!  We did a lot of tracting and taught a lot of first lessons but no one will listen to us when we go back the second time so that's been pretty frustrating.  That's alright though!

Saturday for Halloween we went to a members house with all of the missionaries from our district and hung out, ate food and played games.  It was fun and was nice because it was kind of a break from things!

Halloween Partay with the Feller Family!

Happy Halloween!

Sunday we went to the Raytown branch building for church.  The building is so cool, it's like 100 years old and super small.  It's in like the middle of the woods too, it's pretty awesome!  I know it was built in 1906.  In the dedicatory prayer it is said to stand until the millennium!

Raytown Branch Building

Such a cool sign!

After church we went to the Branch Presidents house and ate and then we went to see some less actives.  President Comans dad died about a month ago and he was talking about that to the less active guy and talking about Gods plan for us.  I was thinking, how can we relate this to get him to see the importance of church so I asked him  "What do you think about Gods plan for us?"  He answered, and then President Comans said something that tied right in to the purpose of our life so I shared a scripture with him, and then Elder Clement said something that led right into the Atonement, repentance, and baptism so I shared another scripture with him and then talked about how the sacrament is like us being baptized every week and how we need to be clean to enter into the presence of God.  It was pretty cool to see how everything just played out perfectly and we didn't even talk about it before!

We tract a lot, we teach a lot of people but never see them again!  Members aren't very good with referrals, I haven't received one while I have been here!  That's why I think this is one of the lowest baptizing missions.  That's probably been the hardest thing for me.  Not having tangible success.  Like no one coming to church and no one progressing that's been the hardest thing for me to deal with!  I guess I should stop worrying about what I can't control and just work.

Things are going good, we have had some good success.  There has been rain almost every other day this week it's been so nice haha!  We went to get haircuts but no one around here will cut my hair because they don't know how… they all only know how to cut black people hair!!!  We went to Brother Alhaltehs store (he owns like a suit store)  and he bought us some food!  And gave me a sweet deal on a cardigan thingy,  idk though, it might not loo very good on me haha!

Dinner with the Alhalteh Family!

Sharing a message!

Love you all, Elder Larsen

First Week in Canton!

Hi!
Well this week has actually gone pretty well!

In our district we have the STL's (sister training leaders), The AP's, another set of sisters and then another set of elders so it is a big group but it's nice being with the AP's, they have a lot of knowledge and are great to learn from!  The sister missionaries are nice too, they take good care of us!

Wednesday went pretty well, we taught a few lessons!  This week was basically tract all day every day so that was super fun haha.

Thursday we went to visit a member who's husband isn't a member and when we knocked on the door he came outside and freaked out at us like "Why the @#%$# are ya'll ringing my doorbell like that, next time I'm gonna come outside and shoot the *&*#% outta ya'll!" and he had his gun in his hand hahahaha so that was interesting.  I honestly thought he was joking so I was kind of chuckling but I guess he was being serious.   His wife came out and so we talked to her for a while.  I just kind of played it off like nothing happened!

Saturday we went and did some service for a member who got a divorce and now she has like 64 acres of property to take care of all by herself.  They had a pretty cool set up, like a snack shack and then they used to have a barn with a spook alley in it and a huge corn maze!

That's pretty much the extent of my week.  The area is huge!  It covers 3 county's and we got hosed on miles so we are like 100 over already and there is still a week left!  It was a pretty good week though!

Training has been going good!  Elder Clement is excited to be here and I think I am doing the best I can to help him feel welcome!  We get along good, he talks a lot more, like a lot more than my last comp!  We have done lots of tracking and it has been boring haha but hopefully it will start to pick up!  Everything is going ok, we have yet to teach a second lesson but hopefully we will get some this week!  He is working with me on his english so we'll see how good of a teacher I am!

The ward is more up to date than the other one I was in but I don't think all of them love the missionaries as much as they did in Brookhaven!  I will probably never have an area like that again.   The members live so far away from us here.  It's a nice ward though, there are a lot of young families!  One of the members invited us over for a party on halloween, so we will go to their house!!  We have another dinner tonight!  We had dinner with Brother Richardson last night and it was good!  Elder Clement eats only rice, like a huge plate of rice and fried chicken.  That's all he likes so dinner appointments could be a little interesting with him haha… we might never get invited back.  He likes his Utah shirt!!!

It has been raining for 2 days straight!  I have been trying to eat better, lots of sandwiches, pasta, and chicken.  We are making our own food a lot more…  I bought me some shake n bake!:)  Our apartment is a tiny shack in someones backyard, it is tiny…haha and the water pressure is so bad we have to use a bucket to shower…

Our Canton apartment

I'm being serious.  Our water pressure.

I like Canton, it is pretty small, it's smaller than Brookhaven but it's closer to a city!  Madison.  It's an old historic city and pretty cool!  They play jazz music around the town square like all the time, we ran by one morning at like 6:30 and they were playing it!!  It's pretty funny  Canton is 99% black people. The church here is 100 years old this year, it's like the oldest church in Mississippi!  Pretty crazy!

I'll talk to you all later, love you!!:)

Transfers and Training!!

Hey guys!

This week was alright!  It wasn’t quite as good as last week but its ok!

Monday we went and played basketball at the park it was pretty fun! We were the only white kids there! It was super crazy... So we had 2 lessons planned one at 5, and the other at 5:30.  We went to the one at 5:00 and when we were leaving and on our way to the other one, we drove passed a park that had a ton of people playing basketball.  Every time before then when we drove by, there had been no one there!  But this time there was like 15 or so high school kids there playing. I told Elder Davidson that we had to go play because I had never seen anyone there before and he was alright with it and so we went and played basketball.  It turns out that where our appointment at 5:30 was, there was a shooting at 6:00 and it went until midnight, they had to have the swat team there and everything! It was literally like 50 feet away from the apartment we were going to. A cop got shot and one guy died sadly but I would say that is pretty crazy!! The Lord is watching over us!

Tuesday wasn’t the best day ever, we had a lot of lessons planned that day but then no one was home! It was pretty frustrating so we went to Foxes to get ice cream and got free food as well haha so that made it a little bit better!

Wednesday we went and taught a less active lady named Dianne and her daughter Laney and answered a lot of their questions and they came to church on Sunday!! Then we went to Tamoras house and taught her a lesson, it went alright!

Thursday was rough we had to tract a lot because no one was home!!

Friday we went to lunch with a Presbyterian preacher and talked with him a lot. He was asking us a lot about what we believed about the Atonement. Our views on it are completely opposite haha.... His idea of grace and how we are saved is very weird... But that’s alright. He was really nice and respectful and so were we!

Saturday Elder Davidson got permission to go down to Ocean Springs to go to a baptism down there and so we drove 2.5 hours down there to that! It was a good little break especially with the rough week we had! There are actually people down there!! I didn’t feel like I was in a tiny town so it was kind of nice!  It’s definitely bigger than Brookhaven!

Elder Davidson and I in Ocean City, MS for a baptism!

A view of the ocean!

Sunday we went to the ward and the branch and had to say bye to everyone! Brother Cox was sad.  He wanted to feed us dinner and so we went back to his house that night and he kept saying how much he was going to miss me! But I think me moving to another area will be good and a great learning experience for me!

We went and had my last dinner with the Webbs last night.  They said that they would get me anything I need up in Canton!  They work up that way and said they’d come see me. They are awesome!:)

Last dinner with the amazing Webb family!

We come to the stake center in Clinton for transfers and since I won’t be going very far I will just hang out here all day, eating and playing basketball!:)  My new companion is from Nigeria haha! He is super nice and a pretty funny kid!  He speaks english fairly good and his name is Elder Clement!:)

My new companion, Elder Clement!

I am excited to train! I will have someone that wants to work hard and follow all the rules so it will be easy for me to do it too! I am going to a new area called Canton, it’s about 30 minutes north east of Jackson I think... something like that!  Kinda crazy, it sounds like Canton is fairly big and a pretty rough area haha so it will be fun!:)  The town itself is pretty small though. It is a brand new area.  I don’t know what to do when opening an area, I'm assuming just tract a lot??  If you have any advice on opening up an area it will be greatly appreciated!  I will be in both a ward and a branch there! And I am full car again! Elder Davidson is staying here in Brookhaven and getting another missionary who has been out for 6 weeks!  I feel good! I feel like I have done all I can here and am excited for the change!

Love ya all!   Have a great week!!!

Love, Elder Larsen

Got the Cops Called on Us!

Hello Everyone!!

Monday we went to a lesson and after we taught that we were walking back to our car, a little girl came outside and said "Hi missionaries!"  It ended up being a less active lady that we have been looking for for almost 3 weeks now!  We talked to them for a while and they told us we could come back!  Then we went and visited our investigator named Bresha and that went well and she basically placed a Book of Mormon for us with her friend named TK.

Tuesday we had a really good day, we taught 7 lessons!!

Wednesday we had a DDM and then we went to a really good BBQ place after that was pretty good!  We then went back and taught a family who we found last week when we were going to see some potential investigators.  They are awesome!  They accepted a baptism date and are excited to continue learning.

Thursday our week of good fortune kind of stopped haha…Bresha dropped us and told us that she was to busy to meet with us anymore, so that whole day we were both pretty upset.  Later that night while we were tracking at like 7:00,  3 people called the cops on us hahaha…  One guy was out next to our car looking at it and stuff and got a call from the cops right as we were walking up and he asked us if it was our car and then he called the cops of.  It was so dumb haha… No, the cops never made it to our car but they were on their way!  I thought I was through with cops!  I guess not tho haha!

Friday our bad day kind of continued,  we didn't talk to many people and did 2 hours of tracking.  When we were driving around we didn't know where to go tract so we said a prayer and then kept driving and both felt like we should go down this certain street.  We went down the street and the last house  we knocked on was a girl,  Sincere was her name, who let us right in and started asking questions and we started teaching her the Restoration and she asked "Who is our prophet??"  It was awesome!  So, we left her with a BOM and she told us to come back whenever, she would be waiting for us!  She has a little girl named China, she is awesome!  After that we went home and were going to go to the football game but right as we sat down to eat it started pouring so we didn't end up going!

Saturday went alright,  we taught a few lessons and then had dinner with the Maxwells.

Sunday we were super excited for church because multiple people had told us that they were going to be there and then when church started no one came so that was pretty upsetting, but it's ok!  We had worked so hard all week!  We didn't really talk to anyone else that day either but we had another lesson with Sincere and it went really well,  she accepted a baptismal date as well!

Sincere and her daughter China, sent this to mom
via text after one of our lessons!

Overall this week was pretty good, we taught 21 lessons!!

I'm doing good!!  That's so crazy that the Utes are doing so good!!  I'm so jealous haha!  When we were tracking yesterday, I asked a Presbyterian preacher if the Utes won!  Elder Davidson and I are getting better at teaching together!  I enjoy being with him.  I hope I make it through another transfer, I love it.  My apartment is nice, it's right next to the train tracks and trains come non stop!  The bathroom and kitchen are tiny and there are only a few cockroaches!  The Oglesbys are doing well,  I have called them once a week but we haven't gone down to visit them since they were baptized.  They are solid in the church, they live so far away it's hard for us to make it down there.  The weather is cooling off a little, it hasn't been in the 90's the past few weeks and has felt pretty good outside.  My jumprope broke, I think I can fix it with a wrench.  We have been eating pizza like every meal for the past week…I'm done with pizza haha…

Hope everyone is doing well!:)  Thanks for everything!  Love you guys!
Love, Elder Larsen

Elder Davidson doing some cooking!

Commitments and Conference!

Sent to Mom via text after lunch with the Jacksons!

Hello everyone!!

It was a good week but the biggest struggle is getting people to follow through on their commitments. No one will follow through on anything haha!

Tuesday after pday was over we went and did a little tracting and we met some nice people and set a few return appointments.

Wednesday we had a good day! Most of our appointments were home!! We talked to a guy named James who was just sitting there questioning us about the 12 tribes of Israel and all the foods that we shouldn’t be eating like pork, shrimp, and cat fish haha... We also talked to a lady named Lawanda and last time we met with her she told us that she would listen to us all day but she wouldn’t read the BOM, but when we met with her this time we had a really good lesson and at the end we asked her again if she would read and she looked at it and said “I'll think about it” I think she will read it! While we were tracting I asked one person if he could ask God one question what would it be and he said "Why?? Why all of this?" and that was perfect because I knew a scripture that would help him! So we left him with a BOM and told him we would be back! We also met a lady that had grown up with LDS friends and she said we should come back too!!

Thursday wasn’t as eventful of a day. Our appointments weren’t home and we had to go get flu shots and our car fixed again… it had a flat… Patience is key!  But we had a lesson with Tamora and reset her with a Baptismal date!

Friday we had to tract a lot because we didn’t have anything else to do. We ran into 2 preachers and that was fun as ever. One said that he had seen a video at church about Joseph Smith and the first vision and it was like outer space stuff. Haha, what the heck?? We went to see a few potentials and no one was home, then the last lady we were going to see was outside talking to her neighbors who had just moved in. It was a younger family, and so we went and talked to them and she had been around LDS people before too, she was interested in what we were saying and they told us to come back!  Hopefully they will turn into something!! That night we went to Foxes and then to the Old Brook festival which was like a bunch of street vendors right in town and they had a band and stuff! It was cool!

Old Brook Festival on the streets of Brookhaven!

Elder Davidson and I at Old Brook Festival!

Saturday and Sunday we just watched conference all day. We were at the church in Brookhaven. They had a little TV set up for us, but we got on the projector instead! Sadly none of the 3000 people we invited showed up to watch it with us! But conference, especially the priesthood session reminded me of being home watching it with you guys! I was glad that I had been able to grow up going to it with Dad, Grandad and Konner! I liked Elder Christophersons talk, Elder Hollands, and Elder Durrant that challenged everyone to ponderize a scripture every week for however long. I think that is a cool idea!

I have decided when I get home and maybe save some money, we need to start going to all the church history sites, Like over in Jerusalem area, down to all the Mayan temples in South America and Mexico, I think they would all be cool to visit. Especially the temples down South!  And when we went to the BOM sites down there, there has got to be some cool swimming holes that we can go jump into off a cliff or a vine or something haha!

It is starting to cool down, it was 60's all last week it was so nice!! Send me some salsa!!! I want to try it!!  Elder Davidson and I are doing well and we still continue to get fed a lot!  I have played the piano a lot this weekend while we have been at the church!  I am learning how to play How Great Thou Art now and I almost have it figured out!  My laundry is going good! I just throw it in turn it on cold and then I'm good! haha… We already went shopping so we don’t have any plans for the afternoon! I might go get a hair cut! We’re moving quick today!! We have 2 appointments tonight and we have quite a few appointments planned through the rest of the week so it should be a good week!:)

Love you thanks for so much!!:) I'll talk to you next week!!:)

-Elder Larsen

Some of my halloween decorations from Mom!

Kevin Miller from Mississippi- served his mission in Long Beach.
The Buberts, from my home ward were his Mission President and wife!