I Love It!

Hello everyone! 

We had a productive week, things have been really good this week!! We have had good visits with Blake, he is almost religion happy, like thats literally all he will talk about haha! We weren’t able to see our part member family because the kids were with their Dad this week. We had dinner with the Mays yesterday. The Mays are awesome! On Saturday an investigator the other Elders in Slidell are working with was faced with quite the decision to make!  She was scheduled to be getting baptized at 5:00. Around noon she got a call from her boss telling her that she needed to be at work at 5:00. So she had a pretty big dilemma. She decided that she would rather get fired from her job to go onward with the baptism!  She ended up being able to work everything out so that she could be at work at 6:00 instead. But what a great act of faith by her.  

2 Nephi 2:26-27

26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.                  
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

God has given us agency to make decisions for ourselves. To decide whether or not to follow Christ and His gospel. Though it often times is the harder road he will provide a way through! The gospel is true!

I am doing great! I have learned so much from my mission, life lessons that I couldn’t have learned anywhere else. Everything is great down here, I love it. My area is awesome and the Slidell ward is a really good ward!  I have been so lucky in the places I have served! I’m about to die though because its going to get so hot soon!

Have a good week!

Thanks for everything!

Love you!:)

Elder Larsen

At Chinese Buffet with Joel Reyes

Dinner at Brother Reyes house

Lunch with Chester Vannorman!

Fast in Faith!

Hey everyone! Well this week was pretty darn good!  A few weeks ago Elder Suapaia and I were inviting each member that we would go and visit to join us in a special fast for us to find someone to teach. Everyone graciously accepted our invitation and so we all fasted and prayed on fast Sunday in March. Obviously nothing came of it immediately and even the next week not  a lot came from it but we continued to work.  Towards the end of this week we were getting a little discouraged because not a lot was happening for us.  On Sunday we showed up to church, went to Ward Council, afterward we went into the chapel for Sacrament meeting and there was a guy sitting in there with a triple combination and a notebook. Elder Warren was talking to him when I walked in and I went up and said hello to him and started talking to him. He was telling us how he had met a Mormon while he was in college years ago and noticed how he was always so happy!  After college he had gone down some wrong roads and was trying to get his life back in order. He had read the entire Book of Mormon and was going through the Doctrine and Covenants. All these things he was telling us, I was pretty shocked!  He then said "I might want to try and become a member of the church".  During Sacrament meeting he pulled out a picture of the Peter Whitmer log house that he had drawn and was telling me how he was creating a 3D wooden picture of it as well.

So this is what can happen when you fast in faith. Heavenly Father answers your prayers!

Mathew 7:7-11

7 ¶ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 

8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to 
him that knocketh it shall be opened.             

9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a 

stone?

10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to 
them that ask him?

I am still pretty blown away at what happened but I know that the Lord will provide and nothing can go forward in life unless it is given from the Lord.

Things are going really well. We will be walking or riding down the street and someone who looks busy or pretty uninterested in what we are doing will be outside and I will always have an internal battle with myself whether we should go talk to them and basically guilt myself into going up to them and most of the time they have a connection to the church somehow!  Its amazing how the Lord works! 

Have a great week!

Elder Larsen

                           

The May Family!

"Hi This is Ashlea May.  We have enjoyed having Elder Larsen to dinner at our house!  He's really been so great with my family!  My kids love him and he's really connected well with my non-member husband.  I'm so grateful.  Thanks for sharing him with us!!"

This is John! Elder Vest and I found and we started teaching him back in October when we were together in Jackson.  He just got baptized! 

                         

Grateful for Little Children!

Hello everyone!! 

This week we had a pretty cool experience while we were finding. We were walking down the street and started talking to this guy who was out on his porch. We talked to him about his cars he had and about his family. While we were talking his 2 little girls came outside they were 10 and 7 years old. They asked us who we were and we told them. They asked their dad, “what do Mormons believe?” Their Dad said something along the lines of "I don’t really know, would you like them to come back and talk to us?". The little girls were both excited and wanted to know more about the Book of Mormon, we gave them a pamphlet and told them how they could download the Book of Mormon Stories online. The next day we got a notification that one of the little girls had gone to Mormon.org and ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon. Its funny how young people are so much more receptive and open to the message of the Restoration!

 Mark 10:14-15

14 Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is

the kingdom of God.

15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

I’m grateful for little children who inspire their parents to do good things! Hopefully we can all be more like the little children!

Thanks for all your support,

Love you all!

Elder Larsen

Girl Scout Cookies!

                                              

Elder Suapaia and I!

Mission Conference with Elder Holland!

Cleansed From Sin

Hello everyone! 

This week has been good, Elder Suapaia and I have been on bikes this week! It has been pretty fun!  All the Mardi Gras parades and stuff are gone and everyone is back in school today. We had a lesson with Peyton who is 9 years old. His mother is a member and is starting to come back to church. We had the Primary President come with us and had her teach a lesson on baptism. She did a good visual for him, she had a toilet paper roll with 2 faces drawn on it 1 happy and 1 sad. As she was talking she was teaching about the effect of sin and how it fills us with dirt, in the process she filled it with red pieces of paper. As she continued she had a white baton which represented baptism. When she filled the roll with the baton all the red paper was pushed out and the sad faced turned into a happy face. 

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Luckily we can all be cleansed from sin because of the Savior. Thanks for all your support and I hope you have a great week!

Love ya!

Kaden- Elder Larsen

Gulfport District Elders

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

2 Slidell Members/ 2 Non-member Friends and Slidell Missionaries at Ward Party/Mardi Gras Parade

Elder Warren and I at Ward Party/Mardi Gras Parade in Slidell

Mardi Gras Parade

Anonymous Delivery!

Hello everyone, 

This week was great!  Elder Suapaia and I have seen some really cool things!

One day our Elders Quorum President called us and told us he needed a favor. He explained to us what was going on and basically said there was a family that was really struggling. They were about to start getting fined because of their situation at their house and they were doing all they could to fix it. The husband works all day, 6 days a week. The Elders Quorum President had found out about the situation from another person and felt compelled to help them out. From 9:00 am to 4:00 pm he had rounded up nearly $1,000 from various people to go towards helping the family out. We were the ones that he wanted to anonymously deliver the envelope to the family. It was cool, later that night we were at the Elders Quorum Presidents house and he told us that the man who he gave it to was calling not wanting to accept the money but eventually he did. That’s what the gospel is all about! The coolest part was how humble and happy he was to be able to do that for his friend!  The family will put it to good use. It was awesome to be apart of!

We had zone conference yesterday! It was fun once again to see all of the missionaries. I just got to sit and listen. It was great!

As I come to the close of the Book of Mormon once again, it reminds me to reflect and remember what we are to hope for in this life. Multiple times we are counseled to hope for something greater than things that are temporal. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon and its teachings!

Moroni 7:41  And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have 

hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be 

raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the 

promise.

Moroni 9:25-26 

 but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing 

his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.

 26 And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, 

and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all 

things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you forever. Amen.

I am doing well though and am enjoying my time here!

Love you all! Hope all is well!

Elder Larsen