A miracle and a witness!

Hey! I can't believe this new change actually happened. We saw it like right after it happened from some people on Facebook and just thought "there is no way this is actually real." So we keep checking other facebook pages from the church and it's just BLOWING up. We then check LDS.org, and we were like... WHAT!? Then an email from the assistants saying they had a meeting with President about it, then an email from President and the church... so by then we kinda figured it was real lol. I think it will be really good for a lot of missionaries but really bad for some missionaries. I definitely think it's going to do more good than bad. We called a companionship in the zone to ask them something about a zone activity (one of this sisters is kinda struggling), then we asked them what they thought of the new change, and the one that was struggling sounded super excited. 

Everyone flaked this week. Angelina, Manuel, the Guizar family... Elder Jones was even kinda sick the whole week too. But it wasnt even a bad week. We had our lesson with Tyler which went... ehhhh.... he still doesn't understand how we know, he kinda dropped us haha. BUT he wanted to keep the Book of Mormon, and he was super kind about it all too. Like him and his wife fed us dinner and they gave us a TON of snacks to go with (like a Costco box full of cheez-it bags, box of packaged fig bars, and a box of cliff bars)... so we say he gracefully dropped us  We had a super good discussion about missionaries and what we do. He told us to go back anytime for dinner ("like seriously guys, thats not even a joke."). So we will probably go back in a few weeks or maybe in a couple months to see how he's been.

Another super cool miracle happened this week. We were tracting Friday and knocked into this lady named Frita. At first she said she was okay but then told us to come back on Saturday. So we go back and we have a pretty good discussion with her. She tells us how at first when she talked to us and said no, then she thought to herself "these guys want to talk to you about Jesus, and you don't have time?" (TOTALLY THE SPIRIT). She even wanted to come to church, so we got her a ride to church and everything and she loved it all. She even shared her experience in Sunday School haha so now the ward likes us EVEN MORE. She also mentioned how Sunday morning she started having doubts and she felt like that was Satan haha it was amazing. Honestly... I have no idea how she enjoyed sacrament meeting haha. I mean, the 3 of us DID sing for a special musical number... But the talks (no offense) weren't too good. It was about self-reliance and neither of them related it to being spiritually self-reliant. It's okay, she probably loved it because of what she felt.... plus she's about 80 so hopefully she didn't hear anything. Also! In our discussion she said the Book of Mormon is true.... so that was the main miracle of the week. 🏾🏾

I've been studying from the come follow me manual and doing some catch-up. I love how much the church is focusing on building YOUR OWN testimony... We can't rely on everyone else's testimony and their conversion, just like how the 5 foolish virgins couldn't rely on the 5 wise virgins for their oil. The time is approaching when we will need to have our own testimonies. I think it's amazing how good this new thing helps with that. Have a fantastic week! Can't wait to see my family soon. 

Love Elder Larson 

We found a park :)

When Elder Jones gets into his studying vibe... lol

Happy Valentine's day!

So. Much. Rain.

Valentine's!!!

Happy Valentine's day! I know it hasn't happened yet and I think it's a good thing I don't have a Valentine to send anything :). Our week was so wild! Us as a companionship sat down and figured out our differences so that's good. 

Funny story... Elder Jones set a return appt with a guy in a shower . It was one of the showers where it was a small window at the top of the bathroom and we talked to him while he was showering, it was hilarious! Sadly he flaked his return appointment :(. 

Angelina didn't like the lesson we had with her lol, we talked about baptism because she plans on having her baby baptized Catholic... we think she thought we were pushing her into it all. So now we gotta be a little stand-offish. 

Manuel we think is doing better, he loves meeting with us and he loves reading from the Book of Mormon... so we'll just let him stay that way lol.

A thought came up in an email with my uncle and I loved it. Speaking of the story in Luke 5, "Peter has been out all night and has not caught one fish. Imagine how hard that would be to NEED fish to feed your family, to sell, to live and you go out all night and catch nothing. Peter is cleaning his nets when Jesus comes on his boat and asks Peter to cast out his boat a little, basically so Jesus can use it as a pulpit and teach the people. After he teaches, the Savior asks Peter to go a little further and cast out his net. Peter is the fisherman and Jesus is the carpenter. Surely the fisherman who has been out all night knows better but Peter does as he is asked. Peter casts his net and gets so much fish that the net begins to break; they have to call their friends with another boat to help them with all the fish and there is so much fish that both boats begin to sink. I wondered why Christ wouldn't just bless the nets not to break or not have him catch so much fish or something else but if He could make a miracle of many fish, why go to that extreme on the amount? The scripture in Malachi 3, about tithing, comes to mind. 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 

I have never put those two scriptures/stories together but for me, it is such a 

powerful example that all Jesus asked was for Peter to put down his net. All he 

asks of us is 10% in tithing. All He asks is to minister once a month or do our 

calling or whatever, whatever, whatever, and He blesses us so much that there 

is not enough room to receive the blessings." 

Malachi 3:10 is one of my favorite scriptures when talking about blessings from 

god.

So grateful for all of you! Love ya!

Love Elder Larson 

Moved a crazy lady out of her apt with other missionaries

Applebees for Elder Picketts birthday

We're always so tired at the end of the day :))

Crazy crazy crazy.

Hey! This last week was crazy, not because of what we did but because of everything that is happening with the people we are teaching haha. We met this guy on Tuesday named Tyler, super cool and super sincere. We were tracting... and he let's us in and we have like a hour and a half discussion about a lot of different things (He asked a lot of questions). But he wants to meet in like 2 weeks because he wants to read the Book of Mormon haha! So that should go well... because he's pretty sincere.  

Brian uhhh yeah we won't be able to meet with him for awhile... But he's definitely doing good as far as having God in his life. I cant remember if I said last week, but he calls us his "3 guardian angels"  super cool. But yeah hopefully he contacts the missionaries when he can meet :)). Angelina got fired from her job and she's like.... super happy about it 🤷🏾‍♂️ so she should be at church next Sunday! We have a lesson on Tuesday with her AT a members house 🏾🏾 things just are going well. 

As far as the rest of the people.... lots of people flaked lol. Nobody was home... like we visited so many people and no one answered. It seems to be that way... no one is home or happy when it's damp... cloudy... rainy. 

I can't believe I only have like 9 months left... I feel like my mission has FLOWN by. I love it so much. Everything I've learned and the person I'm becoming. Have an amazing week!

Love Elder Larson 

 That moment when Elder Jones can't park.

The Importance of the Book of Mormon

Wowza! Hi! It was much sunnier than the previous week... it was super nice though because we were sitting at about 60° while everyone else is like freezing. So it's been good. People are a lot nicer and more willing to talk when it's sunny out... I know... weird. 

Most of the week consisted of us preparing our presentation for zone conference. We taught on the importance of commitments and the Book of Mormon. It was cool because as I was studying and learning to teach it... I was edified quite a bit myself. There were a lot of scriptures that pointed out the significance of both of them. For the importance of commitments, it was both D&C 15:6 and 16:6 and how the most important thing is declaring repentance      ---> declaring change ---> which comes through commitments! Then there were a TON about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Something I find interesting is how much all of the prophets did to preserve the record for us. In Enos 1:13 he talks about if he dies... at least let the records be preserved. You also have Joseph Smith who died for the book. It is such a blessing to have the Book of Mormon and we so often take that for granted. 

Angelina is quitting her job so she should be able to come to church pretty soon which is super cool. The guy who has been praying for an answer about the Book of Mormon for over 9 months... yeah he got his answer that it's true (I think I already told you that...) But we fished out his real concern! He told us we're worshipping on the wrong day . We explained why and he still has a problem with it but told us he would take it with faith! So yay. Brian didn't get incarcerated yet... we don't know that whole situation but he's doing great! He came to church again yesterday and just loves us. Before we would text him a scripture about everyday, and now HE texts US scriptures and they make him feel. Super cool. 

Have any of you realized the all the promised blessings from reading the Book of Mormon? At zone conference President Meservy put up some quotes by some of the prophets and apostles... There are SO MANY blessings. Some things that the Book of Mormon does is "Brings about conversion, brings the power of heaven, converts the world, testifies of Christ, draws people closer to God, brings people the Holy Ghost, it speaks for itself, teaches true doctrine, gives you power to avoid temptation, gives you power to stay on the strait and narrow path, gives you more power to hear the voice of the spirit, helps overcome doubt and fear." There are so many more. Don't take the Book of Mormon for granted, God has done so much to preserve the record for us.

So grateful for all of you! Have a good week! 

Love Elder Larson 

Lunch one day

Pretty sunset

I don't even know

Wet tracking

Hey! Wowza, that week felt long lol. We were at the mission office just about everyday to drop people off, pick people up, meetings, etc. It was good! This new bunch of missionaries is awesome. We only got one of the brand new ones, but it's cool, she's probably the chillest sister in the mission. Everything else went well at transfers... we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) on Friday so discussed different ways we can improve as a mission and such. 

We had a pretty successful week as far as the work goes. We found 7 new people! That's 7/8 we found the entire last transfer. The funny part was... it was raining ALL WEEK! One of the nights it was POURING... and we tracted in it for 2 hours  haha it was terrible. But hey, at least we had a successful week! We'll see if any of them go anywhere. It was kinda funny, we had an extra missionary with us Tuesday (because he was waiting for his new missionary), and we went tracking. We split up, Elder Jones and I and Elder Pickett and Elder Ludovic. That night we found 2 new people and they found 2 new. Seemed to be effective.

WET TRACTING

Another thing is... we are averaging about 4-5 lessons per day... whether it's with the same people, or with new people... I mean sometimes they flake... but still, there's a lot. Haha OH AND BRIAN.... he's um uh... going through some stuff ... He had some problems figuring out things with the law (something more towards "not enough service hours")... so we might not see him for a little while. But Elder Jones gave him his marked up Book of Mormon and gave him a hard commitment to call the missionaries when he's available. Super cool experience. 

2 hour church is a little bit interesting. I feel like we BREEZE through scriptures during Sunday school... so it's hard for the new people we bring... But other than that it's good. Everyone learns a lot more, has a lot of insights... etc. I still think it's funny how Elder Jones, Elder Pickett and me take up at least 30% of our ward choir... it's kinda sad  

I guess that's about it, remember that life is meant to be enjoyed, not just endured. If you're having to endure through everything... you're doing something wrong. Hehe "remember who you are and what you stand for, don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Have a great week everyone!!

Love Elder Larson 

I'm tired sometimes 

My new cute jacket

Mission Conference!!

Hey everyone! If anyone saw on facebook.... we had a mission conference with Elder Whiting (area of authority) and it was amazing. He basically rebuked us and told us how much better we could be doing lol. No but really. He said since the new dinner change we as an area (west/northwest missions) are finding about twice as many people as we have been. But now we need to be better teachers. Not that you care too much about what he said lol. Kinda cool how we are doing good things now!

So with the 2 main people we are teaching... We had a good lesson with Angelina! She was supposed to come to church yesterday but didnt.... rip. But at the end of our lesson... we asked her that if she came to know these things were true if she would be baptized and she said yes (we talked about this in the mission conference as well) so that's good. Manuel, the other main person is kinda progressing lol. He told us the 2 answers he got about which church is the true church . He said for some reason he's been getting the feeling that it's the Jews since Christ was a jew, or the native americans lol. No bueno. So we told him instead to pray and ask if what we are teaching him is true haha. Hopefully he will get an answer asap. 

Things over here are going great! I'm staying with both Elder Jones and Elder Pickett for another 6 weeks so that's good news. I really like my companions and I really like this area.

Something that I studied this past week that struck me was 2 Nephi 4:34. I love the faith right there. It's been amazing to see the change of focus in my life. Not only because of how much I now realize god is aware of us, but because also how much I need to rely on him. Trusting that he has the eternal perspective. Remember that god knows what he's doing, especially when you are experience trials. Have a fantastic week 

Love Elder Larson 

Bowling last week

Last week round 2

Dinners 

 I don't remember why but I was running down the street lol

Happy New Years!!!

Hey! Happy New Years everyone! It's been another great week! We were starting to get a little burned out just because we are working so hard but that's okay! Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming! No but really it's been good, at least aside from the missionaries in the zone that either have health problems, disobedient problems or some other type of problems... it's all just problems. All you can do is love all the missionaries to death :)

We had a few really good lessons this week. One with Angelina about prayer and she even prayed at the end of the lesson! She also promised she would come to church "one of these times" when she said she'd come on Easter the last time we asked her. So that was awesome! Then with Manuel... he told us he's been praying for an answer to know if what we teach him is true. So that went good as well! 

If you're interested in what we did new years eve... we had a really good dinner with a member. We had to be in at 7, so we played ping pong up until 10:30 (super fun!) We woke up at 11:55, had a countdown, drank Apple cider, then went back to bed lol. 

Happy New year!

 

President Meservy sent us a talk called "Remember Lot's Wife," by Elder Holland. If you don't know the story of Lot.... Lot was commanded to take his family out of sodom and gomorrah, the Lord also told them to not look back... when Lot's wife turned back... she turned into a pillar of salt. He had us read this because of the message it shares. It's important that we are always looking forward and not backward. God doesn't care where we've been or what we've done... he really just cares about where we are going and the direction we're heading. Be looking forward into this new year! I <3 you all! 

Love Elder Larson 

Playing with my Christmas present

We made Tator tot casserole and forgot to take a picture....

Waiting for someone to get to the church for a lesson