Now I know what happiness is!

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great 4th of July. First things first... I saw a picture of someone last monday that I got really close to that got baptized! Willow and Cora and Cora's oldest son all got baptized!!! It made me SOOOO happy! I cannot not express the joy I felt when I saw that. Brother Owens was able to baptize all 3 of them so that is amazing! It feels so good that Elder Salsbury and I were able to go over and see them and get to know them pretty well. They are a great family.

The rest of last P-day was also really good. We went to the beach and played beach flag football as a district. I decided that beach flag football is SO much fun! That took up most of the day, but then we went back to the church and talked for a bit. It was great to celebrate a little bit for the 4th and for this awesome land we live in. We are so blessed to live in the country where we have the freedoms we do and have the men that protect those freedoms. 

As for the actual 4th of july.... it was a pretty basic day for us. We woke up extra early so we could help put some flags up at some businesses. Then we had a ward breakfast which was kinda cool. The sausage tasted really really good. Then nothing really throughout the day. Most people didn't really want to talk to us because I mean... they were busy with their family and had the day off and eeverything. We did have a really good dinner where the member whipped up some really delicious burgers and bacon cheese hot dogs. It was really cool though because there are some raccoons that basically live in their backyard. They will come up to the backdoor and you can put your hand on the door and they won't run to the plants until you open the door (pics at the bottom.) It was really cool. They have a really good firework show that they shoot over the bay. We live kinda far from the city but still got to see some of the fireworks.

Nicki was able to come to church and really enjoyed it! She definitely had a spiritual experience. It was an amazing sacrament meeting, then we taught gospel principles so it couldn't have been thaaat bad. She was also able to meet a lot of members, so that was really good for her. It was overall a really good week. Oh the lesson did fall through with the referral on Saturday and she still hasn't come to church but we hope to be able to continue to teach her.

I just wanted to quickly share my testimony of Jesus Christ. I know he is my Savior. I'm so grateful to have someone who will never leave my side no matter what or how many mistakes I make. I am so grateful for the gospel and the blessing it is to me. I never knew how important the gospel was until coming on my mission. It's incredible. We had a lesson yesterday with a part-member family. The husband (member) was talking to his wife (non-member) and was saying how she will love the gospel because it makes sense. The gospel is so logical and makes so much sense. This gospel is good, god is good. Hope everyone has an amazing week. I thank god for each and every one of you. I love you all!

Love Elder Larson 

4th of July at dinner