the transfer comes to a close ... in 2 weeks and both my parents (of the mission) are dying ... going home....

Family!

howdy do?  no wasting time this time with all the dang new mail procedures and stuff.  how are all of you?  well this week was a good week for us, we taught alot and it rained ... 2 days and i got absolutely soaking wet and both pairs of shoes have a nice small crack in them so my feet got all wet, nice eh?  but no worries, i don't need new shoes, as long as it doesn't rain i'm fine, and i'll probably get sent back out to Bakes after this area and out there it doesn't rain too often.  we don't have too much time today cause we have to be in Ventura for a Zone activity and the library people are crackin down on all the times today cause there are alot of people here today.  so next week i will write you on tuesday cause it's presidents day.

sooooo DEVON IS GETTING BAPTISED!!! yay for her, she is awesome, super golden and super ready.  she is super chill with us now so it's good, no more awkwardness.  she has had alot of experiences that i would never like to have, and she is only 16, very sad back ground, ..... we had an interesting week, alot of issues, a sister in the branch had a son die, a less active had a miscarage and a family in the branch just about imploded because of family problems.  so we've had a full plate this week, but it's all getting better now.  also, two days ago, we were randomly driving in the street and elder mendez saw an old investigator that was supposedly super golden and going to get baptised but 2 days before his baptism, the day after Christmas, he ran off to Las Vegas to work or something without telling anyone, so we would go over about one time a week to see if he had returned and he never did, anywho, so he finally returned and still wants to get baptised so we're goin over to talk and see what happened and get him back on track.  we are also teaching the Presiado Family, a couple and their two kids, the parents are members, and the kids are like 7 and 4.  they are super awesome, they are coming back to church and will be super strong members soon, they love us alot and always have us over and give us hot chocolate, mexican style which isn't sweet, but it's good.  haha so we went there on saturday and as soon as i walked into the apartment place this girl (not dressed very good) came running out and asked me if i knew how to tie a tie ..... how ironic ..... it's all i do ..... anywho so then like 5 other scantily dressed girls and this embarrased guy came out and all huddled around me while i tied this poor kids tie .... it was junior prom i guess. i dunno it was funny and me and elder mendez about died laughing.  so the presiados are awesome.  oh and me and elder mendez are going to buy devon some scriptures for being so awesome so we split the $74 it cost to buy her a quad ..... so yeah, thought i'd let you know that.  i'm trying my hardest to be frugle, i promise i am ...... i have resolved that i will never live here in california cause of the dang price of everything.  

aslynn is moving up there today i think, her mom flew down to drive with her up to Hyde Park.  so yeah, i'm running out of words, my brain isn't functioning today for some reason, i think this happens whenever i fast, cause i was like this yesterday as well .... Derek's B-day is coming up!!! man derek you're getting old .... the older you get the more handsome you get, until the age of 19 and you go on a mission and get fat like me, derek you are gonna sweep the ladies off their feet soon.  well i hope BHL is ready for his mission and that the papers get there soon cause the wait is horrible.  a mission has strengthened my testimony from almost nothing to where it is now.  there is no doubt in my mind of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, it is a book from GOD and no man will ever be able to prove otherwise no matter how hard they try.  from that testimony of the BOM i also can testify that the church is the only true and living church upon the earth, thats just how it is, like it or not.  i think we sometimes complicate things with doctrine or deep doctrine, rumors and falsehoods.  what we represent out here as elders and sisters is either a reallly really really big lie, or it's the most important thing that has ever been, or ever will be on the earth.  i've seen this with Devon, the gospel is making a 180 degree change in her life course, she will be a different person if she contines how she is 20 years from now than she would be if she had never accepted the gospel.  it's chilling to think of the responsibility that we have, to be the messangers to bring such a change to someone is quite a load to carry if you understand it correctly.  i'm sorry this letter is kinda scattered and probably not all that good, i'll try to write better next week with good news of the baptism!  i love you all alot, keep me updated about BHL, i'll try to write him today.  stay strong and read scriptures, they is goooood!

Elder Larsen

wow

Ok Guys,

 

i just spent like 30 mins creating a new email account cause the mission is changing over to some Gmail/church thing that the church has worked out with Google, it's pretty cool looking and works a whole bunch better than the old one.  i'm pretty sure they are doing this to be better able to track what we do online.  anywho, so yeah, how was your Birthday mom?  i hope i did a better job with the pictures, probably didn't, just let me know what i need to take pictures of, other than me cause i already know that :]  

well we had a good week, Devon is progressing alot, she should be getting baptised the 13th, she is reading alot the 2 other investigators with a baptisimal date will probably have to be dropped unfortunatly, cause they aren't progressing at all ... who knows why, but maybe we have planted a seed and in the future they will be ready to accept the gospel.  we had Zone Conference on tuesday with the General Authority Elder William Walker, he's really cool and really liked the mission, he taught us alot of cool simple things about  being a missionary and how to improve, for that is why we have this life right?  

man, we also almost died.  my companion forgot that he had set up 2 dinners for us .... so we just happened to stop by a members home and they were like, hey, you're late for dinner, they had bought KFC ... so we ate with them, they bought it all for us and we ate most of it ... then we went to our "planned" dinner ... man, we almost died, it was bad, good food, but man we couldn't move when we left the 2nd dinner ... then by bed time my motabolism had taken care and done it's job and i was fine, but Elder Mendez went to bed stuffed haha.  

we had a cool Baptism lesson with a less active family whose son we are teaching, we used "faith" to hard boil an  egg (that we had already previously hard boiled but he didn't know that, he's 7), and cracked it, he really liked that his faith had cooked the egg, and peeled the shell (repentance), or the sins, off him and baptised him in a bowl, to get rid of all the other little stuff, then put some rubbing alcohol in a bottle and lit a match, threw the match in and then the egg really quick (the bottle represents heaven, and with or without the shell the egg won't fit into the bottle, the fire represents that we need the Holy Ghost to get into heaven, not just baptism) and amidst a small flame, the egg gets sucked into the bottle.  it's way cool and Axel, liked it alot.  AH and during a lesson with Devon, we were going over the 10 commandments and elder mendez was reading the last one, no coveting, and it says we can't covet our neighbors ass, so he finishes reading the verse and i pipe up and say "now that is an old word that we don't use to much today" i was referring to the word "Covet" and immediatly after i said that, elder Mendez says "it means donky right?" of course referring to the other word, and maybe you just had to be there, but the way he said it was hillarious and we all busted out laughing haha, wow, devon, me and Cameron, a member we brought with us.  it was pretty funny haha.  so it was a good week.

Had a small mercy from the Lord yesterday.  so Saturday we were busy and forgot to fill the car up with gas ... so we have a good 13 mile trip to get to church, and then a good 13 mile trip back.  before we had even gone 1/4 of the way the gas light flipped on, so we were nervous that we wouldn't be able to use the car that day after church, so we got there and got back home, the gas gauge getting more and more past zero, we parked the car in the garage and decided to leave it there for fear of it running out, cause we usually drive a good 20 miles or so during a normal day.  anywho, so we decided to walk for the day.  we walked to the north of our area, seeing people along the way, walked for a mile or 2 on the rail road tracks in the dark among a forest of types and acrost a bridge or 2, the moon didn't come out for some reason, so that was an adventure.  We did it cause it was shorter than walking on the streets.  got to the person we were looking for and they weren't home, our walk was in vain.  so we decided to go to a members home near by and they decided that we would stay for a while and drink some hot chocolet with them (cause it was cold out side) ... mexicans do that, they force their love on you haha they're awesome ... so we did, and we didn't get out of their house until like 8:30.  now we had a good 45 min walk back to the house, i had to get numbers for the week from my district to the Zone leaders by 9:00 ... so we were walking really fast ... and as we were walking, a members daughter and her husband (who live like 6 hours away or something), who had been helping her dad (the member ... the daughter and her husband are members too) organize his house, happened to drive by and see us walking fast and they offered us a ride back to our apartment.  now what is interesting is that they were on their way back to their home 6 hours away, and they shouldn't have been in the part of town where they found us, cause it's on the opposite side of town from the members dad, but they were there and they gave us a ride and we got home in time and it saved us from who knows what, maybe just a 45 min walk and some knee pain but it was way cool to see that the Lord loves us enough to do something so simple for us.  and my district still didn't get numbers to me in time so it was late anyway, but yeah.  miricle.....

thanks for your letter mom, i enjoyed reading about everything.  Taylor, the weather is perfect here and we didn't really flood that bad, but there was alot of water.  and yeah my missionary buds write me and i write them.  i haven't written casy and i wrote mat once a while back.

time to go, they are kicking us off, dang making a new email killed all my time.  until next week, i'll respond better to your letters sorry.  love you all.

 

Elder larsen

howdy howdy!

hi everyone,

Ok, Argentina North, California San Jose mission, or Guadalajara Mexico Mission, all spanish.  thanks for the pamphlets, i have the joseph smith one, but the other 2 were new, really cool i read them over a few days ago.  the church really does do alot of humanitarian aid.  i think they sent 2 big planes of stuff over to Hati or wherever that big earthquake hit.  i will take some final pics of me and the apart and then send them home today.  HAHA and i think Salt Lake told Elder FInkle that he had to get rid of our crappy car .... it's the oldest one in the mission we figured out.  i have to share thoughts and stuff?!?! haha ok,  well this week we worked hard, it rained from sunday night to thursday night and then stopped, but is supposed to rain tomorrow for a day.  so lots of water ... and the water caused the dumb car to start making some other odd noise when it shifts.  we currently have a very large teaching pool but it was hard to contact people with all the rain.  as of now we have 3 investigators with a date of baptism, Roberto Hernandez, Griselda somthing, and Devon Escobar.  Roberto is a middle aged man who works alot and is married to a very less active member.  he understands alot about the gospel but doesn't appear as if he does.  he told us he would come to church but didn't come yesterday ..... :////  we're going to go by tonight and see what happened.  Ventura is a little far, but it's worth it, we just have to help them see that.  Griselda is supposedly an awesome investigator who is super smart, i've only taught her once since i've been here, she is really timid, we're hoping to get her excited for church and stuff so she will come this next week.  Devon is a 16 year old girl who is one of those "preach my gospel" investigatores, she is super smart and accepts everything we say, we just set her with a date last night, my heart was beating like crazy when we extended the commitment but you could feel the peace in the air, the spirit was there, she is awesome and set to be baptised the 13th of february. we have a few other good potentiales for baptism and hopefully this week we can really buckle down and have some awesome spirit filled lessons to better prepare them for the waters of baptism.  We are seeing a lot of success here, we’re being blessed a lot.  Man, me being district leader I get asked all the pointless questions, but it’s ok, I guess I need to grow or something  :]]]  tomorrow we have Zone Conference with some general authority, so we have to be extra nice lookin and extra well behaved haha, we’ll see what happens, should be fun. 


Church yesterday was fun, my first time in the Branch.  The branch has more Priesthood than the 6th Ward in Oxnard.  It was really cool, the branch is awesome, lots of good people. My talk went well, they started sacrament 25 mins late so my talk had to be cut down quite a bit, so I think it came out a bit unorganized, but I think they got the point, I talked about how it is our responsibility to share the gospel and that we are placed in circumstances or places of well being or the places were we physicially are because our father knows that we can touch the life of someone around us.  That is why I am here in this mission, that is why the branch members live where they live and work where they work.  We have to take advantage of the short life that we have.  I told them about that string example dad told us in seminary one day about if we stretched a rope around the world and tied a piece of thread to it the thread would represent our life.  It was good, Elder Mendez talked about how to do or fulfil with that responsibility.  All in all it was good.


The Webbs sound like they are doing great and working hard.  That would be quite a difficult mission.  Oh, that Calendar thing is cool, I put it up next to the other one you sent me, I like the Orange Color.  So yeah, not too much time left, we may possibly be getting an hour to do email from now on, so maybe I’ll be able to write more without going over, cause I usually go over …. 3 0 mins just isn’t enough.  Anywho, I hope everything and everyone is still doing well, I am doing good. HA funny story, so I was on exchanges in Fillmore on Saturday and I also gave my first baptisimal interview!!  Anywho, so I was in fillmore visiting a less active member of the group over there and her husband is this HUGE, like tall huge, white guy who speaks a little Spanish, she doesn’t really speak English so I don’t know how that worked out but whatever, anywho he isn’t a member and is a hard core biker so he walked in, in the middle of our lesson with an old biker jacket, from the 80’s, and said, hey, this is too small for me, if it fits one of you two you can have it. So Elder Jumper, is smaller than me so it didn’t fit him, so I tried it on, and it fit kinda, I have to grow into it a bit, but I now have a black leather biker jacket hahah funny!!!

Anywho gotta go, someone is waiting to use the computer, I love you all!  Have a great week and let me know where BHL goes by calling the mission office and having them call me! Thanks!!!

Elder Larsen

HOWWWWDDYYYY

hola familia, que tal?

sorry, all the libraries were closed yesterday so we couldn't do email ... but today here i am, writing to you all from a (kinda ghetto) library in Santa Paula.  well, being district leader is .......... fun.  i get all the hard questions ... and the dumb ones ... and i get to give baptisimal interviews, get numbers from everyone on sunday night, and prepare district meetings .... fun=all that .... before i forget ..... places that BHL might go to ..... 1: South America 2: Mexico 3: Georgia 4: Boise 5: San Antonio .... those are my "bets".  of course spanish speaking would be ideal, but we'll see what the lord has in store for him .... sooo when he does get his call, mom, you can contact the mission office and ask for Sister Benson, she's kinda like you, you two would get along, tell her where brandon is going and she will contact me so that i can know and not have to wait until monday.  ummm i will try to send pics soon, i gotta get some good ones of me first though :} 


so my new area is absolutely awesome, elder mendez is pretty funny, kinda acts like BHL a little bit. he is from peru ... but came here to the states when he was 3, so he is pretty much american ... but not a citizen ... supposedly.  He jokes alot so i can never know, but it's funny cause i know more spanish than he does haha, and i'm white.  it flows a bit better for him, but i can speak more correctly (not boasting, i gotta lot to learn).  there are 4 missionaries in the city of Santa Paula, 2 sisters and 2 elders.  us 4 and the 2 elders that cover the city of fillmore make up my district, just 6 missionaries, quite small and nice.  Santa Paula is not as ghetto as Oxnard and the people are more nice, they have a different attitude ... people in Oxnard are just different ... it's weird and hard to explain, but i like Santa Paula pee ps better than Oxnard ones.  


we are kind of in the mountains!!!!!  well we are in the mountains, and they are fairly big ones too!!  really green, the rockies of course are much better but hey i gotta live and take advantage of what i got.  there are some cool hikes that elder Mendez is going to show me over in fillmore so i'm excited ... i'll take pics no worries.  Elder Mendez and I live alone in a small 2 story apartment, brand new, elder durrant and him "opened it" or were the first elders to live there.  so there is practally nothing.  we have the bare essentials though so it's alright.  never thought how efficient it is to only have 1 serving of silverware per person .... there are never any dishes hahaha!  it's very green here, and we are very close to some orange and lemon fields.  we are about 10 miles away from Ventura which is where we have church, i haven't been to church yet cause last week was stake conference, it was cool, via satalite, President Uchdorf, Elder Holland, Bishop Edgley and Sister Matsumori all spoke to us.  good messages.  then yesterday it started raining and it hasn't stopped yet ... well not really ... it's supposed to rain tomorrow too, and maybe thursday, but i don't think so.  all the rain from the mountains, drains down to us so we get ALOT of water ..... and as usual, the sewers/gutters, never seem to work here.  anyhow it's fun.


Oh and lest i forget, i now drive, not the brand new fire red corrola ... i drive a beat up old 06 mazda 3, the oldest car in the mission .... some engine manifold (i think that's what holds the engine in the car????) broke or something like that a long time ago and they had it fixed but whoever did it ...... didn't do it good ... so whenever we reach the high speed of about 30 or whenever it idles it sounds/feels/shakes like an airplane getting ready to take off.  the rear left wheel sounds like it wants to fall off and i think something else is wrong cause it squicks and stuff when i go from park to reverse to drive.  basically we hate the car and ... oh, it rattles constantly inside too, all the panels or something is loose or got loose cause of all the dang shaking the car makes ... it has like 48500 miles, which isn't a whole ton, but the church sells the cars at 50000, so this car has been used and beat up by a bunch of missionaries.  haha and the elder in charge of all the cars, Elder Finkle, old funny guy, basically detests (HA ha big word) our car cause it's cost the mission so much money, so anywho, i think we might get something new soon ... haha ok enough ranting and raving about the car, i'll send pics of the car.  


mom, just send the CD's to the mission office, Elder Hawes got released from AP (he wanted to be a regular missionary for his last transfer, he escaped) and sent out to East Bakersfield to mom someone, so the mission office will forward the CD's to his actual address.  anywho, so we have some really cool investigators, one is Devon, she is 16 and way excited to learn about the church, she has a friend that is a member and a great fellowship.  we have alot of others that i don't know incredibly well yet, but all are cool and very accepting so their is alot of potential.  haha so this first sunday that i'll be going to church i will also be speaking to the branch, we chose to talk about "our responsibilitys as members with respect to missionary work" and "How to do missionary work" i will be speaking about the prior and my comp the latter .... should be interesting, i might have to be a little harsh the first time most of them meet me cause according to elder Mendez they aren't very good at fellowshiping ... they don't care if Less Actives come to church or investigators.  i guess we brought an investigator and he just sat alone in the foyer before sacrament and no one even said hello to him, i think the elders were in a meeting.  i dunno, we'll see how it turns out.  our branch consists of santa paula, ventura, Ojai and that's it ... so out of those 3 cities we have a branch .... see a problem? yeah, we supposedly have enough members in santa paula alone to create a ward or at least a branch of our own .... but they are all less active ... there are 5 or 6 active families in Santa Paula.  once upon a time the branch met here in santa paula, but then for some odd reason they decided to combine the branches of ventura and santa paula and move the meetings to ventura .... supposedly then, almost all the members stopped going because ventura is a long way away and they didn't want to drive so much .... i dunno, lots of work to do here in Santa Paula.  


alright, i gotta get back to work, back to the rain.  i hope you all are good and warm in Cache Valley, BHL good luck!  let me know ASAP where he is going.  church is true, read your scriptures and get good consequences (still a weird concept for me) or suffer the bad consequences.  i love you all,

Elder Larsen (soon to be 4 of us!!!!!!)

week 1 otra vez.....cumpli 13 meses ayer.....ay hijole....que hago???

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHGHGHHGHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahggghghggh


Family I'M GETTING TRANSFERRED!!!!!!!!  i didn't want to leave ...... :/  i am following Elder Durrant and taking his place in Santa Paula, moming as it is called, or Follow-up Training, Elder Durrant's greenie .... as well as being made District Leader ....... lots of changes, and i'm not exactly how i feel about them .... who stole my cheese?  Santa Paula is the highest baptizing area in the mission right now, Elder Durrant tore it up .... so i have alot of responsibility on my shoulders now ... and i don't know how to be a district leader or any kind of a leader for that matter ..... i don't know what to do.  carry on i guess .... don't really have an option.  


this past week started out great, we had good days of lessons, found 3 new people, a couple and a lady, talked to some cool promising potentials and worked hard ... then my companion, poor kid, got food poisoning again, although a more mild form, so we were in for a day and a half ... which killed our momentum and the week didn't necessaraly end bad, but we didn't have the same momentum we had at the beginning of the week.  but that's alright, we worked hard anyway.  this keyboard really stinks ... and it's dirty with finger sweat ... or something white ... yuck.  Elder Durrant's MTC companion is coming here to replace me.  transfers transfers transfers ....

according to my new companion, Elder Mendez ... i think, he is from utah but his family is from peru ... should be interesting.  i forgot about Kim's B-day ... gotta get a belated card for her ... i even had it written down ... completely flew over my head ... i feel bad .... mom you're birthday is coming up ... man, you're so lucky i'm not there, i'd probably do something way cool for your birthday hahaha (evil laugh).  hey, so i might be sending some packages home of stuff that i don't need that i just seem to haul around ... i really have alot of junk, i'm going to do my best to de-junk and then send the extra stuff home, i'm just goin to get the flat rate big box and jam it full of everything so that way it's cheaper.


Anywho, i'm really at a loss for words, Elder Hawes got relieved from being AP for his last transfer and is going back to Bakersfield, the East zone, to follow-up train, or mom, someone, and i think be a district leader as well.  we have been focusiing on obediance this past transfer and i found a cool scripture ... welll alot of cool scriptures, but this one is in 2 John 1:6 (i think), and DyC 6:20, the end peice of the verse is one of the reasons i strive to be obediant.  we all want to be loved in some way or another, and us as missionaries have to do our best to show the people that we love them, that is our purpose, and how can we show love to others if we know not what it feels like ourselves.  a constant search for love is what some people are in, we live in a world that doesn't really understand the concept of love ... well a lot here don't understand it anyhow.  i dunno, i just liked those escrituras!  OHHHH how could i forget, we went to the temple on Tuesday!  it was awesome!!!  the LA temple is so huge, almost as big as the Salt Lake Temple, so many rooms and murals and it's really just beautiful, we will have to come back and go to it.  it's located in a beautiful part of LA too ... man, LA is huge, all these little sub-cities and stuff ... suberbs ... something like that.  we went with a member from 4th ward who is super smart ... like probably one of the smartest people doctrine-wise, i've ever talked to.  we spent a long time in the temple just talking deep doctrine ... very very cool.  anyway, our temple trip was fun and totally worth the killing of last P-day.  man, i don't want to pack ... or say goodbye to some of the really cool people that i've met here ... transfers are always hard ... and a little bit awkward.  hey so i'm almost done with all the candy and cookies that i got for christmas ... cool huh?  man my poor shattered brain is blanking right now.  i'm really going to miss Elder McCleskey, we had some really good talks, he is just like me in alot of ways.  he's going to be some sort of a leader some day.  


hey, let me know what country in Asia Brandon is going to ok?  is brent still thinking about going on a mission?  the Nelsons seem really cool, i think i've only written them once though, but i'm excited to meet them one day.  so will someone with a cell phone do me a favor and text Megan and Aslynn and tell them i've moved?  i haven't gotten a letter or written them a letter in over a month, so i'm sure they don't know that i'm moving.  i got 2 returned letters cause of a bad address from Aslynn so i'm guessing that she doesn't live at that address anymore, so i'm just waiting to be updated.  anywho, i have to go start packing ... it will probably take me all day ... not a happy thought.  i love you all, the church is the only true and LIVING church on the face of the earth, don't forget it, and if you don't know it, figure it out for yourself, Father will answer, He loves us and wants us to know what to do in this life that He has given us.  be obedient!  BYE!

sorry for the scatterdness of the letter, brain is going crazy at the moment.

Elder Larsen

The Formidable Week 6!

Hola familia,

well, this past week was good, work suffered a bit, but we worked hard.  this week that starts today is going to be an awesome week cause their aren't any HOLIDAYS!!!!!  i'm so excited!!!! like i love holidays, but they make missionary work stink a bit cause everyone goes and gets drunk or has parties and then gets drunk.  plus, on tuesday we were leaving from lunch and Elder Finkle called us (he's the office elder in charge of all the mission cars) and told us that the body shop was ready to fix the car ..... so we had to drive allllll the way up to almost ventura to this  little, but very nice, body shop.  they said that our new bumper would be on and ready for driving on thursday .... so we asked if they could shuttle us back to our area and they said sure ..... but as it turns out all that meant was that someone would ride with us and we would shuttle ourselves down to the church .... so we did that .... and the person accompanying us was a middle aged woman .... sooooo we broke the "no non church members in the car" rule and the "don't be alone with anyone from the opposite sex" rule for about 20 minutes ..... pretty funny.  anywho, so then wednesday we had a "walking day" we walked all day everywhere ..... it was horrible ..... plus cause that day it just so happened to Mist/Rain the entire day ..... it wasn't rain, it was a mist in the morning that didn't apear too intimidating .... so i went out without a jacket ..... got drenched after about an hour of walking .... anywho, so that wasn't fun, but then thursday we got our car back and they had cleaned it and washed it and vacummed it and armoralled it and did something to the tires to make them look cool ..... it felt like i was driving a brand new car again.  then new years happened, i was on exchanges with Elder Kay, i bought some martenellies ... sparkling apple cider stuff .... we had a count down to 10:28 then elder Kay turned on his smoke machine and we celebrated the new year, him and I .... we also set of the smoke detector with the fake smoke ... pretty funny, i got video of it all.  then the next day Elder Kay proceded to kill me with his Bike.  i'm not a bike missionary and i'm not used to riding a bike ... basically i'm a whimp .... but he rode my tail off and i was dead tired by the end of the day.  really really made me realize two things .... as missonaries in the USA we are spoiled .... and i really learned to apprieciate the Lord's Red 2010 Toyota Corrola.

OH, and guess what i recieved last P-day?  we went to the Post Office to ask if they had any packages and they did!  i got both packages on monday and opened them and had a 2nd Christmas.  you guys out did yourselves .... and grandma, those cookies were and are awesome, that new kind is really good, the raspberry kind.  nothing was spoiled, everything arrived safely ... and i enjoyed the popcorn mom while i thought of your love for popcorn.  ok i will now thank everyone according to what the tags on the presents said.  


BHL, thanks for the swedish fish, i ate them in like 4 hours, they were good, and the best part is that they are fat free!!! which is good cause i need to lose the fat on my legs!  


TRL, thanks for the little green car, i assembled it and it now sits on my mess of a desk, and i use the red car that uses gas to pratice my driving skills.  


JPL, that calander is exaclty what i needed, i almost bought one a few weeks ago, but then decided to wait and see if i got one for christmas.  i love the pictures, Simon Dewy i think??? regardless i love the way that he portrays the savior and the events of his life.  


KML, my favorite little sis who is now towering over mom, those ties are quite the ties ... wow, very good choices kenidee, i'm wearing the blue one now, and the paisly red one, wow, some of my coolest looking ties in my tie collection.  


DPL, derek, i think everyone in my apartment has played with that slinky at least 8 times, classics can't be beat, it's against the laws of the land .... and probably of God haha.  thank you for the slinky, i enjoy messing with it.  


Grandma L, thank you for the cookies, and for the Jake White CD. he really is an awesome artist, i hope you guys got it copied to a comp before you sent it to me cause it's a really good CD to relax to.  


ok and after that i forgot to write down from who the things were .... soooo, if my memory serves me right, i got some awesome PJ's which are comfortable in their awesomeness .... and great is the awesomeness thereof .... cool Batman socks that will probably be used every P-day when i just lounge around the apartment, the Bible, TONS of food and candy, the John Schmidt CD, and i think that is it .... sorry if i missed anything.  mom thanks for putting all of it together and probably organizing/buying most of it, you're awesome and i'm pretty much 100% sure that there isn't a better mom in the world, or on the moon, cause apparently there is some new Hotel on the moon ..... we hear weird things from people and aren't able to confirm it, the cause being we aren't allowed to watch the news or do internet stuff.  Dad, thanks so much for my Priesthood line and the cool missionary experiences.  i will be able to use both probably alot here on the mission.  i didn't know that you trace your line through the current office that you now hold .... so if you had ordained me when you were an Elder i'd have a different line .... or at least that is what i understood of it ....pretty interesting.  thank you all for everything, i can definitely feel the love you have for me even though i'm kinda far away (but not as far away as BHL is gonna be when he gets called to South Africa!).  you have to let me know as soon as he gets his call! with regards to Theresa's Package i haven't seen it ... .we haven't been able to find the land lord at home, we'll go over there today and try and find her .... but i'm pretty sure it was stolen cause there is no trace of it, the porch is in open sight to the courtyard and i'm sure that after a day it was taken by someone.     =[  tell theresa thank you though anyway, and that i think she's awesome.

well next week we'll know what is happening with transfers .... Elder McCleskey thinks i'm staying, i think i'm going ..... we'll see what happens, if i leave i will miss him alot cause he is a really cool guy, i've got along better with him than i have any of my previous companions .... i've gotten along great with all of them, he just is the most like me i guess.  alright, time is running short, we have a shortened P-day today cause tomorrow a member from 4th Ward is taking us and the ZL's (with whom we live) to the Temple in LA, so anywho, we have less time to shop and stuff.  i know that Jesus is the Christ and that he lives today, as well as that the man and prophet Thomas S. Monson is his living oracle and mouthpiece today.  by obeying and listening to the cousel that we recieve from Christ and Father by means of our prophet we can and will be able to attain the happiness and joy that we are all looking for in this life.  i hope you all have a wonderful week, i'm assuming that you all started school today and stuff, have fun.  love you all!


Elder Larsen

week 5....where did the transfer go???? no se......

Howdy do Familia?

welll in this letter i don't really know what to talk about.  not much has happened between Christmas and now .... we had a few good lessons, found a new investigator named Amarilla who seems cool, and last night we got chewed out by a drunk mexican ... we taught his wife a lesson about the restoration and then he came in a got all mad cause we were talking about God and they were already catholic so of course they already knew everything ..... the longer i've been on my mission the more efort i require to be patient with people who have closed minds. i dunno, yay for patience.  anywho, so we would have found 2 new investigators but our next lesson with Milbia (drunk guy's wife) is not set because it will depend on if and when she calles us for a return appointment.  the drunk guy asked why we would be so rude to do what we do and go out of our way to talk to people about our religion.  i didn't respond cause the wife was super embarrased and started to fight a bit with him, and i didn't want to get into a fight cause it would have been absolutely worthless and a waste of time.  anyway so yesterday was fun.  Christmas was interesting, a very weird void kinda.  i think it was cause everything and everyone wasn't really focused on missionary work .... plus it was like a  P-day in the middle of the week so we all felt like piles (missionaries who don't do anything).  just weird, it feels good to be focused again on the work and stuff ... and i'm not blaming you, cause it wasn't your fault at all, i think more than anything it was the fact that we had a day of doing nothing in the middle of the week .... so you all sound different except for mom, dad, and both grandma's.  ya'll are getting bigger haha, how was the time with Grandma Matteson?  did you guys do anything fun?  i got the email from Courtney and Kyle, ummmm i don't know courtney's email or kyle's, but i think i have kyle's house address, so i'll write them back there.  today we are going to go to the post office and we are going to ask them about the mail deal.  we both got letters from the post office saying that because our mail forward was not givin 15 days before we "moved" and the length of the forward that we had put, (until january) didn't allow sufficient time for something ... and basically more confuzing stuff like that ...... which all led to them not being able to forward mail, but as a courtasy they have stopped all mail going to the "new address that we didn't move into" and are holding it at the post office.  so whether that means that they actually have something there or not i don't know, we are also going to go by the manager for the apartment complex where we were going to move to ask about the UPS package, the manager just happens to be a less active member in our ward so it is convenient .... if it was delivered the tuesday before christmas then we must have missed it or it wasn't there .... if it was delivered the tuesday before that, then i dunno cause we didn't even find out about the whole "not moving thing" until the friday before christmas so we hadn't begun to check the apartment for mail.  anywho, so hopefully you're not all confuzed now.  the bishopric .... bishop grange maybe???? sent me a card and $20 ... very nice, tell them i say hi and thanks, i'm going to write them a thanks card anyway so if you forget no worries.  how is the weather?  still wonderful and cold?.... mind is blank at the moment.  thanks so much for my line of authority dad, i havne't goten it yet, but i'm excited.  real big important key to the truthfullness of the church.  ok well i don't have anything else really to say,  sorry for the shortness of this letter, i'll repent next week. ;]

i love you all alot and hope and pray for your continued happiness.  if there is anything i can do for you let me know .... mom .... i'm workin on those pictures i promise.  haha, love you all!!

Elder Larsen

Feliz Navidad!!

OKKKKKK Family,

1st thing's first .... the mission office, or rather, Elder  Benson, the office elder (senior couple from Logan) who is in charge of all apartment stuff, decided to make my christmas and weekend a little more stressed and decided after inspecting the apartment that we weren't going to move .... because of several factors the apartment that we were going to move into is not worth moving.  it's much more noisy and the bedroom windows are real big and open up to busy busy channel islands BLVD, the Carpet is old and has holes??? (found that one hard to believe) the bedrooms are not bigger at all, and the apartment itself isn't any newer than the one we are in .... sooooooo we didn't and aren't going to move ..... we found all this out on wednesday, thursday, or friday i can't remember, and that same day set up a mail forward from the new address back to the old one ..... soooo i really hope that it catches it .... i'm not sure at what point during the process the packege is caught and forwarded but i hope that it ends up at 220 E Yucca st #11 .... because that is where i reside.  it was a really frustrating day when we found that out .... anywho, oh, and poor Elder McCleskey lost his camera card at Rite-Aid when he was printing pics ... .so 8 months of pics gone .... he was really sad ..... and now he is kind of sick .... health wise he isn't doing too well lately, he's still huge and could squish me with his pinky but whatever.  his parents as well sent a few packages to the new address, so we might be going and checking the new address for the next couple of days to see if there are any packages there .... 


This past week was really good as far as missionary work, we taught more lessons and talked to alot of people.  we also had a baptism!  Rocio, who really isn't our investigator but kinda  is, got baptised, she is awesome and super smart and willing to learn.  she was baptized by someone in the other spanish ward, cause she really doesnt know anyone from our ward yet.  and confirmed by our bishop.  the other elders in our ward also had  wedding and a baptism on Saturday that went very smooth.  so it was a good week for the ward.  the ward's attitude about missionary work really starts with us, the missionaries. it's pretty crazy how much of an influence we have on the members .... plus in spanish work, for some reason every spanish member thinks that because we are white and because we are missionaries, we must know everything anyone could possibly know about any gospel subject or class.  we must also be the best organizers/ teachers/ kid watchers/ and singers ..... basically we are super human and can do anything we please.  hahaha its really funny and sometimes ends up with some frustrated missionaries haha but it's ok, me personally, i love helping the members out even though i have more weaknesses than most of them haha.  


We have yet to find someone with free long distance so that i can call you guys on Christmas, we're lookin, no worries.  it's been really great to be able to share messages of christmas with our ward members and investigators, the true spirit of christmas,  we've read luke 2 many a time this past week.  there is a scripture in D&C 88, verse 6 that to me i think describes one of the many reasons that christ was born in a manger.  to be able to understand all that we would some day have to go through, he had to start at the bottom of the totem pole, the most humble circumstance that he could.  christ was born into poverty, surely his parents weren't extremely weathly, they lived a simple humble, life.  and we think, if god had wanted to christ could have been born to a king, or someone with a place in the society of the jewish nation, where he would have had more influence on the jewish leaders and maybe could have saved the jews from the apostate position that they were in.  "what if...." mom taught me alot about that frase.  christ had to learn, grow, progress, just like us, although at a different level and speed.  i have a firm believe that what he had trials and hard times, he just faced them perfectly and without fault.  he lived his life, fulfilled his father's purpose, the measure of his creation, and was raised up, as the scripture says, above all, (i'm not sure what the scripture says in english).  because of these two extremes, the humble beginning and the triumphant ending/present time (cause it really wasn't an "ending") he knows how to "succor his people" as it says in Alma 7.  because of this we are able to have hope and faith and a belief in christ.  and because of the hope faith and belief that we have, we grow more and more closer to him and our father in heaven and more founded upon the rock.  Ok off my soap box and outa time, just wanted to share my feelings with my family because i share them with my members and investigators.  i love you all alot and can't wait to be able to talk to you all on Friday.  have a wonderful week in the snow, don't do anything dumb. Feliz Navidad!

Elder Larsen

Feliz Navidad!!

Larsen Family that resides at 580 E 300 S,

how are you all doing?  thank you so much for my favorite treat of all and your cards .... mom, you're quite creative with the elmo card, i had to look twice before i realized you had changed the wording haha.  and no little note from BHL .... tsk tsk tsk.  that's ok, i still love you.  i definatley don't go long without feeling the love that you all have for me.  i am very grateful to you all.  so this past week was interesting, we got in 2 wrecks, had an awesome zone conference and are now moving from our apartment on Yucca st (YEESSSS).  so for about half of the week it had been raining, and Californians (not all but most) are really bad drivers ..... we were coming out of a parking lot (around 8 at night), waiting in line to get onto the road .... stopped .... when a big Lincoln Navigator rear ended us, they were nice and we got all their info and stuff, as well as a basketball sized dent in our right rear bumper.  then less than 24 hours later (btwn 6-7 PM) we parked on the side of the road, went into our dinner appointment, came out ..... and lo and behold, another bigger dent in the other side of the rear bumper .... this time a hit and run.  Elder Finkle, who is in charge of the cars, wasn't very happy, especially cause we drive a brand new mission car, 2010 ..... so he's not happy, but it wasn't our fault so we're fine.  and, note to all of you who might serve missions later in life: don't get into a wreck, the church has about a bajillion forms to fill out, with numbers and codes, and then they asked me to draw what happened with all these confuzing symbols .... man, and i had to do it twice.  but, whatever happenes, the church is well covered because they ask you to describe just about everything.  anywho, so that was those experiences, Zone conference was on the spirit, and how it is necessary for us to teach with it.  very spiritual meeting, i learned alot.  the mission is basically 2 years of constant changing, improving and re-evaluating one's life.  President also dressed up as Santa and made us laugh for about 20 mins haha he had each of us sit on his knee and he asked us what we wanted for christmas, we had all brought white elephant gifts so he gave us those ..... i got a battery charger, which i promptly gave to the greenie Elder Kay cause he needed one and i already had one .... some pretty funny stuff haha.  


anywho, so we are finally moving out of the Yucca, after 20 years of missionaries!  we will be moving the 21st of December.  so i think i will go to the Post Office and see if they will forward my mail for a while but only really Megan and Aslynn know my real address, sooo maybe you guys could do me a favor and text them or email them to look on my blog or you could just tell them the new address .... anywho, the new apt is super nice and really big, we're excited to get out of our old yuccy apartment.  

Ok a thousand sorrys, Grandma i did get your letter and it's been sitting on my typewriter waiting until today, i will respond to your letter i promise.  i'm like 2 or 3 weeks behind on my letter writing, plus i'm going to try and get some kind of christmas card put together today so today i have more time to focus on getting letters out and written and stuff.  plus i finally found some white out for my typewriter, so now i can use it, which makes writing letters sooo much faster.

OK, dad thanks so much for working on the Authority Line.  just to know that one can directly trace his authority back to Christ is a testimony builder.  a testimony of the restoration really is essencial.  the only thing that should come before it is a firm testimony of Jesus Christ, but the two go hand in hand as do most of the gosple principles.  so the sisters in 5th Ward (the other spanish ward) were teaching this lady named Rocio, and she was ready to get baptised and everything, then she moved into our area, so now we have the oportunity to teach her and help her progress toward the waters of baptism, I don't really count her as one of my investigators because i don't feel as if i have done anything significant in her path to baptism, but it is still exciting to be able to see someone take the steps that bring them closer to the Lord.  anyway, her baptism is this Wednesday at 6 o Clock, it should be awesome as all baptizms are.

ummmm i'm not really sure at what time i'm going to call because of the fact that we still don't know where we are going to make the calls .... i'm hoping that it will be morning or early afternoon, but i'm not sure, i will try to get it all set and let you all know next Monday.  the calls are supposed to last for 45 mins tops ........ don't really know how that will work out cause i want to talk with everyone .... i dunno.

my "hump day" was good, we went to Ventura for a doctors appointment for the McCleskinator, it was fun, ventura is a very beautiful city on the coast.  ate at In n Out, extremely good food!!!  then came back and did missionary work YAY!!  sounds like alot of Farewells ... wow, they all sound like they will be awesome missionaries.  BHL's gonna be an Elder .... that is awesome!  big step in life, has he started to fill out mission forms yet?  i hope David continues to investigate, i to hope that he will one day join, remember, you don't have to wear a little black tag to be a missionary! ;]

i wish you all a merry christmas, it doesn't feel the same with out you all, and without snow, but the light of Christ, spirit of christmas, whatever you want to call it, is here in Oxnard.  we are going to go caroling as a district to some of our members, it's going to be awesome!

Church is true, Resoration happened, we are loved by many, John 3:16 is an evidence of that.  i love you all and wish everyone a Feliz Navidad!

Love,

Elder Larsen

Howdy from the West (more west than you)!!!!

what is up my familia?

i am here in Oxnard and very wet!!  It started pouring today and is supposed to rain for the whole week ... supposedly ... i think maybe 2 days at the max, we'll see. mom no worries, i did get your letter on Saturday, we also lost the mail key that day after we got the mail ... but today we got a new one so no need to worry, all is well in Oxnard.  soooo 2 things, to start with ...1... I'm old and half way dead ...2... Christmas Calls are aproching!!!  what time would be best for you guys?  we still haven't got a member to let us ... well we haven't asked yet, but we will ask soon or see if we can use someone's phone.  i just need to know the preferred time.  that is awesome about all the missionaries leaving for their missions, the Webbs man ... they're crazy, they will have alot of cool experiences in Ukraine.  this week the work picked up a bit, we worked hard and it paided off.  we found or rather began to teach again, a couple, who had investigated the church at the beginning of the year, they are awesome and seem to be interested again, sometimes things just take time.  we will do our best to help them progress.  as well, the Sisters in our District had one of their Investigators move into our area ... so now we have to teach her ... and i say "have to" because neither Elder McCleskey nor I feel worthy or capable to teach one of the sisters' investigators ... sisters are all cool and creative and stuff ........ and we're just Elders .... but we have yet to meet her, hopefully tomorrow.  so yeah this week flew by and we are doing good.  Elder McCleskey is starting some new drug for his heart that will hopefullly help him to be able to run for more than 2 seconds (exageration) the down side is that for 2-ish weeks the side affects are grumpy-ness and sleepyness .... so he's been quite irratable lately, and tiredness not so much anymore, anywho, so yeah ... the Pics from Thanksgiving look awesome haha!  Firepit, HA so we had Hand Sanitizer fire races haha put a glob of HS on the edge of the sink, wait for it to start sliding, then light the trail on fire and watch the fire catch the car glob thing ... then we made cool designs in the sink and found cool ways to light them .... oh what we do when we're bored .... Elder McCleskey is a Pyro!  Righteous long board DUUUUDE, that's Cali talk, although i've never heard it yet (you could be from Cali Kenidee) Spulunking, Cowboy garb ... HAHA laughed especially hard at Rich haha.  that's crazy how your elementary school is still up and running (not implying your old ;] ).  hahaha i'll bet Kenidee was embarrased hahaha.  The Family reunion looked fun, all them 2nd cousins and stuff, i remember some pretty funny people from those reunions.  Cameron and Chase look older and much bigger and Rich and Kim look great too, i'm glad to know that everyone is healthy and happy.  Yearbook stuff sounds stressful, that's probably why they picked  you to do it all mom, cause you're awesome at getting stuff done under high stress.  i'll miss Texas .... kinda sad honestly, i liked that dog, i hope he finds a good home somewhere ..... and if not .... well .... all dogs go to heaven (true statement).  WHOA Derek, how'd you land that sweet of a deal??? jeezz you just have the luck for winning stuff .... I-pod, $100 of free money ... Jock part is ok i guess ... cool bean, chidos frijoles .... HA.  so i got to watch the Christmas Devotional Last night, i hope you ALL (BHL and TRL included) watched it cause it was awesome.  really good talks about the christmas season and where our hearts and minds should be.  the Prophet is aging fast ... it's crazy.  good music too .... the MTC .... HA Mormon Tabernacle Choir, has this really cool 3 disc set of christmas music i think. it's super cool ..... you guys should by it for yourselfs to be able to listen to awesome christmas music then make copies and send them to me.  haha just kidding ..... but seriously ;}}}}  I'm in a weird mood, i love this time of year, even though it is nothing like i'm used to ... no snow, no mountains, no family, no huge tree (still have my little one from last year).  but the spirit of christmas is still here among the missonaries, i want to go caroling with the spanish hymns ... man, i'm sorry, but the hymns and chirstmas songs in spanish totally whamp the ones in english, might be a little biased ... but they are way cool, we might sing one or two (cause we love to sing) on one of those little micro tapes, and send them to you guys ... maybe ....   might do it on the camera.  alright my family, my time is growing short, i hope that you all are doing something special this year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, reading scriptures, doing those cool story count down things, singing christmas hymn/songs or just showing your love for people by serving them.  i hope that you are all happy and cheerful.  i love you all.  never doubt the love that our father has for us, it is evident in our daily lives how we honor and show appriecietion for that love.  se quiden, hasta el proximo lunes.

Feliz Navidad!!!

Elder Larsen