Week 1 done and over with

Hey Family,

how is everyone today?  i'm doing excellent, happy, healthy, red and yeah.  anywho, so my week was good, we taught a bunch of lessons, found some new investigatores and did missionary work, WOOO HOOO!  and i didn't bring dad's letter to the library cause i forgot so i'm sorry if i don't respond to it like i should.  i'm super happy that your job is going well dad, your trip sounded fun and long and probably a bit stressful, but that's ok, it's good for ya haha.  

So we stopped to talk to this guy in an electric wheelchair in this public park and we ended up talking to him for like 20 mins, he was a little bit drunk, so i was struggling a bit with his slurred spanish but i got most of it, and told me that he wanted me to be his friend because i was american and i spoke spanish, he rambled on about a ton of things and told me that i was going to be his savior and that i would take him to heaven, he was drunk but he knew that drinking was bad and told us repetedly that the devil had him stuck with alcohol and that we were perfect people and how much he wanted to be like us, it really was sad, i felt bad for the guy.  BUT so i don't know how we got onto the subject of his health, but we did, and he wanted to show us all his scars . . . so he basically took off all his clothes at one point or another so we could see all his scars and how bad his health really was . . . public park + we couldn't do anything or go anywhere = extremely AWKWARD.  man it was a journal experience. anywho we didn't want to waste the experience so we gave him our number to call us so we could come help him quit drinking so much and he promised me he'd call me . . . hasn't done it yet but i will continue to wait for him.  i don't know why alcohol is such a problem with hispanic people but it really is a serious problem.  yesterday we talked with a  man probably in his mid to late 20's.  him and his wife are here working in the fields, from 4 in the morning to 7 at night . . . count your bucket loads of blessings . . . they get paid minimum wage and send about 200 dollars back to mexico every 15 days, which is most of there check, they keep just enough money to survive here, and they barely make it.  anyway, this guy has two little girls in mexico who live with his wife's parents, and he began to tell me about the situation in mexico, all the children that are starving and how the money he send barely lasts a month over there and how he misses his kids and he was just really sad, so sad in fact that he began to tear up, i've not seen many mexican men cry, like including this i might have seen 3 or 4 my entire mission, women . . . different story . . . but i felt super bad for this guy, among other things he told me that one of the worst things is that all too often the mexican men come over here to work and get caught up with drugs or alcohol and they forget all about their families back in mexico and waste all their money on drugs and alcohol.  this guy's name is Agripino and he had had i'm sure a few beers, maybe that is why he was so open with us, but still everything he said was true and it made me apprieciate my life alot more and all of the wonderful things that i have.  he also mentioned the new law they made in Arizona and how he doesn't like it, pretty much all the mexicans here are super mad at Arizona and whoever is thinking about implying the law . . . i heard Utah was thinking about making a law similar to the one is Arizona.  the law is, if you look mexican you can get pulled over without having done anything wrong, driving wise, and the first thing they ask supposedly is "do you have papers".  now i'm not going to take sides, but the basis of that law sounds pretty racist to me.  at the same time there are alot of mexicans that don't pay taxes and get lots of stuff from the Government . . . sooooooo i dunno, it's just a big mess and everyone asks us what we think about it since we are white but are pretty much mexican . . . meaning we speak mexican, eat mexican, do mexican things, and such.  so yeah all that has been going around in my head the past few days.  

i also read a pretty cool set of scriptures the other day, Mosiah 20:8-11 . . . wow, they truely fought with valor, something we must do cause we are in a battle too and the enemy is getting stronger and stronger and more violent so if we are to survive we must do the same and exceed them in all aspects, just as the men of Limhi did. short little scriptural-ness from Elder Larsen =]  ah and we didn't end up walking around, Elder Finkle gave us a BRAND new FRESH OFF THE LOT 2010 Malibu to drive while ours was getting fixed, it was only for 2 days though, but still it was cool.  AHHH and how could i forget, mom, thanks for the shoes, total surprise, and the Goldfish . . . wow, they hit the spot like 5 times haha.  the shoes work good, my heels are super blistered cause i have still got to get completely used to them but they are doing just fine i might send a bunch of stuff back with my old shoes depending on how $$ it is . . . so i'll work on that today.  well my time has expired, i love you all a ton and am grateful for your support, BHL remember that talk and if i can do anything for you just let me know.  that really goes for any of you by the way.  i hope you all have a wonderful week full of fun, Summer is almost here, endure to the end of the school year!!!

Love,

Elder Larsen

week 1 and lovin it

hey family,

i am on the weird computer again that is all in spanish with a latin america keyboard, it has portugese and spanish symbols on it, so no capital letters this time either haha.  i hope that your week was good, we had a really good week, we set a kid named rafayel with a date and found a new family that looks pretty promising.  taught 17 lessons i think so we´re doing good.  we got our transfer calls this morning and we´re staying together!  yay, so i´ll be here in santa paula for 1 more transfer most likely.  how did the thing in arkansas go dad?  mission preparations?  it´s getting pretty close now isn't it?  anything exciting or cool happen this week?  we are probably going to get some rain either today or tomorrow so i´m excited for that.  we have to go to ventura today to get our car´s bumper fixed, i forgot to tell you all haha ......... i was backing out of our garage a few weeks ago when i had just barely gotten the malibu and i still hadn´t gotten used to the huge car that it is and i very lightly bumped into a brick wall, sooo i dinged the bumper, it´s not bad at all but they want to fix it.  sooooo we get to walk around for a couple of days until we get our car back .... not excited about that but oh well, i did it in oxnard í´ll just do it again haha.  so wow what happened to may, i thought it just started, we´re already half way through the month.  i´m running out of things to write haha, mind is blank at the moment, we work hard every day, elder bills is getting a little better with his spanish, we try to speak it more, i forget alot.  

hah so this week we all got our own personal copy of the ensign for april, that´s pretty cool since normally we only get one per companionship, and, it´s in color!!!!  super cool format, i like it alot.  so i got a brace last week for my knee and it seems to be doing a little better, i got that medicine stuff mom, it´s quite expensive here actually, if you can get it cheaper over there maybe it´d be better for you to send me some, i dunno. 

so i´m reading in mosiah and i´m thinking it might be my favorite book in the book of mormon now, it´s pretty cool story wise, not to mention how abinadi ownes all of king noah´s priests, then what happens afterward with limhi and his people really is interesting, i´m getting the story part of the book of mormon better engraved in my head.  we had a really good day at church yesterday, we stayed there till like 5:30 though cause we had to help some investigators with food orders and stuff, the church really does alot to help people, it´s really great.  we had a really good talk about not being hypocrits and doing what we say we will do, as well as using our knowledge that we have.  it was a good day to finish off a regular but good week of missionary work.  i hope everything is going well, i´m not really sure what more to write, and i don´t have anything to respond to(it´s ok i know you´re busy) but just know that i love you and appreiciate you alot.  stay strong and don´t let go of that iron rod, cause that way you have a much better life, i´ve seen that recently with a few of our less actives who are going through some really hard times because of letting go of the rod.  let me know how you are all doing remember that if there is anything i can do for you all let me know, sorry for this email being not too full of cool stuff, next week i´ll have some more stuff to write, hopefullly more interesting haha

LOVE YA!!!

i don't know what to type

Hey Family.

well it was great to talk to you all yesterday, you all sound so different, BHL still has the most "manly" voice however, but JPL is getting close haha, and derek, you're destined to turn out like me, haha i don't know if that is a good thing or not haha.  i hope you all had a ton of fun yesterday, it sounded like it was fun, all the cousins and stuff. so i'm pretty sure that i failed to wish Grandma Larsen a Happy Mother's Day, and i'm super sorry.  i hope that all the moms present had a good fun time.  i'm glad Gma seems to be doing better, she should come down here, i doubt she would ever get sick, it's nice weather here all the time.  so mom i went and looked at that glucosamine MSM stuff and there were like 50 different brands, ok like 3 or 4 and they all said something different, so i just got one that was $10 cause the others were like $25 and $30, and i take 3 pills a day, we'll see if it does anything.  i also may be getting a brace....it's like $20(RRRRIDDICULLOUUSS PRICCESSSS HEERREE), i'm just gonna get one for now for my right knee and if it does anything i'll get another one for the left one.  uhgg so annoying.  anywho, so we are doing good since yesterday, we are going to attempt to make Hawaiian Haystacks on Wednesday for a Lunch after District Meeting, in honor of one of the elders who is going home next tuesday, cause he is from Hawaii, his name is Elder Ray, pretty cool elder, hard worker.  so we had this really cool Cinco de Mayo Fiesta thingy on Saturday night, it was super fun, the branch hired some professional Folk Dancers from Mexico and we got to see them do some really cool traditional dancing.  so what are everyones summer plans?  anything exciting planned?  we had a ton of fun last monday, i don't remember if i told you, but we had a Zone Activity in Ventura and we played some Ultimate Frisbee/Football.  it was fun to run around and get exhausted physically, it was a good feeling.  so i deep cleaned the apartment this morning, it felt good to do some cleaning, it had gotten quite dirty.  so i used some of those skills that i learned when mom took me and BHL to Don Aslets cleaning place haha, she should take all you there to get a formal education in the area of cleaning stuff ;] sooo are there any cool people in the ward?  i didn't know anyone in the first ward that i left so i probably know less people now in the ward.  oh, so was Mr. Mac going to do anything about my cracked shoes or can they not do anything?  it's cool if they can't, my shoes are fine as long as it doesn't rain.  well i have run out of things to tell you all,  we work hard every day, i try to improve my pronuciation everyday, it basically i just need to slow down and pronunciate, i just speak too fast, i'm stuttering now more, it's kind of annoying.  anyone know of anything that i can do to stop stuttering other than just trying to slow down my speech?  and dad, the "horse whinny" thing doesn't really work haha, do you remember when you told me to try that?  haha.  alright family, well know that i love you alot, the restored gosple is true, my testimony of that has been stregnthed these past weeks as i have been working on a list of references of scriptures on different gosple topics, some would call it a "Bash List" but i don't use it for that, i use it for being bold and backing myself up with scripture, maybe when i'm done i'll send you a copy.  3-2-1, Pray 3 times a day at least, Read at least 2 Pages of the BOM a day, and Go to church at least 1 time a week(preferrably sunday), simple things that make all the difference.  i know im a missionary, that probably sounds all lame to you haha, but it's what people don't do, so we get to help them figure out the importance of it.  wanna read an awesome chapter, Romans 8, super "make you feel good inside" chapter.  LOVE YOU ALL!!!! TILL NEXT WEEK!!!!

Elder Larsen

Familia Que Pasa???

Hi family!!!

 

how are all you doing this week?  my week went by super fast, it feels like i was just here writing you yesterday.  soooo 1 very important thing, i need someone to tell me when you will be available to recieve a phone call next sunday, when do you get home from church.  i get back to santa paula at like 4-ish PM California time, so let me know in a letter that gets to me before sunday when to make the call, what number do you want me to call?  also, president murri gave me permision to talk to BHL for a little bit since i won't be seeing him for a long time . . . so be there BHL or you're a square!  thank you lots for the pictures of the 1st presidency haha that is funny that you noticed our out dated pictures.  we'll probably put both of them up cause i love Pres Hinckley.  Derek thanks for the letter, very faithful writer =]]]  and kenidee i hope you forgive me for being late with your b-day card, if you ever serve a mission you'll know what i'm talking about when i say i have no time to do anything!  

SOOOOO we finally switched cars this week, the Mazda is gone!!  decommisioned, and about time haha, we got a 2008 chevy mailibu, the same car i had when i started my mission, it's rather nice and quiet and not all loud and stuff haha it's great, i just have to fix the remote to the car cause it doesn't work. haha compared to the little mazda i feel like i'm driving a boat . . . a nice quiet boat that doesn't vibrate and shake.  we also set griselda with a baptisimal date!! she is awesome, she investigated the church a while back but when i got here we lost contact with her and had to drop her, but now she is back on tract, she is super open and way smart, she understands everything that she reads from the scriptures and is really nice, she's probably in her late 20's early 30's.  

Elder Bills is doing good too, he is still learning spanish and how to be a missionary, we get along really good, i've been blessed to have all good companions, no bad ones.  so how is life, how is the job dad?  school?  BHL preparations?  that lady only spent $128 of her own money on her mission?!?!?!  that makes me sick . . . california is ridiculous . . . no more comments.  so we did alot of walking this week and it got really really dry and my knees started acting up pretty bad, sooooo sister benson might call you to see if i'm on insurance still from home cause she wants me to get physical therapy . . . butttttt i think i'll just tell her that i'm better cause that would take too much time out of my day . . . buttt mom, i remember that the doctor said something about how you could just look some excersises up on the internet and that maybe those could help.  the doctor said that i had "sore knee cap syndrome" or something like that, i remember that it had a more official super long name though.  but i'd bet if you googled it you might could get something on it, if there are any excersises could you maybe send them to me?  i have a big excersise rubber band thing that the MTC gave me so if it requires one of those i got one.   anywho, enough of that.  and yes mom my shoes are at least comfortable, and they still look pretty good, if you don't look at the souls hehehe.   

so Hermana Rodriguez is doing better, she is out of the ICU and in the DOB or something like that, it's the next step up from the ICU, she still has alot left, she's still super sick, but she is improving slowly.  thank you for your prayers, i'm sure they are helping.  i'll try and write some stuff to BHL, it would help if he asked questions, but no worries.  we seem to be having a sudden outburst of Drama from our branch members, we have 2 families that now want a divorce, both for good reasons, but we're still trying to patch things up . . . i'm 20 and i'm trying to patch couples up . . . ridiculous, no idea what i am doing, all i do is try and help them see how living the gospel, as simple as that is, can fix pretty much any problem.  and trying to help them figure out what the "root problem"  is, and not just try to fix the "products" of the "root problem"  There is a really good set of scriptures in the beginning of Moroni 7,  says something like "bad fountain = bad water, good fountain = good water" pretty simple huh?  so if we base our lifes in the gospel, if we get a good solid root deep down inside our souls, then we won't have all the bad products or effects that come from having a bad root.  simple yet it brings deep and lasting results.  anywho, so we're doing our best we can with that, also Davawn is going through some super hard times and decisions, but we are meeting with her more regularly and she seems to be doing a little bit better.  Ah and mom i'm off the sleeping drugs, i was starting to not be able to wake up at all in the mornings, like i was all "hung over" for lack of a better phrase, sooooo i realized that i don't really need them and after about 2 nights i was back to normal sleeping pattern.   

pretty cool thing that happened this week to finish my email off.  i went on exchanges with elder Llil, pronounced Jill, he is from florida and has parents from the dominican republic, he's black and awesome, so the morning of the exchange i was thinking and praying for a baptisimal date for griselda, and i felt good about june 5th, so we're in our lesson and i hadn't really told elder Llil about my date that i felt good about, i was planning on setting her witha date but he just went ahead and did it, which was good, the lesson flowed better that way, anywho he said basically "will you prepare to be baptised a month from tomorrow?" which just so happened to be june 5th, the lord works in mysterious ways, and is in the small details of our lives if we allow him, there are no cooincidences, only tender mercies.  and she said the closing prayer, and she prayed for strength to be ready for her baptisim date.  pretty cool eh?  alright family, well i gotta get going cause we are having ZONE ULTIMATE FRISBY AND FOOTBALL so we gotta go get ready.  i love you all a ton, let me know how you all are.  remember that Christ should be the reason for which we do what we do and act how we act!

 

Love,

 

Elder Larsen

week 3 is done and over with

howdy howdy howdy,

hey que pasa?  how is everyone?  well this week was pretty awesomely cool!  we had Zone conference on Monday, and on Saturday we had a 3 hour meeting with Elder Bednar and Elder Robbins of the 1st quorum of the 70, it was pretty crazy!!!  we had a pretty busy week and taught alot, worked real hard, it was a good week.  Elder Bills is continuing to learn alot, his spanish is getting alot better, now i have to get out of the habit that i got into our first week together . . . talking too much, haha i'm working on it though, we both teach and are doing better at being unified.  

so this week we went to the hospital here in Santa Paula cause one of our members, who has had a really hard life health-wise, had got some weird infection in some urine tract and then it went to all her blood and it really messed her up.  we were walking randomly on some street and her husband, who is also a member, super cool guy, was driving back to the hospital and he stopped us and asked if we could come and give her a blessing.  so we did, or rather we assisted, he gave the blessing.  she was in the ICU and not doing too good.  she has had both shoulders replaced, both knees, both hips, one elbow, and still has arthuritis, plus heart problems, i felt super bad for her.  so anyway, she got pneumonia the next day and she started hallucinating cause of the pain drugs and she started seeing kids dumping dirty water all over her and so because she was having trouble breathing they had to transfer her to Ventura cause they didn't have some apparatus for breathing . . . soooo basically the reason for all this, she could really use your prayers, her husband too.  their names are Nestor and Luisa Rodriguez.  

SOOOO Elder Bednar is hillarious, i've always taken him to be one of the more serious apostols, and he kinda is, but we were laughing alot, the good kind of laughing.  he said about 3 times "now don't put this in any blog home or i will do bad things to you" hahaha and then he would proceed to teach us and tell us things that are only for missionary ears haha.  he said that alot of times we play a game in the church "metaphoricly speaking" called "guess what is in my head" we ask or put people on the spot and aske questions where the specific answer is only in our heads.  and by doing so, we turn our investigators or whoever is recieving the question, into an object that is "acted upon", and we know that we were created to "act".  it's pretty craazy, he talked alot about how deep the priciple of agency goes, maybe i'll write more about that later, i've learned a ton about faith and agency lately.  also good news, I GOT FOUND NOT GUILTY!!!!! yay i don't have to pay the ticket and they will return the money to me in 60 days or less!!  i was quite happy to receive that notice!  i will be able to survive for a little longer now, that's a plus right?  

Elder Bednar really stregnthened my testimony, or rather, the spirit and information that elder bednar taught us helped me to strengthen my testimony about prophets and apostols in our days, it is true, he is a prophet/ seer/ revelator from God, something he taught me was that love or charity or anything that we use as missionaries really, is a gift from God, so we have to ask for it (then go do it, or try to fulfill what we asked for other wise it's a faith-less/ God do everything for me  prayer) and if we recieve it is given to us so that we can help others, and inadvertently it helps us as well . . . not entirely sure that was the correct usage of that word, but hopefully you understand me.  it was quite a mission conference . . . the entire mission was there!!!  

alright i gotta get running, oh quick story, so right before we came to do email we went to get hair cuts, HA and it's this little spanish place and we go ther cause it's cheap, but the ladies can't speak english very well. anywho, so Elder Bills didn't know what he wanted and couldn't really explain what he wanted and now he lookes like a skinhead haha super short HA and interviews are in like 4 days HA aww man we laughed for a good long time once we were in the car!  and i forgot to bring your letter, thank you so much for the letters and pictures, taylor, you're crazy.  so if there were any important questions i'll write home.  i hope all is well with everything, take care and never let anyone take your testimony, in the end it's one of the most valuable things you have!  Love you!!!

Elder Larsen

YEAH! YEAH!! Chris sent his Picture Card Home!!!

To everyone who follows Christopher's blog - here are some of the best of the three months of pictures he sent home.  Enjoy!

Elder Larsen and Elder Mendez, ready to preach the gospel!  Jan 27, 2010

So I guess they are Rubix Cube wizards, too??? 

Santa Paula.  Feb 6, 2010

Davawn's baptism day.  Feb 13, 2010

Christopher with some oranges.  Feb 24, 2010

Here's some words of wisdom right by the front door in their apartment in Santa Paula.

Chris in his apartment in Santa Paula.  Mar 14, 2010

Victor's baptism.  President Castro performed the baptism.  Mar 14, 2010

Christopher hiking on P-Day with some other elders.  Mar 15, 2010

Here's the damage to his pants (and leg I think) that happened when he raced another elder down the mountain!

Elder Larsen out on the streets.  Mar 24, 2010

Chris in his apartment.  Mar 31, 2010

District meeting.  Mar 31, 2010

A member family on Easter Sunday.  Christopher brought Easter eggs with scriptures and symbols about Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in them so after the girls found the eggs, they had an Easter lesson with them then had dinner.

Overlooking Santa Paula.  Apr 5, 2010

What can I say?

Christopher with Elder Mendez on transfer day.  Apr 6, 2010

Christopher's new companion, straight from the MTC, Elder Bills.  Apr 6, 2010

Elder Larsen is still EATING well!  Apr 11, 2010

Hey Family!!

Hey guys!

sorry for not writing yesterday, we had zone conference so we got our pday changed to tuesday, sorry for not telling you sooner, i forgot to mention it last week.  please send me our bishops address, i will definatly write him and thank him.  so we had an awesome week, we found 6 new investigators and taught alot of lessons, man i´m tellin ya my greenie likes to work hard.  we´re walkin alot cause we are taking a hard hit with miles this month, a bunch more trips to ventura because of elder bednar coming and we had zone conference in camarillo so it was a good 60 mile day yesterday.  ok, so as far as my shoes, they just split from side to side, both pairs right where my foot bends, like right under the palm of my foot???  man, i´m using a computer that is old and it´s all in spanish, it´s for spanish people but it was the only one open, the keyboard is spanish and so are all the programs . . . . . pretty trippy, that's why i´m not using capitals, cause it´s ridiculously hard to push shift anywho, so yeah i´ll take pics of the shoes and send them home, today i will print the pics for the member that wanted them.  i do ok with them as long as it isn´t raining . . . . . which it is today and tomorrow.  


Sister Benson, she is the mission nurse, she is from logan, her and her husband are here on a mission.  she is super cool, she´s just like you mom, it´s weird, you two would get along great.  anywho, i´ll be careful, my back doesn´t hurt too bad, i´m focusing on relaxing my back and shoulders at all times, my shoulders are always all tight and shrugged for some odd reason.  BHL is going to walk 11 miles a day???  wow, that is neat, we walk alot, but i´m not sure how much.  i attend elders quorum and the gosple principles class, sometimes i teach the elders quorum, elders are super humans that can do anything without a moments notice haha, or supposedly that´s how it is.  we usually have an argument about some point of doctrine and i usually end up telling them how it really is, not to sound like i know everything, but that´s what usually happens.  wow mom, your yearbook deal sounds like its consuming alot of your time, i'm sure you are happy to be over with it, you should send some examples of your PDF´s to me in a letter, i would love to see your work.  no worries about the late card from hna campos, she is awesome, i'll write her back, i'm surprised she thought i had gone home.


ah, and if we get put in a different ward/stake let me know cause i gotta tell the mission office.  so we are happy and doing well, i hope that all the preparations for BHL are going well, if there is anything i can do let me know, BHL if you have any  questions ask me eh?  i´m super excited for elder bednar to come, we´re taking a mission picture too, the entire mission, almost 200 missionaries, crazy huh?  thanks for the super hero candy stuff, it´s tasty haha.  


elder bills is getting better with his spanish, even though he doesn´t think so, you guys should write him and tell him hi, give him a little support. my spanish has improved too lately cause i've had to do most of the  talking . . . . . unfortunatly i´ve gotten a little faster . . . . . it´s bad, i gotta figure some way to slow myself down haha.  dad i´m so glad that your´job is working out fine, it sounds exciting, i´m sure a challenge is fun, being challenged is hard sometimes, but it makes us grow and it is fun usually after a while.  thank you for keeping me in your lifes kenidee and jordan and derek, it´s great to know what you are doing and what you like and stuff, that play deal sounds fun, take pictures.  my guess is that BHL continues to work and TRL continues to try to get HUGE, course he already is GIGANGTIC not much more improvment can be made i would imagine hahaha.  


well remember that i love you all, the church is true, there is not a single doubt in my mind nor heart, read the scriptures and figure out why you believe what you believe.  make the scriptures and the doctrine of christ YOURS!  that is what i have done, i can back up pretty much any point of doctrine with the words of God´s prophets or with his own words. remember to do the simple little things so that the big blessings can come.  i love you alll once again, and look forward to hearing from you soon.  until next week,

Love, Elder Larsen

Week 1 of Training........done

Hola Hola Hola!

Hi family how are you all doing?  i hope you are doing well, i'm doing excelent despite being dead tired haha, training is tough work cause i pretty much had to haul alot of weight last week, and will continue to do so until my new comp gets accustomed to the work.  i never realized how much i'm used to "The Life of a Missionary" haha all the weird things we do and the lingo and terms and way we live are quite different than those of the outside world haha, i've realized that more and more as i've gone throughout my week.  Elder Bills is awesome, he's working me into the ground, he has quite  a desire to work and to teach, we taught alot of lessons last week, pretty cool.  i've been doing my best to teach him spanish and all the things he needs to know to be a good missionary . . . not that i know them all . . . but i'm trying.  he's HUGE!!!!!  he is from provo and played on BYU's Football team . . . jeezzz just makes me look even more small . . . i swear his forarms are bigger than my biceps . . . course i'm small but still haha.  he is awesome although a little frustrated sometimes with his ability to speak spanish, but he's improving little by little.  we've been walking alot this past week cause he likes to walk so my poor knees were whining pretty badly but i think they are getting better, i think i'm going to stretch more and see if that looses up whatever is behind and under my knees, cause that's what hurts haha.  how goes the new job?  and the yearbook?  school?  mission prep?  hey what day is BHL going into the MTC?  Elder Bills has a friend going to Sao Paulo too . . . oh and what mission is BHL going to in Sao Paulo?  

hey, so guess what?  Emiliano is going to get baptised this weekend!!!  he had his interview with president yesterday and everything turned out great!  so sometime on Saturday he will be getting baptised, he has asked me to baptise him!  just a special experience.  i hope that everything turns out ok.  

oh, i hope you all got my letter last week, sorry for not emailing, we ran out of time and i forgot to mention that the website was down last week and so by the time we had waited for it to be available we had to leave and start saying goodbye to everyone.  mannn so we waited all morning long for president to call us, usually we get calls before 11 but we didn't get them till almost 12 i think, he told us we were the very last call that he had to make.  he said Elder Larsen, do you know who your companion is?  i said no, and he said We're going to the airport to pick him up right now . . . took me a few seconds to register and then he was like, do you know what that means?  and i was "I'mmmm Training???????????" ahhhhhh so scary i had no idea what to expect, but i am sure that i got the best greenie out of the whole lot!  AND i think i already told you this maybe, but Hermana Hanson is serving in our branch now, she is going home at the end of this transfer probably! AHHHHH how ironic, we came in together and now we are int he same branch as she ends her mission, CRAZYYY, and she is training tooo ohhhhhhhhhhh annnd elder bills and Hermana hatch (Hermana hanson's greenie) were both in the same district in the MTC ANNNNDDD they were in the same Branch in the MTC that Hermana Hanson and I were in!  sooo cooincidental . . . or not, but it's cool, sister Evans (my MTC branch president's wife) sent with Hermana hatch a note that had Hna hanson's name and dates of service and my name with my dates of service . . . pretty nuts if you think about it.  so we are going to take a picture and send it to the Evans, 4 missionaries from their branch in the MTC, serving together as companions.  

sooo cool, another cool thing, Elder Bednar is coming to meet with the entire mission on the 24th (i think) of April!!! the entire mission is coming to the ventura stake center!  it will be the 1st mission conference since the christmas of 2008, which was when the general Authorities said no more mission conferences.  so we get to meet with Elder Bednar and he's going to end our little mission conference with a Question and Answer session . . . ahhh so nervous/excited.  haha, it's going to be awesome.  

oooook, mom, i have a little request, Axel, the 7 year old son of Hno and Hna Presiado has finished the "Stories From The Book of Mormon"  and i told him i'd get him another book to read about the church.  there are 3 more books in the series, one about the history of the church and one for the old testimant and one for the new testimant, i was wondering if you could order the "church history" one and send it to me, i believe the shipping and handling is free, but i lost my catolog from the distrubution center so i can't order it and the mission won't do it cause he's not technically an investigator.  pay for it out of my debit account . . . PS my debit card is going to expire soon . . . how do i replace it?  not that i'll have any money on it anyway soon, haha, but i probably should have the card . . . it's set to expire in June.  soo my court date to decide what happens with my ticket is set for the 23 of April i believe, so we'll figure out what happens then, and i'm pretty sure if i lose then i'll get a bill for the court fees as well which are some where around $80 i think . . . 

ANYWAYYYY so we are doing good, working really hard to find some new investigators cause we are going to have to drop 2 of them because they just won't do anything, it's really sad . . . one knows that the BOM is true and that Joeseph Smith was a prophet, he has told me repededly this, and he still won't come to church or get baptised cause he is 100% Catholic and has alot of faith in his church . . . and the other investigator just won't keep any comitments . . . sad, but hopefully we will find some new investigators that are more willing to become closer to God.  ok well the time is up, i gotta get going, i hope you all are well, if there is anything i can do for you just let me know.  I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Elder Larsen

Letter received in Mail

April 6, 2010


Hello Family,

I'm so sorry for not emailing you guys.  We got held up with so many things to do and then we had to start visiting all the members in Santa Paula because Elder Mendez is getting transferred!!!!  He is going Senior!  He is going to East Bakersfield to follow-up train an Elder Richards.  And I, oh dear, am TRAINING!  Ahhh I'm getting a greeny to be my comp here in Santa Paula.  All so scary and yet exciting at the same time we'll see what happens.  I have to give some pictures to a member but I'll get my camera card home as soon as I can.  No worries…

(typing now) haha that didn't last long, my hand is too tired, man I'm getting old.  So how was everyone's Easter?  Mine was wonderful, mom, remember those eggs that you gave me last year?  I was finally able to use them with some members last night.  We duplicated the set into 3 sets and hid the eggs all over their yard and the 3 little girls went and found them, afterward we ate dinner and had a short lesson on the atonement and Easter and it was all excellent.

So conference was awesome, wow, boy am I glad that we have Prophets and seers and revelators in our days, especially with all these random earthquakes in divers places.  After conference there was another one in Mexicali, Mexico.  The aftershock of it is supposed to hit us some time today I think, but I'm pretty sure that we won't feel anything here in Santa Paula, we're too far away.  

Mom thank you so much for your package, mother, the size doesn't matter to me a bit, it is who it's from that makes all the difference for me, thank you so much for caring for me, ha I enjoyed the cadbury eggs, they are all gone and I'm still working on the cookies  and creme eggs haha.  Derek you are quite the card maker, just like me with err when I was little, thank you for taking the time to make me a super cool Easter card.

Yeah, so my back problems kinda subsided.  I just removed my box spring and I sleep on my mattress on the floor.  I took pictures haha, and sister Benson is having me take Tylonol PM, pretty sure I didn't spell that right, and it helps me to sleep all throughout the night and makes the back pains go away.  She is going to send me some excersises to strengthen my back and loosted my vertibraes or something like that, and I'm trying hard to stand up straight.  

Ah guess what, so in our branch there are 2 sets of Elders, 1 set here in Santa Paula and 1 set in Ventura, well President is taking both Elders out of Ventura and putting in Hermana Hanson and she will also be training!  How ironic, I came in with her, and she isnow going to "die" or go home in the same ward that I am in.  Pretty crazy, she is a crazy good missionary, man how I would like to be like her.  This is her last transfer I think.  Thank you for sending me emails from Matthew and Casey, they sound like they are both doing great, I'm excited for them.

How goes the mission preparations?  Good I hope.  On Mother's Day when I call President said that I can have an extra 15 minutes to talk with Brandon because I won't be seeing him for a long time, so I'm excited for that.  I hope that he will be home.

Grandma, thank you so much for your letter and the money, it helped me to make ends meet for the month.  I'm going to write you a letter, I'm just a slacker/ I don't have any time for anything on P-day.  But next P-day I'm going to set apart some time for writing letters, I kinda got behind again.  Well, I'm sorry again for not writing yesterday… know that I am still alive and well and that I will for sure write next week.  Remember that I love you all and pray for your continued success in everything that you do.  How is Dad with the new job?

Love Elder Larsen