me voy a quedar whooo hoooo

Hola Family,

how are you all doing?  good news i'm not getting transferred!!! elder skovran and I are staying together, he has broken my pattern of 2 transfer companions, which means that for sure he will be leaving next transfer and i'll be training someone as a zone leader for a transfer and then i'll be home....i'm starting my 2nd to last transfer, crazy eh?  also the 2 elders that we live with finally moved out, they had been staying with us for the past 2 transfers because they didn't have a place to stay in there area, but they found a place and moved out this morning, i love those two but it will be nice to be alone, much more easier to focus, i like 2 man apartments alot better than 4 man.  AND we FUNGSHWAYED our apartment, we now have and excersise room and a study room and my bed is no longer in my closet yay!  so today has brought some changes and most of them are welcome, the Missionary that elder skovran trained, who got switched english cause he couldn't learn spanish, is coming to be a part of our zone, so my comp is super excited to get to see him! MIRACLE, so in santa paula like my last week there we found this super cool investigator named joaquin and the ventura zone leaders called me with a message from elder bills saying that he was baptized this past weekend!  YAY ANDDDDDD Sixto was interviewed and he passed this past Saturday sooooo on this coming friday if all goes well he will be baptised!!! ALSOOOOO we found a legit new investigator this past week named sulema, she is a friend of a member, they are both juniors in high school and are good buds, we taught her a lesson about the apostacy and restoration (thanks for the suggested scriptures mom by the way, they are super good, i will study them) using Jenga and she loved it and now wants to get baptized supposedly, so everything is going good, we also have one more investigator who is 9 and is a member of a less active family, she is pretty cool, she may also possibly have a baptisimal date.  so the work is going pretty good, we are appointment hopping all the time, our week this week is the craziest/busiest that its ever been thus far my time here.   the only problem is that we rarely find time to find, like tract or walk the streets or other activities, so it's kinda hard to balance everything out.  AH also one of our "more solid" or supposedly solid investigators dropped us this past week, well, she dropped us by telling her daughter in law to tell her brother to tell us that she didn't want to meet anymore cause she was getting confuzed.....welll......we thought that was lame so we went to talk to her ourselves.  sooo once again she didn't come out, cause she didn't know how to tell us, she sent her daughter out to talk to us. so she was all confrontational and elder skovran is a feisty little guy, and she said she couldn't accept the BOM cause it wasn't the bible, and then we asked why she beleives the bible, and she said cause it was written by prophets and was inspired of God, good answer, so we told her "well thats great cause the BOM was writtten by prophets and inspired of God too" and she said "no it wasn't" and we said "yes it was" and we asked her "who do you think knows more about our church, your pastor, or us?" and she was like "my pastor"....it' was quite ridiculous, she contradicted herself a ton and had horrible logic....oh well we tried.....lost an investigator...oh well, we have faith that we will find more. 

dang, i forgot about the whole trying to make more paragraph thing.....sorry......man i blew it....i'll do better next week.  well my time is running short, the apostacy happened and in a certain sence still happens all around us, all we have to do is stay strong to what we know is right and we'll be just fine.  i hope to hear good news from you all soon.  AH mom, quick question, my indoor soccer shoes have lasted really good but i'm afraid i might have to do them in, my right one has the entire front seam undone, so i can duct tape it for now but i was wondering if anyone at home has an extra pair of shoes that i could use?  and if not i can just deal with it, the duct tape should hold pretty good, seriously it isn't that big a deal i was just wondering.  anywho, LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Elder Larsen

Week 6....i turned 21 months old 3 days ago......ahhhhhhhh

Hey family,

OK, so i'll try to hit the enter key i guess haha usually i'm just trying to write super fast so that i can finish in time, lots of reading today, it's ok, i love reading emails from all of you!  we had an excellent week, taught a bunch of lessons and worked hard as usual. 

 

(hey look, new paragraph)

 

Mom thanks for your words about Sixto and your conversion, i don't doubt, alot, he is actually doing amazing, we gave him a really good lesson on the Apostacy and then we followed it up with a retouch on the restoration and Joseph Smith, and he really really got it, we gave him a pamphlet called "The Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith" it's like a fold out thing, maybe you're familiar with it, but anywho, so i gave him like 2 pages to read and he ended up reading the whole thing and basically quoted it to us.  that is what he does with all our invitations that we give him, he reads them over and like memoizes the message of the scriptures or assignment and then when we come over he like tells us all that he learned and it is super faith promoting and cool, he's doing awesome, and to thing we were super close to dropping him.  his interview is this saturday and his baptism is planned for the 25th.  so it's awesome, he's doing great, he even brought a friend to Stake Conference yesterday.

 

SOOOO we only translated the beginning piece, i translated the welcome and elder sckovran translated the sustaining, it was super hard, my mind doesn't switch back and forth too fast, anywho, so it wasn't that bad actally, i survived.  it's much easier when you're up there with the person and they say a sentance then let you translate it, much much easier that way, but we were in the clerks office with a headset and a TV and a MIC and we did the best we could.  Elder Paul V Johnson of the Seventy was there and gave an amazing discourse on following the commandments, did you know he is from Logan? i talked to him for a bit after the conference, he's a big guy.  anywho, the conference was very good, Pres and Sis Murri came and gave talks, it was a very special conference, good sunday. 

 

brandon, i think your trainer is going to the same training that we went to, it was super awesomly good training too, it will revolutionize the way missionary work is done, you are blessed to be able to serve now, you'll have most of your mission with this new perspective on things it'll be awesome.  i was kinda sad that i will only get to use the training as a missionary for the tail end of my mission, i believe i can use if afterward but it's not the same i would imagine. 

 

Mom your trip sounded like a ton of fun, i agree with BHL and want pics of this "first date" of Taylor's.  Mom could you tell that guy at work thank you for me?  i'll tell him when i get home but i don't want to delay cause i'll probably forget to.  thanks for all your loving support, the gospel (by the way my comp pointed out that i've been spelling gosple wrong my whole mission....it's el not le....man) is true, i agree dad, it's quite the feeling when people act on what you teach them and find out that what you were saying or inviting them to do really does work....funny how that works huh?

 

ok family, my time is running a bit short, i had alot to read today, know that i love you, and pray for you daily, words cannot expess the gratitude and feelings i want to tell you all, just know that you are daily a part of my life.  i hope your week goes well and i will let you know what happenes with transfers next monday, i'll be staying i'm pretty sure, we might be staying together, if someone leaves it will be elder skovran.

 

LOVE YOU!!

Elder Larsen

Hola Hola Hola

Hi Family!

how are you all doing this week?  it sounds like mom and whoever is with her is having a ton of fun, wow, i hope you took some pictures mom, i would love to see all of that.  i'm glad that everyone seems to be doing good in school, i'm trying to learn stuff too!  so i don't have BHL's Mission address and i would like it por favor.  when is his P-day?  i didn't get an emial from him this week.  well we had a bit of a slow week here in Santa Maria, still an excellent week, just a bit slow, it's super hard to find some of our really cool investigators, that is probably the hardest thing we've had to deal with this week is people not being home when we go by, but we don't give up, or at least we haven't yet.  so next week is our stake conference and Elder Johnson of the seventy is coming and guess what......we've been asked to help a little with the translating!!! ahhhh i've never translated before, and am super nervous!  i'll let you know what happens....also, MILAGRO!!!! SIXTO came to church yesterday and made my whole week of work worth it.  we were having opening excersises in Priesthood and even though Sixto has been like 4 or 5 times to church no one has ever asked him to introduce himself, so they finally did that yesterday and Sixto saundered up to the front and said that he was sixto, and that God was blessing him for being at church and that it was hard to go to church but he knew that he was in the right place and he felt good.  it basically made my day!  he has to get baptized!  i have faith that he will, our only roadblock with him is that we don't feel that he has a super strong testimony of the Restoration or Joseph Smith, so we are focusing on that this week, we are going to have a hard core lesson on the Apostacy and then follow it up with an awesome lesson on the restoration.  we would really appreciate your prayers in his behalf, he needs to continue to progress.  it's crazy how attached you get to people in such a short amount of time, Sixto has become a really good friend, i know he enjoys having us over and he gets excited about the things we teach him, he is totally doctrinaly sound, he agrees and basically already lives all the commandments, WOW, Chastity and tithing even, so he is basically prepared, just gotta get his testimony about the restoration more strong.  ALSO esmeralda is still super cool and still has more faith than i think anyone i've ever taught, she came to church yesterday and was happy to be there, the Lord has blessed her with a job and even though she has to work alot she is happy, and she can still go to church so it's all good.  she asked me to help her fill out her tithing slip cause we don't have any in spanish in our building (don't ask me why cause i already asked myself that) and so she is still super faithful.  the mission is doing amazing, we've increased almost all of our numbers from last week to this week, and we continue to increase weekly.  the church is so true, no matter what happens, even if things appear to be failing, the work rolls on, the eternal purposes of the lord can't be stopped (Mormon 8:22).  alright family, i have a ton of things to do today so i will have to end this email, i love you all alot and am grateful for your constant prayers in my behalf, remember that the lord loves and knows each of us by name, i know you all by name to ;]  hasta LUNES!!!

Elder Larsen

Que Tal les va la vida?

Buenos Dias querida familia mia,

yeah i dunno what a Favala is either mom, so i need a translator as well haha.  so we had an excellent week here in Santa maria, we found 4 new investigators who seem to be really solid and met most of our goals as far as teaching is concerned.  we went to the temple on Saturday!!! it was probably one of the most special experiences of my mission, we woke up at 4:15 and left Santa Maria at 5:30, a member from our singles ward, Ben, took us and Javier down to Los Angeles.  we arrived at like 8:30 and we met up with the Quels, they had come down the night before and were staying in the apartments directly behind the temple, the temple owns them for the purpose of houseing people that come from far away.  anywho, so i thought everything was wstarting at 9 but i forgot that they had to do the beginning stuff sooooo the session didn't start till like 10:30, but that is ok cause i got to see basically my whole ward in bakersfield, pretty much all the endowed members came!  it was so good to see all them.  anywho so the session was the most full i've ever seen a temple, there almost wasn't enough chairs, it was amazing and wonderful to see so many of the mexican saints all in the temple that day, quite an experience.  going through the temple in spanish was fun too, i almost like it better, there were some difficult pieces to understand cause everything is in Vosotros form and i never really have heard it much other than the scriptures, reading vosotros is easier than just hearing it alone.  but it was fun and exciting.  once in the Celestial room i had the blessing of seeing a whole bunch more of the members from my first ward, everyone recognized me and i got alot of really good hugs, Spanish people know how to give good hugs, the sealing was amazing, i had never been to one before and it was really cool, very peacful and good to know that they are now sealed for time and all eternity, not only for just this mortal life which is so short in comparison with what awaits us, i can't really describe affectivly the feelings and emotions that were present in the sealing room, but we were unified, i guess that is the best way i can describe it.  we took pictures afterward and ate some food then we had to get home, we arrived home at 6-ish, and begun working again, full day.  oh and i gave them what you sent me mom, what is it?  they didn't open it before i left.  i think it's a book of some kind but i'm not sure.  anywho, awesome day!  but now we have to go back to work at 1PM, we have to cut our P-day short 5 hours, but it was worth it, just don't have any time to write haha.  

another crazy thing this week, we witnessed a super bad accident.  we were leaving a lesson and i had stopped at a stop sign and i hear this POP sound and this little BMW comes flying from my right to left down the road to which i was perpendicular, she hit a dirt embankment on the other side of the road and the entire car was launched into the air, as it passed right in front of me the car flipped, JUST LIKE IN HOLLYWOOD, and it like fell apart in mid air, it skidded across the road upside down and down into this huge grassy hole on the side of the road, she slid about 100Ft upside down.  so we were flipping out, not believing what had just happened in a matter of seconds, we flipped around and parked and ran down to the wreckage, it looked like her neck was broken, and the girl was half outside of her car window and half in hanging upside down, the seatbelt had her legs strapped down, the car is still upside down mind you, someone called the cops and they got there with the ambulance and the firetruck within 5 minutes.  they started hackin at the car so they could get inside and free her legs, as the paramedics tryed to help her out and asses the situation she was all cussing and trying to hit them and stuff, she was either on her phone or on drugs or drunk, or maybe just out of it i dunno, but anywho, the cops questioned us and we told them what had happened and they finally pulled the girl out on a stretcher, she looked like she was gonna be fine.  PRETTY CRAZY!!! 

anywho, so yeah, we had a good week, and we have a really good week planned out for us, the work is picking up here alot, even in our Young Single Adult ward stuff is looking up.  Did i tell ya'll that elder durrant is AP (Assistant to the Mission President)?  i think i did, i dunno, but yeah he came up a few weeks ago to go on splits with us, it was good.  i hope and pray that all is well with school and life.  Brandon i pray for you daily and it seems as if the Lord is answering my prayers, i can't wait to hear from you all soon, if i can do anything for you let me know.  LOVE YOU ALL!!! don't forget about the truthfullness of the restored gosple, its the only way we're ever going to be able to over come trials and arrive at the presence of God.  Have an Amazing week!!

Elder Larsen (El Mas Guapo)  ;)

quihubole!

quihubole!

hello everyone, man, i just read 15 emails haha dang, i must be a popular guy.....hahah JK.  well it's good to hear from all of you, not goood to hear that Grandma was sick, i'm praying for you grandma, and i'm sure that alot of other people are as well.  it was good to hear from you brandon, sounds like you're adjusting just fine, MAN you're killing your trainer wow....don't get trunky, here in our mission that rarely happens, how long usually are trainers with their greenies in your mission?  in my mission it's usually 2 transfers.  anywho, i'm glad you seem to be learning the language, just get through your 1st few weeks and no worries, it'll come to ya, alot faster than spanish came to me.  anywho, so ESMERALDA GOT BAPTISED!!!! whooo hooooo, it was yesterday directly after church, it was awesome and super smooth and she was like crying the entire time, elder skovran baptised her and i confirmed her, it was really special, she is gonna be the coolest member ever.  our whole ward was there almost, she has a ton of member support, lots of friends.  super excited for her!!! :]]]]]] thats my happy face!  we even had warm water so it was extra good, usually it's quite a task to get the whole font filled up and keep it some-what warm, but we did it.  we had a really good week, found 4 new and super legit investigators for our spanish ward, one guy is named Juventino, and he was a bit depressed and stuff and then we ran into him and we sat down and taught him and he was super happy to see us and i think we made his day better.  our person with a date, Sixto Soto, is doing awesome, he surprises us every time we see him with how much he has progressed, at the beginning he wasn't anything special, we were even contemplating on dropping him cause he wasn't progressing a ton.  and something that we have noticed is that we can track his progression, more or less, by where we teach him the lessons, at the beginning it was just on his porch, then we went to the back patio, and now we meet in his favorite spot under a lemon tree in the back of his house tucked in the corner.  BHL where you teach them matters, the spirit is influenced by your surroundings, huge testimony builder for me, ANYWHO, so he is awesome and totally gonna get baptised Sep 25.  AND i found a ride to be able to go to the temple on Saturday!  so i'm going hopefully at 5:30 or 6 in the morning!  i'm super excited, i've never been to a sealing before, i'm happy for them.  a ver....que mas les puedo decir.  i'm blanking here.....OH so we have decided to do a new kind of street invite, it involves 3 steps, #1 ask an inspired question (question of the soul) #2 share a scripture from the Book of Mormon that answers the question  #3 testify/introduce the BOM and loan it to them and get a Return Appointment.  it totally works, we're trying it our in our district and we've had a lot of better street invites, we call them Sto's (street invites).  so how does the Driveway look?  what was the point of doing that?  sounds like alot of work, AND Taylor i didn't forget about you....i just forgot to mention it....i promise, i thought about you on your birthday, same thing with pretty much everyone, i don't forget....i just forget to send a card in time and then when it's past......i just don't.....sorry.......but good news, i'm pretty much completely caught up on my letter writing so there is now a better chance that i won't miss anyones birthday from now on.......ok so it's only Gma M's birthday left but.....AHHH sorry, i feel bad...anywho, so Jordan, don't give up on Football, anything takes time to learn, when i first started working for the forclosure departement at wachovia i had absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about, new vocabulary, new people, new system, new screens, it took me a few weeks to really get adjusted well to it all, no worries, pray alot and do what you feel is right, God will stand by you. mom thanks for the gift, i haven't got it yet but i'll make sure to bring it with me.  AH, so if anyone would like to send me anything, buying stamps is killing me, so that would be a help.....also almost ran out of white-out and ribbon for the stilly type writer, i wrote like 10 letters last week and since i left it out on the table (i'm really bad at that) the other two elders messed around on it alot and wasted alot of stuff, so it's now put away....i don't know how expensive the ribbon and whiteout are if they aren't expensive i wouldn't mind some, and if it is, then i'll write by hand like i should be doing so my handwriting gets better....well i love you all and hope that your school work is going well, you're in my prayers, the church is true, all the other churches prove that quite easily, until next week!

Elder Larsen#1 

oh yeah, and someone tried to bash with us this week....a bit ridiculous, he just "happened" to be walking toward us when we were tracting (he walked like a block and a half to get to us then afterward walked right back) with a bible in his back pocket...kinda funny, really nice guy, not too much contention, tried to argue about the trinity and how they are one person, then we showed him several sciptures and he was like "ok well i can believe they are two people" and then just went on to something else....kinda funny, anywho, i hope you all remember that contention is of the devil and as Alma says in chapter 5, if we're not of the fold of the lord......we're of the fold of the devil.....Random huh!

Love you!!!!!

Week 2

Hola Familia, esta todo bien!

hey i was happy to hear from BHL, it's ok about forgetting the H, i used to do that every now and then with a few words, i still do....it was good to hear from you brandon, i'm glad you are doing well, and getting ready to leave the MTC!!! whooo hooooo i was so excited/scared when i left, you have gotten to see the real world a few times during your stay it sounds like, not me, when i left the mtc on the bus to the air port we were all pressed up against the glass looking at the outside world haha!  so the high counsilor for our YSA ward is Brother Cheney, he just got back from Brazil, Sao Paulo actually, he served his mission there, he runs or manges a business called Missionties which is like dear elder but it's specifically for Brazil, i dunno if you have heard of it but it's pretty cool sounding, the website is www.missionties.com anywho, i hope that brandon continues to prosper, it was great to get the picture of him.....looks like you're gaining a bit of weight....it's ok....it happens to all of us.  anywho, so we had a really good week, especially cause i got an awesome shirt haha mom thanks so much for thinking about me haha, we all laughed when i opened it up.  well, we had a really successful week for not having been here the previous week.  we found an awesome new investigator in our YSA ward!!!!!! super cool cause that almost never happens, the YSA work here is dead cause the colllege here isn't all that big and it makes it almost impossible to find new investigators on our own.  anywho, so her name is courtney, she is 21 and going to college to be an ultrasound technition, she wants to be baptised soon and came to church yesterday, she was being taught by the elders up in San Luiz Obispo (SLO) but then they decided that she should go to the ward to which she pertains, so we started teaching her cause she lives in our area.  she is getting into the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi already and is loving it.  so we are excited to be able to do some more YSA work, cause i'm pretty sure that our Bishop in YSA is dissapointed with us and thinks we do more spanish work than YSA....which we do, but thats cause there is no YSA work to do and it is super hard to create work in YSA.....now in spanish it's super easy to create work...which we have....Esmeralda is getting baptised this coming sunday after church so we are excited!!!! she is too, she was really bummbed cause we had to move her date.  we've had to move it like 3 times and she was tired of moving it.  i think i told you why....ok just checked my sent mail and i did tell you why....ok, so we met with her after she didn't come to church last week and told her whats up.  she wasn't happy about moving her date for the 11 of september....so we decided after we had left her house that if all went well on sunday then we would bump it up to the next weekend....so she continued to work her ridiculous job and then they told her she had to work on sunday again.....and so she said she couldn't and then she quit her job so she could go to church.....wow.....so she totally has more faith than me....she came to church, met with president speaker (he illegally gave the green light) and we set her baptism up for the next sunday!!! so its gonna be awesome.  SIXTO ALSO CAME TO CHURCH!!! we couldn't get a hold of him in the morning and he had bunked on our appointment 2 days before so our hopes weren't very high for him coming to church, BUT our member who we had asked to go pick him up walked into priesthood with him.  totally surprised us!  it was awesome!  he liked church, this is the 2nd week he has come, he also has a baptisimal date for september 25th so we are quite content with the blessings that the Lord seems to be showering down on us.  this week is super packed with appointments so it looks to be good and fun and successful.  we went to ZLC on friday in Ventura and talked about the mission, it was fun to be back in ventura for a day.  the church is undoubtedly true, it can't not be true, the scripture" ye shall know them by their fruits" come to mind.  the Lord is with us, we cannot fail, the standard of truth has been erected and nothing is going to stop it, nothing can.  i know we are in the truth, and i'm doing what i can to help others find that out.  i pray for you and hope that everything goes well with the 1st week of school.  today we have sworn not to play frolf, so we are going shopping and then HOME and writing letters the rest of the day...man, i can't write as many as i used to....i'm lucky if i get 4 or 5 done, back in the beginning i could pump out 9 or 10 with ease.....getting old.  remember that i love you all!

con carino,

Elder Larsen

STAYIN IN SANTA MARIA with elder skovran!!!!!

Hey Family,

so i neglected to mention an important event that occured last week.  we were playing Frolf.... Frisbee Golf, and i was running to get my frisbee and i ran into one of elder skovran's drives, so his frisbee hit me right in the lip... huge fat lip, purple inside red outside, jaw was dislocated on the right side and i couldn't close it.  but then i fixed it and my lip looks normal now and i am much more careful about where i run.  and we continue to play Frolf, but today i'm just righting letters cause i am like 10-ish letters behind.... so yeah, we are having a few changes in our zone, and i'm pretty sure that Elder Durrant is now the new AP...not 100% yet, but i'm like 97%.  so we were in Bakersfield the entire week, it was very hot!  we worked in Elder Skovran's 1st area so i didn't get to see any members that i knew EXCEPT FOR THE QUELS!!!  they came up to visit me one of the evenings, it was soooooo good to see them, they have grown so much since i last left them and they are getting sealed on the 28th!!!!! and i get to go to see it!  i just have to find a ride.... working on that.  but i'm super excited, i've never witnessed a sealing before so i'm anxious.  so during the day, from 9 to about 3:30 we were given training on the new curriculum, which is awesome by the way, and then we went out to work, so elder sckovran and i split up in the evenings and i went with an elder from brasil!  his name is elder mavromatis and he speaks portugese, spanish, and english, pretty cool kid, we saw alot of miricles, we were able to impliment what we had learned in the training and we found an awesome family to teach and set another mom and her son with a date.  soooo many black people in north bakes, i haven't been around that many since i was in San Antonio, it was funny, they are much more nice that white people, but still not incredibly accepting.  anywho, so we had a good time in bakersfield.  hey, what's with BHL, i still don't get his emails.... some one tell me something about him por favor ??????  the drive out to bakersfield is long and boring, we left at like 6 in the morning and got there about 8:30.  anywho, so we had no time to work in our area...... SAD NEWS.....esmeralda, who is the coolest investigator ever..... didn't come to church..... so her field work fired her for being in the hospital in a week so she got a job in a restraunt and they work her (not all days but some) from like 5 in the morning until as late as 2 AM sometimes..... RIDICULOUS@!(*&@(#*$&@  so upseting that they abuse her like that, it's totally not legal, anywho, so she did pass her baptisimal interview, which happened like 10 mins after we got back into santa maria, and her date was set for this weekend, and then her job (which told her she wouldn't have to work sundays) made her work on sunday.... sooo here is out dilema, the branch is just barely regaining trust with the missionaries because the last 2 baptisms went less active almost directly after being baptised, so the ward wanted us to make sure that people are ready before they get baptised...which is totally fine, but because of that, it feels as if the branch doens't trust esmeralda, like she has to go over and beyond to gain it....soooo we didn't want to just go ahead and baptise her this weekend cause then the memebers would lose complete trust in us since she doesn't appear very solid in there eyes, and because of her economical situation some of the members think she is just looking for help from the church.... which IS NOT THE CASE, i doubt that she even knows the church has those type of resources, so that just causes her to lose even more trust AND our branch president thinks that people shouldn't get baptised until they are more finacially stable...... find me a scripture that says anything about that being any where even close to a requirement for baptism.... anywho, so we've had quite a dishing of drama in the 3 days we've been back...oh and our branch president was basically going to interview esmeralda on sunday (if she came) and tell us if we could baptise her or not...... which is completely illegal cause he has absolutely no jurisdiction over investigators/converts until they are confirmed.  anywho, i hope it doesn't sound like i'm fuming, i'm actually handling it all pretty well i think, elder skovran was pretty stressed out though throughout the whole ordeal.  we taught the less active member that gradually gets nicer as the spirit is there yesterday and she has become one of my favorite people here in santa maria, it is so easy for me to tell when the spirit is working on her.... it's kind of weird how easy it is, not saying that i'm good at that kind of thing or anything, i have to remain humble... but me and her just click, like we invited her to church and told her the time and she said that she absolutely couldn't come cause of the schedule.... but as the lesson went on and we testified of the book of mormon (we didn't even mention church) she kind of paused and you could tell that she was pondering, and she said, "so when is church again"?  and we know that even though we may have a long road ahead of us with her, she is having more desires to go to church and come back into activity.  it's cool to teach her.... oh and i don't know if i ever told you about Sixto, but he came to church yesterday!!! and he now has a baptisimal date for the 25th of september! so he is doing good. 

church is true, DON"T EVER GET OFFENDED (we've dealt with sooooo many offended members that are currently inactive recently), and always look at life through heaven's eyes(that's from a song).

Remember that i love you all alot!  because i'm staying here i will most likely be finishing my mission here in Santa Maria, which i am fine with.

Elder Larsen

aloha

Howdy family,

well we had a pretty awesome week, lots of lessons and very busy, AND i didn't forget about anyone's birthdays.. i jut didn't get the cards out in time cause of my busy-ness..... know that i did think about you and your birthdays and everything, i should be getting cards out today.  so we had a successfull week, we worked hard and i am learning the area a little bit better finally!  i'm getting to know the members more and i'm starting to get settled in.  transfers are next week but i highly doubt anything will happen to me, i'll let you know in a week haha.  so i don't get emails from brandon at all... maybe he doesn't add me to his list of people to email, i haven't gotten an email from him in like 2 or 3 weeks, well that's not entirely true, we write a few sentances when we have time but it never is much, could you please begin to forward me his emails?  

so our zone went wayyyyyyy over on miles this transfer and i'm kinda scared to see how elder finkle reacts..... we only went 50 over but there were 2 comanionships that went well over 100 over and one of them went like 300+ over..... soooo the next few days should be interesting to say the least.  so we met another crazy this week, his name is ricardo, we went by to find his mom and she wasn't there but he invited us in.  he had the restoration pamphlet in his hand and when we went back to his room he had the scriptures out and a book of mormon and all.  so we were kind of excited thinking, "what an awesome miricle".  soooo we started by answering some of his questions and talking/discussing/teaching about different parts of the lesson of the restoration.  anywho, so he brought up that he didn't think it was right to eat meat... so we were like "ok a bit weird but we can work with that, you don't have to eat meat to be a member" and then he went into this whole dialoge on how meat was bad and how God never said we could eat meat in the bible (which isn't true) and all this random stuff, then he said, "i want to  show you know what i do".  and he told us this story of this lady in mexico who had an angel named analizo come to her and this big huge weird story of this angel who is God i think, and he talkes to us through her, and when he talkes through her, her voice changes into a mans voice..... it's super weird, cause then he was like, let me show you, and he turned off all the lights, shut the blinds and turned on this recording of him and we were supposed to meditate so we closed our eyes for like 10 mins listening to this crazy lady/god talk to us in this man voice..... then my compa sneezed and totally disrupted my meditation hahaha anywho, so we said we had to go and we left..... oh also supposedly there are some monks in tibet that have scripture of what happened between when christ went to egypt and when he came back..... super weird..... CALIFORNIA!!!!! hahah anywho, so that was our weirdo for this week.  

Esmeralda went to the hospital on monday cause her 7 month old baby got pnemonia and she was there and the nurses didn't speak spanish so they kind of took advantage of that, well either that or they just had absolutely no commen sense cause they gave her no food, no diapers for her baby and no bedding for her to sleep for almost 2 days! we went and brought her food when we found out and she hadn't slept hardly at all for like 3 days cause her she had to watch her bably whenever he was awake so that he didn't pull out his tubes and stuff... also some catholic clergy man came to teach her and she said she was a mormon and he slammed the door and got all mad a walked away.  soooooo our member and probably esmeralda's closest friend now, hermana calderon, came to visit her and when she found out about all the mistreatment she was recieving she about hit the roof... she chewed those nurses out and sent in a complaint about the cergyman saying that we aren't in a war and we need to respect everyone, she basically reamed them and whipped them into shape.  so the next 3-ish days weren't so bad cause they actually took care of her.  then to add onto her problems, the people that she lives with (who are anti-mormon and verbally abusive to her) called her and told her that she couldn't come back to live there cause they didn't want to get infected from the baby.... so she lost her home, so she wasn't too happy about that but she was strong and we had a shelter all set up for her if she couldn't find a home before she left, but her doctor found out and ended up calling the owner of the house and chewed her out saying that she couldn't kick her out until she had a place to stay and that the baby wasn't contangious at all so there were no worries, anywho, so she was let back in, and i think that she is looking for a new place to stay, which is for the best cause the place where she is now isn't a good one.  anywho, those were the 2 big events of this week.  we are going to bakersfield tomorrow at like 5 in the morning and we will be there all week long and will be back in our area friday at like 6 PM.  so it should be a crazy week, i'll let you know what happened next week.  sorry this was a story email, i'll try to do better next week, i just wanted to tell these two crazy stories.  i love you all and think about you alot, i hope to hear from you soon.  mom i'm sending the camera card home today i promise, cross my heart!  church is true, too many "cooincidences" happen daily for it not to be

Love you all!

Elder Larsen

week 5

Hey family, how are you all this week?

i hope you are all still alive and well, i'm guessing that mom and the kids are getting home tomorrow?  i hope that everyone had fun and learned alot.  i only have a few memories of when we went on the last BIG church history trip cause i was kinda young i think.  well we had a great week, super busy, we taught a ton of lessons and recieved alot of success from the lord.  we were blessed with 2 new investigators and alot of opportunities to improve.  we have witnessed many miricles in my short time here, one of the more prominate ones being that of the grumpy less active that slowly got more happier the longer we stayed, and by the time we left she was super happy to have had us over and smiling and stuff, so we taught this less active yesterday and we didn't know what to expect as we approached the door, whether she would be mad and scary looking at the beginning and then start to soften up at the end or whether she would be happy right from the get go.... well thankfully it was the latter, she was super happy, a completely changed person, she has, in a short period of 3 visits, become one of my favorite people, she is smiling and happy and participates, she still has a long way to go but she is well on the path toward reactivating.  we were also able to teach our less active guatamalan family for really the 1st time this past week!  they were found tracting, they were baptised in guatemala and moved to the states like 15 or more years ago and since they moved here they haven't gone to church once.... sooooo needless to say we had no record of them, but we found them and they are awesome, I LOVE GUATEMALANS!!!!  all are super funny and way fun to be around.  we had a lesson on prayer and the dad was like "how would you put prayer into a modern term?" and he was asking super good questions about prayer, we went into this huge analogy about how prayer is making a phone call to God and so then he asked, "what is God's number?" haha it was funny, we told him that in order to reach him we have to dial "or pray right" so we taught him the steps of prayer and at the end of the lesson he prayed, it was excellent!!  

Esmeralda is also progressing very rapidly, she is all gung-ho about everything, her date is the 14th of August and she is doing good, except for she was sick yesterday so she wasn't able to go to church, but she is still awesome.  Sixto is being a bit of a bum, he isn't keeping commitments and we think he may just be telling us what we want to hear, we'll see what happens with him this week.  OH also, got a big surprise last week.  we got news that we will be going to bakersfield next week from tuesday to friday for one of the new leadership training meetings..... we aren't going back to my area, we're going to North bakersfield zone, we're going back to Elder Skovran's 1st area, i'm soooo jealious, hopefully we can go back to south bakes next time we have this meeting cause i really miss the Quels, SPEAKING OF WHICH, they are getting sealed at the end of AUGUST!!!!! and i might get to go!!!!  i'm super excited and i hope everything works out ok, i sent them a letter asking for the exact date and time so i can ask president.  anywho, so we're not going to be in our area for the entire week 6 almost, soooo our area is going to die.... we get back one day before Esmeralda's scheduled baptisimal interview, so we have to prepare her well cause we won't have much time to teach her before her date during week 6.  ahhh we also met a crazy this week, his name is jose and he is crazy, he thinks that he is reincarnated and that Heavenly Father has rejected christ for a reason i won't tell you and that he has chosen him (jose) as his new "only begotten" he also talkes to god quite frequently, which is good, except the sensation he says he feels and the way that he talkes to God sounds very much like some very hard core drugs to me.... oh, and heavenly Father apparently lives in a castle made out of crystal... could be.... i don't know..... the 1st thing that came to my mind was "so God lives on Krypton...." ANYWHO, he was quite interesting.  well my time is up, we are having a Zone Activity now so i gotta get running, i love you all and hope and pray for your continued safty and getting blessings and stuff ;]

Love,

Elder Larsen

week 4

Dear Family,

well, i'm probably on the nicest computer of my entire mission today, flat High Def screen, nice keyboard, and fast internet....it's quite nice.  so we had an excellent week, very successful.  we invited one of our investigators to baptism and he accepted, we're not 100% sure how commited he is, but we're working with him on it.  we met most of our goals and have a ton of potential with alot of our investigators.  we worked hard and had alot of success.  so your trip sounds super fun mom, i;m kinda jealous, but thats ok cause you and i got our own mini church history/temple hopping trip so i will survive haha.  you probably saw sister hanson or her parents at the hill cumorah pagent cause they are in charge of it.  pretty nifty eh?  

so we had Zone Conference on Friday down in Solvang, this little dutch town, it seriously looks like a small dutch village, it's super cool looking, when we come back to visit we have to go there.  anywho, so Brother Heaton and Brother Jarman came to instruct us a little about the new changes that are being made in all of the missions.  it was super cool, we talked about how important prayer really is and how important it is for them to pray in that first visit.  so we did alot of role plays and really focused on getting them to kneel and say the closing prayer and ask specifically if what we had just taught them was true or not.  we applied it with 3 of our invistigators that same day and saw amazing success, the spirit, that feeling of peace was definatly there and plus now they are more likely to pray on their own, cause alot of people say they pray, but most have never prayed the correct way before, so that is why it is so crucial that they pray in this first visit so that we can see and evaluate their prayer, it was pure awesome-ness.  the 2nd thing that was taught to us is how to use the book of mormon effectivly in our teaching as well as how to introduce it.  i learned a little but me and elder skovran were already doing like 95% of what they taught us... not to say we're "that good" or anything, but we did learn and practice how to read with them in the scriptures, cause, just like prayer, if we read with them and help them to understand the scriptures when we are with them, they are more likely to read and understand them on their own, which is crucial to be able to receive revelation through the BOM.  it was a very very different Zone Conference but it was very benificial and  a good use of time as well, i liked it alot..... and because of the changes in mission schedule, i only have one more zone conference left.... so i'm kinda sad... no i'm really sad that i don't get to see this new program take affect, cause just like when preach my gosple came out it made a better missionary, this new program and way of doing things is going to make a new calibur of missionary and i'm going to miss the majority of it, lucky brandon and taylor and jordan and derek, this is going to be the coolest and best time to be a missionary that the world has ever seen since the beginning of time.  anywho, i hope you all have a wonderful week, i'll write brandon an email, i'll also write him a letter if i get a chance, so hard to find time to do stuff..... i love you all.

Elder Larsen#1