Week 1 y de nuevo empezamos

Hola Familia!!!

como estan?  con frio creo ... jaja.  how is everyone doing?  i'm doing great for the most part!  Elder Mendez and I are staying together for one more transfer, and we're pretty sure he'll leave after this one is over.  wow, Transfer # 10!!!!  I feel and look older and older every day.  i start my days fine and stuff and then by the time we are done with planning at night time i have these huge black bags under my eyes .... and i know this because elder mendez constantly reminds me and has this fetish for taking or rather trying to take pics of me when i make my nightly phone calls to the members of my district .... so this week was good in some aspects and bad in others, number of lessons took a dive bomb here in santa paula, us and the sisters both weren't able to teach many lessons.  the good news is that Davawn and Victor are still progressing, Davawn came to church and is still reading and we have a FHE with her and Lucy tonight, she is going to teach us about Strength For Youth and we are going to teach a lesson about the Gosple.  Victor is doing well minus the fact that he couldn't come to church yesterday cause he randomly got called to work at like 3 in the morning .... dang adversary ..... so we had to push his date back a week cause he has to come to church 3 times before he can get baptised.  we are making some head way with Candido Garcia and Emiliano Gaxiola, they are both interested and want to learn, but shy away from baptism alot, please pray for them, they need it.  The Presiado family is doing AWESOME!!!! we had a really really cool lesson with them where we watched "Between Heaven and Earth" and talked about the temple and now they are excited to go one day and are going to make a family goal to go to the temple!!! hopefully i am still here so i can go.  on the mission and off, people tell you, OH you'll learn to love the people, well with them and a few other individuals i have realized that statement.  i have grown to love the Presiado Family and it's a weird feeling kinda to worry and care about someone that i haven't known for that long, anywho, they are awesome and progressing and coming back to church even though they don't own a car, they find some way to get to church which is a good 20 mins away by car.  but we are trying to combine the group in fillmore and all the members in Santa Paula and maybe the ones in Ventura and make a branch/ward that meets in Santa Paula, cause that really is and would be much easier for everyone, i dunno, it's a work in progress. 

AHHHH Elder Hawes and Triana are dying this week (leaving to their homes) ..... i'm super sad, both my Parents (from the mission) are going home at the same time and because nothing is happening with us i can't go to transfer meeting and say bye .... i called Elder Triana a few days ago and said bye and Elder Hawes is going to try to stop by on his way to transfer meeting and say bye ..... AND!!! THE QUELS ARE GOING TO TRANSFER MEETING TO SAY BYE AND I CAN'T EVEN GO!!!!  ahhhhh i so want to see them, i told Elder Hawes to  tell them to stop by santa paula cause it's on the way to bakersfield from ventura and say hi to me .... man i miss them alot ..... 

Lets seeee we kinda got into a bash with this Christian guy that was right about alot of stuff but wrong on the simplist things, and he knew his bible super well, like amazingly good. but he also had a little cheat sheet of scripture references that his pastor had given him and he had to look at it a few times.  elder mendez is much more competitive than i am and so he kinda took charge and then got owned by this guy ..... for 3 hours ..... i felt bad.  i dunno, bible bashing is pointless and a big waste of time and this guy just went on and on and on, and when i tried to stop it he kinda just ignored me and kept going.  in the end we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it, i think he's just gonna go on the internet and find some Anti-Mormon stuff ..... and he said that he liked us cause we belive that Jehova and Christ are the same person ... but he doesn't like how we don't beleive that the Holy Ghost is the father of Christ .... ANYWHO, it didn't really get heated, but it was a good discussion/ argument, we're gonna go back in a few days and see if he actually read, if he gets converted he'd be a super strong member.  

OK well 2 other things that happened this week both bad ...... the first, not so bad, i got hit on by a cashier at Rite Aid, a CVS type of place, she always says when we buy stuff from there, cause she is our cashier alot, do you guys save people?  or who did you save today?  or what do you save people from?  soooo this time she called me hun and winked at me and gave me like 20 tickets for this monopoly game that Rite Aid is doing when i was only supposed to get 1 .... it was creepy and now i'm scared to go in there ..... second and worse thing .... i got pulled over ..... here in California they have these random cross walks and you push a button on the sidewalk and a bunch of lights built into the road start blinking, it's really quite a smart invention, anywho, so a person pushes the button, the lights light up and the cars stop the person crosses and the cars go again, really quite simple.  now i wasn't speeding, but i guess i didn't see the guy on the sidewalk who was about 5 ft from the button when i was like 15 ft from the lights, and he was walking rather fast, got to the light pushed the button, didn't even wait to see if it was clear and walked, by the time the lights started to flash i was within 10 ft of the lights so i couldn't really stop cause i was going like 25, the speed limit, anywho, so he was like within 5 ft of me when i crossed the crosswalk.  it was a really close call as far as me getting a ticket cause it was the guys fault too cause he didn't look nor wait, but the ideal should have been that i saw him walking on the sidewalk and stopped in anticipation that he would hit the button, but half the people that cross those buttons on the sidewalk just hit them for fun and keep walking ...... so i didn't think, or stop and there was a dumb little bike cop sitting back from the corner perpendicular to the road on which i was driving and he stopped me and gave me a ticket .... California is bankrupt, the economy here is dive bombing and so tickets are super costly here, i asked a member of our branch who is going to college to be a cop about how much she thinks it could turn out and she said anywhere from $100 to $300 probably in the 200's ..... absolutely ridiculous, for that reason alone i will never live here in CA after my mission, this all happened on Wed and it takes a week for them to process stuff, so this member is going to look it up for me and tell me how much it is and i'll let you know, i'll just pay it out of whats on my home card, i think there should be enough on there, and i'll make do with what i have on there till Dec cause it really is my fault even if it isn't 100% fair .... life really isn't fair i guess.  alright, well i have to get going, the church is true, i have felt the Saviors love for me this week i want you to know.  He does love us, Rev 20:19-20 or somewhere in Rev 20 talkes about the love that Christ has for us, we should do our very best to show our love to him by being obedient to the commandments with which we have been entrusted, for truly only by being obedient will we ever accept the sacrifice that he gave us.  

BHL how goes the preparation????? any other cool things you have learned about your mission?  AH bought a pair of pants for 4 bucks cause my other ones ripped from the pocket down about 6 inches ... i'm gonna try and sew it but .... well ..... i'm an elder and we don't do that very well.  

Remember that i love you!!!!!

Elder Larsen

Here's a recent picture taken mid January.  I'll try to get some pictures uploaded soon!

week 6 and counting

hey family, how are you all?

BRAZIL??????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WHOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, que lastima que BHL va a hablar portugese, pero caiga como caiga.  wow, sister benson called me ...... on thursday i think in the morning and told me to guess where my brother was going .... i'm pretty sure mom asked her to do that .... and i guessed Brazil on the 1st guess, wow, Sao Palo Brazil, i think i know someone who knows someone who is in that mission.  that's awesome, i'm very exticed for you BHL.  and wow .... you just get thrown into the MTC over there .... wow .... be patient and pray alot and you'll pick up the language faster that you'll think, Portugese and Spanish are very similar ... i think it sounds like retarded spanish personally but i'm kind of Biased =]   When do you go to the MTC?  some time early june i think ..... i'll miss ya by 6 1/2 ish months, oh well i'll see ya again.  well cool, i'm glad that the waiting is over .... TRL you're next.

Well this past week was very interesting, we played soccer last monday as a ZONE and had lots of fun, we had a FHE on the Isaiah Chapters of 2nd nephi .... that was fun .... with Davawn, she is awesome, then tuesday it rained for alot of the day ...... stupid rain, man, makes missionary work not as fun, but then it stopped and we went tracting, and we ran into this catholic guy ..... we said that the only way to know if our messege was true was to pray about it .... i'm pretty sure he didn't understand us, he must have thought that we wanted to say a prayer with him, so he invited us in and we watched him do a "Rosary", which is a prayer that catholics pray to the Virgin, those cruzafixes that they wear have a certain number of beads on them and each bead represents a prayer ....... the same prayer ...... over and over and over and over.  so we watched this guy do that and he would randomly look at us for us to participate with him but we had no idea how to do anything so we just sat there and he was like "what a shame it is that you don't know how to pray" so we spent (wasted) about 40 mins with this guy and his wife, we talked about Catholic doctrine and stuff and we basically confuzed him pretty bad cause he kept contradicting himself and we kind lovingly called him out on it .... sigh .... anywho, so that was tuesday, then wednesday we had District Meeting and it went well, my 3rd, we also had presidents interviews, which also went well in spite of us not having keys and having to have our interviews in our car.  i also taught a drunk guy some english ..... that was fun, i doubt he remembered anything.  Thursday was a good day, we talked with Victor, our investigator that is going to get Baptised on the 27th, he is from Guatemala and is quite awesome, super ready.  Friday something funny happened, we were at lunch and i guess i had something on my face and my comp said (he obviously wasn't thinking and wasnt in the apartment mentally) "here are some napkins babe".  oh i pretty much died laughing, and he was super embarrased and now thinks that i think that he is gay. hahaha poor elder mendez, he'll survive though.  

SATURDAY!!!!!!  awesome day Davawn got baptised!!!!! YAY!!!!! we had the baptism at 6 PM, didn't start till about 6:30, took pics and practiced haha she was so scared elder mendez was going to drop her they practiced like 5 times, but everything went fine, during the baptism, and i confirmed her after the baptism cause she was going to bakersfield the next day to visit her dad.  PRESIDENT MURRI and his wife came and made everything worse as far as nerves ahhhh.  i got to do the intermediate piece and showed the last clip of "The Testaments" and bore testimony, then i compared the story in 2 Kings 22-23 to making a big change and getting baptised and we watched the new "old testaments" clip of that story in 2 Kings.  it is entitled,"One Voice" Josh Groban sung a song and it was the narroration of the story in 2 Kings.  it was super cool cause i had a super dry mouth cause of nerves, but my spanish came out perfect, crystal clear, i got like 4 comments on how good i spoke spanish after the service, i don't consider myself an incredibly good spanish speaker cause i speak too fast and i don't speak clear, but apparently the spirit was there helping everything to come out the way it was supposed to, it was really cool.  so then we had the baptism and ended up staying there till like 9:30 cause we couldn't get the dumb door to lock so we had to wait for someone with keys to lock it.  then we went home and forgot to fill up with gas AGAIN! so we spent alot of sunday walking like we did a few sundays ago, but it was alright and we did just fine.  

It was a good week, our Zone set standard for the mission this past week so we are doing really good.  gotta work hard.  so how is everything in smithfield?  how was valentines day?  it's been super hot here yesterday and today, 80 degrees man ..... humidity and sunny, i much prefer to be cold, not wet, not hot, but cold.  oh well.  so i have a request for you all when you get the chance will you send me your favorite scripture and tell me why it is your favorite and what you learn from it?   this will help me get some really good scriptures quick in my mind to pull out when circumstance permits.  thanks!  remember that i love you all, the library people are gonna kick me off soon cause i only have 30 mins.  the church is true, do the little things to get the big blessings.  BHL if you have any questions for me about anything just ask, i'll do my best to respond them.  sorry this is short, i look forward to learning from you and your favorite scriptures.  LOVE YA!

Elder Larsen

PS: both elder Hawes and Triana are dying ... going home ... next wednesday .... it's a sad time for me, both my "parents" are dying..... =/

Elder Larsen's LITTLE brother is soon to be Elder Larsen TOO!!!

Okay so I know this is Chris's blog... but I couldn't resist putting this info in for all those that know Brandon too.  Brandon received his mission call on Wednesday to the Sao Paulo Interlagos Brazil mission!  He reports to the Brazil MTC on June 16th and will be speaking Portuguese (eventually).  We left a message at the mission office in Ventura for them to call Chris and tell him (because he instructed us to do that).  The secretary called back the next day and spoke to Brandon and relayed Christopher's reaction - so that was cool.  Fun times ahead!

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