Wow,
so this week was way sweet. Ann Arbor was soooo sweet! Elder Bednar is amazing, words cant even describe what i want to say about it. It kinda stinks that i dont have notes to tell you guys about everything he said. He gave us a list of guidlines, the first one was. Do not take copious notes, he called it a foolish tradition of our fathers, he said what we need to be writing down are impressions that come to our mind during the meeting, NOT everything that is said. So basically i have like 4 sentances written down. Elder Bednar is so dang funny, ive never heard an apostle call someone a liar so many times as he did. He was talking about the notes we take and how we lose them and never read them again and if you are saying "Well Elder Bednar i look at them and study them later....You're LYING!" the entire meeting was very spiritual though. He didnt get up and give a talk, he asked us a question, then we were able to raise our hands if we wanted and share our thoughts or answer his question. It was basically a training meeting on how to preserve our agency. How we can teach our investigators how to act without being acted upon. One of the guidelines he gave was that he would never call on anyone, and he told us why. Because when you call on someone and put them on the spot, they have now become and object rather and agent unto themselves. The way we learn life lessons, life-changing lessons, is when we put the effort into acting for ourselves and growing on our own free will. The talks we were told to study before the trip were about faith, and how faith is a principle of action and power, and how we are to use faith when we teach and when we are learning. i dont even know what all to tell you without it being too confusing, because im almost confusing myself, haha. man it was good. He let us have a little question/answer thing with him and 3 members of the seventy, he basically told us that this is one of the only times in our lives we will be around an apostle in such a small meeting, so now is your time to ask questions. i wish i could tell you guys what was said, but we were very clearly told we werent permitted to. sorry. dang i feel like i just built up to this sweet story then just hit the delete button. haha. There is no doubt in my mind that Elder David A. Bednar is an apostle to the Lord Jesus Christ. he spoke with the power of God. That man knew the answer to every question that was thrown at him. he had a response to every sentance, through the spirit he broadened and opened my mind up to possibilities i thought were only possible in scripture stories. He is concerned for each of us, he told us at the start of that meeting that if he came and just gave us a talk it would be a cake-walk. But Using the Spirit to discern and to answer questions by the Spirit and to do everyhting that he did in that meeting was physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. I dont know what else to say, learn by the spirit, learn by faith. Faith is a principle of action and of power. There are things to act, and things to be acted upon, which are you? just a few thoughts to think about throughout your day.
As far as the area goes. Things are great. Me and Elder Lloyd before the ann arbor trip were constantly amazed about how little we know. How just when you think you have got it figured out, you are dead wrong. We were thinking about our teaching and we had a pretty crappy teaching experience with Scott, which we later talked about and life is just crazy. Elder Lloyd has been out 20 months and i have been out a year and we still have no clue what we were doing. Then Elder Bednar came and basically destroyed every ounce of confidence i have in my teaching. a good kind of destruction though, so we are in the process of reconstructing the way we teach, the way we commit and the way we have our investigators learn. In one week we went from being good teachers to noobs again. haha ITS SO AWESOME!
Noel came to church yesterday!!!!! Woohooo! She is the most golden investigator i have ever had. She keeps saying how when she prays before she reads she can finally learn and understand things, then she said. "im thinking about praying every morning" just simple things like that, but its so good to hear someone that is progressing and searching. Ive had to pull teeth with most of my gators and its good to know that if i commit her to do something, she will do it. so refreshing. We told her to pray about baptism, so next time we go over there we will talk about it more. I think we might see if she wants to set a date for a baptism and talk about how showing her faith "acting" is going to get her the answer she needs, and its going to show her desire and commitment. so hopefully it all turns out good.
Valorie is kind of in a mess. Her kids are giving her some trouble. Her 16 year old girl ran away to live with her boyfriend and is basically demanding money from her. Her other son who is 14 bought these wooden roses, all different colors to give to basically every woman in his life. his mom and he gave one to his teacher and it was a black rose....which is considered a death threat, and she freaked out and now theres a big deal about going to court and possible juvi, so she told us she has been doing a lot of soul searching, and thats one of the reasons she has commited to come to church every week she doesnt work, so things are good in a spiritual sense, but bad in every other way it seems. crazy people man. im so glad every day that i didnt grow up in Michigan with a bunch of...well ill just stop there before i say something i shouldnt....
Scott.....i dont know what happened with this man. You wouldnt believe the change that has taken place in the last 2 months. we went from being really friendly, laughing, teaching, the spirit was there, then we got on the Word of wisdom issue and im pretty sure Scott started lying to us and i think there were other things going on. and there were seriously times when we went over there that i wouldnt say more than a few sentances the whole time. i dont know what came over me, but it was like i was in this stupor every time we went over to teach him. Its the craziest thing. And im not sure if i can even go over there again. i dont know. Scott said in the future he might get baptized, but as of right now, things are too crazy and stressful. i dont know...
So theres the week for you. Scott Bartoszek from Muskegon called and wants to come up and see me and some other missionaries up north. So im going to email President and see if maybe next p day we can go up to Mackinac island and see the Upper Peninsula, so hopefully hes cool with it. I heard its amazing up there! so thats my weeks, hope y'all are having a good time reshingling the house, healing up from your wounds, working, playing, shredding on the guitar(Bri) Larsens rule! and the church is true, what more needs to be said? Love you guys. Peace
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Monday, June 21, 2010
June 14,2010
Buenos dias!
Wow this week has been crazy! So we had the 5 sets of splits that the branch set up, turns out they were very ineffective like we figured. We still only got 20 lessons...we got 24 the other week with only 2, so i dont know what those guys were thinking. It was pretty funny actually, they tried to set them up again this week and i raised my hand and was like "Can i say something?" and told them they werent effective at all so the most we will ever need is 3, and they all were complaining and stuff, and it took way too long to make them understand why we couldnt have every night of our week taken up by splits, becuase the most effective time of day for anything is in the evening, and i told them i didnt want to see investigators on splits and they were like well i dont agree with that. And i tried to explain but it was hopeless, the only people that understood what i was talking about were the younger folk. hahah. but i think we got it all figured out. We'll find out next week i guess! I thanked them for all their help though and made things better, because really this branch is very missionary oriented. They are just focusing on the wrong things. Its funny because they want to help us more than we can even come up with things to do!
OH! i forgot to mention this earlier! Me and the Lloyd are staying together one more transfer in the KKK! PJ finally listened to me! woot woot! so its going to be a sweet transfer, especially because a lot of fun things are going to be happening up here, like the cherry festival in Traverse and ill be here for most of July so all the fireworks and everything. yay! Plus our gators are being way cool now! so im excited to stay, i thought for sure the way Peej was talking that i was going to be transferred and made a DL, NOT YET PLEASE! hahah
So even though Scott went crazy and threw his baptism down the drain, we are making good progress with our other gators! Valorie Palmer came to church!!!!! She called us in the middle of the week and cancelled our appointment and told us she committed herself to come to church every other week when she doesnt have to work! So now that she came to church we can commit her to baptism, booyah! Noel didnt come to church like she said. I need to call her, she really wanted to bring her inactive dad to church too, so i dont know whats going on there, if she came to church once she would be golden! GOLDEN I SAY! And i called Scott and he sounded just normal as could be....so i set up an apointment to see him, so hopefully it all goes well. Maybe he will blow up at us too, then i can give him a piece of my mind...dont throw your life away because you got mad at your dad! Dang Ganderfolk. So even though our top gator kinda went off the deep end. other good things are starting to happen. One door closes and another opens baby.
Oh and mother....Im going to be driving to Traverse to pick up my package today. It was kinda funny when i got the little slip to pick my package up, it said stop in at UPS....in Traverse City...WHAT>! hah but im actually excited, because Traverse is the bomb and there is a music store there, and i have been wanting to play an electric guitar again....im thinking about buying one.... so its a win win for me, except for miles....
Oh and on tuesday night President Thomas asked me to give a talk in church, so that was stupid. But it actually turned out really well. It was on the scriptures and i got to preparing and the thought, "never get too comfortable" came to my mind so thats what direction i went with things. Dont get so comfortable with your life that you put off the things of God and stop your spiritual progression. It all turned out really well. I got to talking about when Nephi and his brothers got the brass plates and how they gave up everything they had back in Jerusalem and how the brass plates were so precious to Nephi and Lehi that they gave it all up without saying a word, because they knew that thats what the Lord wanted them to do, but Laman and Lemuel murmured from the minute the plan was presented and so the brass plates became something that was just an object, something that cost them their all their money and their lives back at jerusalem, Laman and Lemuel got stuck in this rut of murmuring and thinking more on their worldly desires that they put off the words of the Lord and eventually it led them to being a loathsome and evil people. Lehi and Nehi on the other hand loved the brass plates, they were precious in their sight, The first time Lehi read them and found out that the 5 books of Moses were in there and the other prophets, and his geneology, he felt the Spirit and he began to prophecy. It was such a simple process. He held the scriptures dear, he read, was filled with the Spirit, and because of that he was able to say things he couldnt normally say. Its the same process for us. Everytime we read our scriptures we will feel the Spirit and because of that Spirit our minds will be enlightened. so i asked the question. How do we view our scriptures? are they the Words of the Lord, sacred....or are they just something we lug around once a week. Then i talked about how most of us have had some kind of spiritual experience when reading the scriptures,( if you havent.. pray for one you will get it). These spiritual experiences are how our testimonies grow then i read alma 5:26, that talks about "if you have experienced this change of heart and have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, i would ask, can ye feel so now?"not exact...i think, but close enough. Can we feel so now? Do we still have these spiritual experiences in our lives that bolster our spiritual development? The scriptures are something we can open every day for spiritual power, do we take advantage of that blessing? Then i talked about my first time ever reading the scriptures and mom i talked about you too. haha so all in all it was good. I even had Elder Lloyd shaking his head yes or no to the questions i asked, and Kodee Oneil kept making faces until i stared at her for a good minute until she stopped. haha just like home, it was way sweet. I looked at my paper once! it was the least i had ever written down, this tiny peice of paper with a few scribbles and stuff. so im getting better at talks for real. So back to Kodee, she reminds me a lot of Brianne, so naturally i pick on her quite a bit, all in jest of course. She likes to point out every mistake i make and she gets so upset over the smallest things i swear, like i told her when she came over to meet our investigator she was the only one of the girls smiling and how awesome she was, then i told her she had a really cheesy smile and now she cant get over it. so i have a little sister to annoy again. Her dad even started siding with me a little bit, hah!(Brianne you dont have a cheesy smile, youre a lot cooler than Kodee too for sure)so that was a small side note. anyways, i gotta get going to Traverse before everything closes, sorry i cant write to all of you. Read your scriptures! love you guys, have a good week!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Wow this week has been crazy! So we had the 5 sets of splits that the branch set up, turns out they were very ineffective like we figured. We still only got 20 lessons...we got 24 the other week with only 2, so i dont know what those guys were thinking. It was pretty funny actually, they tried to set them up again this week and i raised my hand and was like "Can i say something?" and told them they werent effective at all so the most we will ever need is 3, and they all were complaining and stuff, and it took way too long to make them understand why we couldnt have every night of our week taken up by splits, becuase the most effective time of day for anything is in the evening, and i told them i didnt want to see investigators on splits and they were like well i dont agree with that. And i tried to explain but it was hopeless, the only people that understood what i was talking about were the younger folk. hahah. but i think we got it all figured out. We'll find out next week i guess! I thanked them for all their help though and made things better, because really this branch is very missionary oriented. They are just focusing on the wrong things. Its funny because they want to help us more than we can even come up with things to do!
OH! i forgot to mention this earlier! Me and the Lloyd are staying together one more transfer in the KKK! PJ finally listened to me! woot woot! so its going to be a sweet transfer, especially because a lot of fun things are going to be happening up here, like the cherry festival in Traverse and ill be here for most of July so all the fireworks and everything. yay! Plus our gators are being way cool now! so im excited to stay, i thought for sure the way Peej was talking that i was going to be transferred and made a DL, NOT YET PLEASE! hahah
So even though Scott went crazy and threw his baptism down the drain, we are making good progress with our other gators! Valorie Palmer came to church!!!!! She called us in the middle of the week and cancelled our appointment and told us she committed herself to come to church every other week when she doesnt have to work! So now that she came to church we can commit her to baptism, booyah! Noel didnt come to church like she said. I need to call her, she really wanted to bring her inactive dad to church too, so i dont know whats going on there, if she came to church once she would be golden! GOLDEN I SAY! And i called Scott and he sounded just normal as could be....so i set up an apointment to see him, so hopefully it all goes well. Maybe he will blow up at us too, then i can give him a piece of my mind...dont throw your life away because you got mad at your dad! Dang Ganderfolk. So even though our top gator kinda went off the deep end. other good things are starting to happen. One door closes and another opens baby.
Oh and mother....Im going to be driving to Traverse to pick up my package today. It was kinda funny when i got the little slip to pick my package up, it said stop in at UPS....in Traverse City...WHAT>! hah but im actually excited, because Traverse is the bomb and there is a music store there, and i have been wanting to play an electric guitar again....im thinking about buying one.... so its a win win for me, except for miles....
Oh and on tuesday night President Thomas asked me to give a talk in church, so that was stupid. But it actually turned out really well. It was on the scriptures and i got to preparing and the thought, "never get too comfortable" came to my mind so thats what direction i went with things. Dont get so comfortable with your life that you put off the things of God and stop your spiritual progression. It all turned out really well. I got to talking about when Nephi and his brothers got the brass plates and how they gave up everything they had back in Jerusalem and how the brass plates were so precious to Nephi and Lehi that they gave it all up without saying a word, because they knew that thats what the Lord wanted them to do, but Laman and Lemuel murmured from the minute the plan was presented and so the brass plates became something that was just an object, something that cost them their all their money and their lives back at jerusalem, Laman and Lemuel got stuck in this rut of murmuring and thinking more on their worldly desires that they put off the words of the Lord and eventually it led them to being a loathsome and evil people. Lehi and Nehi on the other hand loved the brass plates, they were precious in their sight, The first time Lehi read them and found out that the 5 books of Moses were in there and the other prophets, and his geneology, he felt the Spirit and he began to prophecy. It was such a simple process. He held the scriptures dear, he read, was filled with the Spirit, and because of that he was able to say things he couldnt normally say. Its the same process for us. Everytime we read our scriptures we will feel the Spirit and because of that Spirit our minds will be enlightened. so i asked the question. How do we view our scriptures? are they the Words of the Lord, sacred....or are they just something we lug around once a week. Then i talked about how most of us have had some kind of spiritual experience when reading the scriptures,( if you havent.. pray for one you will get it). These spiritual experiences are how our testimonies grow then i read alma 5:26, that talks about "if you have experienced this change of heart and have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, i would ask, can ye feel so now?"not exact...i think, but close enough. Can we feel so now? Do we still have these spiritual experiences in our lives that bolster our spiritual development? The scriptures are something we can open every day for spiritual power, do we take advantage of that blessing? Then i talked about my first time ever reading the scriptures and mom i talked about you too. haha so all in all it was good. I even had Elder Lloyd shaking his head yes or no to the questions i asked, and Kodee Oneil kept making faces until i stared at her for a good minute until she stopped. haha just like home, it was way sweet. I looked at my paper once! it was the least i had ever written down, this tiny peice of paper with a few scribbles and stuff. so im getting better at talks for real. So back to Kodee, she reminds me a lot of Brianne, so naturally i pick on her quite a bit, all in jest of course. She likes to point out every mistake i make and she gets so upset over the smallest things i swear, like i told her when she came over to meet our investigator she was the only one of the girls smiling and how awesome she was, then i told her she had a really cheesy smile and now she cant get over it. so i have a little sister to annoy again. Her dad even started siding with me a little bit, hah!(Brianne you dont have a cheesy smile, youre a lot cooler than Kodee too for sure)so that was a small side note. anyways, i gotta get going to Traverse before everything closes, sorry i cant write to all of you. Read your scriptures! love you guys, have a good week!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Monday, June 7, 2010
June 7,2010
This week was pretty horrible but good at the same time for real. So i think ill start with the bad stuff.
Scotts baptism is off.....hows that for a good start. He got back from detroit on thursday and i guess he blew up at his dad and apparently Scott is bipolar and he just crashed. Well after talking to his dad and stuff we called Scott that night and he basically said the baptisms off and he is going a different direction. When we asked what his plans were he said he was going back to the baptist church and cutting all ties with his dad. What the crap man. He said "you guys have more important things to do than waste your time with me" So that made me pretty mad to put it nicely. Im going to call him up tonight and tell him what we are even here on a mission for. ridiculous people man. They need to grow up, thats just it. Things were so good. he was done with everything. Ready for baptism, then this crap happens and he screws up that opportunity.
That was basically the bad thing that happened. Except Noel and Marcia didnt come to church. Plus the branch is freaking crazy, im going to have to rebuke them i think....They decided, without asking us or including us at all, to do splits every single night this week.....And we are supposed to come up with all the people to go see. So that means we have to find 20 appointments and shove them all into our 7-9 block of time..its just ridiculous im telling you. This branch is really focused on missionary work. but they dont understand what they are doing and they dont understand that the 20 lessons a week is a means to getting more investigators......i havent received one referral in the 3 months i have been here. They are focused way too much on lessons and not enough on anyhting else. we got 19 lessons this week and they were really dissapointed that we didnt reach 20.....so next week we are probably going to stand up in elders quorum and go over Elder Perrys challenge and tell them whats up basically. I love the branch, they are just missing the mark, most of my problems come from the Branch president and mission leader which is sad, and mom its going to be hard to stay away from that "wierd man" since he is our mission leader and he calls us like 8 times a day. But im doing my best, trust me. haha. He actually started calling private so we wouldnt know it was him...sneaky old man....
so on with the good stuff.
On wednesday we went on tradeofs with bear lake. I had Elder Bird.. hes a stud. We saw the Hinds who i think we have talked about and taught the restoration to the,. She brought up a bunch of questions about the priesthood and healings and stuff. Things that they had asked ministers and they didnt like the answers they had gotten. so they asked me the same questions and they liked all the answers, so that was good. but they are going to be hard. Storm started talking about how she knows she is saved and that she doesnt need to know about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith because she is already saved. They have both read the bom and prayed and never got an answer, so she still has a lot of questions and concerns with everything, eventually i told them to give the Book of Mormon another chance and i focused on praying sincerely and with real intent. and out of nowhere richard finally talks and he said " ya know what...We'll do it. We'll read it and pray about it" so hopefully they aren't too far gone and can read with open minds about it....crazy stuff.
Then we went over to see Noel! The young women came over before we started the lesson and brought some cookies and invited her out on wednesdays and it was really good. After they left she said she has been wanting to get back into youth groups and find some more friends. We taught her the plan of salvation, and it was awesome! she said it cleared up all her questions about it. The missionaries that had taught her in the past had confused her. She started bring up how they used tents and buildings to represent the kingdoms of glory and all this dumb clutter stuff. Thats why analogies and object lessons suck. Thank you Elder Jensen for saying no more to that. But it was good. i ended up leaving her with a soft baptismal commitment if you know what that is, she said yes and she told us she really wanted to come to church and she would come....but turns out they didnt. And crap i forgot to call them. Turns out she has a dang good voice too! We went to mancelona because they are having this festival up there and she made it to the finals in this singing contest. turns out she lost. She sang a Celine Dion song and i think thats why she didnt win..she hit all the notes and everything which was impressive, but its Celine dion......ya know?
We had interviews on Friday. They were a lot different than normal. We all met together in a room and he told us to think about what keeps us up at night, or something that is on your mind a lot, then think of the solution and then bear your testimony, and it was sweet. he started and then we went around the room. The spirit was there very strong and it was really good. Then we had individual interviews and he scared me a little not going to lie. He started talking about giving me "opportunities" and how he needs me in other areas for other tasks and stuff and he said that my shoulders are going to get a little broader with responsibilities....scary stuff. haha. This is what he opened everything up with "Elder Larsen, its been neat to see your growth and you are becoming a great missionary blah blah blah, and you might even amount to something." i was like wow President thank you, that means a lot. HAHA!!! Then he talked about how when we first came out with all the other mission presidents, they were all in a room and Elder Ballard got up to the pulpit and talking about the group he said "Its not much, but it will do." so it was in that kind of spirit....if that was supposed to make me feel better. haha. I told him i wanted to stay in kalkaska with Elder Lloyd one more transfer and he said its a good idea. but i cant promise you any more than that. so we will see what happens, transfer calls are this friday, so we will see how it all plays out then.
So things kinda sucked this week, but we have some new opportunities coming up, so hopefully we will see some good things happen this week. Something good is bound to happen after that crap, thats just how things work. So that my story and im sticking to it. love you guys, have a good one!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Scotts baptism is off.....hows that for a good start. He got back from detroit on thursday and i guess he blew up at his dad and apparently Scott is bipolar and he just crashed. Well after talking to his dad and stuff we called Scott that night and he basically said the baptisms off and he is going a different direction. When we asked what his plans were he said he was going back to the baptist church and cutting all ties with his dad. What the crap man. He said "you guys have more important things to do than waste your time with me" So that made me pretty mad to put it nicely. Im going to call him up tonight and tell him what we are even here on a mission for. ridiculous people man. They need to grow up, thats just it. Things were so good. he was done with everything. Ready for baptism, then this crap happens and he screws up that opportunity.
That was basically the bad thing that happened. Except Noel and Marcia didnt come to church. Plus the branch is freaking crazy, im going to have to rebuke them i think....They decided, without asking us or including us at all, to do splits every single night this week.....And we are supposed to come up with all the people to go see. So that means we have to find 20 appointments and shove them all into our 7-9 block of time..its just ridiculous im telling you. This branch is really focused on missionary work. but they dont understand what they are doing and they dont understand that the 20 lessons a week is a means to getting more investigators......i havent received one referral in the 3 months i have been here. They are focused way too much on lessons and not enough on anyhting else. we got 19 lessons this week and they were really dissapointed that we didnt reach 20.....so next week we are probably going to stand up in elders quorum and go over Elder Perrys challenge and tell them whats up basically. I love the branch, they are just missing the mark, most of my problems come from the Branch president and mission leader which is sad, and mom its going to be hard to stay away from that "wierd man" since he is our mission leader and he calls us like 8 times a day. But im doing my best, trust me. haha. He actually started calling private so we wouldnt know it was him...sneaky old man....
so on with the good stuff.
On wednesday we went on tradeofs with bear lake. I had Elder Bird.. hes a stud. We saw the Hinds who i think we have talked about and taught the restoration to the,. She brought up a bunch of questions about the priesthood and healings and stuff. Things that they had asked ministers and they didnt like the answers they had gotten. so they asked me the same questions and they liked all the answers, so that was good. but they are going to be hard. Storm started talking about how she knows she is saved and that she doesnt need to know about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith because she is already saved. They have both read the bom and prayed and never got an answer, so she still has a lot of questions and concerns with everything, eventually i told them to give the Book of Mormon another chance and i focused on praying sincerely and with real intent. and out of nowhere richard finally talks and he said " ya know what...We'll do it. We'll read it and pray about it" so hopefully they aren't too far gone and can read with open minds about it....crazy stuff.
Then we went over to see Noel! The young women came over before we started the lesson and brought some cookies and invited her out on wednesdays and it was really good. After they left she said she has been wanting to get back into youth groups and find some more friends. We taught her the plan of salvation, and it was awesome! she said it cleared up all her questions about it. The missionaries that had taught her in the past had confused her. She started bring up how they used tents and buildings to represent the kingdoms of glory and all this dumb clutter stuff. Thats why analogies and object lessons suck. Thank you Elder Jensen for saying no more to that. But it was good. i ended up leaving her with a soft baptismal commitment if you know what that is, she said yes and she told us she really wanted to come to church and she would come....but turns out they didnt. And crap i forgot to call them. Turns out she has a dang good voice too! We went to mancelona because they are having this festival up there and she made it to the finals in this singing contest. turns out she lost. She sang a Celine Dion song and i think thats why she didnt win..she hit all the notes and everything which was impressive, but its Celine dion......ya know?
We had interviews on Friday. They were a lot different than normal. We all met together in a room and he told us to think about what keeps us up at night, or something that is on your mind a lot, then think of the solution and then bear your testimony, and it was sweet. he started and then we went around the room. The spirit was there very strong and it was really good. Then we had individual interviews and he scared me a little not going to lie. He started talking about giving me "opportunities" and how he needs me in other areas for other tasks and stuff and he said that my shoulders are going to get a little broader with responsibilities....scary stuff. haha. This is what he opened everything up with "Elder Larsen, its been neat to see your growth and you are becoming a great missionary blah blah blah, and you might even amount to something." i was like wow President thank you, that means a lot. HAHA!!! Then he talked about how when we first came out with all the other mission presidents, they were all in a room and Elder Ballard got up to the pulpit and talking about the group he said "Its not much, but it will do." so it was in that kind of spirit....if that was supposed to make me feel better. haha. I told him i wanted to stay in kalkaska with Elder Lloyd one more transfer and he said its a good idea. but i cant promise you any more than that. so we will see what happens, transfer calls are this friday, so we will see how it all plays out then.
So things kinda sucked this week, but we have some new opportunities coming up, so hopefully we will see some good things happen this week. Something good is bound to happen after that crap, thats just how things work. So that my story and im sticking to it. love you guys, have a good one!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Sunday, June 6, 2010
June 6,2010
So Ryan went and broke the first bone in the family huh? Not a good door to be opening bill, hah. I hope you are doing good man, that sucks. You'll tell me how it happened of course. Im going to make a guess. You over-shot the landing and landed flat and your chest came down and smacked the handlebars....and you fell off the side of the bike and whimpered a little? thats my guess. Fill me in broseph! I hope you are doing good, you're in my prayers.
So last week we did really good number wise, and had some good results too! so on monday we went with Bro Mcduffie(our crazy mission leader)to help him with his hometeaching. well we got to the house and shared the message and he said we had to go, so we were there a total of like 10 minutes. When we got outside he said "I lied to those people.....Im not doing good, follow me to the hospital"......then he got in his car, so the whole time we were following him we were coming up with some pretty crazy conclusions about what was happening. We had heard that he has schizophrenia and minieres. So that leaves a whole slew of things, but after the 25 minute drive we reached the hospital and he gets out of the car and says. "im having a stroke, watch me walk in and make sure i make it." then he takes off.....leaving us more confused than ever and it was just crazy. Turns out they released him that night and everything was fine as far as i know. but dang man, He just drove 20 miles thinking he was going to have a stroke. Thats pretty crazy if you ask me. so that was our fun P-day night!
We went on tradeoffs with the ZL's this past wednesday. I love going with the ZL's they are always good dudes. we were actually able to see Christi Zattlin! i have tried to see her for months and finally got to talk to her and teach her. It was way cool. Shes an inactive member and she is way sweet. She has two kids that are way fun too. she said she will come back to church one of these next few sundays. so thats good. shes a recent convert that hasnt been to church in like a year or so. We are hoping we can start teaching her husband and maybe bring them all into the church.
So i cant remember if i told you guys, but this wednesday we have an appointment with the Kimblers, they are the family that we found a while back, We are mostly teaching Noel and Stephanie. But this wednesday we are going to go over and teach them the plan of salvation and 6:00 and hopefully we will get done with it by 7:30 because the young women here are going to stop by and meet her and bring some goodies(you know how girls are) and try to friendship her so she will come to church and feel welcome! How swet is that! If we can get these girls to church they are golden! So im way excited about it! We are having trade-offs that day too. And im going to have a young missionary with me, so it could be very interesting how it all plays out. im really excited for it though. that apartment is going to be crowded! ewww cooties.....
We saw grandma Haycraft again. She fed us dinner and we had a really good discussion about Prophets and the Spirit. She is so sincere when she asks too, ive never had anyone like that. I cant really pin her down yet, but i think she is a possible baptism in the near future. i call her grandma, because she is almost as sweet and nice and wonderful as my grandmas, so i go over there and sit down on the recliner and just chat with her. Shes just a little bit paranoid and crazy, hah. its all good. She wants us to come over one night with our guitars so we can sit around the fire and play for her. so that might be coming up.
We saw Scott a few different times last week. He is making progress with his coffee. or he is lying to us, im not 100 percent sure which one it is. But i have faith he will do the right thing. this is his last week to quit. The branch has been talking about setting up the food and everything for his baptism, so everyone is getting really excited about it, which is good. its been about a year since they have had a baptism. I hope i get to stay here one more transfer, i can see a bunch of good happening real soon.
Sister Wysocki had us over friday night to watch some fireworks, she buys a bunch of illegal fireworks and invites us over to watch them. haha that was sweet. We are going over there today to help her train her dog a little bit and golf a little and teach a lesson. So thats always good. This next week we are busy.....we have two sets of trade-offs, ill be staying in KKK(Kalkaska for short, or KaKaKa, like a crow would) for both of them thankfully, then we have interviews after that. plus we always have to come up with like 4 people for each split we go on with the members. so hopefully everything turns out.
This week i have been reading some of David A. Bednars training on Faith. It has been very very interesting, i wish i could remember everything from the first talk. This morning i read his talk on Asking in Faith. And i think it was very irefreshing how he brought up that asking in faith, isnt just praying its acting and asking What we should do. He used the example of Joseph Smith. When he was searching for the right church to join in his history he asks the question What is to be done? not simply what church is right. But which church should i join. He was asking for something that he fully intended to act on. he asked in Faith. He also used this example. And i have been guilty of this in the past..When we pray for the missionaries, we often say that they will be led to those searching for the gospel. and a lot of people dont know this, i didnt think about it before my mission, but missionaries are Full-time teachers, members are supposed to be the finders. in a perfect setting missionaries would never go out looking for people, members shold be giving them enough names to keep them busy so they dont have to find. There is a member here who went to Pocatello on his mission. He said he did a total of two hours of finding in his entire mission, thats becasuse the members were so good at finding for them. Elder Bednar said," Dont pawn your duty onto others!" hah so that was really interesting. just thought id share. But he said when we pray we should ask to have a missionary experience, someone to share the gospel with, pray for the strength to be able to share it and then when the opportunity comes up to do it! He said that if we would do that then missionary work would go forward ina remarkable way. And its true. Faith is the basis of everything in the gospel! everything rests upon our faith in Christ. And i know if we have enough faith, that we will grow more than we ever thought possible, and if we are truly willing to act, we will be given experiences here that will shape our lives for the better and strengthen our resolve for the work which we are called to do. I love you guys and hope everything goes well back home. Have a good week. The church is true!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
So last week we did really good number wise, and had some good results too! so on monday we went with Bro Mcduffie(our crazy mission leader)to help him with his hometeaching. well we got to the house and shared the message and he said we had to go, so we were there a total of like 10 minutes. When we got outside he said "I lied to those people.....Im not doing good, follow me to the hospital"......then he got in his car, so the whole time we were following him we were coming up with some pretty crazy conclusions about what was happening. We had heard that he has schizophrenia and minieres. So that leaves a whole slew of things, but after the 25 minute drive we reached the hospital and he gets out of the car and says. "im having a stroke, watch me walk in and make sure i make it." then he takes off.....leaving us more confused than ever and it was just crazy. Turns out they released him that night and everything was fine as far as i know. but dang man, He just drove 20 miles thinking he was going to have a stroke. Thats pretty crazy if you ask me. so that was our fun P-day night!
We went on tradeoffs with the ZL's this past wednesday. I love going with the ZL's they are always good dudes. we were actually able to see Christi Zattlin! i have tried to see her for months and finally got to talk to her and teach her. It was way cool. Shes an inactive member and she is way sweet. She has two kids that are way fun too. she said she will come back to church one of these next few sundays. so thats good. shes a recent convert that hasnt been to church in like a year or so. We are hoping we can start teaching her husband and maybe bring them all into the church.
So i cant remember if i told you guys, but this wednesday we have an appointment with the Kimblers, they are the family that we found a while back, We are mostly teaching Noel and Stephanie. But this wednesday we are going to go over and teach them the plan of salvation and 6:00 and hopefully we will get done with it by 7:30 because the young women here are going to stop by and meet her and bring some goodies(you know how girls are) and try to friendship her so she will come to church and feel welcome! How swet is that! If we can get these girls to church they are golden! So im way excited about it! We are having trade-offs that day too. And im going to have a young missionary with me, so it could be very interesting how it all plays out. im really excited for it though. that apartment is going to be crowded! ewww cooties.....
We saw grandma Haycraft again. She fed us dinner and we had a really good discussion about Prophets and the Spirit. She is so sincere when she asks too, ive never had anyone like that. I cant really pin her down yet, but i think she is a possible baptism in the near future. i call her grandma, because she is almost as sweet and nice and wonderful as my grandmas, so i go over there and sit down on the recliner and just chat with her. Shes just a little bit paranoid and crazy, hah. its all good. She wants us to come over one night with our guitars so we can sit around the fire and play for her. so that might be coming up.
We saw Scott a few different times last week. He is making progress with his coffee. or he is lying to us, im not 100 percent sure which one it is. But i have faith he will do the right thing. this is his last week to quit. The branch has been talking about setting up the food and everything for his baptism, so everyone is getting really excited about it, which is good. its been about a year since they have had a baptism. I hope i get to stay here one more transfer, i can see a bunch of good happening real soon.
Sister Wysocki had us over friday night to watch some fireworks, she buys a bunch of illegal fireworks and invites us over to watch them. haha that was sweet. We are going over there today to help her train her dog a little bit and golf a little and teach a lesson. So thats always good. This next week we are busy.....we have two sets of trade-offs, ill be staying in KKK(Kalkaska for short, or KaKaKa, like a crow would) for both of them thankfully, then we have interviews after that. plus we always have to come up with like 4 people for each split we go on with the members. so hopefully everything turns out.
This week i have been reading some of David A. Bednars training on Faith. It has been very very interesting, i wish i could remember everything from the first talk. This morning i read his talk on Asking in Faith. And i think it was very irefreshing how he brought up that asking in faith, isnt just praying its acting and asking What we should do. He used the example of Joseph Smith. When he was searching for the right church to join in his history he asks the question What is to be done? not simply what church is right. But which church should i join. He was asking for something that he fully intended to act on. he asked in Faith. He also used this example. And i have been guilty of this in the past..When we pray for the missionaries, we often say that they will be led to those searching for the gospel. and a lot of people dont know this, i didnt think about it before my mission, but missionaries are Full-time teachers, members are supposed to be the finders. in a perfect setting missionaries would never go out looking for people, members shold be giving them enough names to keep them busy so they dont have to find. There is a member here who went to Pocatello on his mission. He said he did a total of two hours of finding in his entire mission, thats becasuse the members were so good at finding for them. Elder Bednar said," Dont pawn your duty onto others!" hah so that was really interesting. just thought id share. But he said when we pray we should ask to have a missionary experience, someone to share the gospel with, pray for the strength to be able to share it and then when the opportunity comes up to do it! He said that if we would do that then missionary work would go forward ina remarkable way. And its true. Faith is the basis of everything in the gospel! everything rests upon our faith in Christ. And i know if we have enough faith, that we will grow more than we ever thought possible, and if we are truly willing to act, we will be given experiences here that will shape our lives for the better and strengthen our resolve for the work which we are called to do. I love you guys and hope everything goes well back home. Have a good week. The church is true!
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Monday, May 24, 2010
May 24,2010
So this week was pretty interesting.....gotta pull out the old planner/brain so i can remember it....so on tuesday we had splits. I went with the Duff man and did his hometeaching basically we read the article and they werent very interested so naturally i talked for like 10 minutes to hopefully get them discuss something with me. but no luck. So we left there and went over to Nikki Wilkes house and gave her a blessing for her health, it was kinda wierd im not going to lie, but the next day a member came over and told me that Nikki was really happy that we came over and that the blessing brought her a lot of comfort and peace, so that was sweet.
President is doing some wierd things lately, thats how im going to start this story off.....So there we were...in our apartment, we get a call from the Zone leaders and they tell us that president wants them and us to go on trade-offs with the sisters......my first thought was someone is lying or playing some joke on us. but nope. we went over to traverse city and met up with the zone leaders and cruised down to cadillac, turns out we show up 30 minutes late....the sisters are nowhere to be found.... we call them and they totally didnt believe us, so they ended up calling President and he told them that it was true. so they come down to the church and meet up with us. We watched them do their weekly planning and it was super awkward, they still didnt believe us by the way....so finally the moment comes when we split up and NOW they believe us. so me and Elder Lloyd went with Sister Davies, who has been out for 3 months, and the Zone leaders went with Sister Barras who is still in training and for the whole day we went to appointments with them and it was kinda wierd, the sisters were freaking out at first but things were good after that and we had some fun. So then we went back to Traverse City, and the elders apartment there was so cool. It has this balcony and it was on a hill so we could overlook a lot of the country around there and there were hills and stuff, so it reminded me a lot about home, so that was sad, but im over it now. Me and Lloyd stayed out there for like 5 hours that night so we only got 3 hours of sleep because zone conference was the next day, so we were up and like 5 and drove for over 2 hours down to mt pleasant. Zone conference was pretty sweet i guess. Darley brought me 6 big bags of m&ms, he comes over to me so our backs are facing everyone and opens up his backpack, like we are doing some drug-deal, and the entire thing is filled with m&ms haha! hes a stud. So heres some exciting news. On June 19th the entire mission is going down to Ann Arbor to see Elder Bednar with the Detroit mission! I dont know how PJ is doing all this but i like it. so im excited for that. I guess we are all just going to meet in the chapel and gym of the stake center and he is going to talk to us for 3 hours. Answering questions and teaching us. so thats way exciting!
We had a lot of canceled appointments this week which was frustrating because we were already 2 days out of our area, so our numbers suffered from that, but its all good. Branch President Thomas called us into the young womens yesterday and had us tell all the girls about our investigators Noel and Stephanie Kimbler, so they are going to go over to their house next wednesday and see them and invite them out to church! So that was really cool. Branches are so cool like that, we also had a good-bye party after church for two members that are moving to arizona, haha. Only in a branch, thats for sure. everyone is pretty close up here. Oh heres something funny. So this branch feeds us pretty dang good like 5 times a week about. but Bro hoover had to cancel, so he called up Brother Utykanski to ask him who he should call to have them feed us. Well he wasnt able to find anyone to feed us. So bro UTY caught me yesterday and asked if we got fed and i said no, but its all good people are busy, it happens.... things like that, and he looks at me and says Thats bull crap(edited for the delicate minds out there) then goes on about how we send these kids out and the least we can do is feed them so they dont starve to death doing the Lords work, and he just went off. he was so mad that we missed one day last week. HAH! This branch is so cool. i love it. We found out Scott is still smoking, i guess its down to one a day, but that was disappointing because he said he was done. We are going over there tonight to tell him to put away the childish things dadgumit!
This coming week is going to be good though. We have trade-offs with the Zls and there is an inactive lady that buys a lot of illegal fireworks and she is going to shoot those off and golf in her backyard, plus we might be going fishing with this guy that has been coming to church for 4 years that isnt baptized. so maybe we can catch something there(if you know what i mean), so it should be pretty good. So get this Austin Allen just emailed me and he didnt go snowboarding ONCE since i left! what the crap? he is in SLC right now finishing up his massage therapy school. he says he is graduating this fall, so thats good of him.
So life is good right now. Elder Lloyd is awesome! the work is picking up and we have some sweet goals for the rest of this transfer, so life is good, me and Elder Lloyd have gotten into some crazy discussions this last week about the gospel and the plan and its so crazy how God has made everything so complex...yet so simple. Thats always been the weirdest thing for me. At first glance, for example the Gospel, its really quite simple. We need to have faith, repent, get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end., but when you start to study its design and the why and how it gets so dang complex i have to take a nap every 10 minutes, its like a mind-grenade! But we dont really need to know, He just tells us to follow it. I have been learning a lot lately. Seems like this week it has been about Gods organization and how everything is in order and fits perfectly where it is placed. I cant give you an example or i would just confuse myself, haha. But God is a God of Order, when you start looking around you and when you start breaking things down...its all so perfect. and its when those things get out of order that when the world or an individual starts to digress. I hope that makes sense. i dont know how to explain it without going into too much detail, but back to the basics. God Loves us thats what i know, we wouldnt have such a beautiful world if he didnt, and we sure as heck wouldnt have the blessings that we do have, He is there, and He wants the best for us. God would never give us something or do something that would hurt us spiritually. Life is full of problems yes but those are the times that we grow the most and learn the most. Just like in Alma 7 when it is talking about Christ suffering for all our temptations and pains and everything, it says "that He may know how to succor his people." and so he can know how to have mercy. And something i was thinking about is we all do the same thing up to a point, its our own trials that we overcome, but when we do overcome those, thats when we really KNOW what it feels like for other people in that same situation, THEN we can help them because we have been there. so maybe our trials aren't necessarily for our own personal growth always, but for those people that we will come in contact with that are going through a similar experience. Chew on that! But of course we always have Christ. He is our strength and our hope, Only he can save us from the Fall and He has if we will follow His gospel and thats what ill leave you with, so i hope i wasnt in ramble mode there, but there you have it. So i hope all goes well with you guys this week. Love you bunches.
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
President is doing some wierd things lately, thats how im going to start this story off.....So there we were...in our apartment, we get a call from the Zone leaders and they tell us that president wants them and us to go on trade-offs with the sisters......my first thought was someone is lying or playing some joke on us. but nope. we went over to traverse city and met up with the zone leaders and cruised down to cadillac, turns out we show up 30 minutes late....the sisters are nowhere to be found.... we call them and they totally didnt believe us, so they ended up calling President and he told them that it was true. so they come down to the church and meet up with us. We watched them do their weekly planning and it was super awkward, they still didnt believe us by the way....so finally the moment comes when we split up and NOW they believe us. so me and Elder Lloyd went with Sister Davies, who has been out for 3 months, and the Zone leaders went with Sister Barras who is still in training and for the whole day we went to appointments with them and it was kinda wierd, the sisters were freaking out at first but things were good after that and we had some fun. So then we went back to Traverse City, and the elders apartment there was so cool. It has this balcony and it was on a hill so we could overlook a lot of the country around there and there were hills and stuff, so it reminded me a lot about home, so that was sad, but im over it now. Me and Lloyd stayed out there for like 5 hours that night so we only got 3 hours of sleep because zone conference was the next day, so we were up and like 5 and drove for over 2 hours down to mt pleasant. Zone conference was pretty sweet i guess. Darley brought me 6 big bags of m&ms, he comes over to me so our backs are facing everyone and opens up his backpack, like we are doing some drug-deal, and the entire thing is filled with m&ms haha! hes a stud. So heres some exciting news. On June 19th the entire mission is going down to Ann Arbor to see Elder Bednar with the Detroit mission! I dont know how PJ is doing all this but i like it. so im excited for that. I guess we are all just going to meet in the chapel and gym of the stake center and he is going to talk to us for 3 hours. Answering questions and teaching us. so thats way exciting!
We had a lot of canceled appointments this week which was frustrating because we were already 2 days out of our area, so our numbers suffered from that, but its all good. Branch President Thomas called us into the young womens yesterday and had us tell all the girls about our investigators Noel and Stephanie Kimbler, so they are going to go over to their house next wednesday and see them and invite them out to church! So that was really cool. Branches are so cool like that, we also had a good-bye party after church for two members that are moving to arizona, haha. Only in a branch, thats for sure. everyone is pretty close up here. Oh heres something funny. So this branch feeds us pretty dang good like 5 times a week about. but Bro hoover had to cancel, so he called up Brother Utykanski to ask him who he should call to have them feed us. Well he wasnt able to find anyone to feed us. So bro UTY caught me yesterday and asked if we got fed and i said no, but its all good people are busy, it happens.... things like that, and he looks at me and says Thats bull crap(edited for the delicate minds out there) then goes on about how we send these kids out and the least we can do is feed them so they dont starve to death doing the Lords work, and he just went off. he was so mad that we missed one day last week. HAH! This branch is so cool. i love it. We found out Scott is still smoking, i guess its down to one a day, but that was disappointing because he said he was done. We are going over there tonight to tell him to put away the childish things dadgumit!
This coming week is going to be good though. We have trade-offs with the Zls and there is an inactive lady that buys a lot of illegal fireworks and she is going to shoot those off and golf in her backyard, plus we might be going fishing with this guy that has been coming to church for 4 years that isnt baptized. so maybe we can catch something there(if you know what i mean), so it should be pretty good. So get this Austin Allen just emailed me and he didnt go snowboarding ONCE since i left! what the crap? he is in SLC right now finishing up his massage therapy school. he says he is graduating this fall, so thats good of him.
So life is good right now. Elder Lloyd is awesome! the work is picking up and we have some sweet goals for the rest of this transfer, so life is good, me and Elder Lloyd have gotten into some crazy discussions this last week about the gospel and the plan and its so crazy how God has made everything so complex...yet so simple. Thats always been the weirdest thing for me. At first glance, for example the Gospel, its really quite simple. We need to have faith, repent, get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end., but when you start to study its design and the why and how it gets so dang complex i have to take a nap every 10 minutes, its like a mind-grenade! But we dont really need to know, He just tells us to follow it. I have been learning a lot lately. Seems like this week it has been about Gods organization and how everything is in order and fits perfectly where it is placed. I cant give you an example or i would just confuse myself, haha. But God is a God of Order, when you start looking around you and when you start breaking things down...its all so perfect. and its when those things get out of order that when the world or an individual starts to digress. I hope that makes sense. i dont know how to explain it without going into too much detail, but back to the basics. God Loves us thats what i know, we wouldnt have such a beautiful world if he didnt, and we sure as heck wouldnt have the blessings that we do have, He is there, and He wants the best for us. God would never give us something or do something that would hurt us spiritually. Life is full of problems yes but those are the times that we grow the most and learn the most. Just like in Alma 7 when it is talking about Christ suffering for all our temptations and pains and everything, it says "that He may know how to succor his people." and so he can know how to have mercy. And something i was thinking about is we all do the same thing up to a point, its our own trials that we overcome, but when we do overcome those, thats when we really KNOW what it feels like for other people in that same situation, THEN we can help them because we have been there. so maybe our trials aren't necessarily for our own personal growth always, but for those people that we will come in contact with that are going through a similar experience. Chew on that! But of course we always have Christ. He is our strength and our hope, Only he can save us from the Fall and He has if we will follow His gospel and thats what ill leave you with, so i hope i wasnt in ramble mode there, but there you have it. So i hope all goes well with you guys this week. Love you bunches.
--
\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Thursday, May 20, 2010
May 17,2010
Hello all.
I got to go to the temple! Woot woot! It was really cool. Detroit has a pretty small temple, there was only one endowment room and a small baptismal font, but it was still the temple! It was really refreshing going back. I forgot a lot of stuff, so im glad Peej was able to get one approved. It was a long drive though! We left our place at 630 in the morning and got down there at 11, we ended up getting home at 6 or 7 that night. hah, so other than the kinked neck and the long drive it was pretty sweet. Oh and the awkward missionaries. I was kind of on one that day and so in the van i was just talking to everyone having a good time. getting to know the kiddies and there were two elders that were the most robotic, awkward missionaries i have come across yet. so that was fun. i ask them a question and they just give me a wierd look and turn around...whats up with that? there was a greenie sitting next to me that was more social than those guys. man im just venting now. It was a good time.
We talked to Scott last night, and he has been off of cigarettes since last wednesday! yay! We moved his date to June 12th, which is probably my last weekend here. So that worked out perfectly. now he just needs to get off of coffee and he will be set for baptism! im so excited for him. He is a stud. oh i just remembered that i still havent sent pictures to you guys, im a horrible person.
so i have been sitting here for like 10 minutes thinking of what else happened this week and i cant for the life of me think of anything....i even have my planner out. Im pretty sure it was just another boring week. Oh, our branch mission leader is kinda making me mad.....he keeps giving me all these assignments to do, like paperwork .....stuff that we shouldnt even be doing. And he calls us like 3 times a day. and he told us to be 15 minutes early to everything. its all so dumb. We were 1 minute late to a meeting that always starts 10 minutes late and he freaked out and told us that we were late, and now basically he is baby-sitting us, and its only a matter of time before i put him in his place..hah i just had to let that out. He called us this morning at 6:35...who in their right mind, besides missionaries, are up at 630? frustration is what it is. I know he is just trying to do his calling, but he is steppin over the line a bit and im going to break his leg. hah! not really, i just wanted to use that line. so hopefully next week i will have some good updates on that for you. But other than that i dont have much else to say. Im kind of in a stupor right now. So ill end this ridiculous email and say adio! love y'all
I got to go to the temple! Woot woot! It was really cool. Detroit has a pretty small temple, there was only one endowment room and a small baptismal font, but it was still the temple! It was really refreshing going back. I forgot a lot of stuff, so im glad Peej was able to get one approved. It was a long drive though! We left our place at 630 in the morning and got down there at 11, we ended up getting home at 6 or 7 that night. hah, so other than the kinked neck and the long drive it was pretty sweet. Oh and the awkward missionaries. I was kind of on one that day and so in the van i was just talking to everyone having a good time. getting to know the kiddies and there were two elders that were the most robotic, awkward missionaries i have come across yet. so that was fun. i ask them a question and they just give me a wierd look and turn around...whats up with that? there was a greenie sitting next to me that was more social than those guys. man im just venting now. It was a good time.
We talked to Scott last night, and he has been off of cigarettes since last wednesday! yay! We moved his date to June 12th, which is probably my last weekend here. So that worked out perfectly. now he just needs to get off of coffee and he will be set for baptism! im so excited for him. He is a stud. oh i just remembered that i still havent sent pictures to you guys, im a horrible person.
so i have been sitting here for like 10 minutes thinking of what else happened this week and i cant for the life of me think of anything....i even have my planner out. Im pretty sure it was just another boring week. Oh, our branch mission leader is kinda making me mad.....he keeps giving me all these assignments to do, like paperwork .....stuff that we shouldnt even be doing. And he calls us like 3 times a day. and he told us to be 15 minutes early to everything. its all so dumb. We were 1 minute late to a meeting that always starts 10 minutes late and he freaked out and told us that we were late, and now basically he is baby-sitting us, and its only a matter of time before i put him in his place..hah i just had to let that out. He called us this morning at 6:35...who in their right mind, besides missionaries, are up at 630? frustration is what it is. I know he is just trying to do his calling, but he is steppin over the line a bit and im going to break his leg. hah! not really, i just wanted to use that line. so hopefully next week i will have some good updates on that for you. But other than that i dont have much else to say. Im kind of in a stupor right now. So ill end this ridiculous email and say adio! love y'all
Monday, May 3, 2010
May 3,2010
Hello my wonderful family!
So its been a pretty bomb week. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. So ill start with transfers! Im staying here and i am getting Elder Lloyd. I have heard really good things about him. Little served with him too(by the way im not sure when his homecoming is...ill find out later.) So we should have a pretty solid time. So thats exciting. transfers are tomorrow. We get to talk as long as we want on sunday so thats sweet. Ill be at church from 8:30am - 1:30pm my time. so at maybe 12:00 your time i can call you guys. thats if my comp doesnt call home first. Hopefully a member will be cool with us using a phone or something, so we can both talk all day, hah so ill plan on planning nothing that day so we can chat it up.
So we rocked it up this week. And we only went over like 120 miles! So hopefully PJ wont beat me like last time. haha. So heres what happened. Marcia Haycraft. Shes been an investigator thats just been chillin in our stew pot. We finally were able to get a hold of her and set an appointment. We went over on Splits. I was with Bro Chowhan, and we basically team taught the restoration. He still knows how to teach good! wierd. But it was a very spiritual lesson. She wants us to come over one night and have a campfire and play guitar and stuff, so that will be exciting! Shes a sweet lady, she says if she finds us a mormon husband then she will get baptized. haha! Shes like 65 years old! she complimented me for like 20 minutes about going on a mission and how we are going to be so much ahead of everyone else. and wont have to get divorces and about my dazzling looks. hah, shes halfway blind, so i just took it in stride. hah not really. so she came to church yesterday too.
Then the next day on splits once again. This time i was with Bro Brown, we went over to Scott Schrams! We have been really confused about what Scott needs and if he has been understanding everything, so its been a little bit tough. I taught a lesson on faith and repentance and halfway through i got the thought that i should relate it into the missionary purpose and how we are out her to baptize people, i didnt say it like that but thats the result. Then i gave him a soft-baptism comittment, which is basically when you come to know the church is true we would invite you to be baptized.(which we should have done like 3 lessons ago.) but he said yes...then i asked how he felt about joining the church and getting baptized, because i was still confused about it all, and he said "I want to do it! What do i need to do to get that going?" Hah so i about fell out of my seat, because we still werent sure about how he felt about his baptism in the RLDS church. But i comitted him to May 15 which might be too early, because he smokes......But we are going over that today, The stop smoking program. I think im going to go buy the stuff for him, because he is struggling right now to buy gas to go to work. Im going to make sure he is going to do the program, go over the whole thing and make sure he will do everything. then go pull the stuff out of the trunk. haha im way excited for him. He wants his dad to baptize him so hopefully his dads health improves so he can. see what happens when i go on splits! Miracles! haha Definately was helped there.
we picked up a new gator too. Shes an 18 year old girl, she is definitely searching. She started getting very dramatic talking about how all the religions are so confusing and nothing makes sense. She is going through the old testament and stuff. But she agreed to come over to her grandmothers house(who is a less-active member) every week and learn the lessons. WOOT! Shes golden man, im way excited for her. so those are the biggest things that have happened here. with many more to come! But the Lord has definately blessed me this week. I have been trying really hard to do everything right I slip into lazy mode every now and then, and im sick of doing that. So these past few weeks i have really been trying to do things the Lords way instead of always doing things my way, and its helped me out a lot. Im a lot happier now and im learning a lot more too. So hopefully next transfer we can have some more baptisms coming up, i swear it feels like we are on the tipping point where everything can go amazing and we can have a ton of success. So im excited to talk to you guys next week. I have started getting into the new testament again. Its hard work man. I have been reading one chapter at a time and then going to Jesus the Christ and reading about evertyhitng that i read in that chapter. Its a tedious process but i have learned so much and its made me so much more appreciative of the things that have been done for us. We are so blessed, i never realized how awesome the Bible is too.....dang utah boy. haha its amazing! Its increased my knowledge of the savior tons, who woulda thunk? I have felt the influence of the holy ghost a lot this week, i have said some things that normally i would never say. and im completely comfortable when i teach too, thats how i notice when he is with me in the lesson. I can just sit back and talk like crazy, so things are good in my hood, talk to you next week! bye bye
So its been a pretty bomb week. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. So ill start with transfers! Im staying here and i am getting Elder Lloyd. I have heard really good things about him. Little served with him too(by the way im not sure when his homecoming is...ill find out later.) So we should have a pretty solid time. So thats exciting. transfers are tomorrow. We get to talk as long as we want on sunday so thats sweet. Ill be at church from 8:30am - 1:30pm my time. so at maybe 12:00 your time i can call you guys. thats if my comp doesnt call home first. Hopefully a member will be cool with us using a phone or something, so we can both talk all day, hah so ill plan on planning nothing that day so we can chat it up.
So we rocked it up this week. And we only went over like 120 miles! So hopefully PJ wont beat me like last time. haha. So heres what happened. Marcia Haycraft. Shes been an investigator thats just been chillin in our stew pot. We finally were able to get a hold of her and set an appointment. We went over on Splits. I was with Bro Chowhan, and we basically team taught the restoration. He still knows how to teach good! wierd. But it was a very spiritual lesson. She wants us to come over one night and have a campfire and play guitar and stuff, so that will be exciting! Shes a sweet lady, she says if she finds us a mormon husband then she will get baptized. haha! Shes like 65 years old! she complimented me for like 20 minutes about going on a mission and how we are going to be so much ahead of everyone else. and wont have to get divorces and about my dazzling looks. hah, shes halfway blind, so i just took it in stride. hah not really. so she came to church yesterday too.
Then the next day on splits once again. This time i was with Bro Brown, we went over to Scott Schrams! We have been really confused about what Scott needs and if he has been understanding everything, so its been a little bit tough. I taught a lesson on faith and repentance and halfway through i got the thought that i should relate it into the missionary purpose and how we are out her to baptize people, i didnt say it like that but thats the result. Then i gave him a soft-baptism comittment, which is basically when you come to know the church is true we would invite you to be baptized.(which we should have done like 3 lessons ago.) but he said yes...then i asked how he felt about joining the church and getting baptized, because i was still confused about it all, and he said "I want to do it! What do i need to do to get that going?" Hah so i about fell out of my seat, because we still werent sure about how he felt about his baptism in the RLDS church. But i comitted him to May 15 which might be too early, because he smokes......But we are going over that today, The stop smoking program. I think im going to go buy the stuff for him, because he is struggling right now to buy gas to go to work. Im going to make sure he is going to do the program, go over the whole thing and make sure he will do everything. then go pull the stuff out of the trunk. haha im way excited for him. He wants his dad to baptize him so hopefully his dads health improves so he can. see what happens when i go on splits! Miracles! haha Definately was helped there.
we picked up a new gator too. Shes an 18 year old girl, she is definitely searching. She started getting very dramatic talking about how all the religions are so confusing and nothing makes sense. She is going through the old testament and stuff. But she agreed to come over to her grandmothers house(who is a less-active member) every week and learn the lessons. WOOT! Shes golden man, im way excited for her. so those are the biggest things that have happened here. with many more to come! But the Lord has definately blessed me this week. I have been trying really hard to do everything right I slip into lazy mode every now and then, and im sick of doing that. So these past few weeks i have really been trying to do things the Lords way instead of always doing things my way, and its helped me out a lot. Im a lot happier now and im learning a lot more too. So hopefully next transfer we can have some more baptisms coming up, i swear it feels like we are on the tipping point where everything can go amazing and we can have a ton of success. So im excited to talk to you guys next week. I have started getting into the new testament again. Its hard work man. I have been reading one chapter at a time and then going to Jesus the Christ and reading about evertyhitng that i read in that chapter. Its a tedious process but i have learned so much and its made me so much more appreciative of the things that have been done for us. We are so blessed, i never realized how awesome the Bible is too.....dang utah boy. haha its amazing! Its increased my knowledge of the savior tons, who woulda thunk? I have felt the influence of the holy ghost a lot this week, i have said some things that normally i would never say. and im completely comfortable when i teach too, thats how i notice when he is with me in the lesson. I can just sit back and talk like crazy, so things are good in my hood, talk to you next week! bye bye
Monday, April 26, 2010
April 26,2010
Hey there,
So this week we didnt have a whole lot happen with our gators. It was kinda stupid but it happens. It was actually our worst week yet as far as numbers are concerned. And it was perfectly timed too, because we had branch council on sunday so we got to show everyone how bad we did. Hah it was a rough week, we dont have any miles to do anything and we had a bunch of cancelled appointments and stuff like that. The church is cutting back miles a ton. Its getting hard to do anything anymore. We have one of the biggest areas in the mission. It takes about an hour to get from the northern part to the southern, and we are only given like 900 miles for an entire month...so it gets tough sometimes but its all good, so nothing new there. But we were able to hand out about 250 pass-a-long cards before the parade started. It was way tight, we actually got a referral this morning from it. So pray that other people will call in so we can have more people to teach! We are hoping they flood in. But im kinda expecting only like 3 out of all of those cards. Hah maybe im just being pessimistic or something. so that was a fun time. We sat in our windows and watched the parade. then after we tried to talk to some people, but the street emptied in minutes, it was nuts. So then it rained the rest of the festival, so thats good.
We had a district meeting friday and SURPRISE! President showed up, so i actually had to tie my tie and tuck my shirt in. But it went really well actually. He talked to us about some good stuff. then we had interviews, and it was actually one of the best i have had. normally i get some kind of rebuking, hah. But he was giving me mad props about some stuff that i had been working on, so that was helpful. Hopefully he doesnt want me to train or be DL, that wouldn't be good. but i doubt he does. So nothing much else happened. We made a turkey yesterday. that was sweet! Im totally out of food so thats all we had left. I couldnt eat any more expired mac n cheese so we roasted a turkey, and i think it gave me diarrhea for a minute. so thats not good. We are going on trade-offs again! YAY! Darley is coming here and we are going to have a partay. So its been a pretty boring week. sorry theres nothing more to say. But things are going good with me. I learn so much, especially lately. I have been reading a ton. I study a lot, yesterday was raining cats and dogs and we couldnt use our car so we didnt do a whole lot. So i got to study and take a nap. That was refreshing! so ya. Thats about all that i have for you this week. I was going to tell you something sweet i was studying, but i cant remember now. Thats awesome that mom and bri are starting to read together. Everytime you open it you learn a lot. And another thing i noticed is that whenever im mad at my comp...well more annoyed than anything and i open the bom my attitude completely changes after im done reading and all that goes away. Just another testimony of its truth and the Spirit blessing my life every moment of every day. And it does, im beginning to see it more and more. And its always the times that are hard that i realize that i hadnt prayed or i hadnt done something right, haha so its so important to live so we can have the Holy Ghost because it blesses us more than we know. So i hope you guys are doing good. Thank you for your prayers, i need them. Love you guys so much!
--
So this week we didnt have a whole lot happen with our gators. It was kinda stupid but it happens. It was actually our worst week yet as far as numbers are concerned. And it was perfectly timed too, because we had branch council on sunday so we got to show everyone how bad we did. Hah it was a rough week, we dont have any miles to do anything and we had a bunch of cancelled appointments and stuff like that. The church is cutting back miles a ton. Its getting hard to do anything anymore. We have one of the biggest areas in the mission. It takes about an hour to get from the northern part to the southern, and we are only given like 900 miles for an entire month...so it gets tough sometimes but its all good, so nothing new there. But we were able to hand out about 250 pass-a-long cards before the parade started. It was way tight, we actually got a referral this morning from it. So pray that other people will call in so we can have more people to teach! We are hoping they flood in. But im kinda expecting only like 3 out of all of those cards. Hah maybe im just being pessimistic or something. so that was a fun time. We sat in our windows and watched the parade. then after we tried to talk to some people, but the street emptied in minutes, it was nuts. So then it rained the rest of the festival, so thats good.
We had a district meeting friday and SURPRISE! President showed up, so i actually had to tie my tie and tuck my shirt in. But it went really well actually. He talked to us about some good stuff. then we had interviews, and it was actually one of the best i have had. normally i get some kind of rebuking, hah. But he was giving me mad props about some stuff that i had been working on, so that was helpful. Hopefully he doesnt want me to train or be DL, that wouldn't be good. but i doubt he does. So nothing much else happened. We made a turkey yesterday. that was sweet! Im totally out of food so thats all we had left. I couldnt eat any more expired mac n cheese so we roasted a turkey, and i think it gave me diarrhea for a minute. so thats not good. We are going on trade-offs again! YAY! Darley is coming here and we are going to have a partay. So its been a pretty boring week. sorry theres nothing more to say. But things are going good with me. I learn so much, especially lately. I have been reading a ton. I study a lot, yesterday was raining cats and dogs and we couldnt use our car so we didnt do a whole lot. So i got to study and take a nap. That was refreshing! so ya. Thats about all that i have for you this week. I was going to tell you something sweet i was studying, but i cant remember now. Thats awesome that mom and bri are starting to read together. Everytime you open it you learn a lot. And another thing i noticed is that whenever im mad at my comp...well more annoyed than anything and i open the bom my attitude completely changes after im done reading and all that goes away. Just another testimony of its truth and the Spirit blessing my life every moment of every day. And it does, im beginning to see it more and more. And its always the times that are hard that i realize that i hadnt prayed or i hadnt done something right, haha so its so important to live so we can have the Holy Ghost because it blesses us more than we know. So i hope you guys are doing good. Thank you for your prayers, i need them. Love you guys so much!
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Monday, April 19, 2010
April 19,2010
Buenos dias!
So i dont know if you guys know it...but mothers day is in three weeks. So thats good right!? So trade-offs were really good. It was nice to be with Elder Darley for a few days. He is such a stud. He said he was going to email you mom, so you will have to let me know if he did. email him back for sure. He is sweet. But ya i think we are doing another trade-off next week too, haha so thats sweet. He is supposed to do two, and we are the only other elders in his district, so yippie! This week we have interviews, so ill let you know how that goes. We had district conference, i think i told you about that. There is a guy in our ward, hes in his twenties. He come up to me and says "your mission president isnt like my mission president. Yours isnt a good speaker, he wont be a general authority, he might make it to stake president, but no further." haha it was so funny, then i told him the talk he gave was basically our zone conference. hah it was funny. finally someone that feels my pain! Its all good though.
So this week we did some good stuff, we picked up some old investigators, so that was good. I strategically shared a message about the book of mormon to break the ice a little when they straight up and told me all their issues with our beliefs. but they were way open to learn again, so thats pretty sweet, shes a nice lady. She feels bad we are away from our moms so she gives us hugs all the time, haha. thought you would like that mom. We keep having problems with our gators! Valorie cant come to church so we cant invite her to be baptized. I asked if there was anthing she could do to get sundays off or change the schedule around and she said it would be hard and that we are her excuse or church, she counts us.....And then we had a talk with Scott the rlds baptized guy and got into a discussion about the history of the church and where it split and where the priesthood authority went and the difference between us and them, but im not sure if it clicked that he needs to be rebaptized....so i dont know. He came to church again, so at least we didnt scare him off.
Basically thats all the exciting stuff that happened, we taught a bunch of less active people, but not a whole lot happened with them, just the same old same old. This week there is the trout festival, its a pretty big deal around here and i had all these great plans for it and they are getting smashed one by one.....its frustrating. These were my plans, There were some missionaries in our mission that made a ginormous Book of mormon to carry around. I was going to get that and go through the parade with it and get some other missionaries to come and pass out cards down the road. but for some reason we cant get in the parade. We were going to set up a booth at the flea market, but it turns out if costs 50 bucks to do it because they are almost full now.....And im not about to pay that much just so i can stand around all day and talk to a bunch of ignorant people. haha so basically everyhting fell through. Im still going to call PJ and have him bring the book of mormon up to us and i guess we will just walk around and talk to people. So that will be fun, and i was wondering if i could get some dough for the flea market this weekend. I hate asking for money, but im pretty sure im running low again, im not sure how..... so if you could that would be sweet, if not its all good. but ya, my friends are all doing really good. you keep asking and i think i forget to answer. But ya they are all happy. Adrian is getting a new comp soon. he is sick of finding he says. They find for like 35 hours a week, thats rediculous if you ask me, but whatev. So ya i think his bday was last week or so.....so ya and tylers i think is the 30th. I might have those two mixed up but i think im right. haha so ya, they are good. And im good and im loving it here. Im growing a lot and ecoming a better teacher. The Lord had blessed me a lot since coming here. My knowlege of his plan and gospel have increased and im just about to start the book of mormon over again. It should be about the 6th time i think! Its so sweet how much you learn everytime you read it. PJ gave the same bom challenge to the whole District up here so that was kinda cool. The church is true, Christ reigns, The signs of the times are here! They are popping up everywhere. I was actually reading in mormon last night and he talked about the 'vapors of smoke' and pollution in the skies' sounds a lot like a volcano i heard of right? and what the crap is up with the earthquake in Utah. did you guys know the wasatch faultline is waaay overdue for an earthquake? just an FYI nothing to be afraid of though! God is with us and if we die we die! who cares! haha so ya . Read the Bom and the bible. i cant wait until i can study Isaiah more. Its stressed so much in the Book of Mormon. Its pretty sweet. Nephi says to read it, Christ says to read it, Mormon says to read it and im sure there are more. But its pretty sweet. i study it in sacrament meeting haha cuz i kinda dont like that hour, except for the sacrament of course. so ya. Thats my food for thought...actually chew on this. Where do you think the 3 nephites are right now?, this doesnt have anything to do with salvation, but its fun to think about. Maybe i will draw you guys a picture of what i think they look/ed like and where they have been and what they have been involved in. Seems like im just rambling now so i guess ill stop typing.
I dont know if that garden could possibly be put back together. Didnt it kinda become the field? hahah You guys should make one though. Like maybe where the sandbox is. Put a border around it and stuff. make it real nice. that would be cool, cuz m pretty sure the end of the world is right around the corner, so maybe it would be wise. You know the apostles and prophets said to have food storage and a garden for like 40 years, and in the last few they havent even mentioned it. So maybe they think that if you cant remember or dont do it, then good luck to you. I wouldnt quote that on being their exact thoughts but maybe something similar.
Love you guys. Have a good week!
So i dont know if you guys know it...but mothers day is in three weeks. So thats good right!? So trade-offs were really good. It was nice to be with Elder Darley for a few days. He is such a stud. He said he was going to email you mom, so you will have to let me know if he did. email him back for sure. He is sweet. But ya i think we are doing another trade-off next week too, haha so thats sweet. He is supposed to do two, and we are the only other elders in his district, so yippie! This week we have interviews, so ill let you know how that goes. We had district conference, i think i told you about that. There is a guy in our ward, hes in his twenties. He come up to me and says "your mission president isnt like my mission president. Yours isnt a good speaker, he wont be a general authority, he might make it to stake president, but no further." haha it was so funny, then i told him the talk he gave was basically our zone conference. hah it was funny. finally someone that feels my pain! Its all good though.
So this week we did some good stuff, we picked up some old investigators, so that was good. I strategically shared a message about the book of mormon to break the ice a little when they straight up and told me all their issues with our beliefs. but they were way open to learn again, so thats pretty sweet, shes a nice lady. She feels bad we are away from our moms so she gives us hugs all the time, haha. thought you would like that mom. We keep having problems with our gators! Valorie cant come to church so we cant invite her to be baptized. I asked if there was anthing she could do to get sundays off or change the schedule around and she said it would be hard and that we are her excuse or church, she counts us.....And then we had a talk with Scott the rlds baptized guy and got into a discussion about the history of the church and where it split and where the priesthood authority went and the difference between us and them, but im not sure if it clicked that he needs to be rebaptized....so i dont know. He came to church again, so at least we didnt scare him off.
Basically thats all the exciting stuff that happened, we taught a bunch of less active people, but not a whole lot happened with them, just the same old same old. This week there is the trout festival, its a pretty big deal around here and i had all these great plans for it and they are getting smashed one by one.....its frustrating. These were my plans, There were some missionaries in our mission that made a ginormous Book of mormon to carry around. I was going to get that and go through the parade with it and get some other missionaries to come and pass out cards down the road. but for some reason we cant get in the parade. We were going to set up a booth at the flea market, but it turns out if costs 50 bucks to do it because they are almost full now.....And im not about to pay that much just so i can stand around all day and talk to a bunch of ignorant people. haha so basically everyhting fell through. Im still going to call PJ and have him bring the book of mormon up to us and i guess we will just walk around and talk to people. So that will be fun, and i was wondering if i could get some dough for the flea market this weekend. I hate asking for money, but im pretty sure im running low again, im not sure how..... so if you could that would be sweet, if not its all good. but ya, my friends are all doing really good. you keep asking and i think i forget to answer. But ya they are all happy. Adrian is getting a new comp soon. he is sick of finding he says. They find for like 35 hours a week, thats rediculous if you ask me, but whatev. So ya i think his bday was last week or so.....so ya and tylers i think is the 30th. I might have those two mixed up but i think im right. haha so ya, they are good. And im good and im loving it here. Im growing a lot and ecoming a better teacher. The Lord had blessed me a lot since coming here. My knowlege of his plan and gospel have increased and im just about to start the book of mormon over again. It should be about the 6th time i think! Its so sweet how much you learn everytime you read it. PJ gave the same bom challenge to the whole District up here so that was kinda cool. The church is true, Christ reigns, The signs of the times are here! They are popping up everywhere. I was actually reading in mormon last night and he talked about the 'vapors of smoke' and pollution in the skies' sounds a lot like a volcano i heard of right? and what the crap is up with the earthquake in Utah. did you guys know the wasatch faultline is waaay overdue for an earthquake? just an FYI nothing to be afraid of though! God is with us and if we die we die! who cares! haha so ya . Read the Bom and the bible. i cant wait until i can study Isaiah more. Its stressed so much in the Book of Mormon. Its pretty sweet. Nephi says to read it, Christ says to read it, Mormon says to read it and im sure there are more. But its pretty sweet. i study it in sacrament meeting haha cuz i kinda dont like that hour, except for the sacrament of course. so ya. Thats my food for thought...actually chew on this. Where do you think the 3 nephites are right now?, this doesnt have anything to do with salvation, but its fun to think about. Maybe i will draw you guys a picture of what i think they look/ed like and where they have been and what they have been involved in. Seems like im just rambling now so i guess ill stop typing.
I dont know if that garden could possibly be put back together. Didnt it kinda become the field? hahah You guys should make one though. Like maybe where the sandbox is. Put a border around it and stuff. make it real nice. that would be cool, cuz m pretty sure the end of the world is right around the corner, so maybe it would be wise. You know the apostles and prophets said to have food storage and a garden for like 40 years, and in the last few they havent even mentioned it. So maybe they think that if you cant remember or dont do it, then good luck to you. I wouldnt quote that on being their exact thoughts but maybe something similar.
Love you guys. Have a good week!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
April 12,2010
Hello Family,
So this week was a little bit crazy. kinda boring at the same time. Tuesday we went on splits and i was able to go with bro Chowhan! He is the most enthusiastic, excited guy i have ever met. He was so fun to talk to. He actually lived in Smithfield for like a year or two, kinda by the auction place. And he is a power-lifter, so i got to talk all about dad. Hah he was pretty impressed needless to say. It was way fun though he kept driving past everyones houses that we were supposed to be seeing because he would start telling me a story about something on his mission. Pretty dang funny. He went on his mission to Ft Lauderdale FL when he was 25 and he was benching 350 his whole mission. hah i thought that was sweet. So we had a good time there.
Wednesday we had Zone conference, which was pretty sweet. We talked a lot about the atonement, so i learned a few new things, then talked numbers for the rest of it. Elder Little gave his departing testimony. It was so funny! Everyone before him was like "I cant believe im up here right now, im in denial i think." Then he gets up and puts his arms up and says "I have been waiting for this moment for a long long time!" And said a bunch of funny things. So he will be going home on Cinco de Mayo. So you guys will have to go to his homecoming talk or something, i love that kid, hes so dang funny.
so right after that we went over to Sis. Wysockis...I dont think i ever told you about her....Well we were getting mail one day and this lady stops us and starts talking to us and to make the story short she has been a member her whole life and has been inactive for 30 years, so she invited us over. We went over and she said she doesnt believe in God, shes more into the scientific view of things. Which is probably the first time i have met someone here in Michigan that doesnt believe in God. But we got to talking and i asked if we could share some things that we really believe and she accepted and so we taught her the Restoration, Then she invited us over for dinner. We had dinner with her and turns out she had invited her son-in-law over, because of the whole single sister rule. But after the meal she asked if we wanted to share something, so i popped in the Finding Happiness dvd, which just talks about how there seems to be a design in nature and how there must be a designer. and after i just bore my testimony and she said "That was really peaceful" But I dont think she knew what that was....Anyways her son-in-law started asking us questions about the church and we talked about some of the history of the church and basically taught the Restoration again. But his questions were way cool. So hopfully there is some good potential there, he said he might take his mothers BoM and read it if he gets a chance. So that was really cool.
Then on Thursday we ran into a lady that has been inactive for a while. It was really funny because her son answered the door. He was probably in his 40s and he opened the door and he had this crazy, glazed-over look in his eye, and he looked like he was about to shoot laser beams out of his eyes, then i glanced down and in his hand was a knife! So before i could even say anything to him about who we were and who we were looking for, he just said "Come on in..." So i was like oh , I'm about to get stabbed." I stepped inside and walked past him real quick, just tense and ready to pounce on him if that arm moved. Luckily he turned out to be a nice guy, but he just about got administered to by the laying on of hands! if you know what i mean! He was watching his mother that has been a member forever and has worked in the temple for a long time and stuff, she has just been sick and wasnt sure where church was, so that was sweet.
Then on Friday we were able to see Valorie Palmer, who is now our top investigator. It was sweet we went over like 25 minutes late(we called dont worry) but it was sweet because she used that time to study some more so when we got there she had read what we had asked and even a little bit more. But we decided to teach about prayer. Which was perfect because she started talking about how she has been praying and she wasnt sure if she was doing it right, so we got to clear that up and taught a pretty spiritual lesson on prayer, it was the first time i have actually pulled out PMG and read something from there, and it worked really well, i just read about what some of the blessings of prayer was and bore testimony. It was way sweet. She had even written down some of her questions that she had come up with, and i was giving her mad props for doing that and she was like " Ya i have to write everything down becuase ill forget if i dont" And as she was saying that she was showing a little bit of her notebook, and i noticed that she had been basically re-writing every verse she read! She had 3 whole pages of notes about the things she had read in one chapter. I was blown away! I said" Wait a minute hold up! most missionaries dont even do that!" Hahah it was really sweet. So she is basically golden, so that was sweet.
Then on Sat and Sun, we had District conference(like Stake conference....but a lot smaller)
That was kinda boring, PJ just got up and gave the exact same talk he gave in the last 3 zone conferences. haha it was all good though. But afterwards we went on Trade-offs! So im in Bear Lake right now With Elder Darley, he is a stud. We are having a three day vacation. I mean Trade-off.....Its sweet though. So funny story. Last night we went down by the beach to shoot some hoops for a bit, and i took off my watch and my wallet and set it down by the hoop. Well you can probably guess, i left it there. And this morning, well actually like noon, i realized what i had done and we cruised back down there, i was just about getting ready to punch a whole in the window, But good news It was still there! Woot! The only thing they stole was my temple Recommend. And i dont even need that out here, so its all good! No not really im just messin. I was so scared though. Rediculous.
So thats basically my week. We have had some good stuff happen, so we have been pretty blessed here. Im getting to know the area more and starting to teach some sweet lessons. So things are good. The church is true, The book is blue, have a great week.
--
So this week was a little bit crazy. kinda boring at the same time. Tuesday we went on splits and i was able to go with bro Chowhan! He is the most enthusiastic, excited guy i have ever met. He was so fun to talk to. He actually lived in Smithfield for like a year or two, kinda by the auction place. And he is a power-lifter, so i got to talk all about dad. Hah he was pretty impressed needless to say. It was way fun though he kept driving past everyones houses that we were supposed to be seeing because he would start telling me a story about something on his mission. Pretty dang funny. He went on his mission to Ft Lauderdale FL when he was 25 and he was benching 350 his whole mission. hah i thought that was sweet. So we had a good time there.
Wednesday we had Zone conference, which was pretty sweet. We talked a lot about the atonement, so i learned a few new things, then talked numbers for the rest of it. Elder Little gave his departing testimony. It was so funny! Everyone before him was like "I cant believe im up here right now, im in denial i think." Then he gets up and puts his arms up and says "I have been waiting for this moment for a long long time!" And said a bunch of funny things. So he will be going home on Cinco de Mayo. So you guys will have to go to his homecoming talk or something, i love that kid, hes so dang funny.
so right after that we went over to Sis. Wysockis...I dont think i ever told you about her....Well we were getting mail one day and this lady stops us and starts talking to us and to make the story short she has been a member her whole life and has been inactive for 30 years, so she invited us over. We went over and she said she doesnt believe in God, shes more into the scientific view of things. Which is probably the first time i have met someone here in Michigan that doesnt believe in God. But we got to talking and i asked if we could share some things that we really believe and she accepted and so we taught her the Restoration, Then she invited us over for dinner. We had dinner with her and turns out she had invited her son-in-law over, because of the whole single sister rule. But after the meal she asked if we wanted to share something, so i popped in the Finding Happiness dvd, which just talks about how there seems to be a design in nature and how there must be a designer. and after i just bore my testimony and she said "That was really peaceful" But I dont think she knew what that was....Anyways her son-in-law started asking us questions about the church and we talked about some of the history of the church and basically taught the Restoration again. But his questions were way cool. So hopfully there is some good potential there, he said he might take his mothers BoM and read it if he gets a chance. So that was really cool.
Then on Thursday we ran into a lady that has been inactive for a while. It was really funny because her son answered the door. He was probably in his 40s and he opened the door and he had this crazy, glazed-over look in his eye, and he looked like he was about to shoot laser beams out of his eyes, then i glanced down and in his hand was a knife! So before i could even say anything to him about who we were and who we were looking for, he just said "Come on in..." So i was like oh , I'm about to get stabbed." I stepped inside and walked past him real quick, just tense and ready to pounce on him if that arm moved. Luckily he turned out to be a nice guy, but he just about got administered to by the laying on of hands! if you know what i mean! He was watching his mother that has been a member forever and has worked in the temple for a long time and stuff, she has just been sick and wasnt sure where church was, so that was sweet.
Then on Friday we were able to see Valorie Palmer, who is now our top investigator. It was sweet we went over like 25 minutes late(we called dont worry) but it was sweet because she used that time to study some more so when we got there she had read what we had asked and even a little bit more. But we decided to teach about prayer. Which was perfect because she started talking about how she has been praying and she wasnt sure if she was doing it right, so we got to clear that up and taught a pretty spiritual lesson on prayer, it was the first time i have actually pulled out PMG and read something from there, and it worked really well, i just read about what some of the blessings of prayer was and bore testimony. It was way sweet. She had even written down some of her questions that she had come up with, and i was giving her mad props for doing that and she was like " Ya i have to write everything down becuase ill forget if i dont" And as she was saying that she was showing a little bit of her notebook, and i noticed that she had been basically re-writing every verse she read! She had 3 whole pages of notes about the things she had read in one chapter. I was blown away! I said" Wait a minute hold up! most missionaries dont even do that!" Hahah it was really sweet. So she is basically golden, so that was sweet.
Then on Sat and Sun, we had District conference(like Stake conference....but a lot smaller)
That was kinda boring, PJ just got up and gave the exact same talk he gave in the last 3 zone conferences. haha it was all good though. But afterwards we went on Trade-offs! So im in Bear Lake right now With Elder Darley, he is a stud. We are having a three day vacation. I mean Trade-off.....Its sweet though. So funny story. Last night we went down by the beach to shoot some hoops for a bit, and i took off my watch and my wallet and set it down by the hoop. Well you can probably guess, i left it there. And this morning, well actually like noon, i realized what i had done and we cruised back down there, i was just about getting ready to punch a whole in the window, But good news It was still there! Woot! The only thing they stole was my temple Recommend. And i dont even need that out here, so its all good! No not really im just messin. I was so scared though. Rediculous.
So thats basically my week. We have had some good stuff happen, so we have been pretty blessed here. Im getting to know the area more and starting to teach some sweet lessons. So things are good. The church is true, The book is blue, have a great week.
--
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
April 5,2010
So conference was awesome! We were able to get Scott Schram one of our investigators to priesthood session and another session, so that was way cool! He liked it a lot, so hopefully we can get him in the water soon, he was raised rlds and so he has already been baptized and has told us that, so we are going to have to go into detail about priesthood authority and probably the history of the church. he is way sweet though. So i left my notes at the apartment, but my favotite talks were probably Dieter F Uchtdorfs talk about patience, i wrote a page about that talk, good stuff. Boyd K Packers talk cleared up a lot of things for me about blessings and priesthood and stuff, President Thomas's talk were all amazing, he is such an awesome guy, it blows me away. Henry B Eyring is one of my favorite speakers too, his talks were good. I wish i had my notes i had so many good quotes and i cant think of them right now. but ya there were some sweet ones. Some of them i will be sharing with my gators when i can print them off.
But other than conference it was just a normal week. We were able to teach some of our gators. We have some really cool ones right now so hopefully in the time im here we can baptize them. that gives me three months. if not whatev. We have Scott, who came to conference, we will hopefully be going fishing with him soon, Valorie Palmer is really interested in Joseph Smith and thats why she started wanting to learn more. Weaver gave her Our Heritage, so she can read about him, i would rather she read the BoM but whatever, Marcia i havent met yet, but she seems pretty solid from what i have heard, Chris has been an investigator, he is the one i think is a crack addict, hopefully not. He needs to get in da wata too. One thing cool that happened, Wednesday i went on splits with some members, i went to some old ladys house and her son and his family were there, so i was like score, i can teach the whole family now. I had it all planned out in my head what scriptures i would share and how to bring up the BoM and everything, and i asked if i could share something and they said yes, and i asked if they were religious at all, and they said, ya were mormon, we just dont go.....i was happy but at the same time sad because i wanted to get some new gators. But it turns out the daughters that were there arent baptized and so one of them asked how our church is different than the Baptists(i dont know why we are always compared to the baptists)so i got to talking about the restoration of the gospel and the priesthood and they were all listening to the lesson and it was way cool. They want to come to church and have us come over more, so that was good, but the two daughters have now become our investigators, yay!
This district is absolutely insane....I cant stand it actually, 5 sister missionaries 4 elders, and a senior couple.....shoot me in the head. There is only one guy i like and thats elder darley my district leader. We have a 29 year old sister that acts like a 17 year old.....i think everyone here remembers bessie smith...its like her all over again. Its rediculous, i just kinda sit in the back and fall asleep while all the girls are talking....Woe is me!
Im giving you my address again so you cant say you didnt get it
P.O. Box 912
Kalkaska, MI 94646
Sorry this was so boring, but it was a boring week, welcome to the great north!
But other than conference it was just a normal week. We were able to teach some of our gators. We have some really cool ones right now so hopefully in the time im here we can baptize them. that gives me three months. if not whatev. We have Scott, who came to conference, we will hopefully be going fishing with him soon, Valorie Palmer is really interested in Joseph Smith and thats why she started wanting to learn more. Weaver gave her Our Heritage, so she can read about him, i would rather she read the BoM but whatever, Marcia i havent met yet, but she seems pretty solid from what i have heard, Chris has been an investigator, he is the one i think is a crack addict, hopefully not. He needs to get in da wata too. One thing cool that happened, Wednesday i went on splits with some members, i went to some old ladys house and her son and his family were there, so i was like score, i can teach the whole family now. I had it all planned out in my head what scriptures i would share and how to bring up the BoM and everything, and i asked if i could share something and they said yes, and i asked if they were religious at all, and they said, ya were mormon, we just dont go.....i was happy but at the same time sad because i wanted to get some new gators. But it turns out the daughters that were there arent baptized and so one of them asked how our church is different than the Baptists(i dont know why we are always compared to the baptists)so i got to talking about the restoration of the gospel and the priesthood and they were all listening to the lesson and it was way cool. They want to come to church and have us come over more, so that was good, but the two daughters have now become our investigators, yay!
This district is absolutely insane....I cant stand it actually, 5 sister missionaries 4 elders, and a senior couple.....shoot me in the head. There is only one guy i like and thats elder darley my district leader. We have a 29 year old sister that acts like a 17 year old.....i think everyone here remembers bessie smith...its like her all over again. Its rediculous, i just kinda sit in the back and fall asleep while all the girls are talking....Woe is me!
Im giving you my address again so you cant say you didnt get it
P.O. Box 912
Kalkaska, MI 94646
Sorry this was so boring, but it was a boring week, welcome to the great north!
Monday, March 29, 2010
March 29,2010
Hi,So here i am in the wonderful town of Kalkaska.....Its alright i guess.. Hah everythings pale in comparison to Muskegon, but thats alright i was expecting that. So The branch up here is pretty cool.There are some sweet members. The church building is an old architect building. So its the first time i havent been in a legit church building. Its kinda funny, because people are talking to the bishop in sacrament meeting while he is giving announcements and people are throwing jokes out and stuff while he is talking. Hah i laughed at that. The branch is crazy focused on missionary work. Get this. We taught 27 lessons last week. Im pretty sure thats the most in the mission. Crazy i tell you. But that was pretty sweet. We go on splits twice a week, We have some awesome investigators, one of them looks like Jeff Foxworthy! when he is doing his spotlight on deer! That was so cool! He will be getting baptized pretty soon i think. He said he wants to take us out fishing too! Golden i tell you! bunch of dang rednecks! Then we have a gator who claims he is a dreamer. He believes that God directs him through his dreams. He had a dream about nauvoo so this summer he is going there. He's kind of a nut. I realize that god can speak to us through dreams, he is just a little too much. I actually think he might be snorting the coke, hah so we are going to teach him the word of wisdom again and ask if he has any problems with it. This guy has been taught for 3 years and he says he is just waiting for God to tell him its time to join. We went over gaining a testimony of the BoM too and all that. he says he has a testimony of the church and the book and the prophet and everything, but he is just putting it off. Dang sign-seekers! Hah. I might end up throwing him in the water. Oh and this last meeting we had with him we had our ward mission leader come....He kept whispering in my ear as we were teaching him...That wasn't cool, he kept telling me to look upcertain scriptures and teach this and that, but it didnt have anything to do with what we were talking about. His intentions were good. But whispering like that is a good way to offend an investigator so it made me pretty angry, just thought i would vent for a second, but besides that things are good. My comp is wierd. ill just leave it at that. The water here is garbage. You cant even drink it becuase it has a ton or iron and its nasty. The shower sucks too and the water stinks. so thats stupid. But good news! Page got baptitzed. So Let me tell you a story.....
Me and Elder Little one day got a phone call from a man that needed some help with a well, he had heard we were always looking for service. So we go see him of course. Turns out some of our old investigators that we dropped had told this guy to call us up to help him out. so that was neat. So we found Page in this dump of a house out in the middle of no where and knocked on the door, we explained how we were talked about religion a bit with him and his friend and we ended up setting a "Bible Study" class with him, at this class we taught him the restoration and he became our top gator, he was very interested in it. His friend Sherman came along for company, he was also training to be a priest at one point in his life so he knew his scriptures. so they sat there while we taught and Pages wife left becuase she didnt want anything to do with it. i know this is a horribly structured story, ive been out of school for two years give me a break. anyways we continued meeting with him and helping him out with his well and other crap he needed done. Well my third transfer there he dissapeared, we could never find him he was always gone and it continued like that for about 5 weeks, finally my last week in Harrison we were finally able to spot him. Turns out he had moved into harrison, in a house instead of the broken down trailer that he was living in. so now he is only a mile away from where we live. Well i left the area and the missionaries kept teaching him and i called him last week. He has been going to church every week and he is getting baptized! I wasnt able to make it to the baptism, but i called him sunday afternoon and his wife answered. She sounded really happy and she told me she went to church and now she wants to be baptized! Wootwoot, then she passed the phone off to Page and he talked to me for like an hour. He said thank you so much for knocking on my door, and he kept saying that a bunch. He talked about how he cant wait to go to the temple and get the priesthood and watch conference. He said this again " Ive always wanted to get baptized but i wanted to make sure it was done right, because i believe you only should get baptized once. I dont want to be one of those weekend swimmers." HAH! that made me soo happy! He said he feels really good and he is happy with his decision and then he said that Sherman(his friend) also came to church and he wants to get baptized "Quite the trend you started!" is what he said,SSSOOOOO cool! That made my mission hearing that! When i go down to zone confernce i am going to go see him for sure. I was running around the apartment when he was talking to me. That brought me true joy, and i finally realized the joys of missionary work. I was reading about Alma and the sons of Mosiah and how they converted thousands and the"exceedingly great joy" it brought them. They must have been floating in the clouds man! But that was the highlight of the week, of my mission really. Hopefully i will be able to go to the temple with him next year! So i thought i would share that with you guys. That made me really happy and made me a little more focused so i can have those experiences more. The church is true baby! Im loving the work outhere. Its getting warmer all the time and maybe i can go jet ski sometime this summer! Look for missionary oppotunities! I don't want to hear about being in utah so eveyone is mormon neither. Hah you guys are awesome i hope you are all happy and doing well. Ill talk to you next week. Loves! -- \m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Me and Elder Little one day got a phone call from a man that needed some help with a well, he had heard we were always looking for service. So we go see him of course. Turns out some of our old investigators that we dropped had told this guy to call us up to help him out. so that was neat. So we found Page in this dump of a house out in the middle of no where and knocked on the door, we explained how we were talked about religion a bit with him and his friend and we ended up setting a "Bible Study" class with him, at this class we taught him the restoration and he became our top gator, he was very interested in it. His friend Sherman came along for company, he was also training to be a priest at one point in his life so he knew his scriptures. so they sat there while we taught and Pages wife left becuase she didnt want anything to do with it. i know this is a horribly structured story, ive been out of school for two years give me a break. anyways we continued meeting with him and helping him out with his well and other crap he needed done. Well my third transfer there he dissapeared, we could never find him he was always gone and it continued like that for about 5 weeks, finally my last week in Harrison we were finally able to spot him. Turns out he had moved into harrison, in a house instead of the broken down trailer that he was living in. so now he is only a mile away from where we live. Well i left the area and the missionaries kept teaching him and i called him last week. He has been going to church every week and he is getting baptized! I wasnt able to make it to the baptism, but i called him sunday afternoon and his wife answered. She sounded really happy and she told me she went to church and now she wants to be baptized! Wootwoot, then she passed the phone off to Page and he talked to me for like an hour. He said thank you so much for knocking on my door, and he kept saying that a bunch. He talked about how he cant wait to go to the temple and get the priesthood and watch conference. He said this again " Ive always wanted to get baptized but i wanted to make sure it was done right, because i believe you only should get baptized once. I dont want to be one of those weekend swimmers." HAH! that made me soo happy! He said he feels really good and he is happy with his decision and then he said that Sherman(his friend) also came to church and he wants to get baptized "Quite the trend you started!" is what he said,SSSOOOOO cool! That made my mission hearing that! When i go down to zone confernce i am going to go see him for sure. I was running around the apartment when he was talking to me. That brought me true joy, and i finally realized the joys of missionary work. I was reading about Alma and the sons of Mosiah and how they converted thousands and the"exceedingly great joy" it brought them. They must have been floating in the clouds man! But that was the highlight of the week, of my mission really. Hopefully i will be able to go to the temple with him next year! So i thought i would share that with you guys. That made me really happy and made me a little more focused so i can have those experiences more. The church is true baby! Im loving the work outhere. Its getting warmer all the time and maybe i can go jet ski sometime this summer! Look for missionary oppotunities! I don't want to hear about being in utah so eveyone is mormon neither. Hah you guys are awesome i hope you are all happy and doing well. Ill talk to you next week. Loves! -- \m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
March 23,2010
Hello everyone!
So this week was pretty busy. We were out teaching a ton of people and trying to find some gators.....no luck but we did get to meet with some pretty crazy people again. So Friday morning we got our transfer calls......Im getting TRANSFERRED!!! WAAHHH! Im so depressed. Im leaving the celestial kingdom and going to outer darkness! Ill be leaving today to a place called Kalkaska, its up north by traverse city. I here its really cool up there, but i kinda dont believe that anything will come close to muskegon. This has been my home. Im so sad. Ill be serving with a kinda wierd kid Elder Weaver is the name. Woody is going to be district leader and training in N Muskegon, thats pretty crazy! Pres is a wierdo, not going to lie about that. so i have been packing all morning. I leave today at 3 and will be spending the night in Lansing then going up to Kalkaska, so i might get to stop by Harrison again. OH! So i dont know if you guys remember the investigator me and Little found, his name is Page Nichols. He is getting baptized! this saturday! Oh man i am sooooo happy! I called Bro Mckay and he told me about it, oh my gosh that makes me so happy, so im going to go see him if i can. YAY! so i hope i can find a ride down to Harrison. hah. But yeah that made my whole week right there.
So this past Saturday we went to a place called Bad Axe. Its on the thumb of michigan, Elder Wood taught a lady there that was getting baptized and he got invited to come. So Scott took us over there. 7 hours in the Jeep!(Scott is the coolest guy in Michigan)So we got to see that baptism, it was way sweet. I wish you guys could see what i see. Im talking the people over here.....wow they are so crazy. I dont even know how to explain them, they are like redneck/whitetrash/mentally challenged/crazy, so ya quite the description, but they are so dang funny. Those are true Ganders right there. You know em when you see em! thats for sure! So that took up our entire saturday. But it was a lot of fun, we had two other missionaries with us that are studs. So we had a good time.
The night before we had a benefit dinner for a member in our ward who has cancer, so we helped set up a little bit, but it was way cool they had like 400 people come and eat and so there was quite the crowd. But i was goofing arond with the youth and we decided before i leave we need to have a dodgeball championship....SOO last night we all got together at scotts. I was expecting about maybe 5 or 6 people.....ya we had 14 over in scotts basement!!! It was soooo tight. The youth here are so amazing. I have become way good friends with them all and im sad to leave them, but they might come visit me! Yay. Austin(my twin) said he would come up haha. They are all so tight i love it. So we had an amazing time over there. I won the fight of course. I always have some sweet plays. Austin calls them my ESPN highlights. I had this one where nobody was throwing a ball. And their team had most of them. sooo i went to the middle of the floor and did this breakdance move and dropped the the floor and three balls flew over me and we got all the balls on our side and just massacred them. Hah! So i had a way sweet weekend. Church was amazing. In gospel principles me and wood taught a lesson about the Life of Christ and it was really spiritual and awesome. Everyone in the room bore their testimonies and it was really cool. Im so happy that i got to serve in N Muskegon i have grown a ton since being here and i am looking forward to moving on. Its just hard. I get really attatched to my areas, hah. But im going to an area that teaches 20 lessons a week very consistently, so that will be very good for me. Our lives are so awesome. We are so blessed and i wish i could see Gods hand more in the things that i do, but it is something that becomes more visible the more i serve. I was thinking a while ago about the statement that people say when they bear their testimonies. They say "I know this church is true" And its such a simple statement but so powerful at the same time. You are saying that our church is the Church of Truth...And when we think of what truth is, or Who truth is, it leads back to Christ, He said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life" So basically you are saying you know this is the Church of Jesus Christ. hah the circle effect. love it love it. But i do know that this church is true, that this gospel is the path that leads to eternal life, the pathway is encompassed by happiness, and truth. Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer, He Lives and He is there watching over us our times of happiness and sadness, and he will always be there for us, I have felt that more and more on my mission, The road that we travel is hard sometimes, but its the road that will make us valiant sons and daughters in His sight, and that is what we all must remember as we walk in his footsteps. I love you guys and im thankful for your support and prayers. Until next time....ive been Weely.
So this week was pretty busy. We were out teaching a ton of people and trying to find some gators.....no luck but we did get to meet with some pretty crazy people again. So Friday morning we got our transfer calls......Im getting TRANSFERRED!!! WAAHHH! Im so depressed. Im leaving the celestial kingdom and going to outer darkness! Ill be leaving today to a place called Kalkaska, its up north by traverse city. I here its really cool up there, but i kinda dont believe that anything will come close to muskegon. This has been my home. Im so sad. Ill be serving with a kinda wierd kid Elder Weaver is the name. Woody is going to be district leader and training in N Muskegon, thats pretty crazy! Pres is a wierdo, not going to lie about that. so i have been packing all morning. I leave today at 3 and will be spending the night in Lansing then going up to Kalkaska, so i might get to stop by Harrison again. OH! So i dont know if you guys remember the investigator me and Little found, his name is Page Nichols. He is getting baptized! this saturday! Oh man i am sooooo happy! I called Bro Mckay and he told me about it, oh my gosh that makes me so happy, so im going to go see him if i can. YAY! so i hope i can find a ride down to Harrison. hah. But yeah that made my whole week right there.
So this past Saturday we went to a place called Bad Axe. Its on the thumb of michigan, Elder Wood taught a lady there that was getting baptized and he got invited to come. So Scott took us over there. 7 hours in the Jeep!(Scott is the coolest guy in Michigan)So we got to see that baptism, it was way sweet. I wish you guys could see what i see. Im talking the people over here.....wow they are so crazy. I dont even know how to explain them, they are like redneck/whitetrash/mentally challenged/crazy, so ya quite the description, but they are so dang funny. Those are true Ganders right there. You know em when you see em! thats for sure! So that took up our entire saturday. But it was a lot of fun, we had two other missionaries with us that are studs. So we had a good time.
The night before we had a benefit dinner for a member in our ward who has cancer, so we helped set up a little bit, but it was way cool they had like 400 people come and eat and so there was quite the crowd. But i was goofing arond with the youth and we decided before i leave we need to have a dodgeball championship....SOO last night we all got together at scotts. I was expecting about maybe 5 or 6 people.....ya we had 14 over in scotts basement!!! It was soooo tight. The youth here are so amazing. I have become way good friends with them all and im sad to leave them, but they might come visit me! Yay. Austin(my twin) said he would come up haha. They are all so tight i love it. So we had an amazing time over there. I won the fight of course. I always have some sweet plays. Austin calls them my ESPN highlights. I had this one where nobody was throwing a ball. And their team had most of them. sooo i went to the middle of the floor and did this breakdance move and dropped the the floor and three balls flew over me and we got all the balls on our side and just massacred them. Hah! So i had a way sweet weekend. Church was amazing. In gospel principles me and wood taught a lesson about the Life of Christ and it was really spiritual and awesome. Everyone in the room bore their testimonies and it was really cool. Im so happy that i got to serve in N Muskegon i have grown a ton since being here and i am looking forward to moving on. Its just hard. I get really attatched to my areas, hah. But im going to an area that teaches 20 lessons a week very consistently, so that will be very good for me. Our lives are so awesome. We are so blessed and i wish i could see Gods hand more in the things that i do, but it is something that becomes more visible the more i serve. I was thinking a while ago about the statement that people say when they bear their testimonies. They say "I know this church is true" And its such a simple statement but so powerful at the same time. You are saying that our church is the Church of Truth...And when we think of what truth is, or Who truth is, it leads back to Christ, He said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life" So basically you are saying you know this is the Church of Jesus Christ. hah the circle effect. love it love it. But i do know that this church is true, that this gospel is the path that leads to eternal life, the pathway is encompassed by happiness, and truth. Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer, He Lives and He is there watching over us our times of happiness and sadness, and he will always be there for us, I have felt that more and more on my mission, The road that we travel is hard sometimes, but its the road that will make us valiant sons and daughters in His sight, and that is what we all must remember as we walk in his footsteps. I love you guys and im thankful for your support and prayers. Until next time....ive been Weely.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
March 15,2010
Ya so i had this ginormous email on testimonies and it got erased!!!!! HOW? The computer gliched and then the words. EAT IT came up on the screen and then i started punching things and yelling and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. HEY the sun is coming out. sweet. So this week was pretty sweet. We got our lessons way up and we found two new gators! That was sweet. I was able to bring up the BoM and bear testimony of it and they said thy were looking foreward to reading it and set up another appointment! Yay! so thats way sweet. Me and Elder Hiatt had a good trade-off. Hes a stud. We saw some rare cares here in muskegon
there is a guy we met that worked for Elvis for 6 years! He has over 150 rare cars. ! He has the original batmobile, al capones car, the original ET, Muhammed Ali's coat. and all sorts of cool stuff like that. so that was pretty sweet to see. me and Woody are getting along. mom i already looked for that gift for Mama Myers, couldnt find it. so i'll think of something else. Im going to see her this week. Also. Transfer calls are this Friday. And there is a good chance that im leaving. Hiatt put in a good word for me and i think there is a chance that ill stay but m not for positive. But we will know this coming week. so ya it should be another good week. We have some good things rolling so hopefully we can make some pregress with gators and such. But we have been here too long and woody is getting antsy so i better git. But i love you guys and ill write more next week. Love you
there is a guy we met that worked for Elvis for 6 years! He has over 150 rare cars. ! He has the original batmobile, al capones car, the original ET, Muhammed Ali's coat. and all sorts of cool stuff like that. so that was pretty sweet to see. me and Woody are getting along. mom i already looked for that gift for Mama Myers, couldnt find it. so i'll think of something else. Im going to see her this week. Also. Transfer calls are this Friday. And there is a good chance that im leaving. Hiatt put in a good word for me and i think there is a chance that ill stay but m not for positive. But we will know this coming week. so ya it should be another good week. We have some good things rolling so hopefully we can make some pregress with gators and such. But we have been here too long and woody is getting antsy so i better git. But i love you guys and ill write more next week. Love you
Friday, March 12, 2010
March 10,2010
Hello there!
So so sorry i didnt email on monday, We had some other missionaries with us and they had to get heading back and so i didnt have too much time. Plus i couldnt concentrate with everyone talking, plus i was stresssed out about our lessons that cancelled. PLUS
A ski resort in richmond? I would tear the heck outta that place! Where did you here that from? That would make me so dang happy. Our little town of Smithfield would become a ski town! WOOT WOOT! Lyndie Loo is getting married huh....what a punk she can barely think for herself! hah thats sweet though. make sure you tell them hi and congrats for me. Hah that will teach em. my hair was pretty long in some of those pics ive got it cut since and now its getting to the point where it needs to be cut again. I have an idea mother...you need to hire some younger blood, or something. But then i guess they cant really sew and thats what you need.......scratch that. So much for my ideas. Anyways
This past week kinda sucked. Just because we had like 5 appointments fall through and so we were really low on numbers but we did doorknock into someone who could be interested. It was kinda funny actually. We had been out like an hour and everything was fine. Then at her house she opened the door and i was tripping over my words bad. I gave my worst doorknock approach ever, but yet she was the only one that was intersted in talking to us. Hah! So that just goes to show you. Im looking for the elect gosh darnit and the Elect are looking for me and thats proof of it right there. "There is a less-accountable kid coming to your door, he is going to say something really stupid and stumble over his words...let him in so he can teach you." Thats what the spirit says to people before i knock on their doors. HAH! Ok not really usually i have really awesome stuff to say, i still blame it on her eyes. They were like orange-yellow. Like a dog. Thats what threw me off i think. I thought i was talking to a dog.....right. So we taught some lessons throughout the week. We had a sweet dodgeball tournament in Scotts basement with some of the youth. Im going to set another one up friday night. Hah the Youth here are freaking studly. They all love me too so we have a lot of fun. We are going to be taking them all to the ghetto of muskegon in the next little while. Go talk to some gangtser and scary black people. Hah i love talking to thugs. Were the Jesus People.! booyah! The levasseurs came down to Muskegon for a circus and they called me up and invited us too. So that was pretty cool. We got to see some guys going around the "ball of death" on their dirtbikes and stuff like that. it was way sweet. Oh and tomorrow i am going up to Hart with Brunson for trade-offs! Woot it will be like old times! Im so excited, I havent seen Mama Myers for a month! Rediculous if you ask me! I still need to get her a gift. I had this cool idea to get her one of those willow tree figurines, with like a mom with her two sons then i was going to paint ties on the boys and tags and so it would be her missionaries that come in through the years. then write her some cool note or something. hah but i cant find the right thing so i might have to scratch that idea. but then after that i have trade-offs with the ZLs Elder Hiatt is coming down here with me and we are going to have a good time. Hes one of my bros. So this week should be fun. We also have some big plans to teach more people. I made a list of 20 people i wanted to see this week so hopefully we can see most of them. so far we have like 14 of them scheduled so we will be busy. But it will be nice for a change. We didnt have the car all last week so it was pretty gay. We did a lot of walking around and doing pointless doorknocking. Hah okay not pointless just ineffective. I actually really enjoy doing it. PLUS it was warm outside all week! The snow is almost all gone! Woot woot! And its supposed to be in the 50s next week i think. O and mother. I am trying to eat up all the stuff out of the apartments so i can quit spending money, but i do go to ceasars and subway every now and again. our dinner calender has been pretty crappy the last few weeks. So we have been making our own dinners a lot. Or calling Scott and having him take us out! :) He is so dang cool. He wants me to stay here way bad. He is talking to president about it too so hopefully i can, cuz this is probably the best area in the mission. Not just sayng that either. I could stay here for another 16 months :) so thats about all i got. Im still learning a lot and still kickin! This transfer has been cool because i have been able to do most of the teaching and so i have grown a lot this transfer and i can spit out a lesson on anything now. Hah well not anything. Im getting better at asking questions and making them teach :) So things are really good. My testimony is growing all the time, and thats something that you cant take away hah mission life is great. I hope you guys are all happy and making the most out of every moment. Thats what its all about being happy.So make sure you smile and love life. I love you guys and tell the grandparents hi and i love them. I feel horrible for not writing. So im going to start doing that more. I havent written a letter in 4 months......hah! oops. So tell everyone hi and that im doing good. Love you guys
Elder Larsen
Jake is going to be a dad?! What the heck. He can barely tie his own shoes! He will have to teach himself while he is teaching his kid. Hah Im not sure if anyone even told me they were having a kid. Thats so cool though. I can see him being a little menace to society. Hah Thats how it should be too. We are basically doing what you were talking about. Teaching members and asking referrals. Thats why we have the 20 lessons a week goal. We are supposed to be teaching members and getting their trust and the spirit of missionary work going through the ward. I haven't been very good at it though ill be honest. Thats something we are working on this week. We have a list of people we have to go teach. So things are going a lot better. Im working harder and so that has made a big difference. I have to fight my natural laziness a lot. Hah I wasnt raised to be lazy....i just am. hah not really. just sometimes. ANYWAYS......sounds like you are still kicking. I feel bad when i dont write you because you write really awesome letters. But i do appreciate it. and i thank you for your testimony and example. I hope you and Brit are doing fantastic. Tell her hi for me. So i better get to work we have 3 lessons set up this evening. YAY! So i love you and have a good day :)
So so sorry i didnt email on monday, We had some other missionaries with us and they had to get heading back and so i didnt have too much time. Plus i couldnt concentrate with everyone talking, plus i was stresssed out about our lessons that cancelled. PLUS
A ski resort in richmond? I would tear the heck outta that place! Where did you here that from? That would make me so dang happy. Our little town of Smithfield would become a ski town! WOOT WOOT! Lyndie Loo is getting married huh....what a punk she can barely think for herself! hah thats sweet though. make sure you tell them hi and congrats for me. Hah that will teach em. my hair was pretty long in some of those pics ive got it cut since and now its getting to the point where it needs to be cut again. I have an idea mother...you need to hire some younger blood, or something. But then i guess they cant really sew and thats what you need.......scratch that. So much for my ideas. Anyways
This past week kinda sucked. Just because we had like 5 appointments fall through and so we were really low on numbers but we did doorknock into someone who could be interested. It was kinda funny actually. We had been out like an hour and everything was fine. Then at her house she opened the door and i was tripping over my words bad. I gave my worst doorknock approach ever, but yet she was the only one that was intersted in talking to us. Hah! So that just goes to show you. Im looking for the elect gosh darnit and the Elect are looking for me and thats proof of it right there. "There is a less-accountable kid coming to your door, he is going to say something really stupid and stumble over his words...let him in so he can teach you." Thats what the spirit says to people before i knock on their doors. HAH! Ok not really usually i have really awesome stuff to say, i still blame it on her eyes. They were like orange-yellow. Like a dog. Thats what threw me off i think. I thought i was talking to a dog.....right. So we taught some lessons throughout the week. We had a sweet dodgeball tournament in Scotts basement with some of the youth. Im going to set another one up friday night. Hah the Youth here are freaking studly. They all love me too so we have a lot of fun. We are going to be taking them all to the ghetto of muskegon in the next little while. Go talk to some gangtser and scary black people. Hah i love talking to thugs. Were the Jesus People.! booyah! The levasseurs came down to Muskegon for a circus and they called me up and invited us too. So that was pretty cool. We got to see some guys going around the "ball of death" on their dirtbikes and stuff like that. it was way sweet. Oh and tomorrow i am going up to Hart with Brunson for trade-offs! Woot it will be like old times! Im so excited, I havent seen Mama Myers for a month! Rediculous if you ask me! I still need to get her a gift. I had this cool idea to get her one of those willow tree figurines, with like a mom with her two sons then i was going to paint ties on the boys and tags and so it would be her missionaries that come in through the years. then write her some cool note or something. hah but i cant find the right thing so i might have to scratch that idea. but then after that i have trade-offs with the ZLs Elder Hiatt is coming down here with me and we are going to have a good time. Hes one of my bros. So this week should be fun. We also have some big plans to teach more people. I made a list of 20 people i wanted to see this week so hopefully we can see most of them. so far we have like 14 of them scheduled so we will be busy. But it will be nice for a change. We didnt have the car all last week so it was pretty gay. We did a lot of walking around and doing pointless doorknocking. Hah okay not pointless just ineffective. I actually really enjoy doing it. PLUS it was warm outside all week! The snow is almost all gone! Woot woot! And its supposed to be in the 50s next week i think. O and mother. I am trying to eat up all the stuff out of the apartments so i can quit spending money, but i do go to ceasars and subway every now and again. our dinner calender has been pretty crappy the last few weeks. So we have been making our own dinners a lot. Or calling Scott and having him take us out! :) He is so dang cool. He wants me to stay here way bad. He is talking to president about it too so hopefully i can, cuz this is probably the best area in the mission. Not just sayng that either. I could stay here for another 16 months :) so thats about all i got. Im still learning a lot and still kickin! This transfer has been cool because i have been able to do most of the teaching and so i have grown a lot this transfer and i can spit out a lesson on anything now. Hah well not anything. Im getting better at asking questions and making them teach :) So things are really good. My testimony is growing all the time, and thats something that you cant take away hah mission life is great. I hope you guys are all happy and making the most out of every moment. Thats what its all about being happy.So make sure you smile and love life. I love you guys and tell the grandparents hi and i love them. I feel horrible for not writing. So im going to start doing that more. I havent written a letter in 4 months......hah! oops. So tell everyone hi and that im doing good. Love you guys
Elder Larsen
Jake is going to be a dad?! What the heck. He can barely tie his own shoes! He will have to teach himself while he is teaching his kid. Hah Im not sure if anyone even told me they were having a kid. Thats so cool though. I can see him being a little menace to society. Hah Thats how it should be too. We are basically doing what you were talking about. Teaching members and asking referrals. Thats why we have the 20 lessons a week goal. We are supposed to be teaching members and getting their trust and the spirit of missionary work going through the ward. I haven't been very good at it though ill be honest. Thats something we are working on this week. We have a list of people we have to go teach. So things are going a lot better. Im working harder and so that has made a big difference. I have to fight my natural laziness a lot. Hah I wasnt raised to be lazy....i just am. hah not really. just sometimes. ANYWAYS......sounds like you are still kicking. I feel bad when i dont write you because you write really awesome letters. But i do appreciate it. and i thank you for your testimony and example. I hope you and Brit are doing fantastic. Tell her hi for me. So i better get to work we have 3 lessons set up this evening. YAY! So i love you and have a good day :)
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
March 1,2010
First of all im good. This week we had zone conference and it was pretty depressing to be honest. My favorite missionaries and friends are going home :( Brunson, Schwartz, Goodin and Baros is next. That was pretty sad. I guess ill start making friends with the younger missionaries. ZC was alright. Pres talked numbers again and stuff, there were a few good things that he talked about. We had some cool stuff happen. We worked with some Part member families that i guess missionaries in the past have had a hard time with. But its probably because they were robot missionaries and offended them. So it was cool i talked to the husband of one member and he started getting a little more open and decided he wanted to cook us up some perch and bluegill and stuff. So that was way cool. We went over there and the parents were there and they took us to this winter sports comlex and showed us the luge track they have and i started a snowball fight, so mostly it was a get to know you day. So at least they are more open with the missionaries, now we can go over and start teaching him. The bishop called me low-key, im not sure what he really means by that, but whatever. HAH.Oh! HAHAHA im so funny i love it. Last night there was an eagle court of honor, and afterwards i was talking to the youth and stuff. we started walking out and i decided to start a snowball fight with scott, cuz he loves them. Well....needless to say it was about 6 against me, and i snuck up behind Scott while he was making a snowball and tackled him into the snow! It was so aweome there were a bunch of people laughing there heads off and stuff. hahaha it was the coolest thing ever. Scott is going to let me drive his jeep sometime im excited! woot woot! But basically thats all that happened this week. We got to see some pretty cool families. We have a guy that is going to take us to this big guitar center they have here, so thats cool. He hasnt been baptized yet because his wife(who is a member) wont marry him, pretty stupid if you ask me. So things are going well here. Love you guys hope you are all happy. Tell everyone at the shop to take it easy and stop being so dramatic. Drama will be the downfall of mankind. I leave you with that.
hello papa!
Thats so awesome that you made me an eagle cd. Hah i guess i was a little to busy/lazy at the time. hah! I havent had the time to watch it yet. But i saw all the pictures on the SD card. I forgot about so much! We had some good times. Scott was looking at them with me and he was surprised by how much we did. I kept saying. This is in san diego/glacier/yellowstone/arizona/canada haha and then all our toys and stuff. We have got it pretty good! And mostly becuase of you too. You deserve a vacation i think. Come to western Michigan this summer. I hear its like southern california. but with trees everywhere. hah but really. You are the greatest, hands DOWN! haha. Poor stupid dog. Has to be locked up. Im afraid one of these times he isnt going to show up again and i wont get to wrastle with him again. That stinks about work. But at least Nucor is kicking butt anyways. Thats really comforting. There are so many people unemployed out here its crazy. Too bad it hasnt humbled any of them. They are all a bunch of bible bashers. HAH dang michiGANDERS. But at least now you will have some time to catch up at the house anyways right? Sorry i didnt help more when i was back home. Hah punk kid right? Ill help you out a lot when i get home. Maybe there wont be anything to do then huh? Wishful thinking i guess. I dont know how i get away with such long hair. Pres hasnt ever said anthing about it either, haha. Well im glad you guys got the pictures and stuff. Im taking many more. Oh I held a turantula this week. It was the scariest thing i have ever done. I would rather drop off a hundred foot cliff on my snowboard than do that again! hah it was making a web on my hand for a second. nasty. Ew i hate spiders. Thanks again so much for the cd and pictures im excited to watch it. Thanks for everything you do for me dad. I hope you are happy and having a good time. Take care of yourself. You deserve it :) Love you dad.
Your son,
Elder Larsen
hello papa!
Thats so awesome that you made me an eagle cd. Hah i guess i was a little to busy/lazy at the time. hah! I havent had the time to watch it yet. But i saw all the pictures on the SD card. I forgot about so much! We had some good times. Scott was looking at them with me and he was surprised by how much we did. I kept saying. This is in san diego/glacier/yellowstone/arizona/canada haha and then all our toys and stuff. We have got it pretty good! And mostly becuase of you too. You deserve a vacation i think. Come to western Michigan this summer. I hear its like southern california. but with trees everywhere. hah but really. You are the greatest, hands DOWN! haha. Poor stupid dog. Has to be locked up. Im afraid one of these times he isnt going to show up again and i wont get to wrastle with him again. That stinks about work. But at least Nucor is kicking butt anyways. Thats really comforting. There are so many people unemployed out here its crazy. Too bad it hasnt humbled any of them. They are all a bunch of bible bashers. HAH dang michiGANDERS. But at least now you will have some time to catch up at the house anyways right? Sorry i didnt help more when i was back home. Hah punk kid right? Ill help you out a lot when i get home. Maybe there wont be anything to do then huh? Wishful thinking i guess. I dont know how i get away with such long hair. Pres hasnt ever said anthing about it either, haha. Well im glad you guys got the pictures and stuff. Im taking many more. Oh I held a turantula this week. It was the scariest thing i have ever done. I would rather drop off a hundred foot cliff on my snowboard than do that again! hah it was making a web on my hand for a second. nasty. Ew i hate spiders. Thanks again so much for the cd and pictures im excited to watch it. Thanks for everything you do for me dad. I hope you are happy and having a good time. Take care of yourself. You deserve it :) Love you dad.
Your son,
Elder Larsen
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Febuary 22,2010
Hello my people.
First of all this guy next to me emailing just started saying something in another language, and pretty loud....i wanted to say hush to him cuz we are in a library of learning! PLUS! We are in america.... Please speak it, gracias. Anyways..... This week was alright. Im sick of this gloomy crappy weather. I have had about enough of it all. Well first and foremost. The bigest thing that happened this week. I learned how to do a Rubiks cube....Thank you.. Thank you. Yes i got skillz. I had to speak in sacrament again....One of the speakers was sick so someoen told Wood they wanted him to introduce himself and share a testimony. Then when they got up to announce it they told me to do the same thing....So i got about a 2 second warning so that was cool, So i got up there and made a joke and bore my testimony, and talked about missionary work and encouraged the 18 and 19 yr olds in the ward to go. They are all so cool. If i lived here i would be good friends with a few of them. We just stopped by a lot of Less-actives and taught them. We do a lot of that here in Michigan. we have like 300 members in this area. But only like 100 are active. So we have quite a lot of work to do. Dang em all. We had interviews this week...And zone conference this coming week. Elder Wood is alright. Im kinda sick of him. He is such a robot. Its hard to even have a conversation with him sometimes. Hes alright though. We get along at night hah, he likes me and wants to serve another transfer with me....hah what am i going to do. Hah i say that to him a lot. What am i going to do with you? Ugh. Oh weel. Dont worry about me things are fine. We are seeing javonna and joe tonight so that should be good. We will be teaching them the restoration unless something comes up, my favorite lesson to teach. Well this computer is about to kick me off. so i better get off. I might be going to scotts to finish emailing ya'll im sick of emailing thats for sure. I might just start calling you every now and then. is that ok with you? hah Anyways peace out my family. Love you guys.,
Hey dad. So ya the weather here is pretty crappy its mostly off and on snow. The forecasters are worse at predicting the weather than utah tho thats for sure. I think we are supposed to be getting like 8 inches today or something. Its not even snowing. We got a little bit last night but nothing too serious. And about Grizz/ I dont know if you have seen those invisible fence things. You can set up a perimeter around the house and if grizz goes past that he will get shocked until he comes in. Knowing him he may never come in. But you may want to look into one of those. There is also one that shocks the dog if he goes a certain distance away from the device. That way you can have it set up in the backyard or something and he could still go to the barn and around a ways but he wouldnt be able to go on vacation like he has been doing. Food for thought. hah. I do hope he is alright though. I hate to say wait for me to go to the Henry mountains.....but i might just have to. hah! That would be a fun trip for sure! So wait for me!!!! My address
2612 Riverview Ave Apt #2
N Muskegon 49445
Ill be sending off an SD card with all of Hart and N muskegon pix on it. So be looking for that by the end of the week sometime. Well thats all i can write this week. Love you dad thanks for everything! Have a good week and dont forget to.... :)
First of all this guy next to me emailing just started saying something in another language, and pretty loud....i wanted to say hush to him cuz we are in a library of learning! PLUS! We are in america.... Please speak it, gracias. Anyways..... This week was alright. Im sick of this gloomy crappy weather. I have had about enough of it all. Well first and foremost. The bigest thing that happened this week. I learned how to do a Rubiks cube....Thank you.. Thank you. Yes i got skillz. I had to speak in sacrament again....One of the speakers was sick so someoen told Wood they wanted him to introduce himself and share a testimony. Then when they got up to announce it they told me to do the same thing....So i got about a 2 second warning so that was cool, So i got up there and made a joke and bore my testimony, and talked about missionary work and encouraged the 18 and 19 yr olds in the ward to go. They are all so cool. If i lived here i would be good friends with a few of them. We just stopped by a lot of Less-actives and taught them. We do a lot of that here in Michigan. we have like 300 members in this area. But only like 100 are active. So we have quite a lot of work to do. Dang em all. We had interviews this week...And zone conference this coming week. Elder Wood is alright. Im kinda sick of him. He is such a robot. Its hard to even have a conversation with him sometimes. Hes alright though. We get along at night hah, he likes me and wants to serve another transfer with me....hah what am i going to do. Hah i say that to him a lot. What am i going to do with you? Ugh. Oh weel. Dont worry about me things are fine. We are seeing javonna and joe tonight so that should be good. We will be teaching them the restoration unless something comes up, my favorite lesson to teach. Well this computer is about to kick me off. so i better get off. I might be going to scotts to finish emailing ya'll im sick of emailing thats for sure. I might just start calling you every now and then. is that ok with you? hah Anyways peace out my family. Love you guys.,
Hey dad. So ya the weather here is pretty crappy its mostly off and on snow. The forecasters are worse at predicting the weather than utah tho thats for sure. I think we are supposed to be getting like 8 inches today or something. Its not even snowing. We got a little bit last night but nothing too serious. And about Grizz/ I dont know if you have seen those invisible fence things. You can set up a perimeter around the house and if grizz goes past that he will get shocked until he comes in. Knowing him he may never come in. But you may want to look into one of those. There is also one that shocks the dog if he goes a certain distance away from the device. That way you can have it set up in the backyard or something and he could still go to the barn and around a ways but he wouldnt be able to go on vacation like he has been doing. Food for thought. hah. I do hope he is alright though. I hate to say wait for me to go to the Henry mountains.....but i might just have to. hah! That would be a fun trip for sure! So wait for me!!!! My address
2612 Riverview Ave Apt #2
N Muskegon 49445
Ill be sending off an SD card with all of Hart and N muskegon pix on it. So be looking for that by the end of the week sometime. Well thats all i can write this week. Love you dad thanks for everything! Have a good week and dont forget to.... :)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Febuary 16, 2010
HARRO!
Sorry i didnt email yesterday. We didnt have a car and we had some stuff scheduled so we werent able to get it took care of. But good news! Im here now and i only had to walk like 2 miles to get to the library here! Hah this is rediculous. So last week i got my new companion Elder Wood. He is alright. Hes kinda akward and doesnt like to have fun. So its been a really big change for me. Cuz im all about having fun namean? But at the same time its pretty cool because i get to lead everything because i dont trust im too. Hah. Ill just have to teach him a few very important life lessons. HAh! We actually went to the same school.....Josh Wood. He is a year younger than me, i think he said his mom ran into you at the store or something. He had seminary with Brianne.... But anyways last week we were able to see Javonna and Joe(Shirley Paynes kids) It was aweseome we taught them the Plan of salvation since their mother just passed away and they were both getting really into the lessons and asking good questions, so that was good. They didnt make it to church though like they said they would. Thats the story of my mission life. Joe might be coming to the church tonight to play some basketball with the ward. I havent played it forever! Its going to be funny. And we also saw some other people that im not going to talk about because nothing exciting happened.
We have interviews this week. Which should be interesting....Pres has got something against me and im going to bring it up and ask ha come? I got my package! Thank you so much! That cologne was perfect. Was that the expensive kind? And i ate almost all of the peanut butter bars! They were tasty! Hah They smelled good and tasted good so they must have been fine right? The money is muuuuch appreciated! I have the best family in the whole wide world!
questions questions. We went to Mama Myers house for the superbowl. Woot Saints won just like i said. The baptism didnt go through. We met with him again and we were just going to go over the questions and make sure he knew everything and before we even started. He said :"I dont even know what baptism is, i dont know what its for. I dont even know what alll of this is about!" Dang kid! I strangled him for a minute "Why you little...!!" He has been taught everything a few times. Hah so we are going to meet with him again. He keeps saying he wants to get baptized. Hes just a punk kid though. ha.so that was kind of a bummer. But hey theres the whole transfer to get him under. I am planning on two baptisms this transfer. So i guess i better start working harder. Didnt i guess brazil for Brandon? I seem to recall...And why does Eric need fingerprints taken? Is it for a visa or what? He didnt get caught doing something that im not aware of?
So its snowing like crazy today. Hopefully it keeps up so we can cancel church! woot woot! Hah i said that to Wood and he got all akward, not much of a joker he is. But we are doing some good around here. He wants to work so when we get the car im going to work him to death! Hah so things are good. Im still studying the BoM and stuff. So my testimony is constently growing for being in the service of the Lord. You learn a lot about yourself and your potential while on the mission. I think thats one of the major reasons we are sent out. There is so much to learn and we can grow to be such great people, but we need the help of the Lord in doing so or we will fail. And i know that to be true because i have felt both sides of that. And i am truly growing and the Lord is molding me into some kinda Warrior missionary i think.... Im going to start packing heat and bustin caps out here..ok haha i cant be serious for more than a minute i promise. But i just want you guys to know that i have a testimony of this gospel. the Lord is watching over us and he is blessing us more than we know, he doesnt ask much of us. But he promises things that should make us want to do nothing more than serve him. He is loving, he is merciful, and he is always there for us if we reach out with the faith to feel his loving influence and his guiding hand. I love being in his service and im grateful for the family that has been given me. I love you guys, thanks for your prayers. They are heard and answered and i can feel that. Until next time. Ive been Willy.
So Im supposed to be having you guys look up some names. Al Geisler in this ward might be a relative. He grew up in Smithfield for a while. His mother is a Larsen. you guys need to look for a John Christian Larsen, or a Christian John Larsen. One of those two.
And my other question. I need Grandma Larsens Email. I cant seem to find it. Tell the grandparents harro! for me. And im thinking about them and eventually ill write them a letter.
Loves
Sorry i didnt email yesterday. We didnt have a car and we had some stuff scheduled so we werent able to get it took care of. But good news! Im here now and i only had to walk like 2 miles to get to the library here! Hah this is rediculous. So last week i got my new companion Elder Wood. He is alright. Hes kinda akward and doesnt like to have fun. So its been a really big change for me. Cuz im all about having fun namean? But at the same time its pretty cool because i get to lead everything because i dont trust im too. Hah. Ill just have to teach him a few very important life lessons. HAh! We actually went to the same school.....Josh Wood. He is a year younger than me, i think he said his mom ran into you at the store or something. He had seminary with Brianne.... But anyways last week we were able to see Javonna and Joe(Shirley Paynes kids) It was aweseome we taught them the Plan of salvation since their mother just passed away and they were both getting really into the lessons and asking good questions, so that was good. They didnt make it to church though like they said they would. Thats the story of my mission life. Joe might be coming to the church tonight to play some basketball with the ward. I havent played it forever! Its going to be funny. And we also saw some other people that im not going to talk about because nothing exciting happened.
We have interviews this week. Which should be interesting....Pres has got something against me and im going to bring it up and ask ha come? I got my package! Thank you so much! That cologne was perfect. Was that the expensive kind? And i ate almost all of the peanut butter bars! They were tasty! Hah They smelled good and tasted good so they must have been fine right? The money is muuuuch appreciated! I have the best family in the whole wide world!
questions questions. We went to Mama Myers house for the superbowl. Woot Saints won just like i said. The baptism didnt go through. We met with him again and we were just going to go over the questions and make sure he knew everything and before we even started. He said :"I dont even know what baptism is, i dont know what its for. I dont even know what alll of this is about!" Dang kid! I strangled him for a minute "Why you little...!!" He has been taught everything a few times. Hah so we are going to meet with him again. He keeps saying he wants to get baptized. Hes just a punk kid though. ha.so that was kind of a bummer. But hey theres the whole transfer to get him under. I am planning on two baptisms this transfer. So i guess i better start working harder. Didnt i guess brazil for Brandon? I seem to recall...And why does Eric need fingerprints taken? Is it for a visa or what? He didnt get caught doing something that im not aware of?
So its snowing like crazy today. Hopefully it keeps up so we can cancel church! woot woot! Hah i said that to Wood and he got all akward, not much of a joker he is. But we are doing some good around here. He wants to work so when we get the car im going to work him to death! Hah so things are good. Im still studying the BoM and stuff. So my testimony is constently growing for being in the service of the Lord. You learn a lot about yourself and your potential while on the mission. I think thats one of the major reasons we are sent out. There is so much to learn and we can grow to be such great people, but we need the help of the Lord in doing so or we will fail. And i know that to be true because i have felt both sides of that. And i am truly growing and the Lord is molding me into some kinda Warrior missionary i think.... Im going to start packing heat and bustin caps out here..ok haha i cant be serious for more than a minute i promise. But i just want you guys to know that i have a testimony of this gospel. the Lord is watching over us and he is blessing us more than we know, he doesnt ask much of us. But he promises things that should make us want to do nothing more than serve him. He is loving, he is merciful, and he is always there for us if we reach out with the faith to feel his loving influence and his guiding hand. I love being in his service and im grateful for the family that has been given me. I love you guys, thanks for your prayers. They are heard and answered and i can feel that. Until next time. Ive been Willy.
So Im supposed to be having you guys look up some names. Al Geisler in this ward might be a relative. He grew up in Smithfield for a while. His mother is a Larsen. you guys need to look for a John Christian Larsen, or a Christian John Larsen. One of those two.
And my other question. I need Grandma Larsens Email. I cant seem to find it. Tell the grandparents harro! for me. And im thinking about them and eventually ill write them a letter.
Loves
Febuary 1,2010
HAH Mom you are so dang funny. Our whole family is! Its rediculous if you ask me. Thanks for singing to me on my b-day! I had an alright day i guess. We had interviews at our apartment and pres brought me alittle cake that he bought. So that was nice of him. Interviews went really well actually. He told me he wants to get me to the point where i am with some younger missionaries. so thats good. I want to train really bad. so i guess we will see in a few transfers what will happen. There's a good chance that me and Tidrick will be staying together i think. T-calls are on friday, so ill be finding out this week. I didnt get your package yet. But brianne told me there are some peanut butter bars. So thats good! I got Jeron and Beckys package.Which was awesome.Im sorry you guys are losing it. I think its because you say you are losing it so much so it gets in your head and then you actually start losing it because you believe you are....chew on that for a while.hah. I cant believe you guys let Eric inside our house! hah thats waycool. Is he leaving for the mission? Isnt it in february sometime? Thats so cool that Brandon is getting his call! Hah im guessing he is going to Canada. Thats my guess. second guess is Australia. And third is China. Ive heard a lot of stuff about China opening up. I heard that when it does they are going to need like 50,000 missionaries to go there. Thats just about as much as is out right now! Elder Liermantold us that. He has some connections in SLC, but it might just be talk. I dont know.So this week we had Shirley Paynes wedding. Her family did it at apentecostal church. have never seen so many black people in my life.wow...The church was right in the middle of Muskegon Heights, which is a pretty intense ghetto. And wow. There were probably 300 people at the funeral. and only 6 of them were white. Hah! Everyone had these sweet fur coats on and all this bling and stuff. Soo many gangsters everyhwere, and then theres me. The whitest of the white. Hah it was pretty tight i loved it. But Shirleys Son Jakata wanted us to speak at her funeral. So I let Tidrick do it because he knew her better. So he got up there and spoke about her and shared a scripture from the bom and he got a ton of people clapping and stuff. Hah it was really cool.But it drug on for a while. And it was kinda rediculous. There was alot of shouting and "carrying-on" as mom would put it. People would get up and shout amen! and praise jesus and everyone was crying. It was crazy. so we ended up leaving early because it was taking so long.We are going to be meeting with Jakata and Javahna on wednesdays. So there is some really cool potential with them. That would be sweet to baptize both of them and get them into the church. Thats what Shirley wants im sure. I attached a picture of Jakatas son, Tugi. Hes pretty funny.So this next sunday we have a baptism! YAY! Hunter LaNore is the name. He is a way cool kid, so im excited about that. Ill send some pictures. We are going over there a bunch this week to reteach him everything so hes ready and stuff. We also helped a lady move this week. Her name is Joanie. She has two kids and i guess the missionaries taught her once and it went very well and she really enjoyed it. So she asked us if we would help. She is a way nice lady and she really likes us so when we get the car on wednesday we are going to go have a lesson with her. She is one of our top investigators so im excited about that. So things are going pretty well. to answer your question. i dont really do anything in the ward.OH i just remembered something. So saturday night we got a call frombro Lammi to give a talk the next day......so we almost called in sick...haha just kidding, We both prepared 10 minute talks that night when we got home and so in sacrament meeting the lady before us went waaayyy over her time. We sung the intermediate hymn when we should have been ending the meeting. so it was 5 after and i just decided to share a little quote and bear my testimony. so i stood up there for like 3 minutes and then i sat down and Tidrick decided to give his talk. So that was kinda stupid. He made me look dumb, but at the same time he looked dumb. I was kinda mad to be honest. so we ended sacrament 20 minutes late. hah! it was kinda funny. But yeah anyways all i do is go to classes and worry about investigators. We also have to go to PEC every morning and talk about everythign we did in the past week. Who we taught and what we taught and what happened. im about to go inactive because of all the dang meetings. HAH I hate meetings. people talk way too much and say way more than they need to say. And thats the truth. just say the facts and get on with it. I dont need your dang opinions. hah! people are funny/stupid. Thats another truth. booyah! Thats me venting again. I do that sometimes.hah but its all good. So thats basically my week. I dont know what else to say. so peace! And love!Your son
Dear Theresa—
Just wanted to tell you how honored I was to have your son for supper again this past Sunday evening. We’ve missed him since he was transferred to North Muskegon, which is 30 miles away. He and his companion drove to Shelby and spent Sunday night with Elders Brunson and Baros, and they all came here for supper. They are so wonderful to have around, and I so enjoy it when they are in my home! He has such a quiet sense of humor, but when it comes out, he has everyone laughing—and we spend a lot of time laughing. Thank you, again, for sharing him with us. I miss him, myself—and I can only imagine how much of a sacrifice it has been for your family. Just know that there are others who love him and care for him while he is away from you.
Love in Christ,
Ruth Myers
Dear Theresa—
Just wanted to tell you how honored I was to have your son for supper again this past Sunday evening. We’ve missed him since he was transferred to North Muskegon, which is 30 miles away. He and his companion drove to Shelby and spent Sunday night with Elders Brunson and Baros, and they all came here for supper. They are so wonderful to have around, and I so enjoy it when they are in my home! He has such a quiet sense of humor, but when it comes out, he has everyone laughing—and we spend a lot of time laughing. Thank you, again, for sharing him with us. I miss him, myself—and I can only imagine how much of a sacrifice it has been for your family. Just know that there are others who love him and care for him while he is away from you.
Love in Christ,
Ruth Myers
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