No email - Week 8 - February 22, 2021

Hey yall I've been really busy today and won't be able to send my normal weekly email so I'll just send pictures from this week. 

Snow in Texas? - Week 7 - February 15, 2021

 Hey how is everyone doing? I found a chromebook that I can write this email on so that means that it won't take as long to write. So on Tuesday I went on exchanges in a spanish area. Ya I was no help at all but it was super fun, all the people that we taught or visited were so humble. I wouldn't be mad if I learned some spanish and went to a spanish area. So Wednesday was a super fun day. We had a few lessons with people that are progressing really well. We first had a lesson with this girl named Lisa, she got passed to us by the sister missionaries nearby and Lisa is awesome. She works a lot so it's been kinda hard to have lessons with her but she has such great faith and is just so amazing. Later that night we had a lesson with Cody, Cody is definitely progressing the most. We had dinner at his house and he literally takes simple foods and makes them soo good it's actually insane. So a little background on Cody is that he's insanely smart. He is an engineer for digging tunnels underground. He went to MIT and Stanford on full ride scholarships and he biked across America. He is one of the most interesting people i've met. After dinner we had a lesson and Cody said he's really gunna pray if he wants to get baptized and it's gunna happen. I know Cody will get an answer and I have seen his faith grow. 

We didn't have a lesson with Joel this week because he had some health stuff. It's not serious but if y'all could keep him in your prayers that would be awesome. He is totally ready for baptism but he wants to get healthy before he does. Then Imma skip till Friday, Friday I went on exchanges with our district leader Elder Guptil and it was so much fun we had a couple lessons and had dinner with a member. Then we got a call that someone needed a blessing so I participated in that. Saturday we dropped by some houses and did something else I forget. Then Sunday and today we have to stay inside all day because it's super cold and has been snowing and San Antonio definitely isn't prepared for snow hahha. This morning we had a snowball fight with the assistants. 

Ok y'all while I've been on my mission I've noticed a couple things. The first one is how useless a lot of the things we use in our lives are. What I mean by that are things like Snapchat, Instagram, social media type of things. I've noticed that when we don't have those distractions in our lives and we don't have to worry about whos gunna like our post or who's gunna snapchat us back. This is so cliche, it's so true tho i've never felt so alive and never felt so close to God. It's when we take away distractions that we can be intune with spiritual promptings. When we care about those things Satan has us, he controls us almost. God gave us agency so we can choose but when we are addicted and care we almost lose our agency. Satan has control on us. Second is to not care about "wordly" things. This is mainly on the mission but also at home. I see missionaries caring what they look like and what I mean about that is if they look cool. They like to wear cool socks to look cool or they wear their tag on their collar or tie because it's cool to do. We aren't on a mission/on earth to look cool and have people like us because of how we look. We are here to learn and to grow to grow as people to become more Christlike. We are here to serve and love others. I promise you as you find ways to serve and love others you will soo good. I know from experience, I have gone to some crazy parties, I have done things that I'm not supposed to do. I've done things that have grown me so far aways from God and Jesus Christ I never knew if I could make it back. If they would love me. I KNOW that you can't go farther than the light of Christ shines. There is always a way back no matter what. God loves you no matter what you've done, he doesn't just love you, he loves you with a perfect love. Think of the person that you see the most love in or who loves you the most, God loves you an infinite times more. While on my mission I've felt a tiny tiny piece of God's love for others and it's insane. Sorry I've said a lot but if you've made it this far I love y'all, your family loves you, but most importantly know that your Heavenly Father loves you so much. He wants you to return back to him, he wants to live with you again, he wants you with Him. The Gospel of Jesus Christ brings true happiness into your life. Please I'm begging y'all to come, come follow Jesus Christ and you'll see what I've experienced, REAL peace, REAL joy, REAL love. I challenge y'all to pray RIGHT NOW ask God to help you feel His love for you!

Love Y'all let me know if you need anything Elder Larsen 

Someone kissed me - Week 6 - February 8, 2021

This week was kinda boring no lie. So we had zone conference it was super boring, I learned some new stuff though. We helped a new member family move a couch this week. After we were walking back to our car and some guy was peeing next to the dumpster. I was backing up the car, ya missionaries have weird rules. So I was backing the car up and this man started to walk toward me. I was getting prepared to get robbed or sum because we were in a sketchy part of town. He walks up to me and we start having a condo and he hugs me and kissed me on the neck. He was a super cool person. Ok this is totally random but we have this cat that always comes to our apartment and sits by the window. And he sitting on it rn and Elder Wallin brought him in. We named him alex and now he comes all the time and we bring him inside and I don't like cats but this cat is the cutest thing ever. OK Oops I went off topic. 

So we met this guy on Facebook he's super cool he's 20 years old and is hippie and granola so he's my favorite type of person. We had a couple lessons with him. He's super into the Bible and was trying to convert us to him. We had another lesson with him today and his heart is starting to soften. Not much but very slowly and we plan on keep teaching him. He invited us to come play basketball with him and his friends this week so we will do that. 

Umm we had a lesson with Joel, and now we are aloud to have lessons in investigators houses so we did it at his house. Joel has some health issues he wants to get resolved before he gets baptized. He is there spiritually and has been to church 22 times. I told him that if he got baptized that God will help make his health issues better, I only said it bc the spirit kept telling me too. Idk if it did anything so then later the spirit told me to ask him if he'd like to have a blessing and he said yes after his surgery. So we gonna do that. Well thats it really, I'm hyped for this week bc we have member dinners every night yes sir let's goo. 

Well love yall 

Elder Larsen

Week two in the field - Week 5 - February 1, 2021

Hello everyone im back on my phone doing emails again. I'm not gonna lie I don't like emails. Imma do it for all of yall tho I'm doing it so yall can hear my experiences and stuff. Well we just had a bunch of lessons this week. Our area Castle Hills is on fire baby. Like people are referring themselves to us all the time to talk about the book of mormon or anything. People love talking about Jesus so this is the promised land for missionary work. We could have like 20 sets of missionaries here and still need more. 

I can tell you that there are some interesting people here though. Some of these people we talk to are crazy and are just tripping but it makes things interesting. This week we were doing service for this old lady she had to be over 90. It was me Elder Hungerford and Elder Stewart. Bc my trainer and Elder Stewart's companions are zone leaders they had a meeting, so we went and did service for this old lady. We had to help this lady walk bc if she fell it would've been bad it took about 30 minutes to go 30 steps so it was crazy long. But once she sat down she asked for a blessing thank goodness I had my oil, I almost left the house without it then thought we might need this. So we went and grabbed the oil and I did the annoiting of the oil then Elder Stewart did the blessing. Then we went and cleaned up all her branches and raked leaves super quick and easy. 

Then imma skip a few days but we just had lessons those days but nothing fun happened so we will skip them. Then on Saturday we got a call from the bishop and one of the speakers couldn't make it so guess who had to give the talk? Ya it was me so I gave a yesterday. Yesterday we taught  some guy named Frank. I've never seen frank before. He comes outside and he's all tattoed up and has a wife beater on and stuff. He was awesome tho. He kept called us his "N" words and kept dropping the F bomb but nothing you can do about it. Then we had dinner at one of the members houses and they are insanely rich I almost felt awkward bc I didn't know how to act. Well sorry I don't know if I should've told you what Frank was saying but whatever. 

Ohhh I almost forgot. Elder Wallin had a baptism in his last area Saturday morning so we went to that and it was in Spanish but the spirit was so strong it was amazing. I haven't felt the spirit that strong since I went to the temple. But yes this gospel is true everyone. If you want to know if its real. Live it, read your scriptures, and pray. I can promise you that you'll get an answer to that question. So I challenge you if you aren't already doing those things start, START NOW. It's literally the biggest blessing ever. Well love yall 

Elder Larsen