He is risen🌅- Week 68 - April 18, 2022

Hello family and friends. I'm writing this email on Sunday because it's always hard for me to feel motivated to write it on Monday, haha. 

I'd like to start off by saying how grateful I am for Jesus Christ. Today is Easter, and as I've been pondering the role of Jesus Christ--especially the miracle of Him rising from the dead. I am reminded of the many blessings and restarts I have because of Him. My love has grown so much for his sacrifice. 

This past week I have made a goal to help me feel more in tune with the spirit. I'm not going to lie, the past couple weeks I have been addicted to Facebook. I have been on it a lot. I mean a lot. So this week I said I will only look at Facebook in the evenings; that will be improvement for me. So this week I did that, and it has made a world of difference. I have felt the spirit more, I've been less homesick, and I'm loving the people more. 

I sat here thinking of words I could articulate to make my testimony and gratitude for Jesus Christ sound pronoun, and just express how I really feel about Him. However, I was reminded that a testimony comes from the heart and does not have to have fancy words for the message to be understood and the spirit to be present. 

I know that Jesus Christ lives. I am so grateful that I am able to live with my family forever. My family means so much to me. I love my Savior so much. I try my best to make Him happy. 

Love, 

Elder Larsen

Leaving the mission😎 - Week 67 - April 11, 2022

I left our mission today! So there is a hike that is up near Fredericksburg, Texas that is called Enchanted rock. It is just outside of the mission boudries, but the mission president allows it. So we got to do that today and then had a bunch of fun playing spikeball, volleyball, and pickleball after. Probably one of my most favorite days I've ever had on my mission. 

We also pushed Greg's baptismal date back a couple weeks. He asked if I could confirm him the Sunday after his baptism! It's exciting however I'm super nervous. I know the Lord will help me though. 

Other than that we just did our normal stuff. We did some service, then taught lessons, and found some new people. 

We are "teaching" this man named Dave. I'm not going to say much because he drives me crazy! He's a basher but likes to say he's trying to learn more about our religion. He's just confused. He goes down rabbit holes. I told him that we will help him with the primary questions. Then we can go to the secondary questions. He then got mad and just said that makes no sense. He just makes me so mad, however we have so much patience for him. We are going Wednesday at 8pm and I'm just going to be bold and straight up with this dude. Should be fun! :)

This week I've been focusing a lot on humility. One of my goals is to not say "I" or "me", and it is hard. I've been learning a lot of different things and it's helping me realize the many weaknesses I have. However, being humble isn't putting yourself down. It's honestly realizing that you can't do things on your own and need God. 

I love y'all, have a good week! I'd love to hear from you. 

Elder Larsen

 

Baby Goats 🐐 - Week 66 - April 4, 2022

Very tiring week. We had multiple service projects a day, so everyday we were just dead tired. At one of the service projects we got to hold baby goats. It took us forever to go try and catch one. 

Towards the beginning of the week we had our interviews with President Tveten. It was an amazing interview, probably my favorite one. The past couple weeks have been super hard for me. My personal studies have been non existent; I just don't know what to study. I've been probably the most homesick I've been my whole mission. However, I just love this ward, area, and all the missionaries here. So that's helping a lot. 

We went and had a lesson with a man named Richard. He's super sweet, he is a total redneck though. He gets mad if we are total sticks(being a robot). He tells us to take our ties off and come casual. He has a pet tarantula that he found under his porch. The whole time we were there it was just crawling all over him. Then he put it on Elder Clark. Richard then put it in his mouth; that was disgusting. 

Conference was amazing though! I decided to write down a couple questions that have been on my mind lately. They got answered! I'm excited for the talks to come out though--so we can read them. It surprised me when President Nelson said he watched basketball haha. However, his talk was amazing! 

Love,

Elder Larsen

Not much happened - Week 65 - March 28, 2022

Honestly nothing much happened this week. We just had a lot of lessons that went very well. 

We had zone conference, which was good we talked a lot about teaching skills. We did a whole ton of role plays. 

That's about it for this week. 

Elder Larsen