Inactives!!!

OPA!! COMO VOCES ESTAO?! Was a GREAT week here in PNUBS!! Just when i told you guys ive never been sick in the mission last week, 2 days later i get explosive diarrhea! My gosh, the worst of my life! It was seriously the most miserable 2 days! But anyway, just one of us got transferred here, elder bisognin. The new elder here is Elder Vepo. Hes from Florianopolis and is a really chill guy. He knows quite a bit of english but talks like a robot when he speaks it! He was really impressed with my Portugues. Now that training is over, we really focused on the work this week! We found 31 new investigators this week and 11 families!! We seriously went at it! I feel the most satisfied that ive ever felt in the mission. We met one guy, Vidal, who was working on fencing and gave him a Book of mormon. He almost cried and said that it was the best present he´s ever received in his life! Later on we were tracking and stopped by a house, and straight up homosexual comes out in a speedo and tells us to wait one second and went back into the house. Me and elder nakazoni looked at each other, nodded, and ran! hahah! We had a blitz in our area wednesday! It was a great success! I went with Elder Lied the ZL. It went really well, i learned a lot from him. The guy is intelligent as all get out! After the blitz we went and taught the family of Pedro and Lucia who let us into their house when it was raining and it went so well! We talked a good while with Pedro beforehand. He is so similar to dad! He´s just a hardworking guy, 55, and his mom passed away when he was 6 as well. We taught ALL of his family together afterwards, and they all loved it! They had been reading and praying as well before our lesson! NOBODY does this! All of the kids were involved in the lesson as well! Usually little kids will take off in the middle of the lesson, but they stayed! Pedro thanked us both, and gave us a big ol hug after! Thursday we visited Ana vitoria! Its so funny, she gets so bashful around us!  Later on, we taught this young lady, Luani. She is solid! She was loving everything we taught and asked about when church starts and everything before we even mentioned it! Saturday the other elders had a baptism! It was funny though, because Juliene chose Elder Nakazoni to baptize her! We never even taught her! hahaha! We raced around to invite investigators to the baptism and we got one to come, Livramento! She loved it! She definitely took a big step forward in progress! After the baptism we had the same annoying begger that wants money for beer approach us, but this time i took him on with a different approach. I only responded in English and acted like i didnt know Portugues! hahaha he had no clue what to do! Sunday, we had 85 in sacrament meeting! A huge growth from 60 last week! I´m starting to become better friends with everyone in the branch now that im understanding better! After church we had monthly planning. blah! We went to an investigator, Francisco, after and we was crazy drunk! We still taught him and suprisingly he understood everything and was responding correctly! He invited us to watch him kill a pig this saturday and put it on a rotisserie! hahah why not! I´m loving the mission! Theres no place better to be right now! We have a ton of work and a ton of baptisms to have this month! I miss you guys!

Se Cuida!

- Elder Larsen

Down Pour....

Olá Todo Mundo!! Was a great week here in Parnaiba. sorry about email last week, there was a huge storm that knocked all the power out! Transfers tomorrow! I´m going to.....stay here in Parnaiba! Still with Elder Nakazoni still. He has really changed a lot as well. We´re working really well together. He will be a lot more responsible now as well because he got called as district leader. I was hoping to go to a different area, but i guess God has a purpose for me here! We have a lot of people close to baptism here so it should be eventful! Dang, i am so glad Carnaval is over. It was impossible to sleep with noise in the street and alarms every night! Its seriously the holiday of satan! Tuesday was a busy day! I gave a blessing with out asking for help with words for the first time! The gift of tongues is really kickin in! I´ve really been studying the language harder than ever lately and its really paying off! Wednesday we passed by Irma Quaresma and gave her daughter a blessing because she´s been going through a really rough time with divorce and all. She asked me to give the blessing and i did it without a stutter! I feel confident in speaking almost anything now! Afterward we were talking with her sons and one, Jorge, loves basketball! I was talking NBA with him and everything...finally i found someone that likes something outside of soccer! He asked me if i could dunk before the mission, and heck yeah i said YES!....he didnt ask what height the hoop was ;) Thursday we did a service project at an investigator´s house! We put up an entire roof for a little market he has in front of his house! It was a first time for me, but i learned fast! Elder Nakazoni was a pansy boy and wouldnt go on the roof, but he handed me tiles! Friday we walked FOREVER to appointments but every single one of them fell through! Its tough when you do everything you can on your part and nothing goes right some days! Saturday had an appointment in the school of english for me to go help teach but it fell through because the professor was sick! The rest of the day was good though after! We hosted a family home evening in irma socorro´s house with her family and got everyone involved! We played a game after called Rato e Gato where you have a circle of people and 2 ties (rato e gato) one is the rat and one is the cat. The person has to tie one knot for the rat and 2 for the cat and pass it. When the cat catches the rat, that person goes to the middle of the circle and has to unravel chocolates with only a fork and knife until the rat is caught by the cat again and then switch! Its funny because someone could eat one chocolate or 20! Sunday we only had 1 investigator come! Literally everyone goes to the beach on sunday here! I gotta find a way to close it down! haha! Later we visited a young man that elder nakazoni baptized that wasnt in church today. We taught his mom as well who is not a member the plan of salvation and she soaked in everything! When we were leaving, it DOWNPOURED! so we ran under the porch of a house! A man came out and saw us and offered for us to come in! We sat down with him and his family and literally, he asked every question of a dream investigator! Receptive as all get out! We left a book of mormon with them and will go back thursday! Seriously, most receptive people i´ve met so far!!

In our mission here i havent heard too much of people getting sick, especially in our area. You just have to be smart and drink a ton of water, clean water. I would like a new water bottle with a filter though. One with a bigger straw, its hard to suck water out of the one i have now. And for the next box that you guys send, can you send some Church films? Especially ones that have portugues translation! I love to watch them when i get a chance!

Well, duty calls!

Love yins!!

- Elder Larsen

Carnaval Time!!

Heyyo!! Eventful week here in Par to the naiba! Tuesday we got things started off with a Zone conference....about planning. blah. that started at 8 in the morning and went until.....8 at night!!!! Was one long day..but we had Subway for lunch!!! You guys wouldnt believe what i ate! The boy who always got just turkey on his sandwich ate 2 footlong sandwiches with LITERALLY EVERYTHING ON IT! Olives, tomatoes, you name it! it was good to eat something other than beans and rice! This was the first day in the mission that i went without beans and rice! The APs were there and they asked one elder from each companionship to explain their situations with investigators and areas and i explained ours! They were really impressed with how i spoke!

Wednesday we visited a TON of less actives! One family is really cool, Irma Socorro. She is married with one daughter, Lara, who is a member as well. Her husband and son, Vinicius, arent members. Our plan going in was mainly to just break ice with them because the whole family is really timid...which is weird for brasilians! hahah! We really got to know their family really well! I was a great tool in breaking the ice because Lara and her friend, who is literally Lacey in 8th grade but flirtier, asked me how to say words, especially words to songs in ingles! They giggled literally after everything i said! hahaha! They asked me to say i love you in english at least 16 times. ahhaha! We watched England vs Brasil in soccer there as well! It was really cool! I guess I will be rivaled with Clyde from now on! We planned a family home evening with their family for this next week! Thursday was more visiting of less actives.. we taught Martins again in the morning at 7 AM in the chapel. He has great intentions, but DANG the guy likes to talk! We were there until 12! hahah! Friday we made a formal list of inactives and went tracking for them! and when i say list...i mean LIST! We could have 3 big wards with the amount of less actives we have! Sadly, its a result mainly because of missionaries before that just baptized after one lesson just for numbers. Whoa baby, Brasil is in FULL FORCE for Carnaval! There was a CARAVAN of people heading to the beach! Its seriously reckless! We have to be in the house by 6 pm these 4 days! There were freakin old ladies in tutus saturday morning giving booty calls to us! They believe that God doesnt look for one week! hahaha oh my oh my.... Anyway we had a BAPTISM saturday of a young lady named, Betania! She was taught by the missionaries here before and her husband is already a member! They came here for her baptism because they will be starting a group where they live in Sao Bernardo, Maranhao. They come to our branch once a month! It was so cool to be a part of the baptism! Especially because her husband was the one who baptized her! Sunday she was confirmed as well here! We didnt have much success sunday teaching people...its seriously crazy here! We did find one guy, Francisco who knows two ym in the Church! We taught him and he was so chill with us! Theres so many young people here who dont know what theyre doing with their lives. The Gospel literally is the only answer to happiness. Being a member of the Church doesnt mean you have a free pass to heaven without trials or anything. Being a member means you are a disciple of Jesus Christ and you are more responsible, but with this responsibility comes blessings that only come according to your faith. I know this to be truth because of the way i feel when i testify of these things every day. I'm not here in Brazil to fool around in a different country,  i'm here literally as a representative of Jesus Christ on a mission to bring the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to people. Thats about it for the week yall!

Com Amor

Elder Larsen

Someone speaks ENGLISH!!!

BOM DIA! was a wayyy better week here working wise for us. We made
contacts with 2 great families monday night! Afterwards we went to
visit this less active lady close to the church. She opens her door
after we knocked...now imagine a 65ish year old lady thats practically
wearing a hospital gown backwards... almost threw up everywhere!
Anyway we opened with a prayer and Elder Nakazoni´s phone went off so
he closed the prayer real quick, but Irma Antonia kept her eyes shut!
She finally opened them 15 minutes later and was like, "Oh! i thought
you guys left tot attend your phone call, i kept my eyes shut and
waited!" hahaha she didnt hear Amen! Tuesday was a great day for us as
well! We only made contacts with families the whole day! We made our
job easier and worked close to the chapel! We met one guy, 60ish,
named Martins. He opened the door and looked me up and down and just
started speaking fluent english out of nowhere!! My jaw dropped! I
didnt even know how to respond! NOBODY speaks english here! He let us
in and was like i just want to talk with you guys, i dont want any
religious crap....5 minutes later we were talking about the book of
mormon! He is such an intelligent guy! We had a little friendly Bible
bash with him as well, with him being catholic. Every time we
encounter this situation, we always use the scripture in Ephesians
that says that the Church of Jesus Christ is built on the foundation
of prophets and apostles...nowhere it talks about popes in the bible.
we was really open and accepted what we taught! Later we showed the
restoration dvd to Germano and Luisa. They loved it! German thanked us
saying This is the kind of stuff i like! Now it all makes sense!
Reading doesnt keep my attention. hahaha! DVDs are such great
resources that we have! We use them almost every day! Wednesday every
appointment fell through, but we found a bunch of inactive families!
We have a list to choose from....400 less actives in our branch. We
have really been working on just getting the confidence of people
first before throwing lessons at them! Thursday was about the same
thing. Friday we had our activity with young adults! We had about 15
show up which is really good! Nobody knows how to set up activities or
anything! The church is SO new here. We´re trying to leave an
impression on this area. It was really fun though, we had a spiritual
thought, hymns, and a ping pong tournament! Which i won! Saturday went
to a reference literally 1000 miles away! and when we finally found it
after asking for directions from hobos, nobody was home. We just
visited and taught more less actives after. Sunday was a little
disappointing, only 1 investigator came. EVERYBODY goes to the beach
on sunday here! its so difficult...we really did our part teaching and
working diligently this week and nobody came. These people just need
to sacrifice a little bit! I bore my testimony for the first time
though! I spoke without a stutter! Later on we visited an investigator
that we´ve been teaching and out of nowhere we find out that his
daughter is a member of 5 years! Crazy! We gave her a new Book of
Mormon and taught them both!

Thats about it this week yall! I´m out!
AMO VOCÊS!
SEU QUERIDO ELDER LARSEN