1st week in Satélite!!

Hey yall!! I´m coming at you live from the ghetto! What a cool, but in reality, hot week in Teresina! My area is Satélite (Sot ell itch) which is out on the outskirts of the city. Its way bigger than Parnaíba though. I´m in a house with 2 brasilians and 1 american, Elder A.Ribeiro, Elder De Souza, and Elder Mangisi. Everyone´s been out for over a year except me! Me my comp and elder mangisi are all new to the area. My comp, elder de souza is from Londrina, Parana. He´s a funny guy. He´s a loud mouth crack up! Our area is really cool. We live close to the chapel, (yes chapel, not house!) and our area is loaded with hills! I´ll take pics next week of how cool it is at the top of the hills. Teresina is hot as well..REALLY HOT. you wont be seeing any pictures of me without sweat. The ward here has an attendance of about 135, but everyone is a missionary here! The ward missionaries here gave us 11 references in one day! Plus, the missionaries here before left a lot of great investigators. We already have a baptism set saturday for a young man, Edielson. We´re teaching him, but his brother, João Pedro will baptize him. There´s a ton of families we´re teaching here too that we will be setting up their weddings! Nobody here is legally married, but now, as missionaries, we´re able to marry people for free. The meals here with members are awesome as well! They give us ice cream a lot of the time! Our ward is one of the oldest wards of  teresina as well. I think its got about 20 years. There´s a guy in my ward, Paulo (elder ferreira) who knew jared hubbard in his mission in salvador. I talked to him for quite a bit. Our quorum leader here went teaching with us almost every day this week. His name is Carlos, he´s a recent convert, but he´s got a testimony of a guy thats been a member forever! Cassio, who´s an rm, taught with us a lot this week as well. He got back from sao paulo east 3 weeks ago. the ward here has been a little dead recently everyone has said. They havent had activities in a really long time, so us 4 got right on that! We organized an activity with the ward missionaries to start doing it every friday! today on pday, we went to a ju jitso gym of a friend of a member! He taught us a lot of moves and we did some boot camp exercises with him! He killed us!! but it was a lot of fun! I now know how to break someone´s arm 37 different ways! hahaha! To know where we live, our street name is Rua Mercúrio in Bairro Satélite. Our chapel address is: Rua Marte n 3985 Bairro Cidade Satélite

I´ll put some pics up as well!

AMO VOCÊS!

Elder Larsen

 

Transferred... Finally!!!

Finally after 7ish months in Paranaiba.....

Elder Larsen is getting Transferred!!

 

 

I´M GOING TO TERESINA!

area: Satélite 2!

Will be comps with Elder De Souza.

Leaving 4 oclock today!

Até mais!

In need of Brown Contacts!

Hey yall! Still waiting on word of the transfer... But this last week was a hard working week, We made a ton of contacts to help out elder beraldi going into the transfer. Parnaíba is one tough area. There´s a lot of poor people here that you would think would listen to you, but 90% of the people we contacted were really hard hearted. We made a good contact though of a lady named Sandra that lives in a decent house. She is from Sao Paulo and is here taking care of her mom. She invited us in and made a bunch of food, asked us to chill on the sofa, and even offered for us to take a shower! hahaha (i dont know if it was pure generosity or if it was an insult telling us we stink!) We went knocking doors one day and we passed this HUGE HUGE house...i looked at my comp and we nodded and knocked that door. Actually, we didnt knock the door we talked by touchscreen camera! Expecting to be rejected when it rang, all of the sudden they answered! and let us in! One of the fanciest houses i´ve entered in my life! The lady´s name is Ellica, she´s a professor at the college, but lives with her grandmother. We had an activity again in the chapel friday as well. Went really well! We played a ton of games, musical chairs, trivia, peter james and john, etc. We made 2 teams as well so it got a little competitive! i loved the pics of all of the kiddos! They´re all so different! Its crazy how only 10 months changes so much! I went on a division this week with elder almeida in this member´s house. Its a little dirt house that always has a drunk lady walking around. The lady kept on caressing my arm and head out of nowhere when we were teaching, calling me sexy! I had to shoo her away from me! you need to send me colored contacts...the blue eyes call the old drunk lady to me. I´ll try to pop by the lanhouse later to give you news on transfers!

LOVE YINS!

Elder Larsen

National Man Day!

happy national man day! in brasil that is. Great week of work! We organized a cool family home evening this week with  THIRTEEN investigators! It was centered on the Atonement. I used the dvd, To this end i was born, that you guys sent me! awesome! We´ve been teaching better than ever but still the baptisms arent coming. I asked president about it last email. He told me that all of us in the mission are still pioneers. We have to look at everything as opening the door for future missionaries, even when we get rejected. He sent me a little talk from pres monson that talks about putting the work on our shoulders and going for it. I went on a division with elder puggina on thursday. We visited a few people in the hospital. One being a ym, billy, who was shot in the butt last week! Poor little Forrest Gump! haha! We visited the 2 boys that they were going to baptize too. They live in a little mud house of 3 rooms...with TEN people! outrageous! We later made a contact with a guy who is the owner of a big lumber company in Parnaíba. He came at us with some hard questions that i never heard before but we responded well! He offered to buy us dinner another night when we teach him! We held our activity again on friday! A lot more people came this time! We brought about 8 investigators! We did a "who´s line is it anyway" improvise! The funniest topic was "what not to do in the bathroom" I went again on a division with elder puggina saturday until sunday in São bernardo to do baptismal interviews! Everyone looked at me crazy there! I dont think there´s ever been an american there! hahaha! well next week i´ll know if i´ll live in parnaiba forever or not! Love you guys!

ABRAÇO,

Elder Larsen

Pie Fight!

What up fam?! We had fun marking some baptismal dates this week! President told us to be bold and go for it always on the first lesson! If people are really ready to change, they´ll accept on the first visit. We´ve been learning to be better salesmen in this as well. Before, we taught really cutsie but never really challenged the investigators like we do now! Irma Luçia, our recent convert, gave us lunch for the first time this week as well...it was a couple of sardines and rice. Held me over well the rest of the day!... We taught this little old guy this week that was hilarious! Most old people dont understand me very wel, but he was the first that was like, "i like you kid! you got a beautiful accent!" and pet me on the head after! hahaha! We organized a fun activity this week, "torta na cara!" (pie in the face) We made trivia questions from the scriptures, geography, and english words. 2 people would go to the table and answer like family feud and hit the table. Whoever was right got to smash a pie in the other´s face! I took a few to the face.. We found some good young families this week as well. Gabriel and Crislyne was the best! They have a little girl thats 1 month old thats the cutest thing you´ll ever see! Crislyne has a ton of family who are members of the church in fortaleza and gabriel took discussions from the missionaries before but stopped after they were transferred. They liked us a lot and said that i speak the best portuguese of any american theyve already met! (kind of a big deal) They wanted to go to church but couldnt because cris had a c section. We were able to bring 2 young men to church, samuel and jefferson that are really progressing well! I remembered the story of mom at cracker barrel this week with, "M´AAM, M´AAM!" and told the brasilians about it! hahah! Well thats about all, times flying and i´m getting old!

ABRAÇÂO!

Elder Larsen

 

It's July!!

Good week! ITS JULY! And i got a package this week! THANK YOU! We had a cool visit with Tiago, less active that we found last week that teaches english. WE met with him on monday night and when we started to talk about the church he started to cry, remembering how he used to be a part of everything. it was cool to see how you can never lose a testimony. We found a lady this week by contact, Silvana that has been one of our best in a while. Its really hard to find people who want to change their lives. Everyone is very content with what they have usually and dont feel a need to change. We had a really good lesson with Deusanira this week as well. She was loaded with questions, but by the end she understood everything well. When we challenged her to read and pray she looked at us a little weird, so we asked her what was wrong. She was like, "so if i become a member of the church, i HAVE to serve a mission?" hahaha she was relieved when we said no! Dang we haved about 10 investigators that couldve been baptized already if it wasnt for the mothers of Parnaíba who think the church is a devil worship service. They dont even give us a chance to talk with them when we finally contact them! ai ai ai... We had zone conference with president on saturday. He really enforced grabbing references with every lesson we teach, as well invite to baptize on the first visit! So, we´ll see what happens after this training! Sunday was kinda rough...we stopped at the house of about 20 investigators and everyone gave a horrible excuse. But luckily, a member brought an investigator that appears to be pretty solid! After church until midnight, good luck knocking doors during the conferations cup final.. We went to a less active´s house to watch it and give a message during the interval! Brasil´s looking pretty dang good! Transfers will be arriving on the 22nd! Maybe this time i´ll be transferred! LOVE YINS!

ABRAÇO,

Elder Larsen