Feeling Loved by the members!!

hey fam! good week of work here! 11 months today!!! I´m getting to know the area and the people here well. We passed the 100 mark in attendance this week which was a shocker! The members are receiving us really well. I´m in the best area with the best members that i´ve had in the mission. but you cant have everything, thats why i´m with one of the stinkers of the mission. Elder a ribeiro is 27 yrs old and weird...really weird. all he does is talk about deep doctrine and make our investigators feel out of place. Even outside of lessons he´s strange. luckily i was able to go on a division with bishop santos on thursday. ´he´s only 36 years old! he´s so fired up about having elders now. he told me he´ll go on a division with me every thursday. I was able to learn a lot from him in our lessons. he has been a member for 8 years and has a great desire to serve a mission with his wife. I honestly think he will be a mission president in a few. I honestly walked a good 100 miles this week! We got to know a lot of the area this week. We taught a lady this week, Eva, who lives with her mom. her mom has 22 kids!!! is that a record?! i think it is! sunday was really really good! Bishop made it so that every meeting was focused on missionary work. he spoke last as well in sacrament meeting and lit it up! Every came running to us afterwards with references...a good 20! lunch was a good time on sunday. It was a big family about the same as ours with 3 returned missionaries and their wives and kids at the grandparents´ house. I felt like i was at home joking around with clyde hahah! I called them out on their "dad jokes" hahah! We have a family that is ready to be baptized, Ronaldo and Eriani. We´re just waiting for their interview! Not a lot of other news, but transfers are next week! who knows what will happen!

abraço,

Elder larsen

Transferred & Living the Life!

hey yall! Well, this week was a little different than what i was expecting! We worked like crazy this week in Satélite, especially preparing Francisco for his baptism saturday. So, friday morning, we get a call from the assistants during study hour, saying that me and elder a. ribeiro were being transferred! that same day! So i´ve been transferred to Esplanada, on the other side of teresina! Its an area of sisters, but the 2 that were in Esplanada had health problems and went home. So president grabbed one from each companionship in Satélite and put us here! Its way far from the other parts of teresina! President came and got us that same day and took us there. Its a nice area, a little more high class. The house here is AWESOME though. Now i know how sister missionaries live! Its huge for us two and all of the appliances are brand new! We meet in a little school owned by a member here because they are waiting to buy land to build a chapel. So we jumped right into a situation where 2 people were going to be baptized saturday, Carlos, a 40 yr old guy, and Pedro, a 15 yr old ym. We met up with them and finshed up their discussions and all. I hit it off with Pedro well, he´s a good kid. Sunday, when we arrived, everyone was shocked to have elders instead of sisters! They treated us like rockstars! hahaha the leaders are all so good here. Our ward mission leader was called sunday. His name is Nicolas and doesnt even look brasilian. He served in Florianopolis and got back 4 months ago and got married a month ago! His brother is serving in london right now. Bishop Santos is a boss! He´s a young guy with a young family full of energy! Sunday night we had the baptisms. They hold them at the chapel Angelim, where esplanada divided from. Fanciest chapel i have ever seen! Carrumba!! So we got there and started setting things up and out of nowhere Pedro came to me and was dude, i want you to baptize me! I had no other clothes with me or anything, so i just threw on the jumpsuit! It was a very spiritual meeting though, especially in the chapel there. I never baptized in a real font yet! I´ve never seen so many members at a baptismal service either! over 50 people were there! So....everything´s just fine here!

Love yins,

Elder Larsen

Learning so much!!

whaddup fam?! good week here in satélite! We were both sick this whole week with the cold and had to do a bunch of interviews in the other missionaries´areas. It was difficult to find time for our own work, but we managed it! We are hoping that everything will go right this week so that Tiago and Francisco can be baptized this saturday! When my comp was doing interviews i sat and conversed with a few members. Its really amazing that i can really have a full on conversation with people in portuguese. I am still getting to know a lot of the members of the area. Its hard when 2 new missionaries come into an area! My companion and i had a few difficulties getting along this last week. He likes to talk 90 percent of the time in the lesson and treated me like i was being trained. I was like dude, i know you´ve trained 2 guys the last 2 transfers and that you talked 90 percent of the time before because they didnt know how to speak portuguese, but give me a chance to talk. When we finally resolved that, things got better. It never works out with investigators if just one person talks. I am trying to look at what i´m able to learn from this situation instead. We had stake conference on sunday in the big 2 story chapel in the center. It was very well prepared with great speakers. The stake president is so young! he´s gotta be about 34 or 35! Luckily our ward rented a bus to bring people there, so we were able to bring a few investigators! I am really noticing my growth as a missionary lately. I read my journal from the beginning of the mission...i knew nothing! I know that the mission is the only place that i couldve learned the things that i know now and gain the testimony that i have today. I like 3 nephi 14 a lot.. we use it often in this area with families that are going through rough patches. Read it if you get a chance! Love you guys!

Abraço,

Elder Larsen

BATIIIIISMOOO!!!!

Members Love US!

Hello! Good to hear everyone´s doing good, including dad! Hire someone to do side jobs for him! We had a good week, we both got sick though, but it didnt stop the work! here is so different from parnaiba because EVBERYONE wants a visit from the missionaries...even active members!! We had zone conference this week as well, in the big fancy, 2 story chapel in the center! It was a really good one. We talked a lot about accompanying investigators and how many times the Lord accompanied people so that they wouldnt forget the message they learned. For example, Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith about 4 times the same day to him to tell him and remind him of the same thing! It made us think how much we need to really check up on our investigators. If you dont visit somebody 2 days straight, something could happen that could hurt their testimony. Saturday we went to the zone leaders´area, Uruguai, to do baptismal interviews. I went on a division with elder a. souza. It was a good experience teaching with him. He´s still 19 years old! He came in the mission when he was 18!  He said that i taught really well and that he learned a few things from me! Sunday we didnt have a ton of investigators at church because we killed our whole day saturday doing interviews. You HAVE to pass in investigators´houses on saturday if you went them to go to church. We saw blessings though after our fast! we marked baptisms for 2 families with a total of 7 people! One family, Francisco and maria, live really close to a member which helps a lot. We taught them a great lesson and challenged them with Brother Carlos. They were like, we´re all in! We found a fella, Tiago, who´s a cousin of a member. He was taught by the missionaries before and was close to being baptized but his mom didnt let him when he was 16. Now, he´s 22. We challenged him for the 17th to be baptized and he accepted! Things are really kicking into gear here, now! Guess what! we´re going to....Mcdonalds for lunch!! There´s 3 here in Teresina! I love the lunches of this area here! Its almost always lasagna!! Do you remember when i only ate the noodles of lasagna?! What was i thinking?! We had another cool experience this week as well! We saw a shooting star! It looked so unreal! But thats about it for this week! I´m grateful for this opportunity to serve with all of my time these 2 years. Its hard, but rewarding in every way. Have a great week everyone!

Seu querido missionário,

Elder Larsen