ONE YEAR MARK!!!

BATISMO!!! week full of miracles!! first off, on pday i heard somebody speaking english...fluent english at the bus station. i followed the voice until i saw this little old couple. i asked them if they spoke english and they said yeah! they´re from virginia...i was like what the heck are you guys doing in teresina?! they´re missionaries! baptist missionaries.. hahaha they´ve been here since the 70´s! but i speak better portuguese than them still.. hahaha! so we spent this week preparing 2 families to be baptized, Ronaldo and Eriani, and Francisco and Leiliane! We had a great zone conference about our perspective of our areas. We read a passage in Numbers that talks about missionaries that were sent out to scout areas and how all of them reported good things. Our perspective is key as missionaries. President was there as well and told us that our zone is the most excited and active of the mission. So friday, we got a call out of nowhere from a girl named Maiara. She thought it was sisters still in the area and asked for a visit! She had been taught before and has been to church 6 times! saturday we had a baptism explosion! every companionship in our district baptized! I was asked to baptize the sisters´ investigator, samia. then after i baptized eriani and elder ribeiro baptized ronaldo. then AFTER, elder montero baptized rosilene! Whew! then came sunday. we went to francisco and leiliane´s to accompany them to church. When we got there, nobody was ready so we told them to get ready while we cleaned the house! and we did! hahaha. they were doubting baptism as well, but we told them that if they procrastinate, it´ll never happen. and whatever feeling of doubt that comes to your mind comes from satan. he always wants us to doubt so that he can steer us in any direction like a blind sheep. When we got to church with them, Maiara was already there! and...she has a baptismal date marked for saturday?!?! and guess who marked her date...the bishop´s wife! hahaha! You go girl! She is practically a member by the way she participated in the classes. Later, the baptisms went down! To our suprise, there were about 50 members there to support them! The wards starting to love us! Weekly baptisms are pumping them up. I´m grateful that the Lord in putting quality families and people in our path. Couldn´t ask for a better way to enter into the week of my ONE YEAR MARK ;)

Love,

Elder Larsen

 

Baptism!!

 

BATIIISSMOOO!!! Hello beloved ones! What an action packed week! We had a baptism yesterday of a little girl we´ve been teaching, Sabrina. She´s 9 yrs old and has been coming to church with a friend. She´s such a smart little girl and really grasped everything quite fast! She´s being a great example for her family because they´re starting to open up as well to hear the lessons. We´ve been teaching/preparing a lot of families this week! Francisco and leiliane will be getting married this week and the next week will be their baptism!! It´s crazy the success we´re having, even with an annoying companion! hahah! We did a practice interview with the couple and they both passed! We have a lot of good investigators....even some that make hamburgers for us! we did a little blitz with bishop santos and jonas, a young man. They went and taught a few of our investigators while we taught as well because we  marked too many appts! Then, later on we held a family home evening at Francisco and leiliane´s with bishop and his wife. It went swell! We had an activity that blew everyone´s mind after! We played a game where someone would have to leave the room and everyone else has to choose an item that they have to guess in the room. So, one of us would supervise and ask the person, holding up and pointing to items, asking them if it was the item that we chose. Nobody was able to guess right. Little did they know that we combined before the activity to know that the item would be the NEXT thing after the supervisor pointed to something BLACK. so when me and when elder ribeiro guessed right it blew everyone´s mind! hahaha! sunday went really well! We had 2 families in sacrament meeting and 9 people! The ward had the best attendance it´s had yesterday as well! I dont have a lot to complain about here in Esplanada! I´ll take advantage of the situation here and get some work done ;) Congrats to all those who got their mission calls...especially those going to BRASIL! Voces vão gostar muito meus peixinhos! AMO VOCES, FAMÌLIA!

ELDER LARSEN

Setting up a Wedding?!...

what up fam?! i´m not with our address right now, i´ll get it to you next week when i look at the water bill! We had a crazy week! I set up a marriage for the first time in the mission! francisco and leiliane, the family we´ve been accompanying alot accepted to get married. we found a few loop holes in the brasilian law to marry people without cost! we got to the city registry office and showed them our documents showing that the couple could marry without cost. they got all ticked off. They didnt accept the whole without cost thing very well. we had to play tough, but we did it! on the 20th they´ll be signing papers. We had a member from church this week hounding us to visit this person who lives years away from our house. so after about the 5th call, we went. it was literally an 1 and a half away. we got there, knocked on the door, and...a lady opens it up, tells us she hates us and slams the door. not to mention, it was 49 degrees celcius.. Its tough to accept situations like these. We´ve been teaching 2 teens, Tiago and Eduarda lately as well. Eduarda is 13...and tiago is 19. This area has a lot of pedophiles.. We started teaching eduarda and when we found out they were dating we tried to plan and seperate them somehow, but it turns out now that we´re teaching the 2. Tiago has a lot of potential. When we talked to him about serving a mission and all of the benefits, he became very interested. he´s been to church 2 times already! we had a good turn out of investigators this week as well!

general conference is just around the corner! i´m siked! i´ve been studying the liahona a lot lately to prepare for conference. i read a really good talk from jeffrey r holland that talks about justice and mercy, grace as well. he says that anything we plant, will always grow to be something bigger and evolve more seeds. so, if you plant a small seed of hatred, it will grow into a branch of hatred and after, a tree. grace as well is the cost that christ paid to allow us to be forgiven. like a parent pays a teacher to give piano lessons to their child. the teacher and the parent really gain nothing, but joy from the success of the child. christ is the parent that paid the price to the teacher (heavenly father) so that the child could learn and apply his talents. When we play one key wrong though, we dont just give up, you PRACTICE. when we feel bad about our sins, it shouldnt be just to punish us or to make us feel stupid, but to make us CHANGE. just like when we do something wrong in a math formula, we have to erase, go back, and restart. you can never just "keep going" and hope that everything works out. its the same way with life.

I´m getting old in this mish! and burnt! hahah we´ll see if anyone recognizes me here in a year. I´m burning a cd with photos to send you guys!

COM AMOR,

Èlder Larsen

Learning Patience...

hey fam! good week here in Esplanada! I learned to work on my patience this last week and turns out that we had a lot of success. We have FOUR new solid families in our teaching group. 2 that bishop and his wife visited with his wife. Bishop santos is a tank when it comes to missionary work. The guy that should have every excuse in the world to not help, is the only one that helps us! He´s a math professor, has 2 little kids, does an english course, but still finds time to help us 2 times a week. He says, "I PUT DA TEAM ON MY BACK DOE!" (thats for clyde and jake) I cant believe i´m hitting the year mark this month! Its going by fayast now! I went on divisions this week with, Elder Allen, my comp in the MTC. We killed it! we work really well together. He´s a contact making machine. People understand me even better when i teach with him. We had a cool experience during the last lesson, A guy, Marcilio, that they´ve been having a hard time to open up, opened up! He´s been taught by a ton of missionaries already, but i cracked him with a scripture in alma 34. I forget which one, but he started to open up and asked more questions. I think it all started though when we started complimenting a lot of the things in his house. He got all flattered and opened up! He likes to paint and do murals as well. He´s got a TON of fruit trees in his yard as well. pineapple, caju, acerola, mango, etc! They made juice for us there on the spot! Afterwards, i was able to chew the fat with elder nakazoni and a few other elders in the Staff House (where the secretaries, lz´s, and a few others live) That's about it for the week.

AMO VOCES!

Elder Larsen

p.s. watch some college football for me!