Time to Get Married....

hey guys! well, while its snowing there, its sure raining here! we got SOAKED 3 days this week. It was kind of a rough week of work with all of this flooding. Everyone goes nuts here when it rains...they think that they´re melting! Me and elder machado will stay another transfer together here which will bring us to april 1st! i think this will be my last one here. We´re doing better finding and teaching less actives. I love teaching less actives that feel the spirit in the lessons. Its even more rewarding when you see them the next sunday. We had a few come out who havent been to church in quite a few years. the promise of president is really working out well. He told us to divide our work between 50% investigators and 50% inactives. 

Altos, being a little town, i thought would be a place way easier to mark a marriage than Teresina! i was wrong. Finally, after 2 weeks we marked a date for Antonio and Railma! This will be my 3rd marriage in the mission. They´ll be getting married on march 19th, then railma will be baptized after!! It was funny, i told elder machado. "your first lesson in the mission resulted in a marriage, reactivation, baptism, AND....one more lunch appointment for future missionaries!" hahahah! We got some good stuff to do this transfer! The city is already preparing the square for Carnaval.....its gonna be crazy. There´s a forró artist named Zé Cantor that a member, Joanara, knows. She taught me some of his music hahaha! she wants me to meet him, singing one his songs! she said he´ll go nuts hearing an american singing his music! ahhaha! 2 sisters will be leaving our district, sister ramos and sister mckinney! There will be a short term sister coming that is from teresina and another sister who is 30ish! it will be all brasilians.....and me! hahahah! i wouldnt have it any other way. Its been over a year since i´ve lived with americans!! crazy! Good to hear about josh and his fiancé! Cant wait to keep my portuguese going afterwards!

Love yins!

Elder Larsen

Having a Testimony!

Hello dearest family,

Its good to be pday again! we had an eventful week. we marked the married of railma and antonio this week. i´m waiting on an answer of what day it will be. I held an interview for the sisters this week as well. they are doing VERY well. president is crazy about teaching less actives lately. brasil, last year, baptized 39,000 people.....guess how many are active today..2,000. We have a new rule to teach at least 2 lessons to inactives per day. It seems to be functioning quite well in the mission. We met a guy, Edimilson this week who was 1st counselor in the bishopric when the church started here in altos. He involved himself in a lot of other churches over the years, but claimed that we represent the only true church. he is wanting to come back now being that he´s getting old. the man uses 18 degree glasses! he cried in the middle of our visit realizing the testimony that he still has. There are a lot of less actives though that never had a testimony. Its quite hard to teach them. even harder than investigators. This week rained like a son of a gun! Honestly, we treaded through rivers a few times. Water up to our knees! its just like arizona here when it rains, there´s nowhere for it to go! We´ve been received quite a bit of help from the members recently. They all want to teach with us! So on sunday, bishop comes up to me right before sacrament meeting, and was like, elder, can you give a 12 minute talk about not denying chances to serve? so i prepared a lil some some and delivered! i talked about the difference between the good samaritan and jonas and how each responded on a chance to serve. even if we arent serving today how we should, we can repent and change right now just like jonas did. We taught with a young couple after lunch, Crespo and Auricélia, they´re way cool. I will be staying in contact with a lot of people from altos. I think i´ve made the most friendships in this area. I think i´ll stay one more transfer until april 1st. 

quote of the week: Bishop and his son Efraim

Efraim:"hey dad, whats it like having the coolest son in the world?"

Bishop:"i have no idea, but you should ask your grandpa!"

hahahahha! 

have a great week everyone!

love,

Elder Larsen

 Bishop's son came to weed whip our backyard

After!! 

 Little poor houses but they have a big ole satellite dish!

Hunted all Week...

hello hello! well, this week was a killer! we worked like none other. We baptized Diná and her daughter, Adriely on friday! it was a great meeting. In the morning they werent so apt to be baptized but i said a prayer with my companion and we went early in the morning and suprised them. It was only of the most spiritual messages that i´ve ever given in the mission. i used 2 nephi 2, alma 32, and D&C 18. I felt the spirit saying every word that left my mouth. i didnt even have to ponder about what i was saying. they felt very confident about baptism after we left. We had tons of work to do this week, so we went on divisions with members several times this week. i love going with bishop, i learn a lot with him. i went with our ward mission leader, osmar, as well. We taught 2 families that we met at an FHE. One is a young family, Alex and Josiane, who have potential. They read everything we gave them and were pleading for us to visit them! Looks like we´ll finally be able to marry the one couple this week so that the wife can be baptized! The ward has to have 13 more men who are full tithe payers to split. We have a list of ex investigators and inactive to visit this week to reach this goal! 

So, Every day this week was crazy filled with work...but wednesday was quite extreme....We got hunted 3 times...

1.) we went walking down a road looking for inactives but couldnt find any,then out of nowhere, a little chihuahua looking creature called all of the dogs in the neighborhood to hunt us...2 seconds later there´s 40 ferocious canines after us!! not even kidding, we ran!! 

2.) we got to the end of the road, panting for breath and thirsty. so i knocked a door to ask a cup of water...who answers? the most gay human being on the planet....and he´s an inactive! he was like, "can i say something?" so i said,"feel free" and he was like, "sonny, you have got some BEAUTIFUL eyes there..." i was like, uhh....gotta go! before we left, we said...Hugs and kisses!

3.) we asked directions from 3 teenage girls but they didnt know where the road was....so we start walking and we hear PSSSSIIIUUUU!!! and giggles! we look back and its them telling us to come back! then a little later the guys in the construction nearby tell us to go back so we go and we see them run behind the wall giggling loud as all get out! so we return to walking and out of nowhere a lady comes up asking if we are single and for our number! ....they sent their mother after us to hunt us down!! hahahaha ai ai...

well folks, thats all i got this week!

Love,

Elder Larsen