Birthday Week!

HEYYY!!! What an amazing week! I gained 4 lbs this week....and it was all in one day! RIDICULOUS! Last week we played basketball on Pday with the 2 giants Ramom and Hyago....6`3 and 6`9!! We won ;D hahahah! On tuesday we had a good district meeting....maybe my last one here! My comp showed me a funny thing that he did on his mission in new york....it´s called RM 800! You send a questionaire to a girl that is LOADED with hilarious questions about her whole life! for example: whats the size of your dad´s gun? Draw a diagram of your house including all of the fastest exits. Would you be willing to go scuba diving? hahahha! So on my birthday on wednesday, i woke up to breakfast in bed. My comp made pancakes! I have no idea to this day how he made them because we had no material in our house!!! haaha! Later we went to Ramom and Hyago´s for lunch...they made a huge CHURRASCO for my birthday! They even made a cake! I love those guys! Definately want to stay in contact with them. Hyago told me that jared hubbard eats like none other! I responded, well, he is a hubbard! hahahah! Later, we get invited to an "FHE" at Rhayrlla´s house! We get there and immediately everyone sings happy birthday! Crazy! I felt so loved! Then we get a call from bishop out of nowhere! I forgot that we marked to go on visits with him!! We went running to chapel and he hear someone call us from the square...it was bishop at the pizzaria! he was like, rapaz, did you think i forgot it was your birthday?! hahaha! He bought 2 huge pizzas! Love the guy! My birthday couldnt have been better. The members here are just too kind! I NEVER ate so much in one single day.. Thursday we taught this awesome couple! The woman had already read 18 pages of the book of mormon. The man we met for the first time! We invited the woman to church but she denied. when she said this, the man replied to her, "Woman? are you crazy! These boys have been tellin the truth! I went to their church one time....they know how to read the good book just right! Dont know about you, but i´m going on sunday!!" hahahah! crack up! THEN, he said the closing prayer, "Oh Senhor, me proteja daquala cabra ve!" (oh lord, protect me from that ol goat!) hahahah! dont know what that was supposed to be but i cracked up! We will have a baptism this friday of Iracema. A daughter of a member who we´ve been teaching! She passed her interview saturday. So pday will change after may 5th! It will be on wednesday now! Dont know what i feel about that....Well thats about it for this week! Thank you for the happy birthday wishes everyone!

LOVE YALL!!

Elder Larsen

The church is true!

HEYYALLL! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! YOU´RE SOOOO......young! hahaha well this week was a dandy. We got news from the ZL´s this week that this transfer will be only 5 weeks....so it´ll end on May 6th...AND the next transfer will be only 5 weeks as well. What does this mean? I get home 2 weeks earlier! So my return date now is September 2nd!! whoa! thats like tomorrow! Crazy, huh?

We had some good lessons this week...we taught a reference named Debora who is really interested in the church, but she´s limited by her spouse. Its really hard to find good men to teach. The biggest problem here and the cause for many problems is that there´s a lack of good men. There´s a lot of families here torn apart because the man of the house is a bum or doesnt like the church. We had Neide´s baptism on thursday! It was so awesome...a lot of people showed up to support. A young man, Felipe, who was baptized this year had the privilege to baptize her. Beforehand, the Young women had a human rights activity. There were a few investigators there that also stayed to watch the baptism. Friday....EVERYTHING was closed because of a catholic holiday. Literally think that there was a total of 10 people in the city. We were invited to a CHURRASCO (barbeque) at night at Antonina´s! I never ate so much meat in my life! Saturday we ate lunch at Auricélia and Krespo´s house. We conversed like crazy! They´re a cool couple, i like them a lot. We had the opportunity to give a few blessings this week. It was quite amazing to see immediate results after the blessing of a lady that we blessed. She wasnt able to eat these last few days and was becoming quite week. After the blessing, we was already eating a feeling better! An RM, Hyago, got here this week from serving in Salvador, Bahia! HE´S HUGE! seriously, almost 7 ft! He knew Jared Hubbard in the mission! He also speaks fluent english. He was a foreign exchange student in new hampshire, washington dc, and tulsa oklahoma. Cool fella! We´re teaching quite well together right now. I really feel like i´m in my flow as a missionary now. The church is true!

LOVE,

Elder Larsen

"You´re a good man. Teach the hell out of them!"

Hello Hello!

This week was quite awesome! Lots of good things going on here! Me and Elder Patey are getting along very well. I gave a training on tuesday in the district meeting about covenants and baptism. We always have to reanalyze our teaching group to really see if we are teaching people that would make covenants with God in the temple. If not, we should look for those who would! We ate lunch with sisters at a less actives house where, the night before, the couple had fought....physically. The house was pretty torn. The sisters asked me and my comp to give the message. We gave a message about the jaredites and what happened with them because of the fault of charity they had. The entire civilzation was destroyed. It was quite spiritual. We gave the husband a blessing as well. So bishop called me this same day when we were on the bus (that broke down on the middle of the highway when it was 110 degrees....) and said that Neide who was set to be baptized on the 25th wanted to be baptized a week earlier! I was like....."uhh....NO PROBLEM!" She will be baptized this thursday! We found some good inactives to work with this wekk as well. Lots that havent been visited for years! President Lima, elders quorum pres, gave us 2 sweet references this week that we visited with him. 2 ladies came up to him at work and asked him what they had to do to be members of the church! hahahah! he was like, "well, i have 2 friends for you to meet." One is a hair stylist that reminds me a lot of lacey. Well, hair stylists are about all the same when it comes to personality... They were really open and understanding. We even marked a baptismal date for the 2 of them! My companion and i were going home when it was downpouring and i found out that he likes redneck jokes... we comment the whole day on this! hahahah! He was like yeah, my grandpa told me before the mission, "You´re a good man. Teach the hell out of them!" hahahah i died! We taught joao filho´s family last night with the president of every organization from church! it was really really great! Later i went with Krespo, argentinian RM who married a girl from here, and taught a reference and my comp went with bishop to teach another family. everythings just going swell here! Loving my time here.

ABRAÇÂO,

Elder Larsen

 Sleeping or Praying......

 There are pigs everywhere in this town! 

 kinda blurry. baptismal font in campo maior

General Conference & An AMERICAN Companion!!

hey kids! what an AWESOME general conference! i´ve never seen one go by so fast!! Elder Holland started the thing of lighting it up! I loved the part where he said that God isn´t one who only passes His hand on our heads. We have to come to reality sometimes. Another quote from elder bednar, Alot of people today are mistaken today thinking that happiness is a stage of being free from all duties, but the truth is that we find happiness through being busy and serving!! We cannot receive ALL of the blessings of the atonement if we dont make covenants with God. So many good lines....i could go on all day.. I loved the one about elder uchtdorf in air force one....."and i heard a distinct voice...that of president monson saying,"dont even think about it, dieter!"" hahahahah! SO CRAZY I JUST WATCHED MY LAST GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE MISSION!!! Next time i´ll be watching it in the man cave!! 

So, my new companion is elder patey from midway, utah. one of 7 kids! He´s a great missionary, been out for 11 months, 5 months in brazil. He was in albany, new york serving. He speaks really well because he lived in portugal for 4 years. So, speaking english isnt a problem. We speak portuguese 24/7. We finally marked a baptismal date for João filho´s family! April 25th! We just need to marry them now! We teach quite well together. I´m more of the penetrater who teaches directly while he´s the soft and smooth who caresses the investigator´s head. hahaha! Finally have a comp who exercises with me in the morning!! He´s a really polite kid as well.

I´m thinking this will be my last transfer here in Altos! After this, looks like only one more area! This is my 4th area. GAHH! How i´d want to be there at the conference with Elder Holland!!!!!!! You´ve gotta be kidding me! 

Well, i guess i´ll just have to wait a little bit longer.

Love,

Elder Larsen

Staying in Altos!!!

hey yall! What a great last week of the transfer! We married Antonio and Railma on wednesday. Everything went perfectly. On thursday we had a zone conference with the two zones in teresina. It was quite inspiring! President taught a lot about doing practice in the morning and how our lessons need to be conversations where we ask questions and what not. I feel like i´ve been doing well with elder machado on this part. We dominated our practice in front of everyone with sister siedschlag! There´s a lot of elders who, sadly, dont know how to converse with people. We learned a lot about being obedience as well. That we should worry about our personal salvation as much as we do with our investigators. Me and elder taught some less actives this week, so when we got to one house there was a half retarded girl thats 15 that lived there. She totally fell in love with me! Telling me that i was beautiful! and that my comp is ugly! hahahah! She gave me a big ol hug when we left! hahah cutest lil thing. Friday was Railma´s baptism...awesome! i got to baptize her. Saturday night, i called the secretary, Elder Bitnoff. And being that i´m buddy buddy with him, i asked about transfers! TRANSFER ALERT: I´m staying! and elder machado´s going! hahaha! Nobody expected it! He´s off to São Bernardo, Maranhão. And i´ll be here for one more transfer with Elder Patey! YES, first time i´ll have an AMERICAN companion! What?!?! He´s been out for about 11 months i´ve heard, but is in brasil only 3 transfers so far. This will be interesting! Yesterday we went out to teach with Bishop.....and out of nowhere came a DOWNPOUR! we took our shoes off to walk in the road because it was totally flooded! We´re teaching a professor where bishop works named Neide. She´s very intelligent and has come to church 3 sundays already! Joao filho and his family came again as well! Theyre progressing like crazy! 2 recent converts of mine from teresina came to visit yesterday as well! it was way cool seeing them and how they´ve changed! One was baptized a week after i left! Loving the mission! Love you guys!

Abração,

Elder Larsen

 wedding day!

 pellot gun baby!

 people are kinda short here....

 new suit swag!

 baptism of railma! woo!

 service project. fight against dengue "type of stomach flu" . we cleaned litter and delivered bleach to people door by door

 flooded baby! (look at the background on my right!)

camisetas zona Teresina horto