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

I love Altos!

heyyyo fam!!! great week here in altos! We had great success with divisions this week. I went with bishop´s son, Efraim, and elder machado went with an RM who got back last week named Wilson! He´s our new ward mission leader. The ward council was really excited about the family of joão filho that we were teaching. Bishop went with us on tuesday to teach them. It was a joke fest like between dad and uncle les! one stopped to tell one then the other began! I wish you guys could talk with bishop silva! he´s ridiculously hilarious! He´s as spiritual as he is funny as well! We prayed ´prayed prayed that they could come to church on sunday....and they did!! João made 2 trips on his motorcycle to bring everybody! I was quite happy about how they were received by the members. Its been a while since a complete family like theirs has visited the church! A lot of people thought they were members!! Sunday i spoke in sacrament meeting. My talk was about living the gospel without hipocrisy. I didnt burn anybody....i think :) I spoke about a few steps that we should follow to keep our eyes fixed upon the glory of God. Those who fall in the temptation of being a hipocrite often dont have a controlled mind or determined standards. The first speaker spoke for less than a minute so i had to speak about 20! Crazy how before the mission i didnt even know how to prepare a talk in my own language! João Filho and his family loved church! He said that for sure they´ll be back next sunday. We visited them at night as well with bishop, ym pres, quorum pres, and a few others. The ward´s so happy to have them! Friday was Marta´s baptism! He conversion was one of the strongest that i´ve seen in the mission. We saw her literally gain a testimony that wasnt quickly earned! Sunday of her confirmation she came to church in a skirt! She´s legit now!! Railma and Antonio will be married on wednesday and friday will be her baptism!! awesomeness in every aspect right now! Tuesday we held our district meeting here in altos...the sisters loved having it here in the air conditioning! We made lunch after in the chapel as well. My comp´s a great chef! he made lasagna for everyone! Today we bought my suit in teresina! Its a dark grey. I bought it for about 150 reais. or 75 dollars. I have to hem the pants though which are long. 

LOVE YALL,

Elder Larsen 

 Ata! My favorite fruit! I even found one that was heart shaped! 

 iguana on the wall of the church!

 BATISMO DA MARTA!!

Answers to Prayers!!

Hey guys! Another heck of a week here. We had a lot of prayers answered. The first one started with a girl named MArta that we had been teaching. We stopped teaching her for a couple of weeks because she stopped progressing, but i guess it was a good thing! She kept coming to church, so tuesday we went there and taught her a very spiritual lesson about the atonement and baptism. I used a story of a man who was traveling along a road looking to get to his destiny, but there were 2 barriers in the way. when he got there he asked a construction worker if he could build a bridge or something for him to pass. He said he could and that it would be for EVERYONE to pass. The man wouldnt have to pay anything either. When he passed and got to the other side, he encountered another barrier with the same construction worker close by. He asked the worker if he could build another bridge, but this time was different. The worker told him he could build some stairs for him if he gave him EVERYTHING he had in his pocket. So the man gave his money to the worker and stairs were built so that he could get to his destination. The object is that we are the man going to his destination (God´s presence). The construction worker is Christ, helping us pass 2 barriers, physical death and spiritual death. The 2nd death is only overcome if we give everything that we have and if we ascend the steps of the gospel.

o

 l_______l--------l________l-------

 physical            spiritual

   death               death

when we asked her to be baptized, she quickly accepted! awesome! her baptism is on friday! Then, next week we will marry Antonio and Railma, then she will be baptized on the 28th! We started to teach the family of João filho this week....family of 6! so awesome teaching them....the dad calls everyone in to listen to us during the lesson! The 2nd time we taught them, you could tell that they read the book of mormon and prayed. Too bad they couldnt come to church on sunday because of family visiting, but they are SUPER special. The 2nd time, i was with one of the zone leaders teaching them. They live super far and its dark where they live. When we were heading out the door, Joao stopped us and said, "i wont let you boys walk all the way home in the dark". He called a taxi and paid for us! He´s not super rich either. Honestly a really kind hearted guy. So, i went on a division with elder pennington on thursday. We had some great lessons. It was also the first time on the mission that i taught with an american or spent the whole day with one! It was kinda weird! I dont what its gonna be like living amongst all americans again!! On sunday i blessed the sacrament for the first time in the mission...bishop told me i need to give lessons to the young men on how to do it right. He said i nailed it! hahaha! We have a REALLY good teaching group right now...i hope we can take advantage of it. I´m praying to stay in Altos one more transfer...i love it here! We´ve had some crazyyyy thunderstorms this week. It was all flooded to the knees! Last night was the worst...there was lightning like crazy. It turned my companion into a little girl. He was so scared! Loving life here!

Amo vocês! 

Seu querido,

Elder Larsen

I Love our Bishop! 

 Lizard we found in the chapel....

 Fat Pig.... hahaha

 So wet!! 

 Friendly little dog.... giving me a hug! hahaha

 SO BEAUTIFUL here!! 

Practice Makes Perfect!

Hey fam!!! we had a busy week here! i decided on focusing on our practice during our studies this week. I think it really made an impact in our togetherness in lessons. My companion commented as well that he felt way more comfortable this week and that he´s feeling the spirit more. He told me before our fast that he was thinking about just fasting for himself instead of the investigators, but i told him to man up and that we needed to fast for our investigators. I told him he has to be more hungry and eager to teach. He was satisfied with me teaching 90% of the lesson before. This week made a big difference. I think we´ll have good success on the last part of the transfer. transfers are on april 1st. I would stay in altos if i could, but i think i could be transferred. We taught a cool guy, Dennis, on saturday who is a member´s friend. We had a great lesson with him in the chapel. He´s a 24 yr old guy just looking for a purpose in his life being that he´s been through a lot of things. We also are teaching a family of the family of Diná who we baptized. I interviewed someone for the sisters baptize on saturday as well. They are doing a lot better than before. The whole month of march here is a party! altos is commerorating some kind of holiday here right now, so they put up a little amusement park in the square! We passed close by last night and we heard someone calling us. It was a man that i made a contact with on the bus on elder machado´s first day. We were never able to find his house before. He was super excited to see us. He was with his whole family as well. He was like man, when are you guys gonna come visit us?! and told us that he didnt know where the chapel was and that that was the only reason him and his family havent been yet!! After a tough week, we had a miracle before we got home! i´ve seen this a few times in the mission where i fasted for something and the Lord blessed us with another opportunity that we didnt even expect! I will talk next sunday in church, should be good! 

LOVE YINS!

Elder Larsen

It's CARNAVAL!!!

well well, happy CARNAVAL everyone! so....altos is kinda crazy  right now. we literally tried to work on friday and saturday..but nobody was home. The good people who dont party go camping or to a different city during this week. The church here in brasil always organizes something for the week of carnaval to pull the members away from the mess. So there´s 2 types of people that stay in the city for carnaval....loucos (crazies) and missionaries. We come home pretty early every night this week, its out of control. i think its crazier here than parnaíba. These last weeks have been CRAZY hot! its way humid right now. good thing i got those big red towels in my box to use during the day! I called a lot of old investigators and marked appointments with them for the end of this week. There´s a lot that sounded really positive! We went looking for a less active this week and ended up talking to his brother, Ruan, and teaching him. He accepted a baptismal date as well! we got a lot of good people coming out of the woodwork! We are putting the prophet´s promise to the test working 50% with investigators and 50% with inactives. Its not meant to be by LESSONS, but by TIME. by looking for the less active, we found Ruan, who´s a great investigator! It really works. We talked about this in the zone meeting on saturday. Our zone reactivated a lot of people in february, but only baptized 8. Of the 8, Five were from our district! I love working with the sisters. Good that i havent had any annoying ones in my district yet. They all tell me i´m the best district leader that they´ve had.....just sayin´ *cough*cough! THANK YOU FOR THE BOX!! finally got it! i´m gonna get plump now! everyone was sad though that there were no thrifty pens! hahaha! Thats about all i got for this week. Love yall!

Elder Larsen

Start of Carnaval....

hey yall!! a new transfer in Altos. We had some ups and downs this week. We had to let go of a few people in our teaching group. They are such good families and everything, but they dont want to progress anymore or come to church. I guess its just not their time yet. This week was a preparation for carnaval....it was sure hard teaching, being that nobody was home! We met a cool young man in the chapel on wednesday night named Ricardo, 18. He asked to see my book of mormon and starting flipping pages and asking questions like crazy! He´s such a chill guy, we hit it off really well. He´s a hardcore member of the assembly of God, but really humble to learn. We taught him again in the lanhouse where he works. He had a billion questions! i felt really good about what we taught him. We also found a less active lady, Edilieny, who is here from Sao Paulo for a little bit. We´re helping her become active, but not just this. We are teaching the WHOLE family! like 10 people! we went to visit an inactive yesterday, but he wasnt home, so we talked with his grandpa. he went off talking about everything odd thing in the world. So i went off looking around while he was talking and saw that he lives right next to the biggest house in Altos! i asked him if we knew who lived there and he said yes! so i asked his name as well and we went over and knocked the door. A woman opened the door and i said, "does luiz live here? his friend told us to visit him today...is he at home right now?" she said no, but we continued speaking and joking around with her and marked to teach the whole family tomorrow! Luiz´s wife said that he attended the church meetings here when he was a young man as well! Pray for us that everything goes well tomorrow!! These 3 groups are our focus right now. I loved the pictures of the kids! Everyone´s so big;;;;and white! hahahah! This week begins Carnaval on friday! Wish me luck!!! hahahah!

Love

Elder Larsen

 My new Planner

 City of Pigs!! 

 The kids love me!