World Cup 24/7

OI PESSOAL!! Everythings going swell here. What a craze this last saturday! Brasil played Chile and won on penalty kicks!! EVERYBODY WAS ALMOST DYING OF NERVOUSNESS! When the won, the lid went off of the city!! The world cup, no matter what game it is, is on 24/7 EVERYWHERE! You wouldnt believe how nuts these people are. I´ve actually grown to like soccer quite a bit. So, my language study this week was fun, i dedicated it to learn the brasil national anthem! I can sing the whole first verse now! Its crazy that i´m getting on the last stretch now....but i feel like i´m more focused now than ever! My companion gave me a good idea about work yesterday. Since i will be learning the hertz system, maybe i could apply that to something in brasil. Hertz is the biggest rental car business in Brasil as well. 

Our work was really good this week. We have quite a few people we are preparing for baptism, but we are focusing a lot of our time on new members as well, strengthening them. There are 2 recent convert girls rosa and berenice who are 23 and 21. We are teaching their sister Diná, who´s 19. The 3 of them want to be sisters! hahhah i asked Diná, and how to you expect to be a sister when you´re not even a member yet! She was like yeah, lets get a move on on that! hahaha she will be baptized on the 12th! We had a cool lesson with them yesterday talking about how a mission is and about temples, etc. After, we taught an awesome family....the dad is a taxi for the mayor, and the daughter is a lawyer! They´re loving the stuff we´re teaching! They even came to our activity saturday! The month of june is crazy in brasil...they have tons of holidays called "Festa Junina" So the branch put on a little cookoff with a little program about pioneers. they asked me to speak about it, so i did! it was good! We later did some games, especially pioneer ones, like stick pulling! It was kind of dead at first though, but us four brought the fun quickly! me and elder gauthier taught everyone how to dance to, "cotton eyed joe"! hahaha they thought it was hilarious!

Poor U.S. is already out of the cup....just have to wait 4 more years..I´m hoping brasil pulls it off....and i hope that they meet argentina in the final! Biggest rivalry!

Well, i hope all is well there!

LOVE YINS,

Elder Larsen

Still lots of Work to do!!

HEY! well, what an interesting week! First sunday that i´m here in caxias, they give me the manual to teach the priests quorum! hahaha we teach all 3 hours here practically! I will have to speak at least one time a month here as well. WE had an attendance of 33 this week! One thing cool about being in a little town again is that everyone looks at you like a superhero and everyone stops to talk to you. Honestly speaking, 20% of the population knows the church here. Bad part, there´s nothing to do here! hahahah on pday i just sleep and eat because i live with 3 nerds! They all play like yugioh cards whenever they free time. And they always speak english when they´re together. Then they come crying to me later saying that nobody understands their portuguese. My companion gave me a few hard times this week. He´s quite stubborn and doesnt like to be told anything. He gets mad that i speak well and he doesnt. So i speak portuguese 24/7 trying to help him and he gets mad and tells me to speak english so he can learn. Good news though is that we have a lot of good people to teach who really have a strong desire to be members. The branch president and i have already made a good relationship. He´s a good, humble guy that has good ambitions. I hope i can make a difference here, but i got a lot of weight on my shoulders right now. I read the conference talk from elder bednar this week that gave me a lot of comfort. He says that our load gives us more spiritual friction and thats not a bad thing! Many people think that true happiness is the state of doing absolutely nothing. I´m happy that president siedschlag has confidence in me and wants to test me. The branch here has a lot of maturing to do. WE arent just teaching investigators, but members as well! The members have so much to learn as well. we are thinking of starting a class on saturdays to teach on how to give talks, how to sing hymns, etc. we had zone conference on friday, it was really good! I slept at the staff house. Elder Steed and Elder Beraldi are living there, i talked with them forever! Then when we got back from the meeting, i saw elder machado there who i trained! he and his companion are in teresina with problems in the tendons! I talked with him for a while! he´s in parnaíba 3 where i started! I have a few trunky thoughts here and there, but i´m hanging on still! Got lots of work to do!

Love yall,

Elder Larsen

 

 The Chapel

 Selfie

 River in Caxias

 World Cup Fever!! 

Transferred to Caxias!

Heyy family! Well, i´m starting on my last 12 weeks of the mish! I got the crazy suprise of transfers on monday that i was heading to Caxias! I was quite sad to leave São Luís, i liked it a lot there! Just when things were getting comfortable, the Lord sent me to another place! ;) I´ll miss elder de jesus a lot, i hit it off with him...he´s a goofball! I´ll miss the sisters a lot as well, especially now that it´s just elders in my district! 90% of the mission changed this transfer! It was really crazy! Caxias is a tough challenge that president gave me! I feel like i left Vinhais a lot better than it was before though....the members were more excited, we found a new house closer to the chapel and area of work, we got  a ward mission leader, and we baptized! I traveled with a lot of elders and sisters that were heading to teresina. Nobody was really happy with the transfer, but just go with it! I´m gonna be finishing off the mission skinny.....with only 30 members here, lunch isnt an everyday thing....My companion is Elder Gauthier from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He´s a good missionary, he got here 2 transfers ago, after serving 2 transfers in california waiting his visa. The other 2 elders are shepard from chicago, and elder nessen from north carolina. The 3 are big nerds....so we´ll see how this goes! It´s been chill so far. The house here is very nice! we watched the brasil game yesterday at the branch president´s house. Really nice guy, he loved me! Couldnt believe that i was american! I´m excited for the adventure that i have here to finish off the mission. It´ll be different, but vamos lá! 

Love you guys.

Elder Larsen

loving life here in São Luís!!

HEYYYY!!! what a good week we had! The Lord really blessed us this week in our work. WE had quite a few moments where we were really guided by the spirit. Brasil is crazy right now....nobody is studying because the world cup will start! also, the city buses are on strike...since they are on strike...everyone is!! we were going to mark the marriage of a couple we´re teaching, but the marriage office was closed!!! :( hopefully these strikes pass soon. Sunday we finally got some investigators AND various less actives to come to church. I feel like my teaching ability is at it´s best that its ever been in the mission. We´re really seeing difference in the people we are teaching. The members are helping us a lot in the form of meals....We finally found an apartment to rent....we just have to talk to president to confirm it. We have zone conf on saturday as well with him. On sunday, we were walking and i started looking at our contacts on our cell and i saw a name, edson. i told my comp that i felt like we should visit him. We called him and visited him. He went less active just because he traveled, hurt his foot, and never came back to church! We ended up teaching his whole family as well! They also gave us a referral of their neighbor as well who accepted us very well. We´ve been finding a lot more less actives being that we are getting to know the area better. A member passed by us the other day and was like, "elders, i really like you 2...do you see that pizza shop? if you ever are hungry, just stop by there, grab a pizza, and tell them that i´ll pay for it." I was like, well.....ok! perfect with me! no problem....! We´re teaching a girl named Vanderleia that is way cool as well. She went to a devotional in the chapel out of nowhere last sunday night and invited us to teach her! She was loaded with questions! Finally things are coming together in our area. loving life here in São Luís!!

ABRAÇÃO,

Elder Larsen

2 Baptisms!!

Hey yall!!! We had a good week here. A lot of running around. We had 2 baptisms this week: Rayssa who´s 20 and a boy named Matheus. We´ve been preparing them these last 2 weeks. It was such a rush to get their baptism ready because bishop didnt give us a key to the baptismal font here. He called everyone but nobody answered!! Finally we got ahold of the 1st counselor Hamon and he helped us out! Him and his family have helped us out a lot since i´ve gotten here. The baptism went very well...Matheus´ parents were there to watch it. His dad is an inactive and his mom is starting to investigate the church. We got to teach them after and it went great! his mom wants to be baptized. We will mark their marriage this thursday so that she can be baptized! We´ve been teaching another young man that i made a contact with, joao guilherme. he´s 14 and very intelligent! he understood so well everything that we taught. We had a talent show in the chapel on friday and he came with us! It was a lot of fun! They invited me and my comp to dance so we had our minute to shine ! hahahah!

I´m eating SO much here in this area, but i burn every calorie walking...its so big here! I´ve yet to see the ocean, but we will go there i think next p day. the members here are liking us a lot, which is good, because the last missionaries that were here really werent that wonderful. I love our district here. We take care of the 2 companionships of sisters in Maiobão. They crack me up! So...we went 2 days straight this week without water in our apartment...we called president to see if we could move and he gave us permission. We went looking for houses for rent yesterday but couldnt find ANY!!! the only ones we found are SO expensive!

I like the ward a lot here, just one thing...bishop is not a big fan of the missionaries...and never was. i will be sending some really cool pictures when i go to old town sao luis. 

LOVE YALL!

Elder Larsen

My Last Call Home...

HEY FAM!! Crazy that i had my last call with you guys on sunday!! Everyone (especially the kids) is so different!! First time we had good internet to call, so that was a miracle! I´m learning to love the area here. Every area in the mission has its ups and downs. I feel like this area has a lot of potential to bring a lot of members back. I looked at the list of members with my comp and there are about 600!! Our biggest downfall is HOW to find them! For every neighborhood here, there are 3 roads with the SAME name! We went walking in circles like crazy looking for an address but just ended up getting lost. We´re relying a lot on making contacts in the street right now and working close to the chapel. I´m really being tested right now, but it´ll go fine. We had district meeting on monday...it went swell. The sisters are awesome in our district AND they dont whine...which is good! There are 3 brasilians and i peruvian. Once again, i´m the only american! Today we´re gonna go to the mall and chill in the air conditioning for a bit :) This friday, the ward will be having a talent show at the church.....and they asked me to sing! hahahah! but what song?! first ones that came to mind were: 1. the national anthem 2. i will always love you - whitney houston 3. oh holy night - josh groban hahahaha! Well, wish me luck! I love yins! Have a great week!

love,

Elder Larsen

Lots of Pictures!!!

My Birthday!

 Transfer day

 Going crazy being in a bus for 8hrs with these girls

 My New Companion

 Playing a bit of Basketball

 Vera! She makes awesome food!!