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! 

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!