Monday, August 16, 2010

August 16, 2010

Hello Family,
Congratulations, Erik and Alesha. You are now married. A new sister in law, and Erik out of the house. It sounded like a great moment, and now come the activities back at home. Then comes getting used to the married life and making the most out of every minute. How delightful. I got a letter from grandma, thanks for the letter, grandma. You always seem so quiet grandma, but thanks for those letters. It tells me that you are still there and still going. Gabe had some good news about the baptisms that he received, and those pictures Shane had were also great to see. It is weird to think that it is winter in Argentina right now, and it does look a little cold.

I was very quickly moved to a different area of the mission because an extreme circumstance happened in that area, and I was in a threesome, so I got transferred. On Monday night (10:00) , President called and said I had to leave the next day to Ekaterinburg, so I quickly packed and left, without knowing the reason. When I arrived, I found out that I was going to Ufa, farther west in the mission. I also saw my first companion, Elder Kordon, and I found out that I will be serving with him. Now I am in a very small outer town of Ufa called Dyoma. I came by a train that took 15 hours to get here. It is a very, very small city, and takes about 45 minutes to walk around the main central part of the city. I Ufa itself, the Church has a very nice building, and the city is very large and modern. In fact, there are a few McDonalds here. There are not a whole lot of members, but there are some very strong members, and we have a hard working branch President and Counselor. Due to a youth conference in Nobosibirsk, our branch president will be the only Priesthood holder in town this week, so we might end up doing a lot of contacting, ideally finding men or families to teach. I am excited to get working there, and I will probably stay there a while now, but I don't completely know because transfers will shortly officially end. It is finally cooling a little bit down, but it is still considerably warn depending on the amount of wind or clouds. This summer has supposedly been one of the hottest in around 20 years, and it only rained twice (as I have heard) this summer in Ufa. Last winter was the coldest that winter has been for a long time. We wonder when winter will come, but everyone says that it does not come to stay until November.

We really do not know completely what is in store for the future. We make plans and goals, but sometimes change occurs. I am not sure what kind of things are going down in Kurgan. The Lord wants us to always move forward. All is never lost, but all can always be gained through hard work and steady reliance on the Lord. I wish you all love and hope you continue to work with any change the way that the Lord would want you to. Bye. -Elder Larson