Monday, May 30, 2011

May 30, 2011

Hello Family,
It sounds like you can open up our house and charge people to come to the zoo. Or maybe you can catch all of those little creatures and sell them to someone who wants them. That is really interesting how they just showed up and how the little gophers are not afraid at all. I am very glad to hear that you went to church on Sunday mom! That is really great and the Lord sees your sacrifice to do that, and he will bless you for going. Good job. Thank you for those pictures. The little kids and Erik and Alesha all look really cute together. I have recently had the opportunity to do some baptismal interviews, and it is really cool to see that people have the desire to follow Christ. I know he is our perfect example. I talked in sacrament this weekend about forgiveness. There are a lot of people that seem to be offended at each other, but preparing helped me better understand about forgiveness and how we all must forgive and how God loves to forgive. If I am giving good preparation time, I enjoy giving talks at Church. I love you all family. WOrk hard and be good examples for others. Thank you dad for your spiritual thoughts in the email. It makes me feel good to hear about those things. I also know I can be doing more. I am grateful for eternal progression and that we are not meant to get everything all right all at once. We can learn and have fun molding ourselves into who we want to be through the help of the Lord and Gospel. Good bye. -Elder Larson. It has been raining a lot, but it is green and weather has been fairly nice.

Monday, May 23, 2011

May 23, 2011

Hello Family!
Good job mom for getting through that medical test, I am proud of you. I was glad to hear from Shane, Ryan, and other cousins. I am glad to hear about the good things that go on with you all. There was a baptism yesterday. It was great and a young 19 year old was baptized. It was really great to see, and I was able to interview him, so it was good to get to know him a little bit. We wanted as a zone to write the favorite thing about the zone today, and I enjoy serving around hard working missionaries, especially some of the sister missionaries work very hard, do not stop, and they have been getting baptisms. There will also be people baptized on the 4 and 5 of June. We have you to find and investigator that becomes progressing. ONe of our less active members did come to church though which was really cool and essential for her. It has been a great joy to see it with others, but I feel as if I need to be working harder. Another missionary had a cool experience he told me while he was on exchanges. they had worked hard, very hard trying to find people, nothing happened. They stopped working as hard, they were given a referral, and the person was later baptized. the moral is not that you do not need to work hard, but the moral is that if you do work hard, the Lord will bless you, bless the people, in his own time, and he gives us experiences like that to know that nothing is impossible without the Spirit or the help of the Lord. I know that people can be found, but I feel like my desire and work and love fo the people just needs to grow stronger. I am glad that through the gospel we can progress, and through Christ we can become different people, people that can make a difference in many lives. Next week will be zone conference, so I am glad to talk and here from president the last time at zone conference, although there will be one more chance in zone leader council in the next month. We really have a great president. The weather has been beautiful, and everything is turning green, and there are also pretty yellow dandelions around, and I really do enjoy the weather right now. It was a little cool still, but today is lovely. Thanks for the care mom. All of those things sound good, but could you not send mango or cranberry. I hope you are all doing very well. Love each other often and big. I love you all. -Elder Larson

Monday, May 16, 2011

May 16, 2011

Hello family!
I am doing really well, but it was kind of an interesting week because Monday we had an in day, Tuesday was P day, we helped with transfers on Wednesday and Thursday, and we saw the Living Legends concert on Thursday which was really enjoyable and great. I liked what Tucker had to say in his letter, and it is amazing how he saw such a miracle. I am sure he will continue to grow his whole life. Something I have learned on the mission and I really like is that you really can be who you want to be if it is who you need to be through the power of Christ and with strong desire and effort. Desire is really important, and you must deeply desire something if you really want to achieve it. Christ must also be the how it can happen. I do love the mission, and I am learning so many things. It would be nice if it could last forever, but I am glad that I can always progress and serve others no matter where I am at. It sounds like things are going well with you all at home. I will pray for mom so that the check ups all go really well and fine. I hope everyone there is happy and doing well. It sounds like dad had some fun playing basketball. For a package, I would want no candy at all because I feel like I eat too many sweets, but fruits would be good. Raisins, apricots, prunes, bananas, apples. Thanks for your cares. My companion is great. I really enjoy that he is funny and always shows that he cares for people. He reminds me of Shane in a few ways in that he open with me, and that has been really cool. It is fun how you got that free thing at the antique mall and got to shoot guns and such. Miracles really do happen. It has been fun to work with other missionaries and see their success too. Although Nothing great has happened in our area this week, we helped the sister missionaries move apartments, we were able to talk to a man that can be referred to another area, and another pair of sisters have a few people that are ready for baptism after not really meeting with missionaries for a while. Our mission will largely change after this transfer because quite a few go home, and our mission President will change, but I am glad that the Gospel is always constant and God is, and We can trust in him and his son so that everything will be okay no matter where, with who, or in what situation. I love you all. Bye.-Elder Larson

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

May 10, 2011

Hello family!
I had a fun time talking with you. Not a whole lot here has changed within that time because we had Victory Day, and that was an in day for work because there would be too many drunk people. We did cleaning and ate lasagna and looked in the area book, and talked. I am not getting transferred, so my companion and I will be together again this transfer. On Sunday, we were also able to see the dedication of the Church building here in Yekaterniburg. I thought it was interesting to be able to see you all, but it was hard because it was not that we could really structured talk to each person. I was glad to see Molly, Trey, and Madison, Kylie, Brett, and Ashton and Erik and Alesha. I am doing well. There does exist peanut butter here, but it is only sold at one place where you need a card (it is like costco), so we need to buy peanut butter from those people like senior couples, so don't worry about sending it. The Senior couple that helped me use skype is the Glagolev family Глагольевы. The miracle of my transfer is that a less active woman came to church that had not come in years, and she really enjoyed it, and her 11 year old daughter might be interested in learning about the gospel. That little girl had started to read the Book of Mormon on her own and had read 8 chapters within a week's time. She has a friend who is a member, but I hope we will be able to talk to that little girl about baptism make that special for her.
We see living legends this week, which is the dancers from BYU, so it should be great. English club is going okay, but on Saturday since it is warmer, people seem to have a priority to do other things.  I am proud of Shane because it sounds like he is working very hard and being grateful for all of his many blessings. I know that only through the true teachings of Christ can we find true happiness in our lives. I love you all. 
-Elder Larson

Monday, May 2, 2011

May 2, 2011

Hello family!
This week, we started the week with mission president to get trained and learn how to be better missionaries ourselves and better help the zone. Sorry. I need to take more pictures. I really do not have an excuse not to send the pictures I have, but I have not taken the time enough to take pictures. I need to think about how I can do better and plan in advance to send to you. This week, a less active came to church, and that was really exciting to see. We set a baptismal date, but we need to make sure the man will work towards it. He knows english, knows about the church, but he has maybe different priorities, but we hope to help him more. \there is great weather, the grass is starting to green, trees are starting to bud, and we do not need to go out in a coat, just suit jacket. I lot of things at home we eat aren't to out of the ordinary, but mayonaisse is popular and I like it, but we have dumplings, sausage sandwhiches, and there are various good vegetable salads here. \russians like suops and also liittle meat, egg, or cabbage, or sweet pies that are very good. There are a lot of sweets in Russia, and they are really goood pastries, and I really enjoy all that stuff. I live in a large apartment building, but we have 2 rooms and one kitchen. it is small but nice. We live on the edge of the city. we mainly walk, but to get to the center, we take the sub way, and bus from there to get to church. I love you all. Could you call 7 saturday morning your time to the number with a card so that we can arange our phone call\? I love you, Bye.-Elder larson