Hello Family!
This past week was really wonderful, busy, but I learned a lot. I had a lot of letters from you all the past 2 weeks, and it seems that life is going well. I am grateful that you all have so many blessings. Mom, just keep doing what you can and pray for the strength to do what the Lord wants for you. I was happy to hear your's and dad's comments about celestial marriage, and I too know that will happen and that is what we are working towards. Erik, it was nice to here from you, and I congratulate you on getting that job at the MTC. I didn't think you could get hired without being a student of BYU. Missionary work is great and it is nice that you and Alesha already have plans to serve a mission when you are older. Too bad that you couldn't get that elk dad. Maybe next time. It is wonderful that Jack's girlfriend is getting baptized on Saturday. Now she has accepted the Gospel truth, and I feel like that will be a good example to a lot of other youth. Simply to answer on your question about school next spring, I would want to go if I could start supporting myself at the same time by working. I would like to go as soon as possible, but I don't really want to worry about all the sign up and such until after my mission. I would give you two permission to select some of my classes if you would want. Shane, that is cool how you are a zone leader now. That is a lot of missionaries that you are over. It is almost half of our mission, and it is great how you have such a responsibility.
This week, we had the zone conferences, and it was amazing. We had a member of the Europe East Area Presidency come and help teach as we had the conferences. He is a member of the 2nd quorum of the seventy and his name is Randall Bennett. He is really great, energetic, intense, and really brought the Spirit. He came in large part to us to repentance. It was very spiritual, enjoyable, helpful, humbling, and it was exactly what our mission needed. Our mission had been talking to people less often, and we had gotten into the mindset that contacting was not effective. Of course it is best to get referrals from members, but he woke us up to the fact that when they do not give referrals from members, just dropping by people will not do a whole lot of good in finding investigators or really helping the inactives. If we work with inactives, we need to be working with the members, or we will not really make any lasting difference, and we should always be in the mindset of finding and fulfilling our missionary purpose. The missionaries all took it very well when the conferences came to a close. I really want this part of my mission to end out very strong. I have had priceless experiences, and I know that in doing what the Lord wants us to do, we receive incredible joy. It is really fun to be a missionary, and I enjoy hearing from the other missionaries from the ward, and I feel that they are working hard in the areas that they are serving. It is getting a little cooler, and I am starting to feel the full fall coming on. My mission President and other leaders are great, and I know that they really point us to what the ward wants us to do. Although I don't have any planned baptisms coming soon, it feels like there have been a fair bit of baptisms happening in the mission. I love you family. Bye. -Elder Larson
