Dear Family!
I am having a great time on the mission, and I am really enjoying serving with Elder Parson. He is very kind and motivates me to improve and do my very best. He is young and wants to learn everything, and it has inspired me again to always be striving for better. I have been having a lot of fun. We were on exchanges with some Elders in a different city, and they had a few cool finding ideas. They offered to donate Books of Mormon to libraries if people would be interested to read them, and they want to offer to put liahonas in dental offices. We also want to give it a try, and we recently have been wanting to try singing as a way to attracting people to talking to us and wanting to know more. My companion has a good voice, and we hope that together singing hims it will sound good enough to where it will touch people and really inspire them to know more. We will see how that goes.
Happy birthday Grandma. Happy very very late birthday Erik.
I left out a little bit of information from last weeks letter. There is a doctor in Moscow that wanted to see some of the hospitals in our mission. To be honest, the government hospitals are not in good condition, but the private ones seemed pretty nice. It was just interesting that I was translating for the Doctor a lot of the time. There were many cognates, but a lot of those cognates I did not know what they were in English, but it was an interesting opportunity to help and take a looking at various equipment in the hospitals. Also last week, there was a young man who wanted to get baptized in a lake, so he was baptized in the lake, and there was a very thins layer of ice starting to form. It seemed really cold, but it was very beautiful.
To answer a question Shane had, but maybe you would like to know what my schedule is like as an assistant. There are not a whole lot of steady factors that make it different from the standard missionary schedule. 2 large differences are Tuesdays and Sundays. On Tuesday starting at 9:00 we have calls with zone leaders to know more about how their zones are doing. After that we have office meeting, and we plan with President for upcoming meetings, conferences, interviews, or missionary training. On Sundays, President likes to visit various branches, seeming to cycle through or going for special reasons, and we often go with him. Other than that, we might have exchanges or little things we help with President here and there. We help him communicate with a church employee about maintenance, we set up interviews for him, we sometimes translate, and we sometimes help with missionary trainings. Whenever President needs us, we should be ready to help him, as that is the first priority, but he and his wife are very kind and generous to us. I feel like they know so well how to connect with people, and I have learned so much from them. Shane, I come home on or around March 8.
Thank you for wishing me a happy thanksgiving. I will be having thanksgiving at President Rust's home. They are holding Thanksgiving meal for missionaries in Ekaterinburg. President Schwitzer, the area president, will also be coming on saturday and doing a devotional for the missionaries. Russia do not celebrate or acknowledge thanksgiving in any way or even have a comparable holiday, but I really enjoy thanksgiving. Russia also does not have Halloween, and I cannot remember if they have valentine's day, but they have many other holidays and New Years is the big holiday like our Christmas. Mom, I got the package you sent for my birthday last week. I guess it arrived quickly.
I am having a great time on the mission, and I am really enjoying serving with Elder Parson. He is very kind and motivates me to improve and do my very best. He is young and wants to learn everything, and it has inspired me again to always be striving for better. I have been having a lot of fun. We were on exchanges with some Elders in a different city, and they had a few cool finding ideas. They offered to donate Books of Mormon to libraries if people would be interested to read them, and they want to offer to put liahonas in dental offices. We also want to give it a try, and we recently have been wanting to try singing as a way to attracting people to talking to us and wanting to know more. My companion has a good voice, and we hope that together singing hims it will sound good enough to where it will touch people and really inspire them to know more. We will see how that goes.
Happy birthday Grandma. Happy very very late birthday Erik.
I left out a little bit of information from last weeks letter. There is a doctor in Moscow that wanted to see some of the hospitals in our mission. To be honest, the government hospitals are not in good condition, but the private ones seemed pretty nice. It was just interesting that I was translating for the Doctor a lot of the time. There were many cognates, but a lot of those cognates I did not know what they were in English, but it was an interesting opportunity to help and take a looking at various equipment in the hospitals. Also last week, there was a young man who wanted to get baptized in a lake, so he was baptized in the lake, and there was a very thins layer of ice starting to form. It seemed really cold, but it was very beautiful.
To answer a question Shane had, but maybe you would like to know what my schedule is like as an assistant. There are not a whole lot of steady factors that make it different from the standard missionary schedule. 2 large differences are Tuesdays and Sundays. On Tuesday starting at 9:00 we have calls with zone leaders to know more about how their zones are doing. After that we have office meeting, and we plan with President for upcoming meetings, conferences, interviews, or missionary training. On Sundays, President likes to visit various branches, seeming to cycle through or going for special reasons, and we often go with him. Other than that, we might have exchanges or little things we help with President here and there. We help him communicate with a church employee about maintenance, we set up interviews for him, we sometimes translate, and we sometimes help with missionary trainings. Whenever President needs us, we should be ready to help him, as that is the first priority, but he and his wife are very kind and generous to us. I feel like they know so well how to connect with people, and I have learned so much from them. Shane, I come home on or around March 8.
Thank you for wishing me a happy thanksgiving. I will be having thanksgiving at President Rust's home. They are holding Thanksgiving meal for missionaries in Ekaterinburg. President Schwitzer, the area president, will also be coming on saturday and doing a devotional for the missionaries. Russia do not celebrate or acknowledge thanksgiving in any way or even have a comparable holiday, but I really enjoy thanksgiving. Russia also does not have Halloween, and I cannot remember if they have valentine's day, but they have many other holidays and New Years is the big holiday like our Christmas. Mom, I got the package you sent for my birthday last week. I guess it arrived quickly.
It is cool how Brother Woods will be the bishop. I really like him. Thank you for your letters this week. I love you. Bye.-Elder Larson
