Provo Boy Adventures: Conclusion

Yes, you read right. Not only is this the conclusion of the two Provo boys serving in Jena together but it is also the end of this Provo boy‘s days as a full time missionary in Germany. I’m not really sure what direction to take this...dramatic, tearful, or maybe just a couple boring paragraphs trying to summarize the last 2 years...

At any rate the myth has been confirmed that the mission can indeed be considered the best two years. It wasn’t the easiest 2 years, in terms of the world it wasn’t the most successful 2 years nor was it the most relaxing 2 years. But it was the best. I look back and see battles won and lost, promptings followed and opportunities missed, lessons learned and lessons yet to be learned. I’ve been by no means a perfect missionary but I feel as though I’ve accomplished more in these last 2 years for my own good and the good of others than the other 18 years of my life combined. It’s been amazing to live the Gospel in a way that before my mission I never even imagined.

The MTC, the cities of Neukölln, Stadthagen, Bremerhaven, Hildesheim, Werdau, Schwarzenberg, Tiergarten and Jena will always have a special place in my heart, for the amazing people there and the experiences I had in each city with each companion.

Maybe the best way to express what I learned as a missionary is to use the imagery that Elder Stevenson used during his talk for General Conference. As a missionary I learned to put on my Gospel glasses. I started to discover that rather than just being words on pages that I was supposed to read, the scriptures are filled with people like me, whose experiences I can learn from and whose examples I can follow or avoid. I was able to feel like Elijah did when he felt alone and hopeless, I felt Mormon‘s pain when the people he loved decided not to repent and I felt even if just for a time what the Nephites must have felt after King Benjamin‘s address, having no desire to do evil but to do good continually.

Prayer became more than a chore that consisted of rambling off some desires and hurriedly offering thanks for a few things so that I could get on with the day. It became communication with an all-knowing, all-loving Heavenly Father whose help I so desperately need and who I truly do love. A mission put me in a position where I was forced to accept that leaning only on the knowledge and supposed power of man can’t get you far into the eternities, nor can it bring any sort of lasting joy or true success in this life.

I'm grateful for this time I was able to enjoy as a missionary and I'm grateful for all of you and the positive influence each of you has had on me. Ich wünsche euch alles Gute und Gottessegen bis wir uns wieder auf dem verheißenen Land Amerikas treffen 😁

LG zum letzten Mal von:

Elder Larsen

Provo Boy Week 5

This week was kind of all over the place. Tuesday I was on exchange in Erfurt with Elder Palmer, he's a good chap. The only problem was that night in Erfurt I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Every time I fell asleep I'd get woken up by this awful buzzing in my ear and with each rude awakening the itch grew greater. Around 3 at night I woke up and it occurred to me I had forgotten to say a prayer before getting in bed so I prayed, went back to sleep and had no more problems that night. So that was a sweet little reminder of the power of prayer.

On Thursday we had Zone Conference and I was able to see some of the homies for one last time. Elder Fritz will soon be the last survivor from our little group that entered the MTC that fateful day on September 16th, 2015. The Conference was really solid though, it was focused on the Book of Mormon and President Fingerle went over some of the evidences of the truthfulness of it. It was emphasized that the only real way to know if it's true is through the Holy Ghost, but there are also many historical and geological evidences of its truth. It was interesting that we talked about that because it was just a couple weeks ago that we had talked to a man who insisted that there were no such evidences in favor of the Book of Mormon.

Elder Openshaw a few years ago did a student exchange thing in Meißen so after our Zone Conference (which was in Dresden, close to Meißen) we got permission to meet with some of his friends from the exchange, who know quite a bit about the Gospel and have shown interest in learning more. So that was pretty cool and we were able to overnight in Dresden with the one and only Elder Ausobsky. He's quite the stud.

On Friday we went from Dresden straight to Nordhausen, an area close to ours and did street contacting there with the other missionaries in our district. Finally at like 9:30 at night we got back to Jena. A little too much time sitting in a train for my fancy, but we survived.

Saturday we topped things off with a ward party at a member's house in Gera. Gera is a part of my old area Werdau, but when I had gotten to Werdau about a year ago there was some drama in the ward and some of the members in Gera stopped going to Werdau and starting going to Jena instead. So my former ward missionary leader in Werdau is now the second councilor in the Branch Presidency here in Jena. Kind of strange. At any rate it was pretty interesting being in Gera again.

Sunday I got to enjoy my last sacrament meeting in Germany as a missionary. I got to bid farewell to the members, most of them stay home for General Conference so it's likely I won't see many of them again. I'm excited though to end on the spiritual high of General Conference and take some nuggets of wisdom with me on my way home.

Anywho, Life is great. Y'all are great. Have a good one!

Elder Larsen

Provo Boy Adventures Week 4

Merhaba.

Solid week, very solid week.

Last week when we had interviews with President Fingerle he told me pretty straight up that once I was gone the window would pretty much be closed in terms of more Spanish speaking missionaries coming to Jena in the near future (it's actually kind of a headquarters for Chinese speakers because there are tons of Chinese students). He told me a missionary from Hong Kong would be replacing me and that I'd need to use time effectively to work with Spanish speakers. We'll ever since then God's been blessing us with quite a few opportunities in that field of work.

On Monday we visited a less active family from Peru. The Mom is really set on coming back to church and bringing her two sons along with her. Super cool family, sadly the sons can't really speak  Spanish, they just understand it so I can't really practice with them 😞

Tuesday and Wednesday we were on exchanges in Hamburg with our mighty Spanish group leader, Elder Castillo and his faithful deputy Elder Wride. It's always a party with those two, sadly our Spanish experience consisted mostly of getting rejected by a contact from Nicaragua, chatting with some uninterested Ecuadorians and shopping at a Latino market.

Friday we met with our new friend Mario from Mexico. It went pretty well and he's definitely a fan of the church, he's just still unsure of how necessary religion is. But he came to church on Sunday and is interested in meeting further.

Saturday was the annual volunteer day in Jena, which I had actually attended last year as well in my days in Werdau. It was an awesome experience then and it didn't disappoint this year, either. We had 28 missionaries split up in 11 or 12 groups going to different service projects throughout the city. At our project was a lady from Argentina who has been living here for a couple months. There's always something fun about Latinos' reactions when a white kid from America in Germany starts talking to them in Spanish. Our group built a hedge and pulled a ton of weeds in this kindergarten playground type thing. I talked quite a bit to the Argentinian lady and was able to teach her about the restoration of the Gospel and she seems interested in learning more and coming to church, so that's perrrrty exciting. It was a good confidence booster in my testimony of the gift of tongues, because it was legitimately hours straight of only speaking Spanish and while I'm sure my grammar wasn't terribly up to par we were able to understand each other. Pretty cool stuff.

Jena continues to be awesome, it's starting to scare me how fast the clock is ticking. I have one more German sacrament meeting left...where on earth has the time gone by. Life flies by too fast, really got to enjoy every moment of it. Fortunately the Gospel gives us everything we need to do exactly that.

Life's awesome, thanks to all of you for your prayers and support, ich habe euch lieb!

Elder Larsen

Provo Boy Adventures Week 3

Well I'm not really sure where to start with this week. We've had a couple more members and investigators head out of town to enjoy the last few weeks before the next semester of school here in Jena starts. On Monday we had 4 non members and only 1 member at our family home evening, which was somewhat unusual. Our institute group this week was also about 1/5 of the size it was last week because of a young single adult convention going on, but hopefully this week we'll get some of our peeps back.

On Tuesday night we were on our way home from an appointment. We stopped at a crosswalk and a line of cars started going by. One car slowed down to a stop, rolled down his window and said "Hey, you look like Jehovah's Witnesses!" and then kept driving. He received quite a bit of road rage for it and we're still not sure if he meant it as an insult or if he was just astounded to see two young men who looked like JWs. Later in the week we were waiting for a bus and a car drove by honking and as we looked a group of dudes in the car had their middle fingers in a somewhat rude position.   Interesting how people will go out of their way to trash on people that they don't know at all. For the most part though the people here are really chill and friendly.

On Friday we had a street display. Only two other missionaries were able to make it so we decided to get a bit unconventional and brought the foosball table from our church building down onto the street and started challenging people. It actually worked quite well and people were curious to know what on earth we were doing. Germans become a whole lot more open when you find a way to get them to come to you rather than you going to them. It's been interesting trying out ideas that I had never really considered before.

The cherry on top of this week was on Sunday a stranger came to sacrament meeting. He was late and I was up front so I didn't see him until later. After the meeting I got caught in a conversation but saw him starting to leave so I booked it after him and was able to stop him right as he was walking out the door. He said his name was Mario and when I asked him where he was from and said he was from Mexico. I seriously couldn't contain my excitement upon finally being able to talk to someone in Spanish in Jena. Sadly he had to go but later we were able to talk through messenger and we have an appointment set up for Friday. So that was pretty awesome.

Anywho, life is great.

The end.

❤️,

Elder Larsen

Provo Boy Adventures Week 2

Hey,

So I forgot to mention last week one of the greatest advantages so far of having a companion who is also from Provo. You see in Germany members are interested in your heritage no matter where you're from...as long as it's not Utah. There's always a level of disappointment in people's faces when I say I'm from Provo, whether that be a shake of a head, a pitiful sigh, a mocking laugh or a comment about how every missionary comes from Utah. Tell them you're from Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado or some other boring State (that's right, Elder Castillo 😛) and the members get so excited, just anything other than Utah. However here in Jena Elder Openshaw has already taken the brunt of the attack and their disappointment is replaced with interest upon hearing that we grew up in the same neighborhood. And no, that's not really one of the greatest advantages nor is it something that's actually bothersome, but the way the members react sometimes is always something to laugh about.

Jena has given me a good first impression and it hasn't failed me yet. My only complaint so far is a Döner that didn't land so well in my stomach which almost had dire consequences. It was our Branch
President, Rene's birthday so we went by to give him the deluxe missionary package (namely gummy bears and a 1 euro workout DVD we bought) and it so happened that on the tram ride over there my stomach started making unpleasant noises. Things got worse when we got out and walked to Rene's door and called him and he said he was at a different member's house, about a 10 minute walk away...up a hill. So I'm starting to get a little afraid but am confident that as long as I'm able to use the bathroom at this member's place everything will be fine. Well I'm starting to doubt as we get into the building and walk into an elevator. That elevator was not my friend; gravity was not on my side. It took all my strength to prevent the evening from getting messy and I'm convinced that if he had lived a floor or two higher in this building I wouldn't have made it. As it was we ran to the door, and without hardly saying hello I burst into the bathroom and spent the next 20 or so minutes in there. I think there are still a couple members who think I was just being discourteous, going straight into the bathroom like that but there was sadly no other way.

On the brighter and more spiritual side of things, the work here is going quite well. Our new investigator Rob is doing really well, he came to Institute on Thursday, church on Sunday afterwards he came with us to our lunch appointment) and today he's coming to our family home evening activity thing. He grew up with a very negative feeling toward churches and religion, but he says he feels really good in the church here and is really opening up. Sadly I've got to run, but things are going real swell here. Hope you're all doing well, have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Smart Phone

Ach Nöööööö,

So life in Jena is pretty legit. Great members, cool people to teach and a solid companion. Also one of the big advantages of the technology we have is being able to stay in contact with people we've
taught in other areas, so even now that I'm not in Berlin I can still help people there and if everything works out I should also be able to Skype in for Marcos' baptism this Saturday.

Maybe the one downside of Jena so far is that since it's a university city, a lot of our members and the people we teach are currently on vacation and out of town. Fall semester starts about when I leave, so there are a lot of people I'm not even going to really meet in my time here. However the people I've met so far are amazing. The members (and also some of those currently learning about the church) are dedicated in their efforts to do missionary work and willing to help us out whenever we need anything. We've got lots of activities and lots to do, so it's looking like it'll be a good last 6 weeks.

We had a couple cool experiences is last week. Thursday we had an appointment fall through with a new investigator named Rob and thought we wouldn't be able to meet until next week. Then on Friday we were doing our studies and he just randomly walked in, ready to be taught. He said he saw the door was open and wanted to see if we happened to be there. So that was quite the nice coincidence. And then on Saturday we were on the way to the nearby city of Erfurt for our district
meeting and in the train we sat across from a man and his daughter. They were speaking Chinese and Elder Openshaw, who is learning Chinese (his companion before me was Elder Hsu, a missionary from Taiwan) leaped into a conversation with the man. It turns out he's just in Germany every Summer but lives in Taiwan and is actually already investigating the church there. So that was pretty cool.

Another random thing about Jena, we're one of a 10 companionship pilot group with a smart phone, so it's been weird walking around with a smart phone in my pocket again. The biggest advantage with it is the WhatsApp app, which I don't know if it's big in America but here in Germany basically everyone has it, and it's been great for keeping in daily contact with the people we're working with. Funny how fast changes are being made in how missionary work is done, sadly I won't stay long enough to make it past this kind of awkward transition phase of not really knowing what to do with all this new stuff, but it's been cool to see the changes that have happened since the beginning of my mission.

Anywho, things are going well, I'm excited to see what we're able to accomplish this transfer. Love you guys, have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Transfer to Jena

No Mom, I wouldn't say the birthday gifts were underwhelming. I will say when I pulled out a bag and saw the word heads I was hoping it would be warheads, but airheads are definitely a close second. Maybe I need to start working harder so you guys stop getting sick.

That's too bad, Lisa. I was hoping to come back and hear you speak fluent German. I'll admit I have a fear of having no one to talk to in German and then just slowly losing the ability to speak it. Wow Zeke is like 0 years old and is already more into motorcycles than I am.

Andy you better go call Pete to repentance. Smooching it up with some Texas heathen. I'm pretty jealous about Oathbringer. Have there been any other Brandon Sanderson books coming out since I've been gone?

I had a moment of panic Heidi, when I read what you said about the hard switch from Summer to School. I thought school must be starting up for me in a couple weeks, and then I remembered that I'm a missionary, where all that means is that people are finally going to start coming back from vacation.

Glad to hear Marty is already taking you down at board games, Joey. Looks like he's doing it at an even younger age than I did. Are all the expansions for Cthulhu Wars already out? The secret to Spaniards might be catching them while they're young, Marcos is super chill. Once they hit older teenage years though it seems to start getting dangerous. Granted that isn't just applicable to Spaniards though.

Cool that you guys were able to check out the new MTC stuff, Dad. We had the same lesson about the Book of Mormon in Priesthood, there's another story I read about a lady who was going to gift a Book of Mormon to a friend but got mugged. The guy who mugged her read the book, was baptized and of course gave the lady her stuff back. Pretty awesome.

We had a great week. Sadly I had to say goodbye to my teenage years for forever. I got to celebrate my birthday with a service project helping a family move, which is undeniably one of the top things to do as a missionary. Nothing more refreshing than simple service.

I also got transferred! I'll be spending my last 6 weeks in Jena, a city I visited a few times back when I served in Werdau. It's a university city which is always a plus and hopefully there will be
some Spanish speakers there. It'll be sad though missing Marcos's baptism and leaving Berlin after 10 months of being there. I'll be serving with Elder Openshaw, a fellow Provo boy, so that's exciting.

I know that's not too much information but we've gotta run and it be pouring rain outside. Have a great weeeeek!

Elder Larsen