Herrrooo,
It's crazy how every day brings new opportunities and new challenges here.
I am finally getting used to the schedule here, so the only really difficult
thing here now is teaching investigators. Also we can't play ultimate
frisbee...which seems like some kind of sick joke. You can toss a frisbee
around, you can play soccer and basketball, but you can't play ultimate frisbee.
So traurig. Yesterday I had the most miraculous experience that I've had so far
in the MTC. So we were planning our fourth lesson for our "investigator" Carola,
and our first three lessons with her were basically just us teaching some basic
doctrine about prayer, the Holy Ghost, the Book of Mormon or Jesus Christ, and
bearing simple testimony. This lesson, however, we were going to teach her about
the great apostasy, the Restoration/Joseph Smith, more about Christ's ministry
and at the end invite her to be baptized for the first time, all in German of
course. To help prepare we did a roleplay with our teacher...I totally bombed
it; floundered the whole time. To make matters worse the rest of my district
returned to the classroom from their lesson with Carola with mixed expressions
of sadness and irritation. They told us "good luck" in the way that actually
means "you're hosed" and sat down. So off we went. It was easily the best and
most rewarding lesson we've had. We were able to slow things down and focus on
the investigator, and the Spirit led the conversation so that rather than
spouting out random facts and sentences, we were able to answer her questions,
make her feel what she needed to feel all while teaching her the doctrine that
we had planned. What I was sure would be a humiliating and discouraging
experience turned into a humbling and encouraging experience as me and Elder
Fritz focused on the investigator and allowed the Holy Ghost to direct us. In
response to our invitation to be baptized she said she would pray to know if
what we taught was true, and if she received an answer, she would accept our
invitation. The Spirit is readily available to those who get over themselves,
turn outward and rely on Heavenly Father.
Anyway...I've got a great district and a great companion. I'll admit, I'm
not super into going to choir, or playing soccer, but those are basically my
only complaints. If I was in any other district I probably wouldn't be able to
survive the hours of study/class time that we have every day. Elder Fritz is
from South Weber, Utah and the other three elders, Elder Green, Elder Bennett
and Elder Recine are from American Fork and Boise. We're all pretty different
but they're all solid dudes with solid testimonies. Also the other Elders aren't
terribly athletic which makes me feel like I'm actually good at basketball.
Anywho, off to play some soccer...yippee.
With love und begeisturung,
Elder Larsen
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