God Is Love

Well Mom, it sounds like maybe I need to pay more attention to my thoughts during those difficult morning prayers, where I seem to be half asleep. I'm afraid that it'll take a more traumatic experience to make me a clean freak than some member's apartment, but I suppose anything is possible. Yikes, can't believe Ho Young already got his mission call...pretty sure he's still 16. Boy Andy, I'm surprised you're even allowed to be home alone. You'd think mom and dad would recognize that you'll be partying all night with "all your babes." Bro I hope you don't plan on telling me that you blew your chances with a certain _____ girl. You may be interested to know, Lisa, that here in Germany people say "beautiful to see you." Though in German it doesn't sound quite so ridiculous. I hope you have a good time in this "pond." I think what you said is pretty much missionary work in a nut-shell. Lots of ups and downs, success and blessings don't always come how we want them, and it's often difficult to tell if any of our efforts are making a difference. But the way we see things is a lot different from how God sees them. Not gonna lie Wouard, that collage thing is totes my goats adorbs. Are you sure that when Allison "practically smiled" at you, that it wasn't just gas? Surely she won't truly be able to smile until she meets her favorite uncle. Your rap seems pretty accurate Joey. And where be Isaac headed off to? Yeah Dad, that talk from Elder Holland last conference was pretty awesome. Nice to know that God blesses us just for having the desire to be better.

Zone Leader's Drawing of Elder Larsen

So...quite the rollercoaster this week. Tuesday we met with Frau Heumann and discovered that she works on the 2nd and 3rd of July. She said she hasn't gotten her entire work plan for July and that she'd call us when she did so we could make out a new date. Well, that evening President Fingerle called us, and we told him how things went. After a somewhat long and stressful phone call, he advised us to try to see if it would be possible that she got baptized THIS weekend, a.k.a. the 25th of June. Well we kind of panicked after that; for one thing neither I nor Elder Barboza have any experience with baptisms, which take more preparation than one might expect, and also the ward probably wouldn't be super thrilled about us spontanteously baptizing someone. But the next day we called Frau Heumann and it turns out she also had to work on those days, so that also didn't work. Well after much drama and conversations with our district leader, zone leaders, Assistants to the President, Sister training leaders and of course President Fingerle himself, we ended up with the 9th of July as the new date. Still a bit of churning in my stomach, but we're hoping that everything works out alright :).

In other news, our investigator Martin finally made it to church this Sunday. Elder Barboza had an awesome singing solo in Sacrament meeting, during which Martin teared up a little. He's such an awesome guy. One of the members, Esther Graf, also brought a friend to church (go members!), who also really enjoyed the church meetings and told us that he'd give us a call, once he gets back from vacation in a couple weeks. So we should have some pretty exciting stuff going on in the near future.

This week I finished reading the Book of Mormon, and the topic I was focused on throughout was how much God loves us. Well after going through my notes and reviewing what I marked, I think I can say that love is the #1 thing that makes God who He is. Everything he does is influenced by his love for us, and it's through love that we become more like Him (Moroni 7:48). I thought I was pretty clever when I came up with the phrase "Love is the defining characteristic of Godliness," but John the Apostle beat me by about 2000 years when he said "God is love." But in all seriousness, God loves us with all his heart, might, mind and strength. His joy comes from our success, and the steps that we take to follow Him and to work our way toward eternal life. The Book of Mormon is true.

Love you all, have an awesome week!

Elder Larsen