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

Berlin-Freiberg Road Trip

Well Mom we haven't seen a whole lot of feedback from the article, but some members have mentioned how their friends read it and they were able to talk about it with them. Hopefully it will lead to something; it may not be the greatest article nor was it written with 100% good intentions, but it may arouse some curiosity. Also I got the birthday package a couple weeks ago, I was able to resist the urge to just tear it all open and it's currently all in a drawer in my desk.

I like the random German slang, Lisa. Sounds like Zeke has reached the phase where Jake was when I left, grabbing your hand, taking you places and kind of talking.

You're bumming me out Andy. You mean I'm going to get home from my mission, study and then just work for the next 50 years? We'll have to put our heads together, get rich and then retire at 30 and build our super cabin.

I think you unintentionally made a German pun, Heidi. The word brief in German means letter. I think I'll have to start looking through all my emails and see how many weeks go by without someone getting sick. Too bad that Allie's the latest victim.

I'm glad your law of chastity lesson wasn't awkward Joey, I hope it will be the same when we teach it to Marcos...in Spanish. Good thing we've got for the strength of youth pamphlets and what not. Sounds like you had a solid campout, having the faith to call rain down on that forest fire.

Yeah Dad, "ok" is probably a good adjective for the article. I was kind of disappointed in what he quoted me on, he basically took the start of a conversation I had with a guy, cut out the middle and then inserted a random sentence I said toward the end. All well. Glad to hear the colonoscopy results are good. I'm also very grateful for the thoughts and prayers of Grandma Larsen, that she's thinking about me even in such a hard time. I love and pray for her as well.

So the highlights of this week are as follows.

We had a couple street displays this week with the other missionaries of our district. The first was in our area and I had the fortune of running into a decent amount of Spanish speakers. Sadly the one with the most potential had to run to catch a bus while we were talking and I wasn't able to do more than give him a card. He was a really nice guy from Spain (and based off my limited experience with Spaniards in Germany not all Spaniards are really nice) who is at the point in his life of deciding whether or not there's a God. Hopefully he calls us...not something that happens too often but there's always a chance. The next day we had a really good street display in front of the Spandau church, there was a pretty decent number of people who went in to take a tour of the church.

On Thursday we had a conference in Freiberg at the temple. For whatever reason we were set on making road trip t-shirts as a district...so we did (see picture below). Though it was mostly the Neukölln Elders' idea in the first place, they "forgot" to bring their shirts with them. Anyway, the highlight of the meeting was definitely being able to go in the temple at the beginning; I probably took more out of that than the 5 hours afterwards of talks, discussions and presentations 🙂.

I was able to see the members of my old MTC group who are going home next week: Elder Green, Elder Racine and Elder Bennett. Lots of mixed feelings there, lots of reminiscing. I can't believe it was almost 2 years ago that we walked into the MTC as a bunch of clueless kids who couldn't speak hardly a word of German. Now here we are, a bunch of clueless kids who speak at least a few words of German. It was interesting to see the changes we've all gone through and it'll be exciting to talk after the Mission and exchange stories. And don't you worry, Elder Fritz, you're time will come soon enough!

On Sunday President Fingerle came to church here in Tiergarten and helped us during the Sunday School hour in our lesson with Huseyin, our friend from Turkey. He's been making pretty good progress and seems to be taking things more seriously. There are still some things he finds hard to believe (coming from a Muslim background) but he's open and willing to learn and talk.

Today for pday we played some ultimate frisbee and "ultimate football" (playing ultimate frisbee rules with a football), which was a party. Ultimate frisbee here is always a rare but treasured experience.

Anywho, that's this week. Love you guys, have a great week!

Life is Bueno!

The reunion sounds like it was a blast, I'm pretty jealous. Ive never played spike ball but I've seen it played before. I like the different ways the building scheduler was described, "she was a little confused" and "she hates us." Mom if you think that Spain is the greatest country in Europe I'm afraid your are quite mistaken. Germany can beat it any day.


So there's some good news and bad news from this week, I'll start with the bad news. We messed up pretty bad yesterday. A few weeks ago we got a referral from the US for a girl that spent about a year over there on an exchange program, part of which was with a host family who were members of the church. We had tried a few times to contact her to no avail, but yesterday we decided we'd try visiting her that evening. That morning at church a girl we didn't know walked in. The thought crossed my mind this could possibly be the girl we were wanting to contact, but then I heard a member say something to her husband about her and I assumed it was a relative or friend of those members. In the meantime we had already had a couple other investigators there who we wanted to talk to and the typical army of American tourists who come in and talk to us. So I forgot about the girl and didn't think about it again until that night when we visit the referral. A man let us in and said his daughter was home but busy talking to her host family from America. So we talked to the dad for a bit and after a while the daughter came in. And of course it was the girl who came to church. We could tell she wasn't happy about us being there and when she saw us she muttered something and went back to her room. The dad was really friendly and said we could come back, but that they're going on vacation for 3 weeks. At any rate because of me ignoring a spiritual prompting this girl who had the courage and initiative to go to the church on her own now has bitter feelings against the church in Germany and the missionaries...ouch.


On the bright side of things our 12 year old pal Marcos from Madrid has a baptismal date for the 2nd of September. He's an awesome kid and we're really excited for him. It's been quite the challenge teaching the lessons to a a 12 year old in a language that I don't speak terribly well, but I like a good challenge and Marcos is fun to teach.


Other interesting news is that we got a newspaper article written about us a couple weeks ago. It came about from a referral we got from Los Angeles. A German journalist came and visited the temple there and talked to the sisters and gave them his card, the information from which was then sent to us when he returned to Berlin. We visited the address, expecting to be led to an apartment and that we'd teach him about the restoration. Instead the address brought us to a massive office building where we had to make an appointment with our guy, Til Biermann. He told us he was interested in writing an article about the church and asked us some questions and later came to one of our street displays. Sadly there are things in the article that aren't totally correct and taken out of context, but I'd say overall it's positive.


I'd not think there's anything else too exciting from this week. Life is bueno!


Elder Larsen

Latino People Are the Bomb

Vale.

Well I don't believe there was anything too life changing from this past
week. The most exciting news is probably that despite our very
imperfect Spanish skills things are going fairly well on the Spanish
front. Our boy Marcos from Madrid is currently making the most
progress from the people we're teaching and we meet with the Spanish
members here considerably more often than the German ones. That being
said there are still many Spanish conversations where half the things
people say go right over my head...it's a blast, Latino people are the
bomb.

We also met with a dude from Peru this week and he took us to a
Colombian fiesta thing which was pretty sweet. Interesting to see how
different Latino culture is from German culture.

Things are going a little bit slower on the German side of things.
David's become super hard to get in contact with and Silvio is of the
opinion that the church is too restrictive and is starting to distance
himself. On the bright side we were able to meet with our friend
Dimitri who disappeared for 3 weeks. He's under a lot of stress right
now and is in a rough situation but he still has it as a goal to be
baptized.

This week was also a good reminder of the power of escaping the
comfort zone. We did a street display with other missionaries and
while most of the others sang hymns one other missionary and I were
talking to the people walking by. I've always preferred normal street
contacting to having a street display since it's harder for people to
just breeze by when we try to talk to them, but this time I was
determined to at least get firmly rejected before letting anyone walk
by (because the worst is when people just totally ignore you or give a
really lame excuse). And it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable
and successful street displays I've experienced, which has convinced
me that a better attitude and some determination can make all the
difference in the world.

That's all I've got, rock on dudettes.

Elder Larsen

Pretty Solid Week

Well Mom it's good to hear that after 22 months my plaque is done. I'm
sad to hear that Grandma is still having a rough time, really hope she
gets better. Crazy that Robert is leaving on his mission, last time I
checked I'm pretty sure he was like a freshman in high school or
something.

Yeah Lisa, Ol' Elder Peatross is back on the other side of the veil.
But like John Taylor wrote in section 135 of Doctrine and Covenants,
in the mission we were not divided, and back at home we will not be
separated...or something like that. Based on my poor ability to
determine how long it takes to get anywhere in Berlin, I would suspect
that Marty's math skills are better than mine.

I see, Andy. Your plan now is to become a filthy rich bachelor with
your own company so that the girls will flock to you? That is pretty
sad to hear though that Jackson is a giant, if he's already taller
than you there's not much hope for me.

If you like the journaling idea Heidi you might like an idea that
President Fingerle has talked about a lot; a while ago Elder Bednar
gave him the suggestion of writing a question at the front of a new
copy of the Book of Mormon and then reading through, focused on the
one question and marking passages and writing notes that relate to it.
To be honest I've struggled with it, since my mind usually wanders
from one question to another, but Elder Bednar said the goal is to
have a whole bookshelf full of Books of Mormon, each providing an
answer to a different question.

I don't know Joey, a friend in need is a friend indeed. I'd say the
wards in Germany and probably everywhere in the world could use a few
Joey Larsens to help the church grow.

I like the Sunday School topic Dad, we had that last week as well. I'm
jealous of the amount that you guys get to go to the Temple.

If I'm not mistaken I'm entering the 10 week countdown of my mission,
which is kind of terrifying. At any rate this week was pretty solid.
We meet pretty regularly with a family in the ward here, the wife is
from Bolivia, the husband is German and got baptized a few months ago
and they have a 8 year old son. This week we visited them and the
wife's nephew was there, a 12 year old named Marcos from Madrid. He's
a legit kid and the wife wants him to get baptized; his mom is a
member, but inactive so he doesn't really know much about the church.
But he's open to learning and teaching him so far has been a pretty
fun experience.

On Monday we met with our friend David again and afterwards went to
Family Home Evening for the young single adults. Sadly David doesn't
fit in super well with the members his age here and got a little
frustrated towards the end of FHE, but our lesson went pretty well. We
set up an appointment for Thursday, but he didn't come and we couldn't
get ahold of him. He also either blocked us on Facebook or deleted his
account...still not totally sure what the deal is, but hopefully
things will work out with him.

We also have a couple non-members we're currently teaching who are
doing some pretty rocking missionary work. Our friend Silvio has given
out around 10 Books of Mormon to friends and family and our friend
Arjuun has invited 4 of his Turkish friends to learn about the gospel.
2 of them met with the turkish speaking Elders here in Berlin and are
now being taught by them, and the other 2 came to church yesterday.
Pretty cool stuff.

Other than that on Saturday there was a gay parade...fun fun. In the
afternoon it started pouring and as we were in the subway we talked to
a dude from Texas who said the rain was a sign of displeasure from God
toward the parade. Might not be too far from the truth. Apparently the
parade had gone past the church, because on Sunday morning when we
went there were tons of beer bottles and cigarrete cases spread across
the lawn and rainbow stickers on the front gate, which had fortunately
been locked. There's always something exciting going on in Berlin.

But all in all we had a really good week. Love you guys, have a good one!

Elder Larsen

Members

My mind is hitting a brick wall in terms of what even happened this
week, so I'll keep this email short.

One thing that has really hit me during my time in Tiergarten is just
how important members are in regards to missionary work. Effectively
finding and teaching investigators, helping them feel well at church,
progress toward baptism and remain active relies very heavily on us
working well together with the members. I've noticed that because the
main reason that every less active member here has given for not
coming to church is that they don't feel welcome in the ward. Sadly
that's happened with a couple investigators as well and it was kind of
sad at institute when we brought a new investigator there and the only
one that really talked to him was the other investigator that we
invited. That being said it's not like the responsibility belongs to
the members to take care of everything, it's just occurred to me that
it's essentially impossible to be an effective missionary without
involving the members, because even then if we do baptize someone the
chances are quite high of them going inactive. Also in terms of
post-mission life I really hope to remember the influence I still can
have as a missionary even if I'm not doing it full-time. Anywho, that
rant is basically all I've got for you this week 😊

Love you, have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Melchisedec, King of Salem

Merhaba. (Turkish for Hello there)

Almost from the beginning of my time in Tiergarten we've been looking
for an opportunity to meet someone who one of our investigators
believes to be the Old Testament prophet Melchisedec. After many
debates of if he actually existed, what his nationality would be and
what kind of things he would talk about, we finally met him. The
opportunity presented itself on Thursday. Silvio had requested a
French Book of Mormon to give to a friend and he told us we could
bring it to McDonalds during his meeting with Melchisedec. So we came
by and I was very disappointed to learn that this would-be King of
Salem was just a skinny, white, German dude. As we came in he told us
to sit on the armrests of the chair across from him, so that our
energies could be aligned and we could enter a state of being that
allows conversation between us and a Heavenly being like him. After
that he basically just rambled without pause for half an hour about
nonsense ranging from Norse Gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc.) being real
to McDonald joints being special connections between heaven and earth.
We haven't quite reached a conclusion as to whether he's just crazy, a
manipulator, a drugee or all of the above. At any rate I can now add
Melchisedec to the list of people from the Bible who I've met.

Despite the ridiculousness of our Old Testament friend, our investigator Silvio is still at a crossroads of deciding whether to continue meeting with us or if he wants to keep going to Melchisedec, which normally wouldn't seem to be a difficult decision but Silvio is rather attached to Melchisedec because in a time where Silvio was having a really rough time with his family and needed help he ran into Melchisedec, who offered to be his "spiritual leader." At any rate we'll just have to be patient and supportive of Silvio and do whatever we can to help him make the right decision.

Aside from that we met with someone else whose name we've been hearing
for a long time, a guy named David. Our first encounter with him was
as we got Facebook, he sent us a friend request and he constantly
posted LDS stuff on Facebook. We set up an appointment for Thursday
before Institute, and on Thursday morning he started posting things
about how mormons are racist and he blocked us on Facebook. We tried
going by his house once, tried messaging him a few times and after no
success we pretty much gave up. Well a few weeks later a member in the
ward called us and asked about him so we decided to try one more time.
He answered, agreed to meet that day and we actually had a pretty
solid lesson. He knows a ton about the church and he told us he's
gotten over his objections and wants to start preparing himself for
baptism. He then proceeded to go to a fireside on Saturday (he just
saw it on Facebook, we didn't even invite him ourselves), he came to
church on Sunday, he's coming to family home evening today and we have
an appointment tomorrow...so things are looking pretty good so far 🙂.

Last big news of the week is we got transfer calls yesterday, Elder
Mehr and I are staying in Tiergarten, which was a relief. I wasn't
feeling ready to leave Berlin quite yet, and as long as I don't get
emergency transferred (it's happened to me twice already, you never
know) I'll have spent more time in Tiergarten than any other area on
my mission.

My time's up, hope you all have a great week and avoid being
manipulated by Old Testament prophets 😊

Elder Larsen

Crazy Rains

Well Mom, the only problem is how terrible we look in that video.
Wearing white shirts was definitely a mistake...and it's too hard to
pretend to be happy while singing so we all look just bored or
miserable. The wickedness of singing. Elder Mehr has a dentist
appointment tomorrow, hopefully it won't be as exciting as yours was.

Seems like you be getting sick a lot these days Andy. I'm trying to
connect that to you needing to find a woman, but I'm not really sure
on that one.

Heidi, I feel somewhat dumb for being surprised that you've been to
Tonga before, but I legitimately don't remember you being here before.
Allie sounds like a champ.

Sorry Joey, I guess I just misunderstood your email from last week.
That's funny though, we're also working with investigators right now
who tend to skip the end part and just say "Amen." Z isn't too far
behind.

Yeah Dad, we're pretty excited about the new bishopric. Funny how with
the Provo temple being closed there's still a Temple available in
Provo. In Germany if one temple closes down then there's just one
other in the whole country, which is still more than a lot of other
countries have.

Another week has flown by. This Saturday we get out transfer call, I
hope I'll stay in Tiergarten but anything could happen. Today we
grilled up some burgers and Bratwurst and did our best to celebrate
the 4th of July with American music and games. Sadly it's still no
match for the 4th of July celebrations in 'Merica.

Berlin and Neubrandenburg Zones

On Tuesday we had exchange with the Neukölln Elders, so I was able to
see some old friends from that area. It was weird to think how it's
been almost 2 years since I've seen a lot of them. It's nice being
able to actually understand all the things they say to me now 🙂.

On Thursday we met with a lady from Columbia and were able to teach
her in Spanish. Definitely a challenge, but we had a member from
Mexico here helping us and we were able to get everything across that
we wanted. She came to church on Sunday and hopefully we'll meet again
this week. We also met with our friend Silvio. He accepted a baptismal
date which is awesome, there are just a couple obstacles we still need
to deal with, for example he believes that Melchisedec of the Old
Testament is on the earth today and is his "spiritual guide." Kinda
interesting, but hopefully we'll be able to confront this Melchisedec
chap this week.

 On Friday we had Zone Conference and I got to see a few old mission
buds, like my former companion Elder Christoffersen. Also on Thursday
and Friday crazy rains attacked Berlin. We met Silvio at the church
and upon reaching the bus stop by the church we had to wade through
knee-deep water. A lot of the subways got flooded and we were pretty
lucky to be able to make it home on time Thursday night. Apparently it
hasn't rained like that in Berlin since 60 years ago, so that was
pretty exciting.

I think that's all I've got for this week. Rock on, dudettes!

Elder Larsen

Changes in the Tiergarten

Yeah Mom, I have also become more grateful for our home ward, a well functioning ward isn't something you can take for granted. That dentist appointment sure sounds like it was a lot of fun, Mom. Oh Mom, I forgot to respond to your question. No, I actually didn't end up buying anything. Elder Mehr needed some stuff and I just wandered around looking at clothes that I had no interest in. If I can get away with it I'd like to make it through the rest of my mission without having to buy more clothes.

I feel you, Andy. I had to wing a 20 minute topic(or whatever on earth you call those in English) in district meeting because I had forgotten that I was assigned one. I was able to make it through, but it wasn't terribly well thought out.

Well you see Joey, that particular Elder just gets special privileges because he's a Turkish speaking Elder. No, but it is pretty cool, he and his companion in their mission call got assigned to the Berlin Mission to preach the Gospel in the Turkish language. Yeah it's crazy how smart kids be, there's a 7 year old chap in the ward here who was born in America but has lived almost his whole life in Germany and he pretty much speaks better German AND English than me.

Yep, President Monson's talks were pretty bomb, Dad. Perfect for sharing with friends of the church since they're short, sweet and powerful.

Pretty much the biggest change of this week happened yesterday at ward conference, where we got a new bishopric. We had a solid bishopric before, but the Bishop just never seemed to have the time to meet with us or discuss missionary work. The new Bishop on the other hand wants to meet together with us, the ward mission leader and the senior couple missionaries to discuss how we can work together to preach the Gospel. Also the member who was called as first councilor is the member that has been most active in working with us, so I'm pretty pumped.

District Street Display

We're still stuck in a juggling bout with our investigators and we've sadly literally--in a metaphorical sense, so not really literally :) ...--dropped the ball a couple times. In other words we've lost contact with a couple of them and things are still in the air with the others but we're trying to do all we can. The main problem right now is just a lack of time, though I also read this week a scripture about how time is a thing of men and not of God, so in God's work not having enough time probably isn't a good excuse. However our loyal and true friend Nezhdet from Bulgaria continues to come to church every week despite the fact that he doesn't speak English or German. We've had to get creative in finding people to translate for him, but it's been working out fairly well.

With the Hamburg Spanish Speaking Elders

We had exchanges this week with the Hamburg Spanish Elders, so I was able to work with the one and only Elder Castillo again. Ironically ever since he left we've started getting calls from other missionaries in Berlin asking for our help with Spanish appointments, which is exciting but also super challenging. The nice thing is that it brings me back to the start of my mission, where you just really have to rely on help from above to understand what on earth these people are talking about. We also fortunately have members who are willing to help us out. We're definitely going to try to invest more into meeting with Spanish speakers; there's a lot of untapped potential in that department. We've got a couple Spanish appointments lined up for this week...pray for us, haha.




A topic that has been pretty important for my whole mission that I've thought a lot about this week is the idea of conversion, or experiencing a change of heart. I thought about what it is that causes conversion, and it was interesting how in the scriptures that every single example I can think of has to do with listening to the word of God, usually through His prophets. The Nephites were converted after listening to King Benjamin's address. When King Lamoni was converted after hearing the words of Ammon, he talked to his people "and as many as heard his words believed, and were converted unto the Lord. But there were many among them who would not hear his words; therefore they went their way." (Alma 19:31-32). At the day of Pentecost in the New Testament the people who listened to Peter were pricked in their hearts and wanted to know what they should do. There are plenty of other examples but I was surprised how clear the answer was and how it isn't any different in our day. We have Prophets and Apostles, local leaders, teachers and the scriptures, all things that can speak to us and help us change if we open up to them and listen with a willing heart. Which obviously isn't always easy, but it's always worth it.

The church is true 😀. Love you guys, have an awesome week!

Elder Larsen

Wir Singen Rot

Yes, once again I apologize for the lack of emailage last week. In my defense it wasn't for any selfish "fun" endeavor, rather it was a few hours of shopping, which after many months of avoiding worldly entertainment is just as boring as ever. Speaking of red eyes, Mom, we went to the zoo today and something there destroyed my face in terms of allergies. Elder Mehr had a dentist appointment this week and it renewed my gratitude for the break that I've had so far with trips to the dentist...which I'm guessing will end as soon as I get back home.

After Losing a Friendly Wager
Elder Mehr Had to Buy a Pikachu Suit

Well Lisa I can only imagine what it will feel like for me being by myself after two years of being 24/7 with other people who are, to some extent, total strangers. There's a talk I found a few days ago from President Monson in October 1999 called Becoming our Best Selves that I haven't gotten to reading yet, but that could possibly pass well to your thought.

I think we both know basketball isn't the only reason for getting a gym membership Andy. And I'll have you know that despite my pathetic amount of NBA knowledge I've defended the Spurs/Tim Duncan multiple times against other missionaries.

I don't see the problem Heidi, I'm around people every day who drink too much booze.

Well Joey I suppose there could be worse reasons for not writing me an email. It is indeed hard to believe that I will one day be a dad. But I'd say you deserve more praise, current dad. Tell Marty I lave him too.

Pops I wish you as well a Happy Father's Day, to be honest I didn't realize it even was Father's Day, either it isn't celebrated in Germany or it's celebrated on a different day.

Delicious Burritos that We Made
Credit to Elder Castillo For Teaching Me the Ways of the Burrito

'Twas a solid week. On Tuesday we did a street display in our area with a few other missionaries which went pretty well. I ended up having a really long conversation with a guy from Texas who moved here about a week ago. He knew quite a bit about our church but he's convinced that the only scripture worth reading is the New Testament. It was interesting though because he kept on trying to argue points that we both agree on (for example that we are saved by grace and not by works) and the scriptures he used to try to prove things against the church ended up kind of backfiring on him, he wanted to prove that only faith is necessary and it isn't possible to become like God, but the scripture he used to prove the first point contradicted the second by saying that we through faith become the Sons of God. Sadly he didn't have much interest in learning more, but it was a testimony booster that God doesn't let us be confounded by His own word.

District Photo From Last Transfer

I'm running out of time, but aside from that we played ultimate frisbee with the young men and women which was awesome. Pretty sure that was my first real ultimate frisbee since last year. Elder Mehr had a dentist appointment in Annaberg this week to finish a filling process that had started before he got transferred here. On the way there a drunk mom and her son were singing loudly the whole time, mostly songs about the Chemnitz soccer team. The most repeated one went to the tune of "When The Saints Come Marching In." Wir singen rot! Wir singen weiß! Wir singen rot, weiß, F-C-U! And so forth.

Time's up, have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Sorry :)

No time to write today, I'll repent and write next week

Elder Larsen

Blessings in Disguise

Yeah it was funny, Mom. Before the sacrament meeting started I talked to Elder Anderson's parents, not knowing beforehand they were his parents but when they said they were from Houston, Texas it dawned on me it must be them. Weird to see my trainer go home. What are you doing in California?
Them be some mighty fine words of wisdom, Lisa. There was a cool quote from John Bytheway I heard a few months ago, something like "faith isn't something we use to force our desires into reality." Sometimes I feel like if I had just a bit more "faith", things would turn out the way I want them to, but that isn't really how faith works. It's only faith in Jesus Christ that brings true power and blessings. I don't know Andy, I was kind of thinking a light brown PT Cruiser would be pretty swell. Though I suppose if you're offering a real swell deal I'd be down...though I'm not really made of money. Don't you worry about Zeke, I'll be the favorite uncle soon enough.
Heidi, yeah it seems with most of those plays the movie is typically better.
Spanish master may be a bit strong, Joey. It's pretty funny though, it's kind of like going back to my first few weeks in Germany when it comes to understanding Spanish speakers. Yeah, it'll be exciting to discover the thousands of new board games you've probably gotten while I've been gone. Thanks by the way for the 6 Nimmt game, we've had a few opportunities to play it.
The little family vacation sounds like quite the party, Dad. For some reason it only just occurred to me that there are more grandkids than kids in the family now. Crazy.

Life here be going pretty well. Sadly contact with our friend Dimitri has been rough this week, we had 2 appointments fall through and he didn't make it to church. The cool thing was that on the day of our first appointment, while we were waiting in the church with the member we brought along, a random guy walked in and was like, "I saw the visitors welcome sign, is there anyone here that I can talk to about God with?" and of course we were happy to help. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him again soon. And on the day where the second appointment fell through, we were waiting with a different member and although Dimitri didn't come, we were able to have a really good conversation of things we can do to help the ward and work better together with the members. So that all turned out pretty well, but we really hope we can get back in contact with Dimitri.

I'm not sure if there's anything else too exciting from this week. We found a new investigator from Turkey who speaks better English than I do (he uses words like disseminate, concede, deceased, etc.). This week in sacrament meeting there were like 30 BYU students that walked in to the chapel single file which was kind of exciting to watch, they were here as part of a history class. I think that's basically all I've got so....

Have a great week!!!

Elder Larsen

Letter from the Parents of Matt's Trainer

Dear Larsen family:

We were visiting the Tiergarten Ward on Sunday.  We have always loved receiving pictures of our sons while serving from others.  We decided to do the same for the missionaries here.  Our son is serving in the Germany Berlin mission as well. He will be released on June 1st so we are here to pick him up and do some of our own sight seeing beforehand.  After talking to your son we learned that our son was your son's trainer.  Small world.  We sent a picture of us with your son to him.  He had this to say in response in today's email:  

"Elder Larsen was my first trainee, I trained him in Neukölln at the
beginning of my mission, he was a really good self starter, worked
really hard on the language and stuff, really funny guy. His German
got good enough that he has begun learning spanish now, which is why
he is in Tiergarten. He will be done in two transfers. One of my
favorite companions I had."

Matt with Elder Castillo

We thought you would appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Glen and Sonja Anderson

Tiergarten Transfer 3

Wow Mom, 90 adults? That would be a hard number to achieve even with the whole stake of Berlin. I'm curious to see what it will be like being in giant Provo wards again. I'm embarrassed to say that it took me a good few seconds to figure out who the "one very special person" is that won't be going to Bryce Canyon with the rest of the family. That quote about joy is pretty awesome.
Yeah Andy, Scott wrote back and said anything more than 250cc is good and that he "highly recommends" Honda. I hope the dating rant won't inspire you to action too quickly, I'm looking forward to my 4 wheeler.
Boy Heidi, it feels like just a few months ago that you moved into that one house. If you were in Germany people would think you're crazy for moving again so fast. That's cool that the missionaries were there to help, we were also helping someone move on Saturday.
I hear you Joey, planning ahead is killer. The mission has certainly helped a little bit with that though. Way to do that missionary work Bro.
It appears I've underestimated your sarcasm skills, Dad, yikes. Looks like I'll have to repent.

The biggest news of the week is that we got our transfer calls yesterday, and I'll be staying for a third in Tiergarten. Sadly Elder Castillo is getting shipped off to Hamburg, which puts the weight of the Berlin Spanish program on my very weak and feeble shoulders. My new companion will be Elder Mehr, who despite the German name is from South Jordan, Utah and he also started learning Spanish a few weeks ago. So we'll definitely have to work hard together to learn Spanish...our first Spanish appointment together will be on Thursday with a new investigator...scary stuff.

Our friend Dimitri, who wants to get baptized is doing pretty well. Sadly we'll have to push his baptismal date a couple weeks back because of some problems we need to work on together, but he's making progress. Understandably sometimes it takes more than a couple weeks for someone to change their entire life around.

We also had a couple skype lessons this week for our friends who don't speak German as their mother tongue, Karim and Nezhdet. Karim speaks good German but doesn't understand a lot of the gospel lingo vocab stuff. We had a really good lesson with him and were able to get a bit more input from his side; he told us about the warm, good feelings he gets when he reads in the Book of Mormon. He's a really solid guy, we just need to move forward a little slowly because he's from a country that's dangerous for Christians. For Nezhdet we had missionaries from Bulgaria teach him, that also went well, religion in general is still just a little bit foreign to him. But he's been loyally coming to church for the last 5 weeks and even sang in the ward choir...he's awesome.

One of the coolest parts of serving in Berlin is just that there's so much diversity. We've talked to people here from so many different countries and everyone that we teach has a totally different background from the others. It's awesome being able to experience so many different perspectives and see how the Gospel can be applied to each individual no matter what their circumstances are.

Life is da bomb! Love y'all, have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Taufgarten

Sounds like I missed out on a lot of partying, Mom. You may be
interested to know, in a talk I gave yesterday in church I mentioned
you as one of the greatest examples I know of selfless service. You da
bomb (I'm not sure if that's an appropriate thing to call one's
mother, but yeah).
I'm not convinced of the German accent thing, Lisa, though I will
admit my English skills have definitely gone down in the last several
months. Thanks for the pictures, crazy how Marty has turned into a
miniature Joey.
I hope you're on the search for a nice 4-wheeler Andy. Too bad that
didn't work with skype, but I suppose it won't be too long before I'm
back in town, ready to do some ultimate frisbee domination. Ben Dahl
from the ward wrote me and told me Timpview frisbee got 1st place in
the regionals tournament, taking down Lone Peak A twice...in case that
means anything to anyone other than me, tehee.
Ah, that's too bad, Michelle. I suppose I won't take too much offense
that you missed my skype call for Isaac's. Them be some nice
pictures...Marty looks super old in that first one...isn't he like 2
years old?
Boy Dad, that sounds like a pretty intense dirt biking trip. Way to be
prepared! It was awesome being able to skype you guys...weird to think
that the next time we see each other will be when I get home...yikes.

The highlight of this week is probably our friend Dimitri, who wants
to be baptized on the third of June. He's the guy that called us after
seeing the massive #PrinceOfPeace poster on the wall of the stake
center in Berlin. He has lots of questions and a great desire to learn
and do what's right. The main thing right now is helping him to come
to church. He's pretty dang cool.

Nezhdet and Karim, who we found (well, Karim kind of found us) and who
have been coming to church the last couple weeks are also doing really
well. Communication is hard with both of them, but a member in
Bulgaria has helped us to teach Nezhdet and tomorrow we'll be able to
have a farcy translator for Karim with skype. Both of them have stayed
for 3 hours of church each time they've come even though they don't
understand everything. Both of them are awesome.

That's most of what our teaching pool consists of at the moment, but
there's still lots of numbers, addresses and even facebook information
of people who may be interested. Busy busy busy. I think that's all
I've got for this week so...love you, Ciao!

Elder Larsen

Teaching the Humble

Yeah Mom, I was scared because last week the day after I wrote emails someone told me Mother's day was this week (as in yesterday), but fortunately I discovered that it's actually this upcoming week. For us 5:00 P.M. (I think 9:00 A.M. for you guys) would work best. I'm thinking I'll probably just wait on Winter Semester, Mom. Though to be honest I'm not really sure. I have this weird back and forth idea of studying in Germany...but at the moment I think that probably won't happen. I guess my time for thinking about it is starting to run out.

Have fun in Belize Brosky. I'm feeling a hunger for ultimate frisbee as well. If you or someone else gets the opportunity, ask Brandon if he remembers an Elder Jeremy Lindstrom. He's a new member in Tiergarten who apparently served in the same city as Brandon in Ukraine. Small world.

Well Joey if Marty is better at soccer than you, he's gotta be better than me. Thanks for the prayers bro, I'll be sure to send them your way as well.

Yeah Dad, not sure if we'll be having a warm week, the weather has been pretty unpredictable the last few weeks. It should rain the next few days. I'm enjoying the cold weather while it lasts though, it might be the last cold season I experience in Germany before coming home.

The weeks here in Berlin go by so fast. One highlight though of this week was on Sunday a man just randomly walked in for sacrament meeting, saying he wanted to learn more about the church. He said his brother who lives in Sweden got baptized 5 years ago and invited him to also learn about the Gospel. He's a super humble guy and is excited to continue meeting with us. It's been cool the last two weeks to see how much more susceptible humble people are to the Gospel. Both this guy who came this week and the man from Bulgaria that we met last week (who also came yesterday to church) have so little in terms of money, possessions and for our friend from Bulgaria he even lacks the capability of speaking the German language...and yet they recognize something good and they embrace it. Sometimes for us, who for the most part have everything that we need, sometimes get so caught up in information, facts and uncertainty that our skepticism keeps us from moving forward. It's interesting to have read so many times the story of Alma teaching the humble Zoramites and now to live basically the same story happening over 2000 thousands later in Berlin, Germany.

In other news, Elder Castillo just reminded me that a few days ago we had a sport night with the Spanish speakers of the ward, during which he cruelly hit a girl in the face with a volleyball (ok, ok, it was just an accident). Anywho, not sure if there's anything else too exciting from this week. Life is gooooood.

Much Love,

Elder Larsen

Prince of Peace

Withdrawal confirmed, Dad. But now that I have a new debit card for mission funds I should be good. Boy Dad, sounds like all it took for you and Mom to gear up with family history was for me to get out of the house. I guess going on a mission didn't just have an effect on my own personal participation in the work of salvation.
 I thought it was funny that you mentioned the ward's ability to show up for things, Mom, because that's one of the major problems we have in our ward here haha. I wasn't here at the time, but my companion Elder Castillo and his former companion had a baptism and a total of 2 members showed up for it. Sad, but it does give us something to work on.
Yeah Lisa, Facebook is definitely interesting. Keeping in contact with people from former areas is just one aspect of it, still kind of figuring out what other potential there is in it. It's interesting and I'm sure there are a ton of things we can try out that will be helpful, but I don't think it will ever be an effective replacement for good ol' street contacting and dooring.
Don't die on us, Andy. You better send me some good pictures of your trip to Belize. By the way if you feel you're running out of time for you-know-what, you could move to Berlin and I could hook you up with some YSAs here...since there isn't as much variety some of 'em are quite desperate.
Yeah Joey, I'm sorry. Most embarrassing was accidentally posting a massive smiley face...my facebook skills are pretty weak. Way to take care of them deacons.

I'm writing today because yesterday was a German holiday and all the stores were closed. Which for me wouldn't have been a problem but sadly (or fortunately) I'm not the only human being who dislikes shopping. I admit though it's probably a necessary evil, half of my possessions right now are things I've inherited from past companions (not all of which are of the highest quality) and I suppose it's good to have my own stuff.

We had a pretty cool experience this last week. A guy called us up and explained that he had met with missionaries a few years ago and would like to start meeting with us again. We were able to make an appointment and at the appointment he told us the reason he had wanted to meet with missionaries again. Here at the church in Tiergarten we had a huge poster for #PrinceofPeace hanging on the front of the building. He saw it and noticed that the picture of Jesus Christ happened to be the same picture of Jesus Christ that the missionaries had given to him a few years ago. He took that as more than just a coincidence and decided to give it a chance again (he had stopped the first time due to some anti-mormon junk). But he has some real interest and though he's a little bit hard to get a hold of, hopefully we'll be able to meet with him again in a couple days.

Another cool experience from the week started on Wednesday. We talked to a man on the street who couldn't speak German, English or Spanish (not super uncommon around here) and since he couldn't understand a word we were saying we gave him a card and tried to invite him to church. We still weren't sure if he understood us at all, so we wished him a good day and kept going. I didn't think much of it and had forgotten all about it when Sunday rolled around...and there he was! It might not seem like a big deal but after 18 months in Germany it has not once happened that someone we just gave a card to, even after them committing to come to church, has actually come. It turns out he speaks Bulgarish and we just happen to have a member in the ward that can speak it as well. He's a nice guy and he's excited to come to church again next week. We're trying to see if we can work with the missionaries in Bulgaria, since the member that speaks Bulgarish is almost always out of town and there are no other members in the stake that can speak it.  

Life is pretty great and the potential in this area just keeps on building up. Ich habe euch lieb, have a good week!

Elder Larsen

The Age of Facebook

Hola amigos,

'Twas a pretty good week. The biggest and weirdest development is that
as of recently we're allowed to use Facebook in this mission. I'm
still not sure what all the possibilities and benefits of the new
change are, but for starters it makes for a pretty good support system
throughout the mission; we're encouraged to get in contact with old
contacts from previous areas, and I've been able to start working with
an investigator and a new convert from old cities I served in. That
being said there's also a lot of time-wasting potential and
opportunities to get in trouble now that we have Facebook. Antimormons
are also pretty busy on social media and we have to watch our step to
avoid getting distracted. But all in all it's a good development and
it's cool to see the Lord's hastening of His work.

Prince of Peace

We're kind of hitting against a brick wall at the moment in terms of
the work here. We're making some progress with less active members but
we've been having problems getting our investigators to commit
themselves. A couple of them know that the church is good and have
felt the Holy Ghost but let a few little concerns get in the way of
them committing themselves to baptism. Also one is pretty busy with
school right now and the other is in the army and isn't in Berlin all
that often. Hopefully we'll be able to have a breakthrough this week.

Aside from that, we had a service project on Saturday in a city a
little ways outside of Berlin, Eisenhüttenstadt #MormonHelpingHands
😊 Funny how as a missionary there's nothing more exciting than a
Saturday morning service project 😊

That's all I've got for you this week...keep on keeping on!

Elder Larsen

The Refrigerator

Yeah Mom, I'll let you know about the card as soon as I get it. We're going to the office today so I should be able to start the process of getting that taken care of. President Fingerle will get me a new temple recommend the next time I see him and other than that there wasn't anything too important that I lost. That's pretty sad about the person you know, Mom. This last week I had a similarish experience of visiting a less active member. He was the first person I had an actual appointment with in Germany and in my time in Neuköln we had made a lot of progress with him. He had moved to Tiergarten (my current area) toward the end of my time there and as I got transferred here over a year later I was excited to see him again. I was sad to not see him at church but after a couple of times of going by his house we were finally able to find him at home. He didn't look so good. He told us about some of his problems and it was sad to see that he had fallen into the old habits that we had conquered together over a year ago. He feels distant from God to the point that he doubts God's existence. Hopefully we'll be able to help him get back on his feet, but it just shows me how important support from the members is; he said that after moving from Neuköln to Tiergarten he never felt welcome in the new ward and on his own he wasn't able to win out against temptation. I think there are few people who can make it through the challenges of life alone. We'll definitely need to get members involved and bring him back into the fold. That took more time to explain than expected.

Well Lisa, sadly I'm not yet fat, short and blonde. I've been working on the fat part for a while and the blonde hair shouldn't be too hard. I think getting shorter will be pretty hard though. Wow, Gracie is totes adorbs.

 Yeah Andy, I'm sure it was your "daunting figure." I'm not sure that there are too many Germans devastated about Nowitski not making the playoffs. As far as I know there are few Germans that know anything about the NBA, aside from that Nowitski is in it.

Go for the house in Provo, Heidi. Only then can your kids be the future stars of the Timpview ultimate frisbee team.

Es verdad, Jose. Tal vez tenia demasiado orgullo. Pero por fortuna como misionero no necesito mucho dinero."Dinero no peude comprarme amor" o investigadores, o un testimonio, o exito.
Thanks for your testimony Dad, and your fine usage of #PrinceOfPeace :).

I can't think of anything else terribly exciting from this week. We got our transfer call this week and me and Elder Castillo be staying in Tiergarten, woohooooo! Nothing better than being able to stay in an area for longer than a measly 6 weeks. Elder Castillo is also super awesome. One of the most chill missionaries out there. We also transported a fridge using a trolley roughly 3 kilometers to a member's house, which was pretty fun. Other than that we're just searching for investigators that are really ready to progress. We have tons of potential investigators and people willing to meet, but time is just so limited. Anywho, love you, have a good week!

Elder Larsen

Without Purse or Scrip

Hehehe, so an interesting development of this week...my wallet got stolen. You'd think I would have learned after the one Elder got his bag stolen, but apparently not. Fortunately nothing got taken that isn't replaceable, and as a bonus I get to feel like the missionaries back in the olden days who went off with little money and few possessions. We were off to a zone conference and for whatever reason the tram was particularly packed full of people, and without me feeling or noticing anything someone was able to snag that baby right out of my pocket. I was able to hold on to the hope that I had maybe just left it at home until that night when we got back and it was nowhere to be found. Que pena. Schade. But the nice thing about being a missionary is that I don't have a ton of monthly expenses, just food and transportation, which the other missionaries should be able to help me with till I get a new card for mission funds.

I was able to deactivate the cards, but I don't know any of my login info for the bank, so if yall have a way of accessing that somehow and/or sending me the info asap that would be awesome. Hopefully there's still something left in my account.

Anywho, getting haircuts today took a bit longer than expected, so I don't got much tiempo. Gracias por el espanol Jose, comprende casi todas las cosas que me escribiste; you'll have to excuse the lack of the accents, in Deutschland brauchen wir so etwas nicht. Have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Level 2 Christians

You were right, Mom. Wow Joey is an old man...34? Is his hair still brown or has it turned white yet? Tehee. Well Lisa, if it makes you feel any better that seems like more of an awkward question than an awkward answer, but how should I know. I also happened to play ultimate frisbee for the first time this year, just barely today. We played 3 on 3 as a district which was pretty fun. I'm pretty jealous, Andy. Didn't the third book in the series come out a while ago? I saw Way of Kings and Words of Radiance in a bookstore a few months ago, it would be interesting to read them in German. Yeah Joey, it's definitely a unique time. Facebook is about to be introduced to our mission, all our area book records and stuff are digital, we walk around showing people videos on our ipads...every day there's more potential to do good and more potential to do evil. I agree with you, Dad. Even with President Monson's talks being a bit shorter than they used to be, they're powerful and hit right where they're needed. Charity and the Book of Mormon seem to both have their role as cornerstones; without charity we are nothing and without the Book of Mormon a testimony falls apart.

Another crazy week in Berlin. The Easter Initiative for this year started a couple days ago and we gotta get going in sharing it with the members. The last couple weeks we've had General Conference and Stake Conference, so I still don't really know many members in the ward, so visiting them and sharing the video will be a win.

We had an appointment with one of our investigators this week, a German college-age dude who has like the most abstract mind in the world. He brought his girlfriend and even though at first she hadn't wanted to come, in the end she came with him and ended up being really interested. We taught the restoration and she was excited to get a Book of Mormon. Hopefully we'll be meeting again this week. I've discovered in the last few months that some of the best missionaries are actually people investigating the church...who knew.

Spring has arrived in Berlin, and with it, sadly, hay fever. I already had a bit of a cold and it suddenly joined forces with allergies to literally destroy my face. It hit particularly hard during a lesson with a spanish speaking lady, so I was just kind of sneezing and blowing my nose the whole time, not really knowing what was going on. I sadly haven't been able to learn spanish overnight, which is kind of what I was hoping for :).

Anywho, General Conference was the bomb. In response to Elder Rasband's story about putting his foot in a lady's door to ask for a referral, President Fingerle sent us a letter saying that doing that in Germany is illegal and we should never do it, haha. One statement that really caught me though was from Ulisses Soares, when he said that faith is manifested in a positive attitude. I had never really made that connection. It's sometimes easy to feel justified in hanging your head down after a difficult day but if we really understand the nature of God's plan and Jesus Christ's Atonement, there's nothing that can keep us down.

Oh and last thing, we met with a couple African dudes this week and at the end one of them was saying that he was really impressed with the things we believe in, and the other one was like "yeah man, these guys are like advanced Christians." Hence the subject of this letter.

Adios, amigos!

Elder Larsen

Good Week

Yeah Mom, since we're the only missionaries in Tiergarten we just talk to everyone. Since there used to be a set of elders here that only focused on Spanish people there's a lot of potential in that department and it's obviously a bonus if we run into Spanish speaking people, but we talk to everyone. Right now of our 5 investigators right now, one is German, one is Latino, one is Chinese, one is Irish and one is Arabic. That would be pretty creepy Andy, dating a girl in my grade. But hey, I'm sure there are plenty of marriage hungry womanjis in that age group. I'm definitely looking forward to your dating stories, I'm pretty sure the last gem you've given me was that encounter with a certain returned missionary who knocked on your door. Fortunately Joey I've been lucky enough to not get pickpocketed. I've been somewhat wary in the last few days after last week's experience. I have however managed to lose a pair of gloves and a hat in public transportation back when I was in Berlin at the start of my mission. Nice to see that Marty's artistic skills are already better than mine.

I don't have a lot of time and am kind of lacking the desire to write much, but it was a good week :). Things are going well and we've got a pretty good amount of potential to work with. Good to hear from yall, keep being awesome.

Elder 'Teo Larsen