Kannicheinshaben? (CanIhaveone?)

Yep Lisa, I done the deed. You can tell Sister Clark "Tina hat Sie
auch ganz Lieb." Or you can be boring and tell her that Tina loves her
too. Your experience at church (and with mom) reminds me of a service
project we did last week, helping some members move. A few of us were
going down the stairs, and I started going super slow. I expected them
to tell me to hurry up or something, but when I looked back, their
faces were expressionless. So I'm pretty sure they just think I'm weak
and/or dumb, haha. In terms of Germans being direct and blunt, I've
noticed it a bit, but since it's a different language it doesn't sink
in quite as much. But yeah, especially talking to people on the
street, they say things that, if I think about someone saying it in
English, seem a bit rude. Sounds pretty rough Andy, how are you gonna
make enough time for the babes? I'm not sure about being the star
actor, I don't think I'm good enough at looking at things through "an
artist's perspective." Mom, I think you're even more accurate than you
know. Every day we meet people who say (and countless more who think)
that they don't need God. But that's only because they haven't been
able to recognize God's love for them, just like a child can't
recognize how much he needs his parents. That's definitely something
for me to think about. Unfortunately Joey, I don't think kolln
actually means anything. Neukölln is just named after some place
called Kolln. Haven't had a lot of gross foods, other than a couple
salads, with cheese cubes that tasted like rotten egg jelly beans.
I'll keep the advice in mind, Joey. You'll get to see for yourself
when I marry the biggest babe out there, tehee. The training meeting
was pretty great Dad. Got to hear from Elders Andersen, Bednar and
Oaks. The theme was teaching repentance, so we can baptize converts.
They focused on teaching fundamentals, like testifying of Christ,
giving people commitments, teaching by the Spirit, etc. I really liked
a question that Elder Andersen asked. What do you really believe about
the Atonement? He said if we really understand and believe in it,
we'll have no problem in giving missionary work our all.

So this week was basically awesome. Elder Burns made it here safe and
sound, with only a bit of confusion, haha. At the time when his train
was supposed to arrive, there was no train. We checked the train
schedule, and no train from his area was coming anytime soon. We (the
zone leaders and I) were running around the station wondering where he
was, when my phone started ringing. Of course it was Elder Burns, who
was somehow in Neukölln, rather than the haubtbahnhof (literally:main
train station...pretty creative). In the end it all worked out pretty
smoothly though. He's a pretty awesome guy. From American Fork, Utah
and has been here for about 9 months. He's obedient and hard working,
but also super humble and friendly. I'm really liking the pace and
direction we're setting for the work here.

Since basically all our investigators work until the evening, we've
had some pretty finding-full afternoons. Probably the most interesting
experience was this student who we stopped. He was munching an orange
as I talked to him about the Book of Mormon. Mid-sentence he stops me
and...I'm not even sure how to explain it. It was so fast and hard to
understand, it was like he sneezed out a whole sentence. After asking
like 4 times what he was saying, he slowed down a fraction and said
kannicheinshaben? Which after a few seconds of picking it apart I
finally realized he was asking for a Book of Mormon. I gave it to him,
and before I could say another word he jogged away. Pretty random
stuff. On a more serious note, we were able to have some great
conversations and make out a couple appointments :).

This week I also got to see my first convert baptism. We took our main
man Cristian with us and he liked it quite a bit. The Spirit was
strong and it was even in English, so we didn't have to translate. His
mindset is starting to change from if he's going to get baptized, to
when he's going to get baptized, which is pretty amazing. There's no
doubt that God has a plan for the guy and it's exciting to get to be a
part of it.

One of my favorite phrases in the Book of Mormon has always been being
an "instrument of the Lord." I've always seen it as a goal and a hope,
that one day I can be an instrument in God's hand. What I'm only now
starting to realize is that it's a process, not a destination. You
don't have to be perfect in order for God to work through you. Even
seemingly small or insignificant acts of service or love are means
through which Heavenly Father can use us to change lives. Maybe you
won't accomplish one great deed that brings thousands of people to
repentance, but you can still affect thousands of lives just by taking
small, daily opportunities. Keep being awesome and have a swell week!

Elder Larsen

Training Is Be Done

Andy, since when did a hug and "a few words" get anyone a wife? I'm
not sure if I know who that is. Got any more info? Yeah Mom, your
tooth situation reminds me of that sad day at the cabin, where a guy's
just sitting there enjoying some popcorn when the supposedly permanent
cement stuff cracks right open. Teeth be pretty fun. Life here seems
so different, but it's interesting how similar some of our experiences
are. I also felt like something of a victim, and for a while justified
myself in negative thoughts and emotions. Though I technically didn't
do anything "wrong", it separated me from the Spirit just as surely as
committing sin does. Unfortunately Lisa, I'm not sure where 2 kilo
schnitzel or this pizza place are, though I have had a couple doners
from Lipschitzallee. I'll be sure to tell Tina. Missionary mom seems
accurate, not only in being super friendly with us, but she also does
a bunch of missionary work. Referrals, member lessons, inviting people
to activities...basically everything. And yeah, Sister Bertuleit is
(or at least was) in my zone. Connections are crazy. A bookkeeping
date isn't enough Joey. Gotta go deeper than that, or they'll never
come back. On an unrelated note, when we make a baptismal date, we're
supposed to also set a temple date for 4+ weeks later. Tell the
chillun to keep laughing, sillying and cooing. Don't work yourself to
death Dad, or soon enough you'll be the one needing to receive a
blessing at the hospital.

A Doner

Welp, the Greenie days are finally coming to an end. Elder Anderson is
off to Leer (means empty in German), way off in West Germany. I'll be
staying in Neukölln with a new comp, Elder Burns. Haven't run into any
other missionaries yet who know him, but he should be cool. Elder
Anderson and I have gotten the ball rolling in Neukölln the last
couple weeks, so if we can just keep that going, things'll be great.
We've been working hard on loosening up on old investigators and
focusing our efforts in finding new people to teach. Figure it's more
useful to go out and talk to 100 uninterested people than 1
semi-interested person! We can tell Satan is at work, in how it's
always those people that I think will have no interest, or am tempted
to just pass by, that are actually willing to hear from us. This lady,
upon seeing us, put her head down and veered to the other side of the
sidewalk, yet when we stopped her she totally opened up to us and was
interested in meeting.

Granted, that doesn't mean that they're completely ready. We met this
golden guy who, although he wanted to learn more (and also came to
church even though he lives over an hour away), due to a lack of a
long term visa, we can't continue meeting with him. But, there's
always the hope that one day he and the countless others like him will
eventually be ready to accept the Gospel.

Feels like I haven't written like anything, but I'm just about out of
time. Other updates, our long-time investigator Cristian is making
good progress, our awesome baptismal date dude is gonna be taught by
the Tiergarten Elders (he lives in their area), and we're looking
forward to a worldwide mission training thing. Exciting stuff! Keep
moving forward, be a man with all the strength of a coursing river and
have a jolly old week!

Elder Larsen

Week 11

Andrew Wendell Larsen if I get home to find you still single, or hear any sort of complaining or excuses about the thousands of chances you didn't take, I will personally beat your nalgas. I will not have this. Do I need to come over there with a stick? Cover you with bruises so everyone can see what a disobedient daughter you are? Let's hope not. Anywho, sorry for the scare Mom, we had to switch up our pday schedule due to some appointments on Monday and then splits on Tuesday. I like that story. There are days I wouldn't mind just reading from the scriptures all day, but it's only by going out and serving others that I can actually make a difference. Elder Bednar gave this talk about how the main characteristic of Christ is that he always turned outward, even in times of temptation and suffering. I've discovered a good way around asking people how they're doing, Lisa. At least in terms of public transportation. Rather than asking them how they're doing, I ask them if they think it's weird when someone asks them how they're doing. It's actually been pretty effective so far haha. In Germany you're technically not allowed to proselyte in public transportation but if you can get a good conversation starter and try to relate things to the gospel you can kinda step around it. I was feeling bad for you Joey, about not being able to attend Pauls temple marriage but then I realized that not only was I also unable to attend, I've never attended anyone's temple marriage. That is pretty rough though. Unfortunately dad I was nowhere close to winning the 5k, haha. Us missionaries were (supposed to be) talking to other runners and handing out cards.

So this week was pretty sweet. At the end of a somewhat uneventful companion exchange with the Berlin Spanish elders (we spent the whole time searching apartments for people with Spanish-looking last names to very little success) we came back to end the exchange. We got to our meeting place a little early, so we went out and did 20ish minutes of finding. In doing so we found one new investigator and a couple other guys gave us their phone numbers. May not seem like a ton, but that's more than what typically happens with like 2 hours of street finding. Also this week, one of the members invited this guy to church. He came, and told us that 6 or 7 years ago he had investigated the church, but then had to move somewhere else. We refreshed him on the restoration, and he committed to a baptism date! Nothing beats those unexpected miracles.

We were able to have some interesting conversations while finding this week. It's sad to see the different ways that Satan works to deceive people. One man was of the opinion that there is no God, there are only people who make money, and people who are dumb. Another thought that if there was a God, He wouldn't want to hear or listen to her prayers. A third decided that it was religion that causes wars and contention (guess it's similar to the concept of guns killing people, rather than people killing people). It's sad! So many people have been blinded by lies and darkness. That's the beauty of missionary work, giving people the opportunity to see the truth and light of the world. But it's up to them. One accepted the invitation to learn more, the other 2 didn't. But at least we gave them the chance.

It all comes down to us being willing to sacrifice our pride and give God a chance. Whether you've been in the church your whole life, or never heard of it, it's the same. Are these people willing to let go of their false views and at least give room for an experiment of the truth? Am I willing to let go of my fear/pride/laziness and share the gospel with everyone I meet? I think the key to happiness and progress lies in making the correct choice to questions like those. Let's do it shall we? Let's make these uncomfortable, difficult decisions and allow Heavenly Father to work wonders in our lives, and the lives of others.

Have a great week!

Elder Larsen

Brrrr Diggity

Well Hurro There,

Geez Mom, I'm sure glad that person let you help her! Cause I mean, it's
not like you spend 95% of your time helping people anyway. That
doesn't seem fair that Grandma got to see President Uchtdorf...I'm the
one in Germany. But yeah, several people, upon hearing that I'm from
Provo, asked me the same question about Sister Walker. But nope, never
met her, in or out of the mission. Andy why haven't I heard any news
of you smoochin it up with you know who?  Get on that ship before it
sets sail son. Lisa, I've thought
about that same kind of thing, and I'm not sure if I'll ever fully
grip the concept of miracles. One interesting thing though is that
even when Christ was on the earth it's not like he just healed every
sick person in sight. They had to be faithful and willing to act. I
love the bible video with the blind man. All Christ did was put clay
on his eyes and tell him to wash. Rather than asking why or being
annoyed about a guy telling him what to do, he simply did it. And then
came the miracle. But yeah Lisa, you can go ahead and stop getting
sick. As for our angel friend, I'm not sure, Joey. Elder Anderson said
there's some sort of trick you can use to get in the church. I've yet
to meet any board gamers, at least ones that know anything other than
settlers and ticket to ride. We had the same topic in Sunday School
here, Dad. At least it was supposed to be, we really just talked about
the BoM in general. Good to hear that everything's going Bueno.

Germany still hasn't figured out that there's supposed to be snow in
the Winter, but they've got the cold part right. We didn't have any
appointments  one day so we got to do tons of finding in  the freezing
cold. I think I may just be a wimp though, none of these Germans seem
to even mind the weather haha.

So multiple sources have told me (you were the first Lisa) how it's
weird in Germany for a total stranger to ask someone how they're
doing. Well after 9 weeks, I finally discovered it for myself! So
there we are having family home evening with a part member family. We
had barely started sharing a spiritual thought when one of the sons,
probably about 22 years old (also a member) went on this long tirade
about Elder Anderson asking him how he was doing. It took probably
about 20 minutes to get everything settled down and back to the
lesson. So... I Suppose I'll have to use a little more caution in the
future with that one.

This week we also had the opportunity to teach the daughter of a
witch. Pretty interesting stuff. It's always quite the struggle in
knowing whether or not people are telling the truth. Quite a few
people seem to believe in witchcraft, voodoo, flying people ("It was
on the news, didn't you see it?!"). But that's  why the Book of Mormon
is so awesome. You can actually know that it's true, rather than
having to take someone else's word for it. It was actually a pretty
good lesson though, hopefully this lady can find some peace
(apparently she was cursed by her mom). Whether or not that's true,
she could definitely using the healing power of the Atonement. We also
started teaching a guy that had stopped to listen to our caroling from
a few weeks back. He called and wanted to meet with us, so (never
thought I'd say it) hooray for caroling.

To kick off the New Year everyone in the mission got to run a 5k (I
guess that's a thing in Germany). At the end of it they had a bunch of
booths set up and were giving out free stuff. There was some sort of
drink, which I assumed to be apple cider or something. It wasn't apple
cider, but it tasted alright and was warm, so I didn't really think
much of it. When I walked back to our group, a couple elders came up
to me and asked if I was drinking beer. I basically had a heart
attack. I had no idea what beer tastes, feels or even really smells
like. I started thinking how on earth I'd be able to explain to
President Fingerle that I'd been drinking beer, and what on earth it
would feel like to be drunk. But then I looked around and saw that
basically every other missionary had it as well. It was just cider
after all...phew.

My thought for this week: trust in the Lord! Being a disciple of
Christ doesn't mean that life is just automatically easy, or that all
your troubles are taken away. What prophet is there that didn't have
to go through terribly difficult trials? What it does mean though is
that through the Atonement we can receive the strength to deal with
life's difficulties, and still be happy despite our hardships. In
Nephi's vision he saw the extinction of his entire posterity, and yet
his faith didn't waver. Instead he rejoiced in the glory and mercy of
the Lord. Abinadi, Mormon, Joseph Smith, all stayed faithful to their
dying breaths. Why? Because they knew what mattered, and they knew
where they were going. So yeah...feast on the words of Christ, pray
always, go for the gold (figuratively, not literally). Have a great
week!

Elder Larsen

Happy Neujahr!

Well Andy, looks like the day is coming a lot faster than we thought it would. By the time I get back I'll be the ripped sports king, and you'll be a wee 90 pound lad, reading all day. Tehee, but yeah I'd
be up to going to Peru. It's too bad I can't hear your vast wisdom face to face anymore Lisa, but I do enjoy reading it. It reminded me of a quote from President Monson, "Always be happy, never be satisfied." It's easy to be happy and easy to be unsatisfied, but to be both together takes some work. Ja Joey, manchmal esse ich viel. Are you gonna be on son #5 by the time I get back? I suppose assuming you guys would magically know that it would be a Skype call was a poor move, but at least it ended up working alright. We technically have up to 40 minutes, we just had a member appointment to run to. I'm glad you've been having some fun tooth adventures mom, if it makes you feel any better, my implant still feels weird in my mouth. Did you at least take a hillbilly picture before the implant was put in?  Good to know y'all are doing well.

It was definitely a unique Christmas. As opposed to the
typical opening presents and spending time with family,
 I: met the Angel Gabriel, destroyed my mouth (and later my bowels) with Serbian food and ate lunch with a Muslim, an atheist and a Christian.

So there we are at the church, finishing our studies and about to do our skype calls, when this guy (also, the door was locked) walks in. He walks over to us, hugs me and gives Elder Anderson a kiss on the cheek, tells us that he is the Angel Gabriel, looks at a restoration pamphlet for 30 seconds, says something to us in Arabic, says "I love you" in English and then leaves. Off spreading the good word I suppose...also smoking. Didn't know that angels reeked of cigarette smoke.

So the member appointment for Christmas dinner was with a family originally from Serbia. We had this soup stuff, and off to the side were 2 bowls of spices, one "spicy" and the other "very spicy." Well after a few months of eating with Germans, who probably find ketchup to be spicy, I figured I could handle whatever came my way. So I dump in 2 big spoonfuls of the spicy and a spoonful of the very spicy. By the end my mouth, face and eyeballs were basically on fire and when I took a seat on the toilet the next morning, I had quite the burning in my bosom...and not the good kind. Anywho, I now have the nickname Chili Elder. The third story isn't actually very exciting, we just ate lunch with a member and 2 of her friends. One was atheist one was Muslim...yep. Also it happened first, so it probably should have been the first story. Anyway, that was Christmas.

We had a couple other awesome member appointments during the week, met with some investigators and (drum roll).....our bishop came to church! After weeks of being sick (since before I even got here) he finally made it. Also at church, this old couple randomly walked in for Sunday school and Sacrament. They enjoyed it and made an appointment with the sisters to learn more. Wonderful stuff!

 But yeah...the Gospel is awesome. In 3 Nephi Jesus Christ quotes Isaiah, "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy
foundations with sapphires." Fair colors and sapphires...enduring and trusting in God through hard times not only helps us to grow, it beautifies us. It definitely takes time and effort and maybe a bit
of pain, but it's always worth it. Have a great week and happy New Year!

Elder Larsen

Woooooow!

Merry Weihnachten!

Very true Joey. So you're spending Christmas in Arizona. Does that mean you aint even gonna be a part of my skype call? Also, I love you as much as Garen loves to spin. Yeesh Lisa, how many years ago was Pizza Factory? It really does feel like ages ago, since then I've met so many people, experienced so many new things and learned so much. Paul is getting married in just a couple weeks??? Looks like I'm missing out on all the excitement. Quite the story Mom! I feel like I can relate to it pretty well. Don't worry too much, I'll be rejoining you in your tooth adventures in a couple years. My attempts to jam my bottom retainer on in the MTC just ended up breaking it, tehee. And yep, got the Christmas package. Pops, my Sunday schedule is: Ward mission council, church, lunch appointment, then back to normal work. Finding, appointments, studies (for the 12 week training thing). P-day: Excercise, go shopping, do studies, clean, eat lunch, write emails and then do whatever (visit cool stuff, sleep, eat food) until 6. If we're invited by a member to FHE, we do that, otherwise just normal work. Our heating and air conditioning is good, showers are a bit chilly. Training meetings we typically learn more about teaching, finding, the Holy Ghost, etc. Also, my call is probably going to come around 9:00 AM.

President Fingerle sends us a miracle of the week in his weekly email, and this week a guy referred himself (he googled "what is the point of life?" and found the church website) and now has a baptismal date with Aaron Peatross and his companion.

Quite the week this week, 4 of our investigators that we were just about to give up on decided to finally come back to life! We were in our weekly planning, and like 10 minutes after making the decision to give this guy a break (we'd been trying to call him for a few weeks) he gave us a call and set up an appointment. Crazy stuff. And then that evening  we got back in contact with 2 others. The fourth one finished up with school and we'll finally be able to start meeting him more often. It takes some time, but once we put in our little bit of effort, God really starts to work with people. Not only those we come in contact with, but ourselves too. There's a quote (I think from Elder Christofferson) that says how the best way to find ourselves is by helping others. The actual quote is a lot better, but I can't remember it completely.

So we've been teaching this guy (for the sake of privacy I'll name him John). He's smart and has a lot of faith, but he also has a whole lot of weird, fantastical stories. Ghosts, magic, imaginary houses, doppelgangers, slow-motion knife fights, you name it. All things that he has apparently experienced. Somehow he's always able to connect it back to our lesson, but not before saying (several times) "and I thought to myself: wooooooooow" every few seconds as he tells his story. Pretty entertaining...I've tried unsuccessfully to mimic the level of excitement and wonder that he manages to express each time he says wow. He's pretty awesome, I'm excited for the day, whether in this life or afterwards, that I'll know whether or not any of his stories are actually true, haha.

Aside from that, we had another caroling party (this time as a whole zone) by a winter market in Berlin. We sang some songs, shared tons of cards, and even attracted a few drunk dudes who joined in singing with us. I'm excited to see what'll come from it all. Granted, some people just took a card for the packet of gummy bears attached to it, some took them so we wouldn't keep bothering them, some probably took them out of curiosity...but either way it's an opportunity for Heavenly Father to start/continue working in their lives.

I can't believe Christmas is this week. We've got a solid Christmas tree (Car's wrapping paper cut into triangles), lots of quality member time, last second Christmas-card sharing and lessons with returned investigators. Above all else, a week centered on Jesus Christ, what could be better? The Gospel is awesome. God and Jesus Christ love and understand us perfectly, and are with us every step of the way. Merry Christmas!

Elder Larsen

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . . Still Fall

Lisa, is that the first time that the subject of your email was
something other hi/hey? I agree, we're all children of the same
Heavenly Father, how different can we all really be? I hope you have a
good Christmore as well Joey. Yeah Andy, you've definitely had it
worse but I find myself similarly frustrated at times. The last few
days in the BoM I've noticed a ton of references about just being
patient. I think about how ticked Alma and Amulek may have been after
days of being spat upon, slapped, naked, underfed and all kinds of
nonsense. But they endured, waited till the trial was over and moved
forward. They also caused the prison to crush those that had abused
them, not sure if that one will happen for you or not. Anywho, I could
definitely use that kind of patience. Mom, I can't wait till you're
100 years old and you're going to spend hours a day making sure that
the home of each great grand child is completely unpacked and
organized, haha. My call will be sometime in the morning there, around
7:30 pm here. Dad, my exercise is basically just a cycle of sit ups,
crunches, push ups, curls and squats. Not gonna lie, them abs aren't
looking too bad.

But really, aside from a random snow storm in the middle of November,
it's basically just been leaves, dirt and dead trees. Of course that
ain't stopping them Germans from putting up tons of Christmas
decorations! They even have a weird Frozen-themed artificial sledding
hill thing.

Berlin Cathedral

Not the most exciting week in the world, but still good. Lots of area
book work, (attempted) less active visits and lazy investigators. My
notable conversations this week were: French guy who speaks little
German tells me that I should learn French in order to obtain a
girlfriend (it's already gotten him 2). Awkward conversation with man
who speaks basically no English OR German. And a conversation with a
Muslim who wanted to convert me. They were all entertaining, but
unfortunately not terribly successful. But this next week is smelling
like a good one.

So yesterday during studies and before going to bed I was feeling some
creative juices and whipped out this baby.

Analogy time. I want a car. I go to my dad, asking, pleading and
begging for him to give me a car. He thinks about it for a few
seconds.
"Do you promise that you'll obey the rules? Follow the speed limit,
wear a seatbelt, stay sober...everything?"
"Of course, dad!"
So my dad buys me a car, a very nice car. Before giving me the keys he
once again reminds me of my commitment to be obedient. I nod soberly,
snatch the keys and run out the door.
After a few weeks I start to notice that many drivers basically ignore
the speed limit. No one seems to be getting in trouble for it, so I
decide to crank the speed up a bit.
A month or so later, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. It's easy
to tell that I'm a much better driver than most people. What do I need
a seat belt for? Sure, some people get in accidents, but I've been
driving for almost 2 months now and haven't had anything close to an
accident.
Another month goes by, and some dudes invite me to a party. My dad's
warnings enter into my mind, but I manage to push them away. I've been
doing just fine on my own so far, right? I go to the party. Of course
there's alcohol, and everyone's drinking it. I have no interest in
being the one fool that refuses to drink, so I jump right in. Well
after a couple hours the party comes to an end. Something feels wrong,
but what am I gonna do, sit there all night until I feel better? What
would my friends think? So I start driving home.
Things are going ok, but after those couple hours of partying I've
never felt more tired. I still have a nagging feeling in my stomach,
but whatever. A few minutes later my eyes start to droop. The road
becomes a blur. A bright light flashes in front of me, the honking of
a car drills itself into my head. I swerve off the road. I hit a tree.
I wake up, battered, bruised and broken. My car is totaled, I can
hardly imagine how I'm still alive. After a few moments of taking in
the situation, I start to wish that I wasn't. Not only am I in
terrible pain, my precious car totaled. I have to return to my father,
battered and bruised, show him the totaled car, the car that he freely
gave me, and tell him straight to his face that I knowingly acted in
opposition to his conditions. For a time (minutes, hours, days?) I lie
in agony, wishing that I hadn't survived the accident.
After an eternity my head starts to clear and I remember something my
older brother told me shortly before I drove off.
"I'll always be there for you."
These words which I had previously disregarded flood into my mind. I
grasp onto it and pull out my cellphone, which is miraculously still
intact. At the first ring he answers his phone, almost as though he
was expecting a call. In response to his voice all I manage is a
strangled cry,
"I'm sorry."
He listens patiently and quietly as I explain to him what happened,
occasionally offering words of comfort and support. There is no anger,
exasperation or condemnation. As I finish explaining my story, he
simply says:
"Everything will be alright. I'm on my way."
I forget my pains, my fear and my guilt. Everything would be alright.
I hear the squeal of brakes, the opening and closing of a car door. My
brother wrenches the door open and pulls me out. I'm too stunned to
say anything as he kneels down in the dirt and starts addressing my
wounds. Finally I find my voice.
"Don't worry about me, take a look at my car!"
"I'll take care of that too, but I'll need your help. Can't very well
help me in a condition like this, can you?"
As he finishes, he helps me to my feet. He makes a deal with me.
"Together we're going to repair your car. It will take some effort on
your part, but I'll help you every step of the way. Once the car is
fixed and you're back on the road I want you to call me every day and
tell me how you're doing."
"Every day? Aren't you busy?"
"Never too busy for you, bro."
It takes some time, but a few weeks later, my body and car are as good
as new. Before driving back home he once again gives me those
reassuring words.
"I'll always be there for you."
And ever since then, things have been going great. Sure every once and
a while the temptation comes to stretch the rules a bit, but after
looking back on all that happened, it's not hard to push the thought
out of my mind. And if it comes back, my brother is just a call away.
Now I'm devoted to helping others understand, so they don't have to go
through what I did. Sometimes they believe me, sometimes they don't.
Every day my brother offers me encouragement, and lovingly offers me
ways to improve. There's nothing I want more than to one day be like
him.

Yeah, a little bit out of the blue, 'twas inspired by Alma 36. Anywho,
I love you guys. It'll be good to see yalls faces at Christmas,
especially in comparison with the interesting phone call we had a few
weeks ago. Have a good week!

Elder Larsen