Zionists

Well Mom, unfortunately they believe in actually celebrating Easter here, which means that most stores are closed today. But next week we should (hopefully) have a normal pday where we can do some shopping. Anywho, sounds like you're having lots of fun. Colonoscopies, implants, violent children...just save some for me. I imagine there's still some mouth adventures in store for me. Whoops Andy, I got distracted last week and forgot to explain my sweet basketball experience. Us and 4 Elders from Hannover played some 3v3 basketball. After a while of ol' Elder Larsen takin em out down low with lay-ups and rebounds, someone's like "Man, Elder Larsen!" and then another Elder's like "All he's doing is making lay-ups." So then I had to go ahead and swish a couple 3-pointers. But don't worry, I got humbled after playing soccer today. Well Lisa and Michelle, I'm not positive how I feel about this ultimate frisbee business. Seems like I'll be needing to set things straight when I get back. Or maybe it'll be as Joey said, and I'll be converted to the wickedness of soccer. Heidi, I think I'll have to take your word on Freezer meals being the best. Good to hear that Savvy and Abby aren't (yet) experiencing the joys of teeth problems. 25 pushups, eh dad? Quite the wild animal. I hope you're training up to play ultimate frisbee.

Okie Dokie

Pretty good week around these parts. Tuesday we met for the second time with a member-referred young couple, who are making pretty good progress. They made it to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. Only potential problem at the moment is that they aren't actually married, although they live together. But at the moment they're doing really well. Still some problems with our older investigators, but we're moving forward.

We had quite a bit of finding time this week, which led us to a couple new investigators. Because of Easter Holiday (kids here get like 2 weeks off of school for Easter), a lot of teenagers were at home, and 2 of them agreed to meet with us. Unfortunately the first appointment, which was supposed to be today, already fell through. We booked it through pouring rain to make it in time, ringed the doorbell, saw him look at us from inside and watched as he walked away into another room. We waited for 5 or so minutes and then gave it up. Ouch.

But on the bright side we have a super solid week ahead of us. Lots to do and little time to do it, nothing is better in the life of a missionary.

Oh, and also this week, we ran into a fun conspiracy theorist guy, who told us that an evil sect called the Zionists are trying to destroy America. Apparently Hilary Clinton and Joe Bidon belong to this group. He then proceeded to wave his arms about and in a loud voice say how all the people walking around us were blind. Just your average day of street contacting :). Anywho, that's about all I've got for this week.


Hope yall have a good one!

Elder Larsen

#Hallelujah

No need to be bashful Mom, I know you're a dancer at heart.
Unfortunately my fatness is also increasing my foot size, so I don't
think the old ones would work out to great. Next week we're going to
Hannover so I'll just go on a shopping spree there. I sure do love
shopping...yessiree. Still getting everyone sick, eh Yhetti? At least
this can put a rest to any sort of false accusations that I ever got
anyone sick, tehee. Interesting stuff, Lisa. I've gotta say though,
aside from the day a brown treat came uncontrollably out of my bum, I
don't remember being particularly nervous or uncomfortable in
kindergarten. Yesterday we had an appointment with a certain Mueller
family. Turns out, one of their daughters was trained on her mission
by Mariah Wheatley, and one time the family came to Utah and stayed
with the Wheatley's. They were pretty excited to hear that Brother
Wheatley was my German teacher and that Brianna was in the same grade
as me. Just another random connection. I'll go ahead and take your
word on that one Andy, about the temple construction preventing you
from finding a mate. I expect to hear some results in the near future.
I also had some solid basketball experiences bro, for the first time
since the mtc.  You're doing great with the quotes Joey, your Queen
would be proud.

So this week was kind of all over the place. Tuesday we got a visit
from an Austrian member, who had served part of his mission in
Stadthagen and wanted to visit some old friends. He ended up teaching
one of our new investigators with us, which went really well aside
from his phone going off...twice. Once in the middle of the lesson
(ended up having a 10 minute conversation with a co-worker) and then
again at the end in the middle of giving him a blessing. Kinda
awkward, but luckily our investigator was chill about it. Then we had
to rush off to a lesson with a couple that a member referred to us.
They were really cool and nice, but they didn't seem super interested.
We have another appointment tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.

It was a bumpy week with our steady investigators. The one from
Afghanistan, waiting for a visa, ran into some opposition from his
parents. At first they were fine with him being baptized, but
apparently they had a change of heart...and not for the better. And
with the mission policies on teaching people from dangerous countries,
they can't be baptized without the parents consent. Later this evening
we're meeting with them to see what we can do. Our other progressing
investigator Mrs. Heumann is having some slight difficulty with the
word of wisdom, namely with tea and coffee, though considering that
we're in Germany, it's a miracle that that's her only problem with the
word of wisdom.

Other than that, lots of finding. We had quite the conversation with
some born again Christians. It was very friendly up to the point that
we mentioned the Book of Mormon, after which one of them said that he
had read it and received an answer from the Holy Ghost that it was a
devilish book. Elder Barboza handled it pretty solidly. Just bore
testimony of the Book of Mormon and living prophets, and then off we
went. Aside from that our finding efforts led to a lot of solid
conversations, but no real interest. One lady we ended up talking to
for a solid 15 or so minutes on her doorstep, and despite us saying
just about everything we could, and her listening intently, she still
had no desire to do anything other than take a card. In the end, God
is in control, and sometimes there's not much more we can do than hope
that one day these people will realize how much they need the Gospel.

Last thought before I run out of time. I realized this week how easy
it is, even as a missionary, to lose focus on Christ's Atonement. The
restoration, baptism, priesthood and commandments are all super
important, but in the end they mean nothing without the Atonement.
Hopefully this week I can work a little harder at remembering what's
most important and stay a little more true to my promise of always
remembering him.

That's all I've got this week. Keep things real :)

Elder Larsen

Faithless Tomatoes

I´ll keep the nerd advice in mind, Mom. I met Elder Frost once, and just as I was dutifully explaining that his mom was my grandma´s home teacher, I was just about tackled to the ground by a certain Elder Peatross. I should be able to get a new suit in a week or two, just need to find enough time on a pday to go to Hannover. My ``ancient`` shoes died pretty quick, unfortunately. I´ve been wearing the new pair, which so far are working out pretty well. We don´t see too many members aside from on Sunday. A higher percentage in Germany basically just means 0.02% instead of 0.01%. Awesome that the ward dance went well, I knew you were a true dancer at heart, Mom.  I´ll have to read that article, Dad. I´ve only talked to her a couple times. Bigger ward makes it hard to talk to very many people. Better watch out with the "success" word Dad, out of the 36ish combined months that my 3 companions have been out, none of them have seen a baptism yet. Haha, sometimes it´s a tender topic in the mission. Sadly Lisa, I don´t seem to be getting any fatter. It takes a lot of effort just to stay at 145. I most certainly do love the new area. Not gonna lie, that´s quite the quality picture (see pic of Abby, Lisa, Savannah and their delicious breadtwist below). I´m not sure if I can condone eating bread twists without me though. Glad you had a "sick" week, Heidi, sounds pretty rad. I don´t seem to know what I´m doing with family history either. Every Sunday we now have an hour to do Family History work, and I´m kinda scared I´ll manage to mess something up if I try doing anything other than tinkering around and reading stories. Not bad Joey, Zeke can already say "nothing"? I don´t have a clue about the song/movie though. I´ll work harder at not enjoying soccer, though up to this point it hasn´t been much of a struggle.

Pretty solid week over here. Lots of traveling, lots of service, unfortunately not a whole lot of lessons. One of our lessons was in a city pretty far south. Took 4 hours of travel there and back, so working there was basically our entire day. On the way there the guy sitting by us on the train was talking on the phone, and accused whoever he was talking to of being a "treulos tomaten," or faithless tomato...gonna have to remember that one. Also we had splits this week, and while we were doing some service a member called my companion a fat egg. Germans seem to have all sorts of interesting food-related insults. 

Another random experience happened one night as we were going home from an appointment. These two drunk guys seemed confused as to which train they needed to take, so Elder Barboza told them. They didn´t believe him and told us that all we do (as missionaries) is "make crap." Well they eventually found out that Elder Barboza was right, and as we walked by they stopped and apologized. They ended up "escorting" us through Stadthagen and warned us about walking through certain streets at night, and were actually pretty friendly. So I guess the lesson is not to judge people by their appearance...or something like that.

The ward here in Stadthagen really is awesome. Before missionary work and member work seemed very separate from each other, but here the members really want to be involved and it´s a lot more of a team effort. It´s a good reminder that we´re all on the same side here. This isn´t a competition between which missionaries can get the most baptisms, or who can do the most on their own. This is about saving God´s children and bringing them to Christ. 

Love you all and hope you have a good week =)

A Whole New Flippin World

Interesting, so apparently the first paragraph of my email last week didn't disappear...for some reason it just wasn't showing up on my ipad. Bro, you´re gonna have to give me more information than "a ring box." Is this for the same girl who had the sign at the Timpview Car wash? And I see you´re already bringing shame upon the family name by not wasting everyone in frisbee. Tut, tut (tehee). Lisa, you´re just gonna have to blame Joey for asking such vulgar questions. If you liked my ol atheist friend, I´m sure you´ll enjoy this. A couple weeks ago we met this lady who was also of the opinion that we were enslaved by our religion. And yet you could hear how much smoking had destroyed her voice. Apparently not even obvious physical evidence is enough to convince people. That´s a rough way to lose a client, dad. The concept of being a friend to everyone and loving the Lord is definitely a topic I've thought a lot about. Well Mom, you may be interested to hear that I did indeed bear my testimony as well (granted, it was somewhat expected since it was my first week in a new city). Unfortunately there´s still little to see in terms of mountains. That 90 second crying thing should come in handy. I´m basically just bawling all day long, but with that I´ll be able to disperse it into 90 second intervals. I guess great minds think alike Joey, because my old companion also told me that I needed to make Captain Barbosa jokes. How about instead of dictating a letter from Jake to me, you just send Jake to me in person? Since you neglected to match the names, I suppose I can do it myself. The Spleen-Joey, Bowler-Michelle, Blue Raja-Smarty, Shoveler-Jake and Invisible Boy-Zeke.

Well, in case the title didn't make it obvious enough, Stadthagen is quiiite a bit different from ol Berlin. After spending p-day at a Holocaust Memorial (since I guess it´s important to leave on as depressing of a note as possible), I got shipped off to West Germany. Met Elder Barbosa in Hannover and then we were off to Stadthagen, which so far hasn't stayed very true to it's name...haven't met anyone named Hagen yet. But aside from that this place seems pretty great. I didn't really notice it until leaving, but everything in Berlin just seems a little bit drearier. Here things seem to be a bit more alive. Rowdy teenagers, sarcastic members, friendly strangers. The only downside is that there are no longer a billion people on the streets to talk to. In Berlin over the course of an hour you could try talking to dozens of people, whereas here you might get a solid 20... and some of those may be from trying to talk to the same person 2 or more times. So basically it means we do a lot of dooring.

Elder Barbosa is also pretty great. Definitely miss Elder Burns and his constant hilarious sassiness, but Cap´n Barbosa is pretty solid too. He can sing, play piano, speak good German...basically everything that I can´t do, haha.

In terms of the work, we had a few pretty solid lessons. 2 of our investigators are teenagers from Afghanistan, who want to be baptized but still haven´t gotten long-term visas. Right now we´re going through the 5th lesson and working with President Fingerle on what we can do to speed things up. After our lesson we took them with us to the ward sports night and played some soccer. Unfortunately a year of not playing soccer hasn´t made me any better (oddly enough, it´s almost like I´ve gotten worse! shocking...). It was still pretty stinking fun though. We also taught an older lady, who is making good progress but has trouble coming to church because of work. Other than that, finding central over here. We did manage to find a new investigator, a guy who has been going through some difficulties in his life. He´s got some interesting ideas (reincarnation, dead bodies turning into starts, etc.) but he´s open to change and to a better life. Which just happens to be what the Gospel helps people with, what a coincidence! :)

That´s about it for this week, hope y'all have a good one!

Elder Larsen

Berlin to Stadthagen

I was confused for a second there Mom, Lubbock looked a lot like Lubeck, which is the city where Elder Peatross is right now. I too had some fun with "kiddies." We played with 2 little boys at an eating appointment while the food was being prepared. I just had to pretend they were Marty and Jake. Fortunately even kids in Germany know that it's ok to beat up Elder Larsen.

We'll have to compare your English dinner to the typical German meal Andy. Pork chops, cool potato ball things, "rot kohl," which I'm not even positive how to explain, and then breads/soups/whatever. I was also slightly sick this week, due to a massive package of junk food Elder Burns got from a member in his last area. I think you hit the nail on the head Lisa. One of my battles so far on a mission has had a lot to do with taking care of problems immediately and directly, rather than just being passive or "going with the flow." It's quite the challenge sometimes, hopefully I'll get better at it. So does this mean you're also going to go try out that Larsen Home video place in Springville or wherever? Larsen is obviously quite the honorable name. Glad to hear that Zeke already knows what's up, Joey. Unfortunately I haven't had the privilege of messing my pants yet, though there have been a couple close calls. One time I was walking on pretty thin ice. If I had been a little less
lucky, a toot could have ended up being a squirt. Ahem, anyway...I also failed at smiling this week Heidi. Our ward choir, which we go to about every week with an investigator, insisted that one of the most important parts of singing is smiling. Well, during our song in sacrament meeting, I gave up on that after about 4 seconds. Make sure not to get too ahead of yourself Wouard, by the time you hit 40, I'll be married with 4 kids. Sounds like Bro Henderson was quite the family history champ, Dad.

Well, despite being certain that I'd stay in Berlin for at least one more transfer, Saturday we got the news that I'd be going off to Stadthagen, a little city (a solid 12,000 as opposed to the 3ish million in Berlin) in West Germany. I suppose I should have seen it coming, the moment I get comfortable in Neukölln is the moment I get transferred. On the bright side I'll be able to meet tons of new people (and actually make a decent first impression now that I can speak some of the language, haha) and enjoy all kinds of new experiences. I've also heard that Stadthagen has, or at least had the biggest ward in all of Germany. It'll be rough leaving Elder Burns
(the guy's pretty flippin awesome) but my soon to be companion Elder Barbosa seems pretty cool. He's only got 3 more months, so I may end up being the one to "kill" him.

Other than transfer calls this week wasn't terribly eventful. Had appointments with new investigators, but unfortunately I was on exchange for all of em and only got reports of what happened. Our current investigators are a bit quiet at the moment, on vacation, "busy," and all that good stuff. I guess to be fair, not quite everyone in the world has time 24/7 to talk about the Gospel. Taught a few less actives, and one came to church for all 3 hours for the first time since I've been here.

I did have something of a reality check on Saturday, in the form of this dude I talked to on the bus. He used to be a member and had even served a mission. But somehow over the passage of time he slipped into inactivity, eventually to the point that he is now atheist. His main complaint was that the church is too strict, and that as a member he didn't feel "free." Specifically with the law of chastity. Well, now he has no family, no faith and his only companions seem to be his addictions. Unfortunately he still seems blind to the reality of things. I thought it was a pretty solid wake up call. The devil doesn't stop working against you just because you've served a mission or have a powerful testimony. The only way to really be free is to follow God's commandments to the very end.

Hope y'all have an awesome week!

Elder Larsen

Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas?

Very interesting. On Friday we got a text saying that some of the emails didn't go through, and that we could try to resend them. I went to my email and saw that somehow my letter magically sent itself again on Wednesday...I was very much confused. I guess I should have known when I got that picture, Mom. I be like "what does she mean, 'Since we didn't hear from you yet'?" I suppose there's another pretty big advantage of being a missionary, mom. No dances! I'll have to enjoy it while it lasts. Good idea Lisa, hacking into my account. That one week when we had to change our email time president Fingerle asked me, "so does your family force you to write them each week?" Haha, I suppose so. I've had some similar thoughts to yours Lisa. Today during personal study I was looking up references for charity/love, and just thought about how literally everything in the Gospel has to do with love. And yet it's one thing to know something is true, and another to constantly act accordingly. It's certainly a process. "Small but promising interactions," eh Andy? Are we talking about some babe giving you a smooch, or something more like a girl making 1 second of eye contact? Can't believe y'all are going on all these trips without your own bro, bro. Brother Henderson died, dad? That's crazy, last I saw him he was still doing his daily rounds up and down the street with his walker. Think it's probably for the best though, I sure wouldn't wanna go on any longer than that. You enjoy the smell of smoke and chemicals Heidi? And rooms with no air conditioning (only heaters)? Then you sure would love it here in Berlin! Haha, it actually isn't all that bad. I'm glad you'll be able to be a bit more comfortable while watching tv all day, you'll have to make up for my absence. Alright Joey, I'll try my best. How many hamburgers do you eat without (?). Do you speak German? What kind of (?) cat are you? Rivers are long. Tell Marty he'll be getting a big ol spoof when I get back. That picture at the temple made me think how when I get back there's gonna be Marty, Jake and then some 6 year old who claims his name is Marty.

Quite the finding-full week! Typically it's a bit more exciting to have more appointments, but we had a pretty above average amount of success with it this week. Made out appointments with 6 new people and a less active, which is certainly a new finding record for me. If all goes well with the appointments we made out, this next week will be prettyyyyy awesome.

With all the finding this week we met a lot of people with a whole lot of different views. One lady found the concept of eternal families ridiculous. Instead, she believed that after dying she'd simply come back as a tree. Another guy believed that God is a woman, many think that there's no one correct way to worship God and others (this has been pretty common lately) decided that the wars going on are proof that there is no God. And to be honest I can't blame them! Without the Book of Mormon, or prophets, or personal revelation, I'm sure my own beliefs wouldn't be so different from theirs. I've been reading in the Old Testament lately, and without JSTs and other forms of modern revelation, there are so many things that don't make a lick of sense. But we DO have these things, and as members of Christ's church we can find answers that no amount of worldly "knowledge" can give us. And we have the awesome privilege of sharing these things with the world.

I think that's about it for this week. Have a good one!

Elder Larsen

The One Without a Jacket

Yeah bro, fortunately the chances of any love sign referring to me is
about zero.  Also, I don't suppose any of those sledding fans of yours were
babes, were they? That's pretty awesome that the Provo Temple is up
and ready to go. The Freiberg Temple here in Germany should reopen in
August or so, which will be super nice. Both temples here are
currently under renovation. Funny that you mentioned the suits mom.
You may be interested to hear that one unfortunate day as I was
putting my suit jacket on I heard an unpleasant ripping noise. The
zipper of the pants belonging to the same suit also managed to
break...so I've been surviving with one suit. The next pday that we go
shopping I'll start the search for something new. My respect for ctr
clothing is pretty low...or maybe I really am just a fatty. If that's
the case, then perhaps I'll be able to learn the same lesson you've
learned Joey. Maybe fat people are people after all. That drawing is
pretty jinking awesome. Heidi, you better have put that little girl in
the chokey. Back in my day teachers didn't tolerate such disrespect.
Or pigtails. Don't let Steve work too hard. If I'm lucky dad, I'll be
able to attend the Mormon tabernacle choir thing. Just depends on if I
stay in Berlin. It would be awesome though, cause Marcel bought
tickets and is going with his family.

Another good week, again kind of all over the place. On Wednesday we
had an exchange with the Berlin Spanish Elders. I went with Elder
Fitch into their program, which basically meant (once again) wandering
around Berlin searching for last names on doorbells that look Spanish.
In the evening we had an appointment with a less active that
unfortunately fell out. It would have been cool to practice my
pathetic amount of Spanish. Although, according to duo lingo, I'm 52%
fluent in Spanish (in reality I'm probably about 5% fluent). We then
had a Spanglish. lesson about the restoration with one of their
investigators, which went really well. At the end Elder Fitch asked
him to say the closing prayer and he was like "No, please no." But
after a little pressure he did it. Seems pretty small, but if people
don't make prayer a habit they ain't ever getting a testimony.

After the exchange we had zone conference. The zone has seen a lot of
change since I've been here, a lot of my old buds are off in other
parts of Germany now, including a Elder Racine from the mtc district.
It's always a lot of fun getting together with big groups of
missionaries, but there is also a bit of a high schoolish feeling to
it. Anywho, the focus of the conference was the theme this year,
teaching repentance and baptizing faithful converts (not sure if
that's exactly what the English version of it is, but close enough).
President Fingerle taught us about the importance of helping people
make restitution in the repentance process, which was really good. Not
something I had put a ton of thought into before when teaching about
repentance.

Bus Ride with Schwester Tyx

Also this week, we spent quite a bit of time with a less active old
lady, who's house is something of a wreck. She's about as hilarious as
old ladies come. We went to go help her buy paint, and when we took
the bus she insisted that we all go (keep in mind this is a
hunch-backed old lady who has trouble walking) to the very back of the
bus, so we could all sit together. After getting to our stop we had to
cross the street. So rather than find a crosswalk ol Schwester Tyx
slowly walked right across the busy street, followed by 4 bemused
missionaries. It was quite the adventure. Oh and also, the first time
we met she chastised me for not wearing a jacket. And since then I'm
now "the one without a jacket." "When was the birthday of that one
without a jacket?" "Did the one without a jacket get enough to eat?"
Pretty great, haha.

Other than that, things in Neukölln are pretty normal. This week we'll
finally be able to stay here (no exchanges or conferences) which
should be nice for the work. Life is the bomb, the gospel is true and
God is our loving Heavenly Father. Have an awesome week!

Elder Larsen