APRIL THE 20TH....;)

What's up guys!!

This Friday I hit my 9 month mark! I feel like I have been out 3 weeks what the heck! Anyways this week was awesome! We picked up 3 new investigators this week #righteous although we have had to drop a few investigators because we haven't been able to get in with them.. But it's all good our teaching pool is pretty dang big right now, the Lord is definitely blessing us! We've got a few investigators who are really progressing right now too which is awesome to see. Jason is doing really well but he is having a hard time giving up smoking. We moved his baptism date back to May 28th, so please keep him in your prayers! Jamell is still doing well and is on date for May 14th still, we're pretty pumped about that!

We had a pretty sick miracle happen yesterday, we got a call from this lady in our ward who has been pretty sick/injured and hasn't been to church in a while and we had her on our plans (#inspiredplanning) and she needed a blessing so we went and gave her a blessing and she was not in good shape at all! She couldn't even walk and she had a ton of pain in her side and on her arm because she fell a while ago. I gave her the blessing and the whole time the Spirit was so strong! (CR: Alma 26:12) Anyways we left there and we both knew that she was gonna get better over time but earlier this morning while we were emailing we got a call from her inviting us to Golden Corral, so we went there and she was flying around like she was never even in pain! Apparently immediately after we gave her the blessing the pain was lifted from her and she felt a ton better, for the first time in months she said! It is amazing how much power is in the priesthood! I have a huge testimony of priesthood power and how much faith can do! (It is funny when even non members ask us to give them blessings because they know that the power is real and that it works too). The blessings of the priesthood can and will be available to all of us if we do the things the Lord commands us to.

On the temporal side of things, April 20th was pretty crazy here! (420) Literally everywhere we went it smelled like weed! Haha we had so many people run away from us because they thought we were cops and they didn't want to get busted! It was a good day to cry repentance to everyone hahaha.

Also Elder Burtenshaw is getting transferred:( and I'm staying here in Glen Burnie, and my homie Elder Boyd is gonna be my companion! This transfer went by way too fast!

Anyways, I hope y'all have a good week!

-Elder Larson

Elder Tharp and I had a nice jam sesh today at Guitar Center, I wish I could send the vids!

READERS DISCRETION ADVISED

What's up!!

This week has been pretty wild! The work has definitely been going good! We picked up 2 more new investigators and had a bunch of lessons with some of our other investigators. Also, we put Jamell on date to be baptized on May 14 we're stoked!!! He is stoked too, he came to church yesterday and loved it! Jason should be on date too but he wasn't able to come to church yesterday... But he will next week! And we gave him a blessing to help him overcome smoking and he is super motivated to stop!! Keep him in your prayers!!! We taught Michael the Plan of Salvation which hit him super hard (in a good way) because 2 of his closest friends had been killed that week. The gospel is the best!!

Anyways on to story time.. We were contacting around this apartment complex and we contacted this dude named Tyrone, to give you a mental image of this guy, he had half of his teeth missing and he was an older black dude. But the first time we talked to him he was telling us that we need to watch our tongues and how Jesus was telling him what to tell us and it was all this crazy nonsense, but he was chill with us and then we went our different ways. Then not even 30 minutes later we were knocking some doors and he answered the door so we started talking to him again and he wasn't having the whole Joseph Smith story, so this is what he said: "Alright alright we're bout to get real. I'm bout to get real. We're bout to get BUTT-NAKED REAL!" Meanwhile the bus had just dropped off a bunch of elementary aged kids and their parents were there to pick them up and they were all walking right by us as this was happening! I promise we didn't get butt-naked real whatever that means! #2 We were contacting again and we talked to this lady who was very nice but not very interested and she lived in a neighborhood a street away from the hood so she told us to be careful with the people in the next neighborhood over and we said thank you we will and all that stuff and literally 3 seconds after we said bye to her Earnest drove by and slammed on his brakes because he saw us and reversed to come talk to us and he was holding a huge joint and said loud enough for the whole quiet neighborhood to hear "What the *bleep* is up fellas??? Y'all are lookin spiffed the *bleep* out!! Don't mind this *bleep* man (referring to his joint) I miss you *bleepas*" meanwhile that lady's jaw was on the ground haha Earnest is the man! (Side note from Jen: Upon further investigation of Earnest, I found a story about him several emails back called “March Madness”.  Earnest is an investigator of theirs who calls himself the “OG” or Original Gangster.  I was a little worried after reading this email the first time, so no worries haha, they know Earnest:/)  One more story sorry this is so long. We contacted this lady at a bus stop and it was warm outside so of course she was in her short short short shorts and she was a larger black lady. Shortly into the conversation we found out that she was a stripper so of course it got a little weird for all of us but it was ok because we found out that she was the prophet! She prefers to be addressed as Prophet Tyra the Stripper. She said that she can predict things in the future so I asked her what was gonna happen in 2 years and she said that she was gonna be the President of the United States! So everyone vote for Prophet Tyra the Stripper! I'm sorry if any of this offended anyone, it’s just another week in the hood!

Anyways I hope y'all have a good week!

-Elder Larson

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Picture that was snagged mid lesson with an investigator

Bowling with the District

#MIRACLES

What's good???

I hope y'all had a good week!!! I'm sorry if my first couple lines are the same every single week I never can remember what I started out with last week! Anyways this week was crispy fresh!!! Aka we had a good week! It was a little on the crazy side but that is always a good thing!

During district meeting we got a phone call from our man Chris (potential gator) cancelling our appointment with him because he got in an argument with his buddy and vandalized his car and now he is running away from the cops! (Yes, that is the same one that we watched smoke crack) Then we got a phone call from him later that night while we were studying telling us how he is homeless now and still hiding from the cops and he is gonna go to jail when they find him with lots of colorful language complimenting every other word that he said. That was not the most spiritual planning session! But he said that he needs the gospel in his life so hopefully he doesn't go to jail so we can give it to him haha!

We had some sick lessons with Jason this week, we put him on date to be baptized on May 7th, and he is super pumped for it! The only problem with him is that he smokes. He wants to stop but he is pretty dang addicted to it, so keep him in your prayers!! Also we are probably gonna start teaching his fiance! 

This week we picked up 4 new investigators and they are all brothas!!! Michael is 17 and he boxes and he is super fresh, Daniel is 18 and graduated the same year as me, he's also a trendy brotha. Terrance is another one, he is a minister at his church, Mount Calvary Methodist, and he is 22 yrs old. He is super dope though! We went over to teach him on Friday while I was on exchanges with Elder Tharp and it went super well! We taught him the Restoration and we were waiting for him to start bashing us super hard because he is a minister but he took it all in and loved it! He accepted the baptism invite and is stoked to read the Book of Mormon! #Miracle On Sunday we were taking naps during our lunch hour because it was fast Sunday and we were dead tired and we got a call from the Pasadena elders saying that there was some guy named Jamell that was waiting for us at the church! We were about to go visit him but it turns out that he rode his bike like 4 miles from his house so that he could find us at the church!! So we got up and drove over to the church going 213 mph (not really momJ) to go teach Jamell, just in case you don't know, stuff like that doesn't ever happen! So we went and taught him in the church and he is stoked about the gospel too! Miracles!!

Anyways have a good week!!!

-Elder Larson

The Granado's from the Antietam Ward!!!  Long time no see!

Sister Johnson beating the heck out of me!!

It was snowing but you can't really tell, super cold though!

CONFERENCE :)

Hola como esta, bien??

My Spanish is super weak sauce I'm sorry! There are a lot of Hispanic people around here so that is what they have to deal with! This week was awesome though! We had the mini missionary for half the week but we had to say goodbye to him on Thursday:(:( (His name is James btw) But James got a pretty good introduction to missionary life! In the first few hours with him there was what we presume to be a shooting at the gas station down the street from our place where there were at least 15 cop cars and an ambulance and a fire truck. We didn't get to see what happened but we did see them arrest some brotha and throw him in the back of a cop car. And after that we got swarmed by a bunch of hood kids that thought we were in a movie and wanted our autographs but when we told them we weren't they were all very disappointed and walked away but I asked them if they were in a movie and asked them for their autographs and they all came back and signed a passalong card haha! And idk why but the work was super good when James was with us, we taught a bunch of lessons and even got to go to the temple with our investigator Brandi! We need to have him with us more!

We were in Inner Harbor Baltimore for zone training and an elder in our district gave some money to some homeless people at McDonalds (definitely not recommended unless you want to get jumped) and got them all kicked out of McD's for begging haha it was jacked up!! Anyways after zone training we ate at this super ghetto chicken place called Hip Hop Chicken which was pretty good but it destroyed us!! Elder Burtenshaw threw up a bunch and I thought I got away without getting sick but it caught up to me on Friday and I was down and out! Dang! But we still helped rescue a dog from getting hit by a car on Friday that was sick! We started teaching this guy named Tello who is super dope! He tells us all the time that we are "gansgta" for going around and talking to people and he said that we are the only white people that all the people in the ghetto respect!

Conference was awesome though!! Just a quick thought from it for y'all: We know from the scriptures that Jesus was the greatest, in fact a perfect leader. He was the only person that could come to earth and by His example lead all of God's children that would accept Him. But why was He the perfect leader? Jesus Christ was a perfect leader because He was a perfect follower. Christ perfectly followed His Father's plan for Him and for all of us. We know what we have to do to follow Heavenly Father's plan. Regardless of our callings in life and in the church. We are all leaders and we are all followers. Follow Christ and be a leader to those who are around you as Christ was to us.

Have a good week!

-Elder Larson

James burning a tie for his half way (2 day) mark on the mini mission

The dog we saved:)

The squad at the Temple!!