CHESAPEAKE!!

Howdy!!

This week was one of the tougher weeks on my mission not gonna lie.. But the good thing about weeks like this is that you learn a lot more than you would any other week! To start things off, the day before Mariah was supposed to get interviewed by our zone leaders for baptism, one of her friends showed her some stuff on the internet that was against the Book of Mormon and she texted us saying that she doesn't want to meet with us anymore.. That was tough but the adversary ALWAYS works really hard on investigators the week before their baptism so hopefully she will come back around. We called her step-brother (Brother Temple) to tell him about how she didn't want to meet with us anymore and he said that made him pretty depressed but that he would get over it and there isn't much you can do about that. (A little bit of a background on Brother Temple, in the past 6 months he started coming back to church from being less active for a long time. His parents were alcoholics and literally raised him to drink alcohol, (since he was 5 they gave him alcohol) and recently from meeting with us he has been overcoming a bunch of addictions) On Friday we found out that he passed away and they believe that it had to do with alcohol and his pain pills that the doctors gave him for his elbow surgery. It was so sad! He is an amazing guy and helped me learn a lot about what the Gospel is actually about and how real the power of the Atonement is. Keep his family in your prayers please!!

On the bright side of things, this last week we picked up 3 new investigators! We picked up Keon who just graduated from Walkersville High School and played ball, Teri who we think is his sister or something like that, and then Harley who loves Harley Davidson motorcycles and eating food. Good week for finding! Also I got a call from President last night and found out that I'm going to be going to the Chesapeake ward (East Baltimore) to be a zone leader! Crazy! I'm gonna miss the Frederick area not gonna lie!

All is well here, the Gospel is true and it can make any trial, no matter how hard, easy. Jesus has promised us that if we follow him his yoke is easy and his burden is light. I know that is true and that the Atonement can and will work for every one of us. Have a good week squad!!

-Elder Larson

Lee Reed!!