MORE FAMILIES!!!!

What's up fam??

This week was crazy!! Of course because it was the week before Christmas, nobody wanted to talk to us or see us. But don't worry that can't effect the power of God in bringing forth His work!!! It's fun to be on his team!!

To start it out, on Monday night we were wandering around in Baltimore and we stopped by this less active family that hasn't had all their kids baptized yet and they were super cool! They said that they want to start coming back to church and they want to get their kids baptized and blessed so we're gonna start working with them now! The rest of the week we had to deal with a bunch of stuff so we didn't have a lot of time to find new investigators and by Thursday we were worried that we wouldn't be able to find 2 new ones this week (because Friday we had a mission Christmas conference, Saturday was only a part day of working and Christmas we didn't work all day). On Thursday we were praying super hard to find 2 new investigators that day in the little time remaining that we had to work. Sure enough, Heavenly Father came through (He always does) but not just with 2 new investigators! We stopped by the family of one of our investigators (Salomon from Congo) and they let us in immediately and we started teaching their whole family! If you didn't know, African families are HUGE and super in tune with the Spirit! That day we picked up 5 new investigators there and by the time the lesson was over, at least 5 more people came in that said they would meet with us next time. Dang!!!!! So sick!!!! Teaching families is the best!!

I had the opportunity this week to play the guitar with Elder Chamberlain (who went to Viewmont too) at the mission Christmas conference and in sacrament meeting yesterday it was awesome! It turned out a lot better than I'd expected, we only had 3 days to practice for it.

Missionary work on Christmas Eve is usually really slow so we decided to speed it up a little bit and we went on a blitz with our district to pass out Light the World cards and whoever won got a blizzard from DQ. My companion and I knocked at least 500 doors and handed out 129 Light the World cards, all on Christmas Eve before 4 PM. Of course we won the contest!!!

I hope y'all had a good Christmas!!

-Elder Larson

Elder Singleton's posterity

Skype with the fam!!

Elder Larson <3

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4 NEW GATORS!

What's good?

This week was pretty wild! To start things off, Monday night we were on our way to an appointment with Cheryl (who ended up being really solid) and our tire popped #MoreAdversity so we spent the rest of the night changing that and trying to get it to the shop but they were all closed... Luckily the next morning we were able to get it taken care of and we got to district meeting up in Harford County on time, miracle! After that we drove all the way back down to Essex and I gave a baptism interview to the other Chesapeake elders' investigator Christopher. It was a very spiritual interview and he ended up getting baptized on Saturday it was awesome! He is from Nigeria! After that I went on exchanges with Elder Gardner and he came into our area with me. We had an awesome lesson with Renee, she and her family will be getting baptized in January hopefully! She is facing a lot of opposition though, so please pray for them!! And then after that we went to our lesson with Cheryl and she was so solid! We taught her the Restoration and as we taught her about Joseph Smith and the First Vision the Spirit was so strong! After we told her about that she explained to us how when we were telling her about that story, she felt so close to God and that her heart was so warm! It was amazing how strong the Spirit was in that lesson. She told us after that earlier this year she was in a coma for 8 days and probably shouldn't have survived but that she knows God is keeping her here for a reason. I know that the reason she is still here is so she could hear about the Restoration of Christ's church! Such a powerful experience!

On Saturday we left our apartment at 6 AM to go help out at the bishop's storehouse in inner city Baltimore, a member was going to drive us there. Because of the temperature and the fact that it rained, all the roads were frozen over. Don't worry, we didn't get in an accident! But took the 95 down there which was a really bad idea! Long story short, we sat in traffic for 6 hours to move a mile because there were some crazy car accidents down the road! We saw at least 15 cars crashed on the sides of the roads that weren't even a part of the big crash. Around an hour before we drove through there, a big tanker lost control and hit the barrier on the bridge and barrel rolled over it and off the bridge into the Chesapeake Bay... In the midst of that the tanker exploded and caught the bridge on fire where all the rest of the semis and cars that couldn't stop slid through it into a gigantic pile-up, there is even a video of it somewhere! Crazy!! But we found 4 new investigators this week!! Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Fixing the flat

Exchanges with my trainer!!!  Elder Singleton!!!

HEAVENLY FATHER HAS OUR BACKS

What's good???

This week was crazy and I'm gonna be honest this email will be short because not a lot happened!! To start the week off we had zone training on Tuesday and as part of our instruction we brought in our recent convert Tihiseen who was baptized in October to talk about the adversity he has faced since he started meeting with missionaries and how he has overcome that. He talked about his conversion story and bore one of the most fiery testimonies I have ever heard. The Spirit was so strong in the meeting! After that we went on exchanges and I went up to Susquehanna for the day with Elder Ainsworth (who is from Farmington too). The exchange went well, we saw a lot of success! The week took a sharp turn that night when I woke up at 12 and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom sick. The next morning my companion and the Elder that he was with drove up here so we could exchange back and so I could go back to be in my own bed but as soon as they got there, my companion started throwing up too!!! Hahahaha!!! So we spent most of the rest of that day up in Susquehanna, both sick as a dog (2 dogs) and then when we finally had the strength we made it back home. But we were still out of commission for a couple days. Dang!!!

Because of this said sickness, it was Thursday and we hadn't done like any missionary work in our area! But Heavenly Father had our backs and hooked us up with some sweet referrals and we still found 2 new investigators and taught a bunch of lessons with ease. Money!!!! Other than that the only exciting thing that happened was during sacrament meeting when some dude with a big Rick Ross jacket and headphones started running laps in the chapel (yes during sacrament meeting) and nobody even blinked haha!!! Welcome to Baltimore!!!

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Throwback to when the other elders got jumped and we had to pick them up from the police station at midnight!!!

TROY, MIRACLE CALLS AND I ALMOST KILLED MYSELF AND MY COMP!!!!

What's good????

This week was outrageous!!! We had MLC and a bunch of other stuff that we had to take care of so we didn't get to do as much proselyting as we wished we could have this week.. Our goal this week was to find 2 new investigators and by Friday we hadn't found any and didn't really have any potential to find anything the rest of the week so we were stressing out pretty bad about finding someone.... We had a bunch of plans for the whole day but every one of them was falling through, nobody would answer their doors! It was like 7:15 and we had 45 minutes until we had a lesson with some recently baptized members and we felt like we were supposed to find somebody that night. So my companion and I said a prayer right there on the side of the road and asked Heavenly Father to guide us to a new investigator before our appointment. Within 10 minutes we knocked on this guys door and he let us right in and we taught him and picked him up as an investigator! So sick!! Also we got a call from somebody this week that is a less active family and they told us that they want to get their 12 year old daughter baptized, we can definitely help with that!!! Also one of Renee's sons just moved into their house with them (he moved here from Jamaica(he's 19)) and we picked him up as an investigator and he seems way solid! Now all 5 of them want to get baptized!!!! His name is Troy BTW.

For the #LightTheWorld initiative this week we were doing a service project with the missionaries in our ward and we went to a river to clear out fallen trees and garbage that was there. Long story short I was sawing one side of a HUGE tree and my companion was sawing the other side of it 40 feet away and as I pushed the log so that it would break somehow the tree ended up on top of me and at the same time it landed on my companion!!! Haha luckily we were both alright, I'm sure it looked hilarious though!!!! Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Tihiseen (our recent convert) is such a stud!!!