TEACHING = LIFE/GHOST PEPPERS

Fam,

This week was filled with miracles, calorie-burning activities, trailer parks and nature. I hope that your week was very similar!

Elder Jones and I had a very strong resolve to find a bunch of people to teach this week and to do what the Lord would have us do in His work. At the same time, we also faced the challenge of having a low amount of miles on our vehicle for the rest of the month. So we decided to hit the streets on our bikes and talk to as many people as we could! On Tuesday we knocked into a man named James who just moved up here from Florida. We taught him the Restoration and picked him up as an investigator and guess what!!! He lives on ELDER AVE hehe... It was bound to happen! After biking around all day and helping some people out, we had a long bike ride ahead of us to an appointment with some potentials. We either had to go all in or bail out! We really didn't want to bike 8 miles out and then 8 miles back for nothing! But we felt we should still go. As we were biking there we rode down this giant mountain (giant in east terms, hill in west coast terms) and we were flying down this thing going probably 40 mph (may or may not be exaggerated, I'm not sure how fast we were going) and the hill seemed like it was never going to end! It was super fun to ride down but the thought of biking up that to get back to the apartment haunted me! Luckily, we got to the appointment and they were there and they let us in to teach them! Their names are Brian and Luz, Brian is in high school and is actually good friends with several of the young men in the ward. We picked them up as investigators! After we left, he sent a picture of the Book of Mormon that we left him to his friends that are in our ward and he was pumped about it! So sick!

Rewind to my second day in this area, we got to dinner with a member and as we got out of the car we pointed at their neighbor's house and said to each other: "they are going to be investigators" when we asked the members about them they told us that we should go by to see them. So we went by on Wednesday and they let us in and we picked them up as investigators! Their names are Ed and Patsy and they are super old but super awesome! They used to meet with missionaries back in the day too, super cool! Also Josh and David that we picked up last week are doing really well, good stuff is happening here!! Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Crab swag Maryland style!!

Ghost peppers (yes, we ate them!)

Elder Ave

Mormon Church Road

Turkey calling with Greg

Nature

CRABS, TEMPLE, ELDER JONES (RD. 2) & MENNONITES, , ???

What's good?

This week I said goodbye to a lot of good friends that I was able to make in the last 7 months in Baltimore, unfortunately that is a big part of serving a mission. I am very grateful for the time that I was able to spend there, Baltimore definitely taught me a ton and made me super grateful for everything that I have. It was truly an eye opening experience. I'm not gonna lie though, the trees and hills of the country side in Pennsylvania welcomed me with warm arms. I'm super excited to be here! There is little to no crime here, everyone is white (except for one or two people haha), and the ward is so willing to help out. It is amazing how different some of the areas in our mission are! Being a junior companion is fantastic though, we have been having a ton of fun doing missionary work and we have already seen some awesome miracles!

On Friday they had a Mission Leadership Council, usually just the zone leaders and sister training leaders attend them but this time they invited the district leaders and even the district leader companions. It was a wonderful experience, probably my last opportunity to attend one. When we broke out with all the district leaders in the mission and their companions, I had the chance of instructing them about giving correction to missionaries and that went well. There have been a ton of new district leaders and zone leaders that have been called in the recent transfers, this mission is changing like crazy! The mission is doing really well with missionary work though, there have been a ton of baptisms!

Elder Jones is from Montana and is a recent convert of just a few years now! He has been on his mission about 20 months and we have been having a ton of fun! Just a little over a year ago his father passed away while he was out here on his mission. None of the rest of his family are members (besides his brother) so this last Saturday we had the opportunity to go down to the DC temple and Elder Jones was able to do temple work for his dad and for his grandpa. I was lucky enough to be the one that baptized him for both of them, it was such a cool experience! The Spirit was so strong afterwards, it was unbelievable! Temple work is an amazing thing, I invite each of you to attend the temple more regularly and to bring names of your ancestors to do their work!

We have been hitting the streets super hard this week and we have found some pretty solid people! We were able to pick up 2 new investigators this week, David we street contacted and taught him the Restoration, he is a Jehova's Witness. Last night at 8:15 we were flying around talking to people and knocking doors and we knocked into Josh and he let us right in and we picked him up as an investigator. He was super excited about the Book of Mormon. Also we had a good lesson with our investigator who's name is Stan on Saturday. He is from Haiti and he and his family are Mennonites. It is so much different out here than in Baltimore! I love it though!

Have a good week squad!

-Elder Larson

Saying goodbye to the Jeghedes

Ice cream with the Jones'!

Elder Jones and Elder Larson

Temple trip with Elder Jones

Mother's Day Skypes<3

7 NEW INVESTIGATORS/GOODBYE BALTIMORE:(

Hey Fam!

"Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain."

      ~Guns N Roses

We started this week off on exchanges with some elders in our zone that have been struggling lately because of some health issues. Nevertheless the exchange that we had went really well! We were able to pick up a new investigator, Sheila, and we got to hit the streets and contact a bunch of people. As we taught Sheila, it was really cool to see the change of heart that she had as we taught her about the Book of Mormon. At first she was very stand off-ish and wasn't down with changing anything. As we taught about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon her countenance changed and she was then really excited to read the Book of Mormon. The Book is legit!!

We found a gigantic spider in our apartment!

Sunday night we were flying around trying to find a new investigator because we had only found one so far that week so far. Everyone that we were trying by was bailing too hard on us. Uh oh!! The Lord is at the helm though so there was no need to fear. We stopped by a potential that somebody referred to us, her name is Valentine, and she is from Africa. That day she had been really bummed out about how wicked the world was and in particular how wicked Baltimore was. (For your information, yes it is in fact a wicked place) She was losing hope in the world until she saw us walking up to her apartment to knock on her door. She immediately let us in and we taught her, her husband John, and then 4 of her children that are from the ages of 16 to 22 and picked all 6 of them up as investigators! It was so sick!!!! I love teaching families!!! The Spirit was so strong and they were all so excited to read the Book of Mormon. Such a sweet miracle!

Yesterday we got the call that I will be getting transferred this Wednesday. I'm super bummed to be leaving Baltimore but I'm pumped for what lies ahead! I'll be going to Fairview, Pennsylvania as the junior companion to a district leader. It's gonna be so sick!!!! This will be my first time serving out of Maryland. I'm gonna miss this place though!

Have a good week!!!

-Elder Larson

Justin's Baptism

Christus statue at Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins

Justin's pumped up texts before his baptism

More baptism pics

Post baptism cleaning life

Miami Beach postin

Inner Harbor = the only nice part of Baltimore

Sebastian and the Ajayis

Baptism clean up

YNG MOSES?

Fam,

What a blessing it is to be on the Lord's team doing His work, I can't even begin to tell you how many miracles he has blessed us with lately! He truly is involved in this work and He cares about each and every one of us. As Elder Willes and I (on exchanges) were in a lesson with Sebastian, it was pretty evident that the Spirit has been working with him in his life. We taught him the Restoration for the first time after he was baptized and the conversation goes as follows: "Sebastian what do you remember about Joseph Smith?" "Well he was a prophet." "How did you come to know that he was a prophet?" "Because I read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. Through the Spirit I came to know that it was true. The Spirit doesn't just come knocking on your door though, it speaks to us through our thoughts and feelings." "....." Let me remind you that he was baptized just 2 weeks ago!

Also on exchanges with Elder Willes we set a goal to find a new investigator that day. It was 7:00 and we still hadn't found anyone and we had an appointment at 7:30 that would probably end the night for us. On the side of the road we said a prayer asking to find somebody to teach and we felt like we should go down this particular street to contact people. Down that road we ran into this lady named Christian and we explained to her that we were going around sharing a message about Jesus. Out of what seemed to be frustration, she told us to go talk to the neighborhood punks that had been throwing rocks at her house because "they need Jesus". She explained that they were around back playing basketball and was surprized when we accepted her invite. We went back and let's just say put a little fear of God in them. Don't worry though, we got their information and we're gonna go back and teach them soon! We returned and reported to Christian and she was amazed! So we set an appointment with her and the next day we went back and taught her so she is an investigator now. Solid!

This Saturday Justin was baptized and he was confirmed on Sunday. It was really cool to work with him through his conversion process and to see how prepared he was. He brought his girlfriend and his family to his baptism and his girlfriend is interested in learning more about the gospel. In a separate email I'm going to send out the story about how we found him, it's pretty cool how we ended up on his doorstep! BTW, YNG Moses is Justin's rapper name, so that's why it is the subject line haha. Also this week Katrina and Favour, both recent converts, gave out copies of the Book of Mormon this week to people who are now interested in learning more #Motivation!!!

Earlier today we were over at Justin's house and he was teaching us Jujitsu and I left my camera at his house so there will be minimal pictures this week sorry! You'll just have to wait until next week;)

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Justin!

Clean up!

FINDING JUSTIN

Elder Jones (my last companion) and I were at a zone conference meeting for most of the day and afterwards we had a meeting with the stake leadership to discuss the missionary work in the zone. Afterwards we had an appointment at 8 PM with a referral from church headquarters that had ordered a Bible and a Book of Mormon. We had already been over twice and realized both times that we had neither a copy of the Bible with us or a copy of the Book of Mormon. Upon arrival at his apartment, we realized that we had neither with us AGAIN. We are the biggest scrubs!!! We made the executive decision that we weren't going to try by the appointment because A) We felt impressed not to go B) 2 days earlier we were talking to a less active about the movie Saratov Approach (where 2 missionaries go to an appointment in Russia and the forgot to bring a Book of Mormon to give the man but they ended up getting kidnapped and held for ransom) and we were in a pretty sketchy neighborhood C) we were super embarrassed and filled with shame....

We hadn't eaten anything since around 12 and we were both feeling Chic-Fil-A so we decided to make a stop at the on fairly close to our apartment. While I was ordering my food the kid that was taking my order, Jaylon, asked me if I was a Mormon. I told him that I was and out of curiosity he began to ask a few questions like: "What is the difference between Mormons and everyone else?" and that sort of thing. Before I could answer, another worker there began to answer his questions and explained that his mom was actually a Mormon. His name was Chris. I gave Jaylon a card with our number on it and told him to call us if he has any other questions and then I went to sit down and eat. As I was eating, I felt impressed by the Spirit that I needed to go get Chris' information. So I went up and ordered something else and asked Chris what his mom's name was and got his phone number etc... While I was talking to him, Jaylon jumped in the conversation and told me to right down his phone number too. Sweet!

When we got home that night we looked Chris' mom up and sure enough she was a member but she hadn't been to church in a long time. The next week we were planning on doing a ward rescue effort in the Chesapeake Ward where all the missionaries in the stake would be assigned to a specific route to go contact those who hadn't been to church in a while and to invite them back to church. We figured that would be a good time to go meet with Chris and his mom so we made a request to our Bishop (who was in charge of everything) that we would get the route that included Chris' mom in it. We also wanted to start working in that specific area more too.

Fast forward to the day of the rescue effort, unfortunately, we weren't able to catch Chris or his mom at a good time and they weren't home. As a part of the rescue effort we were trying to find out if a lot of these people were still living at the address that they had on the roster, so any information that we could get about the people was valuable.We were at another one of the members houses that was on our assigned route but they didn't answer either so we felt like we should try by their neighbor to see if they knew anything about them. We knocked and a young man with an afro named Justin answered the door. Instinctively I asked: "Do you play ball man?" "Nahhh I do martial arts. But you guys can come back to share that message with me sometime." Two months later Justin is baptized and has shared the gospel with pretty much everyone that he spends time with and several of his cousins, brothers and his girlfriend want to start meeting with the missionaries now. The Lord works in mysterious ways but His ways will always work out!