GOODBYE GLEN BURNIE! :(

Howdy!

This week was super crazy but super good! First of all, we got transfer call outs last night and I'm gonna be leaving Glen Burnie:(:( I'm heading off to Walkersville, MD on Wednesday! I'm excited for a new adventure but I'm definitely gonna miss the people here in the Dirty Burnie:/:/

Because of sicknesses and a bunch of other craziness we had to push exchanges with a bunch of elders in the district back to the last week of the transfer, so last week was crazy!!! On Tuesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders, I went with Elder Sherrat to Annapolis, it was so much fun! Annapolis is paradise! Literally we were contacting people on this cliff over the Chesapeake Bay with trees and below was this nice beach and all the houses probably cost millions of dollars, swimming pools in every back yard where everyone rides around on their beach cruisers, it was a joke! I was definitely excited to get back into my element (the hood) in Glen Burnie haha. On Wednesday, right after we exchanged back, we exchanged with the Odenton elders and Elder Peterson came with me to GB. After that exchange, we immediately exchanged with the other Glen Burnie elders and I went with Elder Tharp into his area and we had some sweet lessons with some of their investigators. One of them, Kathy, who I have actually been there to teach her every lesson so far haha, got the sickest answer to her prayers about the Book of Mormon! She had been reading and praying a ton with real intent (which is what you need to do to get an answer about the Book of Mormon) and she had a dream where apparently she heard God's voice saying that the Book of Mormon was true!! So sick!! And we got to go on base at Fort Meade to help this guy move into Glen Burnie which was pretty cool. That was all in 3 days!

Jamel was able to pass the sacrament this week it was awesome! It's sweet to see somebody who has so recently received the Priesthood be so eager to exercise his authority to bless others, he's a stud!! I'm gonna miss him! Also we had some sick lessons with our investigators this week. We found out that Jason has been getting a lot of push back from his girlfriend and the people that he lives with about him meeting with us. We have been trying to get them involved but it turns out that none of them want anything to do with the church, and they have been asking Jason when he is gonna tell us to buzz off. But Jason stood up for us and for himself and testified to them that he knows what we have been teaching him is true and he doesn't care what any of them think, he wants to be baptized!! Super sick!!! Then we shared the Restoration video with Terrance and he loved it! He has some concerns with the Law of Chastity but he believes that the Book of Mormon is true and he wants to do what God wants him to do. Of course all this happens right as I'm leaving haha! Also we are going to teach this part member family tomorrow and the wife wants to get baptized! Dang! I'm gonna miss Glen Burnie!

I hope y'all have a great week!!!

-Elder Larson

Hey Elder McRae!!! (For Jen & Engor;))

The Bay!

Iggy

JAMEL!!!/10 MONTHS?

What's good??

This week was wild!!! Jamel was baptized on Saturday!!! Super pumped about that!! It was pretty crazy I'm not gonna lie! First of all, the AC in the church broke so it was a hot sauna in there! Then Jamel showed up to the church in his baptism suit and didn't bring a change of clothes so he had to run back home and grab some clothes so he had something to change into afterwards haha so the service started a little bit late. We had our recent convert who was baptized in March baptize Jamel which was super awesome but at the same time super nerve racking! Even after a bunch of coaching as soon as they got into the font, neither of them knew what to do hahaha! But it was awesome! One of the best baptisms I have been to!!  Jamel is a stud! In sacrament meeting we confirmed him and gave him the Holy Ghost. After sacrament meeting when church was over (we only had sacrament meeting because the AC was still broken and it was super hot) I had the opportunity to confer upon Jamel the Aaronic Priesthood! Super cool experience!!

Although this week was amazing it was definitely one of the more stressful ones for myself! To start things off, on Tuesday my companion woke up sick and was unable to go to district meeting so we had to do an emergency exchange with the other Glen Burnie elders so that I could make it to district meeting and we had to push off exchanges that we were supposed to do that day with the Odenton elders. The craziest part about that day was that we had 4 set appointments and the other Glen Burnie elders had 3 set appointments.... So 2 of us had to cover all of those appointments that were all over the place!!! Miraculously we were able to actually get in and teach 6 of the 7 appointments! Crazy day!! Other than that we had zone conference which was awesome, also we picked up 5 new investigators this week!! #DirtyBurnie. Yesterday we had the opportunity to on top of Jamel's confirmation and ordination we gave 4 more priesthood blessings! Super spiritual day! I know what it means to be spiritually exhausted!

I hope y'all have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Hey Cody!

Jamel!!!

Jamel and Bro. De Maria

BALL IS LIFE

Hello Fam,

What's good??? This week was super good! Definitely crazy though! We had district meeting on Tuesday and afterwards I went on exchanges with Elder McElvany, he's a stud!! We were able to get in with Michael and although he was pretty hung over from the night before it was still good to see him! He rapped for us about Pokemon hahaha it was super dope! I got a video of it but unfortunately I can't send it:/:/ Then right after that we ran into Kevin again (Kevin is my boy) and he used to play basketball in high school so of course I challenged him to 1 on 1! But we had a wager to it, if I won he had to come to church, and if he won I had to buy him lunch! We shook on it and everything it was official! It brought back a ton of memories of high school sports and talkin heat with everyone that we played hahaha I miss being a punk! Anyways we played on Wednesday and I ended up beating him #ballislife!! He wasn't able to come to church this week unfortunately but he's gonna come soon!

On Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Guymon from the other Glen Burnie set and we had a money exchange! They have been having a hard time working lately but we got out to work and found 2 investigators that day so it was super good for him!! One of those investigators is Avaughn, we contacted him on the street in his wife beater, he is covered in tats and the dude is 19! He's the man though!

Finally, Jamel had his baptism interview yesterday with the zone leaders and he passed and is ready to be baptized on Saturday #stoked!! He was super nervous for the interview though haha! He's a stud! Linda came to church too which was good! By the way, we had Linda give the closing prayer in one of our lessons with her and she started praying to us!!! Yes us the missionaries!!! Hahaha it was hilarious, her daughter and ex husband were laughing so dang hard! Sorry Linda but I can't answer your prayers! She's awesome though!

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

-Elder Larson

Ballin with Kevin

Oops!

Bowling with the District

RAINNNNN

Hola!!!!

I hope y'all had a good week this week! We had a wet one... Weather up date: it has been RAINY! 18 days in a row as a matter of fact! It stopped raining yesterday and today but it's supposed to start back up tomorrow though! I usually enjoy the rain but not so much when you are sick because of it! I don't know why I am complaining though, miracles always happen when we are out knocking in the rain! We found some pretty dang solid potentials because of the rain!

The work has been good though! Jamell is still doing awesome and is looking forward to May 28 for his baptism! Jason and Linda are still coming along, hopefully we can get them over the hump though. We had a crazy lesson with Terrance, it turns out he is not a big fan of the Law of Chastity or the Word of Wisdom hahaha... He still wants to be baptized but he thinks that it will take him 3 years to give up his female ladies... Keep him in your prayers!!

Sorry this one was short, ran out of time! Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Wrestling in the apartment.... Oops

MAMMA'S DAY!!!!:):):)

What's up!!

This week was super hard but awesome!! For some reason it was super hard to get in with people this week, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Although we weren't able to teach as many lessons as we would have liked, we still had some awesome lessons though! After 2 hard days of walking in the rain getting splashed by cars, accidentally taking the wrong bus out of our area and not getting in with anyone, we finally got in with our investigator Terrance. We were both pretty frustrated but we kept working super hard and it payed off! To remind you, Terrance is a minister at the Mount Calvary Methodist church and we haven't been able to get in with him for a few weeks because his cousin was shot and killed up in Pittsburgh. We finally got in with him and had one of the most spiritual lessons I have taught on my mission! It was amazing! We put him on date to be baptized on June 11! Super stoked!! Also we had an awesome lesson with Jamell too. We were re-teaching him the Restoration and we decided to show him the Restoration movie. He rides his bike everywhere and he was super tired that morning and he was knocked out sleeping as soon as we put the video in! I was super bummed but I was praying so hard  that he would wake up for the First Vision. Sure enough... as soon as Joseph Smith walked into the Sacred Grove in the movie Jamell wakes up in a jolt and 100% of his attention was towards the movie. Super sick!!! The Spirit was unbelievably strong the whole time it was awesome! Also he came to church and is back on date to be baptized on May 28!

We had some pretty crazy lessons too haha... We were teaching John and Marjory, a super old black couple, and the entire time Marjory was winking at me hahaha!!! Even when we asked her a question she wouldn't say anything and just winked at me hahaha. On the bright side of things we were able to pick up their daughter as an investigator and there are like 10 other people that live there too so we could potentially pick them up too haha. Also while we were tracting we contacted these brothas that were out in their driveway playing basketball and they said that we could only preach to them by playing basketball, I love when that happens! We destroyed them though haha and we would have taught them but they were all super drunk and we had to go to an appointment.. But at least we taught them that white boys can ball!!! #ballislife 

Also it was Mothers Day which was awesome of course!! Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Jen <3 Zach (Mamma's Day)

May the 4th duhh (Elder Boyde)

My study chair:/ (it's the last one too)

FREE COUCH!!

What's up guys???

We had a great week this week! I had to say goodbye to Elder Burtenshaw which was a bummer because he is my boy!! That was by far the fastest transfer of my mission so far even though it was a 7 week transfer! But it's all good because I got Elder Boyde and he is a stud too! He is from Olympia, Washington and he came out the transfer after me. As soon as we picked him up we got back to work! It was funny he's not used to this type of an area (the hood) so I had to teach him some of the ways!!

This week was wild though!! We had an appointment up by Brooklyn which is super far away from our apartment so we had to get a ride from the other elders to it because they had the car. After the appointment we called them to come pick us up so they could take us home (it was 8:45 at night by the way) and they got in a car accident!! Dang!!! So we had to hop on the bus which took us kinda back to our house but not really and we had to pretty much run 2 miles back to our apartment to make it inside by 9:30! Overall this week we have probably walked like 40 miles, not having a car stinks!!! And Elder Boyde left his bike in his last area so we can't use those either! Believe it or not we actually had a super good week though, we picked up 3 new investigators and taught 12 lessons!

Our apartment has the absolute minimum amount of things that you need to survive, we have 3 folding tables for our study room and then 3 cheap folding chairs, and other than that it was empty. I always thought it would be nice to have a couch or something in there but I didn't get my hopes up. Then one day while we were walking we found a nice leather couch that somebody put out by the dumpster. Of course we were cautious about the situation because it could have bed bugs or something else that is sketchy, so we prayed about it, and carried it 250 yards home!!!! Heck yeah!!!!!!! So far we haven't had anything attack us in our sleep so I think we are good!!!! #SuperStoked!!!!

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

-Elder Larson

 

The Dream District

Bye Elder Burtenshaw:/

Michael!

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!