$$$$$$$$$$$

What's good??

This week was $$$$$$$$$!!! (not in actual money but in blessings from Heavenly Father). To start it out, we had zone training on Tuesday and afterwards lunch was provided for the whole zone by the mission president's wife because our zone won a competition in the mission Christmas conference. It was super good! Zone training turned out good as well! Then I went on exchanges with Elder Garcia and he came to my area. We had a sick lesson with the Silvers, we taught Troy the Word of Wisdom and Renee (who hasn't smoked a cigarette since Dec. 28) bore strong testimony of it to her son! It was amazing! Later that week we also taught him the Law of Chastity and he committed to live both of them!! They are doing so well!!

I was gonna wait until the end of my letter to tell y'all about this but I can't wait any longer and very few of you probably ever reach the end of my letters anyways so I'll put it here.... Anyways, 6 OF OUR INVESTIGATORS CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY!!!!! #$$$$$$$$$$$ SO PUMPED!!!! Renee, Troy and Rebecca all came and are now on date for baptism on February 4. Katrina came and is on date for February 11 and Samara & Chris came and Samara is on date for February 11. Greg came as well and he will be on date soon. Super stoked!!! We also had a ton of recent converts and less actives come to church as well (including a guy who just reached out to us and wants to get back into church who is this JACKED Asian dude that grew up in all sorts of gangs and he gave us some fresh hair cuts). That was a good Sunday!!

While I was on exchanges this week I was planning for the next day and while I was planning I really felt like we should stop by our investigators Katrina & John. The next day we show up at her door and she lets us right in to teach her. Before we began the lesson she opened up to us about a dream that she had the previous night that was really bothering her. Katrina has been going through a ton. She has been fighting cancer for the past 6 years and on top of that in 2013 her son was murdered here in Baltimore. In the dream she had, her son appeared to her and looked extremely cold. He kept saying to her that he is cold and that he needs her (Katrina) to go find him. "Coincidentally" we had planned to teach Katrina about the Plan of Salvation that day and how those that didn't get the chance to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be baptized will learn about the gospel in the spirit world and about how we have the responsibility and privilege to perform ordinances such as baptism for our deceased family members in the temple. (if you are reading this and don't know what it all means go to Mormon.org) By the end of the lesson all the worries that Katrina had were wiped clean and she was so pumped to be able to do that for her son. Right then we put her on date for baptism on February 11. Such a sweet lesson! Also this week we picked up 2 new investigators and the huge family that we were teaching now consists of 10 people. Dang! Hopefully we can get them to church and progressing towards baptism soon.

Have a good week!!!

-Elder Larson

Sistas trynna get at us!!

DC TEMPLE SWAG & HUMIDITY

Howdy!

This week was fantastic, of course. It is super dang cold outside but it's a good thing that we have the Spirit of the Lord burning within us!!!! (Although it doesn't prevent frostbite). The humidity makes it so pretty much no matter how many coats/shirts/pants/socks etc. you have on, you basically have nothing on! Likely all the problem is just that I am really soft though..

Sick stuff happened this week!! To start it off, on Tuesday we went down to the DC temple to do baptisms for the dead with our recent converts, the Jeghedes!!! It was such an amazing experience! I can't even begin to tell you how strong the Spirit was there. They did temple work for some ancestors on Sister Jeghede's side and while we were there Brother Jeghede got so pumped up to come back and do the temple work for his ancestors too! It was such a cool experience! Also there was a temple worker there that I met at the beginning of my mission who at the time was very recently baptized. It's amazing how prepared so many people are for the gospel and how well they are progressing so shortly after they are baptized! The Jeghede's daughters are already talking about where they want to go on their missions to. The Lord's work is hastening!!

On Wednesday we had transferred and Elder Carlson got transferred up to Pennsylvania but Elder Howard came in to replace him and he is a stud! He is from Denver, CO and has been out about 20 months. It's gonna be a good transfer!

For 2017 I made a goal that I would find 2 new investigators to reach the standard of excellence every week and on Sunday night at dinner time we still hadn't found any yet for last week... There goes that goal haha.... NOT!! We had a lot of stuff that we had to take care of this week so we didn't have a ton of time to work but Heavenly Father always comes in clutch when we need him to. After dinner last night we went out and found 2 new investigators without any fret. Such a miracle! First we picked up Norman and we taught him outside his house which was super cold but it was well worth it! Then we picked up Brandon and he is super cool! He was a referral from a member in the Jones Falls ward. And we have a bunch of investigators that are still plugging along, getting closer and closer to baptism!

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Sister Jeghedes postin up at the temple 

The Jeghedes

FAMILY OF 9??? / NEW YEARS

What's up!!

This week was super good!! First of all I hope that y'all had a good New Years and that you set some money goals for this year! To start the week off last week we started teaching Samara Goodwin and she is awesome!! Her dad is a recent convert and her mom has been a member for a while and she is super solid! She wants to get baptized super bad!! And when we go over to teach them they usually feed us:)

We had another crazy week of finding! We found 5 more investigators this week it was awesome! 3 of them are from that same family that we found last week, now we are teaching 9 of them!! Family of 9!!! And there are more of them too! Super sick!! They are doing good. Also this week at church we were supposed to have 6 people come to church but right before church they all bailed because of various reasons!! Dang!! But Heavenly Father brought a man named Greg to church with his girlfriend and we picked him up as an investigator and he seems solid!! Super cool! Also we saw a ton of sketchy stuff happen on the bus that I'm not gonna tell you about sorry haha:) New Years Eve we got some sketchy Baltimore Chinese food and hung out with the other elders at the church! It was a good week!

Have a good week!

-Elder Larson

Bus Life Swag

Dang!!

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

​

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!!!