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!

5????/SECTION 89

Fam​,

My goal in writing this weekly email is to guilt trip all of you that are members of the church that maybe haven't been doing as much missionary work as you should be.... Just kidding, take it how it is, but if that is the case then I invite you to start doing more missionary work:)

We were all over the place this week! We started off in Jones Falls at their district meeting and then exchanged after! I'm sure it was amusing for all around us to watch two, peculiarly dressed, white kids hauling around a huge bag of luggage and and excessive amount of groceries. We carried this load from Towson to Baltimore with only a little bit of assistance from the bus #BusLife. All in all the exchange was pretty eventful, between soap box preaching on the bus and teaching people that may or may not have been under the influence of something illegal and/or smelled like urine. (Welcome to Baltimore)

Wednesday we exchanged back and later that evening went on another exchange with the Essex elders, Elder Campbell came here with me. We celebrated Doctrine and Covenants Section 89 Appreciation Day (commonly known in the world as "4/20" or #420blazeitYOLOswag) while on this exchange with a dinner appointment at a members home. After the dinner appointment we became aware of the fact that their entire kitchen was completely infested with ants and a very fresh arrangement of other insects as well. Yummy!

Our investigator Justin has been on fire lately. We stopped by on Friday to get him prepared for his baptism interview on Saturday and he had an interesting request from us... He wanted NOT 1, NOT 2, NOT 3, NOT 4, BUT 5 COPIES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON that he could give to his girlfriend, cousins and brothers who he has already been sharing his testimony with about the Book of Mormon. He has had some really cool experiences with the Book of Mormon and all he wants to do is share it with everyone! Not to get into too much detail, but he had a dream (before he read anything from the Book of Mormon) with great spiritual significance that actually quoted a passage of scripture from the Book of Mormon. He tells everyone he sees that the Book of Mormon is a book of answers, and he is exactly right! If you don't know that for yourself then read it and you will soon know that! If you aren't sharing it like Justin is then I encourage you to also read it and pray about it and you will want to! Justin has already passed out 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and is getting baptized this Saturday. We're super pumped about that!

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

#Section 89

Under Armour HQ

Somebody crashed their car through the doors of the Inner Harbor building in Baltimore and drove off afterwards haha.

COW SKIN, SEBASTIAN'S BAPTISM & TEACHING ABOUT COMP. INVENTORIES???

My beloved weekly email list,

This week was delicious, or as Lehi would say: "it was desirable above all other fruit." (1 Nephi 8:12). Literally speaking now, I'm not sure if all of us here would have considered my week to have been "delicious", unless you are a big fan of cow skin. In fact, cow skin was on the menu this week and was consumed by myself. Cow skin tastes just about how it sounds like it would taste, so let your imagination go to work and I'll send a picture of it to finalize that thought. That being said, more effort and sacrifice was put into that meal than probably any other meal I've had in a while, perhaps on my mission! It is interesting how the families that have the least tend to give the most and are the most willing to help others out. On top of that, they are always the happiest too! In this case it was the Jeghedes who have only been in the country (from Africa) for a little over a year and are trying to get on their feet here. They are seriously some of the greatest people you will ever meet!

On the topic of Africans, Sebastian got baptized this week! He's such a stud! After he got baptized he bore his testimony and told how grateful he was for us, it was awesome! After the baptism we got ice cream at Cold Stone and the worker lived in Utah for 2 years so we're gonna go back to teach him now! Sick!

We had zone conference this week which was fantastic. Afterwards we went on exchanges with the Susquehanna elders and that went really well! I went with Elder Barney who is fairly new in the mission up to Susquehanna. As soon as we got into the apartment, I told him that we were gonna take some time to clean up their apartment, especially to mop the floors (it was nasty). But in response he told me (with enthusiasm) that we were gonna go out and work instead! #GreenieFire I decided not to extinguish said fire and we went out to work haha! (Don't worry though, we eventually got it cleaned). But we were able to find 2 new investigators for them so that was good!

On Friday we felt like we needed to stop by Justin, so we did and when we got there he was super bummed out! Apparently he was having some hardcore GF problems, they had been in a huge fight right before we came by. He was super pumped that we stopped by though because he needed to talk to the boys! As you might guess (if you guessed this then you are the GOAT) we then taught him about the companionship inventory which is found in Preach My Gospel. (If you are unaware, we hold companionship inventories every week to resolve any problems or conflict in the companionship) and it helped him out a ton! #TeachPeopleNotLessons!!!

This week we found 3 new investigators, Meagan who is a referral from a less active member, Noel who can't read but is a stud, and Aayuba who is straight from Africa and barely speaks English! 

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Sebastian!

TRANSFORMATION TUESDAY!!! (

Elder Larson on the left, Elder Collins on the right

Cow skin...

MAN IN THE MIRROR

Fam,

Guilt and shame entered into my soul after I sent my weekly group email to you last week... Horrific images and memories filled my mind. In particular, my memory was brought to a letter that I received from my mom after I sent a similar group email over a year ago. Attached in the letter was my weekly email compared with three or four of my friends weekly emails. Disappointment filled the envelope as my mother lovingly rebuked me for my lack of effort put into my weekly email. As I pondered concerning the matter I realized that my priorities were misplaced and that I needed to "make that change" (-Michael Jackson) in my behaviors before they became too big of a problem.

Luckily for me, the principle that we learn in Ether 12:27 is true and works miracles! Our weaknesses can in fact be made strengths through the Lord! As you all are aware, my weekly email last week was in fact "weakness". I hope that through the Lord this weakness of mine will be made into a strength. I put a little bit more preparation into my weekly email this week in hopes that I won't receive another letter of disappointment from my beloved mom.

"Yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land (Baltimore), for which we will praise his name forever." (Alma 26:12) Indeed, many mighty miracles we have witnessed this week.

We had zone training on Tuesday and that turned out to be a good meeting. The theme was on the church that Christ established while He was on earth, the great apostasy and the Restoration of Christ's church. If you haven't had the chance to historically study these events and the events that lead up to them, I encourage you to do so because they are fascinating! Studying for that definitely strengthened my testimony of it!

After zone training we had a money lesson with Justin and his god-brother Malik on the Law of Chastity. Let's just say that Justin was pretty bummed out about it because Prom with his girlfriend is coming up next month and he was looking forward to that (if you know what I mean). But he knew that he needs to follow God's commandments. By the time we came back for the next lesson he had already talked to his girlfriend and set the expectation that he was going to follow the Law of Chastity and that they weren't going to do anything until they get married, if they get married. Now his girlfriend is interested in learning more about the church. Let me remind you, he is 18 years old in his first year of college. I'm not sure about you, but I wouldn't have had the faith to do that if I was in his shoes! What a stud!

Last week we invited Sebastian to pray about a date that he could get baptized on and he set himself on date for this Saturday (the 15th). We're super pumped for him! We had an awesome lesson with him about temple work and he is stoked to get sealed in the temple with his family one day! This week we were able to find two new investigators, Cindy and Joseph, and we started teaching an old investigator named Ed again. Things are rolling here! 

Quote of the week: 

"Greg you're a stud!" "I'm not a stud, I'm just a senior!" ~Our investigator Greg

Have a good week!​​

-Elder Larson

Tihiseen

Justin

SUPER BOWL $$$$!!!!

FAM!

This week was good! In my subject line the Super Bowl is in reference to general conference because that's how hyped we were for it!! Missionaries turn up for general conference! Elder Collins got here and we got to work! We were super low on miles so we spent some quality time on the bus, which if you aren't aware is definitely a luxurious experience here in Baltimore. (Not really)

I feel inadequate because my email is going to be shorter than usual today. (Poor management of time and distractions) But one quick story for the week! While we were watching conference with our investigator Sebastian and his family, Brother Costa gave a super good talk directed at investigators. After conference, Sebastian told us that he was super grateful for what we do as missionaries and he is praying about when he should get baptized so hopefully he will be on date next week! Also we put Justin on date for April 29th!!

Have a good week!!

-Elder Larson

Lifting weights with Elder Collins

Michael obsession