Hello and Good Morning to you all! This week was absolutely amazing and a very busy week in a good way :) We taught 19 lessons this week, highest we've gotten and found 5 new investigators, another high!! It was such a fun week and I don't even have time to tell you everything that happened so I will give you the highlights.

Thursday mornings, we always have a training with the sisters here at the Jail along with the senior couples that live up here and the VC directors the Adams. Well, I was asked to give a training about using our time wisely which I believe they asked me to train on it as a subtle hint about how I needed to use MY time better haha. But it was a wonderful training, I feel like in life sometimes we all need to figure out the best way to use our time wisely so we can have productive days. My word choice that went along with that is diligence which I have been trying to focus on this transfer because it is a Christlike attribute that can provide a lot of strength to me. I feel like from studying and giving my training that my testimony grew a lot from seeing the beauty of being here in a Visitor Center. Later that day, we taught 5 lessons, including seeing the Doctor who asked for pamphlets who is STILL reading the Book of Mormon! We're just waiting for her to call us so we can go back and teach her more :)

Saturday was absolutely chaos. In just the short 6 hours we were on shift, 145 people had come in for a tour which right now is not normal because we've been getting around 20 people! Sister Whittier got a lot of the bigger groups but I got the challenging groups who either were not very respectful, kept their crying kids down by the jail instead of taking them out or had non members who had their opinions about our church right from the beginning. It was a very rough shift for me and I was grateful when shift was over at 3pm! But during dinner, we got a voicemail from Liberty Jail so we called back and Sister Vickers (another sister) told me that a man came back to the jail cause someone left something there and wanted to call me to say thank you for the testimony or "prayer" as he called it, that I said at the very end of the tour! I was SHOCKED! I figured out it was this non member younger guy who came in with his mom and step dad who were members. He was one who had his opinions of our beliefs and had some short remarks through my tour that made it challenging. He left his phone number so I called him back and we ended up having this 30 min conversation about his spiritual experiences he had at the jail, his challenges in his life he is facing, his past religious experiences and how he is truly intrigued about the "Mormon religion" but has his concerns! He told me thank you through the whole thing for my "prayer" and how he felt like it was directly for him to hear. Our conversation was the coolest one I have had out here and it was such a MIRACLE! He wanted to know if he could ask me more questions later this week if he had any and I offered us to teach him at the jail and with a surprised and excited voice said "yeah that would be awesome!" After I got off the phone, as Sister Whittier and I sat in the car in shock, I could NOT believe what just happened!! I was SO excited for him and for the opportunity to bear my testimony to a rough crowd and have it hit someone in just the perfect way. The Lord really did fill my mouth with the right words to say! :)

After that amazing experience, we went to visit one of our investigators Jim. We've been trying to teach his daughter Mary and she was there that night! Mary is 24 and reminds me SO much of my sister Lindsay in this artsy, creative carefree way and the fact that she loves authentic things :) We just barely met Mary not too long ago and Saturday night, I got to sit down with her as she told me her life story, how she met the missionaries like 5 years ago when she was at college and how she is trying to figure things out in her life. It was really amazing because there were so many experiences in her life that I could relate to and I felt so grateful for the trials that I overcame. It is so wonderful when you get to look back AFTER the trial and see the blessings that come from it. It is a lot harder though to see the blessings when you are in them though, no doubt! But it reminds me of a scripture I read in D&C this morning. D&C 58:4 talks about "after much tribulation come the blessings" It goes on to talk about how the day is not yet but is nigh at hand and I love that. What a true principle that is for us in life, sometimes it takes A LOT of tribulation until the blessings come...but they ALWAYS come :) It also says "ye shall be crowned with much glory" which is AMAZING! The words CROWNED and GLORY are such powerful words. What a beautiful promise to be reminded of everyday and especially during our trials.

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH!!!! Thank you for your emails and letters and support and funny comments that bring me happiness. I love them :) PS my first picture is a battle wound from playing ultimate frisbee inside the gym, I get competitive I guess! Who Knew?! The others are from this awesome area we serve in and the pictures don't even do it justice to how pretty the leaves are here.

Love

SISTA LARSON