New Year

January 9, 2012
First official week of 2012 has come and gone! This past week has been kind of crazy with a lot of ups and a lot of downs...but that is the life of a missionary I have realized. It started out good with one night at the Liberty Jail, I felt antsy so I walked around the rotunda (its a big circle around the jail). Well walking around it then turned into skipping and eventually led to dancing! I had a good little dance session in their, no worries I still respected the center :) It felt good though to get my dance on for a bit. Later that evening I took a group of about 30 BYU students and their professor through a presentation. It was such an amazing group, they brought the spirit in such a beautiful way and I was still able to be myself with them. Near the end, one student asked if they could sing "Praise To The Man" and of course I said yes...the spirit radiated through the rotunda as they sang about the Prophet and their testimonies carried through their voices. I was so grateful for this group because they reminded me how amazing music really is and the power that can come from it. The best part happened as they were leaving because they all took cards to write down their friends names that I could call and I ended up with 7!! By the way, 7 is VERY unusual, I have been lucky to get a COMMENT these days so it was a very awesome experience.

Thursday we got to plan outside again because it was around68 degrees! Chyaa! But we had our district meeting that day, I trained on working with members which was fun, I love training. Our district leader trained on remembering Jesus Christ and helping those we teach see that our invitations to read, pray, go to church, etc are all for Jesus Christ, not us. It was an amazing reminder to me of an experience I had before my mission when I was at my interview with my Stake President filling out my mission papers. He asked me who Jesus Christ was to me and I had never been asked that before so I was kind of at a loss of words for a minute. As I sat pondering who he was, my heart filled with gratitude realizing the love, strength, compassion, grace, mercy, and support Jesus Christ has for me. I had the opportunity to relay my love for our Savior to him and I couldn't keep the tears from falling from my eyes as I was taken back by the spirit. My stake president sat listening to me with tears running down his cheeks and we relished in the love that Jesus Christ has for all of us. At that moment I realized who I was going out on a mission for and I KNEW that I had to be out there serving him. This memory has played a big part in my day to day work and I am so grateful to have had that memory come back so fully.

Friday we met with our investigator Greg who we wanted to have baptized back in December but our bishop said no because he lived with a girl. Well I felt like maybe the Lord was telling us that we needed to teach Greg more since he might have a problem with tithing since that was all we had left to teach him. So, we taught him tithing and Greg had NO problem with tithing and was even ready to pay fast offerings! After that I knew we needed to call President Keyes and get his opinion. He called us back about 2 hours later and gave us the go ahead!!! Greg will be getting baptized THIS Saturday!! We are SO excited. Yesterday in church, he told about how the gospel has helped him in his life while we were in gospel principles and after he finished, he had tears in his eyes! He has grown so much and has this amazing testimony. Everyone keeps saying its like he has been a member for awhile and I couldn't agree more.

The "E" family has been the roller coaster for us this week. We saw progression and then we saw a lot of digression. They love the gospel and know that it is true but have forgotten to do the basics that we taught them a long time ago. They have been working on quitting smoking still, they have cheated every day which I don't blame them since its a hard habit to kick but now Mae and Jim wont be able to be baptized this Saturday. We are praying that all the kids will still be ready for this Saturday though. I know that your prayers have really helped them a lot and I am VERY grateful. Pray that they understand all the baptismal interview questions and that they stay prepared because Satan is working VERY hard on them...he knows there is power in a family joining the church. Grrr!

Although it has been a whirlwind of a week, I am so grateful for the tender mercies we saw. Our favorite part member couple, Bri and Caleb, took us out to lunch on Saturday. I am working on them to move to Arizona haha. We have invited them both to church for the past 3 weeks and Bri finally came yesterday! It was awesome! We also had another part member family we are teaching come to church! It was the most amazing Sunday and the best part was the testimonies that were shared because it was fast Sunday. Their was a 15 year old girl who bore her testimony about the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon and said that all the youth in the ward need to read it and to share their testimonies with their friends this year! It was amazing, I have never heard that and I am so surprised by the youth these days. There is power behind their testimonies and such truth. I am grateful for being up here in the Liberty 2nd ward and for the young women that I have grown so close to these past months. Transfers are next week and I have a feeling I'll be getting voted off the island. Hopefully I go somewhere tropical ;-)

I love you all and am so grateful for your testimonies and love. I know I couldn't survive out here without all of your support and encouragement.

Love,

Sista Larson