Week 9-Family Mission Plans, the Wave, Perfect Moments

Hola, familia!  Well, it's been nine weeks since I entered the MTC, and I can't believe how much has happened since then!

First off, I'm super jealous of Kyle and Michael: Baltimore's going to just explode now!  Too bad they couldn't have three Elder Larsens there. Canada's better anyway. ;)  I'm also a little jealous of Jori and her European tour!  But Annie told me that her car almost exploded or something?  What happened there?

I'm glad to hear you're off to a good start with the Family Mission Plan!  We're seeing it work wonders for people here in Sparwood, and it's amazing to see how vastly different people's goals are based on their abilities.  One woman, Sister Salmon, used to find it a challenge to even talk to people she didn't know, and everyone she knows is in the church.  As she went shopping a few weeks ago, the cashier simply asked her, "What did you do this weekend?" Ordinarily, she would've stated some abstract fact about her few days off, but because of her goals of sharing the gospel, she mustered the courage to say, "I went to General Conference!  It's a meeting for my church."  The cashier simply responded with a short "Oh," but Sister Salmon felt her comfort zone expand.  Other families have had specific goals to invite friends over for dinner with the missionaries, and, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we've picked up an investigator in just such a way.  Sometimes we need healthy goals to give us a little extra push. As R. Val Johnson writes, "Some of us ... find the idea of talking to others about the gospel intimidating. We need a little help to get started. That’s when a [family] mission plan comes in handy."  I'm glad you're putting one together!

It's so exciting to hear about so many people going to serve missions!  It reminds me of Elder Nelson's fantastic talk in General Conference about "catching the wave" of missionary work.  I'll be honest: When I heard that, I felt like I was being given a wonderful pat on the back just for being a part of this marvelous period of time!  ...Until I came across a quote from a talk in the 1980's:

"It is possible for a man to get on a train that goes 60 miles per hour and say to himself, 'I am going 60 miles per hour.'  But it is not true.  Unless he is moving ahead on his own power, he is standing still." -J. Paul Getty

The wave of missionary work is certainly strong, but that doesn't decrease the importance or necessity of each individual fulfilling the calling.  Even though we have that insane driving force of the Lord hastening His work, I've definitely come to realize the importance of hastening His work myself!

...You mean people actually read my blog?!  Ha, weird; never saw that coming. :P  It's definitely been fun to try to reply to all of the letters and emails!  I was falling a little behind, so guess what I did last Wednesday? ...I bought a typewriter at a pawn shop!!  Yeah, that's probably not too surprising, but at least my letters should start to be a little more legible.  ...That is, once I find more ink for it...

Funny you should say that you saw a little bit of Dad in my object lesson, because Grandma Larsen just emailed me the same thing, and I can't help but agree.  He definitely taught me well; when we were setting up for the Fireside last week, I was the one in charge of all of the technology, and all I could think of was, "I'm glad dad taught me about *insert random bit of technology here* (Everything from video cards to wireless adapters to VGA cables)."  I also made a heart-warming discovery when I plugged my SD card into a computer at the Wal-Mart in Cranbrook:  I have a few of Dad's Itty-Bitty Disney pictures on there!  It made me chuckle and smile, and Elder Lauzon just thought I was crazy for laughing at a seemingly insignificant piece of tile.

Mother's Day is coming right up, and I still have no idea how that's going to work out! :(  But I'm looking forward to it; our ward's fairly technologically adept. :P

You asked me a question last week about what it means to put the Lord's kingdom first, right?  I've been thinking about that, and I came up with a scripture in Matthew 6: 31-34-

"Therefore take no though, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

"(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Personally, I take that to mean we shouldn't be too worried about the rest of the world or the rest of eternity: We need to focus on following Christ in every individual moment.  We may not be able to be perfect people, but that doesn't mean we can't be perfect at times.  This kind of focus is definitely difficult, but through little reminders (CTR rings, PJS bracelets, garments [for the endowed]), we can truly recognize that all things are, indeed, types of Christ; with some training, we can find the spiritual application first: Rather than later.

We're looking forward to possibly start volunteering at the Fernie public library as Family History consultants!  They just got Ancestry.com, and they need people who can show others how to utilize it; it'll be fun to see dad's handiwork in practice!

Well, this definitely isn't my definition of a perfect letter, but mom told me I have to send them all.  So I love you guys; I'm praying for you, and thinking of you often!

Love,
Elder Larsen

Week 8-Object Lesson and Member Missionaries

I forgot to warn you that P-day this week is on Tuesday because it's the end of a transfer!  Which means that I've already been here in Sparwood for six weeks.  Yeah.  I don't know about you, but that's pretty much flown by for me!

Let's see... Three pretty cool/important things happened in the past week, but I only have a couple minutes to write about them, so we'll see!

First off, Laura.  She's a less-active recent-convert (LARC) whome we've been teaching since we got here.  Last time we met with her, she expressed an interest in object lessons, and my creative side just exploded!  I was tearing apart extension cords and clocks, buying light bulbs and batteries, and just all-around having fun trying to recreate a lesson I'd seen many years before.  I ended up teaching her about Matthew 5:14-16, or letting our light shine before men.  I created a circuit that, when powered by the spiritual battery of prayer, scripture study, and church attendance, allowed the light on the other end to shine.  Then, I placed two ends of the wire in a jar of water labeled, "Weaknesses, fears, sins, and trials," causing the light to go out.  But, when I added a teaspoon of "Faith" (AKA salt), the light comes back on.  I proceeded to bear testimony that I know that, no matter our own trials and sorrows, the Savior's Atonement can buoy us up and rekindle our light: All it takes is a teaspoon of faith.  Laura looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "That's exactly what I needed to hear this week."  I let her keep the physical representation of her spiritual battery, we prayed, and we left.  I hope she comes to church next week.

Next, Susan.  You know, this is the story of a miracle.  Since the first week that Elder Lauzon and I have arrived here, we've been praying for a baptism in May; ever since then, we've seen great successes.  But Susan's was the most promising.  We'd been asked to aid Brother Fisk (I'll tell you about him some other time) in giving her a priesthood blessing before her doctor's appointment.  We had no idea who she was, but we readily agreed!  Upon arriving in her home, we took stock of the situation:  Susan is an elderly woman dying of cancer; it became clear within the first few minutes that she was also troubled by her mother's death two weeks ago.  Despite the gloom her situation might bring, she greeted us with a warm smile and freshly-baked banana cake.  We entered, sat down, and began to chat; not five minutes later did the words, "I'd like to be baptized," leave her lips.  Nothing quite compared to the feeling in that moment.  We gave her a blessing, walked her to her car, and left.  We'll be teaching her in the next two weeks!

Lastly, we put on a member missionary fireside on Sunday evening.  You know, being a missionary has really opened my eyes to see how much more I could have done as a member missionary before!  But one of the things we challenged all in attendance to do was to create a Family Mission Plan, and I think I'd like to challenge my family to do the same!  There should still be at least one copy of Preach My Gospel somewhere in the house, right?  Good.  Turn to page 220.  Read it together, and discuss what elements you'd like to have in your plan. I'll follow up with you next week! :)

I think that's pretty much it for this week;  I've got to get driving to Elkford for our dinner appointment with the Juneaus!  Thanks for the continued support, and I love you!

-Elder Larsen

Week 7-Special Deliveries, Companion Exchange, and a Hoarder

So I get home from doing companion exchanges on Wednesday night, and what happens?  ...I get a package from home delivered by the Gurrs!!  Mom, I know you're generous, but that was wonderful.  Of course, now Elder Lauzon wants to play Clue every chance we get; we're tied at 4-4 right now, but I'll keep you updated!  It's also been pleasant to hear some different music for a change, and it felt just like I'd come downstairs to find my Easter basket waiting on the glass table. Thanks, Mom. :)

(A little background might be handy here.  The Gurrs are a family from Sparwood who came to Utah for Conference last week.  They were kind enough to contact Mom and take a package back to Jared for her!  Included in Jared's requests were mission-worthy-music, short sleeve shirts, rook cards, Clue game, bold colored ties, and Oreos).

Well, this week's been eventful!  By far, my favorite experience was the companion exchange.  Elder Sunia-Mafile'o, our district leader, switched me places: He came here to Sparwood, and I got to go proselyting in Cranbrook!!  While Cranbrook isn't by any stretch of the imagination a "big city," it's way bigger than Fernie, Sparwood, or Elkford.  Unfortunately, this meant that Elder Jackman and I were left to our own devices there.  That might not sound bad, but he and I got here on the same transfer.  So we're both greenies.

Surprisingly, it didn't go too badly!  We did make the mistake of allowing a family's two dogs to escape their property and spent the subsequent 20 minutes trying to wrangle them into our truck... But, after that, it was marvelous.  We taught a 10 year-old girl whose father's a recent convert, and by the end of the lesson, she shouted towards the kitchen, "Hey, dad!  What day in April can I get baptized?"  It was pretty sweet, so I'm praying for her to stay strong.

We also got to visit Sister Kimball, a less-active woman living common-law with her boyfriend.  Probably the experience of a lifetime.  Why?
...She's a hoarder.  Like, I thought I was a pretty bad pack-rat, but... just no.  There was so much stuff, I could barely see her when we all sat down!  It was so cool!  E. J-Money (Jackman's nickname) and I got to talk to her a bit about conference, and then we took off.  I wish I could go back, though!

When we got back to the apartment that night, I got to open all of my mail that's arrived in the last three weeks, including a wonderful package from Sister Jones.  I'd been lamenting the fact that I had no pictures of the friends I talk about all the time, and lo and behold, here comes a neatly bound collection of pictures, memories, and letters from those very friends.  It was very touching; it gets to stay in my backpack all the time, now.

The best lesson experience Elder Lauzon and I had this week took place in Elkford, of all places!  It was only the third time we'd been there, and we decided to meet with Manuel.

Manuel became a member of the church as a young adult whilst he was living amid the political and civil unrest of Peru; he said that in a world filled with so much suffering and shuffling, his faith was the only thing he could really hold on to.  But, when he left Peru, he stopped attending church, and hasn't been in twenty years.

It's a miracle we found him, really; his records are lost somewhere either in Peru or Ontario.  It just so happened that our Ward Mission Leader discovered him as a co-worker!  The Lord's definitely prepared him to enter back into His fold, though.  He's been studying his Bible every for quite some time now, and has had several extremely personal experiences in which he can recognize the Lord's hand.  We taught him about the Restoration, gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, invited him to church, he agreed, and we left while the Spirit was still there.  He didn't come to church yesterday, but he told us we could come back.

I got to see home again!  Shortly thereafter, we knocked on the doors of Dean and Nicole: Some former investigators.  They immediately invited us in, and the kids were showing us all of their toys and pets.  Dean pulled up Google Earth and did a street view of both mine and Elder Lauzon's houses.  It was a really strange experience; they were more welcoming and encouraging than most of the members here are!  But the whole family is extremely active in the Catholic church; they invited us to teach them at dinner this Thursday, so we'll see what's up!

Do you think you could email me a picture of the house?  It sounds like the flowers are going to be just beautiful, and I'd love to see them.  You're right: Dad's still a guiding influence in all of our lives.  I find myself missing him.  A lot.  But then I get to help teach about the Plan of Salvation, and I know right where he is.  I've been worrying about letting him down, too; whenever I find myself at a loss for words, I think, "Dad would know what to say right now."  But I know that he's continually proud of all of us, regardless of what circumstances we get ourselves into; that's the kind of man he was and is.  Just like our Heavenly Father, he just wants us to be happy; and I feel that every day.

Well, give Ashley and Taylor big hugs from me!  Their emails always make me laugh and smile.  I'll try to reply to them more frequently!

I love you, family!  Thanks for your prayers and your faith; as President Monson stated in General Conference, a mission is truly a family affair on both sides of the veil.

Hoping you have a great week,
-Elder Larsen

P.S.: I think Kyle's going to... Lubbock, Texas, Spanish speaking!

Week 7-Pictures

This is Elder Lauzon!

This is a blurry picture of me, my trainer, one of the missionaries in his first district, and that missionary's "son," Elder Ritter

Here's the truck!  Sorry, Elder Lauzon isn't much of a photographer...

This is a sign outside the bar in Hosmer; I found it humorous. :)

Me hangin' out at the Sparwood sign!

And now, I'm standing in front of the tire of the world's largest truck!

Week 6-Q&A and Letter to Mission President

I've officially been on a mission for just over 40 days and nights: That's a longer period of time than all of the rain of Noah's day!  Yet, it seems to have gone by so quickly.

I'm thinking that this week I'll try to answer your questions, and then just paste a copy of my letter to my mission president in here. Sound good?  Good. :)

So.  The Sparwood Ward.  It's probably the smallest ward that I've ever seen, but Elder Lauzon says it's still bigger than his home ward.  They seem to have about 70 people attend church every week, but with the four days on, four days off shift work going at the mines, not everybody can be there every Sunday.  Fortunately, those people who do come are extremely active, and are willing to give us anything we need to do the work!

And yes, that includes dinner appointments.  You know, coming into the mission, I expected to almost never have a dinner appointment, but I can count the number of times we haven't on one hand!  The generosity of these people just astounds me (One member even made us prime rib!), and I find myself nearly floored by it every time.  Elder Lauzon says that's one of the ways that my green is still showing, so I'm working on more professional gratitude. :P  But when we do have to cook, we have everything we need; we're fortunate enough to be staying in a pretty decent-sized apartment, (almost) fully furnished!  One of the members here even took the last missionaries on a pretty extensive shopping trip, stockpiling the cabinets with at least three months'-worth of food.

...Or so I thought!  Elder Lauzon has this goal to devour all of the food in the apartment as quickly as possible so that we can get to eating just rice for every meal.  He kind of spent a lot of his mission money already, so he's trying to live off of $10 a week to try to get out of the hole.  He's super funny that way.  He also has a goal to lose 15 pounds in the next year, and we both figure that if we gain weight first, it'll be easier to lose!  I guess it's working, 'cause I've gained five pounds since I got here.  'Course, considering I lost ten pounds within the first three weeks of my mission, it might not be saying much. :P

Elder Lauzon is fantastic.  He's exactly the companion I need; he forces me way out of my comfort zone, because he knows that's the only way to help me grow: And help me he has.

Just a bit of his background: He grew up Catholic, but definitely not active; they went on holidays and special occasions.  He first met the missionaries several years back, and just talked to them about how their first names were both "Elder."  A couple years later, he remembered the Church's name on their tags and did some Googling.  Once he read all of the commitments we have to make, he pretty much just gave up.

Until a couple of years later, when a girl he was working with starting telling him about the Church.  He was interested, but the girl was less-active and didn't want to attend with him.  Then, the KFC where he worked hired another Mormon girl!  He starting tutoring her in math, saw the Ensign on her counter, and Googled again.  From what he read, Mormons are always trying to share the gospel, so all he needed to do was wait for her to talk about it.

...But she didn't.  So he went to Mormon.org and invited the missionaries.
...They never came.

He invited them again.
...They never came.

He called the hotline.  The lady asked, "Do you have any specific questions about the Church?"  He said, "Well, no; I just want to learn more about it."  To which, she replied, "Well, then I guess I can't help you," and hung up the phone!

So he went to talk to this girl he was tutoring, set up a meeting with the missionaries through her, and was baptized 5 weeks later.  Pretty crazy, huh?  But yeah, he's just wonderful.  He gets discouraged sometimes when he thinks about his family without the gospel, but he has faith that it'll happen for them one day.

Um... Conference... First-off, I was shocked that Sister Dalton got released!  I wore my virtue tie the next day, just like Elder Stanley G. Ellis did.  I'm kind of concerned about President Packer making it to the next Conference.  His talk reminded me of Elder Wirthlin's last talk: It had the same power, same conviction, same testimony.  If it was his last address, it was a good one; he's definitely a family-man.  I don't think I had one favorite talk...  President Packer's poem was certainly poignant and good.  But I feel like my top two were President Uchtdorf's in the Sunday morning session about walking in the light, and Elder Holland's "Help thou mine unbelief" address.  Very good, for some obvious reasons.  It was awesome to see such a close up of Sister Winters singing in the choir; apparently Sister Butler was there too, but I missed her! :(

Keep the good news coming!  This email was kind of long; I'll still attach my weekly letter, but feel free to do some editing out for length.  I love you all,

-Elder Larsen

P.S.: I keep forgetting!! Happy Birthday last week, Jori!

Bongiorno, President Nicholas! I trust your week has gone well? It sounds like Conference had a sensational impact on you! Well, here in Sparwood, General Conference was just mildly pleasant.

...NOT!! Since this is the first time I've witnessed Conference outside my own country, it was affirmed to me that, just like the scriptures, the words of the prophet awe and inspire, no matter their destination. Being my first Conference in the mission field, it thoroughly amazed me how differently I felt as their words washed over me! It makes me wish that I could be set-apart as a missionary for every session! ...I guess I'll just have to make do with the three I have left.

One of our investigators attended the Sunday morning session. Her name's Margaret, and she actually approached us about two weeks ago wanting to learn what we had to offer. We taught her in a member's home last week, and the lesson went really well; in a two hour lesson, we only covered the first three bullet-points of the first lesson! She just wanted to know everything about everything, asking question after question, and bringing up comparable personal experiences. Elder Lauzon and I were just shocked about her sincere desire to learn more; she wasn't questioning us to find holes in the doctrine, but rather testing the boundaries to get a clear picture. It's the first time I've heard somebody "bash" without actually bashing! But anyway, Margaret came with that same member to the first session on Sunday; it felt so cool to see her show up with her copy of the Book of Mormon, anxiously awaiting the words of a modern Prophet to speak to her. She came out of the session kind of lukewarm; obviously, she had a lot of questions on her mind, but she needed to leave, so we didn't have time to delve into them. Fortunately, we're meeting with her on Wednesday to see what's up.

Between sessions, we went to teach our new investigator that we'd picked up on Monday evening. Terrence, our steady investigator who's going to get married in June to be baptized in July, invited us to dinner with his friend's family. We brought a member family with us, had a lovely dinner, and proceeded to be taught an FHE lesson by the members. Josh, the new investigator, seemed mildly intrigued by President Uchtdorf's statement that "life is not meant to be enjoyed in retrospect," as well as by the emphasis the placed on quality family time. Elder Lauzon spoke to Josh later on that night, and even though he'd drunk an entire bottle of wine by himself (Josh!! Not Elder Lauzon), he agreed to meet with us the following Sunday. Which was yesterday.

And it was awesome. We didn't expect a whole lot of sincerity from Josh (based on the circumstances under which we met him), but he seems to be what I would call a golden investigator. He believed everything we taught him about the Book of Mormon, accepted a copy, committed to read 2nd Nephi 31 (Elder Lauzon corrected my folly in this area, for I'd accidentally committed him to reading the whole Book of Mormon... Oops), and to pray about it! When we asked him if he'd come to church with us next week, he said, "That depends; can I bring my kid?" ...Yeah. We just about died of joy. I guess it doesn't matter how you meet the person, or who that person is: It only matters who that person can become.

So those are just a few of our highlights for the week. I've probably left out so much, but I guess that's why we both need to email you; I mean, it took four people to write the Gospels!

Have a good week, President; I feel like I will. And even if I don't, I'll take a leaf from Bruce D. Porter's friend, singing: "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!"

'Till next week,
-Elder Larsen

Week 5-JWs and Car Troubles

Given the fact that my time is extremely limited today as well, I'm starting to think that emailing is not my companion's first priority on P-day! But we'll see what I can do.

This week was pretty good! We've got 6 investigators that we're currently teaching; we had to drop 2 of ours.  One of them was actually kind of a funny story.

I met this woman, Sister Knorr (Approximately 85 years old, German immigrant), in the parking lot of our apartment buildings while E. Lauzon was emptying the trash.  After I'd talked to her a bit, E. Lauzon came over, shared a scripture, and got a return appointment!  It was pretty sweet.

...Until we got to the appointment.  She denied believing in any sort of organized religion, but every concern she brought up was exactly what a Jehovah's Witness would say! Basically, after unintentionally bible bashing for two hours, we gave up, dropped her, and left.  Just yesterday, we ran into a family of Jehovah's Witnesses and asked them about Sister Knorr.  They confirmed that she was indeed an active member of their congregation, and was just pretending otherwise to try and teach us the error of our ways.  ...Yeah.  At least she was nice about it.

Oh!  On the 28th, E. Lauzon and I ran into a bit of a pickle.  We were on our way to Fernie when we stopped in Hosmer to try and locate a less active member in the area.  Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn, and E. Lauzon ended up driving the car part-way into a ditch.  Unfortunately, due to the snow, we were also high-centered.

After spinning our wheels, pushing, and digging for ten minutes, we finally gave in and asked the girls who pulled over for help.  They laughed, and one girl called her fiance and dad to help.  They showed up in a truck, hooked us up, and pulled us out! ...But then they got stuck.  So the daughter took her car to get her dad's truck and brought it back.  After some intense driving, all 3 cars were safe and sound on the road!

...Until we went to start our car.  E. Lauzon had left the headlights on, and our battery was dead.  So we had 4 cars, and not one set of jumper cables.  Luckily, the people knew someone in Hosmer, so they got some mechanic-length cables, started our car, and ran before anything else could go wrong!  That was a very eventful day.  We might be able to get a new investigator out of it, though.

I had a kind of cool experience while teaching a  new investigator, Brother Davies, two weeks ago; he seeks dilligently for happiness in his life, striving in every aspect to clean himself up. After spending a good twenty minutes discussing his concerns with him and bringing up corresponding scripture references, he pulled our scriptures to his side of the table and said, "Now explain it to me without these." To be honest, I freaked out a little bit. I've always used the scriptures as a critical foundation in the defense of my testimony, and it legitimately concerned me to have that taken away; but, when that happened, I was able to bear testimony in a way I never had before. When God says that he'll give it unto us in the very hour what we shall say, I always interpreted that to mean he would allow me to recall a scripture I could share. Having grown up with a lisp, I rarely found conviction and authority in the words that I spoke, preferring to vast extremes the printed word. Yet somehow, as I sat at that table without my scriptures as a crutch, the words flowed freely, and the Spirit dwelt in them. For once, I didn't feel like a "greenie:" I felt like a real missionary, and God's love was felt.

It's exciting to hear about all the mission calls!!  Make sure I at least get some of their addresses so I can write them!

I love you all; thank you for your prayers.

Joyeux Paque!

-Elder Larsen