Faith

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been amazing and I'm even more excited for this next week. This week we increased our efforts to hand out Book of Mormons and so I realized that 2 Nephi 29 basically describes my mission pretty well ;)

Monday while we were running errands, we stopped at the post office to buy some stamps. This guy saw us and told us that the management at the apartment complex we were trying to move into had changed and that they were members of the church now. This apartment complex is actually in our area and is in a really good location but a couple of months ago when we tried to get an apartment there they wouldn't let us because the church does corporate leases and so they wanted us to get a corporate apartment that is out of our budget. So because we ran into this guy, we went to apartments on Tuesday with the housing coordinators and things went really well so hopefully we'll be able to move in next month! 

Tuesday night we got a miracle new investigator. We showed up to teach Taryn the plan of salvation but her friend, Jonalea, also showed up. Apparently they are best friends and now Jonalea is living with Taryn. So we were able to give Jonalea a Book of Mormon and teach her about the restoration. She is super interested and started reading the BoM as soon as she got home from meeting with us. It's so awesome because now they can work together to read the BoM and to keep their other commitments. This week we're going to commit them to baptism and make sure they come to church. It's going to be so awesome!

On Wednesday we met with Helen and managed to keep the appointment to an hour and a half instead of 3 hours which was really good. We're still working towards 45 minute lessons so we'll continue to make progress in that regard this week. Helen is totally ready to be baptized and she knows that the church is true but her husband is not supportive at all. It's a really hard situation because we can't just tell her to join the church and get a divorce. She doesn't know what to do and so we're doing all we can to help her find out what God's will is for her. We're praying to find a way to soften her husband's heart and to help Helen know what to do. So we'll see what ends up happening there. That night we met with the less-active member and his girlfriend. They're opening up to us more and asking questions which is so great. They're feeding us dinner tomorrow night which will be awesome. 

Thursday we met with the foster kids. We're waiting on Bishop to set up an appointment with their Mom so we can go and talk with her and discuss any concerns she might have. I finally found someone who is interested in golf which was pretty cool ;)

District Meeting on Friday we talked about the faith and doubt cycles, and what we can do to stay encouraged, increase our faith, higher our expectations, increase our effectiveness, increase our desire, and ultimately have a stronger connection with the spirit. Maintaining strong faith throughout the day is so important. As soon as we start following the doubt cycle we become discouraged, our faith decreases, our expectations lower, our effectiveness decreases, our desire weakens, and we ultimately have difficulty following the spirit. This week has been so much better than last week not because we've had a little more success but because we've stayed more faithful and encouraged. In the afternoon I went on exchanges with Elder Oviatt (Elder Yamane's Companion). We visited a less-active family and the father refused to commit to read the BoM which was interesting and frustrating. That night we were biking around and we started talking to this young couple in their garage about the restoration and we gave them a Book of Mormon. They seemed pretty interested and open, and they were super nice to us so hopefully we can follow up with them this week.

Saturday was long hot day of biking and sweating. It seemed like no one was home and no one wanted to talk with us. Although we did have one person who said that we could come back sometime so that made it all worth it :) I was able to stay pretty positive and encouraged even though we weren't having much success so I guess I am making some progress which is a relief. I also think it's amazing how almost every night we don't have a dinner appointment someone ends up feeding us. The relief society president saw us walking around a neighborhood and stopped to give us a slice of pizza which was super nice of her and greatly appreciated. The OKC 7th ward is seriously the best :)

Sunday not many people came to church because it was labor day weekend. Brother Judd gave a 20 minute testimony during fast and testimony meeting (My comp. says he does that every month). The ironic thing about his testimony was that he was telling us that we're all obligated to tell him if he's doing something wrong in the church. He thinks that because he's a convert he doesn't know anything about church culture which is somewhat true but he knows more than he says he does. So there he was, breaking the guidelines for sharing a testimony in sacrament meeting as he asked us to stop him if he ever breaks any guidelines. (He also talked about the lost pages and he unfortunately still doesn't have any news). It was awesome ;)

Monday we had the option of going to a baseball game but we decided against it (thankfully) and did some fun stuff with Elder Yamane and Oviatt.

Freedom Sinclair set up about 5 appointments 5 days in a row and they all fell through one way or the other. She said she was coming to church but then she never showed up and right now she isn't responding to us. We still have no idea what's going on which is quite frustrating.

We went to visit a potential investigator Wednesday evening. We've knocked on his door multiple times but this time he was out in his front yard watering plants. As soon as he saw us he dropped the hose, quickly went into his house, and then didn't answer the door when we knocked. Some people. "It's the Mormon Missionaries! They might actually talk to me, run for your life!" Some people think that and it's crazy. Needless to say, he's not a potential investigator anymore ;)

Last week was super awesome and I'm so pumped for this week!

Love, Elder Larsen

(P.S. How do you guys like the gas prices in Oklahoma?)