Transfers

Dear Family and Friends,

First off, we got transfer doctrine last night and I am getting transferred to the Oklahoma City 5th Ward! Elder Hanks will be staying in Tahlequah. My new companion will be Elder May, he's only been out for 1 transfer so I'll be finishing his training and I'm still a district leader. I started off my mission in the OKC 7th ward so serving in the 5th ward will be a trip down memory lane. I'm so excited!

Monday evening we had dinner with a LA/PM family and had a fairly productive evening.

Tuesday morning we started exchanges with the Elders in Pryor and I was in Tahlequah with Elder Larson. It was so much fun to introduce ourselves. Everyone asked if we were Brothers or if we were related. Too funny! Anyways, all our appointments fell through so we ended up doing a lot of tracting.

Wednesday morning we exchanged back with Pryor and went to institute at the college when we got back to Tahlequah. Greg randomly showed up to institute again so that was a cool miracle :) After that we didn't get too much done for the rest of the day since Elder Hanks was really sick and needed rest.

Thursday Elder Hanks was feeling a little bit better so we went out and talked to lots of people who weren't interested in talking to us. One guy answered the door and said, "Do you have a pamphlet you can give me? Thanks. You should go bug my neighbor across the street." So we went over and talked to the neighbor and he said, "I'm not interested but yall are dressed really nice." So random, I love it :) We also had some investigators and potentials who dropped us. Rough day but we persevered and qualified ourselves to receive miracles :)

Friday we had district meeting in Muskogee. After district meeting I got to do a baptismal interview for one of the sister's investigators so that was a neat experience. After that we started exchanges with the Elders in Wagoner, Elder Russell and I were in Tahlequah. Before we left Muskogee though, we got to go on a special mission to retrieve the Tiwi unit (the little black box in all mission vehicles that yells at us when we don't drive correctly) from the sister's old car that got in a wreck. As we were yanking it out of the vehicle, it was yelling, "AGGRESSIVE DRIVING! AGGRESSIVE DRIVING! VEHICLE BATTERY MAY BE LOW! AGGRESSIVE DRIVING!" It was pretty funny :) When we got back to Tahlequah we had an awesome lesson with a LA YSA who had a strong desire to come back to church. We then had dinner with one of the older couples in the ward. They invited a couple of their friends over and we were able to teach them the Restoration after dinner which was pretty sweet :) After that everything else fell through so we ended up doing some tracting. 

Saturday morning we exchanged back with the Elders in Wagoner. We then biked around in the cold and the Lord blessed us with a new investigator! We also had a good lesson with some former investigators that some of the members in the ward knew about and wanted us to go teach. It was an interesting lesson but hopefully they enjoyed it. After dinner we went out with a member and everything fell through, including our lesson with Jerron :(

Sunday was fantastic! One of the LA/PM families we've been working with made it to church for the first time so that was a cool miracle :) After church we went around and tried to visit some people and talked to some people by the way who were pretty nice to us. After dinner we tried to visit an investigator who lives in a trailer park but he wasn't home. So we did some super bowl tracting and had one guy who saw us and said, "I'm watching the super bowl right now, take a hike!" Haha got to love die hard football fans ;) We then had a member come with us to deliver a bible to a media referral who lives out in the middle of nowhere. We found the house and she was miraculously there! She accepted a Book of Mormon and said tonight was the first night all week that she was actually home. She's going to read the Book of Mormon and then ask us questions about it next week so that's pretty radical. The rest of the night we did some tracting and ran into this cool native american former investigator named Jon. We talked to him about his career for a while and then asked him some questions about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Turns out he believes the Book of Mormon is true and so we helped him make the logical conclusion that Joseph Smith must be a prophet of God. He wants us to come back and he said he would come to church for the first time and see what it's like. Definitely a miracle!!

I've done a lot of study on Joseph Smith's first vision this last week and I realized just how much we can learn from this story.

"During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; ... so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong... In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it? While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know."

In the bible dictionary under revelation we learn:

"Divine revelation is one of the grandest concepts and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for without it, man could not know of the things of God and could not be saved with any degree of salvation in the eternities."

Because of divine revelation, we need not remain in darkness and confusion. We can know the truth directly from God. Asking for and receiving knowledge from God truly is one of the grandest concepts of the restored gospel and I'm so grateful for it. The gospel is so true!

Thank y'all so much for your love and support! Being a missionary is the best and time is flying by too fast!

Love, Elder Larsen

D&C 42:61