What's your level of Grit?

Dear Family and Friends,

It's been another amazing week here in Yukon and I can't wait to tell y'all all about it!

Monday evening we were supposed to have dinner and a lesson with a family that has a 9 year old unbaptized daughter but some things happened and it didn't end up working out :( But we were able to talk to a random person on the street named Andrea and we said a prayer with her :)

Tuesday was a long and exhausting full of biking and tracting, and one of our appointments fell through but we were able to have dinner and a lesson with the Edwards family. We also found a new investigator while tracting named Brad. #Miracle We were finishing up the same street where we found Brandon a couple weeks ago. Brad answered the door and said he was having a bad day. We discovered that his dad had just died and he'd gotten into some fights. We got to say a prayer with him and give him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. We wasn't there for the return appointment on Thursday but hopefully we'll be able to teach him this next week :)

Wednesday morning and early afternoon we had zone conference in the city. It started at 8 (an hour earlier than usual) and got done around 2:00 making it the shortest zone conference of my mission. We got some awesome trainings on the addiction recovery program, our potential to become like God, and grace. So cool how those 3 topics fit together so well :) After zone conference I had a 42 minute phone call with one of our investigators. It was mostly just me listening to her talk and she ended up dropping us but she said she would still read the Book of Mormon. When we got back to Yukon we had a sweet Plan of Salvation lesson with Brandon. He seemed to really enjoy it and he committed to coming to church on Sunday until he remembered that he has to go spend some time in jail the next 2 weekends. But hopefully he'll keep on progressing and making some positive changes in his life. After the lesson with Brandon, we biked past this guy who was under the hood of his car and started talking to him. His name is Mike and he accepted a restoration pamphlet and a Book of Mormon and said he wants to come try out our church sometime. He said we could stop by whenever so hopefully we'll be able to have a lesson with him this next week. Towards the end of the conversation we asked him if he knew anyone in the area who was going through a rough time and could use a prayer and he said, "You know, I think you found the right place. I've been going through a transitional time in my life and I think God led you to me for a reason" #Miracle I love missionary work :) 

Thursday we did weekly planning and then in the afternoon/evening we tried some LAs and did some tracting. Haha we tracted into this guy who started bashing us and telling us that we were trying to earn our way into heaven and that we didn't believe in grace. I thought it was pretty funny since we had a whole training on grace the day before at zone conference. But this guy wasn't an honest seeker of truth so we didn't waste much time with him. But if I wasn't a missionary, I would've totally confounded the guy ;)

Friday we didn't have district meeting because of zone conference so we had a full day of trying LAs and tracting :) We did get to do some service in the afternoon and after dinner we went to El Reno to give someone a blessing. Fun and exhausting day :)

Saturday morning we had correlation with our amazing ward mission leader, Brother George. In the afternoon we started tracting a street that we had prayed about and talked to a guy named Danny who was working on his car. He talked about how he was wanting to get back into church because of some recent life events and because he wants his 4 year old son to be in church as well. We invited him to come to our church and also talked a little bit about the temple since that's usually how people know where our building is at (next to the big white building with the statue on top). It was super cool though and we're going to go back and teach him more tomorrow :) #Miracle Before dinner we stopped by one of our investigators named Candy (it was my first time meeting her). While we were talking to her, she said that her friend, Andrea, was walking down main street earlier in the week and 2 guys dressed in black stopped and talked to her and said a prayer with her. She said it was a little weird but that it really helped her out a lot. So that was kind of cool to hear and it strengthened my testimony that no effort is wasted and that it's equally important to sew as it is to reap :)

Sunday was good. The Edwards family came to church which was great :) President Mansell showed up for our sacrament meeting which was really random but cool :) After church we went and gave someone a blessing and after dinner we met with a active/less-active family and a couple of families with recent converts. Awesome day :)

So the Edwards family. The Mom, Zericka, is a convert of 3 years. The dad, Tim, is not a member but has decided to be baptized. He has some things he needs to do before he can get baptized (such as getting married in July) but he's making some good progress. They have 3 sons all together, the youngest 2 are Zericka's and the one who is over 8 years old is baptized. Their oldest son, Justin, is Tim's and he is working towards baptism as well. They're such a fun family and they feed us at least once, usually twice a week.

Learning more about grace has been really enlightening. I feel like a lot of us in the church don't fully understand grace simply because it takes both grace and effort (or works) on our part to qualify for celestial glory. But the key difference is the purpose behind the works. We don't keep the commandments to repay Christ or to fill gaps or to earn our way to heaven. We follow Christ's example in order to show appreciation for his gift and to use his gift for it's intended to purpose: helping us progress towards exaltation and godhood. Brad Wilcox's talk titled, "His Grace is Sufficient" is so good at explaining how it all works. I especially enjoy the analogy he uses with learning to play the piano. At one point he poses the question, "Why is this perspective so easy to see in the context of learning piano but so hard to see in the context of learning heaven?" Understanding grace is so vital for true repentance and change. And with that comes true peace and happiness.

Thank y'all so much for all your love and support, I feel so blessed to have such awesome friends and family :)

Love, Elder Larsen

D&C 78:7; 88:22

1. The Famous Yukon Flour Mill

2. Nothing like hot chocolate after freezing all day :)

3-6. Buffalos at the park

7-8. Found this flyer for Grit.Church. Thought it was pretty cool ;)