Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has totally flown by, I feel like I emailed y'all a couple of days ago. It's craziness but it's great and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

Monday after we emailed, we helped some members move a fridge and then went and got ice cream so that was fun :) We had dinner with Bishop and then one of our potential investigators dropped us but it was still a great day.

Tuesday we had an appointment at 10 in the morning but it fell through so we tracted until our return appointment with Danny at 11. He was there and we had an amazing restoration lesson with him. The spirit was really strong and he seems really committed to reading the Book of Mormon. The only issue is that his wife doesn't seem too happy with us because she probably has some misconceptions. So hopefully we'll be able to to meet her this next week and clear some of those up. After lunch we tried to visit some people and ended up tracting before dinner. After dinner we had a lesson with the Edwards family and we ended up sharing D&C 122 with them since they're going through a lot of stuff right now.

Funny story from tracting in the morning: We knock on this door and this older lady comes out and starts telling us about all her health problems. In the mind I was thinking "What is she talking about? Why is she telling us all this?" Then she said something about her blood pressure and asked us to check it for her. I said, "We're just missionaries from our church." and then she said, "Oh, I thought y'all were EMTs, sorry about that. Man, I always make a fool of myself in front of cute guys." Haha #Awkward It was pretty funny :)

Wednesday we did weekly planning because of exchanges on Thursday and Friday. After lunch we did some service at a community center. After that we met up with Brandon at a park and we realized that we probably needed to drop him since he's still struggling with a lot of stuff that might end him up back in jail... Hopefully we planted a seed though. After dinner we did some tracting and then when it got dark we went to Walmart and tried to talk to people there which was interesting.

Thursday we did exchanges with the Elders in the 7th ward and I was in Yukon with Elder Norton. This was our 3rd or 4th time on exchanges together so we had a pretty fun time :) All of our appointments fell through but we did have a lesson with one of our investigators in the afternoon named Tina. Also, cool tracting miracle: We met this lady named Sarah. She has a son and a daughter. We asked her if she had a church family that she belongs to and she said, "We've been to life church (the crazy church I went to in my first area that resembles chuckie cheeses) a few times but I don't like how it's all about the rock wall and the slides. I want my kids to learn more about Jesus." We then told her about our church services and she said that it's sounds great and she wants to come try it out sometime. We're going to go back and teach her more tomorrow so we're pretty excited about that :)

Friday we had district meeting and afterwards we did exchanges with the zone leaders. I got to go with Elder Yamane and we had a blast! It's been over a year since we've been on exchanges together so it was cool to see how we've both changed over the course of our missions. We ended up doing a lot of tracting and we found a couple of good potentials.

Saturday morning we had our correlation meeting with our ward mission leader which was fun :) In the afternoon we biked out to the far reaches of our area and tried some less-actives. We actually found one who wants us to come back so that's pretty cool :) We also did some tracting in an apartment complex and a lot of people must of ignored us because no almost one answered but there were plenty of cars in the parking lot. But truth goeth onward! We had dinner with the Edwards family and they're doing a lot better so that's good.

Sunday was good. We had the usual investigators at church, no one new. After church we got to go deliver the sacrament to this super nice old couple that lives in El Reno. Before dinner we tried a less-active and then did some tracting and ran into a less-active part-member family who's not on the roster and wants us to come back for a meal and lesson! #miracle All in all, it was a simply fantastic week :)

As I was studying step 6 of the Addiction Recovery Program this last week, I came across a scripture that I really like. It's Ezekiel 36:26-27, 31

"26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations."

I especially love verse 31 because it gives us the key as to how we can know if we've truly experienced a mighty change of heart like it talks about in the scriptures. If we remember back to how we used to be, and we've truly experienced a change of heart, we will, to a certain extent, lothe our old selves. We will think something along the lines of, "Wow, I can't believe I used to be like that. I was kind of a fool back then." When I look back at who I was before serving a mission, I wasn't a bad person. But I do despise my old self to a certain extent because of how my mind has been enlightened and how my perspective has changed since then. And I'm sure that someday in the future I'll look back at who I am right now and think the same things. But improving, changing, and becoming better is where the true fulfillment and accomplishment in life comes. A change of heart is a gift from God and I'm so thankful for the joy it brings to me :)

Anyways, I hope y'all have a simply wonderful week!

Love, Elder Larsen

Alma 5:7