Pumpkin carving

What a fun surprise tonight from a darling family in Tyler's mission. She had found me on Instagram and messaged me that our elder was at her house right now carving pumpkins. I asked if she could just take one picture for me. She did more than that. She took a bunch of pictures and posted them on Instagram. Along with a video for me of Tyler saying I love you mom and then him playing "Onward Christian Soldiers" on the piano. It was like Christmas at our house.  What a tender mercy for us. 

Transfers

Dear Family and Friends,

I am being transfered to Clinton, Oklahoma! I'm so sad to leave the 7th ward. I love this area and it's going to be hard to leave it but I'm excited for the new adventures I'm going to have. My new companion is Elder Quiones who also just got done being trained. My new address is:

711 S. 20th Apt 22
Clinton, OK 73601

Tuesday we had a do or die lesson with Taryn and Jonalea so hopefully they will be able to get in the habit of daily prayer and scripture study so we can continue to help them progress.

Wednesday Elder Holbrook had to go to trainers meeting so I spent the first part of the day with Elder Dayley (My MTC Comp) in the Edmond 4th ward because his trainer is also training again. We had a good time together and got to do some service :) That evening we had an awesome lesson with the less-active's girlfriend, Ashley. She is progressing really well and I think she'll be baptized before Elder Holbrook goes home in December.

Thursday we watched the restoration video with the 5 kids. The spirit was so strong and I think it helped them better grasp the concept of the Restoration. Still just waiting for permission with them.

Friday we got to do some service and then I went on exchanges with one of our zone leaders, Elder Quijada, in Yukon. We had a good exchange even though almost everything he had planned fell through.

Saturday we labored all day and pulled straight 0's. But it was still a good day because we were doing what the Lord wanted us to do :)

Sunday was the ward's Primary program which was awesome! I also found out where I was getting transfered to which was nice after a whole week of uncertainty.

Our appointment with Helen last week fell through so hopefully I'll be able to say goodbye on Tuesday before transfers. Even though I haven't had any baptisms in the OKC 7th ward, I've been able to see the gospel change people's lives and that's what matters. Missionary work is the best and it's so rewarding! I'm so grateful for the wonderful experience I've been able to have here with Elder Holbrook in the 7th Ward. I've learned so much and I'm excited to continue learning and growing.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thank you so much for all of your prayers in my behalf and in behalf of my investigators. You are in my prayers.

Love, Elder Larsen

Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 55:8-9

"Not to be rude.."

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been super awesome! The Lord is truly pouring out blessings upon us.

Tuesday we went to Watonga again because we set up an appointment with some potentials. When we got there they said "Now isn't a good time." You just gotta love missionary work sometimes. You drive 60 miles just to get rejected. But it turned out all right because we were able to go and visit Mae. She is a lot more blind than we realized but with the help of the ward council we should be able to get her a super simple CD player and the Book of Mormon on Audio CDs. The challenge with her will be getting her to church so we'll see if it ends up going anywhere.

Wednesday we had a slow afternoon and then we had dinner with Bishop and his family. After we left, Bishop went to the home of the 3 foster kids' mom to ask for permission to be baptized but she ignored him and wouldn't answer the door. So we're still fasting and praying for a miracle with them. We visit them pretty regularly and it's awesome to see how the gospel has changed their lives. They need to be baptized!

Thursday evening we went out with one of the priests in our ward who is getting ready to submit his mission papers. We had an appointment scheduled with Taryn and Jonalea but they had to cancel because they got sick. And the original appointment we set for Tuesday night fell through because they had something come up. So then we went and tried our most solid potentials but they didn't answer. So then we tried anyone we could think of but no one answered except for a lady named Kelly who we ended up dropping because she isn't interested anymore. So hopefully the priest still had a good time even though we weren't able to really talk to anyone.

Friday we had an awesome district meeting on fear. Something I'm working on right now is having more perfect love for the people of Oklahoma so I'm not so afraid to talk to them. "Perfect love casteth out all fear." (Moroni 8:16) Afterwards I got to go on exchanges with Elder Yamane. It was a pretty rough day of proselyting. Basically no one was home and our most promising potentials dropped us. But right before we went to dinner, we saw a couple sitting out on their porch (which is really unusual for my area) and so we started talking with them. They seemed pretty interested and they said they would read and pray about the Book of Mormon. #Miracle #TenderMercies

Saturday we got to do service by helping a member move into our ward which was super fun! Later that night we had a BBQ with some members and then roasted smores around the campfire in their backyard which was awesome after an exhausting day.

Sunday we got to go and help out with stake mission prep because the instructor is one of our ward missionaries. It was weird but also cool to be the missionaries and talk to the youth about serving missions.

Helen was out of town this week. We had a solid lesson with the less-active and his girlfriend. She's been struggling with how she thinks the church puts more of a focus on Joseph Smith than Jesus Christ and after we had a solid fast and testimony meeting about the love of Christ she said that she's a lot more open to baptism. We're going to meet with her this week and set a baptismal date! The other 2 kids have been making progress with getting permission and their baptismal date is set for Nov. 21 so hopefully things will continue to go as planned.

The funny experience this week was when Elder Yamane and I visited an inactive member. She opened the door, saw us, and came out and started reprimanding us. "Not to be rude but this is the 4th time in 4 years that the missionaries have come to my house. Take me off your stupid list or I'll call your mission president!" So I tried to tell her that we don't have the ability to take her name off of the list but before I could tell her that only the Bishop can do that she said, "That's it, I'm calling your mission president." And then she walked back inside and shut the door. I just think it's hilarious that she threatens us by saying she's going to call the mission president. What's he going to do? He can't take her name off the records and he'll probably be glad to know that his missionaries are doing their job. Some people...

Anyways, things are going good and I love being a missionary! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Larsen

Deuteronomy 20:1

P.S. We got trainer calls Saturday night and Elder Holbrook is training again. So this coming Sunday I'll find out where I'm getting transferred to. If you send me anything make sure I get it before October 28th or send it to the mission office

416 SW 79th Street Suite 210

OKC, OK 73139

"Your kids won't believe it's church!!"

Tyler's zone

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been a long one. But we've also been blessed beyond measure and it's been so awesome to see some improvement in this area!

I'm sorry to hear about Grandma Jensen. She's in my prayers and hopefully she'll be able to recover quickly.

Monday evening we packed up all of our stuff and got ready to move to our new apartment the next day. I woke up at 3 am on Tuesday with a really bad sore throat and runny nose. So basically moving on Tuesday while feeling sick was a really long and trying day.

Wednesday we spent the morning trying to organize our apartment, building furniture, and other fun stuff like that. Then we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in OKC 7th with Elder Beus. I wasn't feeling too great when we first left the apartment but I did my best to stay positive and we had an awesome day! We got a new investigator who is the husband of a less-active member in our ward. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he was going to feed us dinner in a couple of weeks. It had been a while since we handed out a Book of Mormon so that was so exciting. Then we visited a member and started talking with her about member missionary work. She got so excited and was so down to start giving people Book of Mormons. We gave her 8 of them! Then in the evening we had a really good lesson with the less-active and his girlfriend. They finally committed to read a chapter a day from the Book of Mormon. Anyways, it was an awesome exchange!

Thursday we went to Watonga again. We didn't visit Mae because she hurt herself and didn't want company at the moment but we tried visiting some other referrals and handed out 3 Book of Mormons and got a return appointment for tomorrow! Watonga is a much more humble place and we've had so much success is the few hours we've been able to spend there.

Friday while we were having district meeting President Walkenhorst randomly showed up. It was cool and he had some awesome insights. After that I went on exchanges to El Reno with Elder Oviatt which was an interesting experience. One of their members shoved us on a phone with some guy in Texas who wanted to commit suicide. So we told him to go to the hospital and tried to set him up with a Bishop from Texas. Crazy situation. Then we went a visited members in El Reno.

Saturday we were able to finish organizing our apartment. The highlight of the week though was definitely going to Life Church. It was an eye opening experience for me especially because I've only ever been to LDS churches. So when we first walked in I thought I was at Chuck-e-cheeses or something. There were games and stuff for little kids, and Xboxes and TV for the teenagers. I saw a sign that said, "Your kids won't believe it's church!" Yeah, probably because it's not. Outside of the "chapel" (which looked more like a concert stage to me) they had free cookies, coffee, and tea. When we first walked into the chapel they had bowls full of earplugs which was slightly disconcerting. The less-active member who was taking and showing us around wanted to sit on like the 2nd row so we were pretty close to all the action. They had 3 huge TV screens and massive speakers. The service started when the band members ran out on stage and started jamming out to some hard-core Christian rock. So we stood there awkwardly for about 30 minutes while everyone around us was going ham to this music that destroys your eardrums it's so loud. I'm surprised people didn't start moshing it was so loud and irreverent. Then everyone sat down and we watched a video of their pastor giving a sermon. This guy has crazy eyes, likes to yell, and is very charismatic.  He preached a lot about enthusiasm, staying positive, and being saved through Jesus. Once the sermon was over, the local pastor got up and gave one of the weirdest prayers I've ever heard in my life. I couldn't tell if he was preaching or praying. Then he told everyone to stand up and it abruptly ended after exactly 1 hour and 5 minutes. Talk about a church for people with ADHD and no attention span. They also had this "tithing challenge" going on. Basically you start paying tithing for 3 months straight to "test the faithfulness of God". And guess what happens if you don't think God blesses you enough? You get a full refund! There's nothing to lose! Exercise "faith" and start paying tithing! Talk about blasphemy and a complete lack of faith and sacrifice. #TheApostasyIsSoReal Overall, I wouldn't say that Life Church is bad. It does do some good and is better than no church at all. We're out on missions to rejoice with people in Christ, not to convert them.

Sunday was so awesome! The miracle this week was Helen being able to make it to church. We had a really good fast and testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong! Helen is still struggling with her husband though so we weren't able to set a baptismal date. In the evening we started talking to this Muslim who seems pretty interested in learning more about our church and we're excited to learn more about his.

Looking back on the week, we were able to get a surprising amount of stuff accomplished and saw a ton of success :) I'm so excited for this next week, it's going to be awesome! Patience and hard-work really do pay off. Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Larsen

Moroni 8:16

Proverbs 28:25

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a slow one for various reasons. Mostly because we didn't have as much time to proselyte with General Conference and Zone Conference. Let's just say I'm feeling a little spiritually obese (Proverbs 28:25) after this past week ;)

Monday evening we had a good, down to earth talk with a less-active member who was baptized 2 years ago. He and his wife have been lacking in faith recently and they know it. But they're taking steps to get back to church and eventually go to the temple and be sealed so that's exciting! We watched the Sunday Afternoon Session of Conference with them yesterday which was awesome.

Tuesday I got to go to my very first Zone Conference. It was so cool! I learned so much from President and Sister Walkenhorst, the APs, and our stake president. It was also cool to hear missionaries departing testimonies. I hope by the end of my mission I will have become a consecrated missionary. One phrase that I have been focusing on recently is "Forget yourself and go to work." I'm trying to do better at simply focusing on loving and helping people come unto Christ instead of focusing so much on my weaknesses.

Wednesday we drove the 60 miles to Watonga with our housing coordinators to visit a referral from some Spanish speaking sister missionaries. The lady's name is Mae and she is like 90% blind. She's super nice and super interested in the gospel, the problem now is getting the resources we need to get back out to Watonga as well as getting her access to the Book of Mormon. Apparently the Church distribution services no longer makes the BoM on CD because "you can just download it". Unless you're in the middle of nowhere with a blind 82 year old woman who doesn't have internet. So we've got to find some way to get her a BoM she can actually use. We got our first new investigator in forever though so that's awesome! :) (We also saw the Google Street View Camera Car thing which was also awesome!)

Thursday we made one last chance to reach out to Freedom Sinclair. She ignored us so all we can do now is pray and wait and hope.

Friday we had a great district meeting about pride. Definitely something I need to work on. We also went with the El Reno Elders to do service for this lady named Linda. Her backyard is basically a jungle so we spent hours destroying plants which was fun. 

Saturday and Sunday were so much fun. In between the morning and afternoon sessions, both days, we got fed lunch by members and got to have fun as missionaries (as evidenced by the attached pictures ;)) Conference was so awesome and I got more out of it than I ever have in my whole life because I was able to put so much effort into it. So cool to see the 3 new apostles and hear their humble testimonies. President Monson is a trooper for making it through his entire talk. It will be interesting to see if he stands up in conference again or starts doing what Packer did. If I had to pick a favorite talk I would either pick the one by Larry R. Lawrence about asking "What lack I yet?" or the one by Neill F. Marriott about "It will all work out". So many awesome talks, it's almost overwhelming. 

Anyways, we had 3 lessons fall through this week so we weren't able to meet with Helen and some of our potentials. Taryn and Jonalea were busy this week. We were able to meet with the less-active and his girlfriend for the first time in weeks which was good. They haven't been doing too hot with their commitments though because life has been crazy for them.  The 5 kids baptismal permission is basically out of our hands now. We've done all that we can so now we get to be patient and wait for Bishop to do his thing. Just have to keep on preparing them for baptism so that when the glorious day finally comes they'll be ready. 

Before I give the weekly miracle, I need to repent of unconsciously stopping my practice of including the weekly miracle. Randomly, during Zone Conference, I realized that I'd stopped giving a miracle each week in my emails home. So, sorry for not showing enough gratitude for the many miracles I've been blessed with. The miracle this week was going out with Brother Judd. He volunteered in church last Sunday to come out with us Tuesday night. We were kind of scared because Bro Judd is a little bit crazy but he did awesome and I think he had a good experience which was a miracle :)

Tomorrow we are moving into our new apartment which will be super nice because it puts us in a much better location geographically. I will send you all my new address as soon as I get it. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Make plans to continually treasure up the many words of inspired counsel we just received from conference!

Love, Elder Larsen

D&C 123:17

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a lot better than last week as far as teaching lessons goes. As far as handing out Book of Mormons is concerned, we weren't able to hand out single one all week. I wish I could say that the work is hastening in the OKC 7th ward but until the members are able to invite their friends to receive the restored gospel, we can only do so much. Preach My Gospel makes it clear that the ideal teaching situation is when members invite their friends to receive the gospel. Before I got to the Oklahoma City Mission, a general authority gave a training on the 3 phases of missionary work (which I may or may not of already told you guys about). 

Phase 1: Missionaries doing missionary work - 5 baptisms

Phase 2: Members helping missionaries do missionary work - 10 baptisms

Phase 3: Missionaries helping members do missionary work - 100 baptisms

Our vision for this area is to help it become a phase 3 area so we're doing a lot of work with the members. #PHASE3!

On Tuesday we got to do some service with some other missionaries which was a blast! Also, we had a really good lesson with Taryn and Jonalea (who moved back in with Taryn) but they didn't make it to church on Sunday so we'll see how this week goes.

Wednesday we had a ward party to celebrate the completion of the ward's Book of Mormon challenge. Hopefully the ward members will now be better able to give BoMs to their friends.

Thursday the preacher called us and left a voicemail saying that he wants 5-10 physical evidences of the Book of Mormon. We don't know what part of "The only way you can know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God is by reading and praying about it with real intent" he doesn't seem to grasp. It's so tempting to bash with him. "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 16:17) "Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." (Jeremiah 17:5) God is the source of all truth and knowledge, and trusting in the arm of the flesh and the philosophies of men is not good. Relying of physical evidence in NOT faith. Anyways, we gave Bro Judd a "jail" blessing because he was going to court and seemed to think that he was going to end up going to jail for contempt of court. But by some miracle he managed to keep his cool and not go to jail so that's a relief :) 

Friday we had a good lesson with Helen about the Word of Wisdom. We had a down to earth talk with her husband, Don, and hopefully he'll read the Book of Mormon now. Helen is such a miracle!

Saturday was one of those days when all you can do is follow the counsel given in D&C 123:17. "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." We did all we could and we tried to keep smiles on our faces even though we pulled straight 0's that day.

Sunday we had a less-active member who showed up to church for the first time in 20 years. The guy isn't even on our records anymore but we ran into him a couple of weeks ago and he seemed pretty open to the idea of coming to church with us. Since he came to our church though, we can go check out his church now. He goes to something called "LifeChurch.tv" and from what we've heard it's more of a rock concert than anything else. It's interesting what some people will label as "church" these days. #TheApostasyIsReal  Last night we went out to watch the Blood Moon and the Jesus dude who lives below us was out watching it as well. The guy actually preaches pretty solid doctrine and he's a good guy. He's just been a little deceived by false revelation. For example, one night in a dream Jesus told him to build an ark of the covenant so when he woke up at 3 AM he started building one. He showed it to us and it looked pretty cool. He made it out of Cyprus wood and a metallic gold spray. Pretty impressive if you ask me ;) We're going to try one last time before we move to give him a Book of Mormon or at least a Family Proclamation. 

The 5 kids all still need permission but we're still making slow but sure progress. The less-active and his girlfriend have been really busy lately but we're meeting with them this week so that will be awesome. We met with Freedom Sinclair for the first time in more than a month and set a baptismal date with her so things were looking really good until she texted us literally right now and said she's done with the Mormon church. Sometimes I feel like my calling is to pass through sorrow so that I can better appreciate the atonement. The hard part is glorying in tribulation like Joseph Smith did. "And as for the perils which I am called to pass through, they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad, as you may choose to call it. Judge ye for yourselves. God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad. But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it." (D&C 127:2) Sometimes all you can do is smile and do everything in your power to help others. God's ways are higher than our ways; this is his work, not ours. Missions aren't easy but they're worth it :)

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! Prepare for conference so you can get more out of it. General Conference is like Christmas for missionaries so I've never been more excited for Conference in my life. It's going to be so awesome!! :) #Prophets #WatchConference

Love, Elder Larsen 

Wyatt's Birthday and Questions Answered

I had written Tyler and asked a few questions. Mainly if he got along with his companion since he hasn't said much about him. Here is his response. Later in the day I got a great little surprise...pictures of him releasing a Wyatt balloon for his birthday. Such a tender mercy for mom!!

"We do a fair amount of biking and walking around but we still have to do a lot of driving because our area is so huge. I love my companion and we're getting along great. We're working hard and doing our best. I'll probably be with him until he goes home in December. Thank you so much for the letters and pictures. I love seeing what you guys are doing and I'm glad you are doing well. I'm learning so much and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm going to try and blow up the balloon you sent me and if I'm able to release it I'll take pictures and send them to you. I love and miss you guys so much! Keep on being the best family ever! :)"

Love, Elder Larsen

If you look close enough you can see the balloon in the air.