Open Your Mouth and it Shall Be Filled

G'day!

We have been blessed with so many opportunities to learn this week! We had our zone conference on Friday--eight glorious hours of trainings and receiving revelation! We had wonderful trainings from our assistants to the president, President and Sister Maxwell, and quite a few short 5-minute trainings from the zone leaders and sister training leaders. It was such a spiritual feast! One of my top favorite things about being a missionary has got to be the amazing meetings. I love learning so much!

This Sunday was also a wonderful learning experience. I recently have been praying to know what more I need to do as a missionary and as a disciple, and I felt like I should make a list of gospel principles I wish I understood better, and put it in my study journal where I can refer to it often. Some of the things included the sacrament, Sabbath day worship, setting goals, virtue, and some others. And boy, Heavenly Father has been teaching me about them! This Sunday, both the Gospel Principles lesson and the third hour training focused on the Sabbath and the sacrament! It was an amazing answer to prayer! An RM from another ward spoke in sacrament meeting and taught me a few more things that I want to learn more about. It's amazing how the Lord answers when we ask Him for help, especially when we want to improve.

We had the blessing of going to the temple again this week with another recent convert. Her name is Marie-Claire. She is from Mauritius, is 72 years old, and was baptized the same day as Jorge! The assistants taught her, but we've been working a lot with her recently. She is just fantastic. She loved doing baptisms at the temple with the youth and other recent converts from our ward! That night there were at least five people there for the first time who were there because of the influence of missionaries. It was amazing to see.

We've spent a lot of time tracting this week, trying to find new people to teach. And I love it. I love going finding and searching out those who are prepared and striving to open my mouth and share the gospel with everyone I can! It is the most rewarding work, even if few people actually say yes. Knowing that I have done all I can and that my efforts are pleasing to the Lord is the best reward.

I know this gospel is true, and I know this is the Lord's work! I love my Savior and I am proud to serve Him!

xoxo Sister Larsen

G'Day

G'day!

 

And so it begins! We picked up our golden, Sister Salyer, on Wednesday! She's from California and is so fresh American. (We say "fresh" about people who are straight from the islands, Samoa, Tonga, etc. It applies pretty well to other countries as well haha) She visa waited in Arizona for 12 weeks, so she's not super golden anymore, but she's bringing us miracles nonetheless. It's strange to hear the American accent again! I guess I'm just used to Sister Hatch's accent so it's not weird, but other Americans' accents sound so strange to me. It'll be weird to come home where everyone sounds like that!

 

This weekend has just been marvellous! We went to the temple with Mohsen and Rudy and Jorge on Saturday morning. Mohsen loved it! It was so cool to see them all there being all righteous and shiny and stuff. We went to breakfast afterwards with them and our ward mission leader, Jet. It was hilarious and probably the most fun I've had in a while. They're awesome.

 

On Sunday Jorge gave his first talk and passed the sacrament for the first time! He did a great job with both. And he invited us all over for dinner at his house that evening! He made this awesome Peruvian food, as always. After dinner we had our boys teach us the plan of salvation, which was really cool. Mohsen talked about how Jesus Christ is the reason we can live with God again, and how He overcomes the barriers to make the plan of salvation progress. It was so cool to hear from someone with a Muslim background.

 

Love you all!

xo Sister Larsen

End of May

G'day g'day!

Not too much to report this week... There was a lot of cold weather and crises with our sisters and a lot of us fixing things and trying to find new people to teach. But such is life.

 

We got to go to the temple this week, which was wonderful! I love being able to go with my fellow missionaries. It's cool to feel the spirit that is there with all of us as servants of the Lord. The only thing better is to be in the temple with my family.

 

It was President Maxwell's birthday! Sister Maxwell organized a massive celebration with nearly all the missionaries in attendance! There were wonderful musical numbers (a few of President's favorite hymns sung by a missionary choir, a selection from the Messiah by his son-in-law, and a few other hymns sung by the favorite mission singers) and a hilarous and adorable slideshow of President's life, followed by brownies and ice cream for everyone! We all stayed for nearly an hour afterwards and were just able to talk with each other and have fun with no pressure to rush back for appointments. It felt really good to just relax for a second! I think I've forgotten what that feels like.

 

We had dinner at Rudy's on Saturday like we usually do. Jorge got us another fabulously thoughtful cake! We watched Elder Holland's talk from conference, "Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet." It was so wonderful.

 

It was sad to hear about Elder L. Tom Perry's passing. Many missionaries, and I'm sure many others, are praying for his family. I am so grateful that we do have prophets and apostles on the earth today, and I am grateful that we can trust that whoever fills Elder Perry's place will be called of God just as he was.

 

Much Love,

 

Sister Larsen

PS, in the photo are Jorge, me, Sister Hatch, our friend Liga (she's going on her mission to Sydney in a month!), Mohsen, and Rudy. Cool people.