Week two in the city

Dearest family and friends,

 

Week two in the city has been wonderful!

This week I:

~worked on learning how to navigate the trams between our home in Richmond and the chapel in the city

~got a little better at talking to strangers on the street (turns out I just need to take that first step to initiate conversation and then I'm pretty sweet)

~learned a couple phrases in Vietnamese (xin chou!)

~set a solid baptismal date with our investigator, Ken. He is from Thailand and has lived in Melbourne for a few years. He is so enthusiastic about learning the gospel and is so diligent in reading the scriptures! I am so excited to continue to help him progress.

~met a girl named Tijana who is absolutely amazing. The elders are teaching her, but I just want to be her best friend. She's Aussie and a total hippie, which is not normally the type to be receptive to the gospel, but she came to church on Sunday and loved it so much that she didn't want to leave!

 

I love the city and I love being a missionary and I love the gospel!!

xoxo Sister Larsen

The City!

Dearest family and friends,

I've been transferred to..... *drumroll*

THE CITY!!!

I could not be happier about it! Melbourne is so bustling and alive and I love everything about it! The branch here is so adorable. It's mostly made up of international students, a lot of whom are Vietnamese. Most of the members have been baptized for a year or less. The branch meets in the first level of an office building. It's small, but it's always full of people! The branch members are all really close with each other and with the missionaries. It's like one big multicultural family! It's such a unique place with such special people.

We don't do any tracting in the city, but we do what we call Golden Questioning, or GQ-ing, where we just strike up conversations with people on the street. As you would probably guess, that is just plain terrifying for me. Luckily my wonderful companion, Sister Vuta, is not afraid, so I can follow her lead. GQ-ing is amazing though, especially in the city. This week alone I have talked to people from Japan, China, Thailand, Tasmania, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, all of whom were just walking down the street or sitting on a bench. For some reason people are more likely to hold a good conversation with you if you talk to them on the street than if you knock on their door.

We have seen so many miracles this week with teaching and GQ-ing. The most amazing one was Fin. She is a lady from Vietnam who was only visiting Melbourne for a week. We started chatting with her and invited her to see our chapel, which was about a five minute walk away. She was very interested and told us that she is Catholic but she always finds a church to go to whenever she travels. We gave her a tour of the chapel and she kept asking us what makes our church different from other churches. In Vietnam, they only have Catholic and Protestant churches, and ours was a third different one that she did not know, so we taught her the restoration. When we talked with her about the first vision, she said she got goosebumps! She was so excited to learn about the Book of Mormon and we gave her copies in English and Vietnamese. After we taught her she kept telling us how grateful she was and how she felt that God had meant for her to meet us. She gave us big hugs before she left, and we gave her our phone number even though she was leaving the city a couple days later. Yesterday she texted us, saying that she was on a bus to Canberra and was reading the Book of Mormon! I am so excited for her. I just know that she will get baptized one day. I really hope she finds the church when she goes back to Vietnam, because I know how much the gospel will bless her life!

I am so blessed to be able to serve here in the city. It's such a special experience and you get to meet so many wonderful people. The Lord's work is alive and well here in Melbourne!

Much Love,

Sister Larsen

Miracles and Transfer News

Oh, man. This week.

 

This week I got to witness the baptism of my darling little Aprilia! She may only be eight years old, but she is wise beyond her years. She knows what it means to have a testimony and she truly understands what the gospel is really all about. During her baptismal interview, Elder Apulu asked her what repentance means. She paused and thought for a minute, and then said, "Change."

 

It has been so incredible to watch the change in her entire family. Their mom who never used to say a word to us now has been taught the restoration, has had us over for family home evenings, and invited us to Aprilia's birthday party. Latetia, the oldest sister, used to mock Natalya for not drinking and would leave every time we came over, now talks with us for hours and tells us how glad she is that she knows us. She has so many questions to ask about the gospel and is always so excited to learn more. Last week we taught her the plan of salvation and challenged her to pray about baptism, and she did! She said prayed and then she had a dream that she got baptized in a silk dress. She told us, "Now I know I need to get baptized! I just need to know what day!" There is such a different spirit in their home and it has been so amazing to watch the change in each of them. Natalya is so happy that her family is beginning to follow in her footsteps. For Aprilia's baptism, our primiary president gave her framed pictures of Jesus Christ and of the temple, and Natalya put them in their living room so everyone can see them every day. She is such a good example to her family. It's amazing to see how one person can be the catalyst for the change of a whole family. I've been so privileged to be a part of their lives and their change.

 

I feel like I've finally gotten the hang of what missionary work is all about. It's about helping people to change. It's about uniting families in the gospel. It's about loving people and helping them to see how much Heavenly Father loves them too. And it's about moving on when your work is done.

 

The transfer news is in and I am bidding farewell to Point Cook. I'm sad that I won't be able to continue to be a part of the Solomon's conversion, but I feel at peace about the change. I think it's about time to go wherever the Lord needs me.

I love you all! The church is true! The gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families in a way that nothing else can!

xoxo Sister Larsen

"I Feel Great!"

Dear family and friends,

This week has been so miraculous!

 

We have been working with our wonderful family and teaching Aprillia all the lessons so she can be baptized this coming Sunday. We found out that Jecinta's mom isn't too keen on letting her get baptized because she has already been Christened Catholic, but hopefully we'll get to see more of her to see where she really stands. Zandria's date has been pushed back to the 27th because she doesn't quite feel ready. We hadn't seen Chozan for at least a week, so we had assumed that he would want to push his date back as well, if he was even still really interested. But they had promised to come to church on Sunday, so we waited expectantly through all of sacrament meeting, hoping that they would come in late. When they didn't, Sister Rooney and I were devastated! We stressed out all through the second hour class, and afterwards we decided to just go over to their house and invite them to come to the 1:00 ward. So we left church an hour early and just showed up at their house! Turns out they were awake and ready to go...but their ride didn't come. :( We called everyone we could think of to get a ride for them to church, and we finally got ahold of a sister in our ward who was willing to drive them! So Chozan, Aprillia, Natalya, and their little sister Impala all went to the chapel and attended all three hours of church together! We sat with Natalya and Chozan in class and Chozan seemed to really enjoy it. After church, we showed Aprillia the baptismal font so she could see where she's going to get baptized. We asked Chozan how he felt about baptism, and he said, "I feel great!" We asked him when he felt like he could get baptized and he said, "After Aprillia?" Sister Rooney and I were like, "Wait, straight after?" And Chozan just said yes like it was the most obvious thing! We had no idea that he was still reading and praying and wanting to get baptized! Apparently he's been reading all the pamphlets we gave him and studying with Natalya, his sister who is a member. His other sister has been giving him a hard time for "wanting to be Mormon" but he doesn't care. He just knows it's right!

 

They had planned to get baptized on the 13th, but with some complications with the chapel and the members it might be pushed back to the 19th. But as long as they get baptized, that's all that matters. We've got a busy week ahead of us, because we have to teach Chozan all of the lessons before he can have his baptismal interview and all that jazz. But we are so, so excited! Heavenly Father definitely answers prayers and prepares people to hear the gospel!!

I love you all!


xoxo Sister Larsen

TIKA TONU!

Dear friends and family,

This week I:

~Taught our miracle baptism dates' mom the restoration. When we asked her to pray about it, she said she felt like God would tell her it was true.
~Introduced Daisy, one of our recent converts, to Ria and Nawa, some of our investigators who are sisters. They're all Maori girls from New Zealand who have young families, and they live around the corner from each other. Fingers crossed they become fast friends. Daisy's testimony is so fresh and golden and I really hope she rubs off on them.
~Spent a wonderful evening with the Richards family. We stopped by to drop off some cookies we baked and share a lesson, and they invited us to stay for dinner. I absolutely adore them. Brother and Sister Richards both come from kind of rough backgrounds, but they have both become so strong in the gospel. Their testimonies are so strong and they are so inspiring. It's a privilege to be able to know them.
~Attended a multicultural night that our neighboring ward put on. They invited a Seikh group to come and perform (they did some crazy sword fighting martial arts, and finished off my cracking coconuts on people's heads with baseball bats), as well as a Samoan Chrisitan group (they sang Christian songs like an islander barbershop quartet!). One of the YSA girls in our ward did some Hawaiian and Cook Island hula with a girl from her hula troupe (in the middle of their routine, they pulled a bunch of guys from the audience on the floor and taught them how to hula! It was so awkward and hilarious), another ward did Samoan dancing (in lavalavas with feather headdresses!) aaaaand....the missionaries did the haka! Even the sisters! It was killer. We all yelled so loudly that most of the elders lost their voices the next day! Not to brag, but we totally stole the show.
Unfortunately my camera was accidentally locked in the bishop's office so I didn't get any videos. :( But a lot of the other missionaries did, so they should be sending them to me today! So you can see me do the haka next week. If there's something I never thought I'd learn how to do, it's the haka. But hey! It's pretty awesome.

Love you all!! xoxo Sister Larsen

"So? Just read!"

Dearest friends and family,


I'm not exaggerating when I say that all but a couple of our appointments fell through this week. We spent six days driving from planned appointment to planned appointment only to have people text us to cancel or be sick or otherwise unavailable to talk with us.


But on Sunday, we had the greatest miracle. We have been teaching Aprillia, who is the seven-year-old sister of Natalya, a 14-year-old recent convert. Natalya is the only member in her family, but has been such a good example to her siblings. Aprillia said that what she wants for her birthday is to be baptized, so we have been teaching her all the lessons to her seven-year-old understanding. Sometimes her older siblings would sit in and listen, but they never seemed very interested. This time, though, there was someting different about them. They were genuinely interested and really wanted to learn. After we taught the plan of salvation, Natalya's older brother, Chozan, said, "I want to move in with God." Sister Rooney and I kind of just looked at each other and were like, "You know how you can do that? By getting baptized!" Jesinta, their family friend who pretty much lives at their house, then asked us about the difference between christening and baptism, and expressed that even though she was christened as a baby she doesn't know much about God. She asked if we have any books that teach the basics about God, so Sister Rooney and I whipped out our pamphlets and a copy of the Book of Mormon! She was so excited. We then invited Chozan, his younger sister Zandria, and Jesinta to work towards getting baptized on the same day as Aprillia, July 13th! They were all so excited to pray and receive answers, as well as read more about the gospel. They all promised they would come to church as well! We had never expected that much from them. They had never seemed interested before. Right before we left, another one of Natalya's sisters, Latitia, came in. She always kind of gives Natalya a hard time for not drinking or smoking and all that, because Latitia is a huge party animal. She looked at all the pamphlets in Jesinta's hands and said, "You know you can't drink anymore if you do that." And Jesinta just held up the pamphlets and said, "So? Just read!" It was truly a miracle.


We also had the opportunity to go to the baptism of Brother Kong, the Chinese elders' investigator. He's the first Chinese person to be baptized into the Point Cook ward! All the talks were in Chinese and the baptism and confirmation were said in Chinese as well. It was a really cool experience. Brother Kong looked so happy afterward. He cried pretty much the whole time and kept putting his hand on his chest and saying, "So warm." He came to church on Sunday in a suit and a borrowed jacket from Elder Shum. He looked so proud of himself. It was so cool to watch him be able to make promises with Heavenly Father and to see the change that came over him as he did.


The Gospel is real!


xoxo Sister Larsen

"Here we kneel in the sand..."

Dearest family and friends,

This week has been the most miraculous week.

I got my new companion, Sister Rooney, at transfer meeting on Tuesday. She is from Adelaide and has been out for nine months. She's super adorable and bubbly and she sings all the time and has cool glasses. People ask us all the time if we're sisters, probably because we're both blonde and super white. I love her already. (And apparently our moms are already chatting on facebook. The creeps.)

 

Transfer meeting is always inspiring because we get to hear the testimonies of the departing missionaries, but this one was especially inspiring. Elder Maifala, my zone leader, went home this transfer, and in his departing testimony he mentioned that video with Elder Holland that I wrote about last week. He also bore his testimony that we are all supposed to be here, and that we shouldn't go home because we feel like we aren't doing any good. The Lord called us here, and this is where we are meant to be. That was just another confirmation to me of what I learned last week about the work not being easy, but being so very necessary.

 

Tuesday evening Sister Rooney and I went to go meet our ward mission leader. While we were at his house, his wife shared an awesome video with us about John Tanner, one of the early saints. (You can watch it here). He was a self-made wealthy man who converted to the church and was healed from a canker on his leg that threatened to take his life. What really impressed me about his story, though, was not his miraculous healing, but more his miraculous faith. After he became converted, he gave every penny he had earned to the church. He invested in the temple and in other church prospects for the progression of God's kingdom here on earth, and he never got a penny of it back. But what he did gain was faith in the Lord and in His purposes. He really understood how to consecrate everything he had to the Lord and understood the blessings that come from it. I was so impressed with his faith, and I've been thinking about his willing sacrifice constantly. I want to be able to have faith like that so that I can truly give my all to the Lord and to His work.

 

That same evening, Sister Rooney shared a bit of a poem with me. It's about a group of pioneers who had faced an extremely treacherous, very un-miraculous journey, and had gotten just close enough to their destination that they knew they were going to make it. It reads:

"Here we kneel in the sand, grateful for every unanswered plea that proved us. Faith is the mountain that would not flee, the water that would not part, the stone that did not turn to bread, instead marks our dead." That poem really hit me. Faith is not always manifested in miracles. Faith is enduring through the hardships and remaining faithful. Faith is trusting the Lord through whatever trial He sees fit to lay upon you, and believing that He could work miracles if it were His plan to do so.

 

I am grateful for every unanswered plea that proved me. And now I am grateful for the miracles that the Lord is working in my missionary work.

 

Every day of this new transfer, we have seen a miracle. Wednesday, we found seven new contacts in half an hour. Thursday, we set a baptism date with our investigator, Emma, who had basically come to us and said that she wanted to be a Mormon and that she felt ready and committed to being baptized. Friday, we re-contacted one of our former investigators who said she wanted to take the lessons from the beginning. Saturday, Sister Rooney and I had a wonderful discussion about obedience and both committed ourselves to being exactly obedient with a willing heart. And Sunday, my personal favorite miracle, we set a baptism date with Victoria.

 

Victoria has wanted to be baptized ever since the missionaries started visiting her family, but we haven't felt able to invite her and Antonio to be baptized because we didn't want to offend their dad, who is Muslim. But on Sunday, we taught the plan of salvation to their whole family, and asked their father if he would be willing to allow his children to be baptized. And he said yes! As soon as he said yes, Victoria burst into tears. She is so excited. She said she wants to either be baptized on Christmas because it's Christ's birthday and He is the reason she's getting baptized, or on her birthday, July 19th. We picked July 19th for her because it's sooner. ;) Antonio is still waiting for his answer if baptism is right for him, and waiting for confirmation from Heavenly Father that he is worthy to be baptized. He really likes to be 100% sure about things before he commits, and I think he doesn't feel worthy simply because he doesn't feel like he was 100% faith yet. We invited him to keep praying, and we feel like he will get his answer very soon. The change that we have seen in him just this week is miraculous. During fast and testimony meeting, I noticed that he was crying, (Which is okay, because I was too. It was a killer testimony meeting.) and when we taught their family on Sunday, he looked at us more and gave longer answers to our questions. He is very, very shy, so he normally doesn't talk very much and hardly looks up. But when he told us about his desires to find his own witness, he looked us in the eye! And when we left, his handshake was just that much firmer.

The Lord really works in marvellous ways, and it's incredible to see how the gospel of Jesus Christ can change people. I know I've seen it change me. I hope that I can always keep changing and keep growing closer to my Savior, because the moment I think I have changed enough and I am good enough is the moment I lose His help, and there is no way I can do this without Him.

 

The gospel is so, so true. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to be a part of it, and the opportunity to share it with all of our Father's children.

 

Much Love,

Sister Larsen