Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Tony..and See!!!

The best thing that happened to us this week was our lesson with Tony. First of all, we were on exchanges so it was Elder Allen and I, we got to his house and after some chatting for 2 minutes or so, he left the room to go grab us some water. While he was gone, his mother, See, came in the room and started talking, asking us who we were and why we were there. Needless to say, we were MORE than happy to tell her why we were there! We talked with her for a good while, even talking about temples, and we then turned our attention back to tony, and included her in a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. It was a VERY good lesson, if I do say so myself, and We have a return appointment with the two of them set up for every Thursday morning at the same time. As we left, she kept telling us, "God bless you! Please come back!" I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

hello there, friends!

I am adjusting to the new pace of Milwaukee, because believe me, it is new to me. We are having success because we really are striving to be out as much as we possibly can, always knocking on one more door, being positive, and above all, having faith and a good humor about everything. We have been finding a lot because many of our scheduled lessons have fallen through, but that means we have EVEN MORE appointments for this week! We are going to be very very busy, and I can't wait. I am most excited for Tony. He is 29 and very prepared. He had a bad experience at his last church (greed) and he kept his faith. I know that we have the gospel that will answer every one of his questions. He recieved the first lesson well, and accepted the invitation to pray about our message and the Book of Mormon. Sorry for the choppiness of that letter, but we had a weird day today... LOVE YOU ALL!!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

hello hello hello...

Hello, hello, hello!
Greetings from the Library in Milwaukee! I have wanted to come to Milwaukee ever since the beginning of my mission, and so far it has exceeded my expectations. For one thing, the buses here are a million times better than the ones in Madison, for another, we live right on beautiful, scenic Marquette campus! Our apartment is a little bit small, but what do we need a big apartment for anyway? My companion is Elder Cutshaw, and we are pretty dang similar. Among other things, we are both Alexander and we have a younger brother named Zach. We don't have a ward here in Milwaukee, but rather we have a branch. I was pretty shocked coming to church this sunday where I found out that we normally have around 50 people show up... 50! I'll have to take you all on a video tour of the building because it is one of the most unique that I've seen. We have some promising investigators, but we're kind of waiting to see them a little bit more frequently before we know that they are ready. In other news... well, there isn't a lot of other news. I do have an address though, for all of those who are just dying to write me... (thanks mom ;))
525 N 20th St apt #105
Milwaukee Wi
53233
LOVE!!

General Conference, baptism and TRANSFERS!

Wow! What a great week we had this week! For starters, we had a lesson with 9 year old hudson, our baptismal date, after the 1st session of conference yesterday. Hudson is the smartest, brightest young man I've met on my mission, and I have met a lot of them. We invited him and his brother, 18, to read the book of mormon together for 10 minutes a day, praying before and after. They both accepted readily, and agreed to be followed up on often.
Then, conference itself... I mean WOW!! I couldn't take notes fast enough!! I have to say, that if I had a favorite talk, it would be from Jorg Klebingat. I've said that I need to print out that talk, shrink it, laminate it, and take it everywhere I go, because he basically gave the keys of peace and happiness to me! My biggest takeaway is that God answers the questions that I didn't even know that I had. We had been teaching members for about 2 weeks to prepare for conference by praying and writing down questions that had for conference. I unfortunately procrastinated that day until friday night. I didn't give myself enough time to think of these questions, but God came through, and showed me how much he cares by answering those questions, and some that I didn't even know that I had. I was very blessed, and even though I didn't do my end or my share of the work in asking these questions, God still made up that difference.
And now.... TRANSFERS!!! It has been revealed to us this morning that I.... Elder Alexander Steven Larsen... Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.... Will be transferred to.... MILWAUKEE!! This is exactly what I wanted, though not exactly what I suspected. I'm veryveryvery excited, and I'm already almost done packing!!
Love you all, you'll have my address as soon as I do!

Thursday, October 2, 2014

MIRACLE!!!

MIRACLE!!!! We had a member take us to Janesville yesterday where we had a Hmong gathering in the home of the less active Yangs that live there. They have progressed very very well, and they are on the edge of becoming active again and are striving to come to church. But that isn't the miracle part! They have a 9 year old son that they want to be baptized, and we set a date with him! Hudson will be baptized on November 16th! We have a couple of lessons set up already, and everybody in his family, including him, seem to be really excited! Not a lot of time today, I apologize... But God loves you!!