TRANSFERS!!!

Before mentioning anything else, I have to say that transfers are a pretty big surprise to everyone! So just a little recap of what is going on, so that you'll understand why it is such a surprise... So I have only been here two transfers, I only have two left, I've only been with Elder Lor for one transfer, AND we have so much good work going on here... BUT! I found out this morning that I'm being transferred to SHEBOYGAN!!! That puts me back in a companionship with one of my favorite companions, Elder Stegner! I'm definitely not disappointed to be serving in Sheboygan, and to be with a companion that I already know and love? A very tender mercy. Another interesting thing is that the Hmong area here in Milwaukee is combining with the English area, so Elder Lor will be with Elder Goodale, our district leader........ Strange things are afoot at the MKE (10 points for those of you who can name THAT movie!)
Besides that, more good news with Van and Blia, they were both at church on Sunday again where we had another lesson. They want to be married some time soon in the new year! Also, we met a friend of Eh say and Say Paw, our investigators. His name is Nin, and he seems to have a good amount of interest in learning more. It has been a crazy morning, so I'm going to go do some sport... things to help me relax... LOVE!!!

MERRY MILWAUKEESE CHRISTMAS!

Another great step in the progression of Van and Blia happened this week: They came to church again this week where we had our first lesson with them! We taught the first half of the restoration, really focusing on the authority of Christ's church. Blia has gone to other churches in the past, and in fact, her mother is a pastor at one of those churches. They seemed to understand and take it very well. We had a few members in the lesson actually: Their mother, brother and sister xiong, and Maimoua yang. Unfortunately though, much of the rest of our week was spent finding because our appointments cancelled for the holidays. Speeeeeeeeaking of the holidays... MERRY MILWAUKEESE CHRISTMAS!!! We have quite a fun week planned out, of course Christmas is the highlight, but other than that, we have breakfast with the President, Christmas eve dinner, and a Hmong dinner where we get to eat squirrel (no joke!) I'm very much looking forward to having calls with my family, and I can't wait to tell them that I'll just talk to them in another 3 months! I can't believe that this is going to be my last call... Before I ramble on too much, I'll just wish you all a very merry Christmas, and a happy 2015!

Hmong New Year!!!

We had a super exciting weekend! So I'll give a brief overview of everything else and get right to it. So this week, we met with Joyce again. She is as funny as ever, and surely as talkative! We spent the lesson talking about the Plan of Salvation, which she has had the most questions about. She seemed to understand and like most of it, but we are still trying to break through that wall between knowledge and application. She cried at one point in the lesson and asked "Do you ever feel really sad for Jesus Christ and all he went through?" I had the opportunity to bear my witness of the reality and enabling power of the atonement. It wasn't for nothing, and it wasn't just so one Man would suffer, but so that all men wouldn't have to. Skipping to Saturday, we went to the Hmong new year event! We didn't think that we would be able to make it, there were no buses to the sports complex where they held it, but at the last second, we got a ride with 2 investigators! It was awesome! I was able to do a little souvenir hunting, and scored 3 English movies translated into Hmong: Cars (Tsheb) Monsters University (Tsev Kawm Ntawv Dab) and Despicable me (something like... Saib kuv khawb qhov muag) We had great food, and saw quite a few members and investigators there. Afterwards we had our branch Christmas party, with more food, more members, and more investigators! I may have even snuck a picture with the big jolly elf himself!

--Elder Larsen!

Thanksgiving...and a LOT of it!

I'm still working off all of that food that I ate this last Thursday. I'll just give a little recap of what went down. It all started on Sunday. We still had no invites to Thanksgiving, so we were debating whether or not we should mention it to anyone. Of course we didn't because, c'mon, that's just something that you don't do as a missionary. Church started, and our Branch president mentioned it over the pulpit, so we felt confident that something would happen, but by the end of church, still nobody had signed up. We weren't too terribly bugged by it, so we planned to eat out at one of our favorite restaurants. We got a text later that night though, inviting us to a 3 family Thanksgiving meal. So Thursday came and we had our turkey bowl at 8 (bus riding that early on a holiday STINKS!!) but we got there. It was only 15 degrees or so for most of the game, but we played hard and each shed layers by the end of the game. We're all still sore too. We then went home for a quick repose, and then traveled to the Leakes house where we had everything that you would imagine that a normal Thanksgiving would have-- turkey, rolls, potatoes, pies, ciders, stuffing... MMM!!! I even had sweet potato casserole for the first time in my life! I ate myself sick, and had to take a little break to let it all settle. Thanksgiving and a LOT of it! Unfortunately there is NOTHING else to report. A very slow week. All but 1 of our set appointments cancelled, so we tracted pretty heavily.... Anyway, 25 days til Christmas!! LOVE YOU!

GRATITUDE

Hello to one and all!!

Elder Lor and I are having a GREAT time so far! We have had some things keeping us from doing a ton of work (cancellations, bus rides, missed appointments, bus rides, dinners, bus rides...) But, we're still having a blast! We've already decided that we're going to write a rap and put it to a music video of us just dinking around. It's weird to think how soon this Christmas is coming! Only a month from now what will I be doing? And along THAT train of thought, 4 months from now what will I be doing. There isn't much to report on other facets of the work, Tony is still reading the Book of Mormon, Eh Say and Say Paw are working towards a baptism date (I'll have to tell you more about them next week!) and Joyce rescheduled our appointment for next week. I'm gearing up for Thanksgiving with a list of gratitude, and here is a good little sample:

Family, friends, Hmong people, my warm coat, my warm apartment, my companion, my scriptures and studies, my education, my health... Gosh, the list goes on... But my time doesn't. LOVE YOU, have a good Thanksgiving!

Transfer Surprise!

​Well, we had quite the exciting news today... Elder Cutshaw is being transferred to Wausau! One of my top 4 areas (I hope y'all get that joke...) He is super excited to go and I just can't stop telling him all of the good things that are there in Wausau and all the people that I want him to go check up on. It seems like I was just there, but I got transferred there about a year ago! My new companion is Elder Lor, another Hmong companion, he said, "This is going to be the best freaking time of our missions." I haven't served around him, but I've talked with him a few times, and I don't deny that it will be the best time of our missions. Transfers are Wednesday morning so the rest of today and tomorrow are already packed with packing and saying goodbyes.
This week, I'll take a little break from the updates on Tony (he rescheduled the lesson for next week). I WILL however, tell you about our newest investigator, Joyce Hill. Joyce was a media referral that we got last week, and after one very unsuccessful attempt to contact her, we weren't very optimistic that she even lived there. The next time we tried, we were miraculously able to get in the apartment building because somebody thought that we rang their door. We knocked on her door, and she looked a little bit rough, so again we weren't too sure. We began speaking and she was pretty short with us, so AGAIN, we weren't sure about her. Then we mentioned that the referral mentioned that she needed a blessing. As soon as we said that, she broke down in tears and asked "can you bless me with a new heart?" She needs surgery soon, and we did our best to comfort and console her. We gave her a blessing and ultimately she warmed up to us and has now essentially adopted us as surrogate grandchildren. We have another appointment with her this Wednesday that we'll have to push back due to transfers, but we are VERY excited.

BE GOOD!!

TONY!

This week was a fun week, lots of running too and fro. One of us lost the phone, so we had to take the hour bus ride to the mission office TWICE!! The first one we went and NOBODY WAS THERE!! We had no idea why and no way to call... We went again the next day and sheepishly forgot to mention that we had been there the day before. Again, just another update on our most promising investigator, Tony. We had yet another morning meeting with him on Wednesday. We followed up on our invitation we gave to him to pray. He had prayed, and his answer was-- get this-- I think that I need to read the Book of Mormon to find out if it's true. Uh, YEAH!! I don't think I've ever told an investigator NOT to read the book of Mormon, so he is right on par there. Oh my goodness, we were only slightly excited when he said that. Disappointed that he didn't get a Yes to baptism, but that's like being disappointed that you got cookies in stead of cake. It wasn't necessarily a yes I'll be baptized, but it might as well be because the power of the book of mormon is undeniable. He will know of its truthfulness, I know that. Tony is going to progress, and before you know it I'll be sending some pictures of him in white!

LOVE Y'ALL

An "off beat" week...

We had sort of a strange week this week... not bad strange or anything, just... strange. I think what really kicked it off was an emergency exchange with my district leader, Elder Ward. His companion, Elder Allen has been very sick really ever since I have been here, and this week it progressed to a sinus infection. Anyway, Elder Ward and I covered the two areas for the day, spending most of our day with their investigators in their lessons. We also taught one of their recent converts, Victor, who is a funny little man with a mustache. Anyway, while we were out, Elder Cutshaw and Allen had a good lesson with Tony, they invited him solidly to be baptized and he responded with something to the effect of "that's a big decision, I'm going to have to pray about that!" We are excited to meet with him again on Wednesday to hear about that experience. We know that everyone has agency, and sometimes it can be hard to hear an investigator say "this isn't for me" when in reality we know that it's for everyone. We pray that Tony prays in sincerity of heart with real intent and then listens to that still small voice so that when we go back, he will be prepared to accept our message. And now... something totally different! I just thought it would be good to shoot over a couple of videos that I've really enjoyed watching the past few weeks... LOVE

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?im=true&v=3792885561001
http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001
https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/christs-authority-is-questioned?lang=eng

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!!!

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!!

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!!