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!!

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!