Aug. 11, 2008 E-mail

Family,
I'm very sad to hear that news. I'm sure that this is rough time for the whole town. That's one of the wonderful things about Blanding is that when something like that happens, there is always someone there for the grieving families and all others involved. Also, most people in town have a knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and that they will see their loved ones again. That really makes a huge difference not only in the lives of those directly affected but it touches the lives of many others too.As for Florida, things are going pretty good. I haven't heard any news of hurricane activity but we still get plenty of rain. We usually are able to avoid it pretty well though. The weather is great!Our teaching pool is pretty good. We have a few people with baptismal dates and some others who look promising. First, we have Olive. She is an older woman who lives in Lehigh. It can be hard to reach her since she lives so far away. She was looking really promising until we found out she got a job on Sunday. But I think she'll come around. Next, we have Jimmy and his brother Fernand. They are 17 and 14. They are pretty good friends with a boy in our branch. Jimmy also just found a job which makes it hard for us to meet with him but Fernand is a stud! He reads in the Book of Mormon (in English) and he is always at church. Then we have Eveline. She is also an older woman who doesn't have a date yet but is working towards one and looks promising. Then we just got four more on Saturday. Three are in one family (Mother, Son, and Grandmother) and the other is a 62 yr old woman. We gave two tours to them and they all accepted the baptismal commitment. So the work is going pretty good. We've been focusing on teaching more and so our finding has suffered. That is alright with me because it means I talk to less Americans.The branch is looking pretty good still. We had about 80 people there yesterday and its looking like we may be a ward by January. We still have a lot of problems and a lot of work to do. The branch president is an awesome guy. He's Canadian but he's married to a Haitian and speaks really good Kreyol. One of our problems is that he does everything in the branch. He usually will end up picking up about half of the branch each Sunday. Yesterday he talked about that and basically told them they need to start walking to church. We also had a combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting and the high councilor from our ward taught about obedience and the things the branch needs. He focused on the need for temple attendance from our branch and how we need to strengthen our families. Our ward mission leader is an awesome guy! He is a pretty recent convert so he doesn't really know whats going on yet, but he works and is pretty dependable. Plus he's a way funny guy. He probably knows every Haitian joke and proverb ever told.That's one thing I've been trying to do a lot is immerse myself in Haitian culture. I love to ask people for proverbs and see what they come up with. I haven't had a chance to eat to much Haitian food. Just once at a house of some people we were helping to move. My companion said it wasn't very good for Haitian food but I thought it was pretty good. We have an appointment on Wednesday to eat with the Branch President and his family.Everything else is going good. My bike works good, we have a b-ball game planned in about an hour, and tell Edward I cut the backpack he gave me in half and so now I have two backpacks instead of one! By the way what is going on with him and Krystal? I just have one favor: could you obtain for me a Haitian copy of the triple combination? The leather-back kind? and also a scripture case I can put it in with my Bib la? If you could that would be awesome!Thanks for all of your prayers and love that you send my way, it really makes a difference! Thanks for your e-mail and letting me know about what's going on at home.
Love,
Elder Larson
Kenbe Janm!