Columbus Day E-mail (Oct. 13, 2008)

Mom,
Thanks for your e-mail. It was PACKED with information. I'm surprised my new nephew isn't named Ike, but naming him after me was probably a better call anyway. Where is Jordan Johnson going to? I guess Central America. It's good to hear BYU and SJH are both still undefeated. I'm guessing USU hasn't won a game or else that would be the news of the week.
Alright, now I've got that out I can share what's happened to me this week. For starters, I saw my first baptism on Saturday. Her name is Evelyne Charles and we've probably known her longer than I have been on my mission. My companion performed the baptism and I was able to perform the confirmation on Sunday in church. It was such a huge relief to finally take her off of our list of investigators. It was a little bit of a bitter sweet moment though. We had the baptism on Saturday morning so that her husband could come. But for one reason or another he just decided he wasn't coming. She was pretty sad. To make it worse there were hardly any members there either. Even our Branch President couldn't make it. But we are still teaching her sister who lives with her so we should be able to still see her and make sure she gets all of her new member lessons.In other news, we have also begun teaching two really solid Haitian families. It's pretty rare for a Haitian family to be even close to solid so its pretty sweet and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to teach them. Last night we set dates with four of the people in one family for Nov. 8. It was our first lesson with most of them and it was probably the best lesson I've had so far. We are also still teaching a woman named Mary Fadeal. She is ready for baptism once she can quit chewing tobacco. I think I told you about the lesson we had with her when we first taught the Word of Wisdom and she got up right after the lesson and dumped out all her coffee. She has obviously had a harder time quiting tobacco, but she has gone from five times a day down to one, and she had a stretch where she went three days in a row. Her desire and commitment to live all of God's commandments has really been an example to me. She is an awesome lady!That is the good news coming from Fort Myers this week. Things have been really good. I hope every thing is going great back home. Keep on doing what your doing and I can't wait to hear from you again!
Love,
Elder Larson
P.S. I almost forgot. Today is a pretty cool day. In case you didn't know Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti near present-day Cap-Haitian. The Native Americans living there saw this white man who came from the East and mistook him for Jesus Christ. I don't know how true that story is but Haitians love it! When you tell them that story they can't help but fall in love with the Book of Mormon.