Email of Apr. 27, 2009

Dear Mom and Dad,
This past week was really good. The work is going great and I'm starting to really like Naples. One of the biggest differences between Naples and Fort Myers is that we have a senior couple here. They help us a lot. In fact they go with us to most all of our lessons and they give us rides occasionally too. This past week was their last week here. It is going to be a lot different trying to do the work without them. This branch is sure going to miss them. But you may get a call from them in the next couple weeks to tell you how bad of a missionary I am. Last night (Sunday) we had a surprise party for them. It went really good and we ended up with most of the leftovers too, so that was good.

This week there has also been a pretty big wildfire just to the east of us. It shut down the freeway to Miami and has been blowing smoke and ash over us for the past few days.

This week we used the Sumps (the departing senior couple) as much as we could. We have quite a few investigators right now and so we were able to teach a lot. A lot of our investigators are younger and it makes it harder for them to come to church. That is going to be one of our biggest challenges. Either getting their parents to step up and take them or organizing rides for them all. Another common theme with a lot of our investigators is that they all seem to know members. Which is crazy since we didn't find them through members they were all our contacts. A good example of both of these is a boy named Isaiah D'Haiti. He is about 13 and I think he has the coolest name ever. He lives with his dad on weekdays but on the weekends he lives with his mom in an apartment complex that closer to the church. So we got his number from him for his mom's house, but when we put it into the phone the next day it came up as a member in the branch. So we came to find out that he knows a few members already. Also we are teaching a girl (Bethie) who is cousins of some members in Immokalee. Then we are teaching a really cool family. We met the kids while we were out tracting. They were playing soccer in a cul-de-sac. When we came back the next day to meet the parents we found out that the mom is a niece of a member and that she was a judge in Haiti with the counselor in the branch presidency. We're really excited about all of those people. Right now two of them have dates to be baptized in May. May is going to be a really good month. We hopefully will have a baptism or two (which this branch really needs), we are going to have a bi-branch (maybe tri) Haitian flag-day party in Immokalee on the 16th and 5 of the 8 Haitian missionaries birthdays are within a couple weeks of each other.

While we're on the subject of birthdays, if you send me anything I would appreciate greatly if you could find some of my french stuff for me. I don't know how packed up it is. But I would just like the laminated fold outs that have all kinds of basic stuff on them, and maybe a dictionary. If you can't find them it's ok. Also, I still like to know where Dad served on his mission. Thank you so much for all you do for me. I really appreciate your weekly e-mails. Oh, and I got the letter this week too. I loved all of the letters/pictures. I hope all is well and I will talk to you on the 10th.
Love,
Elder Larson