Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for your last e-mail. It sounds things are super busy. Dad is up to tons of scout stuff, and Mom is busy with school and all the guests. I'm glad to find out that Oleyna and Natauni are married or soon to be. It's good to hear about things like that sooner rather than later(hint hint).
Things here in Naples are pretty good. Naples is kinda closer to the ocean, but we actually live in a area called Golden Gate that's probably about the same distance from the ocean as Fort Myers. Naples, Fort Myers , and Immokalee are all about 30 minutes from each other, so Haitian missionaries don't ever go very far. In fact, today we are going to Fort Myers for a zone P-day. The branch in Naples (Celeste) is about a third the size of Providence but there are some really good members. One of the strongest families here (the Marcs) just went to the Temple and were sealed. They had a really good experience and I was pretty jealous. My companion is really cool. He has been out for about 19 months now. A lot of that time has been here in Naples. He reminds me a lot of Edward. He likes video games a lot too. Right now we are teaching a few people. One of our biggest obstacles here is that the area we are working in is about 13 miles away from our house and almost that far from the church. It uses up a lot of our time when we have to ride our bikes down there and it's an even bigger problem getting people to come to church. One of our strongest investigators is a girl named Manushka. She has a date to be baptized but she hasn't come to church yet because her parents aren't really willing to drive her. But we've started working with them and hopefully they can start progressing. We may have to get her rides with some of our other investigators that live down there.
Sorry I don't have too much to say this week, The time limits at the library here are a little shorter so I'm being rushed. I hope I answered your questions. Dad if you could, I really would like to know what cities you served in on your mission. I hope everything is going well. Once again, sorry for the rushed e-mail. I will try to make up for it next week.
Love,
Elder Larson
- Show quoted text -
April 20, 2009
April 13, 2009
New Address
I forgot to give you my new address. If you want to send me anything directly use this one. I'll probably be there for a while (7 1/2 months?):
5455 16th Place SW
Naples, FL 34116
5455 16th Place SW
Naples, FL 34116
Email of Apr. 13, 2009
Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your e-mail. It always brightens my day to hear how everyone is doing. This past week was a really good one. We taught a lot and met a lot of new people. I also found out that I am going to Naples. I’m way excited. It will be hard to leave Fort Myers though. We have a lot of really solid investigators right now. We have six people who have a baptismal date and others who are really close. The branch is also doing really well, and we just started Thursday night basketball. But even though I’ll be missing out on all that, Naples has a lot to look forward to. I’ll be serving with Elder Jones. He is a really good missionary who has been out for about 18 months. Naples has a senior couple who will be able to sew my pants and give us rides until they go home in a couple weeks. One of the families we are teaching here might be following me down to Naples. Naples also has a really awesome family who is going to the temple this week. So, lots of things to look forward to. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting. My companion was kind enough to let the branch president know that I was leaving and suggested that I speak. I was more than happy to speak. It just so happened that, because of Easter there was an unusually high number of people there. But I was lucky enough to be able to speak on the Atonement. I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my testimony of the Savior with other people, especially the Haitian people. The longer I serve the more I know that my call was inspired and that this is where I am supposed to be. To answer some of your questions: I was able to baptize Peter, E. Valentine baptized Miara, and E. Tremblay baptized Girtha. I got a couple pictures from the wedding, I got one of the whole family at the luncheon standing in front of some Christmas trees and I also got one of all my nieces and nephews. Happy birthday to Ian by the way (a couple days a go) and Anthony (a couple weeks ago). There might have been some other pictures but that is all that I remember. I hope that this e-mail finds you well and that everyone had a happy Easter!
Love,
Elder Larson
Thank you so much for your e-mail. It always brightens my day to hear how everyone is doing. This past week was a really good one. We taught a lot and met a lot of new people. I also found out that I am going to Naples. I’m way excited. It will be hard to leave Fort Myers though. We have a lot of really solid investigators right now. We have six people who have a baptismal date and others who are really close. The branch is also doing really well, and we just started Thursday night basketball. But even though I’ll be missing out on all that, Naples has a lot to look forward to. I’ll be serving with Elder Jones. He is a really good missionary who has been out for about 18 months. Naples has a senior couple who will be able to sew my pants and give us rides until they go home in a couple weeks. One of the families we are teaching here might be following me down to Naples. Naples also has a really awesome family who is going to the temple this week. So, lots of things to look forward to. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament meeting. My companion was kind enough to let the branch president know that I was leaving and suggested that I speak. I was more than happy to speak. It just so happened that, because of Easter there was an unusually high number of people there. But I was lucky enough to be able to speak on the Atonement. I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my testimony of the Savior with other people, especially the Haitian people. The longer I serve the more I know that my call was inspired and that this is where I am supposed to be. To answer some of your questions: I was able to baptize Peter, E. Valentine baptized Miara, and E. Tremblay baptized Girtha. I got a couple pictures from the wedding, I got one of the whole family at the luncheon standing in front of some Christmas trees and I also got one of all my nieces and nephews. Happy birthday to Ian by the way (a couple days a go) and Anthony (a couple weeks ago). There might have been some other pictures but that is all that I remember. I hope that this e-mail finds you well and that everyone had a happy Easter!
Love,
Elder Larson
April 6, 2009
General Conf. Weekend email Apr. 5,2009
Dear Family,
Conference really was a spiritual feast. It was great to receive such needed and specific instruction from the leaders of the church. One of my favorite talks was President Uchtdorf's from the Priesthood session. I was really impressed when he said "this isn't someone's best guess about ancient scripture, this is the truth of God revealed to his holy prophets." This conference was a reaffirmation of that fact for me. We were able to watch all of the sessions of conference in the chapel. There weren't too many people there, but we did have quite a few investigators come to multiple sessions.
Speaking of our investigators, this week we saw a lot of progress with them. We are still teaching Girtha's cousin Richard Lajoie. He is progressing pretty well and now has a date for the 26th. We gave him the date in the baptismal font with Girtha and I thought it would be a little awkward but the Spirit was strong and he accepted without hesitation. We are excited for him but he is still in the process of moving to Fort Myers and may be living in Lehigh which is the other Elder's area. He says he should be settled here by the end of this week but we may have to turn him over to the other missionaries. Our other main investigators is a family of five made up of a mother (Ida) and four of her five kids (Chirlinda, Natasha, Charlie, and Jonathan) that live with her. They are all very solid and have accepted soft commits for baptism but not yet a date. All four of the kids came to at least two sessions of conference. The mom wasn't able to make it because of work. We are also teaching the kids Kreyol. It will be great for them to be able to communicate better with their mom. We are working with a few other people as well. One, named Winson has been attending church for about a year, but wasn't able to be baptized along with his three cousins last summer. He is working toward baptism and we're excited for that. We are also trying to start teaching some of the kids who have been coming for basketball. We'll see where that goes.
This week we also had a competition with the zone leaders to see who could get the best numbers. It probably wasn't the best thing because it made us focus on numbers more, but President Colton was all for it and we got free frozen custard out of it. That's about all that I can think of to tell you for now, everything is going great here. I'm not excited to find out about transfers this weekend because it will probably mean I'm leaving Fort Myers. But I know that where ever I go is the place that I need to be. I hope everything is going well at home. Tell everyone hi from me.
Love,
Elder Larson
Conference really was a spiritual feast. It was great to receive such needed and specific instruction from the leaders of the church. One of my favorite talks was President Uchtdorf's from the Priesthood session. I was really impressed when he said "this isn't someone's best guess about ancient scripture, this is the truth of God revealed to his holy prophets." This conference was a reaffirmation of that fact for me. We were able to watch all of the sessions of conference in the chapel. There weren't too many people there, but we did have quite a few investigators come to multiple sessions.
Speaking of our investigators, this week we saw a lot of progress with them. We are still teaching Girtha's cousin Richard Lajoie. He is progressing pretty well and now has a date for the 26th. We gave him the date in the baptismal font with Girtha and I thought it would be a little awkward but the Spirit was strong and he accepted without hesitation. We are excited for him but he is still in the process of moving to Fort Myers and may be living in Lehigh which is the other Elder's area. He says he should be settled here by the end of this week but we may have to turn him over to the other missionaries. Our other main investigators is a family of five made up of a mother (Ida) and four of her five kids (Chirlinda, Natasha, Charlie, and Jonathan) that live with her. They are all very solid and have accepted soft commits for baptism but not yet a date. All four of the kids came to at least two sessions of conference. The mom wasn't able to make it because of work. We are also teaching the kids Kreyol. It will be great for them to be able to communicate better with their mom. We are working with a few other people as well. One, named Winson has been attending church for about a year, but wasn't able to be baptized along with his three cousins last summer. He is working toward baptism and we're excited for that. We are also trying to start teaching some of the kids who have been coming for basketball. We'll see where that goes.
This week we also had a competition with the zone leaders to see who could get the best numbers. It probably wasn't the best thing because it made us focus on numbers more, but President Colton was all for it and we got free frozen custard out of it. That's about all that I can think of to tell you for now, everything is going great here. I'm not excited to find out about transfers this weekend because it will probably mean I'm leaving Fort Myers. But I know that where ever I go is the place that I need to be. I hope everything is going well at home. Tell everyone hi from me.
Love,
Elder Larson
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