Dear Family,
So many exciting things! I'm excited for Edward, it sounds like exciting things are happening in his life. I'm also really excited for Colby. The Fijian missionaries were in the same zone as us at the MTC and we were all really good friends. I'm excited for him to meet the missionaries from Kiribati especially. A lot of exciting things have been happening here as well. One of the biggest things happened last Sunday. We had a change in the branch presidency. We will miss our old branch president, he was a really good president and is pretty much the only reason this branch even exists. But we are really excited to work with our new president. He is an American who doesn't speak Kreyol at all. But he has been our High Counsellor for a while and will be really good for the branch. He has been working on his Kreyol for the last six months since Elder Scott came and asked him to start learning. The work is doing pretty good in this area. We have a lot of investigators but not very many of them are willing to progress so we are going to be doing some really good finding this week to try and improve the quality of our teaching pool. We are working with some really good people right now. Our main investigators are a couple named Renel and Barbette. The missionaries have been teaching them for a while and they love the church but they haven't yet received a response yet about the Book of Mormon. This week we are going to focus on helping them recognize the Holy Ghost and try and commit them to accept a baptismal date. Also, Dad will find this interesting, Renel was really active with the Scouts in Haiti and we are getting him involved with the youth here. I think it will be very good for him. We have another investigator named Joel who we just found this week. He is a really nice guy and loves the church. We came to the church to ask about English class and we invited him to take a tour. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and committed him to read and pray. We have our second lesson with him tonight and I am really excited. He also told us that he was the principal mayor a city in Haiti called Cite Soleil. He and his family were forced to leave when the current president's regime took power. It is a pretty amazing story. Those are some of our main investigators right now. This week is going to be really good. The branch is also having a baptism this weekend; Peter and Miara who I taught in the other area are going to be baptized. They are really excited and I'm excited for them. That is pretty much the run down on what's been happening here. I hope everything is going well at home. I can't wait to hear from you next week.
Love,
Elder Larson
January 26, 2009
January 19, 2009
Email of Jan. 17, 2009
Dear Family,
Surprise! My e-mail is a little early this week. President Colton called us this morning and told us to e-mail today because Monday is a holiday and Tuesday is transfer day. President Colton also informed us that my companion Elder Valentine is going to be serving as our new Zone Leader along with our distrist Leader Elder Hofer. That means that the four of us Haitian missionaries in Fort Myers will just be doing a little switch. I will be moving to the other area to work with Elder Tremblay and Elder Hofer will be taking over my spot. I'm really excited to work with Elder Tremblay, and it'll be nice to have a little bit of a change of scenery even though I'll still be working with the same branch. Elder Tremblay is a really good missionary, he has been out for two months longer than me. He is Canadian but has spent most of his life living in St. George. We are going to have alot of fun. We are going to be getting a new apartment sometime soon too so that should be good. It will be the same apartment that the sister missionaries are living in so we know it's nice. That also means that I will be in the area where Bishni lives so I will finally be able to go visit him. It is pretty different for us to have Haitians serving as zone leaders, it's been about three years since that happened. I am pretty excited for those guys. Also, Elder Hall, my old companion, will be our new district leader. This week we have had some really good experiences. I feel like we are starting to find new people. We did a tour of the church last night with a man named Emmanuel. He has been coming to English class for a while and when we asked him to come on a tour he sounded pretty excited. He is pretty active in his church, although it's in English and he doesn't speak very well (He told he likes that church because it helps him learn the language.) When we gave him the tour, he was very interested and understood all of our points. We had a member with us the whole time who was supposed to help us but for most of the time was just a hindrance. But when we told the Joseph Smith story they were all listening very closely and the Spirit was very strong. It was really good until after when our member brought up some strange topics. It's going to be a little hard to leave this area now that the work has just started picking up, but I'm excited to start working in a new area as well. That area has been having similar problems. They have been teaching a lot of the same people for a while. It will be nice to start finding in some new aces and to talk to some new faces. I hope everything is going great at home, sorry I didn't have any warning that I would be doing e-mail early. I guess you'll just have to write me a letter. Speaking of which, I got that package. Thank you so much for the backpack and the candy canes!
Love,
Elder Larson
Surprise! My e-mail is a little early this week. President Colton called us this morning and told us to e-mail today because Monday is a holiday and Tuesday is transfer day. President Colton also informed us that my companion Elder Valentine is going to be serving as our new Zone Leader along with our distrist Leader Elder Hofer. That means that the four of us Haitian missionaries in Fort Myers will just be doing a little switch. I will be moving to the other area to work with Elder Tremblay and Elder Hofer will be taking over my spot. I'm really excited to work with Elder Tremblay, and it'll be nice to have a little bit of a change of scenery even though I'll still be working with the same branch. Elder Tremblay is a really good missionary, he has been out for two months longer than me. He is Canadian but has spent most of his life living in St. George. We are going to have alot of fun. We are going to be getting a new apartment sometime soon too so that should be good. It will be the same apartment that the sister missionaries are living in so we know it's nice. That also means that I will be in the area where Bishni lives so I will finally be able to go visit him. It is pretty different for us to have Haitians serving as zone leaders, it's been about three years since that happened. I am pretty excited for those guys. Also, Elder Hall, my old companion, will be our new district leader. This week we have had some really good experiences. I feel like we are starting to find new people. We did a tour of the church last night with a man named Emmanuel. He has been coming to English class for a while and when we asked him to come on a tour he sounded pretty excited. He is pretty active in his church, although it's in English and he doesn't speak very well (He told he likes that church because it helps him learn the language.) When we gave him the tour, he was very interested and understood all of our points. We had a member with us the whole time who was supposed to help us but for most of the time was just a hindrance. But when we told the Joseph Smith story they were all listening very closely and the Spirit was very strong. It was really good until after when our member brought up some strange topics. It's going to be a little hard to leave this area now that the work has just started picking up, but I'm excited to start working in a new area as well. That area has been having similar problems. They have been teaching a lot of the same people for a while. It will be nice to start finding in some new aces and to talk to some new faces. I hope everything is going great at home, sorry I didn't have any warning that I would be doing e-mail early. I guess you'll just have to write me a letter. Speaking of which, I got that package. Thank you so much for the backpack and the candy canes!
Love,
Elder Larson
January 12, 2009
Email of Jan. 12, 2008
Dear Family,
This morning we woke up to a blanket of fog. It was a welcome change.
Things here are going pretty good. Right now we still don't have that many people to teach and we are struggling to find places to find. But the people we are working with are really good. Peter and Miara are doing really good. Miara has been pretty sad for about the past week because she lost her copy of the illustrated Book of Mormon stories book. Then of Friday, we took Jerry and Julianna Galety (Their cousins who were baptized in November) over to their house for a lesson and during the opening prayer Peter prayed to help Miara find he book. As soon as Peter said that, Julianna piped up and said that the book was at her house. It was really a blessing for Miara because she had been really distraught and we promised her if she prayed that she would be able to find it. Peter and Miara's dad still didn't come to church and we are not sure he's going to progress. But their mom comes back from Haiti this week so I'm hoping that together we will be able to spur him on. We are also still working with Henry and Joseph. Last night we had the opportunity to attend a fireside/concert by the 5 Browns. The music was pretty good but I don't think any of the Haitians that were there really enjoyed it. I just wished they would've only played and not spoke. They weren't the best public speakers. But it was still a fun experience and I think their testimonies will be good for the youth in this area. Also this week we were able to go on the Haitian radio station again. It's pretty sweet. They just leave us in the room and we play Haitian gospel music or Mo Tab. This week we talked about the Family Proclamation. It went really well, although sometimes I wonder how many people actually listen to us. We always open the lines for anyone that wants to call and this week the only people that called were the other elders after we told them to. But even if only a handful of people are listening I think it's worth it. I hope everything at home is going well. It sounds like you have a lot going on. I can't wait to hear from you again next week.
Love,
Elder Larson
This morning we woke up to a blanket of fog. It was a welcome change.
Things here are going pretty good. Right now we still don't have that many people to teach and we are struggling to find places to find. But the people we are working with are really good. Peter and Miara are doing really good. Miara has been pretty sad for about the past week because she lost her copy of the illustrated Book of Mormon stories book. Then of Friday, we took Jerry and Julianna Galety (Their cousins who were baptized in November) over to their house for a lesson and during the opening prayer Peter prayed to help Miara find he book. As soon as Peter said that, Julianna piped up and said that the book was at her house. It was really a blessing for Miara because she had been really distraught and we promised her if she prayed that she would be able to find it. Peter and Miara's dad still didn't come to church and we are not sure he's going to progress. But their mom comes back from Haiti this week so I'm hoping that together we will be able to spur him on. We are also still working with Henry and Joseph. Last night we had the opportunity to attend a fireside/concert by the 5 Browns. The music was pretty good but I don't think any of the Haitians that were there really enjoyed it. I just wished they would've only played and not spoke. They weren't the best public speakers. But it was still a fun experience and I think their testimonies will be good for the youth in this area. Also this week we were able to go on the Haitian radio station again. It's pretty sweet. They just leave us in the room and we play Haitian gospel music or Mo Tab. This week we talked about the Family Proclamation. It went really well, although sometimes I wonder how many people actually listen to us. We always open the lines for anyone that wants to call and this week the only people that called were the other elders after we told them to. But even if only a handful of people are listening I think it's worth it. I hope everything at home is going well. It sounds like you have a lot going on. I can't wait to hear from you again next week.
Love,
Elder Larson
January 5, 2009
Email of Jan. 5, 2009
Dear Mom and Dad,
Bon Ane! I can't believe that it is already 2009! It's gotten off to a pretty good start. We started the year off with a little branch activity at the church. We got together and ate soup joumou (pumpkin soup). Which is a traditional in Haitian culture to eat every premye janvye. It is supposed to bring good health if you start of the year by eating it. After we ate multiple bowls at the church we went to another member's house and ate a few more. It was pretty good and I am looking forward to some superb health this year. The work is going pretty good. We have started teaching Henri, who is Evelyne's husband. He is pretty interested in the church mostly because he wants to be unified with his wife and also for his kids. I'm excited for him and hope that he can continue to progress. We are also working a lot with Jean-Claude who is Peter and Miara's dad. We are waiting on the kids baptism to see where the parents will go. A lot of times Haitian Parents just want someone to take care of their kids but aren't really interested. So we are hoping to get the whole family coming to church before we baptize the kids. We are just trying to get Jean-Claude to understand that if he wants to receive an answer to his prayers he needs to show God that he has a sincere desire and come to church. Until he can do that I don't think he can really progress any further. Things here in Florida are going pretty well. Thanks for your e-mail and I hope to hear from you again soon.
Love,
Elder Larson
Bon Ane! I can't believe that it is already 2009! It's gotten off to a pretty good start. We started the year off with a little branch activity at the church. We got together and ate soup joumou (pumpkin soup). Which is a traditional in Haitian culture to eat every premye janvye. It is supposed to bring good health if you start of the year by eating it. After we ate multiple bowls at the church we went to another member's house and ate a few more. It was pretty good and I am looking forward to some superb health this year. The work is going pretty good. We have started teaching Henri, who is Evelyne's husband. He is pretty interested in the church mostly because he wants to be unified with his wife and also for his kids. I'm excited for him and hope that he can continue to progress. We are also working a lot with Jean-Claude who is Peter and Miara's dad. We are waiting on the kids baptism to see where the parents will go. A lot of times Haitian Parents just want someone to take care of their kids but aren't really interested. So we are hoping to get the whole family coming to church before we baptize the kids. We are just trying to get Jean-Claude to understand that if he wants to receive an answer to his prayers he needs to show God that he has a sincere desire and come to church. Until he can do that I don't think he can really progress any further. Things here in Florida are going pretty well. Thanks for your e-mail and I hope to hear from you again soon.
Love,
Elder Larson
December 30, 2008
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