How much time do we waste?

Hola!!

Woooo. This week was great, what can I say? There was this day this week with a huge strike, where the people don’t like the  way people operate the working system and all that stuff so they do this terrible strike, but with this strike, they throw glass and light things on fire and throw other things. It’s pretty crazy. So, all the leaders this week had the leader meeting, that they have every month, and since we live so close to the airport, we had to go get one of the hermanas that was coming from Pucallpa. And she slept in our house and everything. Now listen, this strike goes on for 2 days. So, the next day we had to go to the offices which are about 15 minutes away by motokar. But the motokars this day were super expensive because the roads were so bad. But we had to go to the offices, so we set off on our journey in the motokar. It was pouring rain and there was glass everywhere on the roads so we were going pretty slow so that the motokar didn’t pop a tire…yeah too late. He popped his tire 5 minutes into the ride. So we started walking for about ten minutes until we found another motokar and we finally got there to hear that we needed to turn around and go to the airport. Ha! But we made it, and we are alive J

Also, this last week we got some new investigators that are out of our area. They are deeper in the jungle but the elders can’t teach them because it is a single mom, so we get the lovely opportunity to teach this wonderful family. J The daughter is 26 years old and she has downs syndrome. She is absolutely adorable! She is barely learning how to talk and has the spirit so strong with her it is amazing. She wants to get baptized, and her mom is so strong. She has been taking care of her alone for 23 years now because her husband died when her daughter was only 3 years old. And all of her other kids live far away.  But we are pretty excited they are getting baptized this week. J

We also were walking the other day and we had this lesson with this old investigator the other week that we thought went absolutely terrible like he was trying to convince us how alcohol was natural and how we needed it to be healthy. He didn’t want to get married and all this stuff and I was just super direct and we left and we were ready to kind of drop them and maybe contact them later on until we ran into him and his wife who is a member.  He was all like ‘there was something you said.’ And he looked and us and started to tell us how he was trying to change and give up alcohol and his old life. J It was pretty awesome.

This week was so great; we had a lot of cool experiences happen. We are working so hard and I feel all of it is paying off J Conference was amazing. I loved what Elder Uchtdorf asked when he said,

"How much time do we waste by searching for rainbows when we could just thank God that there is rain?"

Thank God there is rain! J

Hermana Larsen

 

 This is a hammock at an investigators home. I always sit in it when I teach her and she laughs because I can't get out.
 

 

 

                    Outside the Lima Temple reunited with my MTC companion, Hermana Ruesch.

                                         My current companion and I are such good friends!

 

 

Whoa.‏

Buenos Días!

To start, I want to wish a happy birthday to my sweet momma J

This week, where to start, well when the week started we went to go teach this lady that my companion had taught when I was sick, and she kept telling me about her and how crazy she was. So we went to go teach her to see what was up. Well, I started the lesson with a question ‘what is faith?’ Well, she definitely didn’t want to talk about that, I handed her a pamphlet and she started in on telling me about how she doesn’t want to talk with us about our books and our pamphlets she just wants us to talk about what we know in our mind, what we remember. She would get up really close to us and at points I wouldn’t understand what she was saying because it definitely wasn’t with the spirit. And I would look at my companion to help me out and then the investigator went into say that I need to learn her language better. I began to explain that I had only 4 months in Iquitos and she was like ‘I know 47 languages, including English’ whoa…it was quite the lesson. It was a fun way to start out the week. Haha J

We found a lot of cool families this month that we are really excited about. Our ward is working hard with us to take care of our converts and help us reactivate the less actives in our ward. I didn’t have transfers this last transfer, I’m still in Secada!! I’m so happy , I’m going on almost 5 months in Secada.

We have this family that we are teaching that is awesome. The wife is a member and all of her family is a member as well. But her husband isn’t. So we are teaching this family, he is catholic he was baptized in the Catholic Church when he was a baby. But we were teaching The Restoration to him and I was explaining Joseph Smith and he was like ‘it’s like me, I don’t know what is true because I couldn’t make the decision to be baptized.’ And we are like, yeah! So we watched a video of it and he was excited, we challenged him to pray about it and he was like `when are you guys gonna come back? I’m gonna pray.’ Oh, they are just so awesome. J

We also taught a pretty awesome lady last night through a reference from a member, and we started the lesson and she was all about telling us that she needs help because satan is taking over her body and we need to continue visiting her because we need to help her be free of it. She is seriously so awesome. She was hilarious and part of it she was serious but I think what she really wants is just some friends, because she lives alone. We are pretty excited about her. J

This last week was awesome, we worked so hard. I love my companion; she is so sweet and full of love for all of our investigators. We get along so great and are a lot alike.

Iquitos is good, it’s been really really hot and not a lot of rain lately, people are saying it’s like Africa. Haha J

Hermana Larsen

¿Lima? ¿Otra vez?

Woo…What do I say about this week, well I went to Lima! Yup, I went to Lima Wednesday because I guess I was illegal, I didn’t have a visa, same with all of the gringos that came with me from the CCM. Funny though, right? We are all missionaries in Peru and we were all illegal for like 3 months. But we all went to Lima and I got to see Hermana Ruesch, we went and got to sleep in a hotel, I got to have a HOT SHOWER!! J that was pretty much amazing J Then we went to Interpol and got our IDs, I’m officially legal. Hallelujah J Then, we got to go to the temple! We didn’t get to go in but just being there was awesome, amazing how much strength and peace you can get by just being on the grounds of the temple J It was pretty much awesome to be with my whole district from the CCM again, we just all got to hang out and talk and we got to see how everyone’s Spanish is. It was funJ

We kind of have had a rough week. Both of our baptisms for this month fell through yesterday. One didn’t attend church so she is going to get baptized in April. And one is moving for two months L We were pretty down last night about all of it. But we know we just have to have faith and keep working. We have such amazing people that we are teaching we just get to assist them to learn. Which we can do J

I don’t have that much to write this week, things are going good, transfers are today! J I don’t think I’ll get changed but we will see. A lot of people think that I will because of the time I have in my area. But I don’t want to.

Love you all, have a fantastic week! J

Short One Today

What can I say about this week? A lot of work, we worked so hard. But I think some cool things that happened was that we are finding tons of people, I mean TONS. We almost can't keep up with all of them. We found this family this other day that we found through a contact with a guy on a motokar and we invited him to church. He was like,  come visit my family and then I will think of coming. So we went to visit him and he and his wife were so sweet and he had all these questions, about the Book of Mormon and about everything. We answered what we could and invited him to a baptism Saturday. We thought we said 6 in the afternoon but they came at 6 in the morning! What?! Well, we won't have a problem with them attending church....Haha :) They are awesome and we are pretty excited with them.

We also are teaching this single mom where all of her kids are active members but she isn't. The elders converted her children but she didn't want to at the time. Now we are teaching her and we had a cool lesson with a member and we challenged her to be baptized on the 29th. She said she wasn't ready, but we told her she is and we can help her learn and everything. She accepted. We were teaching her with her son that is preparing to serve a mission. He was so excited, he was like, alright, what time? Great, I'll be there. It was awesome. But it was the cutest because she doesn't want to wear the dress thing to get baptized in, because it reminds her of the scary movie the ring....Hahahaha so we are working on that :) 

But things are going really good. My companion is awesome, training is good, Iquitos is raining for 3 days and then blazing hot for 5 :) that might have been an exaggeration. :)

But I think this one is going to be a short one today. Love you all, hope you have a great week :)

Hermana Larsen

No hay comida...

Buenos Dias Utah!
What can I say about this week, well, we had Elder Grow come from the
presidency of the 70. Which was awesome. We had a training with our
ward with him and then a training with all the missionaries in the
mission. It was probably one of the coolest things that I have
experienced. We learned a ton about how we get to follow our hearts
and the spirit in lessons, and how numbers don’t matter as much, that
they are just numbers. Elder Grow is pretty cool, he served a mission
in Mexico, so he knows Spanish really well, but we all got to shake
his hand and talk to him for a little bit. When I said I was from
Smithfield (normally when I say that to people only Elder Valdez gets
it because he lives there too. But normally people don’t know where
that is, even the people from Utah.) But I told him and he was like
‘oh I had a stake conference there not too long ago.’ Ha cool, you
know where I live!  But the trainings were great, full of love and
full of a lot of learning for everyone.
We worked really hard this week, but there were a lot a people who
weren’t home and we had a lot of trainings. But for service Wednesday
we cooked food for the family that I have been telling you guys about
that doesn’t have work, we cooked rice (of course) eggs, maduro frito
(pentanes fried), and this Mexican treat in honor of my companion,
these tortillas with bananas and cinnamon in the middle. We brought
all that stuff to them for their food that day for our service. It was
great to see their faces. 
Then, later on in the week, no one was home Saturday night, I mean, no
one. And we didn’t know what to do, we had a feeling to head for the
family Rey, the family that we brought the food too. And with this
family we always seem to find them in the perfect time. Well, we found
the parents out fighting in front of their house. The wife was crying
because they haven’t had food and they don’t have stuff for the kids
to start school today. So we taught them about prayer and it was
awesome, but then they didn’t come to church the next day, kind of
sucked. But they have been going through this for a long time. Keep
them in your prayers.
Being a missionary is pretty cool, those experiences just make it all
worth it.  I’m so grateful for this opportunity. And time is going by
so fast! Love you all, hope all is well.
Remember how awesome you are.....And may all your wildest dreams come true ;)
Oh, and by the way, my companion is awesome, couldn’t ask for anyone
better. I love training 
Hermana Larsen

Carnival

Buenos Días!

This week was great, it started with our district meeting with our zone. First we had a training about having faith in Jesus Christ so the people in our zone that was training us on it did a trust fall with the elders. It was really cool, because that basically shows our faith if we have the faith that they are going to catch us then we will fall and trust that things are going to work out. It's the same with faith in real life but we also get to have actions with our faith or nothing is going to happen. We were setting our goal for the month with baptisms and weddings and all that fun stuff. And all of the goals were really high, and our goal was really high as a companionship but then our goal as a zone, we wanted it to be lower. But then we thought about, how much faith do we have? It was perfect now we have this really high goal and we are committed to finding the people that get to be in our goal this month, that deserve this :) We are excited. 

This week we worked extremely hard, walked a ton and searched a lot in our area. Because our area is really big, there were parts that we don't really teach in. But we went with some member and found shortcuts around our area and now it's a ton easier. So, we're feelin good about that :) I'm sure I told you about our investigator that like has been an investigator for like a year because we are waiting for his papers to work out so that he can get married and baptized. Well we continued to do his papers this week and we finally got his paper sent in to cancel his birth certificate so that he can get a new one. But when we went to go visit him that night he was really frustrated because he has been out of a job for almost a month now and they barely can buy food. And he couldn't find a job because his papers were all screwed up. We taught them about faith and watched a video. Another lesson where the gift of tongues was really apparent. :) Then his dad gave me a letter to read when we returned to our house. His dad knows English. So I read the letter and he told me he didn't have a job either. And that he couldn't feed his family either. It was really hard, we had no idea what to do. But we talked to our bishop Sunday after our investigator told us that he found work. It was awesome. :) We love that family so much, and I cannot wait until they finally get married :)

All the month of February is this party thing called Carnival. It comes from Rio in Brazil. They throw a ton of water balloons and drink and party and dance. Like, when we went to the clinic the beginning of this month when I was sick, we were riding in a motokar and then we saw a ton of teenagers with water balloons. Yeah, we got hit like 5 times in the motokar. Then 1 time when we were walking and 1 time while we were prosylyting. But yesterday was like the day that it was all leading up to. They get all the little statues made of these tree things and they dance around it and spray people with water. And then the person to cut down the statue has to build the next one next February for the next Carnival. But it gets pretty bad sometimes because the people sometimes get water balloons full of dirty water or urine. Or gross things like that. So, guess who couldn't go out and work last night? US! Haha, We basically just went to church and lunch and then hung out in our houses, all the missionaries in Iquitos. :) Kind of funny. 

Things are going really good, training is awesome, my compànion is the best ever. :) 

Hope the snow is going away fast for you guys so that you can feel some warmth, I wish for snow everyday. :)

Hermana Larsen

I'm a Mom!

Cara has been sick with dengue from mosquitos. She is better now but needs to be sure to wear mosquito repellent with deet. She passed her twelve week training course and is now an official trainer. I have added some photos of her below with her training group at their graduation.
I am so grateful for the care her mission mom, Sister Gomez and her pesionista give her. She is definitely  being watched over by angels, seen and unseen.

Hey! Finally I get to write. What can I say? I'm training, I'm a mom!

:) That's the slang here with the missionaries when you are training.

I have a daughter. And she is a gringa too. Kind of, she is from the

United States. But, her parents are Mexican, so she speaks fluent

English and fluent Spanish. She is great, she's learning really fast.

I was sick for a good amount of time this last week and couldn't work

that much, but I became really close with my pensionista because she
was my companion for a couple days when we went on divisions and I was

with her. We talked a ton and she is amazing, she is so sweet. I am so

grateful for her family and all their sweet care that they give to us.

They are so selfless and sweet. When she heard I was sick she got all
the natural remedies that she could and gave them to me. And now I am
able to work.

We are teaching this family that the father is a member and the wife

isn't and they are so sweet the mom understands everything about the

church and wants to get baptized but they have to get married, like

usual and their family lives really far away so they want to wait. But

the woman was so sweet, she is like 'but the kids can get baptized,

can't they?' So we are going to baptize their kids in march. One of

their kids attended church yesterday and she was so excited she even

wants to serve a mission! What?! Ha, it was awesome.

I think I have told you about the family that we are teaching that his

marriage papers are all over the place and he wants to get married but

we have to wait for his papers to get all organized and they can't get

married until like June. But we were teaching them the other day and

the guy can't find work because his papers are all messed up, so the
family isn't eating. They don't have money. But we are looking for
ways to help them. So keep them in your prayers :)

Iquitos is fantastic. I love my area and I love the people in my ward.

Rain Rain Rain :)

The food is delicious as usual, my porcion of rice and chicken everyday. :)

Love you all hope you guys have a great week :) Remember to wear

mosquitoe repellent!