No conferencia....

Buenas Días!
What a week this has been, but I think I say that every week. But this
last week we worked super hard. We had a lot of cool experiences with
the people in our area. We are teaching a girl that is 20 years old
that is absolutely adorable and super open to learn and attend church.
She was a reference of a less active that we were teaching. She is so
sweet and we started to teach her parents this last week and they are
super open as well to learn and the dad is always making jokes with
us, it is great we are super excited for them.
This last week we couldn’t watch conference because it is elections in
Peru on Sunday, so the law is that we can’t have a meeting, like no
church can get together for church service. So we just worked all day
on Sunday, it was super weird, we didn’t feel like it was Sunday at
all and we didn’t get to watch conference either, instead we are going
to watch conference this next week, all of Peru. 
But we went with one of the less actives that we were going to teach
this last week and they have a bread store and they were putting all
the bread in their bags so we were like ‘hey! We came to help’ well, I
never knew that there were so many kinds of bread, there are tons!!
And I don’t know how the latinos do it but they make bread, cakes,
pastres so much better than we do in the states. I still haven’t
learned the secret yet. 
This last week we found out that one of our less actives that we
absolutely love is moving to Chile, she left yesterday, but we were
super sad so we went with her and shared a message and took a ton of
pictures, it is the less active that I talked about in my other
letters that she has a son that she thinks is autistic. She is amazing
and has such a strong testimony, her husband isn’t a member but is
super willing to listen and learn and even wants to get baptized and
go to church, so we have faith that one day it will happen, because
she wants to go to the temple so bad.
Oh! This last week we also ate these ant things. Here in Moyobamba at
this time of the year there are these ants that start to leave the
ground in thunder storms that are called zigizapa and they are these
ants that they pull off the wings and they fry them with salt and they
eat them, and guess who got to eat some this last week? US! And they
were actually good, it reminded us of popcorn, weird, I know, it took
all my will to stick one of them in my mouth. But my companion was
like ´trust me, trust me, it’s good.´I put it in my mouth and I
actually forgot that I was eating an ant, it tasted exactly like
popcorn. Now I get why everyone here in Moyobamba talks about it and
they rush to the different parts of Moyo to find the ants and dig them
up. It’s pretty awesome, you can see them flying around and
everything.
Wooo….Well, I hope that everyone has an amazing week, there is a lot
of rain and cold here and I know that they weather is starting to get
cold there too, wear your coats and enjoy the start of the halloween
season, there is no halloween here!! Celebrate for me! 
Hermana Larsen

Experiencias

What can I say about this week, we worked pretty hard this last week, but everytime we left we never really found the people we had planned. We always found different people. But we had lessons that were completely awesome :) We left on pday to go visit a couple we were wanting to visit and we found the wife there. This couple is super young and they are so sweet. They have a little baby that is only 4 months old. She was pretty upset. We found out that they had a fight and he came home drunk and they had a super bad fight where he hit her pretty bad, she told us everything that happened and we shared with her a scripture of comfort and she began to cry. Then, the husband came home and started to lie to us about what happened. But we left that house feeling really sad and upset. We prayed super hard for them that night and we visited them a ton this last week and they are doing much better. The members of the branch are working with them.

I was a little upset the last few weeks because I have been sick and we have had a lot of troubles in our area. But after this experience we had and those people we have visited this last week I noticed that all those experiences we had and those things that we learned prepared us for the things that we are experiencing now. And we are able to help these people a lot better than we could have if we didn't experience these things. We have such a cool area and branch, they are always willing to help.
The weather here has been super cold lately, a lot of rain, I have been prosylyting with a SWEATER! I never thought that when I got my call to go to the jungle of Peru that I would use a sweater to work
in. But here I am :)

The food is good, the people are nice. things are good :)
Life is good :)

Hermana Larsen



We had a training with President and Hermana Gomez this last week :)

Be Still my Soul‏

We all made the same face!

Another week has passed and gone. This last week, I was sick...again. Haha, I couldn't leave my house a lot. But there is a new Elder in the mission that is from California that had an English hymnbook that I stole to entertain myself a little bit when I was sitting in my house. There is a song in the English hymnbook that is not in the Spanish version and that song is Be Still my Soul, which is the song that I needed the most this last week. Sometimes I sit and I think what I get to learn from these experiences that my companion and I are having in this area, because we have had a TON of experiences, but we have learned so much. We have definitely learned to enjoy every moment of our mission, that the mission not is only for baptisms and for lessons and for numbers, but it for to enjoy bringing people to Christ and getting to know new people, to learn how to love people and to get to know a new part of the world. But this week I sang this song a lot! The only thing I missed was a guitar. ;) 

With our area we found a lot of cool people and my companion had some really cool experiences and lessons, I started to work on Saturday and it went well. We went to church and everyone seemed to have something going on that they couldn't come to church. But what was awesome, is that 2 of the recent converts that are in our area that have not attended church since we got here yesterday, it is two kids that their mom works a ton and can't get Sundays off but she sent her kids to church, we were so happy to see them in church :) 

I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to be here in Peru with these people, they have all blessed me in one way or another. :) All the sicknesses and the experiences that we are having are worth it because I am not going to remember being sick but I am going to remember all the happy experiences I have had and the laughing that I did :) 

I hope you all have a wonderful week :)

 

Enjoy every moment!

 

Hermana Larsen

 

We

Sh, we are pretending to be asleep.

 Service Day

We are almost the same height:)

 

Here we are...the 4 girls that live in the pink Barbie Doll house!

 

 

Hermana Larsen 

¿Cómo?

What a week, we had transfers last week, and I am going on the third transfer with my companion and we are pretty happy :) I love that girl.

We went to a new part of our area this last week and it was awesome techinally it isn't Moyobamba, like it is a different city and everything but we found a less active that lives there and all of her family aren't members. And we had an awesome lesson. It was cool and we felt super strong that we get to start working more over there. 

We also did a really cool service project this week, we went with our whole district and we went out into the jungle and cut some wood, I have pictures that I will send next week. 

This last week we learned alot about ourselves and our strengths as missionaries. :) I am excited to learn more! 

I don't have that much time this week, I will write more next week! :)

Hermana Larsen

Nos robó de nuestras brownies!‏

What a week, for real. This week was probably one of the hardest weeks of my mission. We started out the week with an awesome lesson with a less active that her son, he is 3 years old almost 4 and doesn't talk, like at all. And basically has all the signs of autism and one day in a lesson I was talking about my awesome brother who has autism and in this lesson she asked me how we knew that my brother had autism and things like that, and she is super scared that her son has autism. And she feels guilty and like she did something wrong. But it was awesome because we helped her realize that it isn't something bad that it actually is a huge blessing. Because those people with disablity like that are closer to God than we can imagine and are more Christ like than we can ever be. :) It was pretty cool :)

We also had our service day this last week and we went with a less active to make orquids. Orquids in moyobamba is a huge thing, people make them from clay and paint. They are super pretty, but this hermana makes them and sells them at the fairs and other events. But we helped her make them for our service and I am going to send a picture of a little bit what we were doing, it was pretty fun. I told her that she needed to teach me so that I could do it in my house for everyone, but I gotta say it is a ton of work!

Oh, I was also sick this last week, I couldn't talk, like at all for two days. My companion had to talk the whole time. And here when you have problems with your throat they always say don't eat anything cold but in the US we always eat something cold when our throat hurts and seriously people think you are going to die if you do that, but now I am a ton better :)

In one of the lessons this last week I was teaching and I felt something on my skirt and I looked down and all of a sudden I saw a parrot that was climbing my skirt to sit on my lap, and I started to laugh so hard, but my companion was super scared she didn't want the parrot to come near her. And the parrot succeeded it got onto my lap and helped me teach the lesson :) 

But the best part of this last week was probably the pastry night that was had in our branch, we made brownies, it was super fun, we made brownies and we had carmel on top of them with powdered sugar and yeah, they looked great...we packed up the brownies and we had to go píck up the prize for the acitvity, because there was going to be a winner for the best pastry, well we went by the house and the hermana hadn't finished the prize and said that we needed to come back in 10 minutes, which was fine because we needed to go pass by for another hermana to remind her to come to the activity, well, we headed with our brownies to the hermana's house and we were walking and the elders called and I didn't want to talk while we were walking so I passed the phone to my companion and my companion was also holding the brownies because she was cold and wanted her hands to be warm, so she was holding the brownies and all of a sudden I heard, 'hey!' and then a saw this guy run past me WITH OUR BROWNIES! yeah, with our brownies. He robbed our brownies! My companion screamed 'mi postre' (my pastry) and I had the urge to run after him because the guy fell in the mud...and then got up and ran off. But something stopped me and told me that I shouldn't chase after him. And we were talking with the elders on the phone and they didn't believe us that we got robbed of our brownies. It was pretty funny. So we went to the activity without our brownies. And everyone laughed...it was quite the experience :)

But the reason why it was quite the week was because again not many people wanted to listen to us and we had a lot of hard lessons that people were having a lot of problems.

But I know that God is watching over us and guiding us in every step that we take. I love Moyobamba and the people that live here, I am learning so much :)

I hope that everyone has an amazing week and doesn't get robbed of their brownies!

Hermana Larsen

El Morro‏ (More Pics)

 

 

 

Hello!

This week was quite the week. We started out the week climbing this huge mountain. It was literally an hour and a half of just climbing. But when we got to the top is was so awesome. You could see all of Moyobamba J It was awesome J

We had kind of a rough week. Like everyone that we visited didn’t want anything to do with us, they didn’t want to listen, they basically just wanted us to leave their house. We had a visit with this family that we went to. And we told the member that was going with us to meet us at the house of the investigator and we got there and the parents weren’t there but the son was there that is 16 years old and his friends were with him. And we were like ‘oh don’t worry we will come back another day’ and the member was like ‘no, here we have two young souls that need to be saved and hear the words of god, we need to share the gospel with them’ we tried not to laugh and we taught them a little bit, but as teenagers are it was kind of funny because they really didn’t want to listen. But it was a pretty funny experience.

It was our branch president’s birthday this week and we sang happy birthday and we shoved his head in the cake!!! It was hilarious. But then we wanted to take a picture of me about to take a bite of the big cake and as they took the picture they shoved my head in the cake! Haha, it was pretty funny, I had cake on my face and everything.

We had a fun baby shower for one of the less actives that we are teaching that is going to have her baby in September and we played a lot of fun games and ate a lot of food, as usual. J

This week has been a big week of learning to have patience and trust in the lord. I don’t have a lot more stuff to write about this last week, but I hope everyone has a wonderful week and enjoys Labor day! J

Hermana Larsen

el Morro

 

 

Hey Hey Hey!

What a week, we started out this week with a coconut and a knife.  Pday at night we had coconuts and I wanted the meat of the coconut, so I started to try and cut the coconut and I cut my thumb, kind of bad, but I wasn’t screaming or anything because it didn’t hurt but we live in a house of girls and they were freaking out. Haha, but everything is okay, I just had to get a band aid and I am taking pills so that it doesn’t get infected. But now there is always a joke in the zone about Hermana Larsen and a coconut. J

We had a really good week; we worked super hard and found the most awesome families. Well, I had another work visit but with my other sister leader this last week. And we went to go contact a reference and we found a guy that has been a member for 30 years and wasn’t attending church because he moved. And now we are teaching him and his wife. It was pretty awesome.

We also had a family night with a less active that lives in Chile but is living here until December and she wanted to have this family night, so we went and she invited a ton of her friends that are not members, and it was awesome, we played a game, ate popcorn, and drank chocolate milk. J

We also attended the wedding and baptism of a couple that the elders were baptizing in our ward and it was so cute, this couple is so awesome. They had their little party and everyone danced and had fun, they had a ton of food for everyone and almost all of the branch attended, it was great. J

I also got awesome news from my other companion in Iquitos and 3 of the families that we were working with are getting baptized and married!! J I am so happy and the attendance is up to 290 people in Secada, I am so happy to hear about it J

Well, I don’t have a ton of time this week but I am going to send a picture of where we are going today. I am super excited J

Have an amazing week, love you all J

Hermana Larsen

Oh, other story!! we were walking the other day and we hear 'elders! elders!' because a lot of the members thinks that we are elders too and don't know that we are sisters. But we looked and it was a guy that was in the circus. There is a circus in town right now and it is in our area. So we always pass it like everyday. But he was like 'soy miembro. me bauticé en Chiclayo con Elder Delgado de los Estados Unidos.' ( I am a member, I got baptized in Chiclayo with Elder Delgado from the United States.' I was super excited and he started to tell us that his friends were reading the Book of Mormon and that he wanted to know where the church was so that he could attend on Sunday, we told him and he was awesome.

I love moments like that.