Tornado warning, River Flooding, and a Baptismal Forecast

Dear friends and family,

Cute row homes

Driving at night - trolleys and taxis

Another good week in the city! We had some stormy weather this week, but it didn't stop us from doing the work! We got a tornado warning while on exchanges in West Chester, and were driving past flooded parts of Philly, but so many good things happened this week. We had some really great lessons and I realized more this week than ever just how important it is to get members out with you to teach!

"Oh dear, I think I must have lost my hair weave in that bush!"  
Haha!  We started a "weave count"  this weekend,  
and we currently have spotted 6 in the last 2 days: on the 
street, in the bushes, etc.  Got to make "finding" fun!  

We taught Abraham again with Aarti and Pooja. We talked more about prophets of old, and how we continue to have prophets today, which he really liked. We invited him to be baptized, but he said he cannot be baptized twice. We tried to explain, but then Aarti and Pooja piped in and talked about how they were both baptized in another faith but realized after talking to the missionaries they needed to be baptized by immersion and someone holding the priesthood authority. And Abraham said he will pray about baptism and let us know what his answer is the next time we meet, but it was because Pooja and Aarti bore their testimonies that he agreed to do that!

My first week here we taught a YSA named Stephanie. She was being taught by the sisters in the fall, but she dropped them around December because she didn't know if she was ready to be taught.  She then called them up again not too long before I came here. She has been making leaps and bounds testimony-wise, considering she was atheist, but now feels that she has a relationship with God. It's amazing how the gospel changes people!! Anyways, this week when we saw her we brought Sister Brown, who is this sweet newly-married lady from Mexico. We were just talking with Stephanie and had planned a lesson, but were then directed to teach her about the Word of Wisdom instead. It was perfect because Sister Brown is a convert and had to give up coffee drinking too, so she was able to totally relate to her! And now Stephanie has committed to live the Word of Wisdom and is considering moving her baptism date up, which is so exciting!!

Mildred and her family had a family emergency come up in Maryland, so we haven't been able to see them and will have to hold their baptism sometime after they come back this upcoming month. We just hope that with everything going on, their testimonies won't be shaken. It can be hard to continue to trust in the Lord when we feel we can't see Him there, but He is always beside us. I love verse 13 in D&C 31, "Be faithful unto the end, and lo, I am with you. These words are not of man nor of men, but of me, even Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, by the will of the Father. Amen."

How many languages can the church library have scriptures and church books in?

I know that when we continually put our trust in Christ, everything will work out in the end!

Have a faith-filled week! Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Sister Larsen

And They Stuck a Country Sister in the City...

Dear friends and family,

Hello from WEST PHILADELPHIA!!! From the country to the city...Wow, culture shock!!! Haha it is the craziest thing ever! There are African Hair Braiding Salons right and left and row homes as far as the eye can see!!! It is very, very diverse here, and I LOVE it! :)

Row homes, row homes, row homes...  My first reaction?  Wow, that's a LOT of doors to knock! 

Meet the trio:  L-R:  Sisters Roesch (this is her last transfer), Kartchner (2nd to last transfer) 
and Sis. Larsen at their first district meeting, and at church.  "Yes, the church is completely
 gated and we have to use  a key FOB to get in... welcome to the city!"

There are lots of immigrants from Liberia here! It's pretty common for multiple-generation families to live all together in the same house too, so there always lots of people around. We are teaching a Liberian family right now- Mildred, Love, Blessed, Apple, Victoria, Jane and Rufus...With our trio and all of them, it was a full house!  Mildred and Love are preparing to be baptized towards the end of March, so we taught them more about baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and how we can renew our baptismal covenants. Mildred is SO solid!! She practically teaches her own family! At church Mildred bore her testimony in our gospel principles class. She talked about how in Liberia there are a lot of hard feelings towards the church and people believe that the Book of Mormon is evil. If you even touch the book, people thought you wouldn't go to heaven. When she lived there and was walking near the church building, she would run past it so that she wouldn't be on such "unholy" ground for long. Just crazy stuff!! But then she and her family came to the U.S., the sister missionaries found them and introduced them to the Book of Mormon, and they were so nice she decided to read it and instantly felt that it was true when she did.  Now she can see how the Book of Mormon has changed her and her family's life. She is an amazing woman!

There are murals EVERYWHERE!  Love it!!

We are also starting to teach another Liberian man, Abraham, who actually came here from Liberia several weeks ago. We were able to take two members, Pooja and Aarti, who are sisters and from India, and they really added great insight to our discussion. Before we went into the lesson Aarti said a prayer for us, in Hindi which was super neat. We talked with Abraham about the Book of Mormon being the word of God, how it has blessed our lives and families and asked about how he liked church last week. It turns out that he got some missionary pamphlets from someone last week and after reading about the Word of Wisdom and learning that his body is a temple, he has completely quit drinking! He also came to church again and loved everything! It's so nice that the ward is so welcoming to investigators. After the lesson we went to Pooja and Aarti's for a snack and got to know them better. My favorite thing was that on one wall of their home were pictures of their Indian weddings, everyone decked from head to toe in jewelry and traditional dress, and on the other wall was a picture of their whole family wearing white temple clothes at the Manhattan Temple the day of their sealing. It was so sweet!

Dinner at a Hmong member's house.  We are crazy Thai chicken soup
eaters... Yes, we ate the feet and the brain.  It tastes like chicken! :)  The
feet are gelatin-like and you kind of suck on them.  For the head, you peel the
skin off, nibble on the neck, crack open the skull, and pick the brains out.
They have a pudding-like texture.  Yum.  :)

It's amazing to see so many different people being unified by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It reminds me of the quote by President Packer, "True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.” I love what this gospel can do for people and what it continues to do for me each and every day! Hurrah for Israel!

Love,
Sister Larsen

The Philly skyline -- typical view from the back seat

17 Below and New Places to Go!!

Dear family and friends,

This Arizona sister survived -17 degree weather (with wind chill) and is still living to tell the tales of another wonderful week in Susquehanna, PA! And it was a good last week because on Sunday night I got a call that I'm being transferred! It's a little bittersweet to be leaving this place right now, but a comfort to know I'll be back in 7 short weeks when all 12 visitor center sisters have a big reunion and go full steam ahead for the summertime!

Happy Valentine's Day from the Sunday afternoon shift of PRS Sisters
 (L-R) Sisters Anderson, Walker, Robison, Larsen

Opening Valentines at the Visitor's Center

Monday night Sara and Stan invited us over for dinner and a lesson with them and their three little guys, and they are SO fun!!! They both have religious backgrounds and  loved learning about the restoration of the gospel. Even the little kids liked learning, because they have been asking lots of questions lately. Something funny Libby, the little girl, did recently was draw a picture of their family with God and Jesus Christ and "Sin"... So we tried to help her understand that "Sin" isn't a person, just mistakes we make :) But even funnier than that we were talking about the Bible a little bit and then Stan said, "Here's my own theory... There's got to be some book out there, buried in the earth for thousands of years, with all the answers in it." ...."Ummm yeah, and it's that book sitting in front of you on YOUR KITCHEN TABLE!" Hahaha :) They are such great people with a real desire to follow the word of God and bring their family even closer together. 

We also had an amazing lesson with Tim on Tuesday!!! We finished talking about the Plan of Salvation and taught him about the Word of Wisdom. He continues to accept everything and follow through on his commitments, and is so excited to continue progressing and learning!! He was especially excited to do temple baptisms for the dead because his father passed away this past December, just weeks before we found him. I continue to be amazed by the Lord's timing in every part of this work!! I can't wait to come back to the branch and see Tim as a member!

We also taught Casen again, and taught him the Plan of Salvation as well which he had lots of questions about. It went so well!! He loved being able to find answers to questions in the Book of Mormon, which was great to help him understand that the Book of Mormon really can give us the answers to life's biggest questions! He is starting to read the Book of Mormon everyday now to get in his 15 of reading homework for school. What a great kid!!

Sister Robison and I taught the lesson in Relief Society on Sunday about how adversity and challenges are all part of God's plan for us. Each experience that we go through is a moment of molding. We used a piece of play dough to explain. We are like a ball of play dough needing to become a star. As the play dough gets squished and pinched into a shape, we can't always tell what it will end up looking like, but after time it will become all that it needs to become. For us, our trials seem to just be bumps and bruises, and we can't always see what difficulties we may face will help us become. So long as we continue to trust in the ultimate potter, our Savior, He will shape us into the person we need to become. I love what Sister Marriot said in this past General Conference, "President Gordon B. Hinckley said: 'If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God. … The Lord will not forsake us.'... [not], 'It will all work out now.' It speaks of our hope in the eternal outcome--not necessarily of present results."   Whatever difficulties we may have now or that we will go through, so long as we trust in our Savior and our Father's eternal perspective, it will all work out. 

Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Sister Larsen 

And for picture overload, here are a few more pics as of late:

Violin lessons after church with Malinda

After church with Malinda, Sis. Larsen, Shayna, and Sis. Anderson

At the PRS with Elder and Sis. Hanks

Just An Instrument in His Hands

Dear friends and family,

What a good, good week! Things in Susquehanna are just getting better and better all the time! The sun is even starting to set later which is so nice! I feel that the Lord has truly been walking alongside Sister Robison and I this week.

"On the Susquehanna River -- dead trees and it still looks pretty!"

We met a woman named Diane a little while ago and were able to meet with her for the first time this past week and teach her about the restoration of the gospel. Since being out, here have been times when I wonder if people really are wondering about God and religion, or searching for truth and direction, and talking with Diane helped me remember that people are really looking! She mentioned that there are so any different churches and so many different opinions, she felt as if there should only be one, true church. Sounds a lot like someone we know as Joseph Smith, right? She was very interested in the lesson and will be praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true!

Early this week we were able to meet with a less active woman in our branch and her little boy is who isn't baptized and teach him the first lesson. I have been trying to teach Ashley and Casen since I came to Susquehanna 6 months ago, and we are now finally helping them find and grow their testimonies of the restored gospel! Casen really liked the lesson and visual aid we used to explain the importance of the priesthood, and as of this week is preparing to be baptized the 3rd weekend in March! I am so excited for him and to see that Ashley still has a powerful testimony. One of my favorite parts during the lesson was asking Ashley about her experience when she received an answer that the Book of Mormon was true-- she was almost unable to describe how wonderful she felt! The spirit was so strong! So lesson learned: Don't give up on less active members. They still have a testimony, it's just a matter of time and "re-finding" it!

We also stopped by a home a few weeks ago and briefly met a busy, young mother. Sara, who said we could try back again. We were out finding and decided to go try her again. This time she let us in and we showed her and her little kids one of my very favorite Mormon messages, "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father," and Sara loved it because that was their day to day life.  https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-002-earthly-father-heavenly-father?lang=eng   Just as the video finished, her husband walked in the door and we got talking to him as well. He had a ton of really good, honest questions that we were able to answer for him!  I pulled a Book of Mormon out of my bag to give to them  and before I hardly had it out all the way, Sara's husband came and took it and started looking through the pages, asking if he could have it! And what was crazy is that Sara's husband came home from work early, which never happens and he said walking into the house he knew the Mormons were there! We are going over tonight for dinner and more discussion, which we are so excited about! Just another instance where we saw the Lord's hand was working in our lives, and the lives of others.

Windsor, NY: "I think they are missing one!" 

And now... Tim!! We thought all was lost because we had texted and called and knocked on his door, and hadn't heard anything for days. We thought he had just fallen off the face of the earth, which sometimes happens with investigators. But we kept on trying and doing what we do. On Thursday, around 8:45 at night we had planned to go find some, "Main Street Miracles," and were driving towards downtown. We stopped at the stop sign by our house, and saw someone very tall walking their dog. It was Tim!! So Sister Robison threw our truck into an emergency back up, parked in our yard and we jumped out of the truck and started running down the street after him...for the second time haha! When we finally caught up to him, we figured out why we weren't able to get a hold of him and asked him about the commitments we had left him. He said he wanted to "tread the water" a little bit, before he jumped right into being baptized and making a life long commitment, so we were thinking "Great, it will probably be April or May." But he said he had prayed about a date to be baptized on, liked we had asked him to, and he wanted to be baptized on February 28th. That's "treading the water?!?" We couldn't believe it!!! We were so excited!! So the next day we scheduled a lesson with him and taught the Plan of Salvation, and he was eating it up. We answered a lot of his questions, and teaching him is so fun because you can see in face when a light bulb turns on, and he goes, "Yes! That makes sense!" And we are meeting with him again tomorrow. At first Tim asked to meet at 1 on Tuesday, then he changed his mind and asked if we could meet at 11 so we could have more time to teach him.  Haha! He loves learning!!

I know that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to help us in every aspect of our lives! It makes the bad times good and the good times better when we trust in the Lord and strive to become better instruments in his hands. I love the quote by Elder Richard G. Scott, "Heavenly Father did not put us on this earth to fail, but to succeed gloriously." When we put forth our best effort, the Lord will help carry us and improve our lives so that we can succeed gloriously! What a wonderful blessing!

Love,

Sister Larsen

Staying on the Straight and Narrow Path!

Dear friends and family,

Happy No Snow! It has actually been surprisingly warm in the past few days, and I've heard rumors of 50 degree weather this week, so I'm definitely looking forward to that! But this past week was a pretty good one!

We were warned to not take any back roads because they could be icy, but because we have a limited number of miles we can drive each month, we have our GPS set to "shortest distance," which often takes us down back roads. And it isn't anything unusual to feel a bit like Indiana Jones as we drive in our truck from place to place. So we started driving down this dirt road, all was well and we were looking at how pretty the sunset was, and to make a long story short, we ended up having to walk a mile and a half through the woods in the dark to the nearest house to find help because the road turned into solid ice. While in the moment we thought we were lost forever in the middle of nowhere (and hoping that bears really do hibernate), we can now laugh our heads off at what we had gotten ourselves into.  There are a lot of things, though, I learned from that experience...

1. Always follow promptings you receive! Once we realized we could not control our truck from sliding, we knew we needed to walk somewhere for help. We started down the road because our GPS told us we were more than halfway to the end of the road. But after several minutes of walking we felt that we needed to turn around and go back the direction we came. As it turns out, the direction of our GPS was turned around and we actually had more than halfway to go and would have been walking for a lot longer! Sometimes, and I've found as a missionary, it can be frustrating to "listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost," because it can be difficult to discern whether it is the Spirit or your own thoughts... But it doesn't matter! I love the scripture in Moroni 7:13:  "But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God."  If it is a good thing, act on it because all good things come from God!
2. Always have a sure footing! The ice on the road was so thick and slippery that we couldn't stand up on it, so we had to walk along the edge of the road in the trees where there was some snow. It reminded me that we have to walk on sure ground, and not slip or waver in our testimony. How? Through the little things! All those "primary answers," like studying scriptures or attending church meetings really do strengthen our testimonies of the restored gospel, so when difficult times come and it's hard to stand, we won't fall! 
3. Always be prepared! For some reason Sister Robison and I had left our snow boots in the back seat of our truck, even though it hadn't snowed for weeks. That morning we had also had put an extra blanket in the truck. So when we decided we had to walk to help we changed our shoes, grabbed the blanket, and a small flashlight that was in the truck. Granted, we didn't think we would be lost overnight, but we were prepared! Being spiritually prepared is the same! We have to have built our testimonies and done those things that help us come closer to Christ because if something comes up to shake our testimony, and we aren't ready for it, we can be harmed spiritually. 
4. Know you can always find "cell service!" In addition to it being completely dark outside when we got stuck, we had no cell service. We knew of countless people who would be to our rescue in the blink of an eye, if only we could call them. But there is someone we can never get out of touch with, and that is our Heavenly Father. Prayer is like a 100% guaranteed phone call, with no ignored messages and no voice mail, because He always is there to answer! He loves us and wants to hear from us, wanting to help us, all we have to do is get on our knees and call out to Him.
5. Look for the good in all things! Optimism is key! Once we got to the closest house, we were welcomed in by the most adorable family ever! They invited us in, lent us their phone, had us join them for dinner and even offered to keep us overnight if nobody was able to come until morning. We were able to get to know them, tell them about what we do as missionaries, the Priesthood Restoration Site and why families are important to us. Now we have a potential family to teach and all because our truck got stuck on an icy road!

"The Lost Lamb" by Del Parson

As we turn to Christ we become spiritually safe! If we rely on Him and our Heavenly Father, we will not fail because, "Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, He is with us. He has promised this will never change." -Thomas S. Monson. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Love,

Sister Larsen