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