🎶 Come Unto Christ 🎶

**Note from Alicia:  Sis. Larsen forgot to send her group email last week, but I've pasted it below.  This is from 10/31/16.  

Dear friends and family,

A week like this was one for the records! Crazy, crazy, crazy... with lots of laughs and lots of tears. It marked our last week all together before sisters left to proselyte in other places and people start leaving for home. 

Wednesday the site was busy with tech people hopping around testing all the theaters since they were bringing our power back. Thank goodness all went well and we were able to function perfectly again after they left. And just in time too! We had the American Northeast Mission Presidents' Conference hosted here at the site on Thursday. 

Having so many mission presidents, their wives and general authorities (Elder Meurs, Elder Clayton, Elder Bennett, Elder Perkins, Elder Gong and their wives)-- the site had that kind of MTC buzz about it. It was so much fun! We had prepared "dinner and a show" for the conference so as everyone ate, we sang some of our concert songs for everyone. I was having little flashbacks to my Strolling Strings days as I played my violin and sang just inches away from the Gongs. We had 75 people in the overflow! After we had sung, Elder Clayton stood up and said since it wasn't quite appropriate to clap, but he thought it appropriate to give a "silent standing ovation." And right then, all these wonderful mission presidents and general authorities stood up from their tables and faced us with smiles and tears. It was very a very sweet experience. Then we got to take all of them on a tour, and Sister Anderson and I got lucky enough to take the best mission president and his wife on tour, the Randalls! It was their first tour they'd ever taken at the PRS, and it was so neat to be able to stand in the Smith home with them and other presidents and their wives and talk about our feelings towards the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph. 

The next day the Randalls stopped in after the end of their conference which had been finished at a conference center an hour away. They said that Sister Clayton had spoken to the group and talked all about us singing the day prior. She said it is incredibly difficult to sing your part when you are not standing by others singing your part, and especially when you are singing so close to your audience. She said we were individually strong singers, but unified as a whole. She likened that to the gospel and how our testimonies need to be individually strong, but as a ward, as a community, as a church, we need to be unified in purpose and commitment to the restored gospel. 

Saturday=CONCERT DAY!!!!! We were so excited!! Brother Lusvardi from Salt Lake came to visit. He is over all visitor centers and came when the site opened to train us, and it was like seeing an old friend again. We got special training on the new Christmas initiative video the church has made for this upcoming holiday season. They launch it the day after Thanksgiving and it is SO GOOD!!

After our little meeting with Brother Lusvardi we began welcoming guests... and they kept coming...and coming... and coming! First we ran out of chairs in the chapel and overflow, so we took out the dessert tables and replaced them with another row of chairs, but people kept coming, so we had everyone in the overflow scrunch up so people's knees were practically touching the chair in front of them, and we fit in a couple more rows. There were even a few people who people grabbed chairs and sat just outside the doors to listen in the hallway! Once everyone was settled we began. The theme for our program was "Come Unto Christ," and every song we sang was all about the Savior. 

                                "Come Unto Christ"  - dress rehearsal

It was a wonderful way to wrap up the end of a chapter in our time at the PRS, focused on what we do as missionaries-- invite others to Come Unto Christ. The senior couples talked in between the songs, there were picture slideshows of Christ playing through some of our songs, and we were very happy with how everything turned out... especially with how many people came! I am so grateful that we have had so many opportunities to share our testimonies of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel through music. 

With some of the sisters before the concert.  

I had a little group of women, not of our faith, approach me after the concert and tell me how they loved that they could see the light of Christ shining through us as we sang. An elder in our zone told how being able to come to the site and hear our music has strengthened him in times when he needed strengthening and it had changed his mission. Brother Lusvardi said that in the past 25 years he'd gone to many visitor center musical firesides, but had never seen anything like we had done, as it was so missionary-purpose-driven. It's just amazing to me how so many hearts can be touched through the power of music, no matter who you are or where you are in life.

After the concert with my Hobbit House sisters

We wrapped up the week with our Sunday family dinner and a testimony meeting, and I have been incredibly blessed to serve with such amazing, and spiritually strong people in a sacred, dedicated place. 

Final "PRS Family" dinner

It's been the best decision I have ever made to serve-- to learn more about myself and others, and more about my Savior.

Love,

Sister Larsen