Elder Phillip Larsen: Jan 20, 2011 - Hobbs New Mexico Week 3

Querido Familia,

So it has been quite an eventful last week, lots of stuff has been happening and the work has really sped up.

This past Monday, President Robison and Sister Robison came for District meeting and to perform interviews with the district here in Hobbs. We now have texting to text members and other missionaries in leadership and President and Sister Robison. That was a surprise, and also being able to use the internet for more than Email. We can now use Mormon.org and there is a reason for that.

They completely redid passalong cards for the website, they look pretty cool and kind of remind me of the posters in Citizens Bank which I thought was funny. The new Mormon.org site has a lot of profiles and videos and information on it that we are supposed to study 2 hours a week not during proselyting time and that is not supposed to be used during P-day. Its pretty exciting though, and kind of funny how that is exciting for missionaries but the new cards are cool. You can read up on it in the newest Ensign.

In my interview with President he said that they estimate a maximum of one more transfer until visas start coming faster. But he said that it is also somewhat of a rumor too, so I don't really know, but he said he feels very blessed for my service here in the TLM and that every day is another blessing. He said that my planner was very good for how young I am in the mission. I'm glad that my MTC teachers and the missionaries I have been with since coming here have taught me well.

Something you'll be glad to hear mom is that Sister Robison talked to us about the Word of Wisdom, specifically eating right and she scolded us for our diets and told us of several meals that we could make that were cheap that would allow us to be eating enough food in all the food groups according to a food pyramid. It was rather funny that she talked to us on that but it was good and I thought of how you'd be comforted to know that I have a mom telling me what to do here as well :P Also Milla looks out for us as well and has us come over for food too.

We did service last week and this past Tuesday. We went to an assisted living home here in Hobbs and we had to knock down piles of rocks that this one old man named Bob will make all around the building. They don't want them there but for some reason he just went crazy in the last month so he has been making those. We knocked down several hundred of them and we went back the following Tuesday and there were even more than the first time we knocked them down.

We went to sing on Tuesday to the older people and when we had sung about 15 songs from the Hymn book an old lady said, "I think it's about time that you leave." We asked if she wanted us to sing one more song before we left, but she replied quickly, "Nope. I think you should just march on out of here!" At first it came across as a little rude being told off by an old lady like that, but she thought that we were going to leave sooner like other visitors that come there. They all have a special condition there, I don't remember what it is though.

The weather here has been a little crazy! It has been freezing cold to the point where we had to stop biking because it was too cold, to being warm enough that we didn't have to wear suit coats. Last night was very warm even after the sun went down. There have also been some awesome sunsets as well.

We had a really cool experience the other day. We went to this one potential investigator, Tara, who said to come by at 5:30 that night. We went over, and they didn't answer the door even though their cars were there and we saw some of the neighbors walk in to the house. We ended up going to try another person, and eventually ran out of things to do. Elder Miller and I stopped at a corner and said a prayer asking for us to be guided on where we should go. We decided that we should go try visiting Tara again. We started riding in the direction of her house again and we went through this one intersection when someone yelled at us from her Truck. She said "Hey. You're Mormons, right? Come to my house, it's on 1417 Brecken Road."

We went over to her house and we met this awesome family that loves the missionaries. They had moved to Hobbs in about August. They are less active recent converts who lost contact with the church since moving to Hobbs. She said that she saw us the past 4 days riding. When we told her that we had prayed where we were to go, she laughed. We have visited their house several times this week and it's been fun, although it has been more "getting to know you" visits, but it has been nice to end on a good note each day.

The work has really sped up these past few days. We got some new investigators and we taught a first lesson to a lady that we met on Sunday while tracting. Then we were able to see this one person that the missionaries before us had been teaching, but then we didn't get to contact her for a while.

Everyday builds my testimony of this Gospel and that this is Jesus Christ's church established again on the Earth. This message that we are sharing is very important for all to hear, and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this wonderful work.

Sorry that this email is shorter than the others, I need to figure out how to budget my time with email reading and writing. I print out some too.

I love you lots and miss you all but I'm glad that you've been enjoying the new year,

Love,

Elder Phillip Larsen

Sunset