Mar 3, 2011 - Hobbs New Mexico Week 9 - Mission Week 25

Querido Familia,

So this week has been pretty interesting, and I am a little sad too... I'll expound on that later though... First off I need to say stuff that I have written down.

One of the bishopric members here dad served in the Toulouse, France mission, well it had the city in it. I guess the boundaries have changed since you served?

I have taught some people the missionary handshake that the missionaries at home taught us, so I am carrying on that tradition.

We are teaching a British Lady named Lesley. She is from Liverpool, and they are actually moving back there this May which is a shame. She doesn't want to go. Its been nice to be able to talk to someone with a thick British Accent. She's hilarious too.

What qualities did you see in missionaries that came to our ward? I want to be a missionary just as good as them, was just curious as to what really made missionaries like Elder De Oliveira, Elder Householder, Elder Onken, Elder Koerper, Elder Branch Elder Mataele, all of them. What made them really good missionaries?

I have also been thinking about Stanford lately, and January 23rd, and just was curious as to what other people remember from that whole experience. During personal study a couple of days ago I took the time to write down that experience and how it strengthed my testimony in the restored gospel. (A Preach my Gospel activity) It was quite the recollection of events and I am surprised at how much detail I remember from that experience, but at the same time I am not surprised.

Last Sunday was really windy with winds of 65+ mph. During Sacrament meeting, more than 104 tumble weed blew past the window... Yes I counted... O_o

Also Mom and Dad, I was curious as to what led you to move to New Hampshire.

So on to the rest of the email now.

Happy Birthday Brad!!! I hope you enjoy the card I sent you. :P I thought it was funny.

So we had a moving day this past week, and I think I have made a mistake in staying at the house. Before, every time I was transferred from an area, I didn't have a choice I had to move and then this one time that I do have a choice in the matter I still moved... It is different situation here in Hobbs since the Spanish Branch is dependent, but I feel like I need to remain in English for several people specifically. The Rodriguez family, the Ponders, the Prietos... I am going to see if I can still switch back so I can remain there but I am a little nervous as to what Elder Kenyon and Elder Olvera will think.... I really love the area.

I really hope my Visa comes soon. I have been praying for it, and I know that there have been mission wide fasts going on in Brasil for Visas. It could potentially come any day! Thank you Mom for including that in your fast this Sunday. Hopefully it'll come today or next week.

I'm so pumped for General Conference!!! I'm extremely excited for it! Its going to be awesome!

We're having a baptism tonight! Sara Powell will finally be baptized! It'll be awesome. I'm giving a talk on the Holy Ghost. She has such a strong testimony in the priesthood and in the restored church and the Book of Mormon. Seeing her faith and testimony has been a great experience, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to be a part of her conversion.

Israel Perez, Sister Rodriguez's husband, is another person we are hoping to be able to baptise soon. Their family loves us. We are extremely great friends and they love having us over. I am so glad that they started coming to church as well, and I hope they continue to come even after we all leave Hobbs. I'm going to have to visit Hobbs after my mission, there are so many amazing people here.

Love you all very much and I am so glad to be able to serve the Lord as a missionary. This is a great and marvelous work, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Missionary work is a blessing to be a part of.

I hope everything is going well with y'all (heheh) back at home. Maybe my visa will come soon and I'll be able to call you then! Hopefully!

Love you,

Love Elder Phillip Larsen

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures this time... I'll send some next week!

Feb 24, 2011 - Hobbs New Mexico Week 8 - Mission Week 24

Querdio Familia,

This week has been pretty great too. Missionary service has been going well, although we have still been having slow days with a lot of finding that appears to be unfruitful. But we are trying to find more people to teach.

Yesterday we went on exchanges with the Spanish Elders, Elder Olvera, Elder Miller, and I went in Spanish's area, and Elder Kenyon and Elder Walker went to English's area. It was a good experience, however, we knocked on a door with a lady from the Church of Christ who really only wanted to bash with us. We would listen to her when she would speak, but then when we tried to speak she would interrupt us and start getting angry... It was rather funny after the whole thing ended, but it got me rather mad at how closed she was and how deaf she was to what we were saying. Needless to say, she is not ready to hear the gospel yet in her life but it is sad to know that she rejected it when we were giving it to her. I have often read about Alma, or Ammon, and other missionaries in the Book of Mormon that were rejected by a city and how they were distraught and angered but were comforted by the Lord that they had been doing their job and the agency of those they teach was the reason they didn't listen.

We cleaned our apartment! Well the living room. At Zone Conference, President Robison was talking about how we need to get rid of our couches and comfy chairs because they are a distraction in the apartment. So we did! Now our apartment is Hobbs HQ and it looks awesome! We have a glass table with a map of Hobbs in the glass so during planning and stuf we can see it.

This week has had several similar days where we have gone looking for hours so there haven't been too many new things happening. We got chased by 4 gigantic dogs while we were on our bikes. It was awesome! We were riding down the street, Elder Miller and Elder Walker, were on one side, and I was on the other side because I had just turned or something, well I see 4 dogs and Elders Miller and Walker rode past them and then the dogs started barking and chasing them. I sped up and past them and we were riding towards the Rodriguez's. It was really funny because it was like the stuff you hear about or see in the movies about missionary work. None of us got bit and we are all okay.

I have been getting better at journal writing since being on my mission. I need to work on working out in the morning, I have gained a tad bit of weight and it is really bothering me! O_o I'm such a baby, but I don't want my metabolism to slow down... haha... but I have been working on exersizing more regularly in the morning.

Well I'm doing great here in Hobbs. Transfers are coming up in a few weeks. I hope my visa comes before then though. I'm getting a little anxious, I know I'm still serving the Lord, but I really want to go where I was called to serve. Elder Olvera has a sweet version of Praise to the Man which has become one of my favorite songs, it is a very majestic rendition by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Sorry, this email is shorter than the other ones.

I love you all and love hearing from you every week. The weeks fly by, its pretty crazy! The work is amazing, and bringing other people closer to Christ is a blessing and a privilege.

Love,

Elder Phillip Larsen

Pictures:

First one, Katamari Tree! The Prince is in Hobbs!

Second one, cleaned Living Room!

Third One, Aliens in Roswell! Oh noes!

Jan 13, 2011 - Hobbs New Mexico Week 2 - Mission Week 18

Dear Familia,

So this has been quite an eventful past week... well I guess uneventful depending on how you look at it. This last Monday I got sick, so did Elder Miller. We think it was something that we ate, but I woke up feeling really bad and gross. We didn't do anything that day and just to say the least it was not a pleasant experience at all. Didn't think I'd be getting this sick in New Mexico, Brasil maybe, but not Hobbs.

Hobbs is a nice little town though. The ward here is really nice and they really look after us. We had dinner last Saturday with some recent converts who we were visiting. They took us to Subway and the next day the dad wasn't able to go to church so we went to their house that evening and watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.

Those movies are on the new Church Doctrine and Covenants DvD that was released, however, mine doesn't seem to work on a few of the videos. Some bug in the assembly line I guess but we haven't heard about any recall or anything. Maybe it was the DvD player we were using because, who knows. But It was fun watching that.

The work here in Hobbs is really slow, it is hard in several ways because the last 2 areas that I was in I had a companion who had been their for at least 2 months, (in Midland 3rd he had been there for 6 Months) and so with 5 weeks combined in Hobbs, it has been quite the adventure. This week I have felt really lazy too because I was sick which was a bummer, but we'll work as hard as we can for the rest of it.

Portuguese Language study has been very difficult. I saw the wisdom that President had in placing me with Elder Yorgason and Elder Thode for those 3 weeks, especially in that ward where Curtis Brown, an RM from Brasil lived. We were able to practice our Portuguese a lot, but not so much now. I am starting to lose stuff because it is really difficult to keep it up and practice alone. I hope I get my visa soon, I heard middle of January but who knows if it was a rumor or not. We'll see. Need to keep working hard here though.

We went to the Ponder's for dinner last night and had enchilladas. Reminded me of Fast Sunday back at home! :D They were really good, and it's fun being with the Ponders. They have 2 Dogs, Jackson, and Lady Bug. We go to their house every day and I get a lot of Jackson hair all over my suit. He is a puppy so he is pretty crazy and full of energy, but its fun going over there. After dinner we watched 'The Mountain of the Lord' - it is a great movie. I loved it. I like it more than Legacy despite that it is older too. It was really educational about the construction of the Salt Lake City Temple. It's so cool that the stonework isn't held together at all by mortar, and how the persecution that the saints had when they were beginning construction on it led them to find the cracking granite from the mortar. It is just so cool learning about the Temple, and the journal accounts from Wilford Woodruff were incredible and just gave me more appreciation for temples. The next time I go back to Utah, I am going to visit the Salt Lake City Temple. That movie was just really cool. If you ever get the chance to see it, watch it!

Also yesterday we got pulled over by a police officer while walking... well we were walking and he pulled over and we stopped... so I guess that is the same thing? He comes up to us and asks "Are you the guys on the bikes?" When he said that we both thought What happened to our bikes... Turns out there have been a lot of robberies going on in Hobbs so we were asked to be another set of eyes.

I also went to the dentist yesterday too, was a little worried about my teeth and wanted to get a quick check up before I get sent to Brasil so I didn't have to get teeth pulled or whatever they do down there. Nice thing is that it was a member's orthodontist practice that I went to and even though it wasn't a dentist office, he said he'd look at my teeth and he said they looked fine and he did a little sealent on one tooth and fixed a filling that had chipped on another tooth. I was very thankful that I was able to do that.

So to answer your question Mom, Elder Smart is in a car area and I am using his bike because I don't have one of my own in this mission. He will use his bike when I leave for Brasil but in the meantime I am using his. Except for yesterday, we stopped riding our bikes and locked them up for the day at a busy street because it was freezing cold! "I'm so cold... I'm shivering!" We walked yesterday and got rides from members when we could.

Also I have said a few things to Milla in German, she likes that. I told her where you were born in Germany and she grew up near there in a town called... Ulm? It is like 20 words long but if you know about Germany you know where it is. We went over here house yesterday and she gave us German Christmas cookies she got from her cousin in Germany. They were tasty although very different from American cookies. They had apricots in the middle and I don't remember what else. Here in Hobbs, the Elders have a joke "You remember that one time at Milla's house..." The visits that we have there are hilarious! She had a duel of words with Elder Olvera, one of the spanish Elders here. It was really funny.

That's crazy the amount of snow that you got this past week! We had flurries one day for like 5 minutes in Texas. It was quite exciting :P It has been overcast the past few days here in Hobbs but today is sunny and that is good. Lots of snow though. That is good that you're getting more now.

I love you all and have been missing home a bit more lately but don't worry I'm still enjoying doing missionary work. I wonder when I'll get my visa :( I hope it is soon! I hope you're all enjoying the New Year.

Sorry if this email was shorter than other ones.

Love you all (Y'all) a lot; love hearing from you!

Love Elder Phillip Larsen

-----------

P.S. Sorry, I forgot my Camera this week I'll email more pictures next week. Whoops! O_o

Quote of the Week - "You do not know how you can affect the lives of those you interact with."

I may not see those I meet and teach get baptized but I won't know what happens to them down the road if they will join the church but in every mission you bring people closer to Christ. That is the missionary Purpose.

Help people come closer to Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.