Week #13

      So I was totally wrong.. I thought that my p-day this week was on Tuesday, but because Easter Pageant starts tomorrow they changed it back to Monday! But things are going pretty well here. We are just getting ready for the pageant! The dress rehearsal starts tomorrow, so we have been having a lot of meetings. We had one with security... that was funny. They set up 10,000 chairs in the audience on Saturday morning. It is so cool to have all of those chairs, I might send a picture of it. It got me super excited. We have been going around and talking to tons of investigators and less actives, trying to invite them to the pageant.

       Saturday night our investigator, Emanuel got baptized! It was really well attended and we are just so excited for him. Afterwards he got up and bore his testimony to everyone that was there. And it was just awesome--he really has it all figured out. Last night he went out with us to visit other people and I asked him if he is going to serve a mission. He is 24, and he said that he might. We'll see.

       Sunday was fast Sunday here, and during fast and testimony meeting, my companion, Hermana McKee told me that I should get up and bare my testimony, because the people will get to know me and respect me more. But I was  terrified! It's one thing to talk in Spanish in the MTC where no one knows what you are talking about, and it's another to talk in front of an entire ward of native Spanish speakers! I was like umm NO! haha. She was I'll go okay I'm going to go, you come with me. She was like okay. So I got up to go and she totally didn't go with me. haha. But I was already standing up.  I got up there and it went really okay. hah. That's been the toughest thing for me here-the language. I'm sure it is for most people that are learning a foreign language on their mission. It's really tough  though, because I'm in the states trying to learn a language, and I'm in the visitors' center all the time where I pretty much only speak English. But it's okay, I know that the visitors' center is part of my calling, and that I will be blessed for being here.

      Dinners here are always very... interesting. haha. Last night I got so sick! The desert was this milk rice thing. I'm sure some people really like it, but my stomach was just not okay with it! I would put it in my mouth and just swallow it without chewing so that I didn't have to taste it! haha. It's awesome. I feel very cultured here... even though I am only in Arizona!

      Sorry my letter this week is a little bit on the shorter side. I love you all though so much!  Oh and this week I got a letter from Sister Blonquist. She had her primary class all write notes and draw pictures for me. It was way cute... 

Oh and one day I was at the visitors' center just walking around talking with people, and Sister McKee was like Siste Larson come over here... so I did and her ENTIRE family was there.  Her brother lives in Phoenix and they were all visiting them for Spring Break and decided to come visit her at the visitors' center. It's just so funny. They were really nice and it was fun to meet them all. It's just funny that I met sister Cottrell's family, and now Sister McKee's... funny funny.

I hope you are doing well! Here in the field we have an hour to email... which is a lot more the than the 30 minutes we got in the MTC. So sometimes I feel myself trying to fly through the email that I send to everyone, and then realize that I have a ton of time left!

Sunday during church we got a phone call from president. Apparently two of our VC sisters were in the hospital and he just asked if we wouldn't mind going to pick them up. So we got to leave the mission because the hospital was in the Tempe mission.  The Sisters are doing okay. Apparently one of them had been really sick and was like throwing up and passing out. So at 3 in the morning her companion called president and he and Sister Ellsworth came and took them to the hospital. When they told me that I was just like ... poor president. They are saints. They have over 200 missionaries and are on call alll the time. Being a mission president is HARD work. He interviewed Emanuel who got baptized this week. He is just always driving all over the place and on the phone and interviewing. Bless his heart! I'm sure it's the same for all mission presidents!!!!

The Tempe Mission had transfers this week, and apparently whenever they get new missionaries from the airport they come straight to the Visitors' Center to take pictures and to just get the new missionaries aquanted with it. Even though it is in our mission.. its SUPER close and they are allowed to come with their investigators. Well, I had no idea that they were coming. And I was working the front desk, so when they came I  greeted them. And Sister Howes (the mission president's wife) was wanted a tour of the whole visitors' center. I didn't know exactly what they wanted and I felt so dumb.. but it went well!  At the end she said,  oh thank you so much! You are just so darling!  Funny.

I have to get going... Time's up! But I love you all so much!

Week #12

  WELL. This week has gone by so much faster than the week before! The week before was just super long and I had so much so to do, and I was exhausted, but once I made it through the next p-day I was fine! 

A couple questions to answer... The mission rule for music is SUPER lax. Like anything goes, as long as you can feel the Spirit while you are listening to it. My companion has this CD that is Spanish like Christian music... I'm enjoying it. I don't really remember everything that I said last week... I was soo tired when I was writing! So sorry if I repeat things... We do have a car, we're very lucky! There are 3 sets of missionaries that make up our district, and we are all serving in the same ward. Sister Sordes, another sister in my district is the one that knows Uncle Larry and Aunt Arlene really well. So it has been really fun getting to serve with her so much. I feel like I may have told everyone about that already... We are allowed to nap on p-day... thank goodness! I think our p-day is Tuesday next week.. so don't look for a letter from me until then! 

      This week we really started preparing for the Easter Pageant. We had meetings all Saturday morning. It was fun and got us really excited. We met with the entire cast of the pageant. It's so awesome. There are like 400 of them. Apparently in past years they have had Elders work the grounds outside while the VC sisters stayed in the Visitors' Center. Well this year they are having no Elders work the pageant. Only sisters. So all sisters assigned to the VC stay inside working the VC (there are 22 of us). All of the full-field sisters in the Mesa Mission will work outside... but we only have like 20 full-field sisters... Which isn't enough. So we've pulled all of the Tempe Mission sisters and they will be working it every night. So that's going to be way cool. I got to meet the Tempe Mission President, President Howes--He's super awesome. 

      Last week I think I talked about our investigator a little bit. He's an investigator that we have been working with. He's 24, and has been working with the missionaries for about 3 months. Well it's been a long week with him. Towards the beginning of the week we committed him to baptism for March 24th (THIS SATURDAY!) Well we found out that HE GOT HIT BY A CAR WHILE RIDING HIS BIKE. Insane right? So we were freaking out because we didn't know what was going on or if he was okay... and we were working the VC so we couldn't leave. We have some really awesome people in our ward that know him really well.. so they went to the hospital and took care of him.. they were there all night. He was totally fine like two days later but it definitely gave us a scare. We had a couple of lessons with him that went really well and he's totally ready for Saturday. And then on Saturday he like fell of the face of the Earth. He would just like text us weird things.. and then never answer his phone. It was just so weird. He ignored us for two days... didn't come to church yesterday. We like didn't know what to do. He had an interview with our mission president yesterday.. didn't come to that. He finally called us this morning and we rescheduled his interview for tomorrow. I think he's doing okay. We'll see if we have a baptism on Saturday or not!

     We're also working with another girl! She's 18... and speaks english so I love teaching her :] She's so awesome, and totally wants to get baptized. She's ready too. We went to watch the new Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration movie with her and while we were there she decided that it would be cool to be baptized the day the church was organized, April 6th! We were so excited. Then she got home, and told her parents... and her parents think it's too fast-they want her to wait a year. She doesn't technically need their permission because she is 18, but she's still in High School and still lives with them. So we are going to try and talk to her parents later this week. It's just been a week of ups and downs for us! 

     My Spanish is coming along. It's really tough.. I don't understand a lot that is going on and it's just hard. I'm at the VC half the time where I speak English most of the time. But this week I realized that I have been using Hermana McKee as my crutch. We always teach together and so I don't feel like I have to talk very much or I just am scared to try. But this week while I was working the VC a couple came in, the wife only spoke Spanish, but the husband knew English. I was the only Spanish sister that was available, so I took them on a tour, and I was fine. They were members and were really understanding, and the husband would help me when I couldn't think of a particular word... but it went really well. And at the end I realized that I can do it... I just need to push myself. So the rest of the week I've just been doing it. And it's tough... and embarrassing sometimes when I don't know what to say and I'm in front of a big group of people... but I figure that is how I'm going to learn. 

     Every third Sunday night, we have a fireside for all the Spanish wards in the Mesa area, that we put on. The missionaries practice songs for  2 hours beforehand, and recent converts talk and share their conversion stories. It was fun singing in Spanish... I sang in one of the  musical numbers... and it is just a great event to bring investigators to. It's also fun to have like tons of us missionaries together beforehand. It's awesome, and it went really well. President Ellsworth and his wife came, and he spoke. I knew he spoke Spanish, but it was fun to hear him talk. 

      I ate like 20 tamales this week. It's... awesome. They were SERIOUSLY spicey.. my body isn't really used to all of this food and I was really sick one night after dinner... but I'm feeling a lot better.. and I guess I better just start getting used to it! hah. 

      I'm doing really well. I honestly love what I'm doing. This week has gone by soo fast and I can already feel that my entire mission is going to do that. I love you all so much!!

Love,
Hermana Larson

Week #11

I AM IN ARIZONA!

     How crazy is that? I didn't get to email last week because I was getting here and it was so chaotic and everything, so this may be a monster letter. Also it may be all over the place because I feel like I have so much to talk about!! Welllll, the rest of my last week at the MTC went really well. It was visitors' center training, and Saturday night we got to go up to Temple Square and go on exchanges with sisters. It was really fun to be in the REAL world, talking to REAL people. But it was really fun. As the night was winding down and I was proselyting in the square my sister, Julie, "accidentally" ran into me! I thought that if I were to see someone I knew or my family I would have a hard time, or like get super homesick or something, but I totally didn't. It wasn't even weird, it was just like yeah-that's my sister! Haha, which I was glad it wasn't a big deal! The next two days were just weird... kind of just waiting to go! We practiced approaches, and how to give tours, and how to get know people and access their needs quickly, because in the visitors' center you don't have long to get to know someone!

 
     Tuesday morning we woke up at 3:45 AM to leave for the airport! I had a hard time fitting everything in my suitcases, and once I got to the airport I had to throw a couple of things away, but the airport man was very nice and let a couple pounds slide :] Once I was through security I got to call and talk to my parents! It was so fun. I had brought all of my makeup with me, because I had kind of planned that I would probably cry when I was talking to them, but I totally didn't. When I first heard their voices I wanted to a little bit, but I got over it pretty quickly. And it was so fun to talk to them and to tell them everything that was going on, but again like it was with Julie, it wasn't as weird as I expected it would be! There were 9 of us flying together to the mission. When we got to Arizona President and Sister Ellsworth and the APs were waiting for us. It was really fun to meet them and I had a SUPER long and busy day. A truck at the airport took all of our things and we went straight to the visitors' center where I got to  meet the Beckstrands, the Temple Visitors' Center directors. They are super awesome. I love love love the visitors' center. It is seriously right next to the temple and I mean I have seen tons of pictures of the temple, but in person it is even prettier. We then went to the mission home, which is RIGHT next to a stake center. So we had some orientation meetings, ate some delicious home cooked food and then they sent each of us out to stay with another companionship for the night. I was sent with Sister Hartvigsen and Sordes. Sister Sordes is the one that is from France and that knew my Uncle Larry and Aunt Arlene really well. So that was fun to meet her and to get to know her. It was fun to go to a couple of appointments with them. I found out very quickly that my Spanish is not very good... I have a long ways to go. I thought I would be able to understand most everything... but I don't. haha. People talk a million miles an hour here! It's crazy. I also found out about this Mexican tradition, where on someones birthday they smash their face into the cake... and then everyone eats it. It's awesome... and very sanitary of course. haha. 

     Wednesday morning we had a transfer meeting where I found out who my trainer is! Her name is Hermana McKee, and I just feel so lucky to have gotten her! She's so awesome. She's from Hawaii... and only has two transfers left here... so I will be her last companion. She knows the language really well, so she's helping me out :] We went back to our apartment, which is apparently one of the nicest ones in the mission, but still the ghetto-est place I've ever lived... I guess I better start getting used to it! haha. The nice thing is that it is pretty big. I have my own bathroom, so getting ready in the morning is a lot faster. I feel like I have to skip a lot that went on, to hit the highlights because I don't have a ton of time! Buttttt, it's been so fun to meet people and get to know them. I'm in the Mesa North Stake. Our ward is HUGE and we actually have 3 sets of missionaries assigned to our ward, 4 hermanas and 2 elders. Our ward has some really awesome people in it and I'm just starting to get to know them all. The majority of the ward is converts, (like 75%) and so sometimes it can be difficult to get things done. At least from what I have seen so far. But there are some people that told me things that were going on in their lives before they joined the church and you would never have guessed. You would think they've been members their whole life. The gospel really does change people's lives. We work every single day at the visitors' center and I love it. We work from 3-6 hours a day and it's great. I think the reason I may love it so much is that a lot of it is in English... haha. I'll get there. I'll get there! In the visitors' center we have sisters that are from all over the place, Mexico, France, Pakistan, Africa, Asia (don't remember which countries exactly...) But it's way cool. Most of them had to learn English once they got here. But they are way sweet. We are getting ready for the Easter pageant that the VC does every year. It's a great way to talk to people on the streets and just invite everyone that we talk to or see. Apparently members from Mesa, Tempe, Phoenix, and Gilbert have been practicing for months, and thousands of people come every night. We work it almost every night ( I think we have one off) and they actually switch our 6:30-10:30 sleeping times because we are up so late working it. I'm really excited for it. I've heard it is just so fantastic. Working at the visitors' center, we see tons of weddings because we are RIGHT by the temple. I have decided to keep track of the number of brides that I see taking pictures throughout my entire mission. I'm already at 12. haha. They also have a bunch of girls that come to take their quincinera pictures at the Mormon temple because it is so pretty. I just think it is so funny. There are all of these 15 year old girls in these HUGE dresses... a little bit scantily clad taking pictures. Humorous. 

      We eat a lot here. Which is hard. I know that I am in Arizona... but I legit feel like I am in Mexico. Anywhere you go... at least in our area you can just assume that people speak Spanish-and they do. It's a very poor area. And I know this sounds silly but I really have never been around people this poor before. Some of their living conditions are just really sad. But they are so kind and really loving. They LOVE the missionaries.. and they love feeding us. And even though they don't have very much... they love to feed us as much as we can handle. Even more than we can handle actually. haha. For Sunday night dinner I had the opportunity to eat tacos de lengua. Which translated is tacos of the tongue. AKA tacos with cow tongue meat. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... but I couldn't get the image of a cow tongue out of my head so I had a little bit of a hard time haha. I'm sure I'm going to get to eat a lot of delicious things just like that... haha.

       And since everyone in our zone has the opportunity to eat massive amounts of food from these wonderful members... we get up at 5:45 AM every morning and workout together. We get up and run to a stake center that isn't too far and then we play basketball, soccer, or sometimes we'll just run more outside. But it's fun to get a full hour to workout, because half an hour doesn't cut it really. But it also means that I'm exhausted like all the time. haha.
     Saturday night we took an investigator named Emmanuel to a baptism so that he could see what a baptism is like. He really liked it, and afterwards I committed him to be baptized on March 24! It was excited to ask him and so we'll see if he can be ready by then! We are excited. The other sisters have been working with him for about 2 months. We actually have a lot of investigators. We went to visit one yesterday and she had just moved... like we have no idea what happened to her. But she's gone. So... I hope she's okay. haha. I just love the people so much already. Each time we finish eating somewhere or are done with a lesson I wish I knew the language better. So I'm working on it! 

      Sunday night I was working the VC (visitors' center) and Sister Beckstrand was like Sister Larson can you come to the front... so I did and I got to see President and Sister Cosgrave! They were my Branch President in the MTC. They have a daughter that lives in the area, and when we had said goodbye they didn't know the next time they would be down here, but then they made an unexpected trip down, so I got to see them! It was so fun to see a familiar face. But also super weird because I realized that it had only been a week since we said goodbye (like the longest week ever! haha not in a bad way... just a lot going on!). 

     Oh, so our P-day is usually on Monday. Since we are at the visitors' center sometimes we have to work  Mondays so it will be Tuesday. But for the most part it is Monday. And you can actually send me mail to the VC my entire mission. If you send it to the mission office, they have to forward it to me and it just takes a long time ( I don't think they are as good as THE mission at forwarding mail.. it just sits there for a while before they send it). So if you send it to the VC they don't have to forward it, and I'm there everyday! So it works really well. Even when I am full field (the transfers I don't' work the VC) I will still be there at least twice a week. So this address is good my whole mission!

Hermana Holly Larson
Mesa Arizona Temple Visitors' Center
525 E Main Street
Mesa, Arizona 85203

Okay I love you all so much. I miss you. I hope you are doing well!!

Love,
Hermana Larson

MTC Pictures - The Elders Leave Us Behind!

Our District on Sunday with our Branch Presidency and their wives.

Us with Sisters Pymm and McKay, who are both going to Paris, France.  They are our roommates.

With our teacher Hermano Janis.  (It was very bright outside!)
He is studying accounting at BYU and served in the Denver, Colorado North Mission.

Our Zone, Sunday night right before they sang, "God Be With You 'til We Meet Again."

 Us with Hermana Sant, gong to the Independence Missouri Visitors' Center, speaking Spanish
 and Hermana Folsom going to Phoenix, Arizona, speaking Spanish.

Hermana Cottrell and I!

Our AWESOME District - Sunday night.

Week #10

Hola,

So this has been the longest, craziest, busiest week that I have had thus far. Not in like a bad way or anything, there is just a ton that has gone on! I'm loving my last little bit here. I'm so excited to go to Arizona (in FOUR days!) but I'm definitely cherishing the last little bit that I have here. I'm trying to cram as much Spanish as I can into this brain of mine before I leave!

Last Friday we (my whole district) had in-field orientation. Usually you go to in-field orientation the last Friday that you are in the MTC, but I went the second to last Friday, because my whole district was leaving a week before I was. It was really good... and really long. From 8:15 AM-9:30 PM. Crazy, right? They do a lot to try and entertain you. And I really did learn a lot, and I got excited to head out to Arizona, but I had to stop myself from getting TOO excited because, I mean, I still had like a week and half left here!

       Sunday was the last day that my district was together because we had three elders head to the Houston Texas East mission early on Monday morning. We had an awesome Sunday together and we did a testimony meeting. It was awesome. It really is insane how close a group of people can get when forced to be together 24/7 for 9 weeks. Sunday night we said goodbye. Our whole zone came into our classroom and sang "God be with you 'till we meet again." That's when the tears started flowing. haha. I didn't bring any waterproof mascara with me either... I just did not think, oh, yeah, that's something I'm going to want while I'm on my mission with all that swimming that I'm going to be doing. So needless to say I looked like a train wreck! haha. It was funny though. I think Elder Kener thought I was going to die. He just kept saying "You're going to be okay without us, you're going to be okay with out us." I was like I know.. I'm just going to miss you all! Elder Erickson kept taking pictures of me looking like a mess "to remember how much we love them." (like, that's why I was crying so much.) Funny. Monday and Tuesday were just really weird because everyone was leaving us and we were just here... chilling in the MTC because our Visitors' Center training didn't start until Wednesday. I think that is why it was so hard whenever everyone left, because I wasn't like excited for me to get out to the field... It was just like everyone was leaving me! But once Visitors' Center training started we weren't as sad!

       The Tuesday night devotional was our LAST devotional... and it was definitely a good one to end on! Elder Holland came and spoke. It was just a fantastic talk. He just speaks with such power; I love it. He talked a lot about how we, as missionaries, don't know the Book of Mormon as well as we should, and that we don't use it enough when we are teaching. He had missionaries come to the pulpit and he asked them questions about things in the Book of Mormon that we should all know.. and let's just say we were all humbled. I know that I don't use the Book of Mormon as much as I should. It's just very hard when I am teaching in Spanish, because I have a hard enough time understanding the scriptures in Spanish; It's really hard to explain what's going onto others that don't understand the language of the scriptures. But I have been humbled and am working harder to use the Book of Mormon more.

       Wednesday morning our Visitors' Center training started! One of my teachers is Sister Andelin, who was in my ward this past fall, so that has been way fun to talk and see her! There are 7 of us in Visitors' Center training right now, four of us are going to Mesa, one to Idaho Falls, and two to Hawaii. Wednesday morning we drove up to Temple Square in Salt Lake City and we were given a tour to just kind of know what it is like to go through a Visitors' Center as a guest. It was way fun to get out of the MTC, but surprisingly VERY weird to be in a car! I hadn't been in a car since December. So weird. I actually got a little carsick. But not like too bad. It was just weird that it had that effect on me! We got back from the Temple in the afternoon and then I got to meet Hermana Cottrell's family! Her brother got off of his mission on Wednesday and her parents had gotten permission for them to come to the MTC straight from the airport so that she could see her brother. It was really fun for her and I enjoyed meeting her family. They were all so sweet. Loved it.  

Wednesday night we had our first training for the CALL CENTER! Everyone kept asking me if we would do that here in the MTC and I just was like I don't think so because they don't have all the missionaries do that anymore, but they do have all Visitors' Center sisters do it their entire mission. So we received training on that on Wednesday night, and Thursday we started chatting for the first time. So what it is, is when people are on mormon.org and just have questions and want to know a little bit more, they can click on "talk to a missionary" and it starts a little chat with the missionaries that are online. And it is so insane because you can be teaching people all over the world. Yesterday we taught people in the states, Africa, and Europe. Sometimes you get people that are being silly, or aren't serious and such, but sometimes you get people that are genuinely interested and that is like so cool. At the end of your conversation you ask them if they would like to have missionaries come visit them at their home. And you keep in contact, and keep teaching them over email and on the phone until missionaries are able to come visit them. So one of the people we were talking to in Germany was really interested and became our first investigator. We are keeping in contact with him and are really excited about it. Yesterday we were only taking English chats, but once I get out into the field I'll be taking English and Spanish. I didn't expect to like chat so much, but I'm absolutely loving it!

        Last night was also had our first TRC (Training Resource Center) experience in visitors' center training. They have volunteers come and you all pretend like you are in a visitors' center and we just practice all that we have been taught about approaching people, sharing a short message, asking for referrals... all that kind of stuff. It just got me even more excited to be in a visitors' center. I can't wait to get out to Mesa! Also it has been snowing a lot this past week and I've about had it with Winter. I'm sure I'll be saying the opposite come July in Arizona... but for now I'm just excited to get out there!

       The MTC has been an amazing, challenging place. I've learned so much. I've met some really incredible people. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have had to be here, but I am ready to leave :]

 

I love you all. Thanks for everything!!! I love hearing from you.

 

Love Love Love,

Hermana Holly Larson