The One Who Does Not Sweat.

Dear Everyone,                                                                  written May 26, 2014

So I've earned a reputation for two things - singing, and hardly sweating at all when everyone is drenched in it.  I"m cool with that.  Can't say I smell any better than your average missionary who walks around in the blazing sun for hours and hours... nothing smells worse than a missionary in the Philippines during the hot season (I had fair warning about that one before I came here.)

We four missionaries in the ward sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" in sacrament meeting on Sunday.  The ward totally loved it, so I suppose it was a success.  Especially considering we practiced once for 5 minutes only... and the Elders actually listened to the advice I gave to hold out and pronounce "Youth" so that it didn't sound like "We have been taught in our youuuuu...." hahaha.  Choir stuff.

We did service at a school this week helping clean the floors and walls in the hallways.  It was pretty fun; the school definitely is a flashback to the 1950's I feel like.  Sister Grant and I killed a bunch of brillo pads scratching sharpie graffiti off walls; it was awesome.

Word of the day - pagngignitgnit - indignation.  That one's a winner.

The best news is this has been probably the most miraculous week of my whole mission, because we met so many families who are so amazingly prepared by Heavenly Father to hear His restored Gospel.  I'm so excited to see what else is in store (hopefully  don't get transferred in two weeks.)  We've really been led by the Spirit in ways I've never experienced before or could have fathomed before this week.

Thank you for all your prayers!  Show your love to your families this week everyone!

Love,
Sister Larsen

It's "Fear Factor" Up In Here.

dear everyone,

for starters, my keyboard is broken... the shift keys and punctuation dont work so well, so hopefully you all can keep up anyway.

Fun stuff first - this week, on the way back from exchanges, sister grant and i were riding in a taxi.  at first it just seemed like a kinda old, a little rough around the edges taxi.  next thing i know, i look up and see some of the mini cockroaches crawling around (they only have those here, special just for the philippines.)  I looked some more and i realized there were actually at least ten or more visible just from where i was sitting.  we kept having to brush them off of our stuff and clothes as we were sitting there and we both jumped out of the taxi immediately when we got home. It was like that old 90's show fear factor where theyd have them eat weird stuff or have bugs crawl on them and see if they freaked out or not.  I should join that show, right after I join the "foreignai" show here for foreigners who speak tagalog.

A member showed me her kidney stone (now, not inside of her) this week when we went to go teach her.  Gotta say that's the first time anyone's ever showed me their kidney stone before.  some things you can only experience in the Philippines.

this week we had zone conference, which normally i super love, but this time i was a rather sad.  At zone conference, it suddenly registered (because they told us) that this is President and sister Stuckis last zone conference before theyre going home in june.  We're going to have a new misson president then.  I really love the stuckis, so that was a more or less pretty sad moment for me.  they will be missed, but we'll also welcome the new mission president with open arms.

This week's been crazy, lots of exchanges and crazy stuff happening.  Probably gonna be crazy until the end of my mission.  I feel good about things though, generally.  Faith brings blessings, and optimism and hope do too.  I love my opportunity to serve the Lord at this time, like the service we got to do this week for a member helping them clear out a wood pile of materials they used to build their second floor.  Pretty awesome stuff1(exclamation point.)

Love you all, stay good and be good and serve others each day, even if it's simple and small. 

-sister Larsen

Free Clothes Are the Best Clothes

One of the members gave me this dress. It's like... so hipster or something.  You should all be super jealous.  this is me and some members and sis grant.

Cats Wearing Shirts; Faith to Grow; River Styx

      Dear Everyone,

The picture is a view from one side of my apartment.  The other side's view pretty much looks the same.  Kind of right here in the city, for sure.

One day, we were walking back from picking up two Sisters to do exchanges with them.  As we walked back, I happened to notice a cat under a car.  I suddenly stopped and took a closer look.  "THAT CAT'S WEARING A SHIRT!!"  Sure enough, someone had stuck a  child's size shirt on this cat, and the cat was wearing this black muscle tee like a boss.  Made my whole day.  Sister Grant will never understand why I love cats so much.

Another fun thing that happened... I worked this week with a ward missionary while Sister Grant was at a going home tutorial thing (she goes home in a few months.)  That's the first time I've ever worked with a non-missionary without another missionary with me.  It was good though, just felt weird not having that back up of another person called to serve 24/7.  I enjoyed it though, and then afterwards the member said to me that there was another way to get back to the main church rather than walking the whole way.  She said there was a little ferry you could take over the super polluted, super dead river.  I said sure, let's do that!  So we took this little ferry for like 2 minutes across the little channel of death water.  Kind of felt like floating on the Styx.  It was awesome though, and ended up being faster than walking for sure.  Sister Grant was jealous when I told her about it; we'll have to do it again, haha.

As for the good part... found this gem in my personal studies this morning.  From President Boyd K. Packer: 

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 “Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it. …

“There are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience; it gives us certainty that a new day will dawn, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. …

“There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. … It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect. …

“In a world filled with skepticism and doubt, the expression ‘seeing is believing’ promotes the attitude, ‘You show me, and I will believe.’ We want all of the proof and all of the evidence first. It seems hard to take things on faith.

“When will we learn that in spiritual things it works the other way about—that believing is seeing? Spiritual belief precedes spiritual knowledge. When we believe in things that are not seen but are nevertheless true, then we have faith”    

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Our whole mission is working and focusing on extending our faith.  I've seen on my mission many miracles happen because of great faith, on the parts of missionaries and those with a desire to join the Church or come back.  It's been really amazing for me to see that faith is, indeed, a power that each person has the capability to cultivate and grow through diligent efforts.  It's not easy, but it's so, so worth it.  I can testify to everyone reading this that there really is only one way for each person to be happy in this life, and that is through growing their faith and coming closer to God while they are here on this Earth.  I encourage each and every one of you to do so now - even if you feel you don't have faith, pray to find it, and I know that you will when your desires are sincere.  Don't go through your life in a cloud of doubt, murky as the water in the Manila rivers.  I know that for each and every one of us, our connection to God is what will ultimately give us life and exuberance and hope in this life and the life to come.

Love you all,

Sister Larsen    

[During our Mother's Day Skype call, Marinda talked about how another two sisters came to do exchanges and to spend the night, so she and her companion slept in the kitchen because the apartment is so small. Marinda thought that was an adventure. She also talked about how she and her companion asked some kids they were teaching to make balloon animals without reading the instructions and with their eyes closed.  Of course, the kids didn't do very well making any animals. So then they gave the kids the instructions and helped them, and let them open their eyes, and then the kids were able to make great balloon animals.  Marinda and her companion compared that to reading the scriptures and keeping the commandments in order to be successful in life.]

Best. Birthday. Ever. Plus Adventures With a Zombie in a Graveyard.

Dear Friends and Fam,

First off - thanks for all the birthday wishes.  There's three people in particular who pretty much made my day... to all of you who sent me cards, etc, or emailed me, you're the best.  I definitely feel your love, even on the entire other side of the world!

One of the adventures we had this week was when we were invited to go to a funeral.  I knew where the graveyard was we were supposed to go to, and I knew there were two entrances.  I wasn't sure if maybe the people would be in the area of the little side entrance, so I thought in my head that it made sense to walk through the first one and it'd probably connect back to the main entrance, and we could check the whole graveyard for where we were supposed to go.  So it's about 7 at night and dark.  We heard loud drumming inside and we passed through and saw a bunch of people dancing (it was "fiesta" so people were partying through a lot of the city) so that was kind of surreal.  We couldn't see a way to get through the dancers so we decided to take this weird little path to try and get around them.  It was pretty dark back there and there were a ton of the above ground caskets. As we walked by, I wasn't scared but it was a little unnerving. Suddenly, as we walk up to one, I see something pretty dark lying on a casket and at first I thought it was someone's coat or something.  Then, right when I passed by, I saw it was a body, and it STARTED MOVING.  I almost screamed ZOMBIEEEEEEEEE but then I realized it was someone who was probably homeless sleeping on top of a casket.  We got out of there pretty fast and eventually found our way back to the place we were supposed to be.

Went to my first Mission Leaders Conference this week.  That was pretty awesome... it's really good to see how a mission works and what coordination and goals are set and how we are to achieve them and create a "mission culture" of having faith and seeing miracles because of our faith.  I really enjoyed it a lot and learned how we can set better goals to bring more souls unto Christ.

This was the best birthday of my life, because Heavenly Father saw fit to help us bring more investigators to church than I've ever brought in maybe my whole mission, and a ton of people gave us referrals and talked to us on Sunday.  On Monday, one of the very kind members here threw a "belated b-day surprise party" for me because everyone found out on Sunday it was my bday when they didn't know before.  This probably has been the best bday of my life because normally I'm always the one that throws a party... for myself... but his time Heavenly Father and other nice people here did all the work for me to make it a great day, where I really felt God's love, their love, and your (friends and fam's) love. 

Thanks for everything!  By the way... my mom's the best mom.  Happy Mothers Day to my favorite Mom! :D