B.O.M. Power Read

Sooo hey guys! What's up? The exciting news of the week, as signified by the title, is that as a mission, we have all been invited to start over the Book of Mormon and do a 'Power Read'. The objective is basically highlighting any mention of Christ-prophecies, doctrine, his teaching, etc; This activity is similar to something I did with Elder St. Gelais back in the MTC except in this mission-wide challenge of ours, it's a little more specific and structured. Nonetheless, I am excited for this opportunity.. It is the keystone of our religion, and combined with the Holy Ghost, the most powerful resource to ones conversion. For all you seniors getting your mission calls, I would challenge you all to finish the B.O.M again before you leave. It really is such an incredible book!

Other highlights for the last seven days is that our whole district had a service project pulling weeds together. Since everybody just loves pictures, and a certain mother of mine is always requesting them, here we are:

A few missionaries hard at work

Ako, Elder Hall, Seuilli, and Young. We are hecka tough.

I also had splits on Wednesday with our DL Elder Young and it went well. For this special occasion, we went to this pretty nice restaurant for dinner and I had a nice pizza for the first time in quite a while. Sorry, no pictures though :/ Anyways, same old stuff out here in Angadanan. I guess I will clip part of my LTP again for an update on the work...

We have a lot of solid investigators who seem interested and had another week with a lot of good lessons. However, none of them were at church yesterday. This is a frequent pattern that has been a little discouraging and at times I wonder to myself what else I can do to help the people we teach, but I know that even at the times when it feels like they aren't really making progression, we can always be that example to them simply by showing our love. We can always be that instrument or tool in the hands of the Lord to help others come unto Christ. And although they might not be ready right away, we can be the ones planting and nourishing the seed for when the time comes that they are prepared to receive the gospel.

And I guess we can leave it at that. Have a good week everyone! And happy St. Patrick's Day.I think that's today right? With love...Elder Larson

Journal Entry 5.2S (Advanced Version)

Good afternoon friends. Tomorrow marks 6 months since I said goodbye to beloved Pleasant Grove and it is hard to believe so much time has passed already. As for this week here in the Angadanan, the work went really well. On both Saturday and Sunday, we had a lot of members working with us and were able to do 'splits' with them, essentially doubling the amount of work getting done in our area, with Elder De Guzman working in one neighborhood and me in another. Every member a missionary! It was also good practice for me since I was the one leading and teaching the bulk of the lessons.

I don't know if I have mentioned this yet or not, but one of the big problems for us lately has been that after we have a great lesson with investigators or less actives and they commit to coming to church, but then Sunday rolls around and they don't show up. I guess the only thing we can do is to keep inviting and keep praying for them. However, we did at least have two investigators at church yesterday. I'm hoping we can keep making progression with all our investigators though and that this will be a number that we can increase.

Some random thoughts lately...I hear plenty of American music. But this week was the first time that I have heard a Macklemore song since I have been here in the Philippines. Also, at one house we visited, they were watching 'Fairly Oddparents'. It made me reflect on how chill old school Nickelodeon was. I was a little sad to hear we lost in the Finals to Lone Peak, but keep your heads up boys! You are still all unreal young men and winners in my heart!

I'm so happy for Melissa entering the MTC this week. So proud of ya cuz! Good luck Em on the farewell talk this Sunday. You will do great! And lastly, Happy Birthday to my dear friend Mark 'Charles' Sheffield. You are truly an inspiration buddy. And to the rest of you..ituloy ninyo na maging masaya! Mahal kita. (Keep being happy. I luv y'all)

3 Cycles Down

Another week gone by and I don't have a whole lot to say again. I struggled to even come up with a title for this week. But it's a new cycle and a new month, so time continues to go by quickly. Elder Bangal got transferred so on our last day, we watched The Other Side Of Heaven (another incredible movie by the way) and spent the night playing chess. I will miss that dude a lot. Elder Hall's new companion, Elder Pawin, is pretty cool but he doesn't speak much English.

The 4 of us before transfers - Elder Hall, me, Bangal and De Guzman

We had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday which went really good. President and Sister Rahlf gave talks during both sessions and I really enjoyed their messages, as well as the others who spoke.

We also have several new investigators (Joaymah, Elizabeth, Rosita, Joy) who are the classmates of some of the young women in our branch. We teach them all at once and the lessons with them have gone really well. They ask a lot of questions and seem really interested, so I think they have a lot of potential.

Well, that's about it for now. I apologize that this was a rather uneventful letter but I don't know what else to say. S/O to Smooty who is heading to Chile. Good luck to PG ball in the state tournament. And BYU too. I'm gonna miss March Madness. Oh yeah...Shown below is my master recipe of pancakes earlier this week. I sure hope that my future wife will be a good cook or else I'm done for... Farewell! :)

Call me Elder Chef

Ang Kapangyarihan ng Espiritu Santo

Or as properly translated...the power of the Holy Ghost. Yesterday, I was asked to be the concluding speaker during sacrament meeting. And I was asked just before the rest hymn, which totaled to be about 4 minutes of preparation, give or take a few seconds. However, I think I did a better job on my talk than I did as the pianist last week (which by the way, I did open my talk with an apology to the ward for my piano playing. Gotta love those bonus points for attempting to crack jokes). Considering my preparation time given, I decided a fairly safe route for my talk would be to share my favorite scripture-the one on my mission plaque back home-Moroni 10:4-5 and go from there. As I told Sister Rahlf just on Tuesday at our last quarterly interviews, this has been my favorite scripture since seminary in 9th grade. But even in the moments of when I was giving my talk, my appreciation for these verses grew even deeper.

I shared the scripture and explained how when we pray with real intent and faith in Christ, our Heavenly Father is willing to give us our answer and he does it through the Holy Ghost. Then, in the middle of my talk, when I wasn't exactly positive on what else I was going to say, I was prompted to share an experience from when I was in Cabarroguis of a time when I was given something by the power of the Holy Ghost after I had prayed with both faith and intent.

Then and there, within my talk about the Holy Ghost, the Spirit gave me spur-of-the-moment direction on what I should say. Mind=Blown. My dear brothers and sisters (looks like I'm still in talk mode), I know for a fact that if we didn't have the Spirit as our guide, missions would be of no use. We would simply be average young men walking around in shirts and ties trying to convince people our church is good. However, when we have the Holy Ghost with us, that is what connects us with those that we teach. That is what brings them closer to Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, and that is what leads to true conversion.

Sister Agustin remains to be hesitant about her decision and neither her or the Paggao family was at church yesterday, so it looks like we will have to try and give them a baptismal date for a different day. It is kind of frustrating to see that they have come this far while not knowing what else to do to help them go that little but further, but all we can do is keep trying. However, we did have an investigator-Grace Pielago-attend church for the first time yesterday. We only recently started teaching her and she is always interested during the lessons, so hopefully she can continue to progress.

Earlier today, we received the transfer list, and it looks as if Elder De Guzman and I will have another cycle together. To be perfectly honest, it has been a little difficult for me for the past few weeks so it wasn't particularly thrilling news. Similarly to when I had to leave Cabarroguis, I don't exactly know why things happen sometimes, but God does and if he needs us together for 6 more weeks, I am ready to go and do his will and hopefully the two of us can continue to help the hastening of the work.

XOXO (V Day Shoutouts)

Has it really been 3 months already since my Thanksgiving shoutouts? Time continues to fly out here and in the spirit of the season of love, I think it's time for a few more S/Os. We can start with sports: I heard the big news about PG beating Lone Peak this last week and I'm so proud of my boys! If only they could have the 6th man in the stands, but it sounds like they are playing unreal! Pie, Matthew, Chuck--keep up the good work. And this is a little late, but can I get a holler for the Seahawks? You don't have to believe us, but me and Jake MacDaddy can vouch for each other that we have always been fans! Also thank you to my dear father Dave and his weekly updates.

S/O to Charles for finally writing me a heartfelt message. About time haha. S/O to Coxy for getting his mission call. The first of many that will soon come. I am seriously so pumped for all you seniors to start getting your calls! And lastly to Maxwell Ferrin and Brittney McArthur....You make me proud. 

Thank you to my wonderful grandparents and also the Berndt family for the packages a while back. Not counting people, there is not much more I miss about home than Taco Bell. I will definitely be hitting that up plenty in about a year and a half. Perhaps the picture can help describe how much we enjoyed this heavenly meal.

I <3 Tacos - my mom sent some ingredients for them

As for things here in the Philippines, well yesterday our branch had to resort to me as the pianist during sacrament meeting. Let's just say, I wish I would not have quit so early. Stay in school kids-even for musical instruments. I also gave the lesson in our Single Adults Class, but that was actually not too bad.

For an update on our investigators, the lessons at the Paggaos (tatay, nanay, 17 year old Jazel and some of her friends) always go really well and they have shown the desire they want to be baptized, but except for Jazel they have not been to church, so we will not be able to continue their date for March 15. Also Sister Agustin has still been hesitant about everything. I am hoping we can help her feel truly ready by March 15, but I guess only time can tell right now.

I didn't have a significant other to spend my Valentines Day with (although on several occasions the Filipino kids have asked me if I have a wife...) but I can tell you that I love sports, tacos, all my friends on missions and their examples, and my family and friends back at home and their support. And I love being a missionary with the opportunity to share this wonderful gospel. Through it, we can achieve the greatest love of all-eternal love-living together forever with our families and our Heavenly Father. Love you all.

Chillin' on the rooftop with Elder Bangal

It's a Date

So this week I will jump right into things. Tuesday, we had a great District Meeting about the importance of prayer. We mentioned that one of the many things we can pray for as missionaries is our investigators. This is something that I was doing already for the most part, but after our meeting, I really focused on praying for them specifically as individuals and what they specifically need. The immediate results amazed me: Sister Agustin has been a little hesitant in the decision process for baptism for quite some time. Each time we talked to her about it, she says she will let us know when she is ready. After Tuesday, I would pray for things specifically relevant to her-such as her gaining the knowledge of the importance of baptism, feeling the truth and spirit, having the desire, that we could help her with these things, etc; Then after our lesson with her on Saturday, something clicked and she said she felt ready. We set up a baptismal date for March 15th. Yesterday, we extended the invitation to the Paggao family for March 15 also, but for them, we can only continue this depending on their church attendance.

Splits with our DL Elder Bangal on Wednesday went great. Something I enjoy about splits in general, is that I can learn something new from each missionary, because everyone is different. Also, since Elder Bangal and I have become such good friends, we had a lot of fun while we were working as well. One of the members we visited even said that we should be permanent companions. If that happens in the future, that will be incredible. 

By the way, if anyone hasn't seen the movie 'The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd', then I would highly suggest watching it. We have like half the lines in the movie memorized. It's incredible haha. 

Well, hope everyone has a good Valentines Day. However, also remember that we should be showing our love to everyone all the time and not just our special someone on one day. I'm proud of all my young friends who are working on their mission papers and am excited to see where everyone gets called to! Hopefully some homies can join me out here in the Philippines! Love you all. Farewell my friends.

P.S-I had some good pictures for the week but my card is experiencing technical difficulties right now. So... pasensiya. Hopefully next week I can send them.

Work in Angadanan

Well my friends, I received a heavy dosage of complaints (well actually just from my mother) that my last letter was too short. So this week, I will just introduce you to some of the people we are teaching and how things are going in our area. And it is actually just clipped from my 'Letter to the President' because I am kind of feeling too lazy to re-write everything....Enjoy.

To begin, I would like to share about a few of the people we have taught this week. The first is one of our 'recent converts'-Analyn Manugay. She was actually baptized in 2012 but somehow still was never taught the 'New Member Lessons' and has kind of gone 'Less Active'. So this week we decided to begin re-teaching with her starting at the Restoration. The lesson went well and she is very talented and has a strong testimony still. Then yesterday, she was at church, and she also brought one of her friends.

We also had some good lessons with Less Actives this week. With one nanay, we focused specifically on the Sabbath day. At the beginning of the lesson, she told us that she always had so many things to do and after a very spiritual lesson she stated that she knew that Sunday is a day that we should dedicate to God. There were members from 5 different Less Active families at church yesterday, which I would say is really good considering we have a pretty small branch.

Our branch president has also set up a schedule that on a twice-a-week basis, we will be joining different families in our ward for their Family Home Evening and not necessarily teaching the lessons, but kind of observing and instructing how to hold FHE's. I think this will go along great with the Philippines Area Goals of strengthening the families.

Our main investigator, Sister Agustin, was at church again yesterday and has met the qualification for attendance. We teach her twice a week and the lessons go well, but she does not have a baptismal date because she is basically still in the decision process. Obviously we don't want to rush her, but I am hoping we can continue to strengthen her testimony and that she will feel ready so that we can set her up with a date in the near future.

So in a nutshell...all is going well. I have splits with Elder Bangal (the other Filipino in our apartment) this week and I am looking forward to that. To be perfectly honest, I am tighter with him than I am with my companion and his companion. Of course the other two are great, but Bangal is like a Filipino version of one of the homies back home. He reminds me of Jamo kind of. Which reminds me, I should have done it last week, but Happy Belated B-Day to my best bud Moe. Anyways, until next week!

 I saw my tatay Elder Merza at zone conference this week