07/09/2012

Dear Family,

Welp "the hour of my mission has come" D&C 31:3. There is so much that has happened I don't even know where to begin. First, my new native comp is named Elder Bareiro. He is from Argentina and is awesome. Our area is in San Luis which is in the city Huanaco. The mountains here are so beautiful and we are surrounded on all sides by the tallest mountains. This area is growing, but I have never seen a poorer people.

Oh, haha, I am second counselor in one of the branches in my area, so you can tell we have a problem with menos activos here. But the good news is we had two people get baptized this week!!!! Ketin y Victoria Revera Mata. They are brothers and sisters. Right now we are working on baptizing the Dad, but he has a problem with the law of tithing, and that is the only thing keeping him. That I think is the hardest thing here. When you have to ask a family whose has so little to give what little they do to the church. I mean, you have to have a testimony of it to be able to ask them to do that. 

We have another baptism scheduled for Saturday. His name is havier. I love everyone here. They ask me what sport I like to play and when I say futbol american they exclaim CLARO which means like "of course!"

We live in the house of a member of the church that is directly above a bar, so we get alot of run-ins with borrachos or drunks.  But they are the nicest drunks in the world. They always want to thank us for serving god, but they never sit still long enough to listen to us or for us to get their direction.

The hermana that we live with is a combination of Grandma Judy and Mother Teresa.  She makes all this food and because I am bigger always loads the plate full.  I pray every meal in my head that i can finish it because it is a lot.  I finally asked her for lesser portions. She also has a qui (guinea pig) farm. There are thirty-two, yes thirty-two, guinea pigs where I live.  She says once they get bigger we will have them for lots of meals, haha. But she is the sweetest lady in the world and I love her.  I just found out that I don't have to do my own laundry either...SCORE!!!!!!

The work is tiring but it is impossible not to serve when you see the faces of these Peruvian people.

So grateful to be here....

I love you all and hope that your doing great.... try huggin more cats...

Elder Larson

P.S. - I'm still getting letters from Dear Elder so keep writing them!

Elder Larson -- baptizing Ketin and Victoria

 

 

The guinea pig farm where Elder Larson lives

Sheldon's pillowcase all the way in Peru

Elder Larson with his companion Elder Elder Bareiro from Argentina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some weird fruit that looks nasty but actually tastes really good!