Wind casulties in Puerto

So this past week the wind here in Puerto has been super super strong. It´s good and bad (for me mostly good). Good because it keeps the side of your body that is facing the wind really cool (example when i´m walking into the wind my chest is dry but my back is hot and visa versa). Bad because it took off a couple of roofs here in town (it wouldnt do that in the US but the roofs here in colombia arent that strong), it makes the whole house creak at night, the power goes off more often than normal, and the waves got so strong that the MUELLE (dock) broke!! The whole reason Puerto Colombia pretty much exsits is because of this 100 year old muelle that brings a few tourists in but the waves broke the old thing in half! Well not exactly in half but the middle section (about 60 or 70 meters) is gone, like this ------------ (broken part) ---------------. There is a little house that fisherman use every once in a while and three fishermen got stranded out there. This happened Saturday so all day saturday and Sunday the town was in mourning. They had a mock funueral in the centro. It´s so funny to be in this small pueblo, teaching was impossible Saturday because everybody was at the beach looking at the Muelle and sunday attendance was low for the same reason.
Thanks for all your letters. Saturday nigh we did get enough people together to have a decent attendence at the baptism of Yulima and Mickol Castro the mother and youngest son of the Castro family. It was especially great because Jonathan Castro, who i was able to baptize a month or so ago, baptized his mom and hermanito. Our goal this transfer is to get the dad to set specific times so we can teach him. Thanks matthew for your letter, I´m excited to see what more i can do here, and i know i havent done everything yet. i was hoping maybe i could pull a miracle and heal the muelle but then i realized i´d have to go to the beach to do that so i´ll just contact higher up on the hill. Also matthew i´m glad your using my phone skills, it works great.
Thanks for knowing me good enough to pick up that i would have liked to see a different area but you are also correct that i´m just fine here in my puerto colombia. It´s a great area and i know i´m going to get to learn a lot more here.
thanks for all your love and faith
Elder Larson

CHANGES! Well not really, my companion changed but my area didnt. I´ve had a bit of time here in Puerto Colombia but 6 more weeks is going to be great, there are always people ready to listen here. MY new comp´s name is Elder Beltran, he is a Colombian but from the southern part. His city´s name is Neiva and it´s in the department of Huila. Read it and say it like a gringo and then ask matthew how it´s really pronounced and you´ll know how i feel like alot of the time, its exciting. Spanish is coming along just fine i try not to compare myself to the colombians because i mean really they´ve been speaking it their whole lives. i learn something new everyday and Elder Beltran is really good at correcting the little things that most latinos dont bother to so i´m getting better. I havent started dreaming in spanish yet but in all my dreams i end up contacting or teaching a lesson. Kalan i did get your letter and it just so funny i cant send a fitting response through letters, if you think PA is cold you just wait till you get to rexburg. I hope you´re all enjoying the snow, it rained a bit here today so the sun wasnt out as much which was nice. but it really is kinda ironic because the one day when we need the sun to dry our laundry, it rains and the sun isn´t there, i´m sure it´ll be sunny tomorrow. I hope this letter doesnt sound like i´m discouraged because i´m not. In a normal situaion when i would be thinking about myself i might be, but i´m not normal at the moment. everything i do i try to center on building up the Lords kingdom. and if the weather it cool the one day when it would be helpful if it was hot and sunny thats one more reason to thankful because every sacrifice and discomfort brings blessings and is an oppurtunity to show my faith for the Lord, if there is not murmuring. I´m so thankful everyday for the testimony i have of this gopsel. The evidences that the Lord has given to me personally to carry my through when normally i would falter. That the Lord has allowed me to know for myself that this is the only church true really comforts and personalizes everything. Also it makes my promises to others all that more real. i hope they see it in my eyes when i testify and know that I know that it´s true, i pray for that everynight. I´m grateful everyday that the Lord has allowed me to purify and sanctify my faith through these two years, the line from ¨come come ye saints´where it says ïts better far for us to strive, our useless cares from us to drive¨ has really meant alot more to me as i´ve seen my usless cares of my youth exchanged for cares for the salvation of others. Thanks for your prayers and i´ll write to you next week.
love,
Elder Larson

Alive!

So this past week hasent been too bad at all. My second day in lockdown went well because i got to go serve in Santa Marta for two days. Santa Marta is a city about 2 hours south of Barr. along the coast. It has REALLY big and steep mountains that are utah foothill dry right now, but have alot of cacti. REally really windy and dry. It was really great to be able to work. It was an exchange of sorts and so an Elder came to Barranquilla to be with my companion and i worked with his in Santa Marta. When i left carnival hadnt started in full swing but when i came back to Barr. it was going strong. Lots of wickedness. November is the month with the most births here in the coast for a reason (carnival). The little latino kids paint their skin black with carbon and make fake guns out of wood (the black kids just make guns) and try to hold up cars along the freeway that runs through their towns. They do this after speed bumps like unto the ones in Mexico that Dad knows so well. Pretty fun. Also Elder Carrasco and I got to go back to puerto to gather our investigators for chruch for 4 hours sunday. The bus to puerto in the morning was full of borrachos and also the same slightly less drunk in the afternoon heading back for more.
But us 8 missionaries just sit in our house and study and i really feel like that city on a hill. All night of course is music music music but our house is quite at 10-30. Living a moderate righteous life is strange anywhere but here now it´s especially strange. i could tell you alot more about carnival but it´s not needed now, after the mission is better. But we´re all safe and living and us missionaries are learing really well how to be patient with eachother, but really all in all there havent been any problems with being cooped up. They´re all good missionaires and all of us are putting in effort not to be annoyed. We´ve learned alot from eachother and its been a good week. Tommorrow is the last day and we also find out whos leaving and whos staying. Wednesday we´re FREE and we travel. Well thats that, thanks for your prayers, love, examples, and support.
Love,
Elder Larson

Beginning of Carnival

Dear family,
Hope that everything is going well as you are skiing away. Its so warm here (and it hasnt even gotten as hot as it will) it´s hard to imagne cold right now. It was fun to hear from all the cousins. The email was a bit strangled by all the exclamation points but i think i got the message. Thanks for all your excitment and encouragement its great to know i have such a great bunch of cold cheerleaders up north. Had a rather disappointing sunday ayer. We had three people who if they attended yesterday would have been able to be baptizied this next saturday but only one went to church. The other two took off to another pueblo to party before carnival (as if carnival wasnt enough of a party). When we visited them in the nightime they were really dissapointed that they were going to be baptized this Saturday and wished they would have listened to us this past week when we explained that it was really important to go to church. Oh well, and so it goes.
On a much brighter note this week has been really great because the hermanos castro are on FIRE!!! Each of them have taught with us this week and they love to share thier testimonies. They love helping us and talking about when they are going to go on a mission. This coming Sunday the two oldest brothers (John and Johnathan) are going to be called as ward missionaries and be able to help us even more. It´s so great to see how different each of their three testimonies are but each one is centered on the Book of Mormon. Johnathan (the oldest) is really smart and he new the BoM was true when he read about the Jaredites and the tower of babel! But what is better that he´s smart enough to know that his true and firm testimony is when he prayed about it and felt peace like he´d never felt before and he bears testimony of that when he teaches with us. John knew the BoM was true because after he read and prayed about it he felt happier than he ever had before. And he testifies of how that happiness hasnt left him since he was baptized and confirmed and for me is so clear to see the change in him before he had the gospel and now as he has recieved the Holy Ghost and is living it. Manuel loves the fact that he has the Holy Ghost with him. He has asked me so many questions about how he can use and recognize it in his life. I wish i had more experience so that i could help him more! He said that as he read the BoM and prayed just knew it was true and th:at God wanted him to follow Him and recieve blessings in His church. What a marvelous work and a wonder is the BoM and such an oppurtunity for the true seeker of God. John is going to exercise his newly ordained priesthood authority and baptize his friend this coming Saturday (the investigator that came to church). It´s so great to feel such joy with my friends here in Puerto. I feel happy because they are making saving covenants with their father. I feel happy because it strentghens my testimony of the truth of the BoM and the fact that God will guide all of us if we will but ask. And i feel happy because as Alma 29:10 teaches as others are penitent it reminds us how merciful God is to them and also to us.
This coming week is going to be a bit less action than normal because starting Wednesday Carnival starts for real so we get locked up in our houses for REAL. All the missionaries in Barranquilla are going to be locked up in different houses from Wednesday to Wednesday. We cant leave for anything and the member will bring food to our house. It´s going to be like the extra time i had at the MTC, study study study. Today and tommorrow we are going to teach the Word of Wisdom and chastity like crazy to our investigators because they are going to need it. But i heard that in Rio in Brazil the missionaries are locked up for 3 weeks so there always something to be thankful for. Unfortunatly because we cant leave for anything P-day and writing to family is overruled so don´t expect a letter next monday, kinda a bummer but saftey first.
Hope everything is going well and that you all ski safe and eat some extra snow for me. Mama get well soon!!
Love
Elder Larson

One Birthday down, One more to go!

Dear family Larson,
It was great to hear your letters. Thanks for writing me about snow, i definatly just had the warmest birthday so far in my 20 years of life. It was a fun birthday because i really saw real JOY in one of our investigators faces and he told us how he felt ¨something strange¨ when he prayed about the BoM after he read it TWICE!! We then read galatías 5-22-23 about fruits of the spirit and he told us that is what he felt, the spirit. This past week has been really great, alot of people read and recieved testimonies of the Bom, how marvelous it is that someone can talk to God and recieve a firm conviction of a book that they have just barely heard about. The Lord has been leading Elder Carrasco and i to ALOT of great ready people, our teaching pool is 32 people. and like Hna. Lavin said most of them are related one way or another, or related to someone who is a member already, it makes for great teaching with the members. E. Carrasco and i felt alot of responsibility drop on our shoulders yesterday when 18 people attended the church for sacrament (branch attendace broke 100). My responsibilty to teach by the spirit and with all my heart, might, mind and strength is really real and a wonderful oppurtunity. The best part is most of our investigators need to go get married which is pretty difficult/expensive so this week we´ll see who is ready to change and who just likes to listen to a gringo talk about Jesus. As always i´m excited to see how things play out here in Puerto. Unfortuantly no we do not baptize in the ocean here, maybe in another area, they have a little above ground font behind the meeting house were the righteous enter in the straight and narrow gate.
People are getting pumped up for carnival (its a month away) and yesterday was a big parade in the night time. E. Carrasco and i had an appointment at the top of the hill at the VERY LAST house (beats the heck out of Pres. Uchtdorf´s 4th floor last door story) so the hike was long but the view good. And the whole time we were teaching (on the porch) we could look down on puerto and see the parade and the music and noise of the town getting itself tanked up drifted up to us and it was so chaotic and worldy. But then the sun set and the stars came out and the contrast between the nosiey town and the silent stars was profound and obvious to us and to our investagator because we were looking. It made me think of how clear and calm the gospel is TO THOSE WHO ARE LOOKING. i always always feel like i´m searching and i´m always pleading to be lead to those who want to know. Those who are ready and willing listen, change, believe and recieve peace as the stars. And the others scoff and drink and get hit by cars (not really but cars rhymes with stars). Its just a great oppurtunity i have to be ¨the keeper of the stars¨if you will (ok i know that was pushing it but i couldnt help it, it sounds so cool). Thanks for your letters and your love.
Enjoy the snow and Mom your description of Maine in winter sounded like heaven.
Love,
Elder Larson

semana loco !

well feliz ano nuevo familia!
alls calmed down here in puerto and its another normal slow monday for the colombians here. New years was pretty neat we were in the house by 7, went to bed at the normal time, and asleep by 3 in the morning (which i was actually surprised at i was sure i´d be up all night). Here in colombia the party is just as big the 1st as is the 31st but the difference is we work like normal the 1st. Never seen so many drunk people in my life, germany world cup is a close second, but the whole town was just LOCO! contacting was impossible so we just went and taught a lot of members that day. They do that whole burn the dummy thing here like mexico so there have been piles of ashes in the street this week along with the normal street debris of garbage, donkey/dog poo, and chicken bones.
It was fun being the only house on the street that wasnt having a crazy party and dancing. It reminded me of when i was in 10th grade and alot of my friends started thinking drinking was cool and it was before i was friends with matt D and all them and so i didnt really know what to do. But at the time i was reading the ending of the BoM about Mormon and Moroni who lived really really righteous lives among a really REALLY fallen people. And i remember thinking of how Mormon probably didn´t have many friends until he got married and then they were his wife and kids, and that Moroni didnt have any except his family (oh yeah and the three nephites who stopped in for a chat every once in a while mormon 8-11). But even though they (mormon/moroni) grew up without being cool (because for the nephites then being cool was drinking blood and making terrible oaths) they were really righteous and were really secure about who they were and where they stood before God (and positive enough to write the best chapter ever about hope). plus mormon was really cool and led the whole nephite army at sixteen and i´m pretty sure moroni could hold his own pretty well against anybody. Something about the last prophet Moroni who was carrying golden prophicies and using the sword of laban to defend them, hiding from all the Lamanites because he WOULD NOT deny the Christ, all the while writing awesome talks on hope and forgivness struck me as really cool (thats when moroni became my favorite B o M prophet). So i remember deciding that i was going to be like moroni who had great parents (just like me) and do what was right and be friends with the people who really matter (my family) and if i got other friends along the way thats great too. I just kinda felt like that again with the whole town partying and a big gringo and a little peruvian walking around trying to tell people how the church of jesus christ is restored.
but alls is back to normal and there arent any more big parties until carnival (i´ve heard thats the BIG one). We´ve just been re-teaching the word of wisdom alot since alot of our investigators seemed to forget over the holiday season. Sunday was fun because president Roundy stopped by and surprised us by coming to church. But we were prepared and had 10 investigators so it was great to see him. He is a great man and loves us and the work and his attitude always brings the level of intensity up. Well it´s that time again. It was great to read about all your talents Dad keep the jabberwocky memorizied so you kind recite it for me mothers day, i miss poems like that, and i dont really feel guilty about it because president monson recites alot of poems.
thanks for your prayers and ill write you next week love elder larson