Also mom and dad, President says hello and good job raising the best missionary in the France Paris Mission! Haha, just kidding. He only said the first part. But I saw the last part in his eyes.
How is everyone? Are you all excited for General Conference? I'm so excited I cry tears of joy every time I think about it. I'm mostly excited to watch our investigators see it for the first time! They're so excited! It's going to be the best.
Have I told you about Julia and Rui? I think I've talked about them before. I love them with all my heart and soul. If we can get this family baptized my whole mission will have been worth it, even if I didn't teach a single other soul. This family is elect. Julia is from Portugal and Rui is from Cape Verde and they have 2 kids, Louis-Phillipe who is 14 and super cool, and Bruna who is 6 and super sweet and loves singing hymns with us and looking at pictures of you guys :) Julia's had a really hard life and she and Rui just got married last August and they are still so in love, she said she just prayed and prayed to find a man who would treat her right and she says the first time she saw Rui something in her head went, "he's yours, he's made for you". He's such a good man, and will do anything for his family. The night we talked about temple marriage and being together for eternity they both just lit up. And we talked to Rui about the priesthood and how he can use it to bless his family and you could just see that that's all he wants in the world. I love teaching the gospel and seeing it change families and homes, it makes me appreciate what an incredible home and family I was raised in! People dream of having families like mine, about having the assurance of being together and there for each other forever. And the gospel provides that! Anyway we met with Julia and Rui last night and it was so good, we talked about General Conference. We had a hard time getting Rui to get to church but he came last week and grudgingly admitted that he liked it, so I was praying and praying that he wouldn't balk when he saw how many hours conference was, but we talked about it and they're coming to EVERY session! I could cry, I could hug the whole world. I just love this family! I'm excited for you to meet them someday.
What else.... this week was a good learning week :) It was one of those weeks where it was almost as if the Lord was physically leading me by the hand and I was just kind of following. I've been praying and studying to try and learn how the spirit works with me personally so I can learn to better follow promptings and have the spirit when we teach, and this week I got answers in the coolest ways. It was as if my head was just totally clear, I didn't have any question in my mind what I was supposed to do. It was cool, I wish it was always like that.
It's such a privilege to be here on a mission and feel like the Lord takes so much time teaching me personally. He points out scriptures to me, he places thoughts in my head and hymns in my heart. He even gave me a thunderstorm this week! I LOVE thunderstorms and they don't happen often here, so I've heard. But the other day the sky just went crazy and my companion and I just sat on the porch at one of our ami's apartments and watched it all come down. Then we had to head out into it to go teach english class and I got soaked, even with an umbrella. It was fun.
Other funny story from this week, my companion and I were walking along when this man started talking to us and he was just saying all sorts of nonsense but he was funny so we talked to him. He was telling my companion to stop being so American and start trying to speak French without an accent. He was going off about how arrogant Americans are and how they don't think they have to learn any other languages and then he points to me and was like, you need to be more like the Europeans, she doesn't have an accent, she speaks four languages perfectly (haha, I'm not sure where he got that, also I had said like ten words at that point) so I was feeling cool that apparently I seem European and don't have an American accent, but then he started picking leaves off the bush next to him and trying to get us to eat them so I'm not sure how valid his opinion is.
Being a missionary is a party, we get funny and scary and sad and spiritual and amazing experiences packed into every single day. I had impressed on my mind this week the importance of this work and how much the Lord is there helping us out and how we really are making a difference, even if it doesn't always feel like it. There are ripples being felt all over the world, thanks to the small and simple things little missionaries like me do every day. I'm so grateful for the eternal perspective the gospel gives us, if it weren't for that I don't know how any missionary would make it for two years.
It has also been amazing to see how really little the missionaries actually do. It's the Lord who does it all, if we can just get ourselves out of the way.
Anyway, good stuff. Be so excited for General Conference!! I can't even get over how excited I am, to watch it with the perspective of someone who's never seen it before. The Church is true!! I can't wait to see the truth and the joy of it all just pierce my amis to their very soul, the way it has mine. It may not even happen this weekend, but someday it will, and that moment will make it all worth it. There's nothing like that feeling.
Haha, I get to the end of these and realize I'm telling you all things you already know. I feel like such a slow learner! Or that I'm just learning everything again and it has a whole new magic to it. But you didn't know about Julia and Rui, or the leaf man, so there you go. Haha. My job is done.
You all are the best, thank you SO much for the big family letter this week, I loved it. Daryl, you're such a genius. And Kari is a sweetheart and the best most golden sister ever, and Mark and Christian are just a hoot, and Jaime you know how I love you. And of course mom and dad :) Thank you infinitely for everything. Thanks for all the patience and work it took to get me out here.
Love love love love,
Soeur Larsen
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