so these are pictures of my birthday and of christmas. 

the picture with the family is fernanda. shes going to get baptized this week. ive been working with her since the first week i got here. shes like my mom away from home. shes taken care of me well. the other is one of our investigators. the other was from my birthday. the other missionaries through eggs at me for my birthday. it sucked

Birthday

these are pictures from my birthday.

fernanda bought me tres leches. shes the man.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to Me

hey everyone,

sorry that ive been such a sucky missionary and not writing very much. i suck. i know. but first of all MERRY CHRISTMAS. this christmas was great. skyping home made giggle like a school girl. haha. but seriously. it was great. and my birthday was this week. 

the family in the pictures is jasmin ( who we baptized a month ago) and her sister fernanda (were baptizing this week). they are the best. they bought me a cake on my birthday and has a surprise party for me. it made me all warm inside. they really have been taking care of me.

but this week was sweet. christmas here is hilarious. most people think that christmas is the 24th and not the 25th. so on the 24th everyone goes and buys new clothes. and then they all go home and start cooking tamales and chicken sandwiches. (i ate 3 tamales and 4 of the sandwich things) freaking great. then everyone waits until 12 in the morning and they go out into the streets and hug their neighbors (brazo de navideno) and then they go back into their houses and dance until like 4 in the morning. and lets not forget, the whole time all of their little children are out in the streets throwing fire works at each other. its sweet. a real party. hahaha. so be greatful for your christmases everyone. 

but much love to everyone. i hope all is well. that everyone has a great new year this week. 

keep fighting the good fight. survival.

elder larsen

New Week!

sorry everyone that ive been so bad at writing. i have freaking no time... but i hope everyone is doing well. im doing good in the mission. seeing god work miracles everyday. everyone go check out the church website for a sweet video in the christmas time! much love to everyone. 

just a quick update, i bought a toaster this week. i feel like an adult. i can invite all my investigators over now for toast and peanut butter. SI HOMBRE

Que Pedo

i have like no time once again. sorry everyone. im an idot. but this week was good. everything is going great.

this week the church building flooded. it was sweet. the baptisimal font filled up with dirt so that sucked. 

i played with a monkey this week. it was so sick.

there is alot more other stuff but i forgot it all.

were preparing to baptize this girl named katherine this week. so everybody pray for that. shes pretty cool. she has a crush or whatever on me so its pretty awkward. but its all good.

ill send some pictures later

much love.

elder larsen

Si Hombe Je

everyweek  i think that maybe it might be normal and i wont have anything funny or weird to write about. and then by the end of the week i remember that this is honduras. and normal doesnt exist here. 

this week was freaking great. i had my first baptisim where i baptized the person! his name is nahum. hes the man. i feel like if i wasnt a missionary we would probably hang out. its been amazing to see how the lord has truly changed his life and prepared him for baptisim. i honestly thought he wasnt going to get baptized but, of course the lord always pulls through for us and now nahum is the newest member of our ward here in la sarrosa.

so anyways this week ive realized that the same guy that stole two pairs of my shoes came back this week and stole our pots and pans from our house. and another pair of shoes. so this week i have starved. i hope that somehow this letter gets to that person that stole of our stuff and he returns them. thank you. haha

no, but other than that this week was good. my teeth decided to be stupid and one of the caps for my cavities fell out. so i had to go all the way to san pedro to go to a dentist. that was pretty scary. also i got sick earlier in the week. i made the mistake to tell one of the members. she made me come to her house and she squeezed a 2 limes into a cup and then poured like a pound of salt in the cup and made me drink it. yummy

and the week was capped off by watching this extremly drunk dude get in a fight with a dog at a gas station. this dog was just minding his own business and the dude would not put up with a dog looking at him. so went over and tried to tackle the dog but he was to drunk and the dog would just bite him. 

way better then watching tv back at home

i hope everyone at home is doing great. dont forget about the power of prayer this week. it has truly been a life saver for me this week. so pray. 

much love

elder matty boy larsen

Pictures from previous Week

Visiting a beautiful waterfall after a hike up a "big" (not Utah like) mountain!!!!

MACIZO

once again, hello all

i hope you guys arent tired of hearing from me. this week has been full of great adventures and spiritual experiences. its been a way good week. me and my new comp are killing it. we had 15 investigators at church yesterday. which is like a record somewhere. haha. and one of our investigators asked if i would baptize him this week. so im pretty nervous for that. but lets do it anyway.

adventures (if you could call them that) 

1. this week we are trying out a new lady to cook for us. we pay her like 25 bucks and she feeds us for 15 days. shes a great lady but the menu this week was beyond awful. this week i ate liver. i dont know what kind of liver. for all i know it was from a human. next i ate fish. and the people here dont scale or cut or do anything with these fish. it was horrific. head and everything. and then to top it off we ate crab soup. everyone got there own full crab in a bowl with soup ( hot salt water) poured over it. YUMMY. two of the elders threw up after. so that was entertaining.

2. these old ladies here love me. one this week said i looked like i was 24 years old. which made me so happy. i think that im getting alot taller. then this other old lady this week saw me when i walked into a house and walked over to me and just repeating " que bonito muchacho" which means "what a cute guy" and then she grabbed my hand and tried to pull me in for the real thing. luckily when she pulled me in she pulled me into a clothes line and it like wrapped around my neck and stopped her from kissing me. 

3. we were in a lesson. and somehow we got on the topic of how fat this ladies kid is. she was adiment that i know how fat her little kid was. so she went and chased him down and brought him over to me. and this kid is screaming bloody murder. just crying as hard as he can. but i knew we werent going to leave that house unless i pick up this fat kid. so i picked him up. turned out he wasnt so fat. but i was just really awkward for the rest of the lesson. 

4. today we went and hiked a mountain for p day. we started at 6 and i just barley got back like an hour ago. we hiked to this waterfall. and it was insane sweet. nothing like utah mountains but it was still awesome. i slipped and fell in the water. so the walk back sucked. 

5. and also. i was about 2 inches from getting hit by a car friday night. some car swerved at us. and an elder grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the way. THE LORD IS WATCHING OVER ME.

hope everyone is doing great. much love and prayers to all of you. dont forget about me in utah.

elder larsen

Funny pictures and first baptism….

Si Hombre

hola friends and family, another week reporting for the lord from the murder capitol of the world. 

this week has been good to me. ive grwon alot this week and ive seen alot of families grow through the gospel this week. 

this weeks adventures were tamed down a bit but still a couple of ones worth mentioning. 

ummm i noticed this week that we have a water jug dispenser thing at our church building. but the thing is is that there is only 1 cup that EVERYBODY uses to drink from it. so out of the 150 people that show up to church they all drink from this same gross plastic cup. and its been the same gross cup since the day i got here. so that was pretty gross.

i was teaching a 19 year old girl this week and we invited her to church but she said she couldnt go because she had to wash all of her clothes on sunday. so i promised her that if she would come to church i would come the next day and help her wash her clothes. AND SHE ACTUALLY CAME TO CHURCH! and the first thing she says to me is what time i would come help her wash her clothes. so i quickly fleed the scene to avoid that situation. she probably wont go to church next week... haha

also some tool jumped our 10 ft tall gate somehow a couple of nights ago and stole two pairs of my shoes that were sitting on the portch. so that was a pretty good trial this week to forgive that guy.

but i had my first baptisim this week. it was awesome. his name is carlos. he doesnt really talk. ive probably heard about 30 words from his mouth the whole time ive taught him. but hes the man. its been amazing to see him grow. im so happy i had the oppurtunity to bring this gospel to his life.

anyways. great week. keep the mail coming. hope everyone is safe and going good.

much love.

elder larsen

MYSTERY MEAT

hello family and friends. wow. what a week. i know i say that everyweek but i mean it this week. haha. im gonna start out with funny moments and then we will get serious later on in the letter. hahah. so here are some experiences.

1. so early in the week we were riding in a bus to our area. and these buses are huge freaking school buses that they shove people intolike sardines. so somehow i find a seat by some lady who just went to the local butcher and decided to buy a whole huge plastice bag full of mysetery meat. so this lady hangs her plastic bag of mystery meat on the racks above our heads, and for 30 minutes straight i have to let this unknown meat juice just drip on my head and body. and i have no other option to just sit there and take it like a champ because i cant move anywhere. so anyways. i finally find a little to towel to wipe all the juice off me and off the bag over my head. and so i chuck this soaking wet meat juice  towell out the window and the towell flys out and then flys back in the bus and smacks a dude straight in his face. so i made sure to get off the next bus stop. haha

theres more but my comp wants to go play soccer. speaking of, i got a new comp. im now in a trio. his name is elder escalante. he seems cool. so thats good but anways one more thing. spiritual experience of the week.

so last night me and elder tezen were just walking around because one of our appointments fell through. and i had the impression that we need to go see this family that we hadnt talked to for a couple of weeks. and this family is just a mom and her 2 daughters and they arent members of the church. so right as we get to the house the mom comes outside in tears because her and her 17 year old daughter just got in a fight. so we tried our best to comfort the mom. and then we went inside and tried to comfort the daughter. then we came back outside to talk to the mom again. and for anybody who knows me and my dear mothers relationship knows that were both hot heads and we fight alot about the clenliness of my room. and that wasnt this ladys exact problem but i could relate to the problems her and her daughter were having so well. so i just started talking. and somhow the words that came out of my mouth made sense and were actually in spanish. and i could see as i was talking that this ladies heart really changed.... like a real change. and she understood me. and she understood her daughter. and she felt peace. and now she wants to continue in taking lessons with us!

so the lord works miracles. i know that this might seem insignificant but it was a miracle that i could just talk with this lady and truly change her heart. and she wants to come closer to her savior because of what me and my comp said. so that is enough of a miracle for me.

my new comp wants to play soccer. so i got to go.

much love from hondo town

elder larsen

Pictures

Picture 1:  Ghetto weights made out of rusted cans filled with cement and a bar

Picture 2:  He and his companion

Picture 3:  I showered in this this week "pila" because toilet is clogged in bathroom and it stinks pretty bad

Picture 4:  Spider we found and killed in our apartment - welcome to Honduras!

Adventures of Matt Larsen...

wowzers friends and family... what a week. 

this week has been alot better for me personally. so thank you for all your prayers. ive had quite a few adventures this week. they include:

1.yesterday a dog ran into our church building in the middle of sacrament meeting. that was pretty awkward. this dog almost killed me when i kicked it to try to get it out.

2.also in sacrament meeting i was trying to be super spiritual and get all i could out of the talks. and this lady sitting next to me taps on my shoulder and points down at her baby child. this lady is breast feeding and decided it was important that i see the funny face her kid was making while she breast fed it. gotta love it.

3. in the middle of a lesson on thursday i saw a drunk guy walking down the road yelling and singing to the world and eating a log of a cut down tree that he found on the ground.

theres a couple other good ones but ill save those till i get home. haha. oh i went to the city near our town ( el progresso) and had little ceasars pizza this week!! i was about to cry the whole time i was so happy. 

but anyways. its been alot better week. ive really felt the spirit a ton and seen the lord working in my life. the lord has put people in my way everyday that need to hear of the gospel. our investigators are doing great. we should be having a baptisim this week for this kid named naum. hes 17 and hes a stud. all his friends try to make him do bad stuff but hes on the lords team and doesnt stand for any of that crap. haha. hes the man. so pray for that. i hope that everyone is doing great. thank you all so much for the support. cant wait to hear from you all next week.

with love from the jungles of hondo, elder larsen

Les' Gooooo!!!!

friends and family, hello to all.

just reporting my experiences from this week from deep in the jungle of honduras.

im finally starting to get into the swing of things. everyday gets better and better. definetly wasnt an easy week but was definetly better then last week. the language is all coming along better. still cant really understand anything but i can somewhat know what someone is talking about. alll of our investigators are doing pretty good. a couple of them came to church on sunday so thats good to see them progress. and we have a couple with baptisimal dates. so thats exciting. its crazy how diffrent the members are here. we were talking to a member and she said that she was inviting her friends to go to other churches just as long as they go to church. so that was fun, explaining that you need to go to your own church and you need to invite your friends to YOUR church. not other ones. hahaha

then we found a guy who wanted to talk to us because he knew i spoke english and he really wanted to practice his english. so i let him babble to me for a good hour about his stories of getting deported from the states. so that was also fun. hahah

not much going on this week. just continuing to get ajusted.i bear my testimony this week of the power of prayer. and how it can really change lives. how its changed my life. i couldnt be here without the power of prayer and how much comfort its brought me. so keep praying everybody. its good for you. 

dont have to much fun this week. always remember jesus

much love,elder larsen

From the Jail to the Jungle

this place never ceases to amaze me. holy cow. im still in shock of whats been happening the past couple of days...wow, anyways. ill keep it light. i dont want to make this my journal and spill all my deep thoughts. haha. but yeah. this was the hardest, weirdest, most diffrent week of my life. ive gotten to know my companion and everything. he is really cool. hes from guatamala. this is going to be his last area before he goes home so were in exact opposite shoes, this being my first area. im in a place called guacamaya in the city of la sarrosa. its pretty much a village. theres almost just as much dogs and pigs in the roads as there is people. we dont have running water for the most part in my house. so either you go fill up a bucket of water outside and take it in the shower and just dump it on yourself. or you go outside to this thing called a "pila" which is pretty much a huge cement tub and you just stand outside and dump water on yourself until you "clean". the members here are pretty cool. they all love the church because it is really all they have. so pretty much this week me and my comp have just been exploring our area. its freaking wild. yesterday i saw a dead guy that turned out to just be extremly drunk laying in the middle of the road. and then i saw to birds eating a dog right afterward so that was pretty fun. we have these 2 investigators that we also found a couple of days ago that are really going well. one just kind of listens to us because her sister wants her to but the other seems like she is actually really intrested. i invited them to be baptized and the one said she wanted to. so thats really good. we also meet this guy named pablo i think? we invited him to come watch confrence in the church and he did so that was good. and thats pretty much the highlights of my week. a really hard and diffrent thing to get ajusted to but i know that it will all come.

i hope everyone is doing great back at home. i keep you guys all in my prayers.

much love

elder larsen

WOWZERS!

hello friends and family,

today is my second day in the murder capitol of the world and im still going. so im just gonna let you all know what ive been up too these past 48 hours. which might be the most eye opening and weirdest 2 days of my entire life. so anyways. tuesday we woke up at 2 in the morning to leave mexico. it was actually really sad saying goodbye to my favorite prison. im gonna miss that place a ton. we all got carted to the airport where they split us all up. it was really tough. i had to say goodbye to my whole district which was extremely hard. all of them are going to the states so they all  said goodbye to me like i was going to die.

so i flew to el salvador. which is like the hottest place on the planet. gave away a little church card there to the worker at subway.

then we flew to san pedro from there. which makes el salvador feel like a refrigerator. this place is the hottest jungle on the face of the planet. holy crap. there is not one second that ive been here that i havent been sweating. so we got here later in the afternoon and we me the mission president. hes the man. i wish i could just keep him in my pocket for whenever i need motivational advice. so  i had meetings all night about mission stuff. then some member in the area wanted to have all 22 new missinaries over at there house. so we went over to this little concrete house thing and hung out with a family. the whole time i just watched this dog who has no joints in its back legs slide across the house in the splits. and then the members daughters decided they wanted to dance for the missionaries. so that went on for a couple of hours. the entire time i was thinking to myself. "this is what being on drugs probably feels like..." hahaha. so after we all went over to this house where we were gonna sleep. and by this time we picked up a couple more missionaries so there were 30 or more missionaries crammed in this little house. it was wild to say the least. i used my suit jacket as a blanket. then today we woke up and had a few meetings. then i got assigned my companion and an area. my comps name is elder tezen. hes the man. hes guatamalen. he knows english pretty well so he understands me when i give up on spanish. im in an area called sarosa. its this little village south of san pedro sula. i just got here like an hour ago so i couldnt really tell you to much about the place.  other than that the internet cafe im in right now is a room in some dudes house. oh and on the way here i saw the most massive pig on the planet hanging out outside of our house. but thats all i really have seen in my area so far. somehow through all this im still going strong. i kind of just came to the realization that everything is going to be alright. the lord is going to pull my through all of this. i just have to endure and have faith and he will do the rest.

my p day is monday so everybody write me so i have something to look forward too!

love you all thannks so much for the support.

until next time

elder larsen

My Last Day in the Mexico MTC

hey everyone!! this will be my last time sending emails from the mexico mtc!

my flight leaves tonight at 2 a.m! i cant even put what im feeling right now into words. im so nervous and so scared but at the same time i cant wait to finally get out in the field and actually start my mission. so wish me luck and keep me in your prayers. im gonna need it.

so anyways just really quickly, these past couple of days have really been some of the hardest and some of the most spiritual days of my life. ive fasted a lot this past week and i really feel like ive come a lot closer to my heavenly father. ive really been able to see how much the gospel has changed me personally. even just being here in the mtc for such a short time. i know that whenever i doubt myself i can turn to prayer and heavenly father will be there for me. and he is there for all of you as well.

so thats my little spiritual thought of the week. next time you hear from me im going to be in honduras! im freaking out but i know that its all going to be alright! love you all, thanks so much for the support.

elder larsen

LAST WEEK IN THE MTC

hello everyone!

greetings to everyone from the mexican prison,

this week has been a really good week and a really hard week.

all week ive been trying to work really hard to understand the language and everything and get it down before i get shipped out to honduras. ive been doing alright but its still pretty difficult to get used to. 

yesterday we taught the closest thing to a real investiagtor. we taught some random lady that spoke the fastest spanish in the world. i picked up a good 20 percent of it. haha. all i heard was how her son was in jail and how he was a terrible son and she just sat there and cried to us about all her problems. and i felt so bad because my spanish sucks to bad to help her! haha

it ended up going well, we taught he about how important church attendance is and how it can help her and her son not have such sucky lives. haha

so that was a great experience, soccer here is getting way to competitive. last thursday after i got done emailing some big tongan who is going to play football for byu we were playing soccer with decided he didnt like me and he was just going to hit me flat on my back. so that was fun and then 2 days ago another kid decided he wanted to try and send me home from my mission so he elbowed me in the face and then hit me again on to my back and i had a bloody nose all day. so that went well. haha

i guess the lord is just trying to test my patience a little out here. haha

but yeah, ive really started to get nervous about leaving for honduras. ive heard alot since ive been here that its the armpit of the world. whenever you ask one of the teachers about honduras they cringe because its pretty terrible. but oh well! ill be alright. haha

hope everyone is doing good. keep all the emails coming. p day is like christams being able to hear from all of you!

elder larsen

a couple of pictures from this week! 

the first is with a couple of my good friends that left for chile this week

the 2 is me and elder beaston repping hondo

3 is me trying to escape this prison, notice the barb wire all around the top. haha

and then the last is me and elder lee, who i was really close with who also left to chile.

September 17, 2014

quick update from your boy elder larsen,

everything is going great down here in mexico. ive learned to embrace the dirt and ghetto here. haha the food continues to be awful and the beds are still hard as rocks. but everything is great. im starting to sound like a mexican. and every couple of days i let the mustache grow out so i can fit in with the people. haha. the spanish is coming a long great. pretty much all i do is study spanish and play soccer. it gets really competetive here so this week i had to take a break from soccer so that a couple of the guys can cool down and not want to kill me. haha not even joking. but im short on time because a ton of other elders are breathing down my back trying to get on this computer

much love from the worst city in the world,

elder larsen

September 11, 2014

hello everyone! good to hear from you all this week. except allie. haha but yeah. im doing good out here! im gonna try and get on later and send some pictures so you can kind of get an idea of what this place looks like and what ive been up too. but yeah, this week has kicked my butt. all we do everyday is teach investigators and its actually going really well. so on tuesday i think, we taught this guy named juan carlos. and this dude was a tool. he was just an actor, but still. a tool. throughout the whole lesson he would go cross eyed and stare at us and then fake asleep while we were teaching him. it went awful. haha we tried to teach but me and elder smart could not focus at all and it was just sucky. so at the end we ask if he could offer a prayer and he says okay. so me and elder smart kneel down and close our eyes. and this dude stands up and starts chanting a roman catholic prayer at the top of his lungs. and the whole time he his pumping his fists and going wild. and keep in mind this is in front of like 20 other missionaries that we were doing a demonstration for so we looked like complete idiots.... hahaha. so that was the low of the week. so me and elder smart went in the next day to teach this girl that weve been teaching named karen. and it was the first lesson where we went in there without any dictionaries or spanish guide things. and we just sat there and had a 20 minute conversation in straight spanish just answering all of her questions abou the church and it was amazing. we just talked. it went so well. the spirit was definetly there. so that was the highlight of the week. im just trying to be as happy as i can here and do all that i can to stay positive. funny story real quick: so in our night classes we have this crazy little mexcan teacher. and the dude has no respect for anything. so in the middle of this lesson. he grabs a marker and starts drawing all over this flat screen tv that they have here to try and explain a spanish concept. just drawing all over this tv with a marker. and i was dying. like what is going through this dudes head. hahah. luckily after he scrubed if for awhile it came off but yeah. funny thing. anyways. im going to get on later and send pictures. dont forget to send donuts and mail to me. 

love you all so much!

elder larsen

Sep 4 (10 days ago)
to Lorren, Nick, Amber, allie, Marian, me, Drew

so here is a group email that you all can forward to everybody! just an update on ya boy. so basically ive been doing pretty good. ive gotten into a good routine and the days are starting to fly by. so here is the daily schedule. i was up every morning at 6:30 and take a shower in the worst shower on the planet. it is either lava hot or ice cold so you have to choose if you want to boil your skin or freeze. then i go to the cafeteria on the other side of the campus where they usually serve some kind of weird looking mexican dish that usually is as hard as a rock. then i go to our class and i study for about an hour. its really a peaceful time where i can learn a ton. next we start our 3 hour spanish class in which not a SINGLE WORD of english is spoken. next we teach a fake investigator in spanish. which actually goes decently well. next i return to the cafeteria for usually a plate of mystery meat that ive learned to love. i honestly couldnt tell you what type of meat it is. then i have about 4 more hours of study. then i get to go to gym. THANK GOODNESS. and we play soccer in this cage on concrete and it is so fun. next we eat dinner. another plate of mystery meat. then we start our night time spanish classes for another 3 hours. once again completly in spanish. and then we go home and all hang out in this dinky little house that we share with 20 guys. and i actually am enjoying myself here.... who would of known. i hope everyone is doing alright at home without me! know that i pray for each of you individually at least like 3 times a day. im so thankful for all of you. send me donuts if you can through the website that mom knows! and try not to forget about me. love you all so much.

elder larsen

First Letter in the Mission

so i sent all of you guys little letters! all of you are really huge inspirations to me! im so thankful for all of you. so anyways, the mtc is actually not to bad. the first couple of days will definetly go down as the worst in my life, but since then it has been great! my companions name is elder smart and he lives in salt lake. hes a cool kid. i have a really cool and nice district as well. they are all really intresting guys. so there is about 14 guys here that are all going to the same mission as me. it is ridculous. we really are and army of god. the food here isnt too bad but it definelty wouldnt fall under the good tasting category. the mtc here is surrounded by a huge barbwire fence. its like a little paradise compaared to all of mexico. all my teachers are really nice and spanish is coming along pretty well! i can understand it well its just hard to say stuff. ive already learned a ton about the gospel as well. this really is such a spiritual place. i hope that everyone is doing alright and getting along with out me constantly bugging you guys! hahaha. everyone make sure to write me! try not to foget like dad did! hahaha you guys are all in my thoughts and prayers. everyone be safe this week! i love you all so much!

elder larsen