Larson, Josh

Well another week in the books. It has been another long week full of hard and often boring classes. But every week has its upsides, and these bright patches of fun and laughter are what often get me through the week. The first bright patch of the week came on Thursday afternoon  when me and Elder Miller met with our new friend (we have been asked to no longer refer to them as investigators) Grace! Grace has been doing great and says she is feeling the spirit a lot more, and even better, we got her to commit to read a few verses in the book of mormon. Another bright patch of the week came when my Aunt Marlene and her girls brought me breakfast on Friday morning which was absolutely delicious. Then this morning I got to play ultimate frisbee with some of my friends that are still around. I also got to go play disc golf with some of my district members. In between these wonderful meetings of laughter and connection however I often feel discouraged and tired. One night I was...

This week has been absolutely crazy, It started on a wonderful note however when I was able to receive my Endowment Tuesday morning at the Draper temple! It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Thanks again to those of you who could come! For those of you who have not been through the temple yet, you are in for the best experience of your life. After Tuesday morning however it felt as though I was dumped straight back into my normal routine. Which includes lots of study, lots of zoom meetings (About 8 hours a day), and even more chinese. These days can be hard and discouraging and I often find myself wondering how in the world I am going to do this for another 102 weeks. It is at this point that I fall upon one of my Fathers favorite sayings. "How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time". This saying of his has helped me through many difficult times but none as difficult as right now. This saying helps me remember to just take everything...

Well everyone I have officially survived my first full week of home MTC! It's been crazy considering most things are in chinese and the crazier part is I am starting to catch on! But the craziest part of the week was tuesday. As some of you may know (or personally experienced) There were absolutely insane winds in the SLC valley. This caused many power outages around the valley, My block was one of those unfortunate few... The power went out at about 11am on tuesday and is still not back on. This is why I am writing to you all from my grandparents house! It has been crazy how something so small and often taken for granted can make a huge difference when it is not there. Noticing this has led me to something I would like to share with you today.  This thought has been growing inside me for almost the full week with the power outage, but peaked when Me and Elder Miller taught our first TRC (this is basically just practice teaching). We met with a 21 year old girl named Grace, Gr...

Wow, it feels totally crazy to be writing my first missionary email. even though I am only 3 days into the MTC I am absolutely loving it. Chinese is very hard but I know the gift of tongues is real and I know that with the lord's help I can learn this language. My District is the best, We are already super tight and we have already had some amazing experiences together. Days here in the MTC however are long and hard. I thought of a pretty accurate analogy of how I feel. Have you ever been tubing behind a boat? The first three days have been comparable to the first 5 seconds of this experience, For about the first 2 seconds on the tube you say "Oh this isn't too bad" and then the slack comes out of the line and you are being whiplashed all over the place and someone's knee is in your chest and you are holding on for dear life. Day one of home MTC felt like those initial 2 seconds... And then day 2 and 3 hit. The good news is I am not alone in this feeling. Yesterda...

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