Larson, Josh

Hey all! Its been another crazy awesome week up here in Templeton, I have been running pretty crazy this week with all the added responsibilities, it keeps our days busy that is for sure. We have worked hard this week and found 2 new people! That was super cool and we are excited to see them progress. We have been doing lots of random crazy things. We are busy for sure In all the hustle I believe I messed up my countdown haha, so Thursday will officially be my one year mark. Crazy. I have learned a ton so far and I will definitely share more feelings about it next week haha. I stead of a funny story I actually wanted to share a pretty cool miracle here: So Saturday afternoon we get a phone call from a member telling us that his daughter in law wanted a blessing. We figured we would worry about it later until we got a phone call from the referring member asking us if we had been by yet. So we met with him at the hospital and tried to get in and give the blessing. But with Covid restrict...

Hey everyone! It has been another pretty crazy week this week and we got our transfer calls! For the first time in my mission I will be staying with my companion! In addition to staying here I have been called to serve as a District Leader!  Our friend Kent is doing well and he is praying about getting baptized! We are so excited for him! One thing I have learned this week is how the lord gives us trials and gives us challenges so that we can learn and grow and become who we need to come. The lord likes to stretch us through changes and new circumstances. It is a reminder to me that the refiner's fire is never meant to be a comfortable heat. It is meant to burn out our impurities and be the best people we can be. I know that if we work hard through our challenges and learn from them we can become who the lord needs us to be. Funny story for the week. While we were playing ultimate frisbee this week my frisbee got thrown into the public pool. The problem is, the fence is 10 feet tal...

Hey all! It's been another long, good, and hot week here in Templeton. We have had lots and lots of meetings, which has left me feeling very spiritually full. First we had a wonderful zone conference and learned so much, we also had stake conference this weekend and again left feeling very full. It has felt like a spiritual feast this whole week. One wonderful thing we learned this week during zone conference is that as a temple we will be going to the LA temple next transfer. I am so so excited and I can hardly wait. It feels like it has been so long since I have been in the house of the lord. I have become aware that there is a small spiritual battery in our system that can only be filled by going to the house of the lord. I would encourage you all to get to the temple as often and as frequently as possible. It seriously blesses our lives so much.  Funny story for the week: So this week we had stake conference and we invited our friend Kent to come, however he didn't have a r...

Hey all! How is everyone doing? It's been a pretty normal but also crazy week this week. We have spent a looooot of time this week going through our teaching pool and clearing out those who are progressing and those who aren't. It took some time but it was worth it.     So the title of this email comes from the insane amount of smoke we have had this week due to the fires in northern California. It has however made for some interesting analogies. One thing we noticed about the smoke is that it makes the air taste bad, and it makes everyone stay inside, not the most ideal thing for missionary work. This smoke can also be a lot like sin in our lives. It makes everything taste bad, and it makes it hard to see clearly, only by repenting and blowing the smoke out of our lives can we see clearly.     Funny story for the week: so we had a member meal with a wonderful man in our ward who wanted to have us over for dinner, however his wife wasn't home so he had to improvise. ...

Hello everyone! Well another week has come and gone and truthfully my mission is starting to fly by. It is kind of crazy how fast the time goes while you are working hard and having fun, as you may be able to tell from the title, we have spent a lot of time this week considering who in our teaching pool is progressing and who is not, it has led to some cool miracles so far and the lord always blesses us when we do hard things.  I would like to share a little analogy made out of a story in 3 Nephi 4 (verses 18-20, for those curious). In these verses we read about The Gadianton robbers and the Nephites. The robbers attempt to siege the Nephites by cutting off their food supply, but the Nephites built up food storage and they outlast the siege until the Robbers back off due to their own starvation. The story we learn from the Nephites is that we need to have our own spiritual supplies and stockpiles for when the robbers knock on our doors, and when temptations and sins try and cut us ...