July 7th 2010

Dear Family,

Well it sound like you had a wonderful reunion. I wish i could have been there. I liked hearing about Spencer's baptism, that sounds like a neat experience. We had a good weekend too. I got to meet president perry. I like him alot, and he likes you alot dad. He told me to tell you he loves you. We had a really good mission conference and he spoke. I am really excited to have him as our president because I think he is going to do great. He is very smart, and also has a strong testimony. You probably know he is a first generation convert, but I thought that was very cool, and it obviously makes him very passionate about missionary work. He spoke alot about the importance of unity. He spoke on alot of things but his main focus was unity, and that if we are unified people will be able to recognize that we are sent by the Father. He seems to know quite abit about missionary work and how to be a good missionary. So a couple of changes that have come from the apostles are that pdays are going to switch to mondays, so i will email you again in 5 days! Also interviews are no longer every transfer, but every quarter.
Did you get my pictures? I hope so.
Anyway, we had a cool story on sunday. It was testimony meeting, and there is this old lady that I am guessing is in her 90's, but she is also a convert and has an amazing strong testimony. She has been sick, and so it is hard for her to make it to church. But on sunday she was there, which she usually is even though it is hard for her, and during the testimony meeting she was sitting on the back row. During the meeting though, after one of the testimonies, she stood up from the back row and said "excuse me, its hard for me to walk up there, but I told Sister peteresen if I had a pulse she could pick me up for church." and then she continued to bear her testimony from the back row. It was sweet.
Well our investigators are doing well but they were all out of town for the 4th of July. But we taught Joylyn the Word of Wisdom and she told us she would live it. It was a great lesson. Nicole has been out of town all week, and when we were going to see her she got in an accident, so it didnt happen. She is fine though, and we should be seeing her soon. She is still doing really well though and is reading from the book of mormon. James was also are waiting on because he told us he would call us. And Im not worried about it at all and I am sure he will call us, but I think he might be one of those people that takes some time. So we will see.
Oh I have another neat story. On Monday we went on exchanges with the Elders down in the Newport news branch, which was my very first area. It was probably still my favorite area. And I got to go there and one of there elders came up here. It was realy fun to be in my old area. I got to see most of my favorite people, particularly sister whitley who was a member that always fed us and gave us rides, and sister cherry who I got to help teach and who we baptized. Well sister cherry is an angel. We saw her and shared a lesson with her around one o clock, and from the time we left to about 4 oclock she spent all her time cooking food. She was cooking all this food for a cookout during dinner, and we asked her who was coming, and she said that she had not invited anyone, but she was cooking for anyone that passed by her house that evening. And by the way, she cooks incredible food. And its neat because the area she lives in is pretty poor, and there are alot of people down there without jobs or money, and so many of them spend there time walking around. There are so many just outside down in the ghetto, and its easy to judge them as people who maybe dont deserve much because they don't really do anything, but Sister Cherry didn't judge them at all but instead cooked dinner for them. She said loves making food for people. Anyway, I was really impressed when I saw what she was doing, and how charitable she is. Well I am out of time so I have to go. Talk to you on Monday.

Love,
Elder Larson