¡Me Voy! (I'm going!)

Good Afternoon Loved Ones,

How is everyone doing today? I am doing pretty good. I guess you could say that we had a very eventful week. Teaching myself to juggle, finding out that I am leaving Godoy Cruz, being senior comp to my brother, asado in the acequia, and a BAPTISM!!!!!

Yeah, that´s right! We were able to follow through with the baptism of Lautaro Bohigas. It was kind of an iffy baptism because it didn´t appear like he had very much support to stay active. But with a ward like this with so many members willing to help out, he was able to do what he wanted. He was super stoked to get baptized this whole week. His whole family showed up to the baptism, even his pops who is a huge inactive that is wine-crazy. We even made him a case for his book of mormon customized with his name on it.

Other big news is.........¡me voy! I am leaving San Ignacio, Godoy Cruz to go to Libano A., San Juan. I get to go to a different province. The mission covers all of Cuyo(which is three provinces of Argentina:Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luis). It is supposed to be a really good area with lots of good people. It is like 3 hours away in bus so I will not be as close to the offices anymore, but it´s okay. I will tell you about it next week. I will be comps with É Wahl, who just happens to be my mission brother(he was trained by Ë Hudgens also). I will get to be senior comp also. It´s gonna be sweet!

San Ignacio was such an awesome area. It is also one that I can leave feeling good because we made a difference here. A missionary feels good leaving an area if he sees an increase of the faith of his investigators, new converts, and members. I am going to miss a ton of families here that I have grown really close to over the past 6 months. I have a lot of saying-bye to do tonight and tomorrow. Ha. It has also been a good time being comps with É Toledo this transfer. It went really fast, but I feel like we both learned a lot from each other. He may be one of the coolest chileans that I know, even though there are not that many that I know well. Ha.

This week we had some good success with our investigators and it looks like I am going to be leaving this area with a few baptisms for the comp of É Toledo next transfer. We have a lot of members right now that are helping us out by giving us their friends to teach them, with even a few being taught in the house of the member(no better teaching atmosphere I tell ya).

Ofelia finally let us do service at her house this week. It was pretty fun because we very rarely get to use informal clothes in public, matter of fact I don´t even like it because it doesn´t feel right. Ha ha. She let us harvest a bunch of lemons and mandarins from her trees in the back. I was the one to take the real advantage of the lemons while the others were trying to make some lemonade. I all the sudden had the small desire(Alma 32) to learn to juggle. As I started, I almost got very discouraged because I could not juggle for 2 seconds. But the good news to the story is that I kept of trying and practicing(especially when my comp was in the bathroom which was a considerably long amount of time) and eventually I got it. Élder Larisch can now juggle lemons. Hey, it is big new for me okay?

For P-day today we decided to have an Asado. So we went and bought lots of cow meat and some chorizo, built a fire next to the acequia, threw the meat on the tray, and played us some Aljedrez(chess) in the acequia. Not going to lie to you, it was some of the best meat that I have ever eaten(other than those chicken hearts that I ate at Rodizio Grill a couple years ago that I threw up all night, those were good too).

I don´t have too much more time to inform ya on all the good deets, but next week you will hear more. Take care and keep prayin!

Un abracito,
Élder Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera

That is awesome that Kaylee had her twins. They look great! I can´t believe Joshy is already home! That means I only have like a year left. I better get working harder. Ha. Micah looks super older with his bowl cut. Ha ha. Don´t forget to tell Joshy that he needs to write me and I can write him through you. Tell Joshy I don´t drink mate. It is against the rules here, but we are offered it every single day by people, but we have to decline it. There are a couple reasons why I think it may be against the rules but I don´t really know the real reason. I drink a ton of herbal tea and sugary hot milk! Yum!

 Elder Hunter goes home today :(

THE  ASADO!!! (ROAST)

My good friend Matías. What a great guy. he always passes by our house and tells us about his superhero adventures with his dogs. He really likes the Avengers!

Here is where we did our "ASADO"

A dish called Pollution

Feliz Día de Independencia Argentina

Yellow!

Ha. I like the translate feature that they have new. I can read your email in spanish and write in english. Maybe I´ll write in spanish next time and you can push the translate button over there.

We had an alright day celebrating the northamerican holiday of the 4th of July here in Argentina. There wasn´t much we could do but I made sure to spread the news so I told many in the streets to have a happy 4th of July. I also have an US flag car freshener that I carried around so I also had the benefit of smelling good so I didn´t even have to put on deoderent...................

¡Feliz Día de Independencia de Argentina!....even though they don´t even do much here. The only spirit I have seen here is É Stearns and I wearing ties of Argentine colors. I really think that all of the Argentines are super sick of all of the other holdays that pass just about every other day so now they don´t even remember their own Independence Day. That´s too bad..............

(I hope that this works when it gets to your computer...

Super good week! Had plenty of ups and downs but looking at it from an overall status, I am very satisfied.
We were able to seal a baptism for this next saturday with a kid named Lautauro from a less active family that we have been working with for a while. He is 11 years old and loves to play "fúlbol" as they call it here. We are helping him and his sisters to come to church each week with other member families. We will send pictures of how the baptism turns out next week.
Sol(15), another that we are working with has a date to get baptized this weekend also but she did not come to church yesterday so we will be seeing what we can do. She may or may not get baptized on Domingo after church.
Carlos, a friend of Hno. Cobos(member) showed up to Sacrament. We are stoked to start working with him because it sounds like he has a family.
They changed our church meetings around on us. I was so used to going to Priesthood first and Sunday School, then end with a spirit bomb in Sacrament. Now it is even harder to get investigators to Sacrament because THEY JUST WILL NOT WAKE UP "EARLY" ON A SUNDAY MORNING! All caps seems like I am super frustrated, but I put up with it. I know that as long as we do all that we can, the Lord is going to bless these people in His own due time. Patience and diligence.

I have one more week in this area as I am entering week 6 of this transfer and I will find out where I am heading before next Monday so I will inform ya next week. I would say there is about 95% chance that I leave here as they usually don´t allow missionaries to stay in the same area for more than 6 months, although it does happen.

Today for P-day we headed up to the zoo again because none of these other kiddos had seen it. I hope you got all the pics that I sent because I sent a bunch.

Spiritual Thought
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
1 Timothy 4:12
In Priesthood this past sunday we learned from the teachings of George Albert Smith about how we as members can do missionary work and this scripture really stuck out as our teacher, Hno. Sanchez, explained it to us. This scripture illustrates one very effective way of proclaiming the gospel, being an example in the way you live your life so all your neighbors and family members can see. The first phrase "Let no man despise thy youth" is a very powerful statement. As a missionary, most of the people that I talk to are very much above my age. According to society, the older you are the wiser you are. When it comes to proclaiming the gospel, as we say here "¡Ni Importa!(it´s not even important) because anyone can gain a testimony at any age if they pray and ask God for the truth and then share it. Have no fear in being an example of the believers!

Thank you for all of the prayers and extra support that I am always receiving. Que Dios les bendiga.
Un Abrazongo(porque estoy contento),
Élder Devencito Larisch
La Iglesia es verdaderísimo

E. Stearns and I and our Argentine color ties

¡Dejalo a nevar! (Leave it to snow!)

Good day!

Hows the weather over there? We just got our first snowfall today and I think it is still going out there. I don´t know, I am all nice and cozy in here in this club. Ha. I can´t get over how weird it is that they have this Ciber that is dark and blasting with Adele, Madonna, and Katy Perry all the time!

I can´t believe it´s already time to celebrate independence over there. On the 9th we will be celebrating independence here, but I will surely be blasting the Star Spangled Banner on the 4th while in the house. Since we forgot to celebrate Christmas on the exact opposite side of the year I think we will have to wait until the next time it snows. I really don´t like the weather here. It is dry and hot some days then snowing and frío the next day, it is all messed up!

This week was a really good week for the work here in our area. We unfortunately are not expecting any baptisms for this weekend(but we still continue praying for miracles), but the next week(my last week here) is looking very bright for a full harvest! We had 4 good investigators attend church yesterday and hopefully we can get more next week so that we can hit at least 5 baptisms on the 14th and 15th. Gonzalo, Victoria, Lautauro, and Sol were the ones at church. They are all just a bunch of younglings from 10-19 years old but they are good and are hooked up with great members. We met some great people this week! Corina, a SUPER old friend of Hermana Robert(yep, that´s her last name) who let us in her house the other day to chat and she was just super interested in everything we had to offer so we set everything up for her to come to church on sunday, but guess what, her children stopped her from going somehow. I don´t get that sometimes. It happens to us often. We commit people to go to church and their parents or children stop them from coming. Ugh. It is frustrating because often it is just the attendances at church that stop people from getting baptized. What a shame. Ofelia is doing good. She keeps gifting me paintings of Florencia Molina Campos(a famous argentine artist) because I complimented one of the calendars that she had. She is pretty great.

Had a sick day this week where I don´t even know what happened. It usually is like that because I don´t have a mom to diagnose my sickness all the time. Ha ha. I had a bad stomachache and headache and felt really weak and dizzy. But the next day I was fine and went out to work. There really is no worse feeling in the mission than staying in the whole day when you are supposed to be out there teaching people. I hated it.

I enjoyed the newsletter of all of the missionaries. I´m glad that everyone is doing good wherever they are in the world because they are sharing the Gospel and enjoying themselves at the same time.
Thanks for all the pics. Lagoon sounds fun, it looks like Mallory and Braylon were having the time of their life on Puff...ha.
I will be sure to keep Aunt Kim in my prayers. I hope everything goes well with the body scan. I´ll also add Kenny in there too. That doesn´t sound like a fun disease/disorder to have.
Good luck in the Tour de Riv. Break a leg!...but not really. You know what I mean.

Spiritual Thought

The new bible videos on the church website are pretty good! Hope for a better, more heartfelt spiritual thought next week when I have more time and I actually plan one.

Un Abracito,

Helder Larisch,

La iglesia es verdadera

Ofelia se viste en blanca (Ofelia dresses up in white)

Yellow!!
Well, I don´t know if you skipped to the pictures that are attached to this but I´ve got some of the best news in a while!
OFELIA GOT BAPTIZED!!!
Yep, it is all just a great story. We have been working with her for way too long because she could not realize how ready she was to get baptized. We have been visiting her a lot and having just bomb lessons with her and we would talk about her will to be baptized every time and it was just a different doubt or some other reason that just didn´t really have much to do with what it says in the scriptures about the prerequisites for baptism. Our bishop even dropped the cane(bajar la caña: a phrase here meaning to throw it down on someone who is not doing something right, action usually done by leaders of the mission) on us a bit because he would see her on the progress report each week and nothing changes. We had a spiritual impression to have a charla(lesson) with member with one of our converts in their house, Hna. Chiquita, and we had amazing results! We went in to this lesson kind of trying to make it a charla franca, meaning that we were going to tell her that she has to get baptized or we are going to drop her for a while so we can take the Gospel to many others that are waiting for it. But surely we did it with words of love. With that, a few scriptures of encouragement in the book of Jacob, and an amazing testimony from Chiquita(which was one of the coolest things to watch because she relates to Ofelia a bit with her past because she spent a good time in the Espiritista church as well as many other churches and was able to testify of the cleaning power of baptism of water and of the holy ghost), we put it in front of her for the last time except we didn´t even ask it in question form. Ha. The spirit was so strong in that house that myy comp was like "Ofelia, we are going to come do a blessing on your house tomorrow night with one of our leaders and he is going to do a quick interview and we are going to have you try on some clothes and you are going to be baptized Saturday night at 18:30." Right after that Chiquita ran to her room and grabbed a brand new towel that she must have just bought or something and gifted it to Ofelia for her baptism. There was no room for the doubts or fears this time, she showed her faith and finally agreed to be baptized.

Super awesome experience and the baptism and confirmation went well. Not too many people showed up for the baptism and we had problems with the hot water, but nevertheless she made covenants. One of her neighbors came, but she had to leave early and didn´t really have too much interest...as you can see from the picture. Ha.

We are working on a few more baptisms soon. We have a couple fruta baja kids getting ready and another older lady(I don´t know why we always have better luck with the older women...ha ha).

Interviews were really fast but good. The latest Liahonas please me.

Today was supposed to be a special day. With the other Elders that left last transfer we had planned to have Christmas today and party it up but that plan kinda fell(since we didn´t have snow on December 25th here...). I guess that will have to wait until July 25th or somethin like that. We ended up going to the Persa again in Mendoza Centro(downtown) and do some compras(shopping). I had to get a sweet Argentina jersey that was súper barato(cheap)(95 pesos, which is like not even 30 dollars so it was basically a steal!). I´ll have to send ya pics next week.

I will not lie, I do not like the weather here. It is even worse than Utah. There is something called the Viento Sonda, which is a very hot windstorm that usually passes during winter and it is just killer. You walk out and it is freezing in the morning so you want to bundle up with like 37 layers at least, but no, an hour later it is blazing hot and you are getting sunburnt and sweating bullets. I have not passed a real Viento Sonda yet with all of the hot wind and stuff, just a couple minor ones. I had Ranch for the first time in like 10 months at a members house that has a son living in Utah. You would be super surprised how many Argentines are living amongst all you Utahns over there. It has got to be that we meet like one person each day who had a son or daughter living in Utah. I guess I won´t have to look for an Argentine woman on the mission anymore, I´ll just find one there....ha ha ha. Just kidding okay!? But really there are a lot of pretty girls here, it is true. But right now I am serving a mission. Maybe on the last day when I am buying souvenirs or something I will take one home with me...ha ha. Just kidding mom!

Wow, just an overload of news this week! The whole fam writes me and everything, ¡I feel so loved! Is Caitlyn really getting married??? To who??? Everybody is just getting married while I am gone! That is awesome that Dallin is heading out and I feel bad for Derrek having to give up his plaque. I dread that day...ha. I just can´t even imagine it right now.
That is awesome that Dad took first place in his race!!! How many were in his age group? That is a sweet pic of his leading the group. Now I can tell people here that my dad is a professional biker and that he hangs out with Lance. Ha.

Keep all of the missionaries in your prayers(especially me because I need the help). Love y´all! See ya around next week.

Un abrazito,
Hélder(as some spell it here) Deven Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

Un buen día del padre (A good Father's day)

Hey,
Yeah mom, I am getting all of the pictures. Thanks! I like all of them! ha ha. That is crazy that Kylie had her baby and seeing that four generation picture. Everytime I show my pictures and the people pass the picture of grandma they comment on how young she looks, and now I can tell them that she is now a bisabuelita. ha ha. I am glad that Brooke had a fun birthday and got to go to kneaders...mmmmm..... That is crazy that we just are always having missonaries coming and going in our ward. Who else has their call or is about to get one? 

That´s great that Luberta is going to efy. The music is pretty good for this year. A bunch of country songs. Mom probably shouldn´t listen to them because she will most likely(100%) cry with one of the songs. Ha. Now you have to listen to it. The youth here went in their summer which was in like February and they all had lifechanging experiences. They had to go to Córdoba. The theme is Levantaos y Brillad(Get up and shine?). They focused a ton on missionary work this time and all of the youth came home with references for us to go to all of their friends. I wish I could go. Ha. Jk. I´ve got the spriritual experiences I need here. I will be very sure to keep Kim in my prayers and hope that everything goes well with her surgery.

We had some good éxito(success) this week as we had the opportunity to share messages of Father´s Day(focusing on our Padre Celestial(Heavenly Father) of course). Unfortunately we are still running around in circles with Ofelia. There are some investigators that will just drive me crazy because they are some of the best people ever and have some of the strongest testimonies of the Gospel that I have seen, but the enemy has just enough power to put doubts and fear in their way to tempt them and drive them away from their Faith. Ofelia is going to get baptized this Saturday no matter what because eternal investigators are no good. There are others that are getting close to baptism and I will tell you about them next week.

Élder Toledo and I are doing great and seeing miracles. We are expecting even more in the form of baptisms within the next few weeks. I can´t believe it has already been two weeks with him.

We have interviews with Presidente Ávila this Wednesday. That is always a pretty fun experience. He is an amazing man.

I guess Mallory gets another happy birthday wish because I did it a little early last week...

¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS MALLORY!wait to open this gift until your birthday!

I hope and pray that all is well back at home. Keep the missionaries in your prayers!

Love ya, un abrazito a todos,

Eldercito Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera

Primera Semana con un Latino (First Week with a Latino)

Great week!

How is everyone doing? We had a really good week here in San Ignacio even despite the transfers. Usually the first week of the transfer is a little bummy when it comes to numbers but we decided we were going to work hard. Thankfully I got a Latin that likes to work and make miracles happen!

Élder Toledo is from Concepción, Chile. Every time he introduces himself and where he is from he mentions that he is from the place where the big earthquake of 2010 took place. He is a pretty cool kid and loves to work. He has 3 little brothers and he was born in the church. He is going to hit a year in the mission this friday and he is pretty happy about it. We may have to celebrate a little bit by getting more apple juice carbonated stuff. That´ll hit the spot!

The other Élder that came to Villa Del Parque(the area next to ours that shares the pension) is Élder Stearns from San Diego. He is a bigger guy and talks really loud. Élder Dowdle who just finished his training is having a difficult time with all of the spanish speaking going on because he is having a hard time learning, but we are helping him learn fast. You seem to learn things a lot better and faster when you have pressure to do it.

We had a really good week. It surprises me each time I get to work with someone different how much I can learn from the way each missionary works and what brings success and what doesn´t. I am pretty sure that we are going to have a lot of success this transfer and see a lot of cool stuff happen.

We are still having some difficulties with Ofelia this week. We got Presidente Ávila to come and interview her on Wednesday(which was a pretty cool thing to witness) and from that we are going to try and work things out so she can have all of her temporal needs filled to get baptized soon because she is definitely spiritually ready. She passed the baptismal interview with flying colors but she still has a very big bad influence in her life. We are going to pray a lot to know what to help her with at this point to prepare herself for baptism. She walked to church in the freezing cold with knee problems and a cold and hour early yesterday even when we told her that someone was going to come pick her up in a car. She just didn´t want to be late. It amazes me, the faith of some people. It is really cool to look at my patriarchal blessing often and observe all of these promised blessings being fulfilled right before my eyes especially with the people that we work with.

There are a lot more people that we have to work with and a few more people with a fecha(date(baptismal)), so we are expecting more baptisms in the next few weeks. ¡Ojalá! Presidente Ávila also just keeps coming up with so many new/improved ways to do missionary work. The key to all success in missionary work is the members...we can´t do it without you okay. There are ways that you can support us like say hi to us out in public or have us over for lunch, but the real way that you can help us is showing us to your friends and family. Give them a chance to hear the Gospel!

I guess this week is going to be a very happy week. I have got to wish a happy birthday to Boogs, Mals, and a happy day to a father. Yeah, that´s too bad I can´t Skype for Father´s day also. I would be able to read my poems to all 3 of you. Ha ha. But for now and next year, I can´t give you much more than a...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOOGS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAL
HAPPY FATHERS DAY POPS

Glad to hear that Dad did well on his race even though he got a bit sucio and he had to regarse a bit. At least you have mom there to limpiar your lentes whenever you needed it. That is a crazy story with Opi! I guess it is not too surprising to me that he would drive himself there and back with a huge chance of a heart attack and go back to work the next day. Opi is just one of those men. One of the hardest workers I will ever know. I am glad to hear that he is doing okay though. I will keep him in the prayers.

One thing that I have been wanting to have is stories of how my grandparents came to know the church. Could you ask Omi and Grandma to send me a brief story on that. I kind of know Omi´s a bit, but I don´t know Mom´s side of the family and when the church came to them exactly. It would also be really cool to have a Priesthood line of authority to have with me here. Thanks!

Love you all and I pray that our Heavenly Father watches over you forever and always!
Un Abrazongo de...
Élder Dev Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera

New companion E. Toledo

Bishop and his family

enjoying a meal at the bishops house

Fidelito's...CLOSED.

Ofelia

Ofelias fridge(we helped her quit smoking)

Us...My district

¡Me Quedo! (I remain)

Good day!

Yeah, last week was pretty tough, but that has all passed and we are starting to receive more blessings here. We had an outstanding week! There is always that light at the end of the long tunnel!

Well first off, we have received transfers this morning and the news is...the same as what the title says!!! ¡Me quedo! I stay here and I also get my first latin comp, É Toledo from Chile. Should just be tons of fun. He is going to be the district leader. It is going to be a lot different. All four of us in the house right now have grown so close to each other. Let the work press on!

This week we had tons of success because we focused on our goals and almost reached all of them. We busted our butts and did all that we could to reach or pass the number goals that we set at the beginning of the week. We had some of the most spiritual experiences with Ofelia this week that I will never forget for the rest of my life. It is a really tough situation because the enemy had a very tight hold on her and it was very hard to get her to feel the spirit. We have been through a lot with her. She is so prepared for baptism because she has made so many changes in her life. I finally can say that I have helped someone totally quit smoking. Her only doubt right now is that she is going to fail God after baptism because she thinks the enemy will be out to get her. She is going to have an interview with Presidente Ávila this Wednesday. There is some crazy stuff here in Argentina...

We had stake conference this Sunday. It was really good! We had an area seventy attend but I can´t remember his name. The bottom half of his face was burnt. Most of the talks were focused on true conversion and they used a lot of scriptures from Mosíah 3. Leave behind the natural man to become life a child. Read it and learn from it.

Mom, if you want to write Chiquita you are going to either have to have someone who speaks spanish to write your handwritten letter for you, or you can email me something and print it out and give it to her using the new translate button on email with a bit of editing because it is not perfect, write an english handwritten letter that an english speaker could translate for her here and send it to the mission with my name on it and I can just put it in the box of our area if I am not here when it comes. Plenty of ways to happen. Whatever is your gusto. She actually still hasn´t stopped yet, she made us both homemade sweater/cardigan type things that doesn´t fit me really good so I may only wear it when I am around her...ha, along with a nice scarf. She is awesome!!! Never thought I would receive so many temporal blessings while serving here. I would send you a pic but I forgot to take a pic of it...sorry.

Oh yeah, and I have kinda forgotten to put up the mother´s day poems. I´ll put up the one that I read to you over skype...no one can make fun though, good poetry is just writing down what comes straight out of your mind.

Plants need things to grow
Flowers have reasons to fray
At least humans have their mothers
To teach them what to do and say

I feel lucky to have a mom like you
That guides me through this thorny way
Life usually is not that easy
With the exception of having a bidet

You have given so much for me to be
In the straight and narrow I was taught
Since I was a little kid until all grown up
You were always there to wipe away my snot

Thanks ma, for always being so cool
And puttin´ up with me through all the strife
There is nothing more that I can ask
That you love me for the rest of my life

It´s not my best work but I think it may be worth a few tears. Ha ha. The most important thing is that I always have you in the back of my mind, just enough to be fully focused on the mission. Love ya ma. There is more where this came from.

One thing that would be awesome if you could do for me is send me more pics. You should go on facebook and get a couple of things that Argentines would like to see. Lake Powell/Jet Ski, baseball/tennis, etc. You should just send them through email, because I can print out here. Thanks ma!

Un Abrazón,

Élder Larisch

La Iglesia es verdadera

Gross advertisement for the carnecería

Shaking hands with a dog named Lexi...not even joking

Elder Daybells alfajor wrapper collection(hopefully one day I can have that many)

Dumb dog wearing a shirt(it is normal that owners dress their dogs, it is very offensive that dogs just walk around naked here)

Banana Bread Alfajor

Female Empanada Doggy Chew Toy

Bishop teaching us how to do service Argentina style with one of his homemade devices

Asado