Lujàn de Cuyo

Hello!
Yeah, it is another one of those times that I just get way frustrated witht the computers that I am using here because they have so many problems! But hey! We had an awesome transfer week here in my new area of Lujàn de Cuyo. I love the new ward and the investigators that I have. I feel like it is so much easier to love the people here and work super hard probably for a couple reasons: it is my last area so I have to give it all, and the people are more open here closer to Mendoza when in San Rafael, I found it a lot more dificult to love people like I am supposed to. I think this will be an awesome last few weeks of the mission!

First of all, that was a weekly email full of new stuff. That is awesome that dad is working for Fuji now! I don`t know what benefits come with that, but I`m sure dad is happy and that it will be great for him and the fam. That`s good that Mallory had a good birthday. I was thinking about how cool it would be to go home and while I am still set apart as an elder to baptize Mal. The last baptism of the mission. Ha. It may be complicated because of me arriving in the middle of the week. Why did omi and opi sell the house in paraguna? Wasn`t opi doing lots of renovation and work there lately?

I also had a dream about coming home the other week that I forgot to mention in the last email. I told about it in my testimony in my last zone conference the other week. I was home and I got dressed and went downstairs and was talking with you when you noticed that with my jeans I had put on my white shirt and a tie along with my missionary tag. You took off my tag and said nicely that I couldn`t wear it anymore and set it on the table. I started crying and just stared at the tag thinking about the mission. It was a pretty clear dream up to that point but I am pretty sure when I was looking at the tag, tons of mission memories passed by. Pretty crazy dream though. My missionary tag means a lot to me because it represents all of the life-changing experiences that I have had and especially all of the people that I have met and helped in these two years. I hope that moms dream is not how my homecoming is. ha ha. You better be there waiting for me. I am still waiting on the secretary to talk to president about my official leave date. Because of transfer week and getting a new mission secretary, things are slow. I will let you know ASAP.

Here in the Godoy Cruz zone, the biggest in the mission with 12 companionship's, things are going very well. We are looking to hit our baptismal goal this month and in my area we have lots of investigators that are doing well. There is still a lot of finding to do though. We may be having a baptism this week if we can get a good spiritual visit with Juan, that came to church yesterday for the second time. We found a pretty awesome couple while trying to find the house of one of our converts here. A really stiff/closed lady with her interested living partner(they are sadly not married, like just about every other couple in Argentina...). We gained their trust and came back the next day and had one of the coolest visits that I have ever had in the mission. I felt may have felt more guided by the spirit and recognized it in that visit than at any other time in my life because I said things that I thought I never thought I would have had the boldness to say. I literally had to declare repentance to this daughter of God because she was so blinded by the enemy in many aspects. The spirit obviously did something to help this lady because she said that she felt something that she had never felt before. It kinda reminds me of Zeezrom or any of those other Book of Mormon characters that were against the church until they had someone preach and declare repentance to them or else they will have eternal sadness at the side of the master of lies. SHe had a big change of heart and now instead of rejecting prophets and denying that God loves his children, she is exercising her faith and following the path of repentance to receive real happiness. It was just a cool visit that really impacted me and kinda got to my heart a bit more. This is not our work, it is God`s work.

My comp Elder Howard is from Florida, he ends the mish in 5 weeks, and he is a pretty good guy.

The broadcast last night from the marriot center was flippin sweet and will change missionary work(especially in Argentina if the leaders actually listened and will apply it). Super good stuff! Go watch it in your free time on lds.org. It should be right there on the front page.

Have fun at youth conference. Go in with a good attitude even though it is weird to dress up. It is super spiritual and you will remember it for the rest of your life. Good stuff. Love you all!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

ps. On the countdown! Ha 

Me voy

Hey,
Wow, that is a really sad picture of Mallory. Almost as sad as when my sisters had to leave me at the MTC...ha ha! I still keep that one in my photo album to show everyone how much my family loves me! Mallory needs to start being more careful because she has already had stitches too many times in her life. Well now that she is going to turn 8 years old HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALLORY!she will be able to come to the age of responsibility, as the church says, and make decisions that wont get her hurt like that. Baptism being one of those good decisions. I am still looking forward to that day when I can baptize her.

I forgot to put a HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKE! in the last email, even though I told her personally, but there ya go. Hope it went well for ya.

While we are still on the subject of telling people happy days, I will include one more: HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!. It is one day late, but it should be worth the same. Hope you had a good day and the family spoiled you a bit in some way. We here had a huge ASADO with the elders quorum on saturday to celebrate a bit, even though we are not all fathers yet. I feel bad because I may have broken minorly the commandment of the word of wisdom and eaten way too much meat than I should have. It was just too good and satisfying. I will have to have more self control next time.

Well, some other important and fun news is that we received transfers this morning! The news is that I am going to leave my area and go to Godoy Cruz again! Only this time I will be going to the zone leader area of Lujan. I always wanted to go to that area, so it should be awesome. My comp is Elder Howard. He was in San Juan/Chimbas with me for a bit and he was comps with my son Elder Johnson for a couple transfers. So I know him a bit. It is a little nerve racking, I think that is the right word, knowing that I am probably heading to my last area of the mission this time. No more exciting transfers for Elder Larisch. Unfortunately I still do not know 100% when my leave date is. I talked to pres about it, but they are now seeing how the flight plans and stuff will be so that they can assure it then they will inform me. 100% that it will be in between the 12th and 15th of August though, so if you need to start making plans...there ya go.

Well, unfortunately we weren't able to get anymore baptisms this last week in the area Pueblo Diamonte, but the good thing is that I feel really good with the way that I am leaving the area. In the missionary manual Preach My Gospel it talks about leaving the area better than you found it, just like we learned as boy scouts camping, and I feel like I have definitely done that. I we have made large improvements with the ward here with the stake pres and bishop and I am leaving a few great families that will for sure get baptized this next month. My convert here, Leonardo, hasn't come to church in a few weeks nor have we seen him unoccupied lately with work, but I will definitely stay in contact with him to keep him active. I fear that he unfortunately has fallen into the pride cycle as have the nephites of old. After he got baptized he has gotten bounteously blessed with blessings of much work which limits a lot of time for the Lord in his life. I am looking to use my time very wisely in Godoy Cruz now that I only have like 8 weeks left. Gotta work hard!
Love you all!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

El èxito ya viene (Success is coming)

Hey,
Well, this has been one of those very challenging weeks in the mission seeing lots of things fall and not work the way that you would always hope. The zone is not doing so hot. Our baptisms fell through again and no one came to church. I could go on naming other problems like how our ward doesnt support us or how about a quarter of the zone is going home in a week so they choose not to work their hardest and just chill, but I won`t mentiont them(ha ha, even though I just did vent a bit more). I am trying my hardest to keep a good attitude and be the optimist to show my faith and hope for the future.

In the ward, we are seeing a lot more support and love from the less-actives than the active members(which is odd). They are the only ones that will truly help us with our investigators and understand what missionary work is and the importance of it. The more time I spend in the wards here in Argentina, I get reminded of how blessed we are to live in Utah, the hometown of the church where it is the strongest and where there are not huge leadership problems. In my patriarchal blessing it talks a little about how I will be learning more about church administration. In my mission I have seen a bit of both sides and how it changes the church in that area.

Apparently we will be having a special missionary broadcast by the first presidency and the apostles on the 23rd of June that all of the bishops and stake presidents along with the missionaries and it will be mandatory to attend. I pray that it will help us out a lot here.

My comp and I are working really hard to be able to find, teach, and baptize people here in our area. We are finding and teaching a lot! But I guess we just have to wait to see the fruits of our labors until it becomes God`s will. Kind of a bummer because I will most likely be leaving this area next week(next transfer) so I won`t be able to see a lot of these people get baptized. One of them, Mariano, wants me to baptize him, but he is waiting till his member girlfriend travels here from Chile so she can watch the baptism. She will get here in mid July so I don`t know how that is going to work. They will get married ASAP also which should be cool. He is a super prepared investigator! The reason Vanesa and her siblings didn`t get baptized in these last weeks are for many reasons, with the latest being that she has to stop smoking. Apparently she had been lying to us telling us that it was not an addiction for her. Oh well, we will see if we can get her to commit to stop smoking in the next few days. If she can, we will see three baptisms this next weekend.

A cool experience/highlight of the week was finally being able to meet one of the recent converts this ward has named Juan Morel. He is a short, middle-aged man from Paraguay and is one of the most positive and outgoing people that I have ever met here. He has a super testimony of the church with many stories. He knows a bunch of languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Guadanì, and some English. He can`t come to church because of his work, but he is willing to come with us to do visits often and help us out in the work. He just made my Saturday so much better after having some negative experiences with members just because of his smile and attitude. I remeber how that was a feature that President Hinckley always thought was really important and I am agreeing because of personal testimony. Positive people are fun to be around. SO BE POSITIVE!

The weather is staying the same down here switching between super cold and uncomfortably hot in the afternoon every day. Not much is changing too much here. Love you all!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

Hello!

How is everyone doing back at home? It was good to get a couple emails from the fam this week. This week has been pretty good for me here. Kinda long...but good. We went to Mendoza for Consejo, we got lots of rejections, we got lots of trials of faith, etc. But the good thing is that we are starting June of Purification here in the zone that will help us become more obedient, work harder, and be more intelligent with the Lords time.

It is a bummer that the baptisms didn't go through again this week due to the enemy working full force once again against us. Vanesa and her two siblings were going to get baptized but we had a couple problems. We went to go do the interview and she didn't quite pass due to some small doubts that she still had and never told us before and the fact that her dad, who is an anti-Christ who only visits her every so often who would not be very happy to hear that she is about to get baptized in the church of Jesus Christ. So we have had to keep our distance this last weekend, but everything should be good for the baptisms this weekend. I am sure hoping so. We are also working a lot with a new investigator, Mariano(22), that just got here from Chile who listened to the missionaries a bit and wants to learn everything over again. He and his family have felt the spirit very strong, especially in the first visit that we had with them here. He came to church yesterday and loved it so we are hoping his family will gain the courage to come next week. It is sometimes a struggle in church because sometimes the members don't know how to change their teaching a bit according to the audience. For example, in our priesthood class the teacher had the subject of exaltation and ordinances of the priesthood/temple and didn't quite teach it for someone new in the gospel. Oh well, I guess that is what we are for, to answer all of the questions. Ha ha.

We were hurting a bit this week finding new investigators due to a lot of stiff-necked people that we have met. It is a good lesson to help me learn that there is definitely opposition in all things like the scripture says.

I emailed my pres just barely and told him that you would be getting home on the 11th so he will change the return date and I will let you know. I'm sure it will be right around there.

My studies are going pretty well now. I am reading in the Libro de Mormon again going through and marking all of the characteristics and attributes of a true disciple of Christ. The other day I passed a scripture that my mission pres mentioned this week when we were with him in Mendoza. It is found in Jacob 1 19 and says

And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day.

Thus, true disciples of Christ are leaders and this scripture is directed to all leaders. Basically everyone in the church is a leader of some sort, especially the ones that have the calling upon them. Presidente Avila taught us that normally in our church we do not believe in taking other peoples sins upon us(especially as A of F 2 says) but if we accept a calling that gives us responsibility over other people, we must teach them the word of God with all diligence to make sure that their mistakes don't become our fault. Kind of interesting to think about.
Thanks for everything! Love you all.
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

Locro (stew)

Hey,
We passed another great week here in San Rafael. Unfortunately we had a few complications with Milagros`s preparation for her baptism so that will be delayed for a week or two. Oh well. Some of the big things that happened this week were the ward activity for the 25th of May(Argentine patriotic day), working our butts off to get the numbers that we needed this week, and not too much more...ha ha. Kind of a normal week.

It is tradition for the Argentines to eat Locro, a heavy soup-type of food that has a lot of meat, on the 25th of May every year. It is really good, but after you are done putting a few bowls in your belly it is hard to stand up and walk like missionaries do. We had to go stop by the pench because I got lots of heartburn and minor stomach pains so I took a few tums and a 10-15 minute lay-down-on-the-bed-and-complain break. I work my Argentine pride tie also. We had a bunch of investigators at the activity but it is just super hard sometimes to get the members to be their friends. This may be one of the hardest wards that I have worked in through the mission.

Milagros kinda got cold feet a couple days before the baptism and doesn`t think she is ready so we are pushing it forward a bit, but on the other hand, Vanesa, Ayelèn, and Luciano are progressing a ton and are for sure getting baptized this week! Vanesa even wants to presente(bless her baby) in church. I hope that everything goes well. We are working with like 6 different families right now. Finally have lots of people to teach and baptize, now that I am probably about to leave the area in a couple weeks. Oh well, some missionaries have to do their job of planting the seeds as well as harvesting as they say.

We are going to start a zone purification this week which should be great for the zone. We are going to start with a fast on Saturday to start June of Purification in order to leave things behind that impede the spirit from being with us continually and also to have more faith. Should be fun.

Well, I don`t have way too much time today, but I hope that everyone is safe and sound and healthy up there. I love you all and keep you always in my prayers.

Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch

 Not sure what these pics are about...

Buscar Milagros (Search for miracles)

Hello!
Another greeting from here in Argentina! This week I have some pretty good news! We had a super awesome week with missionary work! We are seeing miracles all over the place and seeing a lot of progress here! I think we got the best numbers that I have ever gotten in my whole mission only without the baptismal number...but we should surely be getting that this weekend!

First off we started off well even on Monday, our P-day, and on Tuesday getting a couple good lessons with our progressing investigators. Then Wednesday came along which was the day of interviews with Presidente Àvila. After we finished with our personal interviews, the assistants came and worked with us for the day as we split up and just went and looked for miracles. We ended up meeting a ton of people and we saw a ton of success. We also learned a couple new effective strategies of finding people in the streets. Ha ha. Never too late to learn new things about missionary work. One lady that Elder Garcìa(Assistant) and I found basically poured out her soul and got emotional to us and told us that her husband passed away a couple weeks ago and she was super interested in our message of the plan of salvation and of eternal families. This actually happens to us often, but I felt more this time because of the faith that I was having that day in my desire to see miracles. I am surprised at all of the lessons that are taught to us as missionaries out here about faith. I thought I knew what it was before the mission and understood it perfectly but I was very wrong. It is one of the coolest principles of the gospel by far!!

Yesterday in church I think we, the missionaries, basically ran the church... ha ha. Bishop called us Saturday at 10:00 pm to tell us that we had to talk...normal for bishops in Argentina to advise us 12 hours before or less of that we have to talk in sacrament. It was good though. I reviewed with the members in my talk a resource that was given to the members in the church during the time of President Hinckley called Feed My Sheep. Which is a guide for showing members really what they are supposed to do in missionary work. Then it was no surprise that our Sunday school teacher didn`t show up to teach our Principles of the Gospel class to new members and investigators...so I taught it. And in priesthood, the member of the high council in the stake designated to our ward did not know how to teach very well as we were learning about temples yesterday so we had to help him explain many things in the temple also because we had a couple investigators and new members that we didn`t want to get confused. It is very hard as a missionary in Argentina to have a peaceful Sunday at church... ha ha. At least it is a lot of good experience for the future callings that I will have.

Milagros, the daughter of our recent convert Leonardo, along with her boyfriend Nicolàs, came to church because we went and had breakfast with them in the morning. They are progressing a ton! Leo, sadly still does not have the Aaronic priesthood because the ward has delayed the interview too long so...the plan is for Milagros hopefully to get baptized on Sunday after church and after Leo can get sustained by the ward and receive the priesthood to baptize his daughter right after! That will be one of the best experiences of the mission to watch, I am sure of it. Leo has been desiring that she gets baptized for a long time now. She has fallen in love with the Book of Mormon and is hooked to the story. We have been telling her that for the past two months but sadly she never opened the book. It has power!

Since I just barely finished Doctrine and Covenants, I have decided to start the Book of Mormon over again and have a focus. After a making a list of topics I could mark, I decided to mark all of the parts that impact me on the topic of being a true disciple of Christ. I have found many already including even a couple parts before in the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. He by far is one of the best examples of discipleship obviously because he was chosen by God to be the dispensation head prophet of the most important and last dispensation in all of time. In his testimony when he is chatting with Moroni in his room, Moroni tells him that his name will be taken for bad and for good by the people of the world. This phrase made me remember of something that a seminary teacher taught me one time. That if we, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, are not hated by anyone we are failing at being true disciples of Christ. Any faithful member should have this same prophetic announcement upon them also that their name will be talked for good and for bad. If we are always sharing the gospel with others, there is a 100% chance that we will get rejected at some time. We are in the dispensation with the most faithful and obedient children of our Heavenly Father along with the most rebellious and disobedient. We must always remember in those moments of rejection whose name we carry upon our countenance. It is not our message that we are sharing, it is surely His. I love this gospel and I know with all my heart that it is true.

I love you all and wish you a happy, warm month of May while over here I am freezing my face off!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch

day with the assistants

huge hamburguesas!

te amo madre (I love you mother)

Hey!
Well, I was already able to see all of you last night on Skype so I don`t know if there is way too much new to tell you. Ha. It was awesome again being able to talk to you and see you even though you couldn`t see me there. I will make sure to attach a pic so you can see what it was like for me. I hope that mom was able to have a great Mother`s Day! I have always been and am and will be super grateful for all of the sacrifices that you have made so that I could get to be where I am now. You, once again, easily take the trophy for MOTHER OF THE YEAR! I wasn`t able to write any cheesy poems this year...but you know how much I love you!

My new comp is from Sandy, UT and is named Elder Bennett. He has 17 months in the mission and I am training him as a new zone leader here in San Rafael. He likes to work hard so I think that before I leave here we will be able to see a lot of success! I hope that we can start changing this zone a bit because we have got some tough missionaries here. Lots of them are ending the mission.

We are seeing some progress in our investigators. It still is the hardest thing in the world to get them to come to church, but they are obtaining their testimonies of the restored gospel here a little there a little. Our convert, Leo, is doing just about everything he can to bring his daughter to church early in the morning but it seems like she is just not going to budge. Once she starts reading the Book of Mormon and praying regularly she will easily make it to church. It is always like that. The book of Mormon and and prayer are some of the most powerful and easy ways that our Heavenly Father can speak to us. If only every investigator just understood that... Our other investigator that had a baby when we didn`t even take note that she was pregnant is going to get baptized at the beginning of the next month with a couple of those little kids in the fam. Vanesa is her name. We have actually been able to see big changes in her since the first visits. The whole family is just very uneducated and didn`t really understand anything in the beginning, but now Vanesa can remember just about everything from the lessons that we have taught her. Miracles!

I will make sure to keep Opi and grandpa Fletcher in my prayers. I still plan on going fishing with Grandpa right when I go home if his casting arm is in condition or not. I can`t believe Kim is turning 40 already. She is getting kinda old...ha ha. That means that she was my age when I was born. Cool.

Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

  Happy Mother's Day Skype

 Elder Bennett from Sandy, Utah

 The piano Man

Where's waldo???