Back: Elders Heimuli, Benson, Brewer, Moura. Middle: Elders Page, Hahne, Sisters Jones, Kitchen, Pierce, Elder Larsen. Front: Instructor Irma Valeria.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
CTM Feliz Natal 2007
Back: Elders Heimuli, Moura, Page, Larsen, Hahne, Benson, Brewer. Front: Sisters, Kitchen, Jones, Pierce.
Feliz Natal! Merry Christmas
"Today is the day after Christmas and my district's p-day. We were lucky to keep our p-day because it fell the day after Christmas. Those who had theirs' on Tuesday lost it because it fell on Christmas.
For Christmas we actually got to sleep in! We were so excited about that. We got to wear casual clothes all day until the talent show at 7 pm. In the morning we watched "The Other Side Of Heaven" in english with portuguese subtitles. After that they had the gym open and puzzles and board games set out, but my comp and I just wrote letters for awhile and then went and did the puzzles. Our branch president's wife made cookies for our entire branch--43 people! And as AP, I got to hand them all out. The talent show was the big thing of the day. I really didn't want to be in it, but everyone knows I play the piano by now, even though I'm totally not the best pianist here. So I had to accompany two people and was in the tongan HAKA dance that our district did. So I was in it three times, probably more that anybody else, which is ironic. It was really fun. I will try to send you some videos. So, anyway, Christmas was wonderful!
I got to show the new district the ropes this week. They had their first district meeting on Sunday. I conducted it and taught them how to do it. I also make assignments to each district each week as to who will do the sacrament, the hymns, the musical number, and the prayers. Mostly, I just have to be their friend and get to know and love all of them. Feliz Natal!
For Christmas we actually got to sleep in! We were so excited about that. We got to wear casual clothes all day until the talent show at 7 pm. In the morning we watched "The Other Side Of Heaven" in english with portuguese subtitles. After that they had the gym open and puzzles and board games set out, but my comp and I just wrote letters for awhile and then went and did the puzzles. Our branch president's wife made cookies for our entire branch--43 people! And as AP, I got to hand them all out. The talent show was the big thing of the day. I really didn't want to be in it, but everyone knows I play the piano by now, even though I'm totally not the best pianist here. So I had to accompany two people and was in the tongan HAKA dance that our district did. So I was in it three times, probably more that anybody else, which is ironic. It was really fun. I will try to send you some videos. So, anyway, Christmas was wonderful!
I got to show the new district the ropes this week. They had their first district meeting on Sunday. I conducted it and taught them how to do it. I also make assignments to each district each week as to who will do the sacrament, the hymns, the musical number, and the prayers. Mostly, I just have to be their friend and get to know and love all of them. Feliz Natal!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Killing My Companion
Elder Larsen and Elder Hahne having a disgreement or demonstrating new conversion methods?
New Calling
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
"Thank you so much for the packages and letters. My entire district loves you guys! I was so excited to get the jelly bellies and the Utah quarters. Oh ya, thank you for the homemade beef jerky, that was by far the very best thing EVER! The Brazilians all love it too. My instructor Irmalo Bonetti wants to know the recipe, so will you send instructions in your next e-mail. Everyone loves it and says it's the best jerky they've ever tasted.
So far it has rained the past three P-days. It rains a lot down here, but it's wonderful and feels great. I miss the snow a little, but the decorations and candy you sent has helped to bring Christmas into our district.
On Sunday our Branch President, President Tanner called me to be the Assistant to the President (Realize, though, that being AP in the CTM is much different than being an AP in the field). I have to watch over our branch which right now consists of four districts with
8-12 members each. My calling was described as the district leader of the district leaders. I was totally humbled when President Tanner pulled me aside to call me and I felt totally humbled for the entire day. It was a new experience and I was and am greatful for the privilege. Today I get to participate in the orientation for the new district coming into our branch. I'm really excited for that!
Thanks for everything! And thanks from my entire district for all the packages you send. I love you so much. The church is true!"
"Thank you so much for the packages and letters. My entire district loves you guys! I was so excited to get the jelly bellies and the Utah quarters. Oh ya, thank you for the homemade beef jerky, that was by far the very best thing EVER! The Brazilians all love it too. My instructor Irmalo Bonetti wants to know the recipe, so will you send instructions in your next e-mail. Everyone loves it and says it's the best jerky they've ever tasted.
So far it has rained the past three P-days. It rains a lot down here, but it's wonderful and feels great. I miss the snow a little, but the decorations and candy you sent has helped to bring Christmas into our district.
On Sunday our Branch President, President Tanner called me to be the Assistant to the President (Realize, though, that being AP in the CTM is much different than being an AP in the field). I have to watch over our branch which right now consists of four districts with
8-12 members each. My calling was described as the district leader of the district leaders. I was totally humbled when President Tanner pulled me aside to call me and I felt totally humbled for the entire day. It was a new experience and I was and am greatful for the privilege. Today I get to participate in the orientation for the new district coming into our branch. I'm really excited for that!
Thanks for everything! And thanks from my entire district for all the packages you send. I love you so much. The church is true!"
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Proselyting last Friday was a great experience. I wasn't too scared. I had the basics of what I needed to say memorized, but I couldn't understand any of what was said to me. My companion Elder Hahne and I went together, of course, and it was just our district and our teacher in that area. We were in a sort of town square in downtown Sao Paulo, right in front of a great big Catholic cathedral. That didn't matter much, as we were able to hand out all of our pass along cards and all three of our Books of Mormon. What was also really cool was that we saw two real Catholic monks outside of the cathedral.
We are starting to teach the first lesson in portuguese and the second lesson in english. They expect us to speak only portuguese now, especially in class, but that doesn't work out because none of us can speak it well enough to be able to get anything done, so hardly anything has changed. The proselyting experience makes me excited to get into the field.
This past Sunday I spoke in church. Sacrament meeting talks are a little different here. Everybody prepares a talk on a decided topic and four people that are supposed to talk are called out of the congregation. I knew the minute sacrament meeting was over the previous week that I would speak the next week--personal revelation. I knew without a doubt that I was going to speak and sure enough I did speak. Also, that Sunday my companion and I blessed the sacrament in portuguese and when I walked into sacrament meeting the district leader of one of the new groups came up and asked me at the last minute if I could accompany them in their musical number. It was "The Spirit of God" so I said yes. I was very happy because everyone was impressed with me that day that I could do so much in one meeting and did a great job on my talk. It made me feel good.
I've included two pictures. The first is of our entire district. Back row: Elders Heimuli, Moura, Sisters Jones, Pierce, Kitchen. Front row: Elders Hahne, Larsen, Benson, Doolhoff, Page, Brewer. The second is of Elder Markowski from Bountiful and myself."
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
"It's been another full week. We are preparing to go proselyting for our very first time this Friday. I felt like such a bad missionary this morning because we went to the police station to verify our visas and I completely forgot to bring along my pass along cards, Books of Mormon, or even my short Portuguese lesson. The president of the MTC has emphasised that we must 'open our mouths, open our mouths, open our mouths', and preach the gospel everywhere. We are never 'just buying bananas'. I'll dive headlong into that type of missionary work on Friday and I'll do my best.
My Portuguese is coming along well, but the hardest thing is listening to the Brazilians speak and trying to understand. I can do well on the vocabulary and grammar because of Spanish class, but listening is whole different story.
The weather down here is vacation weather. I love to walk in the CTM courtyard and look up at the sun coming down through the palm trees. I can hardly believe that it's December. But we still miss the winter Christmas, so we took a bunch of napkins from the cafeteria and made snowflakes out of them and hung them from the ceiling. We also tried to make a Christmas tree out of plastic cups but the janitor cleaned it up. I found out that we don't have to go to class on Christmas. We get to watch movies, what movies I don't know, but we are excited. I also found out that missionaries in the CTM don't get to make telephone calls home because there aren't enough telephones. But Mother's Day isn't too far away so it won't be too bad, especially with all the letters and e-mails.
Keep sending me letters please! And remind my friends to write too. It is awesome to open the mailbox and see a letter addressed to Elder Larsen."
"It's been another full week. We are preparing to go proselyting for our very first time this Friday. I felt like such a bad missionary this morning because we went to the police station to verify our visas and I completely forgot to bring along my pass along cards, Books of Mormon, or even my short Portuguese lesson. The president of the MTC has emphasised that we must 'open our mouths, open our mouths, open our mouths', and preach the gospel everywhere. We are never 'just buying bananas'. I'll dive headlong into that type of missionary work on Friday and I'll do my best.
My Portuguese is coming along well, but the hardest thing is listening to the Brazilians speak and trying to understand. I can do well on the vocabulary and grammar because of Spanish class, but listening is whole different story.
The weather down here is vacation weather. I love to walk in the CTM courtyard and look up at the sun coming down through the palm trees. I can hardly believe that it's December. But we still miss the winter Christmas, so we took a bunch of napkins from the cafeteria and made snowflakes out of them and hung them from the ceiling. We also tried to make a Christmas tree out of plastic cups but the janitor cleaned it up. I found out that we don't have to go to class on Christmas. We get to watch movies, what movies I don't know, but we are excited. I also found out that missionaries in the CTM don't get to make telephone calls home because there aren't enough telephones. But Mother's Day isn't too far away so it won't be too bad, especially with all the letters and e-mails.
Keep sending me letters please! And remind my friends to write too. It is awesome to open the mailbox and see a letter addressed to Elder Larsen."
Saturday, December 1, 2007
First snail mail (written the day after he arrived)
"Hoy! Como Voce? That means 'Hi, how are you doing?' We're not supposed to say in English what we can say in Portuguese. I'm learning one word and phrase at a time.
It turns out that there are about five in my district of twenty that flew in with me, that I am supposed to study with, that are going to Campinas. That is more than any of the other missions. I was pretty surprised at that.
Brazil is amazing! The climate and environment remind me of Missouri, which was so beautiful. The only difference is that here there are palm trees. But the living conditions are completely different. The MTC (CTM in Portuguese) is located in a neighborhood that is nicer than some of the neighborhoods that we drove through to get here. The grounds are well kept, the building is somewhat attractive and quite impressive. It has a nice fence with guards so it is the only building that doesn't have graffiti on it.
Please tell my friends that I can't e-mail them while I'm here at the MTC and will only be able to write letters on P-Day. But, PLEASE WRITE! Everyone calls the mailbox the dissappointment box. I don't want it to be that way for me. Obrigado! (thanks)
Elder Christain Aric Larsen
Box # 09 District 46-A (address to until Jan.1, 2008)
Brazil Campinas Mission
Rua Padre Antonio D' Angelo, 121
Casa Verde, Sao Paulo, SP
BRAZIL 02516-040
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
"Brazil is a beautiful place (maybe not so much the city, because I've never seen a dirtier city), but the people are so wonderful! They are all friendly and warm and so diverse. The different ethnicities that intermingled after the colonial period created a very diverse population, but they are all Brazilians, and there isn't much racism.
We just got Brazilian roommates! One is even from Campinas. He has only been in the church for threee years and said that he is going to give me his mother's address so we can go teach and baptize her. When I get out in the field, I want to ask if you guys would pray specifically for that blessing.
I'm so happy in our district. I have a perfect niche, just like everyone else. Everyone suprisingly seems to be very interested in me and my life back home. I also don't think I laughed more than I have here at the MTC. Our district is so funny and we have so much fun. I've laughed myself to tears five times in the last two weeks.
Tell everyone to write me. It's probably our biggest joy here at the MTC to get mail. I love you all and can't wait until next week when I can write you again. Give Florence (the cat) and Charlie (the dog) lots of love for me. Elder Christian
"Brazil is a beautiful place (maybe not so much the city, because I've never seen a dirtier city), but the people are so wonderful! They are all friendly and warm and so diverse. The different ethnicities that intermingled after the colonial period created a very diverse population, but they are all Brazilians, and there isn't much racism.
We just got Brazilian roommates! One is even from Campinas. He has only been in the church for threee years and said that he is going to give me his mother's address so we can go teach and baptize her. When I get out in the field, I want to ask if you guys would pray specifically for that blessing.
I'm so happy in our district. I have a perfect niche, just like everyone else. Everyone suprisingly seems to be very interested in me and my life back home. I also don't think I laughed more than I have here at the MTC. Our district is so funny and we have so much fun. I've laughed myself to tears five times in the last two weeks.
Tell everyone to write me. It's probably our biggest joy here at the MTC to get mail. I love you all and can't wait until next week when I can write you again. Give Florence (the cat) and Charlie (the dog) lots of love for me. Elder Christian
Wednesday, November 21,2007
First P-Day, First e-mail from Brazil
"We just got back from the Sao Paulo temple. It is one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen, especially inside. There is mahogany wood everywhere and beautiful stained glass.
My companion is Elder Hahne from Reno. Or district has 8 elders and three sisters. We have so much fun together! So much that sometimes it is hard for us to be reverent, but one elder who had a tough time deciding whether or not to serve a mission privately wrote us a note thanking us for our good example. We really appreciated that. Everyone seems to get along very well.
I just saw the name tags for the new elders coming in and I saw Bret Markowski's name. I'll do my best to welcome him.
Last night we had a fireside by President Charles Didier. That was a treat to have him as our first devotional speaker. We don't usually get general authorities. For these devotionals they have a volunteer choir and my companion and I have joined. Singing is by far the easiest way to learn the language.
The weather down here is fantastic. The heat and humidity aren't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I love the weather, but it isn't the hottest time of the year yet, so I'm crossing my fingers."
He ends by writing his testimony in portuguese--three lines--pretty impressive for one week. Then he requests that his family and friends refer to him by Elder Christian, not Elder Larsen, so you see we named the blog Elder Christian.
First P-Day, First e-mail from Brazil
"We just got back from the Sao Paulo temple. It is one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen, especially inside. There is mahogany wood everywhere and beautiful stained glass.
My companion is Elder Hahne from Reno. Or district has 8 elders and three sisters. We have so much fun together! So much that sometimes it is hard for us to be reverent, but one elder who had a tough time deciding whether or not to serve a mission privately wrote us a note thanking us for our good example. We really appreciated that. Everyone seems to get along very well.
I just saw the name tags for the new elders coming in and I saw Bret Markowski's name. I'll do my best to welcome him.
Last night we had a fireside by President Charles Didier. That was a treat to have him as our first devotional speaker. We don't usually get general authorities. For these devotionals they have a volunteer choir and my companion and I have joined. Singing is by far the easiest way to learn the language.
The weather down here is fantastic. The heat and humidity aren't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I love the weather, but it isn't the hottest time of the year yet, so I'm crossing my fingers."
He ends by writing his testimony in portuguese--three lines--pretty impressive for one week. Then he requests that his family and friends refer to him by Elder Christian, not Elder Larsen, so you see we named the blog Elder Christian.
Same day
A letter arrives mailed from Dallas written during his layover. His group has now grown to twenty including two sisters. One is an Elder Heimuli from Hawaii, nephew of the Heimuli family that lives in our stake. Another is an Elder Brog from Centerville. He met Andrew Wolff, a businessman working for Price Waterhouse who is in charge of training the company's 30,000 employees. Mr. Wolff speakes seven languages and gave him some tips for learning
Portuguese. He is familiar with all of Latin America and assured him that Campinas was a fairly safe place to be assigned. One of the elders in the group brought several Books of Mormon to the Dallas Airport which they divided up and handed out to patrons. He and his companion were successful, it only took four tries. "That was the most exciting thing so far," he reported.
A letter arrives mailed from Dallas written during his layover. His group has now grown to twenty including two sisters. One is an Elder Heimuli from Hawaii, nephew of the Heimuli family that lives in our stake. Another is an Elder Brog from Centerville. He met Andrew Wolff, a businessman working for Price Waterhouse who is in charge of training the company's 30,000 employees. Mr. Wolff speakes seven languages and gave him some tips for learning
Portuguese. He is familiar with all of Latin America and assured him that Campinas was a fairly safe place to be assigned. One of the elders in the group brought several Books of Mormon to the Dallas Airport which they divided up and handed out to patrons. He and his companion were successful, it only took four tries. "That was the most exciting thing so far," he reported.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
We receive an e-mail from Sister Phyllis Cardon, wife of the CTM president. She said, "Your son or daughter arrived here safely at the Brazil MTC this morning. They were greeted, and are now resting, then they will have lunch. This afternoon they will attend an orientation meeting and meet with the doctor about immunizations, etc. then they will go for a short walk around the neighborhood with a teacher. Tomorrow they will learn how to pray in Portuguese."
There's a big sigh of relief for the parents in West Bountiful.
We receive an e-mail from Sister Phyllis Cardon, wife of the CTM president. She said, "Your son or daughter arrived here safely at the Brazil MTC this morning. They were greeted, and are now resting, then they will have lunch. This afternoon they will attend an orientation meeting and meet with the doctor about immunizations, etc. then they will go for a short walk around the neighborhood with a teacher. Tomorrow they will learn how to pray in Portuguese."
There's a big sigh of relief for the parents in West Bountiful.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007
Christian departed from the SLC airport for Sao Paulo via Dallas. There were about a dozen or so missionaries going to various MTC's around the world. About half of these were going to Brazil. We were the first missionary to check in for that flight and the agent offered an upgrade to first class for the flight to Dallas. His parents decided that would be a good birthday/going away present (birthday Nov. 10). Some other missionary wanted the upgrade but it wasn't available later. We subsequently find out that because of this he now has been given the nickname "Elder First Class" by his district. Following are pictures of the departure.
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007
Christian spoke at the West Bountiful First Ward sacrament meeting prior to his departure the following Tuesday. Many of his friends and family were in attendance and visited with him at his home following the meeting. He stresses in his letters that he encourages everyone to write him. The activity level in the Larsen home dropped through the floor following this going away party.
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