Elder Kade Larsen

Dear Family, This week has actually been really great. That is sweet that Marcus and Morgan are leaving really soon on their missions. Heather! WHAT THE HECK! That is so awesome! lol I am so excited for her to get out there in May. I honestly didn't expect that. Indiana will be so awesome for her. I know how Marcus and Morgan feel about speaking at Stake Conference. It's a scary experience for sure. Wow that is a lot of sisters, (going to Emily's mission) but yeah that is cool they are receiving a lot more in March. Sister Missionaries can touch people differently than Elders can for sure and they always seem to have baptismal dates. We are getting new people here and there as well and they created another zone in Duitama for sisters and after 2 days of work they had 2 baptismal dates. Wow right? At the end of this last cambio we get 32 more new missionaries (some are probably temporal as well) but quite a few. They are planning for a huge increase here as well so I think I will be training sooner than most people do in their missions. Maybe similar after this cambio which ends at the end of March but who knows. That kind of stinks about Jade and where they have to wait for 2 weeks for permission (to go anywhere on P-day). Why two weeks? Thats a long time! We call the zone leaders in Duitama and see if its all good, we have a bigger trip planned later this month but we have to meet a goal of 6 baptisms before leaving. There are rules in our mission like we need to return to Tunja before 3 o'clock P.M. The music thing as well, dang. (I told him in his cousins mission they are not allowed to have any music) No, I haven't recieved your package or anything because we haven't had the zone meeting. Zone meeting will be next Wednesday in Duitama. I am betting that I get it next month though. I am praying that no one will mess up the music thing for us here because, like you said, music is the song of the soul! lol To tell you the truth I do not want to leave Tunja for quite a while. Why? Because of this next sentence haha. "My companion and I now have 9 baptismal dates!" Bam! lol As of right now we have 6 in February and then 3 for March 2nd. This includes Jaime who is getting baptized this coming Saturday. He will be my first baptism of the mission! Im not going to lie, I am really happy he is the first because I think he will go on a mission too. We have about 4 people preparing for the 23rd of February. One of them is Sneider. The one from Facebook. His mom and sister are Mormon but he is Catholic because he wasn't here when they recieved the lessons. He didn't really want to learn about the church but one day we had cambios and I was with a new latino Elder and we had a lesson on the B.o.M. He accepted and began reading. He reads every pamphlet we give him in one night and always has great questions for us. He accepted the date on the second lesson and attended church yesterday for the first time. Through the last like 4 or 5 weeks we have grown pretty close as friends and I am so excited for him to enter the waters of baptism. Later today we are going to go and play basketball with him, Jaime, Ronny (RM) and more people. Should be pretty fun. We have a family that now have a date for the 3rd of March. The daughter, Vanessa, and the mom, Lus Marina, have been investigators for the last 4 months or more and attend church every week but they are not baptized. The problem is that she is not married to her boyfriend (The father of both their kids) They accepted the baptismal date but now need to get married before that date. He hadn't recieved lessons because he never wanted to this whole time but we were able to get him last week and now he is progressing very fast and enjoying all that the gospel has to offer. THe other kid is a son who is like 22 but he doesn't want much with the lessons. I am so excited for them. We have Noche de Hogar with them tonight, (Family Home Evening) where Elder Avila and I are making pancakes and other stuff. So yeah we have 9 dates and we have probably 14 progressing right now overall. We have a pretty heavy workload but I wouldn't have it any other way. We are trying to set some kind of record for Tunja or something for this cambio, lol. Who knows, we might, ha. Super Bowl! I heard that it was going to be on yesterday. That is super sick that Pitta scored the first TD. Cougar Alumni! lol I like the 49ers more overall but its kind of cool because they are both not the annoying teams like the Patriots or teams like that. I wish I could have watched a play or two haha ;) lol One day we had lunch with a member and there was a basketball game on when we came on. That was cool for a few minutes. It was Miami Heat vs Brooklyn Nets (Deron Williams). I dont know how it ended we just watched it for a minute or two before turning on a church movie. D Will and King James did good for that minute or two though. Bryce Canyon stuff looks pretty awesome. For some reason a lot of people know about the Grand Canyon here. I dont know why. There are lot cooler parks than the Grand Canyon, in my opinion. Hope you guys have an awesome week and I will be sure to send pictures of my first baptism this Saturday with Jaime. Love you guys, be safe and have fun.

Love, Elder Larsen