Harvey crew!

Sorry I didn't get to email last week because I got out here before pday in the MTC and then when I got to Houston pday was over so here I am! We had Elder Oaks speak to us in the MTC which was awesome! Saying bye to my district in the MTC was hard, I love all those people so much and you grow so close to them in such a  short amount of time, but it's on to bigger and better things!

MTC Cleaning Crew

We got here around 12 on Monday and we went straight to the stake center (because the mission office and home are both flooded) and we had some meetings there! In my interview with President Hewlett he said he was going to put me in a bike only mission!!! And he kept that promise, my companion is Elder Bott from Saratoga Springs, Utah and we are serving in Vidor and are the only missionaries here without a car haha! But neither of us have bikes right now either...... Elder Bott left his in Kingwood and all of the shipping in Houston has been stopped for a bit so here we are in a bike mission with no bikes! But doesn't really matter since we haven't done any proselyting yet. 

Most days here we spend around 8-10 hours doing service here. We got in and do what is called mucking which is where we take out all the carpet, sheet rock, insulation, and anything that touched the water in the house. It is hard work but I'm loving it. The people here are so grateful to the mormon helping hands crew, when we go anywhere with our yellow vests on the people always stop us to thank us for what we are doing. On our second day we had already gone to 2 other houses when someone came over to us and was desperate for help, they had been evacuated and this was the first day they were getting back into there home. So when we got to this house it was the real deal..... everything in his entire house was soaked and it was devastating. The water had got to 6 ft in the house and things were scattered all over the place. We had to carry everything out and then rip down everything in the house. It can be pretty gross hahaha it smells soooooo bad when we open a house from start like that! That one took us all day on Thursday to complete and the stuff was piled like 6 feet on his front lawn. While we were working there there was this guy that came and took pictures of us so we made it on the Beaumont paper! When you drive down the streets you just see piles and piles of stuff that people have lost but they are all still in good spirits. What you can learn from Harvey is that you should always be grateful for what you have and you can’t have it all of the time! As long as you are coming closer to Christ and learning more about your savior what else matters? The community is coming together to help out and it is really cool to see so just don't ever be selfish and be willing to help out and everyone will be blessed!

Every other day was pretty typical mucking and service day. Saturday was a legendary day though. We were doing service and I have been pretty sick all week but Saturday was the worst. We went to the Christian church and were helping out and I felt like I was going to die haha so I said a prayer they I could continue to work and I'm glad I kept on going and didn't go home for the day because at noon we went to a different house and started working when here comes

Elder Rasband!! He stopped us and wanted to talk to us, he said that the First Presidency and the 12 were praying for us. I got to shake his hand and we got a picture with him as a group of missionaries so it might be out there somewhere but I don't have it unfortunately. President Hewlett stopped Elder Rasband and told him that one of the elders in my district was new so this applies to me too when he said this is the best work we could ever be doing! And I believe that too, through this service we have been doing even though it is dang hard a lot of days in the heat and doing it for hours, I have seen people's hearts change. People that have never been willing to talk to the church are begging us to come and help them out and it is really opening their hearts to hear the message of the restored gospel. Later on Saturday we were assigned to direct traffic for the 1700 people who were coming to the vidor schools to come and help the mormon helping hands! We felt like celebrities haha so many Mormons coming and they would give us cookies and stuff it was the best! It was cool to see how many people are coming to help.

Elder Rasband visits Vidor

Sunday we went to church in our work clothes and then the sacrament was administered and then each of the bishops of the Vidor wards got up and shared their testimonies and then we were out of there in 30 minutes for the whole church to go do service! We did this guys house and he is a legend, we call him the piano man and he is so good at piano and production stuff. We were moving out all of these cables and tripods ect. But he started filming us and then said he is going to send in a film for the national weather channel so if you see something about mormon helping hands that was our group! But It was cool to see everyone even little kids helping out in any way they can! The members here are awesome and spoil us as missionaries! We get dinner appointments every night and our ward mission leaders wife Sister Ashworth even bought us groceries since she knew we didn't have time to shops because of transfers and the meetings! President Ross is in the mission presidency and is housing like 8 missionaries and feeding all of us that don't have dinner appointments! Such amazing people here!  

It is kind of crazy all that goes on down here and I wish I had time to write every experience that happened but I've learned that the Book of Mormon really does change lives! If you aren't reading it everyday then do read it everyday! Even if you don't have that much time read just a couple of verses and you will see the power it brings into your lives! Love you all and hope to hear from you! My address is 475 S Denver st. Apt 110 vidor Texas 77662 if any of y'all needed to see our dope apartment in vidor

Love, Elder Larson