Christmas Time!

Hello Friends and family! Christmas is coming yeahhh boiiiiiii! Lots of good things happened this week!

On Tuesday we had an appointment with one of our most solid families. The wife is a member but the husband and the rest of the family isn't so we have been teaching them. On the way to our appoinment one of our members got us going 120 in his camero so that was sweet! The lesson went really good but the sad thing is she is really in a tight situation since her house got flooded and a member said something that kind of offended her but to make a long story short she dropped us and doesn't want to meet with us again so that crushed me. 

Bad news out of the way now on to the good stuff! We had the new McDonalds open! This McDonalds is in 3017 and man its sweet. Everyone in Vidor was there when it opened and the first 100 there got like 54 free meals so im a little bitter I didn't know when it was opening for sure...   **Side note, I had to google what 3017 is…..I thought Cameron was giving me the address of McDonalds :/   lol.**

We had our district training on Friday so the zone leaders came and taught us some stuff. We focused on finding more and so thats exactly what we did this weekend! We found a lot of really cool people and I am excited to work with them! 

We just see miracle after miracle here it is awesome! We always are just in the right place at the right time to find people to talk to so it is super awesome. This is totally the Lord’s work and I'm happy to do it! We spend a ton of time out on our bikes so I have been teaching Elder Jones how to do a wheelie and he is totally going to have it down by the end of our time together!  One funny story is how I helped my companion. So, Elder Jones hasn't been in a bike area for a bit so when he gets tired he just holds on to my backpack and I drag him and me along haha! So, I guess all of my bike training is paying off because I am able to use it to serve my companion! 

This next week with Christmas coming up I will be able to play the piano at the Christmas Eve program on Sunday so that will be exciting! And I'm so excited to talk to my family! I am not sure If I am going to email that week since we have a lot going on and I will talk to my family anyways. But I am so grateful for the gift of the Savior in my life and I know this is his gospel!

Sorry I didn't take any pictures this week since I had so many amazing one’s last week but me and Elder Jones are filming a little Christmas video and are going to put it on Facebook tonight at 6 (central time) so get stoked for that!  (For the video I had to sacrifice my bike a little bit but it is totally going to be worth it.)

**Elder Larson said in my letter to make sure everyone shares his Face Book video he will be posting later today**

It has been fun to get all of the stuff from the family every day.  Today I got the stuff from Scott and he gave me some nice Dakine stuff and it sounds like he is excited to shred the cascade ice!

Love you all and have a Merry Christmas! 

Elder Cameron Larson 

Mom’s Questions:

Do you know what time you will call on Christmas?

We are planning to call around 6 our time which would be 7 for you. President has been stressing that we keep those calls at 40 minutes at the max so I just need to make sure I am doing that.

Will you skype or google hangouts?

I am planning on using skype but I can use google hangouts or even Facebook messenger so we got lots of options if it doesn't work for one reason or another

What have you done to “Light the World” this week?

We were pretty bad at light the world to be honest this week. But our video is totally going to light everyone’s world up haha!

Where did you get the Green Christmas Tree tie you wore to your ward party?

I just found that tie laying in our apartment so I decided to wear it. There are like 100 ties just sitting in this box in our apartment so I dug through them to find it.

What have you learned from your new companion?

Elder Jones has taught me how important it is to plan more than just day to day or week to week so we are trying to put together a vision of what we want to happen these 2 transfers we will most likely do together and then work to achieve it!

Jesus Loves U

Hello Friends and family! Can't believe It is already P-day again! And here I am starting my 3rd transfer!

Well if you didn't hear already it snowed in Texas haha! It was super awesome! We woke up in the morning and there was an entire inch on the ground. Everyone here was going crazy and we had a lot of fun with it.

Wednesday was a lot of fun because it was one of our Zone Leaders birthdays! Elder Storey! I love that kid so much and we had a party up at one of our Mission Presidents counselors home (President Ross).


Thursday was visit the children for Light the World and we were able to go and give a little kid that has been sick a blessing! It was really wet and cold and the humidity just BITES you down here. At least it is not August tho...... We went out and biked for a bit and invited some cool peeps to our Ward Christmas party. Then we were too dang cold so we started creating our masterpiece, The Jesus Loves you sign. We bought all of the lights and wire and graphed it all out on some graph paper. It actually took quite a bit of work but it looks so awesome now and we have had people taking pictures by it and telling us how awesome it is so we are putting some Light the World cards down by it!

We also made a spreadsheet of our entire area, basically Elder Jones is a genius when it comes to stuff like that so he made one when he was in Jennings and then we copied it for our ward. Basically, it tells the names, contact info, the last time we came in contact with them, if we have taught them about the Doctrine of Christ, their activity status, if they got affected by Harvey and then there is room for any comments. But it has been super helpful and we are going around trying to figure out the status of every single person that is on our roster and hopefully find some part member families or reactivate some and then they might have some friends that are not members. Member missionary work is by far the best.

Friday was the day it snowed and our ward Christmas party!! It is finally feeling like Christmas is coming up!

Elder Larson, Santa, Elder Jones

Saturday, we got fed breakfast by another ward because Elder Jones had to do a baptism interview. We found a bunch of extra teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley books and the zone leaders said we couldn't get a potential investigator with one. So, we went into Dollar General and we gave this Lady the book and we are going to go back and teach her sometime. *dab*

The members here are too good to us, we got fed lunch and dinner by the members and then they came with us to teach a lady we found named Judi! She is super cool and I'm glad we finally got one of our set appointments to work out.

We have our own Christmas in the Grove type of thing but it is on Christmas Eve and I will be performing. Sister Ashworth's daughter that is in high school (Hannah) has a boyfriend that is not a member and he is super good at the saxophone. So, for Christmas eve sacrament meeting he is going to perform a special musical number and I will accompany him! I also signed up to play at our zone Christmas conference so that will be fun.


I love the envelopes you guys have been sending me! It is fun to be able to open something every single day! Also, before I forget I had a lady come up in our ward and thank us for sending the quilts so tell grandma for me! I think they are going to send some thank you notes home. A lot of the kids that they gave these too didn't have any heat in their home and not very many clothes and it got pretty cold this week so they appreciated it a ton!

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy these pictures this week because there are a lot of them. I’m so grateful to be on my mission and be able to teach people here that Jesus really does love them. Love you all and have a Merry Christmas!

Elder Cameron Larson


Mom’s Questions

What have you done for Light the World this week?
So mostly for light the world we spend doing our light display and putting some pass along cards down by it. We were also able to give a kid a blessing which was super cool because we gave it to him on Thursday and by Friday he was running around and having a good time at the ward Christmas party


Tell us about your new companion
Elder Jones is super smart and is really good with computer stuff.
He wants to go into electrical engineering.
He is really funny and we love to joke about the weather here because that is all that everyone talks about down here. First, we would always say “Man it has been pretty cold” and without fail everyone talks about how the humid cold is so different. Then we say “At least it isn't August though” because everyone talks about that too and we think it is the funniest thing that every single person down here in Texas will go off about that.
So, we both love to make jokes and laugh a lot!

When is your zone Christmas party?
December 19th

Where will you be for Christmas?
For Christmas, I will be at the Nations to skype since they will let us and then probably go to President Ross’ home with all the other people in our district

What time will you call? Skype or Google Hangout?
I’m really not sure about the whole skype info and I will find out more about that this week!

Transfers Boiiii

Last picture with Elder Bott

Hello friends and family!

Sorry I didn't give any heads up but because of transfers we had our pday moved to today.

Well transfers were this week so my time with Elder Bott time has come to an end. We had some awesome times and I'm grateful for the time we got to spend together. My new companion is Elder Jones and he is from Kaysville Utah! He has been out for like 15 months and he is a total baller. He came out one transfer after Elder Bott. He's district leader and is a super smart guy. Today we treated ourselves. Well I already bought some Christmas cards but we bought lights, steaks to grill up tonight on our mini grill so it is going to be a party with this guy. We will have to be a little more thrifty with our money after our spending spree today but we will be all good. I am stoked for the time we get to spend together.

This week was pretty slow and we didn't have a whole lot happen. We saw a lot of little miracles this week and we have been writing them down as they happen. Light the World has officially started! So even though the work was super slow we tried to pump up the Light the World initiative with a lot of people. I am so excited for the chance that we have to do stuff as missionaries. We are going to try to think of some creative stuff and it should be lots of fun.

Our members are awesome and have been doing some awesome stuff too.

This week we tried contacting a lot of people but we didn't have anyone show up to their return appointment so we will just keep trying!

We did tons of service on Saturday! We did some more Harvey clean up. Someone had knocked down their trailer and we had to carry it all into a huge burn pile. It might just be the most Vidor thing that has happened to me on my mission. There were people in tank tops with the word redneck literally tattooed on their bicep and they blasted some country music from their jeeps and decided to hook up some subs and put them on the top so it would be even louder. Then they were pulling huge logs with their four wheeler..... it was just something you had to be there for. We also had the opportunity to help a member put up some dry wall again so that was fun. I mostly just moved all of the dry wall in so I'm not that skilled haha!

But all in all, it was an awesome week and I'm glad I get to spend Christmas here in Vidor! I'm looking forward to the coming weeks and thank you so much to everyone who has sent me something I really appreciate it. Next week I will hook you all up with some baller pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot but I can't send them until they get to my family for the big reveal so get excited for next week!

I'm excited for the future here and we will keep working hard and hopefully find some success and be able to lift up everyone's spirits during the holidays and point them to Christ. I'm hoping that people start to get back into their houses so we can be doing a little more stuff with them but we are having an awesome time!

Remember all that is light comes from the Savior so serve like Him and spread His love this Christmas season! Love you all and talk to you next week!

Elder Cameron Larson

This was our last district photo at Sister Housman’s birthday party! Elder Anderson and Elder Bott are now gone RIP

Mom’s Questions:

Who is your new companion, where is he from, how long has he been serving?
My new companion is an Elder Jones! He was serving at Jennings Louisiana so he was in our zone. So, I've seen him but never really got to talk to him. He came out September of last year so I guess it has been like 15 months for him!

Did you get your 2nd suit?
Yes, I got my 2nd suit

Did you get your package with all the Christmas letters?
Yes! It is the best! I love it so much so tell everyone thank you!

Did your Mission President give you any advice when you met with him one-on-one for transfers?
Yeah, he gave me some advice. I guess I get frustrated because we have really just been reporting all 0's which is hard for me to do since I don't like to be not good at things especially missionary work! But he told me to enjoy the process of serving and helping people's lives rather than stress so much on whether or not they make it to church that week or are able to meet with us again. So just enjoying being able to help them out and brighten their day since it's pretty hard in Vidor right now

Were you able to go back and teach the family in the bus some more?
No, they canceled on us for this week and last week but we will keep stopping by and trying!

What have you been doing as missionaries with the Light the World initiative?
We do stuff every day! Day 1 we wrote a thank you letter to the lady that was in charge of our packages and mail and told her how much it means to us and yesterday for the neighbor one we went and gave all of our neighbor’s cookies! So, it has been really fun!