Glasses, Jacket, Shirt.....call me glasses jacket shirt man

Nobody finna be obeying that

Whats up fam!! good to hear from you all again this week!  We had another sweet week down here in Port Arthur. 

To start we went on exchanges with our Zone Leaders up in Beaumont! We pretty much knocked doors all day which was pretty hilarious haha! We met a lot of interesting people. I was with Elder Harmon from West Jordan Utah and we had a super balin time!

This week we had our workouts at 5:20 a.m. with our member Brother Duggard and those are going to be the death of me. I literally can't feel my triceps anymore. I guess I didn't use those riding a bike. But guess it will all pay off when I am super swole!

This bus we found

We focused a ton on our investigators that are on date and making sure that they progress. We are getting one of our investigators off of cigarettes and we had a super awesome lesson with him on the atonement and he’s really determined to quit smoking. It is so awesome to see these people make these changes that will bring them closer to Jesus! And almost all of them came to church so that was sweeeeeet! We will keep them keepin on to baptism!

We found this sweet wall that had all these Texas license plates on it when we were walking around this neighborhood. Then this super sketchy guy came up to us and was asking us why we were taking pictures....I am almost positive some super sketch stuff was going down in that house haha but I really just needed some pictures to send home! So we bounced out of that place after that. 

Shady!

On Saturday it ended up raining a ton here and this town called Groves flooded......So first we had Harvey, then the freeze, and now people are flooding again. Poor Texas is getting destroyed. Only a couple of our members got flooded and they got helped out. We were able to help a methodist preacher move out of his house which took a long time. Apparently, they get transferred too and this guy had 3 days to pack up and preach in another town on Sunday, so he really needed our help that Saturday. He took us to this sweet Mexican restaurant afterwards too so win win!

Swing'n in Port Arthur

But it was another good week here in Port Arthur and I am loving it here! I am learning tons out here so missions are 10/10 recommended! Love you all and thank you so much for you support! Talk to you all next week!!

Elder Cameron Larson

Still got that game tho

Mom’s Questions

How is Port Arthur similar to Vidor and how is it different?

So Port Arthur is completely different from Vidor haha! They are like opposites. All white people in Vidor and like all black people in Port Arthur. If you go to a town called Neaderland, Groves, or Port Neches there are more white people but there are like none in Port Arthur. Our area is super huge which is different. Elder Jones talked to me though and Vidor got shut down to 3 wards again. That’s good because that needed to happen but the area I was serving in got a lot bigger and will hopefully help the missionaries there. Its honestly just super different from Vidor. Like there are actually places to eat, shop and do things like that here. It’s not as country for sure. 

What do you generally cook for dinner?

 So usually for Dinner I am really lazy and I have something else I need to work on for district meeting or some members or investigators I need to call so I have kinda just been snacking. But our money gets refilled so I will think about getting some stuff to actually cook. I have bought Salad stuff before and made that because it is super easy.

What goals have you and your companion set?

 Well as far as goals we want to have 3 baptisms together. We should be able to get the people we have on date right now baptized but it might not be this transfer because of some things they gotta work on. But should be very early in the next transfer if not!

How many members are in your ward?

Lol so there are 600 people on the roster but only like 150 come. They really just need to clean up the ward list so we will probably try to help out with that where we can. 

What was the most spiritual experience you had this week?

The most spiritual experience was probably a lesson that we had with Juan. Its been awesome to see him progress and he’s trying super hard to stop smoking so we had a really good lesson with him on the atonement. 

Tell me 3 things about your new companion

Elder Baker wants to study something with Engineering, he’s super funny, and this is the longest he has ever been in an area! (2 transfers)

Soul Brothers!

Elder Larson and Elder Baker

Heyo from Port Arthur Texas!! Well we had to end up waiting until Wednesday afternoon for transfers due to the weather.  So, this week went by really quick but lots happened. 

So, about my new area. Vidor is basically only white people because it is where the KKK started and some people are still terrified to go there but Port Arthur is totally the hood so it was quite an adjustment. Our ward is huge too! We have a Chevy Malibu so that is pretty sweet. But the companionship earlier this month didn't do a very good job with miles so we are biking quite a bit right now haha!  Our ward has 2 sets of missionaries and covers from Bridge City to a town called Anahuac so the ward is like 90 square miles. It',,s a huge ward but we only cover from Bridge City to Port Arthur and then the Sisters have all of the rest of the ward since there isn't much out there. 

The week really started on Thursday since I didn't get here until Wednesday night. Thursday I was trained to be a district leader by the zone leaders here. They are super awesome and fun to work with. Then we found some super cool people. We went to this trailer because our bishop had heard someone moved in and they had actually taken the lessons in California and so we are trying to get their records over here but she said that the Elder from California was going to come over here and baptize her so we aren't too sure about that but they are super cool!

Then Friday I taught my first district meeting! It went pretty well and it was fun to have the zone leaders there for it. Next week President Ross (1st counselor to the President and the one that lives in Vidor) is coming to my district meeting so that is going to be sweet! Friday we went over to Bridge City  and talked to one of our investigators named Juan. We have him on date for February 3rd but we have to work with him on some Word of Wisdom problems and other things before we can get the interview and baptism done but he is a super cool guy. 

Saturday, we went down to the hood and it was such a fun day haha! The people down there are just awesome and really fun. They are super humble and love God......however, it is impossible to get them to do anything haha. but we went and taught this investigator named Harvey and it was a bomb lesson. He told me, "Im finna gunna read the Book of Mormon and come to church" but he finna did not haha. 

Sunday, we had one of our investigators from Port Arthur actually come! Her name is Debra and she is a super sweet lady! We invited her and told her where it was at but we didn't actually expect her to come but she came for all 3 hours and our ward potluck after! She really enjoyed it and said she will come next week so hopefully we will be able to get in and teach her this week. 

But man, I don't know how many people have called me their soul brother already haha it really is a lot of fun here and it is going to be an awesome time down here in the PA!

Elder Cameron Larson 

Mom's Questions

Is your new area a biking area or do you have a car?

So we are a car area and we got like one of the nicest cars in the mission haha!

How big is your new area?  How many wards do you serve?

The area is hugeeeee you can look it up on lds.org I am sure. We are the twin city ward.  We serve in 1 ward.

What new responsibilities to you have as a District Leader?

So as a district leader I teach district meetings on Fridays, do nightly phone calls where I ask the sisters in our district about their investigators and their plans to help them progress and so I follow up with them on things like that. Then I get their actuals and other goals and things and have to keep track of them and relay information from them to the Zone Leaders and from the Zone leaders to my district.

Do you use the workout bands that we sent you for Christmas?

Yes, I actually do! On Tuesdays and Thursdays here we wake up at 5:20 to workouts with a member (Cross Fit) so those are intense which is awesome!

What do you and Elder Baker have in common?

We both like to have a lot of fun! So we are going to have a blast this transfer but don't worry we will still be working hard! (and we both had the Vidor Harvey experience haha)

Do you cook your own meals and do your own laundry in this area? (I think you were spoiled in Vidor)

Yeah we get fed sometimes but mostly we cook and we do our own laundry but we are blessed with a washer and dryer in our apartment.  

Boom Bam Bop, Bada Bop Boom POW

 

Well well well family and friends, it looks like I will no longer be a Vidor Pirate. We got Transfer calls and I am headed to Port Arthur to be the District Leader. My companion is Elder Baker and he is from Redding California. He came out the same time as me so he is pretty new too. Things are going to be super awesome!

Well this week for some reason we did a ton of Harvey Clean up stuff. We were helping this Lady move out her couches that had been in her house since Harvey hit..... talk about gross haha. But we had got them all out and then we realized they had bed bugs alllllll over them haha so after that we all put our clothes in a bag and took like an hour long shower.....

Then I went on exchanges for the last time with Elder Storey. He was pretty sure he was gunna get transfered so we were almost positive It was the end for us. So it was a party! We got to go help out a guy by putting up some sheet rock for him and helping him fix some leaking pipes in his roof. It was really cold this week in Vidor and so a lot of the homes yet aren't insulated and so pipes are feezing and breaking. The cold is definetly not what Vidor needed. But that took almost all day and then we went out and biked and found some cool people to talk to even though they weren't very interested. 

Sunday was my last meeting with the ward. Somehow our bishop figured out that I was getting transfered during sacrament meeting and because of that they called me up to come speak the last 5 minutes or so since the speakers were a little short. But I think it went alright haha! The ward here is crazy awesome and I will miss them a ton! We went and taught one of our investigators and they were pretty bummed that I was headed out but hopefully Elder Jones will get them progressing towards baptism so I can come back next transfer to see the baptism. 

Well I am so grateful for the time I got to spend here in Vidor and I really learned so much on how to love other people and I am forever grateful for these people!

Love you all and have a killlllaaaa week!

Elder Cameron Larson 

Man, I am super bad at taking pics but I’ll get better in Port Arthur!

Mom’s Questions

What will you miss the most about Elder Jones?

I will miss elder Jones for sure. He and I had such a good time and were laughing and joking around all the time. 

What will you miss most about Vidor?

The ward here in Vidor is super awesome so I will miss that. I also will miss being able to help do service here. We did a ton this week for some reason and it was all Harvey Related stuff. We hung some sheet rock and I helped a guy fix a pipe in his attic cuz he wasn't small enough to get to it. 

What are you currently studying?

I'm not really studying anything super specific right now. I just base my studies off what we are teaching later that day. But last week I studied a ton about faith so I learned a lot of really cool things about that. I always try to read a conference talk, Preach My Gospel, and the Book of Mormon every day. 

That Biting Cold Tho

Turns out the cold here just bites ya! But really though it was pretty dang cold this week. So RIP us on bikes. We actually found someone that had made kind of an ice castle thing in Vidor so that was pretty sweet!

Well last week I said that me and Elder Jones were going to try and work more with the less actives in our ward. So we got a list from our Bishop and had a plan of some things we wanted to happen to help these less actives come back to church but the problem is we weren't able to get in with any of them this week haha! We called and stopped by at 17 homes and we got nothin! But hopefully we get some buckets next week since everyone is going back to school this week.

Elder Jones

We met this one guy when we were out on our bikes and he decided to let us in and teach him. He seemed pretty cool but then he turns out to kind of be a little crazy. He still thinks that the earth is flat, we didn't really go to the moon, and that we live in a box and someone is controlling us. But we taught a pretty good lesson to him and left him with the Book of Mormon so we will have to see where that goes! Then Brother and Sister Ashworth took us to Logans steakhouse in Beaumont and that was awesome.

Elder Larson and Elder Jones

We have been struggling to to get one of our investigators wives to sit in with the lessons. Its pretty frustrating because her entire family has converted and the only reason Randy doesn't want to get baptized is because it would break his heart to go to church without his wife in a church that focuses on family so much. Every time we go over to visit with them Dee pretty much just dodges us and leaves the room. So we prayed and prayed this week on what we could teach that would help her and the spirit confirmed exactly what we needed to teach! We went over to teach the lesson and she actually sat in!! She followed along with us in the Book of Mormon and she committed to read a chapter with her husband so that was awesome!

We met a lot of really cool people this week when we were out biking and trying to find people so I am excited to see if we will be able to get in and teach them this next week!

Thanks for all of the support and emails you guys send me! You guys are all the bomb! Next week are transfers so we will see what my fate is! Love you all!

Elder Cameron Larson