Hills!

Missionary Correlation

Elder Olsen

Elder Ure

First Day of School

Hey everybody!  

So we tried to be festitive and all on Pday and carved pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. The only problem is I forgot that the humidity in Texas is like 8000% so they only made it like 2 days RIP. 

The rest of the week was really good. I got to go on an exchange with Elder Topham who is a new missionary and is from Mona UT. The only reason I know where that is is because of the rope swing down there. We had a great day and we contacted a ton of people on campus. Our typical day is we go down to the insistute building at 9 and we teach people if they haven't gone to class yet. If there is nobody there then we go out and talk to as many people on campus as we can. It is a ton of fun and you get to meet a lot of really cool people. 

On Friday Elder Robison and I went to up Woodville for their District Council and then we split up and I went with Woodville and Elder Robison went with Jasper. It was soooooo pretty up there and there are actually HILLS!! I got super hyped about it since it has been forever since I've seen anything besides a dump or a bridge haha. Woodville is a super small town of like 1,000 people so everyone has met the missionaries before so that was super different. Everyone that is a member there is just part of 1 big family called the Odoms. 

On Sunday we drove all the way out to Kingwood with Hans who is a returning member and he brought Alex who we are teaching to the mission presidents fireside. I got to see a lot of the YSA's from my last area so that was super fun. And a lot of the people that spoke I knew because they had been recent converts in the Lake Houston zone. So it was really just a great day. 

Things are still going out here and I know this is the work of the Lord. It really is His work and I'm so grateful he lets me be a part of it. Something I have really come to learn and love on my mission is that it is ok if we know we can't do things because it helps us be humble and rely on the Lord. When we are truely humble and rely on Him then we can be confident! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Cameron Larson 

Mom’s Questions

Is Lamar the only campus you visit?

 We only go to Lamar since it is close. There is another college campus out in Lake Charles Louisiana but that is pretty far away so we don't try to get people who are out there to come. 

The kids and I went and got our flu shots this week, do you get a flu shot on the mission?

 We got our flu shots last Pday!

In what way are you and your companion similar and in what way are you different?

 We both really like to talk to people which is good for a YSA and being on campus a lot. We are both pretty good at being able to connect with people. 

When is the next transfer date?

 Transfers will be next week on Tuesday

Do most of your members of the YSA ward live at home or on campus away from home?

Most live in Vidor and just drive from out there. We have a few that stay on campus that their families don't live very close. 

Another Good One

Lamar Football Field

Well this week was pretty crazy with all of the stuff that we had going on so I will just give you the highlights. 

1) We went 3 exchanges this week. It didn't even feel like I had a companion this week. We went to Silsbee, Port Arthur, and Eagle Springs with the assistants. I loved going to Port Arthur because it was my old area! I got to go see my convert Dallas and his family and they are going to work to get him prepared for the temple. 

2) Silsbee is a super cool country area and I was with a new missionary Elder Baumann and he is doing a great job. 

3) Crazy story: We have been trying to track down this less active in the YSA that actually went to my highschool. We decided to go to Canes in Port Arthur after our exchange and some members walked in and said hi to us. After that we went to go say hi to them and it turns out that they were from Pleasant Grove AND they were the parents of this girl we have been trying to track down. There really are no coincidences in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Well that is really all that happened this week. It was such a remarkable experience to get to meet Elder Holland and all of the other general authorities. I think I am having withdrawls from hearing general authories speak to us on the weekend now. 

Love you all and keep the faith!

Canes!

Just carrying around the kids in the van

Tri-Mission Conference

A tri-mission conference was held for the Houston, Houston South and Houston East Mission.  Cameron was able to connect with Sister Emily Simpson (Houston South) and Elder Cole Karren (Houston).

We had to drive 2 hours to go back to the Summerwood chapel Friday Morning so we left at like 7:30 in the morning. We had a zone conference before the tri mission conference since all of our mission was going to be together. After that got over we went to lunch really quick and then we headed back for the conference. We sat in the very back of the chapel since that is just how things worked out. I saw Sister Simpson come in and so I waved to her and she came over and talked to me for like 5 minutes but then the meeting was going to get started. Pretty much everyone in my mission knew she was in the other mission and so they were all just waiting for me to say hi to her so that was probably a little weird. After that the conference was really good. It was to all 3 Houston Missions and we had Elder Teixera who is in the Presidency of the 70 and Elder Lynn G. Robbins spoke as well. They talked about a lot of really good things and I took a ton of notes from the conference. The really cool part was that they all wanted to meet us and shake our hands and so they let like all 500 people there go and shake all of their hands. Elder Holland said he wanted to do that so that he could look into our soul real quick and see if we are doing alright haha. But he said he was surprised and said that our missions are doing really well. After that we had to hustle because we had a lesson to get to that night. So we hurry and got a picture because I knew that you would want one.  :) I also got to see a lot of people from my past area that were there to help with the technical stuff of the conference. There were 2 people from the Fall Creek ward and I got to talk to Stake President Rascon for like 10 minutes so it was really was an awesome day! 

The next day the same people did a broadcast for all of the YSA's in the area so we got to attend that as well. It was a really good conference and I took a ton of notes about it. Something that stuck out to me while Elder Holland spoke was he talked about how much God really loves us. He is not a vengeful person that judges all of the mistakes that we make but he loves us and he really wants us to be happy. He asked all of the YSA's to know that because he felt that they were being to hard on themselves and worrying too much. 

We also got the opportunity to go to the temple this week with our YSA group. We took a recent convert named Patrick so that was our ticket to go haha. After the temple we got to eat at this really good place called Gringos. 

Ashley Brown who we taught in the Beaumont 6th ward got baptised this week so that was awesome. We missed it since we were at the temple. Our investigators Alex and Daniel are both progressing towards a baptism date and we had a less active/recent convert reach back out to us and asked us to help her come back to church. 

This week is going to be crazy because we have 3 exchanges planned and we need to get 2 baptismal interviews done and a bunch of lessons with our people that are progressing. We aren't really sure on how we are going to get it all done so far but it is going to be a super fast week. 

Anyways Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Robison

Cameron was assigned as a zone leader in Beaumont YSA ward with Elder Robison (they were trained in the MTC together)