Grip It and Rip It Fat Bike Edition

Man this week was super cold. On Saturday it was like 30 degrees. I'm super sensitive to the cold now so I put on like 5 layers and then just went out and sent it.

This week we went on 2 exchanges with some Zone Leaders and we will be going on another one tonight. Honestly at this point every week is a blur so it is hard to remember everything that happened. 

1) We had new missionary training which was super cool. I feel like all of the new missioanries are my little children because we pick them up when they first get her, train them, and then send them off with their trainers. I love seeing the progress they make and how they are growing. It is probably how our Heavenly Father feels towards us a lot. I had this thought that was super powerful to me. I thought about what our Heavenly Father might have said right before we left to come into mortality and I imagine he would have wanted us to remember who we are, what our purpose was, and that he was there to help us along the way.  

Elder Mills

2) The other cool experience I had was on the way back from one of our exchanges I had a clear thought of a member and then I had the thought to go a street above there. So we acted on it the next day and we were out tracting and some drove by and called us to come over. He was a recent convert from Mississippi who had moved and didn't know where the church was. He had fell back into some past sin and he wanted help from us. It was one of those circumstances where when you pray for help in the Lords work he will give us the inspiration to achieve it. 

Elder Ferrell, Elder Mills, Elder Larson

Here is a quote from Henry B. Eyring's talk: "Brothers and sisters, the Lord has opportunities near you to feel and to share His love. You can pray with confidence for the Lord to lead you to love someone for Him. He answers the prayers of meek volunteers like you. You will feel the love of God for you and for the person you serve for Him. As you help children of God in their troubles, your own troubles will seem lighter. Your faith and your hope will be strengthened"

I know that I have come to know Him better by serving Him and my love for Him has increased. I hope you all take the opportunity to pray and seek for people to lift so you can feel of the love God has for you. Have a great week!

The Shanty

This week we had zone conference which took up most of our week. We had 3 of them so we were traveling around the mission. We talked about having hope and gratitude. Something that really stood out to me this week was hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fufill his promises (from PMG). I love that the Book of Mormon's purpose is to 1) convince that Jesus is the Christ and 2) tell of the covenants that God has made with his people that are possible because of Jesus Christ. When we learn of the promises of God it brings us hope!

On Wednesday we stayed in Vidor in the "Shanty". It is this super small building on President Ross's compound that the Zone Leaders live on. At night it got like 32 degrees since the heater wasn't on so we woke up freezing. So the next couple of days I was sick. Then I went on an exchange with Elder Ferrell who is the Lake Houston ZL. He is one of my best friends on the mission. I love him so much. We were out in our area without a car (since Elder Mills and his companion took it) and we were told we were going to get picked up at 6:00 PM. We were both kind of counting down the time since we were walking around and we both were sick. Well 8:00 came around and we still hadn't heard from them so it was like an episode of survivor haha. Eventually they made it back and they had talked with this man who had investigated with the church for a couple of years but still hasn't joined. It is kind of a long story. 

This week will be a good one. We have 2 exchanges planned and we are going to start some transfer planning for the next couple of transfers. We have a general authority that is going to tour our mission after transfers so the next couple of weeks are going to be a blur. I love serving the Savior because that is how we come to know him! Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Cameron Larson

Grip it and Rip it

Hey friends and family! Merry Christmas and Happy New year! Sorry I didn’t write last week.  It was so good to be able to talk with my family and I love them so much! Thank you to everyone who sent me something or wished me a Merry Christmas! I really appreciate it!

These weeks have been pretty crazy because Sister Hewlett’s father passed away so she went home. It also happened to be the same week that we had Christmas Zone Conference so we were just trying to survive without her. It was like when your mom goes out of town for the weekend so you get takeout every day and you are just trying to keep things from setting on fire. But she is doing really well and had a great time with her family. 

For Christmas we were able to spend time with President Hewlett and his family that came into town. We had dinner and played a ton of ping pong. I even bought a new paddle from Academy so I'm in it to win it. 

Here are some cool experiences from the past week:

1) I was on exchanges with Elder Slade who I trained last year. That was sweet in itself. When we were planning for they day Elder Mills told us that he had a dream about where we could find someone to teach. He told us to go to this members home and to start knocking to the right. So, for our morning time we did exactly that. On the 3rd house there was a man that opened the door and everything seemed really normal but he actually let us inside his home! We taught him about the restoration and the spirit was really strong. He had just gone through a divorce and was wondering what his purpose was. We gave him a Book of Mormon but we haven't been able to seen him since. 

2) We were teaching a recent convert named Victoria about the temple and her less active son named Benji was able to join us. He had gotten baptized about 8 years ago and he didn't know what the temple was. We were able to teach him about covenants and the work that happens in the temple. The spirit was super strong and he really felt it and has a desire to come back to church and renew his covenants he made at baptism. 

The reason for my title is because in our mission we are now all weekend warriors. We decided as a mission to make the missionaries park their car on Saturdays so they can spend more time out and about with the people. I started to call it, "grip it and rip it Saturday" so now that is what almost our whole mission calls it haha! 

Other than that things are still going really well here. Elder Mills & I are busy and we see miracles every single day. I have been writing all of the miracles in my journal and I just don't have time to tell all of them. I was reading a talk this week by President Eyring called, "Remembrance & Gratitude" (and pretty much all of his talks, he is the best). When we take time at the end of our day to reflect on how God has blessed us that day the Holy Ghost will remind us of times that we saw the hand of the Lord. I know that as I have seen these miracles on my mission it has shown me that God lives and he is watching over us. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve him and come to know our Savior :) 

Scripture for the week:

Mosiah 5:13

Elder Cameron Larson 

The big dictionary we have

The Christmas Eve packages we spent 9 hours delivering

New paddle, who dis

Christmas Conference

Photo Cred: President Hewlett

Addie Hewlett's Birthday