Monday, April 7, 2014

"God knows things about us that we do not even know ourselves." -Elder Michael John U. Teh



So, Conference. Can we just all take a second and just bask in the spirit of how incredible General Conference was this past weekend? Seriously. I cannot even tell you how much spiritual revelation and new insights I received, not just for my mission, but for the rest of my life! The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is real, people! I promise you. This quote from Elder Teh was one that really hit me hard this past weekend. He is so right. God knows us so much better than we know ourselves, so we need to trust Him implicitly! Another talk that hit me hard was Elder D. Todd Christofferson's. Endings are so hard in life. I've never thought about why though. And when he said that because our Spirit's are eternal beings, it just made so much sense to me! Endings are so hard for us because our Spirit KNOWS that we are eternal and that there is more to life than just this earth! I also loved Elder Uchtdorf's about being grateful IN our circumstances, not being grateful FOR things. And being grateful all the time, even when times are hard. So you know how for General Conference you should really think about some questions you have before conference so they can be answered through the spirit of the talks given by the speakers? So I will tell you one of my questions, and you can judge me, I don't even care, but I just feel like sharing it. One of my questions was "is it worth it?" meaning my mission. The first session, the first talk given, by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, he answered it in a complete sentence. He said "and yes! it IS worth it!" talking about defending our faith, not just as missionaries, but as members as well. I am so grateful to be a member of this wonderful restored gospel of Jesus Christ and I know that He lives and will come again. I love you all so much and hope you have an absolutely amazing week(:

Love, Sister Brittany Anne Larsen(:

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Courage! For the Lord is on our side!



This last week has been kind of weird. It feels like this transfer is basically already over. Obviously it's not, we are only on week 2, but it just flies after week 2. So basically, it's already over. We saw so many miracles this past week! Sister Stewart and I did A LOT of finding. we found 11 new investigators though so that was such a blessing. We were even able to set a baptismal date with one of our NI (new investigator) named Noah! He is YSA (young single adult) and so cool. We will be handing him off to the YSA sisters though so he can get the fellowshipping he needs from people his own age. We know we will be blessed for this though because it's not about who baptizes who, it's about who get's baptized! And just being able to play a small part in someone's conversion is such an incredible blessing.
So this morning in personal study i was reading in Mosiah. I love Mosiah. But so i was reading in chapter 5 and in verse 7 it is so powerful. It says "and now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ..." Like woah! okay, so you might not be thinking woah, and neither did I at first, so let me explain. We are all children of God no matter what. Even the people that don't believe in God, they are still a child of God. You can never NOT be a child of God no matter how hard you try. But here when it says a child of CHRIST, I thought "now that doesn't make ANY sense because He is our brother" but when we covenant with God, like when we are baptized or receive our endowments, we are becoming a child of Christ in the sense that we are accepting our royal and divine blood that is in us. We are CHOOSING to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. We take His name upon us when we covenant with God, and in so doing, we become a child of Christ, meaning that we will always do and say the things that Christ would do and say. I just have gained such a strong testimony of covenants since being out on my mission. It's like the whole Spiderman thing "with great power comes great responsibility." The more covenants we make, the more knowledge God gives us, and the more responsibility we have to not only understand those covenants, but to keep them as well. Covenants was a huge topic that was hit on this past Saturday at the General Women's Broadcast and I thought it was so inspired. Sister Linda K. Burton said in her talk, "the best way to strengthen home and family is by keeping covenants" and even though I don't have a family of my own yet, I know that by keeping my covenants right now, my family and home is blessed, and my future family is blessed as well. i have seen so much sorrow come from not keeping covenants since being out on my mission from other people's lives and it really is so true, how much joy and happiness and peace this gospel brings us. I am so grateful to be out serving as a disciple and representative of Jesus Christ. I love you all so much and hope you have a fantastic week(:

Love, Sister Brittany Larsen(:


**She said she won't be able to send any pictures for a while.  The computers that they are using right now don't have the capability to upload/send pictures. But she said, "it is beautiful and green and fairy tale like."