Deep Thoughts from the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission: Week Eighteen

That rainstorm on Tuesday was pretty close to hitting me. I was walking home for dinner when thunder and lighting started going off everywhere. Right as I was walking into my apartment building the raindrops started to fall. When I got into my apartment it was POURING. The water flooded up in the parking lot to about half a foot. It was pretty insane. I'm glad I was able to get home before that so my suit is still safe, and I got to walk back to my zone with my coat.

I was running an errand for my zone and I had to go to the 23rd floor of the Church Office Building. Sister Simmons (I think that's who it was) ran into me while I was there. I don't know if she told you that she ran into me or not yet.

I sent you a birthday letter (with a gift enclosed) and I hope it will get there soon. Also remember how last Thursday I was all like (I don't know about calling home yet)? Well that very night when Elder Hurd was doing check ins he announced the signing up for call times. I will be given a cell phone at 6 PM and that's when I will call home, so be prepared. And please tell Grandma that she is invited to come over during that time because that's perfectly okay it being Mother's Day and all.

I kept forgetting to tell you that I haven't been sending picture because my camera broke. I'm serious. I can't get either of the cameras here to work. No matter how many times I change the batteries or mess around with the settings or anything. So here's what I did. Last night I asked Elder Hurd if he could take some pictures of all of us and then if he could e-mail to my church e-mail (we have familysearch e-mails that we can use whenever but they're only for church and missionary business...and that totally counts.) And I will attach those pictures.

Also, I got a letter from Elder Gibb all the way from India! I don't know what it had to go through to get here (I appears to be covered in some sort of sauce, but it was still legible thankfully) and it was dated Feb 27. It took two and a half months to get here. Elder Farrel told me that if I can get a first class international stamps that I could reply quicker, so I was wondering if you could try getting me some of those.

This week has gone well. The patrons I help are always awesome like always. Although there was this one person (and she was a Senior Sister on this mission but she worked somewhere else) who kept wanting me to help her find a Utah death certificate. The particular ancestor wasn't even born in England or anything, and she was on the BRITISH FLOOR expecting help from me a BRITISH SERVICE MISSIONARY. I kept telling her that I wouldn't know how to find that certificate but that if you go to the 2nd floor (the US/Canada floor) they could definitely help her, but she refused to go up and she wouldn't stop asking me for help. I tried my best with what I know on Familysearch and everything but again, I'm not familiar with all the other vast resources that exist for the US, BECAUSE I SPECIALIZE IN THE BRITISH ISLES AND IRELAND. Anyway, yeah, that was annoying.

We also had an interesting experience with one guy coming in saying that he did believe in God, but that he doesn't agree with our church. However, he said he wanted temple work done on our ancestors because his reasoning was that he wanted them to have salvation, and if it wasn't true, then what harm would be done with us doing it. A pretty interesting guy, but he did have some pretty good points. I don't know why so many people get mad at the work we do in the temple; but like a non-member himself said, what harm is it doing?

One more thing: Elder Brandon took me to see Dr. Ferry again. We told him about my headache and neck problems and how they still seem to happen even though I'm doing my stretches and whatever. He adjusted my medication...AND IT'S WORKING MIRACLES. So it took a while but it looks like I finally figured out [what] works for me.

Love everyone that reads this and I'm looking forward to [calling you] Sunday.

-Elder Larson

Pictures: I already dressed for bed but no one else had so I quickly put on a tie and my name tag. And that wall you see with all the words is the "Wall of Puns". Elder Farrel really likes puns and will just randomly write them down and hang them up on the wall.