Friday, March 25, 2011

"Quote of the day"

(sorry it isn't the exact German letters, but you get the idea)

Uberashen!  Ich Brauche die wahrheit!  Oh my gutta!  Ich habbe die wahrheit!  Ich bin Elder Larsen und ich bin ein representant uber Doe Kirche Jesus Christi der heiligen der letzten tage und ich habe eine botschaft fur sie! :)

Translation:  Kyle:  "SURPRISE!"  Elder Spendlove:  "I need the truth!"  Kyle:  "Oh my goodness!  I have the truth!  I am Elder Larsen and I am a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ and I have a message for you!!" 

Week 3 in the MTC

Kyle is doing great in the MTC!  He says that the language is getting harder and harder to learn since they introduced new grammar rules, but at a street contacting activity they had last week, he started speaking German so fast that the missionaries that had been there for 9 weeks, and his teacher Bruder Decosta were amazed!  Kyle said he had no idea where it came from but it was awesome! 
Kyle says that he feels insufficient to be one of the special missionaries to serve in Germany.  It is the hardest mission in the church right now.  Since the year 2000, Germany has gone from having 6 missions to having only 2 in Berlin and Frankfurt.  There are 82 million people living in Germany, and only 36,000 of them are members.  There are only 14 stakes and 92 wards in all of Germany.  Out of all of the 36,000 members, there is only 172 German missionaries and Kyle is one of them!!!  He says, "I am responsible for 82 million peoples salvation..figuratively speaking.  That is a lot of people!"  Another fact is that every time that the church starts sending more missionaries to Germany, there is a world war.  Kyle is a part of one of the largest groups that has been sent since the Berlin Wall.  The leaders of the church know this, and the last 3 times they have said we need more missionaries in Germany and sent them, World War 1 started, the next time World War 2 started, and last time the Berlin Wall happened in which all three times it resulted in missionaries getting evacuated to the Netherlands and Denmark.
In the country of 82 million members, church youth are only one of few members in their communities.  There are often only 1 or 2 members in entire schools.  The school teachers know that they are members of the church.  One teachers named Karen Pilz said, "The teacher told my daughter, you are a member of the church I can tell.  I knew one once, he was different, he was a fine young man".  Kyle commented and said, "People know we are different!  They know we are special and yet they still deny it!  Why?"
The world is in turmoil, there is talk of saints being kidnapped, murdered, and all this in the bible and its starting to happen.  Kyle said that he is going straight into the heart of all this wicked.  There is the Middle East, Egypt, South Korea, U.S.S.R. Georgia, and he will be right in the middle of it.
"If i opened up my mission call last November and Jesus appeared and said, Kyle you have been called to Germany however you will only help one person is it worth it?  I would still go!  It is more worth it than anything!"

Monday, March 21, 2011

Elder Larsen

Kyle has officially been in the Provo MTC for 19 days!  His "lovely" companion is Elder McGuire.  Lets just say that they haven't become the best of friends yet.  The first week or so Kyle struggled with sickness.  He claims that the food tastes like dirty feet and that they let it sit for a year before serving it to them!  I think he is picky personally.. but after losing 16 pounds and acquiring food poisoning, he is starting to feel much better. 
In one of Kyle's letters he said that his district is always jealous of him because on average he gets 14 letters and 2 packages a day!! AND WANTS MORE!  So if you would like to write to Elder Larsen he would love it!

Elder Kyle Tracy Larsen
MTC Mailbox #204
GER-FRA 0502
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Kyle is learning German so well!  He said he feels almost fluent and that it is already getting hard to transfer back to English.  His first day of class he went in and the teacher only spoke German and that's how it's been since.  He has class for 9 hours a day and about 35 German textbooks to study with.  A cool bit of information he shared was that the amount of German that they are learning  in 3 months would take the average person 45 years to learn!
During an interview he was told that "Europe is a great sleeping giant for missionary work, Germany was going to wake that giant up.  Elder Larsen I can feel you are going to play a special role in the awakening of this great sleeping giant".  That is so awesome!  I can't wait to see what is in store for him in the great city of Germany!