Mothers DAYYY!!!

Not gonna write a big mass letter today because yesterday................... I got to Skype with the best people I know! Namely My beautiful mother Cindy, my dad Bryce, and my 2 brothers Matthew and Tanner, with guest appearances from LEVI Larkin and Chambray Cribbs! (shout outs! be ready for Levi's mix tape coming out soon) 

Basically it was a LEGENDARY day. Couldn't think of a better way to spend mothers day in the Dominican Republic. 

Mom! You are absolutely amazing and I'd like to thank you publicly for everything that you do! I love you so much!

Now as for the rest of you... you're all right :) Hope everyone has a great week and that ALL the moms out there know they are awesome 

¡Nos Vemos ahorita!

Jungle/Beach Adventures

So okay I'm on today!! and I've got a lot to catch up on!

So as for missionary work. It's going very very good! We are teaching some really awesome people and its really really good! I've learned that this is the ONLY gospel that really makes any sense and when other people realize it it's just so amazing to see how fast their lives change! We are going to have a baptism in 3 weeks and his name is Ronelby. Hes 13 years old and he is just so awesome. He's shared the gospel with his family and they are already talking to him as if he was LDS all his life. His dad even asked us what his son would do on his mission!! This kid isn't even baptized yet :) Its very very cool. Another is named Jose Miguel. Hes 15 years old and this kid is TALLER than, you guessed it, just about anyone I've ever seen. He's like 6'6'' or something like that. But this kid is GOLDEN. We met him one day at his grandma's house, (she's a recent convert.) And we were talking with her and her grandson was just sponging all this knowledge up. At the end we asked him if he wanted to go to church the next day and he did! Actually he was the FIRST person to show up. That's on of the coolest things I've seen. We've been teaching him for about 2 weeks now, and hes gonna get baptized June 18th! The last lesson we had with him was about the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson we asked him if we could kneel for the final prayer and asked if he could say it. Normally we ask the people we are teaching to pray that night for an answer from God to see if all of this stuff was true. BUT this time I felt like he should ask at that moment. So.. he prayed like he normally would've but this time he prayed, and sat there for a moment with his eyes closed. Silence........ then he lifted his head, and with tears in his eyes asked, "why do I have to wait for June 18th?" Its good to be a missionary I'll say that.

So as for activities! We went to the beach like I mentioned before but this time I have my pictures! And yesterday we went up into the jungle and UP a river to a waterfall! There were places where we had to scale a small cliff, walk through knee deep water (doesn't count as swimming) but we made it to 2 waterfalls where I took a shower under it :) VERY VERY FUN. I took a bunch of pictures and videos, but the videos are WAY big so you'll just have to see them when my mother, who has a blog for my mission apparently, uploads them! Oh also I caught an iguana in this dudes backyard!! Good stuff :) 

Whelp...

Okayyyyyy so im not gonna be able to write TODAY because it's a holiday and all the Internet centers are closed.... but I'll write tomorrow! Sorry everyone! I'm using a members phone to write this real quick but love ya all and see ya tomorrow!

HMM

Ok so I have 0 time this week so I'm just gonna say that this week was not the greatest but I'm gonna make the next one awesome! I have a lot to say but I'll just save it for next week! Also I have lots of pictures so those are gonna be fun! Hope everyone had an awesome week!

Love you all!

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Since Bryson's mass email was only one sentence, I thought I'd post his email to me that has a little bit more info!  LOL!  (see below)

(Elder Gubler sent this all the way from Paraguay!  Too bad we didn't get it until after Bryson's Birthday!)  :(

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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THAT COLLAGE IS SO AWESOME THANK YOU GUYS!!!!!!!! also the money is a nice perk of becoming older. I like that. hahaha.

Okay so this week was rough. There's a big festival in the city and basically EVERYONE is gone all day and it was really hard to get lessons in. We spent a lot of time walking from house to house knocking on doors on houses that didn't have anyone inside. Meh! NO I didn't get my package yet. Ill probably get it tomorrow when we have interviews with president or at our next zone meeting on May 20th!  I'm hoping tomorrow!

Also that sounds awesome that the jeep is running awesome!! Haha too bad Matthew cant drive it yet! DON'T be slack on him! Make him do that Eagle project before he gets his permit! 

But yeah we went to the beach today! (obviously we cant swim but it was still cool) I took pictures BUT because of the virus I cant send ANYTHING. It sucks. BUT I know how to fix it so I'll get that done ASAP. 

Also today I met a witch!  Like a real one. Before the mission I would have said "yeah right that stuff doesn't exist" but dang is it real! This lady was standing on the rocks in the middle of the water with her hands up in the air and she like picked up water, threw it into the air and then drank some sea water!! It was nuts. She started to talk to me after and said that she is a "missionary" and God gives her power to control the ocean and junk like that. Crazy. But yeah she definitely was a witch. There's some messed up stuff here in the DR!  But I'm on the Lords errand so I don't even worry about that stuff :)

But hey! Love you so much! 

Bryson

OH ALSO May 8 we get to call home for skype! I don't really remember when Mother's day is but that's the day we get to skype :) It'll be awesome!

Work work work work work work work

Yes that is a reference (my subject) to the new songs about "work" that ive heard many a time in the street here in the DR haha. 

So this last week we worked our butts off! We have been trying to find our new investigators since i got here and we're finally starting to find some! We are working with 3 in particular and they have baptism dates in may! We contacted SO MANY houses. The hardest people to talk to are the Catholics for some reason. they just wanna get us out of there as soon as they can. once the person saw who we were, and just said, "no" and walked back inside... we walked away and i was like, "okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" :D

So we had a fun activity today with our zone and another, and we did a bunch of fun stuff. (water balloons were thrown and sisters dont like that very much ill tell you that. I got many a bucket of water poured on me) 

But yes it was a good week. Some good stories. I found a spider in the shower with me.. he was watching me and i was watching him... we found an agreement in that if I didn't move toward him he wouldn't move toward him. good stuff.

But yeah! love you all! have an awesome week!

Stress? Yes a little.

Okay so I have like little time so imma make it quick.

This week has been stressful! So first of all, my camera memory got a virus from one of the computers here, yeah it sucks because I cant view ANY of my pictures. Hopefully ill find someone who can fix it. secondly the members here are a little difficult to deal with. They don't really wanna work or help us out, and then there's the fact that there's like 30 of them. We're gonna have to motivate them to work with us and not just see them on Sundays. We DO have a few people who do actually want to do some work and that's awesome! I've got a lot of work to do!!!

But it was a good week nonetheless! We contacted A TON this week. We've been finally finding a bunch of people that are willing and wanting to hear the message I have to share. Its really a blessing that we're having success in finding golden people!

Anyways, I gotta go teach some more and then hold a family home evening, so I'll write you guys next week!!

Goodbye's and Hello's

Well... Now I'm here in Yaguate! I apologize for the people who looked up "Yaguate, San Cristobal" on google images. And now I know that some of you are going to do it right now, but... I warned you.

Haha! Its a lot different here in the south! The people are EVEN more laid back here. To the point they don't really wanna help us that much but... we'll work on that!

My companion, Elder Sosa, is from here! He's from the north part called Santiago. He just got done training with his "Dad" and I'm his "Stepdad." Basically the first person who is your comp is your Dad and the 2nd is your Stepdad. It's gonna be interesting! But he has the attitude to work so we'll do fine!

So Conference was a little rough here. We had to watch it in the church. (a little teeny tiny building with the church logo outside) on a computer monitor. Like 4 people showed up Saturday and like 10 Sunday.  And it was in Spanish! I'm downloading them in English so I can get the full experience but you know how it is :)

Have a good week everyone! I don't have a lot of time left!!

Your fav missionary in the DR...
Elder Bryson Larkin
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Saying Goodbye

Elder Sosa and Pics of New Apartment

Elder Larkin & Elder Sosa