How was everyone's Christmas? Hopefully everything was beautiful and amazing. We had a white Christmas and then it rained and melted almost all of the snow we had. What a blessing! The roads were pretty bad in some places. The people that run the snowplows in Utah need to teach these Virginians a thing or two. Anyway, Christmas was great and it was fun to talk to the family.
I am now living in Arlington. Yes, the same place where the National Cemetery is. We are hoping to go on a P-day and see the changing of the guard. Or at least I am. My companion has already gone, but we live 7 minutes away so who wouldn't want to go again right? I am serving in the Bella Vista ward. There are a lot of english members that have callings here. The bishop is American. Surprisingly, though, my ability to understand spanish has really improved in the last week. Interesting...
We went to a breakfast with the stake president for all of the missionaries in the stake. It was the biggest house I've ever seen. Their secondary kitchen was nicer than most people's regular kitchen. You can imagine how their full sized kitchen was. No words to describe it. His wife was really nice and put together fruit baskets for each companionship and a stocking for each missionary. The sisters each got a pair of gloves and all of the missionaries got some really nice pens that had a designer name on them. I was almost afraid to open it and use it. We're pretty spoiled here.
We had a baptism last night. Her name is Charo. It was so fun to see her come up out of the font after the baptism. I've never experienced that before and I loved it! After the baptism was over we realized that the Elder didn't pull the plug on the drain. The door was already locked to the front of the font so we couldn't just reach our arms in to do it. Guess who got to go wading in the water... Haha, I only went down the first two steps because I didnt' want to get my skirt wet, but I couldn't reach that far with my arm. You can imagine how silly it must have looked when I was standing on one foot and trying to grab the chain with the other. Don't worry, I had pants on under the skirt because it was cold outside. I almost fell in a couple of times, but then we found a clipboard that helped me reach it with my hands and we pulled it. Mission accomplished!
I can't believe it's almost 2010 already! We aren't allowed to go out on the 31st so we get to watch a movie with our zone. We are watching "Up." I'm so excited. It's going to be weird, though. We also get to watch a movie on Halloween. Hopefully everyone has a wonderful New Year. Make some good goals that will last longer than the first few weeks. And make them good spiritual ones too. None of this "I'm going to lose 10 pounds" junk.
I love you all and thank you for your love and support. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope the holidays are filled with happiness for everyone! We sure have had a good time with all of the snow we've been getting. They canceled church on Sunday because of it. I'm not sure exactly how much snow fell. The original estimate was 12 inches, but then I heard that it changed to 22 inches. We'll just say that it was more than I've seen in a long time. Don't worry, though, we still went out and walked in it. We had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. Especially on Sunday when we went out and helped people dig their cars out. My forearms, back, and abs were pretty sore the next day. I'm glad I learned how to shovel at a young age. It was hard not to laugh at some of the other people who clearly couldn't run one very efficiently. That's okay, though.
There were a lot of people that we passed who were stuck in the snow because they don't know the art of pulling out of a parking lot when it's all deep like that. We tried to offer to help push them out, but no one wanted our help it seemed like. One man agreed to have us help until we started pushing and my scarf fell down, revealing my nametag and he realized that we are mormons. He couldn't get us away from his car fast enough. Oh well. I guess you can't force your help on everyone. they still have their agency.
The Christmas conference on Capitol Hill was pretty interesting. We went over time on the lunch by about two hours. There were a lot of senators and congressmen that had a lot to say... They were all members of the church that spoke to us and they told us about their missions and bore their testimonies. It was interesting to see that side of them. We got a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus too. Then we got a very short tour of the capitol because we were two hours late for our scheduled time. There was so much history in there that I wanted to look at, but there just wasn't time. There was a room that had statues of people from each state and all of us, like the nerdy missionaries that we are, were taking pictures of the Brigham Young statue. I'm sure it was a big joke for everyone that was watching us go through. Anyway, after that was over we took a mission picture on the steps of the capitol with the dome behind us. It was taken by the official house photographer and it's going to turn out really good because the sun was reflecting off the side of the dome as it was going down. It was so beautiful! Hopefully I'll get a copy of it so I can send one home.
Well, I hope everyone's Christmas is going to be wonderful and full of joy. This really is a great time of year when we get to ponder about the life of Christ and all that He did for us. It gives us all a lot more hope for what lies in the future and strength to face the difficulties. Thank you all for your examples and support and just know that I love you all!Merry Christmas!
Hermana Heather Larsen

Before I say anything else, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Kammi and Brock on the 20th!!!! (I think?) Can you believe that you have already been married for a year?! Congratulations!
Well, I have officially been in Virginia for one month already. I can't believe it. Just when I start thinking that a day is getting long, it's already next week. It seems like there is never enough time to do everything that we need to. We have transfers coming up next week and I'm probably going to have to leave my area. It makes me pretty sad because there are so many people here that I love. They're like my family now. It's going to be really hard, but I'm sure that I'll fall in love with the people in my next area just as quickly.
In two days we have the event that I've been waiting for. We get to go to the capitol building and eat a Christmas dinner with all of the Washington D.C. South missionaries. There will be several Senators and other very influential people there. It has been rumored that we are going to be seeing Senators Reid and Hatch. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say to us since we aren't allowed to talk politics. Basically, I'm SUPER EXCITED! Then we get a mission tour of the capitol. Wow! I guess it pays off to have stake presidents and other members of the church who work for the government. They must have pulled some serious strings for us to be able to do this. I'm also excited that we get to ride the good ole' Metro. My trainer has never ridden it so it looks like I'll be training for a day. Hehehe...
We set 2 baptismal dates for a mother and daughter. It isn't really set in stone yet, but I know they are going to get baptized eventually. It's just a matter of which day. The daughter is 12 years old and was already living basically everything in the For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet when we met her. We gave her a copy to read and she really liked it and was happy to find out that there were other people her age that had the same standards as she does. She absolutely loves going to the young women's activities and it is so wonderful that we can count on the young women in our branch to just take the reigns from there. There really is nothing better than the members fellowshipping our investigators. That's your assignment for the week. Find someone that you aren't super aqcuainted with and get to know them. It works wonders for the strength of the ward and it makes our lives a whole lot easier. Missionaries can't do the work without the help of the members! Sorry, I'll stop preaching to the choir now.
I hope everyone is happy and well and that you are enjoying the Christmas season. I never really understood how much happiness we really have until I came here and saw so many people that are without it. God really is so merciful to provide a way for us to return with Him by sending His son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to celebrate His life and the wonderful example that He gave us. Don't let it pass by without learning something from it.
I love you all and hope you have a great week!
All my love,Hermana Heather Larsen
P.S. In case you are wondering about the weather, there isn't much snow here and the temperatures haven't gotten as cold as it sounds like yours have. We only had one big snow storm and the rest of the time it's been pretty sunny. The grass is still green. It rains every once in a while and we had some thick fog the past couple of nights. It's pretty nice. Except the wind feels like it's going to bite your nose off sometimes. That's really the only time I get super cold. I think it will get a lot worse in January and February. At least that's what I've been told.

Welcome to the family Jessie! Congratulations to Jaren and Kathy and the kids. I'll be waiting for pictures just so you know... I'm excited to have another niece!
Well, we had a baptism this week. But it didn't count as an investigator because the boy was eight years old. (His mom is a member, but his dad isn't.) He didn't want to get baptized at first because he was afraid of the water. We took care of that one in a hurry. It only took about 5 minutes for him to be super excited to be baptized. I don't remember if I told you about him, but this is the same boy that we left the children's Book of Mormon and he read 14 chapters instead of the assigned 1. He has since finished it. What an incredible example! Anyway, he had to be baptized three times because his feet kept floating to the top of the water. Finally, the person baptizing him had to step on his feet while he put him under the water. He definitely won't forget that day! We are hoping to set some more baptismal dates this week. Our mission has a goal of reaching 400 baptisms by the end of the year. I think right now we are at about 360. It's crunch time!
We are teaching someone right now named Henry. He was born Catholic, converted to Apostles and Prophets, and then converted again to Baptist. His friend/we think girlfriend is in our branch and he has started investigating the church. He wouldn't even touch the Book of Mormon. You can imagine how funny it was in the first lesson we had with him and my companion handed her scriptures to him to have him read them. She purposefully didn't tell him that it wasn't the bible:) You should have seen his face when he realized what it was. He read the scripture and then shoved it into the hands of his friend just to get it out of his as soon as possible. The real miracle is that we left a copy with him that night with a few assigned chapters and he is now reading the Book of Mormon! AMAZING! He actually really likes it. No surprise there.
I have such a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It changes lives, because it invites us to grow closer to the Savior. There is no other way we can find happiness than by coming to Him. Don't take my word for it, though. Try it out for yourselves! I love you all.
Hermana Larsen