Last Letter Home from the Washington DC South Mission

Elder Hadfield and Elder Lassen looking in empty refrigerator
Serving in Leesburg, VA the last 11 weeks together..Elder Hadfields' first weeks and Elder Lassen's last weeks of their missions in Washington DC South
(they took this photo a few weeks ago to make thank you cards for members who feed them)

Monday December 14, 2009 – Last letter home.

Hey Everyone,

Wow, its starting to sink in a little bit that I'll really be home by the close of this week. Super weird. These last few days have been, and the next few will also be, very full and very good. I haven't really become emotional yet, or broken down anywhere, but I have been having more trouble sleeping lately. My mind won't seem to shut off the way it usually does. Thoughts of home, school, friends, decisions to make, future jobs, and many others have been keeping my mind active until at least around midnight for the last week or so. Haha, though, I take it as a good sign that apparently I'm still teaching lots of lessons in my sleep. Elder Hadfield is a pretty light sleeper, and every morning he'll tell me what the topic of last night's gospel lesson was. ;o) So, evidently, I'm still pretty focused huh?

This last week has been, in many ways, my best week ever. We had 2 baptisms on Saturday and then on Sunday we had one more . I've never had this problem before, but I liked it: On sunday night, for the baptism, we wanted to be early but my white pants were still drying from the day before. I felt like a Brazillian missionary for a short second there.

I've loved Leesburg. It's like Else once told me: Just when you start to figure out how to be an effective missionary, they send you home on a plane. I really have seen the Lord do amazing things in this area since I've been here these 11 short weeks. I wish every missionary in the world could have a last week as good as mine has been. I didn't expect the Lord to be so good to me, but I'm grateful that He has been. So here's a sketch of my last week. Check this out:

Fri, Dec. 11:
Picked up a tenor sax at the music store. First time I've played in ages. Felt awesome. Its a new horn, but a really cheap brand that I've never heard of before. Still, it works alright. I still haven't gotten to break it back out yet, so i'm hoping to do that later today. Later that night we taught and went over the baptismal interview questions with the sister to make sure she really wanted to have such an expedited baptismal service. She sounded really confident, so we scheduled her actual interview and then said we'd aim to have the service on Tues. the 15th. We went on a full split that night (I go with one member of the ward, E. Hadfield goes with another) and as a result we got lots of good work done. 3 new investigators, all of whom were member referrals. Awesome.

Sat. Dec. 12:
Baptism of two young people. It went really well, though it started 40 minutes late... whoops. Yeah, we forgot to tell them expressly that they needed to bring a towel and dry underwear to change into... But a lot of their family came to support them, and for a lot of them I think it was their first time in one of our chapels. So to keep them busy while we were all waiting, Bro. Guerrero took them all on a tour of the building, which from the sounds of it went really well. Later we were back at the chapel for the other sister's baptismal interview, and she was certified as being ready for the commitment. Then we headed over to a post-baptism fiesta! Food was great, and we got to have some really good conversations with some of those family members who had come from all over for the baptism. Later that night was our ward Christmas party, which was good, and helped us to coordinate lots of things with some of our members. After all that, we got a haircut from one of the members of the Spanish group who treats missionaries with a free haircut anytime. I was needing one pretty badly. It was kind of poetic really, cause it was to be my last haircut in the mission field, and my companion's first one in the mission field. Just as we were leaving the house, some of the family members (who haven't been active in a long time I guess) came in, and we asked if we could leave a blessing in the home. They all said that that would be nice, so I offered a prayer. By the end, the young mom who had just walked in was teary and her husband said that that was incredible, because she never expressed any sort of emotion. We could tell they were touched. Who knows what will happen now, but maybe something good. Also, this sister, who runs a kind of private salon in her basement, said that ever since she had started cutting missionaries' hair again (which was 10 weeks ago when I came into the area), her business had gone up noticeably. Nice huh? She's got good faith for sure.

Sun. Dec. 13
This was the day of all days. Church was awesome. I was running back and forth between both sacrament meetings (we have one in English in the chapel and one in Spanish in the R.S. Room, although we heard that this won't be the case anymore due to church policy or something) because I was supposed to sing in the Spanish meeting (the trio that Mom sent me, which we ended up translating into Spanish, and it turned out pretty well, except that I got sick and lost my voice two nights before... but it turned out pretty well anyway.), but I was also supposed to confirm one of the youth that was baptized the night before, a member of the church in the English group. Nothing was going according to schedule, so I was seriously going back and forth trying to figure out how to be in two places at once, but finally it worked out. I sang in Spanish with two Laurels from the ward, who both have great voices and were good on a short notice), then ran into English just in time for the confirmation. After church, a short correlation meeting and a quick lunch we headed off to the outlet mall here in Leesburg to try and contact some people. Our numbers were looking pretty good except that we had only made 6 contacts by Sunday morning :-\ when normally we're supposed to be in the 140 neighborhood. So, we rushed to the mall and gave out as many “Joy to the World” cards as we could. After a while of that we were up to 100 contacts for the week, and left just in time for our lesson we had with with the sister being baptized. Now, as I said before, we were planning on holding a baptismal service for her on Tuesday, but Sunday morning we found out that Tuesday wouldn't work because it was the other ward's youth night. So everybody in ward council just sort of looked at each other and Bishop said, “what about tonight?” So there it was... surprise baptism. So we went over to her home, taught a lesson, worked out some details and we were off again. We had a really nice dinner with family who are ward members, and the Sister , who's from the Philippines, even made lumpia (sp?) because I had told her that I liked it so much. It was really nice to have a nice meal on my last sunday. Haha, ironically, just as I'm leaving the mission, meals with active members have been given the ok again. Oh well, such is life. ;o) After dinner, we rushed back to the apartment, grabbed my barely dry baptismal clothes, and headed to the chapel (which conveniently is REALLY close to our apartment) for the express baptismal service. The baptism was nice. Light attendance, but important people were there, including the Spirit. The water heater hadn't worked as well as it should have, so it was a little bit of a cold baptism, which wasn't bad for me, but her body is really sensitive to cold and so it proved a little bit painful for her. Other than that, it was flawless and beautiful.
One thing that caught me by surprise is how many members of the Leesburg ward (including 2 members of the bishopric) turned all teary-eyed or choked up on me when they said goodbye. I really haven't been here that long, and it was just nice to know that 11 weeks in a place is enough time to make a difference. Actually, I think God just sort of forced the emotion into their voice so I'd think they cared about me ;o) I'll take it though. Poor Elder Hadfield has had to fight off a lot of thoughts of home since he's been with me. I try not to bring it up, but other people sure have, and every time they do, its just a painful reminder to him that he still has SOOO long to go.. haha. Oh well. It'll build character.
We were still short on our contacts for the week, and by the time the baptism was over and done with, we only had 15 minutes left in our night, so we rushed over to WalMart and between the two of us talked to 41 more people just as it turned 9:00. That night when I was reporting our week to our district leader, I really felt God had given me the perfect week, and I kept having to recheck things just to make sure I wasn't reporting false information. But sure enough, it all had happened.

Mon. Dec. 14 (today)
Pday has been good so far, but I feel like I've got tons to do still to get ready for this week. Tonight we're having a musical FHE at some members' home for members and non-members and I need to practice what I'm going to be doing. Still not sure what that is either... oh well. Should be fun. We're thinking around 12 planned performances, a couple of sing-a-longs, and also some chime-playing pieces will all happen, and that about 50 or 60 or so people will be there... Hope it works out space-wise.

Tues. Dec. 15 (tomorrow)
I've gotta run out to McLean for an appointment in the morning, then we've got like 6 appointments later. We'll probably have to go on full-splits again to cover it all.

Wed. Dec. 16
Mission-wide christmas conference at the Capitol building. I'll be playing sax there. Wish me luck. This'll be one of the bigger deals I've ever played now that I know its going to be in the Capitol and in front of some of the congressmen.

Thurs. Dec. 17
I'll be heading to the mission home with all of my luggage for my departing interview with President Albright. Later we'll all head to the Temple for a session, then have dinner in the mission home and then have our departing fireside at the Fairfax chapel at 7.

Fri.
Fly home... yikes.

What a week huh? Goodness. Pray for me. Pray that I'll get some sleep and that I'll do everything that I'm supposed to accomplish here before I leave. That's the tough part. How do I spend my time now that its so preciously short?

Well, I wasn't going to be this detailed, but I'm writing all of this as much for my sake as I am for all of you at home. I haven't had much time to write in my journal lately, so I figured I'd better record this stuff somewhere. I'm excited to see all of you at home, and I feel very grateful to have been so lucky as to serve here in the greatest mission in the world (there, I said it. ;o) I'll talk to you all pretty soon I guess. Until then,

With Love,

Elder Steffen Lassen

Service Hours and Zone Activities Halloween Weekend

Giving service in building a barn

Giving service

Elder Lassen

Elder Lassen and Elder Yazzie



Leaf-raking service is back in style. And this tree looked amazing, so I thought I'd share

New eye glasses for Elder Lassen...what do you think?

Zone Activity for Halloween

Barbeque with Zone

Well, We've had two zone activties lately, and that's been fun.

First there was Halloween where as a zone we scarfed down on pizza together and then watched "Kung Foo Panda" which was a really fun movie for a bunch of missionaries. I'm not sure how much I'd love it under different circumstances, but everybody laughed plenty of times by the end of the movie.

Then today the whole zone went over to our Ward Mission Leader's home for a BBQ. He has this gnarly-sized grill that he made himself and everything tasted great. (See the pics) This weekend we've got a couple of fun events happening. First of all, Kieth's getting baptized on Saturday, and that's going to be awesome. Then on Saturday night, we're holding a "Music Appreciation Night" at a member's house, where there'll be lots of good, live music, and food, and socializing. Hopefully it'll be a good opportunity for members to feel comfortable bringing their friends to meet other members of the church. Wish us luck for both of those and keep Kieth in your prayers.

P-day with Elder Yazzie into DC and Halloween

2009 Halloween Jack-o-lantern from the missionfield

Metro ride into DC

Biking to Metro and then into DC

Elder Yazzie and Elder Lassen on recent P-day into DC

Yesterday's PDay wiped us out! We decided to take a little adventure, but first you need some backstory. This is, as you know, Elder Yazzie's last transfer on the mission, so he wanted to take one more DC trip. So right at the start of the transfer we put the request in, and then kind of forgot about it. We never heard back from the Assistants if it was approved or not, so we just decided that it probably wasn't going to be approved. Well, Sunday night, right around 8:00 pm, we get a call from our zone leaders telling us that the trip to go the next day on the condition that we have a member ride, cause we can't drive our car out of the zone to the nearest metro station (which is in Vienna), and we definitely can't drive our car out of the mission. So we scrambled and tried to find a ride, but given the late notice, no-one, it seemed, could take us. Well, about 10:15pm I got it into my head that we could ride our bikes to Vienna, then hop onto the Metro and get the rest of the way there on our own. I got out a map and found the bike trail which leads all the way there and figured out that it was about 13 miles from the edge of the Ashburn zone to the Vienna Metro Station.

I sort of had to convince Elder Yazzie that this was going to be fun, and the next morning we set out. It actually was a beautiful ride. The trail is paved and its surrounded by trees that are changing color right now. So I had a great time of it, but Elder Yazzie wasn't as enthusiastic. He was a pretty good sport about it in the end though. We got to Vienna, stopped real quick at Nielsen's Frozen Custard (An LDS-owned, amazing shop where they treat missionaries really nicely) for a treat, then hopped on a train with our bikes (you can take your bikes on the trains during the non-rush-hour parts of the day) and got into DC.

We went to the National Museum of American History where among other things the original ruby-red shoes from Wizard of Oz are kept, and then the the National Museum of the American Indian which is a beautiful museum, both inside and out, and was especially meaningful for Elder Yazzie who is full-blooded Navajo ?

We snapped a picture in front of the Capitol Building and then took the Metro back to Falls Church where we had our Ward Mission Leader pick us up since he was nearby and he owns a big truck for the bikes. It was a great trip and I feel pretty accomplished that we got all the way from Leesburg to DC using nothing more than our bikes and a SmartTrip Card (that's the card to get onto the Metro).

All-in-All the whole trip cost us less than 5 bucks each. Not too shabby huh? Haha, but like I said, we were exhausted by the end of it all. Good memories though. Last night we went over to Kieth and Joy's house and had FHE with them and with the Darrington's.

So FHE consisted of Dinner, a short, halloween-themed scriptural message (hard to do, but we managed ;o) and carving pumpkins. It was lots of fun and made me miss Halloween at home a little less. I was really grateful for that, cause I love Halloween at our house. Its probably my 3rd favorite holiday.

Well, I've gotta get running, but I love you all, and hope you all have a splendidly scary Holloween!

Spookily yours,

Elder Steffen Lassen

Elder Lassen meets Apostle Richard G. Scott and Elder J.E. Jensen while going to DC Visitors Center

October 13, 2009

Elder Yazzie and Elder Lassen with investigators where they met Elder Richard G. Scott and Elder Jensen (no picture with them)

Elder Lassen and Elder Yazzie with investigators at DC Visitors Center

Elder Lassen with Lael Cox . Steffen says he is a good, good friend as he has worked with him for over a year in the Alexandria wards and he's the best member missionary ever!
Elder Lassen trying a coat at nearby outlet stores

All Elder Lassen's "stuff" as he prepares to pack and leave Alexandria for his transfer!

Hey Family and Friends,

Ok, so I just have time to tell a couple of stories.

First of all, my Spanish is coming along nicely. I just got out of an hour-and-a-half lesson where I handled 5 adult investigators at the same time by myself, none of whom spoke English. All I have to say is thank goodness for Spanish pamphlets and videos... :o)

We were going to have a member come with us, but she had to cancel last-minute. We have a couple of really good investigators right now. First is Kieth, who I mentioned when I sent you his picture. Then there's Jamie, who you also know a little about now. Then there's Roberto, who's our best Spanish investigator, but luckily he speaks really decent English. He's from Mexico City, and he's super sincere, and really fun to teach. He's got a good sense of humor also, and owing to many family problems, he's humble and down to earth. He's almost 60 years old I think, and unfortunately he and his wife have serious marital problems. He's a super good dad though, and he even had his two young kids (I want to say they're like 8 and 9 yrs. old) sit through 2 sessions of General Conference! Wow! That's dedication! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and invited him to be baptized this morning. He wouldn't commit to a date, but its definitely on his mind. During the lesson he mentioned that he used to ride bulls and work on a ranch and trick roping, so after the lesson he broke a rope out of the back of his truck and showed us some of his skills. He's pretty good!

Another fun story: While we were at the Temple visitor's center with Jamie and Ricardo, guess who popped in for a visit! Just someone named Elder Richard G. Scott.... Haha, Elder Yazzie asked Elder J.E. Jensen (who it seemed was one of his traveling companions) if we could take a picture with them, but Elder Jensen said that they try to avoid that kind of thing as a rule. So you just have to take my word for it. It was really great though for Jamie, our investigator to get to meet an Apostle. We all got to say hello to them and shake their hands. Of course she didn't know who he was, but she could tell he was important the way everyone reacted as he walked into the visitor's center. It was a good way to teach the organization of the church on the way home.
Mom, I've felt very close to your Mom and Dad lately because of two people I've run into now in the last week. The first is this Senior set of missionaries who work at the Visitor's Center. Their last name is Clark. (probably Leon and Peggy Clark from Ojai). They said they knew you and your parents well. They think you might have even been the one who told them of their passing. They told me a couple of good stories and paid great tribute to both of your parents.

The next person I ran into was a woman named Carolynn. I don't remember her Maiden name but as soon as she knew that I was from Ventura County she said "Oh Lassen's Health Food?" and that was fun. But what she didn't know is that the Beecroft family was linked at all with the Lassen family. She sort of off-handedly remarked on how she always hung out at the Beecroft home, and I was like, "do you know that my mom is a Beecroft?" She couldn't believe it! She said that she practically lived at your parents house as a young adult. She said that a lot of people did. She's a few years younger than you but she says that she hung out with Pam a lot and knew Lisa pretty well too. She's a good, good woman, and I know you'd like her a lot. She said she was going to get in touch with you soon. Maybe she's done that already.

Well, I've gotta run, but tell Mette that I'm happy for her good experiences that she's having, and I'm a little jealous. I go abroad to change diapers (he's referring to his service in Ecuador at the orphanages) and she goes abroad to have the red carpet rolled out for her for a couple months... haha, just playing, I wouldn't trade those diaper experiences and all that went with them for anything. (Even a vacation home in Denmark ;o)
Gotta run,
Love, Steffen

P.S. I asked him if he knew his release date yet and he said it is December 18th. I think he senses the urgency to work his hardest here at the end.

Photos from Steffen's Camera Card

Steffen recently sent home 3 boxes of his belongings and his camera card was inside. I found these, amongst many others, and decided to post them.

He and his companion wore the yellow "helping hands" vests at a humanitarian booth Baptism of Ethan

Steffen's glasses broke recently and until he gets them replaced, he's doing with his contacts

Touring some DC sights on Pday

Study Time with companion

Transfer from Alexandria to Ashburn brought a change from being an English Elder to a Spanish speaking Elder.

30 September 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
I can’t believe another transfer has come and gone, but such is the mission I suppose. Without further ado, here’s the news. I’ve spent 54 weeks of my mission in my beloved Alexandria (not straight through, but total time is that), but the Lord has finally decided to give those poor people at the King Street Metro station a break from Elder Lassen. Alexandria will always be a sacred city in a way to me. Starting tomorrow I’m a Spanish-speaking missionary! (only catch, I have an English companion…) Here’s how it’ll work. This is a piece of an email I just wrote to my mom.
Well, I'm getting transferred to a new zone called Ashburn, and specifically I'll be in the Leesburg ward. There are a couple interesting twists to this assignment though. Firstly, I'll officially be a Spanish-speaking missionary for the next 2 transfers. The Ashburn stake doesn't have a full-fledged Spanish ward or even a branch, so it’s just a Spanish group within the Leesburg English ward. Another twist to this is that my companion, Elder Yazzie (who I'm killing, or in other words, he's on his last transfer) is not a Spanish Elder. So essentially, when we find a Spanish investigator, I'll teach him or her by myself, and Elder Yazzie will patiently listen (or zone out maybe). Also, I'll go to Spanish gospel principles and to Spanish priesthood while my companion goes to the English side of things. This should be a really, really interesting two transfers there. (I'm almost positive I'll spend two[which will be my last two] there since Elder Yazzie goes home in 6 weeks). So I'm part of the only zebra companionship in the mission. I've served around Elder Yazzie a lot in the past. He was actually my district leader for 6 weeks when I was serving in Burke a year and some change ago. He's a good guy, and a capable missionary.

Big changes, big changes! I feel so grateful to have had all the time here that I’ve had. The members in Alexandria are incredible and want so much to live good lives and to share the gospel light with others. Here are a couple of events I want to share.
1. After not having any visitors come to church at our invitation for the last 2 transfers, finally, a sister came with us this last Sunday. (fyi, she in someone who’s door we knocked on a few weeks ago, and who’s been really kind to us ever since. She’s given us stamps, herbal tea for my throat when I was sick, and she’s feeding us dinner tonight. Awesome woman.) I hope and pray she had a positive experience. She’s already friends with a member family in the ward who live in her neighborhood, so they brought her and she seemed happy to be there.
2. On that same day, but later that afternoon, a part-member family had us over for dinner, where the wife (who isn’t a member of the church but who’s been coming steadily with her husband for over 2 years now) told us she wants to take the lessons since they’re having a baby in a few months. (I’ve been trying SO hard to meet with them, ever since I got into this ward, so this was a little miracle).
3. Later, that SAME day, one of our friends came to a fireside in which I was performing on the guitar (I would have been singing too, but I lost my voice to a cold a couple days ealier), and this was significant and meaningful to me because he hasn’t stepped inside a church of ours in almost a decade, and he swore to himself that he never would again. Its especially significant because he was spending part of his Yom Kippur there with us (which holiday he still holds very sacred it seems). The fireside was a good one, and I did alright on the guitar. Needless to say, Sunday was an awesome day.
4. The next day, Monday, one of our members had an event in her neighborhood which I thought was a really creative way to get to know her neighbors better. She invited them all over for a music appreciation night, and had 11 or so people perform songs. Some of them were kids, some were almost professional, and 2 were missionaries (myself and Sister Murray, who serves in Colonial 2nd ward). Around 40 people, many members and non-members alike, came to the event and it went spendidly. I got to talk to a man and when he found out that I was from Southern California he asked me for specifics. I told him where I was from, and he began naming off all of the beaches he’d surfed there in Ventura County. It was awesome, cause we’d surfed a lot of the same places. Then, on a whim I asked him if he was ever into the health food scene while he was out there and his wife replied that he was actually a raw vegan, so yes, of course he was. I ran the name “Lassen’s Natural Foods and Vitamins” by him and he grinned and said that he’d been there tons of times! He even knew who Gypsy Boots was! Haha, I almost died. It was fun to get to be so close to home in a way for a second. I said that they should have dinner with the missionaries in the future over at this member's house and they all agreed that that would be great. I’m so glad I got to make that connection before I left the area.
5. Then, just this morning, we went to drop off a Book of Mormon to a man who said that we should do so at such-and-such time. So we went by the address only to find that it was an apartment complex, but he hadn’t given us an apt. number. So while we were pondering what we should do about it a woman walked into the building and we struck up a conversation about Christ with her. Being a wonderful Christian, she said, “anytime somebody comes in the name of Christ, I’m ready, come on in”. She’s from Sierra Leone, and after we taught her a brief lesson, she agreed to have the missionaries back in the future. It was a reinforcement to me of the lesson that sometimes the people we intend to share the gospel with lead us to those who we’re really supposed to share the gospel with, and if we’re not open to that idea, we might miss the golden opportunities we seek.
Well, those are just some things I wanted to share with you all. I can’t believe I’ve found myself very much in the home stretch of my mission, but I knew I’d get here sometime. Now with this new, challenging assignment I’m ready to finish strong. Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts in my behalf. I hope you all are well, and please keep me updated on things that transpire in your lives.
Much Love,
Elder Steffen Lassen

Thank you for all the Birthday Wishes Everyone!

Dear Family and Friends,
Hello! Thank you everyone for the fantastic birthday well-wishes! I had a nice birthday. Nothing too exciting, but nice all the same. Somehow (a young couple who recently got married) found out that it was my birthday and so they had a cake that they just handed me at church. It was a really good chocolate marble cake. We also happened to have 2 good meals scheduled yesterday, so I took the cake to one of those appointments. It was nice to get to share it with some members.
The (Yellow Helping Hands) vests were a hit at the Emergency Preparedness fair that we helped out at, so thanks. That package got to me really fast. I think I had it on Thursday actually. The oreos! Haha, good call on that one. How did you know? ;o) Now all I need is 3 gallons of milk for all of them and I’ll be set ;o)
Also, to all of you who sent cards/wrote emails, I wish I could reply to all of you, but I just don’t have much time right now. Thank you though. I saved all the cards that I got early and opened them all together on Sunday before church. 23 is old… I can already feel my body reacting to it. On Sunday my lower back hurt, and today my hip joint hurts! What the heck? Did my warrantee just expire?
We’re still trying to boost our teaching pool right now, so I’m trying to think of a good story to tell you all quickly from the week. Well, I went on an exchange in Belle Haven last week and got to teach some of THEIR investigators… ;o) haha, actually, it really was awesome. They have this investigator who’s an ironman triathlete. Unfortunately he has ADD and reading the Book of Mormon is really hard for him, but we made all these awesome parallels between physical fitness and spiritual fitness and it was really great to see this smile just come to his face as we taught him. Those moments where the light really turns on and suddenly a gospel truth makes sense to a person are what makes missionary work so worth doing.
Gotta run, but I love you all!
Elder Steffen Lassen