June 22-28, 2010: Honey Buckets

Hello family!

Things are going really well. We have 3-4 investigators who are planning to be baptized in July and another one on August 1st, but after all of that we're going to have some work to do to find some more lost sheep. Our Ward Mission Plans are probably similar to Mesa's because most of them are based on Elder Perry's plan. Each auxillary (High Priest, Elders, YM, YW, Relief Society, and Primary) all meet at a coordination meeting each week and come up with five names to discuss who could use fellowshipping or missionary visits. The members are the best way to find people because I once heard a stat that like 1 in 1000 people you find by tracting get baptized and the ratio is a lot better when members make referrals. In Utah that's probably WAY too many names because there isn't very many less actives or non members in the ward but there is no rule that says you have to stay within the boundaries. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.

Funny story happened this week.

We went over to a lady's house to help her move a couch across the street and after we were done we asked if there was anything else that we could do. She said there is a yucky, dirty, messy job in the back yard so we said, "Put us to work!" Around in the back yard on the side of the house there were big 5 gallon buckets filled with wheat, and then some filled with honey. We carried several of them all the way back around the house and stacked them up on the front porch but they were soo heavy! So, being the efficient missionaries we are, we decided to lift them up over the brick wall that separated the next door neighbor and then go right to the front yard and it would take a lot less time! I lifted the buckets up onto the wall, and then Cichy would grab them and place them on the floor and we would both then take them to the front porch. The wheat filled buckets were easy, they were light. But once I got to the honey, I thought my arms were going to snap in half as I tried to lift them above my head and onto the wall. We got one of the honey buckets down and were onto the second and I lifted it up onto the wall, and Cichy grabbed it and as he did, the handle broke and a 5 gallon bucket of honey hit the concrete and broke in half and spilled ALL OVER the neighbor's driveway. Being on the other side of the wall I didn't know what happened until I hear this, "Oh no, no... NO. No. Mouritsen! No.. no no no no no..." I get up on the wall and look on the ground and just start laughing so uncontrollably that I just about fall off into the honey. It was so bad, and was just thick as ever (I have a picture I'll try to send sometime). So we went and told the lady who lived there and she kinda giggled and then gave us a dust pan to scoop it up and put it into a garbage can. Cichy had to take off his shoes and socks and was walking through the hot, dark colored, sticky honey which was now on the scaulding hot cement. It was so funny to watch him tippy toe while scooping it up while I kept it from getting in the cracks of the house with a scraper. After we got most of it scooped up we grabbed a hose and a wire brush and did the best that we could to clean the rest of it up. The guy who lived there was way nice and understood just as long as we cleaned it up. Afterwards we laughed our heads off and probably will continue to laugh as long as we live.

Other than that not much has happened. Jeff (the 50 year old man who lives with his mom and makes money by pushing a cart around with cold drinks in it) told me that I should be in a Colgate commercial when I get home. hahaha.

We also went on exchanges on Friday and the district leader came to our place while Cichy went to their area. I had to take him around and tract forever. I don't even know the area really at all but it went pretty good and we found a few new investigators! He's awesome though. He lives in the handle of Idaho and is a MAJOR hunter. He told me non stop stories of grizzly, black bear, wolf, and mountain lion encounters he's had while hunting elk and deer. Yeah we get a long kinda well... haha.

The missionaries in our zone are singing in stake priesthood meeting on July 11th and I'm going to try to record it on my camera so you will be able to hear it. :/ haha

I love you all and I hope all is well!

Elder Mouritsen

June 14-21, 2010: "Windows of Heaven"

Hello Family!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!! (yesterday) haha. I'm glad you got the card Dad. We had dinner at a member's home last night and they almost called our homes so that we could sing our dads the fathers day songs. Probably not the best idea so we didn't go through with it but it would've been funny!

We had another baptism on Saturday. It was for Mike Milius, who is 23 years old and has been waiting longer than 12 weeks because he didn't know you couldn't be on probabtion to be baptized. He got through it all though and even through Satan working on him through those tough 12 weeks, he still got baptized. It was awesome!

My email this week I want to be based on something known as the "Windows of Heaven." At zone conference this week Sister Beck taught us about how to properly tract. She told us how the "elect" are out there, waiting for us to bring them the gospel. The "elect" are those whom our Heavenly Father has prepared that are just waiting to receive the message that we have for them. So, the "Windows of Heaven:" this is where you pray for a specific place, time, and even question that this person may have so that Heavenly Father can in turn give us specific answers. On Friday of this week, we prayed that Heavenly Father would prepare someone for us that we would meet in between 3-3:30 p.m. who was located in a specific building at the apartment buildings on Union Hills and 43rd. When we got there, we found the building, and began knocking doors. We came to one that opened up and it was a 15-year old boy who lives with his aunt and uncle. He talked to us for quite a long time and we taught him a bunch about the Book of Mormon and some other principles. We gave him a book and asked him to read and pray about it, he said he would. We then asked if we could come back and he said definitely! Afterwards we went and knocked some more doors. A nice black woman answered and she was extremely nice. I started talking to her and asked her several questions regarding her beliefs, and what she has heard about the LDS church and the book of mormon and what not. I taught her all about Joseph Smith, the restoration, and recited to her the First Vision. She was very interested and even allowed us into her house because we were sweating profusely and she gave us some water. We then asked if we could come back next week and she said of course! And as we left her door step, I looked down at my watch and the time was 3:31 p.m. We were in awe and immediately offered up a prayer of gratitude and just basked in the events that had just transpired. New investigators are hard to come by and in those 30 minutes we were able to get two! A new investigator is someone who you teach two principles, and then get a return appointment. Most people don't allow you to come back so it makes it really hard to get them.

We had another experience with Tom and he says that reading the Book of Mormon has brought him and his son and his 17 year old "friend" closer together than ever. His "friend" is his previous girlfriend's son and the kid says that Tom is the closest thing he's ever had to a father. It has caused them to have conversations that they would have never had in the past and it is really cool to see them change. Although, last night we stopped by Tom's house and when he answered, he had just pounded a beer and had a big chunk of chew in his lip. He sat us down because he wanted us to read from the book of mormon. He told us about his dream (I can't remember if i told you about that but he has this dream where he sees himself die before his son's 18th birthday and it breaks his heart). We taught him about our purpose in life (again) and I read him Alma 29:9 and gave him the application to it for my own life. He really liked it and marked it up. Meanwhile, he has this big gold flower pot/jug/goblet sitting in front of him and as I looked up I noticed that it was filled with some sort of liquid. I didn't want to know what was in it but as I finished reading Alma 29, he leaned over and unloaded a massive chunk of spit/tobacco into this jug which was of significant size and I'm not kidding you one bit, I immediately got the chills and threw up in my mouth. It was rancid. The spirit worked its magic though and despite the constant spitting, we then read him 1 Nephi 8 (Lehi's dream) because we thought it would be cool cause he had been having a dream. It ended up being a good visit and I can see him getting baptized soon.

Well, today we went golfing at cave creek golf course. It was awesome and I was reminded of just how bad of a golfer I am. The first four holes went well but after that it was atrocious. I hope all is going well with you and I can't wait to receive some letters from the girls!

Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Mouritsen

June 6-13, 2010: First Baptism

Holy crap family why don't you all bring me to tears with your POWER-FILLED testimonies? Goodness...

I do love e-mails. But one minor thing, I only get an hour online here and I just spent 30 minutes reading ELEVEN fetchin' emails! haha So sisters, (L-Mo, Madi, Bailee, Hallie) would it be ok if you wrote letters? :/ They are more fun anyways. I didn't get a single letter last week and it was so depressing but the emails definitely made the whole week worth it.

Yeah how bout that Tom guy ehh?? He's a hoot. He called us late one night again asking me which scripture was the one that says, "straight is the gate, and narrow is the way." I told him 3 Nephi 27:33 and he looks it up, reads it in his head, and then randomly is his creepy, yet sincere voice says, "I love you." I chuckled, He then says, no... "I love you." I asked why he wanted it and he said that his friend wanted to get it tattooed on to himself. Not what I thought the result of the conversation was going to be, but if you're gonna get a tattoo, why not make it a Book of Mormon scripture right? Ugh... We went to lunch with him another one of the days and he is really interested in the gospel. He said he wants to come out to our baptism next Saturday.

This weekend we had our first baptism and it was this little black kid named Robert Jackson. He's freakin awesome! Met him two weeks ago (like three days before I got here), started teaching him the lessons, and by the third/fourth one he was teaching them back to us and just wanted to be baptized. All his friends came, non member family members, and several other people. His friend named Aaron Poll from the ward baptized him and then Elder Cichy got to confirm him in sacrament meeting on Sunday. During the baptism Elder Cichy and I had to do an intermediate message while Robert and Aaron were getting dressed. What we did was have everyone close their eyes, and then read 3 Nephi 11, having one of us be the narrator and the other be the voice of Christ. It's powerful! We actually did the same thing to a husband and wife who are investigating the church and they now have baptismal dates for July 10th! Next week a guy who's around 25 is getting baptized. He would've been baptized like 3 and a half months ago but when he got to the baptismal interview he didn't know you couldn't be on probation to be baptized. He had an underaged drinking ticket from when he was sixteen that he wasn't able to pay so he had to go on probation and take classes for 12 weeks! But he stuck to it and finally the day has come for him to be baptized.

You ask how my bike is doing?? Well my back tire went flat like the second day I got here. So I was riding a loner for awhile until we finally had time to fix it. Then...well lets put it this way, Arizona drivers are worse than Utah drivers. MUCH WORSE. We almost get hit probably 5-6 times a day but luckily we at least care about our lives so we stop and let the cars go. But cross walk or no cross walk they don't care. We were riding past a K-Mart and Cichy was in front of me and there was a car about to pull out of the parking lot. The driver (a girl I'm pretty sure) saw him, and then saw me close behind. She didn't care though. She just pulled right out without even hitting the brake and nailed me right in the rear tire. Luckily I kept on the bike but it scared me to death and if she would've hit me a little more square I probably would've been sucked right underneath her car. All it did was bend the back tire a little so I had to redo all the brakes so they didn't rub and take off the kick stand. Those months at Pedersens definitely paid off. :) I was kind of shakin up though but these two nice ladies saw us sitting in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do and one of them was a member and she offered to give us a ride home. The other woman in the car was baptized but is now like anti-Mormon so we ended up committing her to reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways. Including me getting hit on a bike. That's ok though, I'll sacrifice for someone elses salvation.

Other than that this hasn't been much of an eventful week. It's kinda weird being here cause its really not that different than home. Seriously everything reminds me of home in some way haha. Like we have the same pull up bar that I had in my room. Elder Cichy plays some of the same songs on the piano that the girls would play. (The member we live with has a baby grand piano). Which by the way I'm trying to teach myself when I have some free time. And even like the stores and places we eat. OH! We ate at Brother and Sister Goodwin's last night. She's from Montpelier, Idaho and said she recognized the Mouritsen name! She says she knows exactly where Dingle is. Not the house, but the town at least. And she knows Leonard and all about Montpelier canyon and what not. It was quite funny! It's hard to think about things like that though. Like you said its crazy that Satan can take something that is so good, so that you can't focus on something that's better. One thing I've noticed: Whenever some of those feelings may arise, I just crack open the Book of Mormon and read and they immediately disperse. What an amazing book that is and you don't know how much I was smiling when you girls bore your testimony to me of the truthfulness of it. After you receive that witness, everything else falls into place. IF the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith IS a true prophet, The Church of Jesus Christ is the true church, Thomas S. Monson is the true prophet on the earth today, and families WILL be together forever. How great is our joy. There is no such thing that can bring more joy and happiness than the knowledge of the Book of Mormon being a true book. Right now I'm reading about Captain Moroni. What an amazing man! I love chapter 48 in Alma, verses 7 through 13. "Amalickiah had thus been obtaining by fraud and deceit, Moroni on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God." And then of course verse 17. "I'm a HELL SHAKER!!"

I love that story that Greg Fenn told. So powerful and I can DEFINITELY relate to it. I hope everything is going alright with Shaun's knee! What a bummer! He's gonna be an awesome missionary. Tony is going to be a great missionary as well. Very physically persuasive. That's so cool about Jace, Ryker, and John! Is Ryker speaking Spanish? Cause he could very well run into Riley.

Here's a few quotes that have been awesome:
"There is only one day that you and I have to live for, and that's today. There is nothing we can do about yesterday except repent, and there may be no tomorrow. The thing for us to do when we arise from our beds as God gives us a new day, is to take whatever comes to our hands, and do it to the best of our ability."-Harold B. Lee

"Across the plains of time bleach the bones of countless thousands, who, upon the threshold of victory, sat down to rest. And resting, they died."-Paul H. Dunn

Thanks so much for all you do. Your testimonies are all so powerful and when I get time I hope to either write or e-mail each of you.

Love you all.

Elder Mouritsen

First week in the Phoenix North Stake

Hello!

I love your emails every time! They always get me feeling pumped and inspired. Phoenix is SO hot as you have probably seen from the weather but seeing 110 as a number doesn't do it justice until you've felt it in person. And since we are an all bike area we always end up biking up and down the streets in the hottest parts of the day. You would think that you would get a nice breeze from doing that but that's far from the reality. It feels like a constant blow drier on high is burning your face. We try to have people hold their doors open as long as possible just so that their air conditioning can woosh into our faces as we stand outside the door. I told Bailee that we have dinner planned with members like 28 of the 30 nights of the month which is nice but when we get there after riding out in the heat, the sweat just poors off our bodies and its kind of embarassing.

A kinda crazy story:

We went to tract at these apartments called the Adajio Apts. A guy named Tom lives there and has showed somewhat of an interest in the gospel so we went and visited him. As we knocked on his door, we noticed that the people across the hall were moving all of their furniture out of their apartment down onto a truck. Tom let us in and we asked him what was going on with those people. He said they were heroin addicts and they were getting thrown out of their apartment. Tom hated them because one day he heard some noise outside his apartment and the man who lived there was yelling around and for no reason at all, threatened to kill Tom. So, because of that, Tom hates them. Now, Tom is a man who has a son but isn't married as has never been married, he is quite provocative and sick minded, drinks a lot of alcohol, and his room is filled with star wars and star trek EVERYTHING. From pictures, to games, to action figures, to toy light sabers and guns. Also, he carrys a .45 cal pistol with him everywhere because I guess it is legal in AZ. But we just brush it off and it seems like he really wants to learn. As we were going to go teach him in some other place, we left the apartment and Elder Cichy saw the heroin addicts still packing everything away and he asked them if we could help them load up. Tom did not like that. Not one bit. We helped them load a bunch of boxes and the place smelled RIDICULOUS. Such a powerful stench... After we were done, the man who lived there came up to us and said, "kindness goes a long way you know and I want to do something to repay you." We told him he didn't have to do anything but he then said he was a meat vendor and he wanted our address so he could send some steaks our way. We couldn't turn that down. :) Tom was quite angry as we left and said he was going to keep swearing because he was mad. We went into the lobby of the complex and taught him most of the first lesson and had him read some scriptures.

Well, later that night we were on our way home at about 8:50pm and we got a call from Tom. He said, "I want you guys to come pray with me." Elder Cichy said, "Tom is it alright if we come tomorrow? It's pretty late." Tom said no I need you now. We both didn't feel too good about it because we knew he was probably drinking, and he carried a gun with him everywhere he goes. We went regardless. When we got to his complex, (mind you this was a Friday night, in Phoenix AZ) we said a prayer of comfort and protection and went up to his room. He was sitting outside on the stairs, with a beer in one hand, and the Book of Mormon in the other. I chuckled cause I had never seen the two so close in contact. He said that he had opened it up to a scripture given to him by the missionaries which was Alma 34: 32-34 and verse 32 hit him really hard, even in his drunken state. He wasn't just a little bit drunk either, he was PLASTERED. Slurred speech, couldn't read very well, but he loved how the scripture said, "this life is the time to prepare to meet God, yeah behold, the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors." I don't know why but it hit him hard. And he kept saying that he loved the book. Well, I won't lie I was very scared. He asked us to go inside and we agreed and as he stood up, I noticed he had the gun tucked into the back of his pants. We went inside and he placed it up on his fridge which didn't make it as scary. But he sat us down and told us some personal stories about himself. He said that when he was an 11 year old kid, his mom told him he could have one pair of pants, one pair of shoes, a few t-shirts, one hot meal, and one cold meal, and thats all that she had to provide him with. She also made him eat out of a dog dish with their two dogs. It was so sad to hear him talk about this. He kept on saying the same things over and over but what I think he was getting at was that he didn't want his son to have to endure the same heart ache that he did, and he said he found comfort and good feeling in the Book of Mormon. It was hard to relate to him, but something told me to tell him the story of me and you (dad) on the 4-wheeler when it rolled and should have killed us. I got very emotional and he appreciated that because he was tearing up as well. He really liked that I told him that, and said that he never had an opportunity to have experiences like that with his own father. But I told him that he could have them as the father, with his own son. He liked that. We ended up being there for about an hour, just talking and sharing scriptures. As we left he asked us to have a prayer with him, so we knelt and prayed. We had come with a feeling of nervousness, and left with a feeling of peace. It ended up being a cool experience, I just don't know if he remembered much of it :/.

Sundays are crazy and we have to go to both ward's church services. In the first ward they got me right to work and had the missionaries say the opening and closing prayer. It's so funny cause the entire congregation was like as big as our mutual or primary. I also got up and introduced myself and bore my testimony in both wards. I felt like I needed to and the spirit dictated it as well.

I hope the weather is getting warm up there finally! I would trade for the weather up there any day!

I can't wait to hear about your experience at girls camp! Tell mom my prayers are with her that everything will go well.

Love you so much! I hope all is well! Thanks for everything! I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Mouritsen

From the airport to the first area

So after I got done talking to you guys on the phone we went and boarded the plane. It was a small Southwest plane with only 22 rows and we had 15 elders and 3 sisters so I thought I would for sure be sitting by at least one of them. I was wrong. I sat next to a man from Orlando who was flying to Phoenix and had a layover in Salt Lake. He was going to Phoenix for a conference because he is an ER doctor. He is also Roman Catholic and has been ever since he was young. I talked to him a little about the church and he said that he had heard somewhat about it from some in-laws and I guess his daughter's godmother is a member. I told him a little about Joseph Smith and the restoration and he said he had heard of him before. We then just chatted about life and what not and by the end of the flight, I had noticed that he was reading a book by George Orwell (something like that) so I pulled out the pocket size book of mormon I had purchased the day before (which I dearly loved) and said, 'so I see that you like reading. I'd like to leave you with this book that Joseph Smith translated which is about the ancient inhabitants of America.' He took it immediately and said he was very intrigued. It felt cool to pass out my first book of mormon, even though that's not much of an achievement.


The AP's and President and Sister Beck picked us up at the airport and took a few pictures. You've probably seen them on her blog already but it was fun to meet them for the first time. We then went back to the mission home, which is beautiful and extremely elaborate, and ate lunch, had one-on-one interviews with President Beck, and just sat around and slept. I fell asleep on the floor I was so tired. We then had a long orientation about all the rules for the mission and what was going to happen in the next couple days. About 70% of the mission is car/bike based and all of the cars are 2007 and newer. A lot of them are actually brand new which I thought was bizarre. We then ate an amazing dinner (nothing compared to what you cook though Mom) and had a testimony meeting afterwards. Then it was bed time and everyone got out all the air mattresses and slept quite well! The sun rises SO much earlier in Arizona. I thought I had overslept when I looked at the clock and it was only 5:30.

The next morning was transfer day and we went to the stake center to find out who our trainers would be. It was quite exciting waiting there for your name to be called and a lot of elders were freaking out. My companion's name is Elder Cichy, from Alberta, Canada and he reminds me 100% of Dylan. Seriously, same hair, countenance, height, the things he says, even their personalities are alike. But his voice reminds me of Matthew McConahey (however you spell it). He is so cool though. We get along really well and he is very knowledgeable in the gospel and the people love him. A member drove us to our home, which is with Brother Baird who is an awesome guy but we don't see much of him. He let me get unpacked and while I was unpacking, he informed me that Elder Brayden Henrie (one of my really good friends from back home) just happens to be in our district so I called him up and he didn't believe it was me at first, but he and his companion came over and visited for a bit. It is crazy to have a good friend live so close. After unpacking, we took the bikes out and street contacted. It was pretty nerve wracking at first and we would switch off starting the conversations. I can't wait untill I'm better at contacting people and teaching them lessons right on the spot. Elder Cichy saves me quite a bit haha. I can't wait to get to know the people better as well. But of course, only in time will that happen.

Today we were allowed to email because it was Memorial Day on Monday, which is when normal P-Day is. We woke up at six this morning to go play basketball till we had to be back for Personal and Companion study. We met Elder Henrie and his comp (Elder Otto) and then two other elders. It was a good way to start the day and get in shape. The two other elders told us of some service that they needed help with and they said it would only take about 20 minutes. Yeah, whatever. Eight elders walked into this lady's house which wreaked of smoke and took a few peeks around. There was junk, EVERYWHERE. And that is no exaggeration. Dogs, cd's, rabbit cages, dream catchers, TVs, computer monitors, childrens swimming pools, piles of pvc pipe, piles of wood, a random fire pit, just ANYTHING you can possibly think of was stashed in no organized manner whatsoever. She had a list for us too, which consisted of breaking up part of the wood roof that was piled under the tree in the back yard, spray the portable swimming pool out, weed eat all the 2 foot high weeds, build a thing she could hang her hundreds of clothes on out of the pvc pipe and two-by-fours, stack these crates of shoes so they could go to a yard sale, and then take apart all of the tv's so she could recycle the copper, plastic, and metal. It was crazy. It ended up taking us an hour and a half and we didn't even come close to getting half the list done. It was cool though and she agreed to allow the missionaries to come over next week and talk church things with her.

Now I am here writing. I hope all is well back home! I love you so much! I get an hour to email every Monday which is a lot better than what I had before. Grandma Georgia sent me an email and said that Dylan's homecoming was amazing. I know that it was, he is an amazing guy and there is no way I'm more prepared that he was. I feel so awkward and inadequate. I hope it gets better though. Its quite overwhelming.

Well let me know how things are going! Can't wait to hear from you in like four days! haha.

Until then.

Love,

Elder Mouritsen

P.S. Here's a poem I found that is 100% correct. (well kinda)

ARIZONA
The devil wanted a place on earth
Sort of a summer home.
A place to spend his vacation
whenever he wanted to roam.
So he picked out Arizona
A place both wretched and rough.
Where the climate was to his liking
And the cowboys hardened and tough.
He dried up the streams in the canyons
And ordered no rain to fall.
He dried up the lakes in the valleys,
Then baked and scorched it all.
Then over his barren desert
He transplanted shrubs from hell.
The cactus, thistle and prickly pear,
The climate suited them well.
Now,the home was much to his liking,
But animal life, he had none.
So he created crawling creatures,
That all mankind would shun.
First he made the Rattlesnake
With its forked poisonous tongue;
Taught it to strike and rattle
And how to swallow its young.
Then he made Scorpions and Lizards
And the ugly old Horned Toad.
He placed spiders of ever description
Under rocks by the side of the road.
Then he ordered the sun to shine hotter,
Hotter and hotter still.
Until even the cactus wilted,
And the old Horned Toad looked ill.
Then he gazed on his earthly kingdom
As any creater would.
He chuckled a little up his sleeve
And admitted that it was good.
Twas summer now and Satan lay,
By a prickly pear to rest.
The sweat rolled off his swarthy brow,
So he took off his coat and vest.
"By Golly," he finally panted,
"I did my job too well, I'm going
Back where I came from,
Arizona is hotter than Hell."
-Anonymous

I hope you enjoy that. Love you lots!

By the way, you should still send mail to the Mission Home instead of directly to Brother Baird's house so that it's not confusing if I get transfered. That way they will always know where I am.

Colton's first area

Colton, and 17 other elders, arrived in Phoenix on June 1st. With the split of the Mesa and Phoenix missions and the creation of the Farmington & St. George missions on July 1st, we weren't sure where he would end up. Today he was assigned to the Phoenix North Stake. His Mission President also mentioned Country Gables. Based on a search for Stakes/wards on LDS.org, Country Gables is a ward in the Phoenix North Stake. Looks like he'll be serving in the Arizona Phoenix Mission as called.

Colton requested that readers of his blog comment on various items of interest. He'll be interested to read them upon his return. So, you'll need to register to become a "follower" on his blog.

He called home while awaiting his flight to Phoenix. We had a great chat and he sounded so energized. He had a truly wonderful experience in the MTC.