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