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.
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.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment