January 11-17, 2011: Missionaries need ward mission plans

Hey Family!

Well this week was reeeaall nice. Monday night-Tuesday was exchanges with the AP's. I was with Elder Tripp this time. He's a big 6'4" football player from Washington and a great missionary. He helped me out a lot with how to better myself and those within my stewardship. Wednesday we had district meeting, and then planned for our Zone Meeting and Ward Training for the next day. It turns out that the wards here are falling off the face of the earth when it comes to what we've been teaching them with how to work with the missionaries in their ward. They are supposed to be holding weekly coordination meeting with the full time missionaries, ward council, and ward missionaries. Many wards have decided to not do this anymore because the handbook says that ward council doesn't need to be there. Well... okay, that's fine but then it just all falls on the Ward Mission Leader to make all the assignments that the full time missionaries have for the Ward Council pertaining to their investigators. It seems as if each ward is taking their own stand as to what they want to do and it makes it very confusing in regards to what we need to train. President Beck has counseled us to just take it lightly and respond with, "Ok Bishop/Stake President, we are here to serve you. What would you have us do?" Many missionaries aren't even allowed into Ward Council on Sunday anymore to see if any of the assignments they made were followed up on. It's quite ridiculous. After a year of training on this specific thing, the whole stake has just gone haywire haha. Specific thing meaning: Weekly coordination meeting with ward council/missionaries, recap of assignments in Ward Council on Sundays, and then the five names plan presented by Elder Perry. Maybe it's too much work? I don't know! haha I like the quote you used, "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming, Wow, what a ride!” Service in the church is a life long process where we are always progressing! Our purpose here is to prepare ourselves to meet God right? (Alma 34:32) And in preparing ourselves we strive to pattern our lives after the perfect example of our Savior Jesus Christ correct? Well did Christ give up and decide to change His teachings/gospel? The plan that the mission/brethren have for each of the wards to participate in has been working extremely well! It's too bad that all of a sudden it all gets changed when it was going so well. Oh well, now I'm just venting haha but in regards to that we had a training meeting with the Country Gables ward on Thursday night. You know, my old stomping grounds. I knew all the people who were there in attendance and the new ward mission leader was a man I know very well. He's quite stubborn when he doesn't get his way and he will speak his mind in any situation. Well, President Morris (member of the mission presidency) came with us and ended up talking for 90% of the meeting on handbook 2 and what should be going on in the ward to make the missionary program work well. We then had about 15 minutes (we were supposed to have around 45 haha) to talk about how to use the five names in the ward mission plan. It went pretty well on our part! But the ward mission leader didn't think so. As he was walking out the door, he threw his hands up in the air, shook his head and said, "this is NOT how this was supposed to be." We had taught on everything within our sphere of influence and I think he was looking for a nice little work shop on how to be a ward mission leader. haha So that was a neat experience for a first time training... especially since it was one of my old wards whom I love so dearly.

Zone Meeting was awesome. We held it in the high council room which has a sweet table where exactly 18 people fit around the outside. We talked about mormon.org, receiving personal revelation, and our high councilman over missionary work was supposed to speak on member involvement but forgot and ended up telling his conversion story...haha dang. Then we trained on how to find the Lord's will in our planning. In everything that we do, we should ask: “Is that what the Lord would have us do?" or "Is that what the Lord should have us teach that investigator?" We have to realize we are on His time and His children's salvation are at stake so it's probably best that we do what He would have us do. It ended up being a great meeting.

Alright so, as you know we are only allowed a set amount of miles to drive in a month with our truck and that amount is 1,000 miles. We have driven a ton at the first part of the month so on Saturday we decided to bike the entire day because we didn't have very many appointments set up. We set up this route that we were going to take which would take us from our apartment (19th ave and Thunderbird) to 7th Street and Coral Gables, then South on 7th OVER THE MOUNTAIN all the way down to Bethany Home Rd, then west on Bethany Home to 19th ave, then north to Union Hills, and then back to our apartment. And the title of this adventure was going to be called, THE HELL SHAKER, courtesy of Alma 48:17. We were pumped! And then we started... Yeah, that hill on 7th Street... Well we haven't ridden in awhile and I remember you telling me from all of your running that you just have to keep your momentum as you are going up otherwise you will never get going again. So we pumped, and pumped, and pedaled, and nearly passed out in the bitter 70 degree weather. Finally, we hit the top and went downhill in what became the most fun, scariest, greatest adrenaline rush of my mission. We were FLYING!! It was so fun. We passed other bikers as if we were in cars and they were standing still. But, what goes up must come down and eventually, this "up" in regards to the fun which we were experiencing, came down once again once we hit the bottom. We talked to a lady on a street corner, and then collapsed in the dirt because we thought we were going to barf... We were there for 30-40 minutes, just laying there. We sure got a lot of weird looks, but nobody even stopped. We looked like a couple of bums on the side of the street. Eventually, we got up, the legs were so jello, the eyes were so blacked out from getting up too fast, so we sat back down. Haha, but finally the queasiness dispelled and we went on our way. Well, before we even reached our apartment on the trek up to Union Hills, we had 98 contacts (we needed 90) so we just stopped it there. We've planned to ride the entire outskirts of the stake though sometime in the future... sometime. It was fun and very intense. We met a stake president for the RLDS church. Crazy! I was so bewildered. Needless to say, it made for an eventful day.

Dad, yesterday we also had a munch n' mingle in the young single adult ward! They are the best! At least we get meals two times a month because of those! I think you will love the singles ward. Yeah I was very surprised as to how many attend the ward council meeting. It's a lot of fun though. It'll be cool for you to be there when young men that you worked with in our ward will start coming home from their missions!

Well I hope you all have an awesome week! I love you very much!

Love,

Elder Mouritsen