January 25-31, 2011: Lessons learned from a new convert

Dear Family,

Great letter! I was wondering, does mom attend the Davis Park with you or does she stay in the Hidden Valley Ward? The bishopric members here have their wives come with them to church. That may be because each of them are quite old and at least one of them is retired. No offense but I guess that's how "normal" singles ward bishoprics are. Haha Nah I'm kidding, I think a young bishopric would be awesome to be around!

Yesterday, two recent converts spoke in sacrament meeting. One of them was Tiffany Schmidt, who was baptized in the beginning of December. I can't imagine standing in front of that many people and speaking about something that I haven't even learned much about yet. She did amazing though. And on top of it all, she was scheduled to speak on February 13th, but the 2nd counselor in the bishopric texted her the night before around midnight and said that they had a cancellation and asked if she would move her talk up to yesterday! She said, "of course! Because then if either of the elders get transferred they will be able to hear it!" It was really neat to hear her relay to us her conversion story. She was so humorous, yet so humble and strong that it kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Her experience in coming to know the truthfulness of the gospel opened my eyes to a few things.

1. Satan will stop at nothing to cause us to feel miserable just as he is.
2. God places people and experiences in our path (opportunities to succeed) to help us along the way.
3. We need to do all that we can to recognize the miracles which we have received already, and that we receive on a daily basis, and give thanks for them.

I think we will be pleasantly surprised just how much our Father in Heaven's hand was in on our lives when we return to His presence. In a recent dinner appointment I shared the scripture in 3 Nephi 2:1 which I think I have told you about before. The context of the Book of Mormon at this point is when Christ is now on the earth in Jerusalem, the sign of His birth has been given, and yet many people are becoming wicked despite the teachings of the prophets here in the Americas. The Gadianton Robbers are becoming very ferocious to the point where Nephites and Lamanites have to join sides in protecting themselves. Many people among the Nephites and Lamanites slowly but surely become wicked as well and I love how in verse one it says this: "And it came to pass that thus passed away the ninety and fifth year also, and the people began to forget those signs and wonders which they had heard, and began to be less and less astonished at a sign or a wonder from heaven, insomuch that they began to be hard in their hearts, and blind in their minds, and began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen—" The people had SEEN miracles, and I can only imagine the magnitude of some of those miracles. How about the sun going down but the world not becoming dark? The new star arising in the sky? Even through these powerful miracles, which caused multitudes of people to fall to the earth as if they were dead, Satan continued to do all that he could to deceive the onlookers. 3 Nephi 1:22 "And it came to pass that from this time forth there began to be lyings sent forth among the people, by Satan, to harden their hearts, to the intent that they might not believe in those signs and wonders which they had seen; but notwithstanding these lyings and deceivings the more part of the people did believe, and were converted unto the Lord." Even when they had PROOF of the prophecy being fulfilled Satan tried to make them believe it wasn't true. In our lives we might witness miracles that seem to be at the magnitude of something such as this, but more often than not they are going to be little experiences or happenings that we often don't even recognize. Just a few years after "the more part of the people...were converted unto the Lord" they "began to forget those signs and wonders which they had heard, and began to be less and less astonished at a sign or wonder from heaven." I hope we can continually be watchful of those things which the Lord blesses us with on a daily basis. I know that in my experience as a missionary I strive to recognize each experience I have. It's hard at times because sometimes the same spiritual experiences happen and sometimes I become numb to how powerful they should be, but I strive to never forget to thank my Heavenly Father.

Just like the people in the Book of Mormon, Tiffany was blessed with miracles in her life which led her to the Church of Jesus Christ. Even after much study and contemplation on lds.org and mormon.org, somehow she was led to sites which held "anti-mormon" material. She expressed the feeling that came from mormon.org being one of peace and comfort, and the anti sites being "weird." This hindered her focus and caused her to put off the decision to come to church. Then, all of a sudden one day she received the prompting to just up and go to church. She looked up the nearest one on mormon.org and it happened to be our singles ward. So she came. She loved every minute of it. Her testimony is extremely strong! She's already performed baptisms for the dead and is planning on getting her Patriarchal Blessing in the next few weeks. She is also serving as the Relief Society Secretary. It is so cool to see people change for the better!

Sunday morning we had our monthly stake report with the stake president, high counselor over missionary work, and a member of the mission presidency. We were able to have President Beck in the meeting. The goal was to try and see what they wanted us to focus on when we train the wards on missionary work. It turns out that they aren't going to enforce auxiliaries to attend coordination meetings but that we still will be focusing on the five names program. Despite the discouragement of changing from what we did last year, we felt good about what would be happening and that we could finally see what direction the stake was going in. President Beck encouraged us to focus on the things which we can control and serve with love, asking how we can be of service to our leaders in this part of the vineyard.

It's so good to hear about the update on the girls! I hope everything goes well with their athletics! Today for a zone activity we are going bowling. It's like a dollar for shoes and a dollar per game on Mondays so why not right?! Haha

Thanks for all you do! You should watch this video and maybe even show it to the YSA ward when you talk about missionary work sometime.
https://lds.org/youth/video/inviting-all-to-come-unto-christ-sharing-the-gospel?lang=eng
It's on that site. Amazing!

I love you very much! Thanks for all you do!

Love,

Elder Mouritsen