January 3-10, 2011: "Fast Start" 2011

Hello Family,

Well Mom it sounds like you had a good birthday! What is it now...your 14th anniversary of your 29th birthday?? That's how President Beck described how old Sister Beck is. haha! That's awesome about Madison's YW Recognition! Way to be!

Well this week has been sort of a blur. Tuesday was Zone Leader Council where we met with the 20 total Zone Leaders and 4 assistants (2 Spanish and 2 English). We went over all the numbers from December and set new goals for the month of January. President Beck and the assistants came up with a program for 2011 called... "Fast Start" 2011. Haha real original right? It's sweet though. In January we are focusing on "Finding the Lord's will in our Planning and in what we do." We then practiced how our daily planning sessions should be like so that we can then go and tell the missionaries. It should be more of a "What would the Lord have us do with that time?" or "What would the Lord have us teach that investigator?" It's more the way that Preach My Gospel has made missionary work become. More lead by the spirit, as opposed to memorized or certain discussions that must be taught in a certain order. The only way to truly receive that inspiration and revelation is through obedience as we learn in the 130th section of the Doctrine and Covenants: Verse 20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— 21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.I am a firm believer in this and it's been a struggle lately with a companion who thinks that he goes home really soon when he has six months left! That's so much time! In other words...he's trunky haha. He's awesome though and we get along well. As for the rest of ZL council, we just went over our Zone Visions and talked about how we are going to have a "Fast Start" 2011.

The next day, Wednesday, was Leadership Meeting with all the District Leaders and Zone Leaders. It was fun to see elders such as Elder Cichy (DL in Peoria), Elder Halligan (DL in Prescott), and Elder Henrie and Elder Johnson. We again went over the "Fast Start" program and President Beck also talked about how our mission is now being given an extra hour each week to be on the internet. That hour is to be spent between the days of Tuesday and Friday and only to go to mormon.org or boncom.com/mormon. This is because of the churches massive advertisement boom so that we will be able to use the advertisements in our teaching. He also talked about how we need to get our members to create mormon.org profiles so that our investigators can look someone up who they may admire and click with. You can also link mormon.org profiles to your Facebook or twitter and so far referrals that have come from mormon.org have an 80% chance of getting in the home and teaching a first lesson. So, all you people back home, get on there and create a profile! Two of our investigators who just walked in to church one day found the nearest building located to them through mormon.org. It's sweet! So we are given that extra hour per week to get on and research what we think would work well to our investigators’ needs.

Church yesterday was Ward Conference for us. Bishop Grizzle and Stake President Hettinger spoke to us. They are phenomenal men and President Hettinger is an amazing stake president. He's so funny and so personable. He spoke about four things that we should do weekly to have the spirit in our lives more abundantly. 1. Hold morning and nightly kneeling prayer. 2. Daily study of the Book of Mormon. 3. Consistent Family Home Evening. 4. Invite a nonmember friend to take the missionary lessons. Of course they are things that we hear all the time but how many times do we really bear testimony about what we know to be true to nonmembers, and invite them to take the missionary lessons? I know that before my mission it was something that never even crossed my mind. Not just because I never really came across non members, but that I still didn't invite those who were struggling with attending. I hope I will be better at that as a returned missionary.

This week Kennington and I had a really neat discussion as to when we truly received our testimonies. It ended up being us sharing experiences from our lives as to when we felt that "change of heart" occurred. I feel that my testimony of course stemmed from you as my parents, but that at an early age I learned what I would need to do to develop a testimony of my own. There are many experiences that have strengthened my testimony throughout my life and it's hard to name one certain time when I found out that the Book of Mormon was true or that Joseph Smith is a prophet. But it's one thing that I can say and will never deny. We also talked about what we think were the parts of our lives before the mission that prepared us the most. Of course both of us mentioned our parents, because without them we would not be here. Next I talked about callings in the church and leadership in the deacons, teachers and priests quorums, Scouts of course, baseball, and striving to hit my goals as a student in school. All these things I feel have helped in certain, specific ways to prepare me for this service.

I'm so thankful. Sorry this email is so short, not much more to report on. Hope you have a good week! Thanks for everything.

Love,

Elder Mouritsen