Wow what a good day of emails! Picture of Dylan with Andrea, Leah playing softball, Raquel emailed me (which was one of the greatest heart felt passages I've read in a long time), and then yours! Yours was awesome too.
We were tracting one day on 22nd Ave and South of Dunlap at the Tesoro apartments and we ran into a guy in the parking lot who said he had been around Mormons a lot in his life because he lived with a foster family in Salt Lake. He went on to tell me that he went to Granger High School. I asked him how old he was. (Don't guess at that, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, everrrrr, etc) He said that he is 45. I realized that you are 46 (which I can't believe by the way :/ haha) and made the correlation that you may have gone to school together. He said he may have heard of your name but can't put his finger on it. Well a few days passed and we found ourselves back in that complex knocking on some doors and it just so happened that we knocked on his door this time and he answered. He was very intoxicated but wanted to talk with us. He came outside and the topic of Granger High School came up again. We thought it was so cool that we had this connection between us, meaning my dad, and him. All of a sudden, it clicked with him that he had a 1982 Granger High School year book in his apartment and we could find out if this was correct. He went and grabbed it and with a major smile on my face I flipped through the pages and found you with your crazy hair, funny shirts, same smile, same teeth, same eyes, same everything! Except your little mexy stache was pushin it... haha He said that he knew Kelly Overby, Kelly Foote, (at least he heard of them) and another one of your friends that was on the basketball. He looked at me and said, "You know what brother, you keep that. I believe in payin' it forward." I insisted that he didn't but he wouldn't have it. Soo... I scored myself a 1982 Granger High School Year Book! Complete with Verle Joe's signatures (that's the guys name). The other missionaries that we live with loved looking through it and seeing how much I look like you back then... I didn't know how to react to that. haha You were a pretty popular guy though! You were in so many pictures!!
This weekend it was Stake Conference. President Hettinger gave us another shout out by saying that he loves us because we taught another investigator in his home. He is awesome! Elder S. Gifford Nielsen was in attendance as well and he's hilarious. He was an all-American quarterback for BYU and then played 6 years for the Houston Oilers. He told some amazing stories about standing up for what you know to be true, dealing with stress, avoiding the appearance of evil, and other things. It was awesome! His final talk in the general session of stake conference was all about member missionary work. President Beck was in attendance as well and it was sweet. OH! Also, in the adult session instead of President Hettinger giving a talk he called up five people from the audience to bear their testimony. He called them in advance though. The first three were Tiffany Schmidt, Gracie Martinez, and Mike James!! All three people that I taught! Man it nearly brought me to tears. Their testimonies were so amazing. They have all been changed 180 degrees in just the past couple months. They are other reasons that I am here. Elder Nielsen told a story about how when he was on the Oilers he wanted to feel like he was a part of the team, but not at the loss of his eternal progression. The other players would do all that they could to get him to go out drinking and partying and on one occasion he told them he would come, but all he would drink was 7up. For two hours, he sat outside and as a Rookie QB he spoke with veteran NFL players that he had watched for many years as a kid. He told them everything that he believes. They asked question after question, and from that point on that knew that they he wouldn't give in so they quit inviting him. Several months later, after he had gained some credibility on the football field, one of the players was holding a massive party one night after practice. He knew that things weren't going to be good at this party and he did not want to go. His roommates did what they could to get him to go, but the way he responded shocked them. He said, "Be careful out there guys. Come back safe. Please just be careful." They turned around and realized just how much he cared about them. For some reason he felt that he couldn't even tag a long as a designated driver. He just couldn't go. Many years later, a player that was on the team that attended that party wrote a book that disclosed details of what happened at the party. He named all of the people that were in attendance by name. All except for Elder Nielsen, and he was briefly mentioned that he was the only member of the team who didn't go. Many of the players who were ratted out by this guy who wrote the book were extremely angry and distraught at the thought of having to explain to their families why they attended such a party. I guess the things that went down there were pretty grievous. Elder Nielson said that he was so happy he didn't even show his face there, because his name would have been put in that book as one in attendance and he would not have been able to explain himself to his family. I never really thought of it like that. Would I have done things differently in my youth if it would have been made known to my future children? Or my future wife? President Beck tells us very frequently that "You cannot explain yourself out of a situation that you behave yourself into." It is very true. I find it even more true with missionaries in the zone who don't give it their all each and every week. I hope that I will always have the strength to not show my face in places that could harm me and change the outlook of my future for the worse. Of course, we want to show our faces in places that will change us for the better, i.e. Temples, Church, scriptures, FHE, missions, good wholesome hobbies, etc.
We had interviews with President Beck this week. I won't lie I used to be absolutely terrified of the man. Maybe because the only times I ever saw him were when he was correcting misbehavior with a big group of missionaries. Now I have witnessed him during all the emotions and I really enjoy being around him. I used to be extremely intimidated to talk to him but not so much anymore! I guess it's true, there is no comfort in a growing zone, and no growing in a comfort zone.
We have several investigators who are awesome. Roy Kelleners comes to church very frequently but is struggling with believing that his life should be governed by commandments created by a God that we can't even see. We had a very heated lesson a while ago where we were supposed to teach the Plan of Salvation, but obviously the Spirit directed it otherwise. He's very scientific and needs factual evidence. He brought up an analogy for the situation. He said, "It's like this, you can teach somebody that 1 + 1 = 2. You can teach that because you can prove it. That is easy for me to understand." I answered him with the thought of “well how would it be to teach somebody that equation, who had never even heard of the concept of numbers, or addition, or equations at all. They haven't even studied it at all. They wouldn't even understand what the word/number "one" means! That's kind of like you Roy! You have to study it out in your mind. You have to understand the basics before you dive in to deeper doctrine. Then you will be able to put one and one together, and get two!” I related that back to the Book of Mormon and prayer. 1 + 1 + Sincere heart and real intent, with faith in Christ = Book of Mormon is true = Jesus Christ is our Savior = Joseph Smith is a true prophet = We have a prophet on earth today = The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church on earth today!!!!! He is doing a lot better now. I hope that he will be baptized in late April possibly May. He is very cool. Oh, and he's from the Netherlands -- he has a legit accent.
That is about it on the week! Oh we are moving out of our apartment today... all day today... It'll be nice to be out of the dump that we are in right now though. If you would like to send some sweet things from the LDS Bookstore I would love that! Oh and also hard copy pictures... haha Love those.
I love you so much! Thanks for all you do!
Love,
Elder Mouritsen
P.S. Here's a riddle for you:
Picture yourself walking down a path. This path represents life. You come to a fork in the path. One of the ways goes to Heaven, and the other goes to Hell. The only way for you to find out how to get to Heaven, is to ask the two twins who stand in between the split paths. They are there for eternity. You get one question. One of the twins can only tell the truth, the other can only tell lies. You don't know which one is which. What question do you ask?
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