July 12-18, 2011: The Feeling Is Enough

Howdy family:

That's great news about Whitney! Tell her congratulations for me! The girls camp sounds like it was a huge success! Madison, I love the song you wrote. The only problem is that I don't know the tune. I, and the other elders that I live with, have been singing the lyrics to the tune of hymns like "Praise to the Man." It's hilarious! It makes it fun though. You should try to send the tune sometime. I don't know how but just find a way haha. My shoulder is doing pretty well. Sister Taylor hasn't gotten back to me yet though. I'll be sure to keep you in the loop.

We had a great week across the Phoenix North Zone this week! Six people were baptized during the week and five more are scheduled for this week. It's awesome how real blessings can be as long as we are obedient and hard working. Some of the members of our ward are finally catching the vision on praying for missionary opportunities and then not passing them up when they come! Heather Dewar brought a friend from her work to church and in the very first lesson we had with her she committed to baptism! It's awesome! The only concern is that she lives with her boyfriend and his mom because the rest of her family has sent her away. She is solid though. Her name is Adriana Montoya. I shared with her an experience that we had this week while tracting. I will share it with you:

Friday we went to knock some doors on 33rd and Greenway. I knocked on a door and immediately it was opened by an older gentleman with Levi shorts hiked up above his bellybutton. He was also shirtless with fat, saggy, pectorals that made me chuckle when I saw him. He had dark eyes, white/grey wavy hair and he invited us in as soon as we told him we were missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That doesn't happen much but I thought it could be a good opportunity to teach him and give him a Book of Mormon. Right when I stepped in I noticed that the feeling there was not conducive to the spirit. Something wrong, yet powerful was present there. I thought it was Satan trying to get us to leave so we kept going with it. We sat down on his couch, and he pulled up a chair right in front of us. We began talking while my eyes wandered around the dark and muggy smelling room. I looked down the hall to my left into the bedroom and saw a woman on the floor with her feet up on the bed and it looked like she was sleeping. Yes it was very eerie. The man was rattling off story after story and wouldn't really let us get a word in. He spoke about the war, driving trucks, his friends and more. Then he began talking about the power of God and the power of Satan. As soon as he mentioned the word "Satan" a cold chill ran down my spine and I knew there was something wrong with this man and the room. His face was eerie, especially with the lack of light in the room. His teeth were jagged and yellow and his eyes were dark and perplexed. As much as we tried, we couldn't really say anything. I found some correlations between him and some other people I've come into contact with that were possessed with demons. It was not a good feeling and I wanted out. Finally, I interrupted him loudly by stating our purpose as missionaries. I asked him if he is willing to come closer to Jesus Christ. He bounced around the question and never really answered. We stood up, said "well then we have to be going, there is no use for us here." He shook our hands but followed us out the door and walked with us to the next doors we were going to knock. Now HE wouldn't leave! He was crazy. We told him we needed to go and finally he walked away. Still feeling very sick from being near him and inside his apartment, we went and knocked a few more doors. One of the next doors I knocked, I saw a short, cute, old man with large flip-up sunglasses on. It was weird, when I looked at his face I immediately felt the spirit and I said, "You are a member!" I then looked down into his hand and he was holding the Liahona magazine! He was a member! He noticed that I was a missionary and he invited us both in. He did not speak English at all, but we found out through some papers and pictures that he is a convert from Bogota, Colombia. He is 87 years old, and he attends the Monte Vista Spanish ward in our stake. As we looked around the room, I noticed that this time it was nicely lit, there were pictures of his family and missionary grandsons. There were pictures of temples and it was very clean. We didn't even need to speak a word to each other (because we couldn't) but I knew that it was a righteous place all because of the feeling that I had. I felt like it was home. Once again, this taught me that "the feeling is enough." Words don't even need to be said to feel the polar opposite difference of the power of Satan, and the power of God. It was an amazing experience.

Other than that nothing to big has happened this week! Dad I hope you have a happy birthday! Love you! Please have a great week. I will talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Colt Mouritsen