Lars Mouritsen's photostream

Lars Mouritsen's photostream on Flickr.

October 2011

October 2011, a set on Flickr.

Last days at MTC

Last days at MTC, a set on Flickr.

October 24, 2011

Yes, I received the package and the jacket has already been used a lot it is already very cold at night here and I am not excited for winter. Thanks for the lemon pepper it will taste great on my rice that I can cook in my new rice cooker I finally found. I will answer the questionnaire today so it should get there in a few days.  Yes I am having a good time most of the time. My companion and I work really hard and have been focusing on the Spanish people which allows me to use the Spanish I do know more but I get laughed at a lot which is kind of funny because I will say a word wrong or I try and say a English sentence in Spanish which never sounds too good but we are working hard on our Spanish. We are trying to work with the members in the ward that speak Spanish to see if they can work with us on our Spanish for an hour or so once a week or something.

That sounds way fun that you got to spend so much time with Whitney and it sounds like baby Georgia is doing really well which is some great news to hear. Colby Love wrote me today and told me about some people he taught. That is fun that you got to go four wheeling again with the Loves.  I remember last year when we went, that was really fun! The fall colors are beautiful here too.

Yesterday was stake conference and it was about an hour drive so we had to get a ride with some members the Fikes.  What a day.  The Fikes are very nice. They are about 40's and they just got married but they are perfectly suited for each other. We ate at their house on Saturday night and then that’s how we ended up going to stake conference with them.  Sunday after stake conference, they made us sandwiches and had chips and soda, which we ate in the car.  After we ate, the Fikes took us through Gettysburg and we got to stop and get some pictures.  It was a very humbling experience to stand on the ground where thousands died for the liberty and freedom of our country.

That is cool that you got to hear from Elder Bednar I love hearing the apostles speak they inspire me to be better every time I hear one of them speak.

This week was good.  I can’t really remember everything that happened but I just know it was a successful week.  We went tracting a lot and met tons of people that are interested in hearing our message. One cool experience happened when we were knocking doors.  We came across a lady named Leanva and we knocked her door and she told us to come in.  We went in and she had a bunch of kids that were there and we asked her how everything was going. After we asked that question she just started telling us about her tragedy. She told us that all these kids were staying with her because her sister’s son was burned to death and she was watching her sister’s kids while her sister was taking care of things. Leanva was very distressed and was crying at points but we were able to comfort her by sharing the plan of salvation. This wonderful plan has so much power and we are so blessed to know it because most people don’t know about it and death is very hard on people. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to comfort her with this great plan.

It is hard to hear that grandpa is doing so bad it doesn't come as a shock to me.  I knew he would eventually get worse but I didn't think this fast I pray for them constantly and I hope grandpa knows that I love him and to keep pushing forward because I want to see him when I get home!!

I love you family, all of you and pray for you.  I love receiving letters they are the high point of my week so keep sending them.

Love Elder Mouritsen

October 17, 2011

Wow! What a crazy week.  Sorry I am writing so late.  Your trip sounded awesome!! Did you guys end up going to the cirque show in Canada?  What else happened in Canada?  How did Sydnee do with you guys gone for so long?  Did Whitney come down and watch her? 

My apartment is getting better.  We deep cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom this week so it is a lot better but it is still nasty.  Mom, I met sister Chapman and she started saying all this stuff she knew about me and I had never met her before and she was saying all this stuff like she knew you were in Canada for a conference and all sorts of other stuff, it kind of caught me off guard at first but then I realized that she must of talked to you I put it all together pretty quick but I didn't let her know so she just kept telling me stuff she knew about me and you it was so fun and funny.  Then she tried to call you and tell you what I needed.  I need some normal shoes my Sperry's, some different jeans, my vitamins, and a normal jacket like my nice one with the fir lining in it. 

This week we had a mission tour and companion exchanges which is when I leave my area and go be companions with another elder in our district which was fun and a good experience because I got to learn how other missionaries work and learn from them. 

While we were on missionary exchanges we ran into a guy who graduated from MIT university it was so awesome to because it was the last house of the day and I felt that we should knock his house out all the houses I chose his and he excepted us and he let us come into his house which was huge by the way and we got to teach him the first lesson right there and give him a book of Mormon.  It was the first time that I actually got to teach the first lesson for real’s but before we left we got a return appointment and hopefully everything works out.  Also that night after we had finished exchanges we taught a guy named tom that is huge he owns a supplements store and probably weighs 300 lbs. mostly muscle about 6.6 tall.  Anyways we got to teach him about the plan of salvation which took forever because he had so many questions but at the end of the lesson he said a prayer and it was so powerful it brought a huge smile to my face and I could totally fill the spirit in the room. 

The mission tour was great too a quorum of the seventy came and his wife, elder Zwick and sister Zwick they had so many stories that really helped want to make all of us missionaries be better and not to fill discouraged.  I like the story that sister Zwick shared the most about her oldest boy Scott who couldn't read or write because he had a handicap but Scott wanted to serve a mission really bad but never could because of his problems.  There youngest son was serving in Thailand at the time and he was about done with his mission and elder Zwick had business out that way and so they wanted to pick their young son up on their way back and the mission president said you can only pick your son up early if you let Scott be his companion for two weeks so they agreed.  Scott was ordained a missionary and was able to serve and he was given a challenge to give someone a book of Mormon but he couldn't speak the language so he finally found some English speakers and went up to them and bore his testimony saying " I can’t read but my parents have read this to me and I know this book is true" the people took the book.  Later they found out that the people he gave the book to were baptized and said they would've never read the book if it wasn't for Scott’s testimony.

Also this week we taught a Spanish lady named Cathy.  It was so cool!  my companion and I practiced the lesson so many times because neither one of us speak Spanish that well so we got to Cathy’s and started teaching her and she was so interested and so nice she really love god and loves talking about Jesus you can just tell by the way she was talking to us.  Teaching the lesson was very hard though and when we asked her to read she said she couldn't read which we thought that was odd but then when we challenged her to read the book of Mormon she said she didn't speak Spanish and has been trying to learn Spanish her native language is Mon which is another dialect in Guatemala.  I think she understood most of the lesson though she seemed to and she is going to come to church with us on Sunday and she was really excited about it. 

My companion and I are starting to focus on teaching Spanish people we fill we are in this area that has the most Spanish speakers in it for a reason and we think we need to get enough Spanish members to open a Spanish branch.  This is a daunting task but I know we are here for a reason. 

I love you family so much I hope everything is going great at home I wish I could write you guys all day long but I can't:(  I am learning a lot the Spanish is very hard I just want to be able to say the things that our on my mind but I cant and that is very frustrating. 

Love you tell everyone hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Elder Mouritsen

October 10, 2011

Hi family

Oh my gosh!  I can’t believe Brady’s team took state! That blows my mind!  Tell him to write me about it!

Well, I got to Pittsburgh Monday night with all my luggage and we went to Golden Corral which was good.  Then we went to a look out where you can see the city very well and it was awesome.  The city was great and it got me way excited! After that we went back to the mission home where we had interviews with the mission president and ate cookies.  Sister Topham was way nice. 

In my interview president Topham he told me that I would be serving in the Harrisburg area and I started to get a little sad inside because I wanted to be in the city and then he said that I wouldn't be teaching very much in Spanish and if I want to learn Spanish that I would have to study every day.  After he told me this I was pretty sure that I want to just go straight home.  Learning the Spanish language is what makes me excited to come to Pittsburgh.

Well I am giving it a try.  The next day we had transfers which lasted all day and I met my new companion Elder Stewart from Orem Utah.  He has been out for about nine months and is a Spanish speaking missionary but doesn't speak too well, better than me but not fluent.  He had been her for nine months and he had only taught one lesson in Spanish until I got here but, yesterday we taught a Spanish lady.  That was pretty cool.  Anyway, we got to our apartment at about 11 o’clock and it is a DISGUSTING APARTMENT!  I want to leave and never come back.  I immediately started throwing stuff away and started vacuuming my area.  I didn't even want to hang up my clothes and I did not want my feet to ever touch the ground.  It was a shocking first night and I am still in shock but I have cleaned my apartment up enough to where I can feel a little better but it is still very sketchy.

I would explain the town I am in as Logan, UT, probably smaller and with more rednecks haha.  Hopefully I can learn to love his place.  There are a lot of farms and it is way green.  The farm houses are nice and I like going to them more than houses that are in the town area.  Some of them are gross and I can’t believe some people live like this in complete filth!  I love our house and am so grateful for your cleanliness mom because I would hate to live like this. 

I can’t believe I am a missionary though.  It is pretty awesome.  We can talk to anyone we want and they will either listen or just shut us down.  My favorite part has been street contacting and going to members houses for dinner and sharing a message.  I am pretty sure I have lost all my MTC weight already and am starting to get my six-pack back.  We went shopping the second day I got here at the one Wal-Mart in town and I bought a bag of chicken, brown rice, eggs, miniwheats and milk.  I need to go and buy a rice cooker though to cook my rice and maybe some chicken scissors because the knife in the apartment is like cutting with a butter knife (impossible).  My companion is super healthy.  He doesn't eat sugar and gets up at five thirty to workout.  All the missionaries here are big into working out and have a ton of protein and stuff.  It’s kind of out of control I think but I just do my pushups, sit ups, and pull-ups (thanks for sending my pull-up bar by the way. It is awesome.  I missed it). 

My companion has been a trainer his entire mission so that probably means he's the best trainer in the mission so I feel pretty lucky to have him as a trainer but I miss Elder Nelson.  We got along better and he and I got each other’s personalities better.  Hopefully I can become great friends with this companion though. 

So much has happened this week.  I could write you guys for hours but my P-day is on Mondays now and I will be writing at 10 to 11 or maybe 12 depending so I still don’t have that long to write but hopefully longer than in the MTC.

This week I was able to use my Spanish about three times but I got so excited to really be able to use my Spanish that I forgot everything I needed to say.  I hope I can receive the gift of tongues soon.  The Spanish people are so much nicer than the Americans though.  The Spanish people always listen even though they probably can’t understand anything and the Americans just keep walking or let their kids be super loud.  I don’t really like kid’s haha.  I need to learn to but it is hard.

Well I love you guys so much and I miss you!!! I will try and write more in a little bit or a hand written letter if I have time. 

My new address is:

811 Meadowbrook Lane

Chambersburg PA 17201

So write me letters as much as you want:) and send packages. 

September 29, 2011

Hi family,

Yes I got my luggage tags a long time ago.  Sorry for not telling you. I thought I did but, I guess I didn't.  I got your package yesterday and I got one from Kortney.  I have so much food now it’s awesome! It was a great day for mail yesterday.  I love my fall colored tie it will make me look festive haha.  Ya, I hope the phone card works.  It most likely will I just hope they still have pay phones at the airport.  I have never used a pay phone in my entire life.  I don’t even know what to do.  Preston left this last week but Nate is still here.  He is struggling with his companion I guess.  I feel very blessed that I got a great companion we have become very good friends.  I have become very good friends with all the people in my district.  They are all like the brother I never had.  I feel closer with them than some of my closest friends that I had in high school.  I will miss all of them when I leave but hopefully we can all meet up again after the mission and hang out and speak Spanish with each other.  I am a little nervous for the field not going to lie.  I have finally gotten used to the MTC and now we are changing it up again.  You can never get to settled as a missionary because then things become easy to you and people start slacking.  I am very ready to get out of here though.  It is hard to stay focused in here now and I feel like things are getting out of control.  Mostly other districts in our zone are just going crazy.  It’s like they are still in high school and they don’t have any idea what they are supposed to do so they just start doing things that 19 year old guys would do.  I hope they figure out their priorities.   

I think Whitney will have a boy.

This week is flying by.  I have no idea where the time has gone.  Yesterday was quite the day it was the last class time we had with Hermano McKinney so we all wrote him a letter saying how great a teacher he was and how much he taught us.  I really enjoyed him as a teacher.  We were his first district he ever taught so of course we were his favorite and probably always will be but, he loves us and we loved him.  He taught me a lot about how to be a good teacher.  He gave us all a tie that he had worn on his mission and wrote a little message in our journal so we would remember him.  He is the teacher that served with Mitch Jones and he plays golf so maybe I can play golf with him when I get back, if I can even swing a club after my mission. 

Last night was also Hermano McPhersons last night.  We started class by teaching him for the last time.  He has always been really hard to teach but I think he just likes to challenge us so we can be great teachers out in the real field.  He is one of the most inspirational people I know.  He ended the night by telling us his conversion story and it was pretty compelling.  He is the only person in his whole entire family that is a member of the church, including even his extended family.  He became a member when he was a senior in high school and never had any missionaries teach him.  He was dating a girl that was about the only member in his whole school because he lived in a small town in Washington.  He went to church with his girlfriend a few times and one of the times he went he was given a lesson on the plan of salvation and he was asked where we came from?  He really pondered this question and knew what the teacher was saying was true and he could feel a Spirit talking to him.  He then read the Book of Mormon in three weeks and went to the bishop and said “how do I get baptized”.  He was baptized and his mother wept for hours he said, she is a super catholic.  He is an only child and his mom’s miracle baby because she wasn't supposed to have kids.  But, he knew that this church was true and no one could change his mind, not even his mother.  It was a powerful story.  He later served a mission and said it was the greatest experience he ever had.  Of course I summarized the story but it was amazing to hear. 

I love you family I have to go now.