There are bad weeks and good weeks

April 09, 2012

Dear family,

The rash on my face has been getting a lot better because I called the doctor again and he prescribed me more medicine. The rash looks really good but it is not completely gone. I am almost done with my medicine so I might have to call the doctor again. I don't know what it is. One lady that is a less active member who is a little crazy was trying to tell me it is MRSA. I know it is not MRSA but it is weird and I don't like it.

My allergies are better. I have been taking Zertec every day.

Todavia tengo la alergia al redador mi ojo pero esta es major. Yo pienso que esta es llegarando a ser malo otra vez porque ya casi termino con mi medicina y mi ojo es no completamente mejor. Asi yo necesito mas medicion de el doctor.

Si, Mi alergias estan mejor. He estado tomando zertec cada dia.

Elder Rivas want's to know why I take so many vitamins and still get sick. I said because my mom is Brenda.

We haven't set a baptismal date for Jakie yet. We haven't been able to see her this week she said she was really busy and didn't have time to meet with us but, she did say she would come to church. Yesterday morning I texted her to see if she needed a ride and she texted back saying she was going to pass on the church and she doesn't feel ready for the gospel right now. So I guess as of now Jakie is not an investigator. Yesterday morning was just not good. I don't understand Jakie. She was doing so great, coming to church, wanted to quit her bad habits and be baptized and now she sends us this text! I don't understand but this is missionary work, and it's not easy.

No tenemos la oportunidad a visitar jakie esta semana porque jakie nos dijo que ella estaba muy ocupado y no tenia tiempo a hablar con nosotros. Entonces ayer jakie envio un mensaje diciendo "no quiero que ustedes me visiten mas porque no me siento listo para continuar.

Easter was ok.. Nothing too special happened and Jakie dropped us pretty much, so no, it wasn't that great of a day. We did go to the Kennedy's for dinner to have ham and to hear Brother Kennedy tell us stories of coon hunting. After dinner we went to see the Kenley’s and met their grandson who lives in Pennsylvania and to get butter to make cookies with the other Elders.

Easter fue ok.. Nosotros tenemos cena con la familia Kennedys pero no tuve un huevo en todo dia y no tuve la oportunidad de tomar el pan en la santa cena porque yo ricibi una llamanda.

I did receive the package you sent. It was really nice. Elder Rivas and I enjoyed a nice dinner at Applebees on Saturday with the gift card you sent. We had a missionary date, haha. The ties were really nice! I wore the purple one the first night I got the package. I got something on it so I had to dry clean it the next day so I could wear it yesterday for church. Elder Rivas thinks you guys are great and was very happy to receive something for Easter.

We have some new Spanish investigators and most of our lessons that we taught this week were in Spanish which was cool. I am starting to understand the words and catch on to what they are saying a lot quicker. We have one Spanish investigator that Elder Rivas knew in New York. She is really nice and owns a smoothie shop and is a Mary Kay lady. When we go visit her she gives us a smoothie and she also gave us some Mary Kay cologne.

Si tenemos algunos investigadores que hablan espanol. La mayoria de nuestros lecciones son en espanol esta semana. Queremos tener mas investigadors en espanol asi estamos poniendo mas atencion en espanol.

Jim is gone and I don't think I will ever see him again. Loannva is doing well, we saw her this week and shared some Mormon.org videos with her about the atonement and Easter. She really enjoyed that but what she enjoyed the most were the banana cookies I made and gave to her. She says she was dreaming about them. She needs a friend in the church. If only people in the ward would make the effort to go over and talk to her or invite her to some activities. I think she is only active because of us the missionaries. If the missionaries stopped going to her house she might never come to church. She believes fully in the church but she is still young in the church and doesn't understand some of the things in the church. She needs a friend or home teacher to explain things to her. I don't think her home teachers have ever been to see her and she has been in the church for 3 months now.

You asked if I need anything. I need people to be baptized. I need Satan to stop working against our investigators and recent converts. I need many things haha.

This week has been hard for me because I have temporarily lost the excitement of being a missionary. Everything has started to become so monotonous and there is not much we can do about it. We find, we teach, we commit, they accept, we follow up, we commit, they accept, we follow up, we teach, we commit, they tell us don't want to see us anymore. We find we teach..... It goes through this cycle and usually nothing comes of all our efforts and when something does come of it they end up going less active or have a hard time coming to church because they are not fellowshipped by the ward. After being out for a while I have started seeing things in a different perspective than I did when I first got out on my mission. It is sad but true. It becomes hard to give it your all day after day after day when you don't see anything coming from it. I know I shouldn't be thinking this way but I just had to express my feelings. There have been very rewarding times on my mission but most the time it's a lot of work with little result. As I have been typing this paragraph complaining, haha, I was reminded of a talk that I heard in the MTC. It was about missionary work. We read about the olive tree in Jacob ch.5 and we underlined all the times it said perhaps. We do all that we can that perhaps we might bring forth fruit. Most of our mission will be work and more work but every now and again our mission will bring forth fruit. The fruit is what makes the mission worth it. It is hard to go day after day and not see any results.

Well family there wasn't much good from this letter but I am good and things will get better. There are bad weeks and good weeks.

I love you all and hope you get home safely! I am glad you had a great trip! You are in my prayers and in my thoughts.

Love,

Elder Tanner Mouritsen

PS We have a new investigator named Kim who reminds me of Aunt Debera. She is pretty great and she is a Survivor fan. We have been helping her quit smoking but now we are working into the gospel stuff.