Life Lessons

May 21, 2012

Hello Family,

It sounds like you had quite an eventful week and you were all able to spend some good family time together up in Dingle with Whitney and Colton.  It is weird that Colton is home and his mission is over and it makes me think about my mission and how fast time goes. Before I know it my mission will be over and I will be sad.  It seems that our whole childhood we are sort of all looking forward to our missions and what they will be like and what experiences we will have and where we will go.  At least most people that plan to go on missions might think that. I was a little different. I never really looked forward to my mission. I always thought of it as something that I was going to do but never something that I looked forward to.  I was content with staying home, going to school, and hanging out with my friends.  Giving two years to a mission never really got me excited like it did a lot of my friends.  I always looked at it as the sooner I go the sooner I can get back home and begin my life.  Now that I am here on my mission I can see that this is a huge part of my life.  My mission is setting the pathway for the rest of my life and I have no idea how I would be able to live a successful happy life without my mission.  I know that Colton must feel the same way, that his mission meant everything to him and that he wouldn't trade anything for the lessons and the experiences that he had on his mission.  We are out here every day learning life lessons: how to talk to people, how to grocery shop, teach, study, wash clothes, cook, make lasting friends, work with less actives, live without our parents, live with a companion 24/7 and still like him, time management and so much more.  I like what Brother Tom Curtis Sr. said, "A mission is the cheapest schooling you will ever have". This statement has always stuck with me for some reason and it is true, you will never learn more about yourself and what you can do than here on a mission.  Anyone that is debating whether to serve a mission or not I advise you to serve and allow a mission to change your life forever. 

This week was another good week for us here in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  The weather has been hot and not too humid and the Kramer’s are still getting baptized!  We have been working and focusing most of our attention on the Kramer’s and getting them ready for their big day.  On Monday we watched the Prophet of the Restoration with them and afterward they made us steaks! (New York Strip, mm mm good). It was great to watch the movie with them because they were able to understand Joseph Smith’s life better and see the trials and challenges that he went through.  The Spirit was definitely with us while we watched the movie.  The only part that we have been having a hard time with is finding baptismal clothes for Kim and Kevin.  All the baptismal clothes in our chapel are from the 60's and 70's and it looks like they are going to go to the disco rather than a baptism.  Hopefully, we can find some clothes to use though or else we will have to wrap them up in my white sheets and call it good.  Also, Kevin was interviewed yesterday after sacrament by the bishop and he will be able to get the priesthood the same day he is confirmed a member.  Pretty exciting for him and me!

We also were able to visit and teach Alan our other investigator and his wife finally got home.  She is very nice. Her name is Rachel and she grew up in Logan, UT and is an English teacher.  She told us that she would like to be taught the lessons because she doesn't remember anything.  The last time she was active in church was when she was 13 years old and now she is probably almost 40.  They both want to change their lives around and get back into the church.  They both came to Church yesterday and enjoyed it and we will be meeting with them a couple times this week. 

Loannva didn't come to church this week and we were never able to visit with her but she did call me and told me that she was kicking out the lady that was living with her named Noel.  Noel is a nut case and tries to make people mad.  Loannva thought that she could help her but sadly even Loannva who worked with troubled students her whole profession couldn't even help her.  It just goes to show that you can't help people that don't want to be helped.  Loannva is a nice lady and I really love her but I do hope that she comes to Church and stays active in the Church after I leave.  I hope and pray that she can gain a strong testimony of the truthfulness of this Church. 

This week was also Brother and Sister Kenley's birthday and we were able to celebrate with them by having breakfast with them one day and also going to a pizza place.  I really love the Kenley's a lot and I found out that Sister Kenley is a good friend with Gloria Noble the lady that I used to be a TA for in Middle school. Sister Kenley was going to ask Gloria if she remembered me.  I like talking with Brother and Sister Kenley finding out who they know from South Jordan.  Their ward was the ward that covers King Benjamin's Court so they knew Nate Peterson and Apollo Anton Ono. 

Well, there is not much else to tell you. We have some new investigators that will be an interesting case but I am excited to start teaching them and getting to know them better.  We have also continued to try and work with the Spanish people, which is a task in and of itself.  This Church is true and there is nothing else I can say.

Love you,

Elder Tanner Mouritsen

Happy Mother's Day

May 14, 2012

Hi Mom,

It was great to talk with you yesterday for Mother’s Day.  It is great to be on a mission and to be learning so much and having great experiences but it is hard and sometimes talking with the family makes everything better. After talking with you yesterday I felt great and ready to go back to work and give it my all.  It is nice to know that your family supports you fully and that nothing is changing too much at home.

I was sad to know that Scott’s dog Cheyenne died. She was such a good dog and she was Scott's little baby.

I love you guys and it was so great to Skype with you yesterday and to see Grandma Georgia!

Love Elder Mouritsen

The Church Is True And Don't Ever Forget It"

May 7, 2012

Letter from Mom,

It was a pretty inspiring week this week in regards to your condition.  When I received the pictures from you I immediately started looking on the Internet for rashes to see if I could find any clues.  I brought up images and looked through some pretty horrific looking rashes until I found one that was similar to the pictures you sent of yours. I clicked on it and started reading about it and thought it sounded similar to the one you had before. Do you remember when you had it? It never clicked with me that it might be the same thing because you never had it on your eyes. But in reading about it I found out that it can be on your eyes as well. The fact that it would get a little better with the steroids and then worse when you stopped using them was another thing that made me think it was the same thing you had before. I also read that it is treated with Doxycycline and I remembered you had taken that before. It was all starting to come together! Then a thought came to me to get ahold of Kirstin because I knew she had access to your records and to the dermatologist. She was so helpful and so kind. She gave me all the remedies you should need and I sent her the pictures and she showed them to the doctor and they both thought the same thing, Perioral Dermatitis.  They did say it will probably get worse before it gets better as you need to get the steroids out of your system and not use the cream one either. Sister Kenley said you got the package I sent you on Saturday so hopefully the little sample creams will help a little. I feel like it is such a blessing that all these things came together and I know that the Lord had a hand in it all. We have been praying for someone to be able to help you with this rash and for someone to be able to diagnose what it was and I had even put your name in at the temple a few days before you had sent the pictures. I know that the inspiration I had about it was truly heaven sent and I am so grateful for that.

Love,

Mom 

Dear Mom,

Wow! That is so cool and I feel so blessed to have parents that care about me and that have the means and faith to find solutions. You are like Sherlock Holmes or Encyclopedia Brown.  I am so grateful for the health care that you and dad have always been able to provide for me.  It is a true blessing.  It has been hard to go out every day and to go to church and talk with people when I know they are probably looking at my eyes and almost everyone asks “What is wrong with your eyes?” but, I try not to think about it and just tell myself that I am not here for me I am here for my Heavenly Father and that He will bless me for this trial.  He wants me to learn something from this trial and I am not exactly sure what it is but I'm sure I will look back and find the lesson that I learned.  My eye looks the worst it has ever looked this last week but hopefully the steroid is out and it can start looking better and clearing up. I am using the Protopic right now.

That is so cool that Kirstin is getting baptized and it's even cooler that Russ was worthy to perform the baptism.  That will be a fun Saturday!  

Oh my gosh! Colton is coming home the 15^th! That is so soon!!  I can't believe it. It seems like he just left but then again he has been gone for a long time because I have been gone for almost a year! I am excited for him though. That will be a good Mother’s Day present for Aimee.

I heard that the movie Avengers was very awesome!!  One of the members in our ward told us that we should go see it and he would take us haha. Of course we would never go but it was funny.  Ward members trying to temp us haha.

As sister Kenley said, we had some investigators at church yesterday.  It was the best Sunday as far as investigators at church.  We had the Kramer’s there with two of their foster kids. We had Brett and Brittany there with their three kids and we had Alan there who was excommunicated 12 years ago but is ready to make changes in his life.  Having investigators come to church is great but it can also be very stressful because it is the “make-it-or-break-it” for most people. The first impression of the Church is everything.  So you have to make sure that they are comfortable that they understand and that they get to the right classes.  It was fun though, it was the first time that we have had an investigator with kids so we got to help take them all to their classes and they all really enjoyed it.  Especially the young kids that went to nursery, they actually ran in to the nursery room and started playing.  They didn't even cry when the parents left.

It was our main focus this week to get as many of our investigators that we could to church.  We taught them all about church and the importance of it and then invited them to attend with us.  After the invite, all you can do is fast, pray, and hope that they come.  This week we were definitely blessed.  I am always nervous that the people won’t like church but I learned a lesson yesterday. I just need to have faith in our Heavenly Father that he will take care of things as long as we put forth our effort. I truly believe in that because this week we worked really hard trying to get everyone out to church and since we put forth that effort Heavenly Father made sure everything worked out, and it did!!

After church, I texted Brittany and told her that it was great to have them at church.  She texted back and said “thanks for inviting us, I was really nervous at first but I enjoyed it and we will be back again”. Then she asked if her son could get involved with scouts?  Then she sent me a three page text saying that she had talked to her friend and her friend told her to read “Mormonish Mama and Me”.  Then this is what her friend said "That is the book I read when I was searching for a faith.  If you don't like being treated poorly now, just wait until you get with a Mormon man.  Women are very much disregarded in their church.  Also, the men rename the women when they get married. Any name of his choosing".  Brittany asked if this was true?  I told her that "I HAVE NEVER EVER HEARD OF THAT” and I have been in the church 19 years. I said the women in the church are prized possessions and they are treated with the utmost respect. She laughed and said “oh that's really good to hear”. It is crazy some of the stuff people come up with and think is true.  If people would just talk to us they would learn a whole lot more and it would all be true.

We are going to eat at the Kramer’s again tonight and I am going on exchanges with Elder Haymore our new district leader.  It will be the first time Elder Rivas has been on exchange so I hope he likes it. I hope he learns what a great companion he has, haha. Seriously, I hope he learns some new things that I haven't been able to teach him yet. After church last night we went to the Kramer’s and we talked about their baptism and about their experience at church.  It was a good visit but the best part was when they told us that they have already made plans to go to Salt Lake next June to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity!!!

I am grateful for this opportunity God has given me to teach the Kramer’s.  The Church is true and don't ever forget it!

Love you.

Elder Tanner Mouritsen

I Need Help Now!

April 30, 2012

Dear Family,

I hope that we can find the right doctors to help cure this rash on my face. I called the dermatologist that is here in Chambersburg and they aren't accepting new patients until July so that won’t work, I need help NOW! I have a moon face from the prednisone! That stuff is bad and I heard that it can make you sterile. When I heard that I thought "Oh GREAT! I won't be able to have kids now because of this stupid rash". I better be blessed a lot for this when I get home. Haha

We have been visiting the Kramer’s a lot; probably 5 times and two of the times that we visited with them were because they called us and had a question. They are receiving a lot of grief from Kevin Kramer’s mom. She is 76 years old and apparently doesn't like Mormons but she has never actually met one so she has no room to talk. His mom had looked up a lot of stuff on the internet and so they had a lot of questions but I feel we answered them all very well. The biggest question that they had was about tithing. Kevin’s mom told them that when you join the church you have to give the church your pay check so they know how much you make and then they take ten percent out and give the rest back to you. The only thing true about that was the ten percent, everything else was false. We told them that it is a commandment that is for the building up of the kingdom on the earth and that you will only know of the blessing of tithing if you test it or test God in other words. They felt better after this discussion and they are both still on board for their baptism on the 26^th of May. It is so fun to teach them and answer their questions. I feel that this is how missions are supposed to be. The Kramer’s invited us to dinner tonight.

I feel pretty good. I am sad that transfers are here and Elder Ika will be leaving. He has been here for six months and so I have gotten to become really good friends with him. It will be weird to have him gone while I am still here. Some days it is really hard to go out and do missionary work but I keep doing it. I think I just feel like that because I have been here so long in this area but this is my home. I was called to the Pennsylvania, Chambersburg mission. I will be really sad when I have to leave here because I have grown to love it.

Spanish is driving me crazy! It is so hard to learn it here. I have a native companion and he helps me a lot but he always wants to practice his English which he needs to because all our good investigators are English so we end up speaking a lot of English. I just don't get to hear it that much and I have to speak a lot of English throughout the day with our investigators. I only speak Spanish with Elder Rivas but it still isn't enough. I need to figure out a better way to study and use what I study. The Lord will help me I just need to have faith.

Elder Rivas is good. He spent a lot of time with the missionaries in New York before his mission and he was able to see how they do things but this mission is very different from New York and he needs to learn that. I know he has been pretty frustrated with me at times because he feels I need to be more patient. He is great though and I love him. He works very hard and always works at building his testimony. I think the language barrier is the only problem. We both want to learn a different language. I feel really bad though because he doesn't have any family support and he said he probably won’t be able to call his mom on Mother’s Day.

Thanks for all your love and support that you give me. I love you!!!

Love Elder Tanner Mouritsen