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