"When are you going to teach me about Joseph Smith?"

March 11, 2013

Hello family,

It is so nice outside here.  It has been about 60 degrees the past few days which makes it fun to go out of the apartment and work.  The winter is so depressing.  I hope in heaven there is snow but hopefully it doesn't get cold and there are no inversions. 

This week has been alright.  We have been super busy trying to get Jesi ready for baptism.  Her baptism wasn't this week.  Some things came up and there was a wedding in the singles ward so we postponed it until this upcoming Sunday.  She is still very excited.  We just hope that she will be able to find a job this week or the week to come because she is really stressing about finding a job and it is hard to feel the Spirit and grow spiritually when you don't have your temporal needs met. 

After lunch on Tuesday, we went to the Library to have a lesson with Jesi.  That is when we decided to change the date for the baptism to March 17^th.  It felt better to do that and, up until the baptism, she wants to visit with us every day.  It has been cool to see her progression and her excitement to learn all that she can before her baptism.  After our lesson, we drove to Chambersburg to have an exchange.  Luckily, we didn't run out of gas because we forgot to fill up and there were no gas stations for a while but we made it.  I was exchanging with Elder Lozano and Espinosa who are both in my old area.  It was weird to be back in Chambersburg.  Everything was the same and I remembered all the streets, which was cool.  The apartment was still the same, small but clean.  Nothing much happened that day until dinner with the Kramer’s.  The Kramer’s fed all 8 missionaries!  It was nice to see them again and hear how everything has been going.  We took a lot of pictures and Sister Kenley was going to send them to you but she ended up erasing them, haha.  We’ll have to get them from the Kramer’s now. 

We had what was supposed to be a huge snow Storm on Wednesday but it ended up being just a few inches.  It caused the missionaries in Chambersburg to freak out and they cancelled district meeting.  Our exchange ended up getting pretty messed up causing Elder Collier and I to get frustrated with the way things were handled.  We left Chambersburg after finally having a district meeting in the Kenley's apartment.  On our way home we stopped to have another lesson with Jesi in Gettysburg.  We talked about prophets with her and she said she would follow the prophet. 

That night, we had a really good Book of Mormon class and Laura showed up!  She was the one that lost her father in a freak heart attack.  She came and we talked about the title page of the Book of Mormon which really helped her understand the back ground of the Book of Mormon and the way it came about.  The Spirit was strong and we left the class as happy missionaries. 

Thursday was pretty uneventful except our lesson with Jesi was really good.  Jesi was living in the Gettysburg homeless shelter but, her time was up in the shelter so she had to leave.  She is now staying in a Lutheran Church in Gettysburg.  Anyway, that night we ended up having a lesson with her inside another church.  The Pastor said it was fine but I thought it was pretty funny that we were teaching about the restoration in a reformed church.  We had a good discussion on temples and she said she wants to work towards going there after her baptism.  We left the church and Elder Collier and I decided that we need to have our Church, the one that she is going to be joining, help her out.  We can't have a future member staying in another church.  The next day we talked to the bishop and he agreed to help.  Jesi is working hard to find a job but this a bad job market. 

On Friday evening, we stopped by Paul’s because he hadn't texted us back so we decided to go see what his problem was.  There was no problem.  He invited us right in and wanted to show Elder Collier his gun collection.  I had seen it before but it was pretty cool to see again and then we just talked to him.  We didn't teach anything but we did talk about some of the stories in the Book of Mormon which he found interesting and said he needed to read more.  It was a good visit even though we didn't have an official lesson but we did get a return appointment to teach a lesson.  I think Paul will eventually get baptized but it will take some time.  He is scared of the commitment because he understands it.

On Friday, some of Elder Collier’s converts came and took us to the Olive Garden.  A little later we went to a spaghetti dinner at the Church which was a fundraiser to raise money for scout camp.  There was also an auction at the end where they auctioned off baked goods.  After the fundraiser we went to a fiesta.  We were invited by some of our Hispanic investigators to their 5 year olds’ birthday party.  It was awesome!!!  They know how to have parties.  Everyone was nice and dressed really well.  The food was amazing and they created a cool atmosphere.  It was a lot different than our family parties.  Elder Collier and I don't get why people love missionaries and invite them to functions like that because as missionaries we’re quite boring, haha.  We had fun though and ate a lot of good Mexican food.  Everyone spoke Spanish so it was fun to talk to them.  It was a little hard to have normal conversations in Spanish and not be talking about the gospel because so much of what I know how to speak is gospel related.  Oh, and they were going to do dancing but we left before that.  We need to ramp up our ward parties and have them be more like the Hispanics!  It was pretty much a day of eating.  We both felt really full at the end of the night.

Sunday was pretty normal, Church, studies, tried a few people and had dinner but, after dinner we had time for one visit.  We decided that we should try the Gaylord’s because they never texted us back.  I was a little scared because I thought she was blowing us off but when we got there Rob (the dad) let us right in.  It was just Jennifer and Rob at home and they were watching TV.  They told us to sit down and we started having a great conversation about the things that are going on in the world.  It was a little scary for us to hear but it allowed us to break the ice and then she said, “When are you going to teach me about Joseph Smith?” 

I said, “Well, do you have 15 min right now?” 

She said, “Yes”.  It was a great lesson and the kids ended up getting home and she had them come in and listen to what we were teaching.  Rob opened up to us and gave us some info on his religious background and Jennifer told us her thoughts on religion.  We taught by the Spirit and testified of the truthfulness of our message and the Book of Mormon.  I am praying that they will be able to read and find for themselves the truth and gain a testimony of it.  They are a great family and I already love them and want this happiness for them. 

I love you family sooooooo much!!!!!!!

Elder Tanner Lars Mouritsen