March 25, 2013
Hello Family,
Lots of things happened this week.
We picked up a new investigator on Monday
night, her name is Nikki. She met with the missionaries before probably
about 5 or more years ago. We got to know her a little bit. She is correctional officer at the
prison. She isn't very big but I guess she can take a hit and throw a
punch. We had a good conversation about God. Her daughter, who is 19, joined in on the
conversation letting us know her view on life with is right in line with the
gospel. We are supposed to teach them again tomorrow.
Tuesday, I got a call from President Topham
early in the morning asking if I would like to stay as a zone leader or stay in
my area. After some discussion, I thought it would be best to stay in
Hanover so it isn't doubled out (both elders leave at the same time).
Elder Collier is getting transferred and will be training. I didn't
understand why he couldn't stay in Hanover and train and I could go and to Chambersburg
to remain the zone leader. President Topham said that I would most likely
be going to Chambersburg to remain zone leader and then hung up. After
that, my companion and I said a prayer and waited for an answer. I don't
think that answer ever came but I called President Topham back and told him
that about the work going on in the area and I don't feel like we should be
doubled out. He told me that he can't promise anything but he will see
what happens. After the phone call, Elder Collier and I started preparing
to be doubled out. For the next 36 hours we cleaned, updated the
area book, wrote summaries on all our investigators and started telling
everyone that we were working with that we might get doubled out.
On Wednesday we had the Book of Mormon class
again which was a success. We had about
10 people there again. We talked about 1 Nephi 13 and the history of the
Book of Mormon. After the class we called the AP’s to see if they knew
any info on if we were getting doubled out or if one of us was staying.
They said, as of now Elder Mouritsen is staying. From that point I felt
really stressed wondering if it was the right thing for me to tell President Topham
that I should stay because his original plan was to have me leave and go to Chambersburg.
That night I prayed asking for Heavenly Father to let me know if I should stay
or if I should opt to go. I came to the conclusion that I would know if I
should stay after our lesson that we had planned with the Gaylord’s on
Thursday.
The Worst Day Ever...
Thursday morning I woke up stressed about
transfers and hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because my mind
wouldn't turn off. I was tired. Our studies were awful. We had district
meeting. Elder Munoz had us watch the BYU devotional from Brad Wilcox entitled
"His Grace is Sufficient." It helped us get through what was
shaping up to be a terrible day. Afterwards, we went to Olive Garden and had
our last meal together. Elder Jolley is going home since his 2 years are up.
Our waitress was really rude. We left, to go to the church to have Spanish
study and Elder Collier was going to work on the Area Book, when
he realized he forgot the phone on the table so we had to drive back
and pick it up. That wasted like half an hour and was frustrating. Then
our appointments all called and cancelled. We were bummed. But then we had Al
and Jesi call us out of the blue to say they'd like to meet at precisely the
times our other appointments cancelled! We were excited.
We went to our appointment with Al at 5:00. He
was in such good spirits. He said he'd been feeling great that whole day. But
after we started the lesson, he brought up all of the problems that had
actually been going on that week. Then he had a complete mental
breakdown. He claimed he was the illegitimate son of Albert Einstein and
had been switched at birth, that he knew where the tree of life was (it was in
one of the Civil War battlefields, buried beneath the earth) and he had to go
dig it up so we could all live forever, and that he was El Shaddai (Hebrew for
God Almighty). It was absolutely NUTS. I had seen him do this before but
no this bad. He just had a complete emotional and mental breakdown. We told
him, "Al, you've gotta calm down." We knelt down and said,
"Let's have a prayer." He knelt down with us, Elder Collier said a
prayer then I offered one, and then Al said the most profound prayer I've ever
heard him say. At the end of the prayer, he was crying, but he was calm and at
peace. The Spirit was strong. He looked up at us and thanked us for coming. He
really needed our visit. It was really strange. We feel so bad for
Al. He has so many health problems. You name it, he's got it; heart disease,
diabetes, a pace maker, sleep apnea. It makes it impossible for him to work. He
just moved to Hanover a year or two ago and has no friends. He has a master’s
degree in psychology and he can't use any of his knowledge so all he does is
sit at home in his apartment and sleep or watch TV, and he doesn't have cable
so he can't watch anything interesting. So he just thinks himself crazy. We
made plans to get him out of the house.
After our appointment with Al we were excited because we got a media referral sent to us! Turns out, it was a joke referral. Later, we went to a relief society meeting where Elder Collier was asked to play the video of Jesus and the woman at the well. When we got there they asked if either of us could play the piano. Elder Collier said yes. Sister Cook then handed him the music and he began to practice but the song was slow and difficult. We toyed around with the song for a while then realized he needed more time to practice or it would be a train wreck. This event caused us to be late for our next appointment.
After that, we drove to Gettysburg to meet up
with Jesi. We had to meet at a McDonalds because the library was closed and she
couldn't come to the church. We tried having a lesson, but Jesi was distracted
the whole time because one of the workers was sweeping and kept moving all of
the metal chairs and making RIDICULOUS amounts of noise. It was awful. Probably
the least effective lesson I ever taught. Looking back, it's pretty funny, but
at the time, man, it was frustrating.
We came home that night drained, frustrated, and exhausted. It was a terrible day.
After Thursday I felt that I should leave
this area. I felt like that was God telling me I should tell
president to send me to Chambersburg. On Friday, I came to the
conclusion that I should call president and tell him to do whatever he felt was
right. I didn't want anything we said to have an impact on his
decision. During the call, he told me that he has the keys and what is
going to happen is what the Lord wants. I felt better and all my stress
was gone after talking to him. He always knows how to comfort me.
He is a great man and has truly been called to be my mission president.
Friday night we had a lesson with Adam that
went really well. We showed him some of the bible videos that the church
has put out. We thought he would like them because he has been so into the
bible series on the History channel. We were right, he really liked the
bible videos and then we proceeded to talk about the priesthood. After
our lesson our spirits were lifted and we were excited about the progress of
Adam.
Saturday, Adam helped us move Lynn Fuhrman’s
brother. It was crazy move. Lynn's brother and his roommate had a
bunch of crap. The couch was alright but
they completely destroyed it as they shoved it through the door. The
whole back of the couch was ripped! When they finally got it in they said
"oh we can put some duct tape on it". They didn't care at all. It was quite the move.
Before the move we had correlation meeting
with Bro. Coy. He and his wife made us Thai
food. It was pretty spicy but really good. She served her mission
in Thailand.
While we were moving we got a call from Al's
sister asking us if we could go check on Al. He had gone to the hospital
to get some sleeping medication and she was worried he would take too much so
we went and checked on him. He was pretty drowsy but he had taken the right
amount of medication so we told him to get some sleep and we would come back later
and go grocery shopping with him because he didn't have any food. We came
back after dinner and, as we were driving, we decided that we should take Al
out for a night on the town. We came up with the idea that we would take
him to the nice JC Penny and we would try on some clothes and take some
pictures. He thought we were crazy but he was going along with it.
We picked him out some clothes and we got ourselves some clothes and we went
and tried them on. We took pictures of us in our clothes and Al said
"this is the most fun I've ever had!”
After that we went to Target to
do some grocery shopping. Elder Collier ended up buying Al a Nerf gun so
he could shoot us every time we come over. We thought it would create
some excitement in his life. We ended the night by getting some Italian
Ice at Rita’s. Al had fun and it got his mind of the bad stuff that he
thinks about.
Sunday we had a special stake conference
because they were splitting the stake and making a new one. That is why
they are moving the zone leader area because it won’t be the central
location for the new stake. There are just too many Mormons
these days!
I love you family!!!!
Elder Mouritsen
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