9/15/14: Wow. Just Wow.

Hello Family!

This week was a wild one. Definitely! Being back in Jamaica is weird! It is not how I remembered it four months ago. Haha. Probably because I was still in shock! But I love Ochi! (Ocho Rios) The branch here is great! It's small but great. There are about 30 members that come on Sundays and Tajara and Rojaro who got baptized last Monday, got confirmed yesterday, barely. It was great! They don't have their own building here yet. We meet above a grocery store. The Branch President is Elder Hardy and he and his wife are the senior couple here. He asked me to give a talk next week on family. I think I can do that :) Easy.

This week was an eye opener for sure. Many of the members live up on the mountains. Like literally on the mountains. I guess I never REALLY realized how flat Cayman is. Here we park our big truck and hike. It's awesome in a skirt. The only thing I can think of is 'Chinscraper'. I know I've never actually been on Chinscraper but that's a good way to describe it here. haha! This place is just SO different than Cayman. The people are amazing and awesome and so dang friendly. I love it.

We had a lesson with a girl named Kimoya who is 16. Her mom is a member of the church but Kimoya lives with her uncle. She wants to be baptized and has been to church before. So we are teaching her the lessons. She is so great. :) We also had a lesson with a guy named Taphirah. His girlfriend is getting taught the lessons and wants to get baptized but they are living together so they are planning on getting married this month and then they will get baptized. Taphirah is really humble and really receptive to the message. I love it! 

The hardest thing about being back here on the rock is the language. I am learning to understand them better. I didn't have to deal with the Patois as much in Cayman. The lessons usually start out well and they remember that they need to speak English for me but by the end it is straight Patois. Thank goodness I have a Jamaican companion. She speaks Patois for me all the time so that I can begin to understand it. It is such a cool 'language' hahaha. And NOBODY knows how to say 'Mouritsen'. Seriously. You'd think I was from another world because they physically can't say it. Haha!  I love Jamaica with all my heart. I know that I am meant to be here for a reason even though I miss my home in Cayman. No offense Utah. I'll probably just end my mission and fly to Cayman. :) Jk. Sorta. Not really. But jk. hahaha. 

Thank you for all the emails. I hope all is well with all of you! I pray for you all constantly! Have a blessed week! Keep being the examples that you are in the gospel. :)

Love,

Sister Mouritsen

9/9/14: Til we meet again - From Cayman to Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Hi family!

This week was a crazy one once again. I think I say that every week. Do I? Well it's no lie! Sister Lewis and I are still working hard and doing our best to find those that are ready to hear the Gospel. We taught Omar again on Saturday before he was supposed to leave back to the Bahamas for a little while. We talked about the Book Of Mormon and read in Moroni 10. The promise. I REALLY hope and pray that he will just take it seriously and stop comparing it to his 'Kingdom'. The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is so much more than that. You can't compare it to anything because we actually have the fullness! Who wouldn't want that? haha. 

We taught Nick who is married to the member, Dee-An on Sunday. We had a powerful lesson about having the faith to act and we shared with him in Ether 3 about the Brother of Jared. It was powerful. We also extended at Baptismal date for September 27th. I hope that he will sincerely change and prepare for that day. I know he can do it. He just needs to act on his faith. haha. 

This week was tough with lessons. I don't know if I talked about Barry last time, so much has happened, but he was the guy who hollered at us when we were walking and was telling us about how he was almost baptized! Like he already had the white clothes on and everything! We tried meeting with him again but he stood us up. I'm guessing he isn't ready. But this week we didn't really teach much lessons. It seemed as though everyone was gone! 

On Friday we had the branch talent show and the four of us missionaries all sang your song Mads! It was awesome! But my camera decided to die right before we started singing!! Nosah!!! I am trying to get the recording from a member though. It was awesome and really helped to bring the spirit to the activity. That song is so powerful (No Need to Fear). It really inspired the members and they kept coming up and telling us how amazing and spiritual and powerful that song is. P.s. this experience totally reminded me of that one time in 9th  grade when AbLeMadAbAh decided to sing in the talent show... ha. haha. ha... I was laughing. 

On Saturday we got our transfer calls! I have been called back to Jam which is where I am at the moment. :) I have been called to serve in Ocho Rios! Yeah Ochi!!! :) I was so sad to leave Cayman because it is my home. I mean I was born there! But... I know that I am meant to be in Ochi now. :) I can't wait to get started! My companion is Sister Walker. She is Jamaican from Linstead and has been in Ochi for 3 months. I love her already! She is hilarious! So Saturday and Sunday I said my goodbyes, bore my testimony and had to be to the airport by 5 am Monday morning. Yeah packing was so stressful! But I love it here in Jamaica. :) We also have a car but sister Walker can't drive so I will be driving again. Instead of the nice little 2014 Toyota Yaris, I now have a big Mitsubishi diesel truck :) heck yeah man! 

So Sister Newcomer (who is going home to Pennsylvania on Thursday) and I flew to Miami and then to Montego Bay where the sisters picked us up and we went up to our house, literally up. There are like, mountains here. haha. Our house is WAY up there! And it's pink. :) We dropped off my suitcases quickly, and went to a baptism for a recent convert's kids, Taj and Roj. It was so cool! And then we drove to Kingston last night. Yeah. Three countries and 6 parrish's in one day. Unheard of! I also got to see Sister Mashabela today! We stayed at their house for the night. It was so awesome!! :) 

Today we have transfer meeting and then Sister Walker and I will be traveling all the way back to Ocho Rios to get the work started together. It has been an eventful week. I miss Cayman but there are new people and new places to see here in Jamaica. I can't wait to teach and share the Gospel with these people! I love this Gospel! :)

Love,

Sister Mouritsen

9/1/2014: September???

Hi Family!

I was told multiple times this week that I look like Mariah Carey. What? Yeah I dunno... This week was a good one though. We have been really trying to apply the things we learned from Zone Conference especially about trying to get the members more involved and more excited about missionary work. It's tough..... but we are definitely working on it. 

This week two people got baptized. :) Chado Powell and Ciara Hernandez. It was cool! They just turned 8 and there were SOOO many people there! We couldn't even all fit in the room where they were being baptized! There was a lot of family that flew in to see them. I love baptisms! 

Yesterday at church we had four investigators who attended! Paula and Angelo who we met while we were walking on the street to a lesson. Omar, who Sister Llewellyn and Sister Lewis met while they were stuck in the Bahamas at the airport.  Nick, who is married to a member. It was so cool! Paula and Angelo are Seventh Day Adventists though so we are hoping that everything will continue to go well. Angelo grew up going to Sunday church though so we are praying that he will remember that and want to keep coming and always bring Paula as well. Omar was a Seventh Day Adventist but just became a Jehovah's Witness a little while ago... Yeah. It's interesting. But he said that he loved church and now he wants us to go to his 'kingdom' next week. HA! okay.. He is super smart though and loves the Restoration. We have a lesson with him on Tuesday and I am excited to see what will come out of it! 

This week I was reading a lot in Matthew about things that Christ did. Man. Christ is so cool isn't he? Haha. I just love him with all of my heart! I seriously want to be like him. It would have been one of the most amazing times to be alive when he was on the earth. I can't wait to see him again and say to him that I did as much as I could in my '4 minutes' here on the earth. We don't have time to be angry, or sad or anything else! So don't waste your time with any of that. We are so blessed to be on the earth at this time. I love this Gospel and I love getting (not having, Dad ;) ) to teach the Gospel for just this short 18 months. Time out. 15 months. Whoa. Time flies when you're having fun... Well I love you all so much! Have a great safe week! Don't ever forget to wear a missionary tag on your heart. ;) Even if you're in Utah. haha! Love you!

Love,

Sister Mouritsen 

8/25/2014: Zone Conference in Nassau!

Alo! Koman-ou ye? (Hello! How are you?) AKA Creole. yeah. Ha.

This week was awesome! And definitely a very unique one that I will never forget. 

Tuesday was really our only day to proselyte in our area.... It was a good day though. We found out that two of our investigators are leaving! One is going to Honduras and the other back to Jamaica! It's so sad! I will miss them. I'm so glad we got to see them before we left to the Bahamas though. 

Wednesday we had District meeting in the morning which was great, and then we went home for a few minutes to pack up the last few things and then a member came and picked us up to take us to the airport for our Zone Conference in the Bahamas! We made it to Nassau around 10 o'clock that night Nassau time. They are an hour ahead. It was about an hour and fifteen minute flight. 

The next day we did studies, went grocery shopping, and then did our super planning for the week. After that the Nassau sisters dropped us off in one of their neighborhoods with a bunch of pamphlets, the Spirit, and the hot sun and we just walked around talking to people and finding some more people for the sisters to teach. There were SO many people outside!!! There are NEVER that many people out and about like that in Cayman. I wish there were! The people in the Bahamas are just so friendly! haha! Some a little bit too friendly.... We talked to a lot of people though. It was awesome. :) Then after about 2 hours of that, the sisters picked us up and we went to the church for the creole/english classes. The Nassau sisters teach English to the Creole speaking people and the Branch President taught us and some other people Creole. It was so cool! Creole is a lot like french so I picked it up pretty easily. :) The Turks and Caicos sisters also flew in that day. It was awesome getting to meet everyone for reals!

On Friday we had Zone Conference! Our Zone only has 14 missionaries in it. 4 of them are Elders so the 10 of us sisters were all squished in the Nassau sisters' house. haha..... Our Zone has the most sisters. I got to see Sister Oman as well! She is doing fantastic in Nassau and loves it to death!  But Zone Conference was awesome!!!!! Elder Cornish of the Seventy and his wife were there, and President and Sister Brown. The AP's weren't able to come sadly. 

Man though. It was like the MTC all over again because we were just getting fed with a fire hose of spiritualness for like 6 hours! We talked mostly about using the members more and getting them more involved in the work. They really are the success to missionary work. Elder Cornish also talked a lot about how when we take members out teaching with us, it needs to be the right member. It's not just thinking, 'who can help bless my investigator, it's who can my investigator bless as well?' We talked a lot also about True Conversion and the Doctrine of Christ:The Missionary Purpose. There was just SOOO much good stuff. My Spiritual journal is almost full because of it! I was excited to get to come back to Cayman and apply all of this stuff! :) After the Conference we had interviews with President Brown and then a fireside at the church where Elder Cornish and President Brown and their wives would be speaking. They are all just so amazing! I love them so much!! They talked about how the Gospel is beautifully simple and simply beautiful. If we think that living the Gospel is hard... Try living another way. You'll end up coming back. haha. That's what Elder Cornish said. 

On Saturday we finished our interviews with President Brown and then were taken to the airport. We got to the airport and found out that we were getting kicked off our flight to Cayman. What? So apparently the day before, one of the planes was leaking oil. 92 passengers were told to get on our flight for today and that they were kicking us off. Psh! British Airways told us that they would be taking us to a hotel and they would pay for our room and food and everything until they could get us to Cayman. We ended up staying at one of the nicest hotels I have EVER been to. It was the British Colonial Hilton. Wow! They also told us that Sister Newcomer and I would be flying to Miami in the morning at 8 and then to Cayman right after that and would arrive around 11, but that Sister Lewis and Sister Llewellyn had to stay in Nassau until Tuesday because they don't have US visas. Honestly. So Sister Newcomer and I woke up at 4:30 yesterday, got picked up and taken to the airport and were told that we hadn't been booked for the 8 o'clock flight and that we had to wait until 9 for British Airways to come to work and help us reschedule for another flight. Joke. We waited and waited and then they finally came and got us on a flight to Miami at 1:20. Then in Miami we had a 6 hour layover... We didn't get back home to Cayman until 11 o'clock last night. It's been a long weekend. haha! But it is SOOO good to be home! I love this island and I missed the people more than anything! It felt like we had been gone for years! 

So yeah. That's about how the week was. We will hopefully (if everything goes well) be picking up Sisters Lewis and Llewellyn tomorrow. We'll see. I love you all so much! I hope you have a great, safe, and spiritual week! Good luck with school! I pray for you daily!

Love,

Sister Mouritsen

August 18, 2014: I love missionary work!

Hi family! I love you all!

This week was good. It's been really difficult lately to get the members to come out teaching with us but we are hoping and praying that that will change soon. I'm crossing my fingers. We are also having a hard time finding more people to teach. It's frustrating because we have talked to so many people, but nothing. We have also been praying hard to receive some more referrals. Hopefully that will change as well. The work is slow but what can ya do right? :) haha. 

We had a lesson with Gino, who is interesting. He is really intellectual so he loves questioning EVERYTHING and has tons and tons of questions. And he loves to do crazy things like skydiving and all that kind of stuff. He's cool. He is definitely a talker haha! It's hard to get a sentence in! At one point it was like he was teaching us how to be missionaries. Wait, seriously dude? Yeah Sister Lewis and I just looked at each other like... Okay.....  He definitely has potential though so we hope that he prays about the things we have shared with him about the Restoration. He went to Jamaica for a few days though so we hope he doesn't forget the feeling of the Spirit.

We also finally got a hold of Robert. He is 15 and came to church a couple Sundays ago randomly but we haven't been able to see him since. But we saw him on Thursday and got to know him and share a lesson with him. He is a tough kid. He has definitely been through a lot in his life. He loves the atmosphere of the church and the people in it but isn't sure that it is true yet. He says that he wants to keep being around us and that eventually he will probably be baptized. haha! We will see what happens! He is a good kid though. The Spirit was strong when we had a lesson with him! We hope that we will be able to see him again this week before we leave!

On Saturday we had trade-offs so Sister Newcomer and I were in my area and Sister Lewis and Sister Llewellyn were in their area. They had to walk all day though because neither of them can drive yet... haha. Soon come. Sister Newcomer and I walked a lot as well though. We were trying to find more people to teach and it's easier to find when walking. It was dang hot though. Gotta love a little sunburn. :) We met a lot of people! We also had a great lesson with a part member family. The husband Nick is not active and he seems to be an Eternal investigator... But this lesson changed him a little bit. We watched the mormon message called, 'Mens hearts will fail them.' I would encourage you to watch it! It's awesome! It really got him thinking and he even wanted to say the closing prayer! It was so great! I hope that he remembers that and will continue to make those little changes! 

Other that that, that's how the week went pretty much. We will be traveling to Nassau, Bahamas for Zone Conference on Wednesday night around 7 and flying home Saturday afternoon. :) I can't wait! It'll be cool to actually meet our Zone in person! Skype doesn't do any justice. haha! Thank you for all of your emails! I pray for you all daily and I hope that you have a successful week! You are all amazing! Keep continually turning to the Lord! I love you all so much! 

Love,

Sister Mouritsen 

August 11, 2014: I love missionary work!

Hey family!

This week was okay. Kind of out of the ordinary. I was in a trio with Sister Newcomer and Llewellyn until Thursday morning and then Sister Lewis flew in! She is one of the sweetest, most amazing people. She is quiet but POWERFUL! Seriously. Everything she says I just eat it up. I hope that I can be as good a missionary as she is someday. She has been out almost 8 months. 

On Tuesday Gabriel the member who took us iguana hunting let us come over for a few to help kill the iguanas. It was interesting! So you grab the iguana by the neck and hold the tail so it won't bite you or whip you and there is a 'hole' right in the middle of his forehead. You scrape off the covering of it, get a long sturdy piece of grass and shove it through the hole until it reaches the end of the spinal cord. That's how you kill it. haha! And then we skinned it and gutted it and all that. It was cool! Sister Llewellyn wanted to keep the skin and dry it out and make a scripture case haha. Then he cooked it for us on Wednesday with boiled green bananas and breadfruit. It was good! Kind of chewy but good! 

We had some good lessons with Jordon about missionary work and we gave him a copy of Preach My Gospel. He is really thinking about and starting to prepare for a mission! I'm so proud of him! :) 

At the beginning of the week we spent a lot of our time in the other sisters' area, the west side, but we had a great purpose lesson with a guy named Donlee. Sister Newcomer and I found him when we were walking. He was just sitting outside shaving his legs... haha. yeah... But he is cool. He hasn't been able to come to church yet but hopefully soon! He loves what we have shared with him!

Sister Lewis and I met this lady named Paula when we were walking around in the Prospect area.  We gave her a pamphlet and we got to go visit her yesterday. We went and taught her and her husband and quickly found out that they are 7 Day Adventist.... Ha. They are really humble though and I think that they have potential. We will see how the next lesson goes though. They were telling us a little about Joseph Smith and Ellin G White. :P ugh. 

I am hoping that this week will be more successful and more interesting. We have been struggling to find more people to teach but I have faith that everything will work out. :) I was studying a lot this week in Alma 32 which talks about faith and comparing it to a seed. I love verse 27 when it talks about experimenting and exercising a particle of faith. Even a particle really does help but can you imagine if you exercise more than that? haha. Yeah. Cool things happen. Trust me I know! 

We have Zone Conference in a few weeks and we are getting flown to the Bahamas! Yeah I'm freaking out. :) I can't wait! Elder Cornish will be speaking to us! It'll be amazing! :)

Well I hope that everything is going well still! Thank you for the emails! I love you all so much! Keep going strong and doing those things that are pleasing to our Heavenly Father. :) 

Love,

Sister Mouritsen

August 4, 2014: I love Cayman! I've decided I am Caymanian. I love them and their accents!

Hi Family:)

This week was good. Maybe not as exciting as last week but still good. :)

Sister Mashabela and Sister Coleman flew out on Tuesday morning, (No they did not miss their flight haha) and Sister Newcomer and I were together for a couple days until Sister Llewellyn came on Thursday. It was weird being the only two missionaries on the island.... But we will be picking up Sister Lewis tomorrow morning. So we have been a tripanionship for the week which has been interesting but good. At the beginning of the week I got to spend more time around the West side of the island and meet some of Sister Newcomer's investigators. It felt like a trade-off. haha! We walked all day to save mileage and we got burned. But the funny thing is that I don't peel here. ha! I probably just jinxed myself... that's not funny... 

We had a good lesson with Tyrone and his two kids from Ochi. We talked about the Book of Mormon with them and asked them to read the first chapter in 1 Nephi. Then the next time we went over there they said they had read! The kids did at least, Tuanna and Tianna. They are awesome! And Tyrone also told us that he didn't know that Tianna was 8. She's been 8 since January! What a good Dad... haha! So the issue about Baptism isn't as much as an issue but... still. I don't like that it was even an issue in the first place. 

Jordon is doing awesome! I forgot to mention last week I think that after church President Johnson took him and another guy to Jordon's grandma's house who is a less-active, Sister Fay Small, and they gave her the sacrament! That was one of the coolest things ever. I was proud of him. He is really progressing well and just loves this Gospel! He blessed the Sacrament yesterday during church which was phenomenal! Oh man it just makes me so happy to see!!! He has come a long way and I know that Heavenly Father is smiling down on him. :) 

It has been a crazy week and a hard one. Not much happened so i'm sorry for the short email but, what can ya do right? Today we went iguana hunting with one of the members named Gabriel and his son Ashton. It was awesome! Once in a lifetime thing! Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to eat it. :)

Well I hope that you all have a fantastic week! I love you all so much! You are so amazing! I pray for you daily! :)

Love,

Sister Mouritsen :)

Photos from Hell.......Grand Cayman:

Preparing the font for Jordon's baptism. It was a mess.

Iguana hunting. Once in a lifetime activity. To think when she was young she wouldn't even tough a fish.

The "tripanionship."