Texas Houston Mission: August 2014

Monday, August 25, 2014

Zone Conferences

To the missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission!

What a wonderful experience to have spent time with each of you at Zone Conferences this past week. As I sat reflecting on the Spirit we felt together, I couldn't help but think of D&C 43:8,9 where the Lord says:

8 And now, behold, I give unto you a commandment, that when ye are assembled together ye shall instruct and edify each other, that ye may know how to act and direct my church, how to act upon the points of my law and commandments, which I have given.

9 And thus ye shall become instructed in the law of my church, and be sanctified by that which ye have received, and ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me—

10 That inasmuch as ye do this, glory shall be added to the kingdom which ye have received.

Elders and Sisters, the purpose of us gathering together is to instruct and edify each other (this is also true of any other teaching opportunity we have). The important thing is that as we do so, the Lord promises we will receive revelation and be sanctified. The responsibility is then ours to bind ourselves to act.

After receiving spiritual impressions while we were together, we now have an obligation to:

1. Act on the impressions.

2. Elevate our vision of ourselves and of those we teach.

3. Study, practice and refine the way we teach that we may experience revelation and that all will be edified.

4. Testify with power and authority of Him who has sent us.

As we do so, glory shall be added to our kingdoms and we can be confident that the happiness and joy we seek will be ours forever!

We love and appreciate you! Be great!

President and Sister Mortensen

Serenading our lunch servers

One our our lunch crews. It was delicious!

There's our mission nurse Sister Z! We love her!

Master Teaching Role Play

Role playing

More role playing

Even more role playing

We are becoming Master Teachers

Monday, August 18, 2014

Working With Members

Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We look forward to seeing you this week at Zone Conference! We are excited by the great things that are happening and the great reports coming back from those of you working to apply the principles of Master Teaching into your lessons.

We all know that for this work to move along at a more rapid pace, we need to involve the members in a meaningful way (PMG p.160). Hopefully you each learned at you recent Zone/District meetings how you can apply Master Teaching to invite members to participate in ways that they feel comfortable and then follow up with them. A couple of things to keep in mind as you interact with members whether it's in their homes or at church:

1. Remember that most members know their duty, they want to help, but are just unsure how.

2. Be enthusiastic about the work even when things are difficult (Alma 59:1,2). Members already have apprehensions about, and struggle, sharing the gospel. They don't need to hear about our struggles. It's not inspiring. Make sure the things we share are about the miracles we're seeing before you ask them about how they are feeling about their responsibility to share. This also applies to our participation in Ward Council meetings. Inspire people like Helaman's letter to Moroni inspired Moroni and his armies.

3. When you meet with members in their homes, invite them each to commit to do something that they come up with and then do as we do with investigators: write it down, promise blessings and testify. Then follow up. Do this for every person present!

4. We don't need to wait until after dinner to start these discussions. We can do it naturally as we eat. Limit your time to an hour. Be purposeful and communicate that you have work to do and need to go. You will engender great confidence if the members see that you are focused and energetic.

We have been attending many wards in recent weeks and have loved to see so many of you. It's important that you realize that members draw conclusions about whether they would like to refer their friends to you by what they observe in you. As you see people in your wards you don't know, introduce yourself. Initiate activity. Missionaries shouldn't be sitting in the pews before the meeting starts if they have no investigators to sit by. We should be cheerfully greeting everyone to be sure we don't miss any new faces. Every new face should be warmly greeted. All visitors should receive an invitation to meet with us to learn more.

If we do these things well, members are going to be eager to have us teach their friends. Be enthusiastic and you will see that we can be the catalyst for great blessings in the lives of our members and their friends.

We love you and are excited to see you this week! May the Lord bless you as you invite members with boldness.

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Here are some pictures from a recent service project in the North Houston Area

AND our favorite cowboy Elder Lindsay celebrated his 80th Birthday!

He spent the day solving problems as usual :)

Monday, August 11, 2014

Master Teaching and Pictures from MLC

Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We had some wonderful experiences this week in MLC as well as our Zone Meetings. We love your energy and your commitment to do the Lord's work in the Lord's way. We introduced a concept of the Master Teacher last week. We hope this approach will cause you to reflect upon the way you have been teaching to better align your teaching approach with the principles taught in PMG Ch 10 (specifically the suggestions beginning on p183 related to "Asking Questions").

We hope you will practice Master Teaching with member families more diligently during member meals to help them commit to goals that they feel comfortable with so that they can find joy in the work. Remember to follow up!

We invite you each to practice teaching all of the lessons in a more Master Teacher-like approach as well and watch how much more powerful the Spirit is in the lessons. With this in mind, we will begin spending more time at Zone Conference roll playing to practice this approach. In the upcoming Zone Conference we will focus on teaching the Restoration (Lesson 1). We will invite one companionship at each conference (randomly selected) to demonstrate Master Teaching a few of the principles in Lesson 1 and then we will break out into groups to practice, evaluate and re-practice. Please come prepared!

Teaching in the Lord's way requires much more preparation. With this in mind, we would also like each companionship to prepare two five-minute talks (one each) before Zone Conference. For those of you in threesomes, two of you pick the same one. The topics to choose from will be "God is our Loving Heavenly Father" and "The Great Apostasy". Two of you will be selected to give these talks (not teach the lesson) during Zone Conference. Please practice them and keep them to 5 minutes.

Because of your great faith (manifest through your increased collective obedience) as well as your commitment to 25 ITLs each day, baptisms are on the rise in our mission! In the words of Ammon, "Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever." (Alma 26:8)

We love you!

President and Sister Mortensen

Role playing

Zone Meeting with the Spring Zone

Monday, August 4, 2014

July Transfers

Elders and Sisters of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

As you know, we had transfers this week. It was hard to say goodbye to so many faithful missionaries, but feel so grateful for this new group of missionaries who are uniquely prepared and desirous to serve the Lord. Have you ever wondered if the Lord really needs us? Doesn't He have legions of angels at His disposal that would be much more effective to use than to use the "weak and simple (D&C 1:23)" like us? I think so, but if that's the case, why does He use us? Wouldn't it be easier for everyone involved if He just the the angels do what they do best :)? I think the answer to that is probably best expressed by a story I read several years ago:

There was a group of women in a Bible study that came to the book of Malachi. As they were studying chapter three, they came across this verse which reads: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." It puzzled them and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out about the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study. That week this woman called up a silver smith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest in silver beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silver smith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot--then she thought again about the verse, that he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.

She asked the silver smith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silver smith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy--when I see my image in it."

The reason the Lord uses us is because He is trying to help us become like Him. We need this experience!! "Losing ourselves" (which is what the Lord would have us do as missionaries) sometimes make us feel like we are in the heat of the fire. So anytime you are feeling the heat, remember that God has His eye on you. As I share that, it also reminds me of Alma's question in Alma 5:14 that asks, "Have you received His image in your countenance?" With this story as a backdrop for Alma's question, it gives a little more insight into what Alma is asking?

Don't resist the refining process. Remember in whom we have faith and allow your faith to be reflected in your willingness to obey!

We love each of you and are thrilled by the miracles that are happening as a consequence of our collective faith!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen