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 :)