To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,
We had a wonderful time sharing the Christmas spirit with each of you this past week. We hope you each had a Merry Christmas.
As we now turn to the New Year, it is inspiring to recognize that part of the plan we accepted pre-mortally allowed for there to be several "news". We have new days, new weeks, new months, new seasons and new years. Each give us an opportunity to recommit ourselves to do better. As we embark on this new year, we hope you will take this opportunity to make whatever course corrections are necessary to enable you to enjoy the blessings you are entitled to as servants of the Lord.
Recently I had the privilege of sitting down with one of our faithful missionaries at the conclusion of her missionary service. She reflected on some of the critical moments that changed the destiny of her mission and consequently the direction for her life. She spoke of how she had served the first six months of her mission without having seen a baptism. Despite this, it was at this time that she set some pretty ambitious goals. She then described that over the next few months the results didn't change. Instead of being discouraged, she allowed these goals to cause her to do a lot of introspection and began to get rid of the "small" things that she thought may be keeping her from qualifying for the blessings she desired. She said that once the small things were eliminated, people started appearing and asking to be baptized. She went on to mention that with a baptism during the very last weekend of her mission that her goals were achieved. Maybe just as importantly, she realized that as we qualify ourselves for the blessings, we can patiently wait on the Lord and He will deliver. He always does. That realization will bless her and her posterity for the rest of her life and beyond.
In PMG, we read wise counsel from Elder M. Russell Ballard who teaches, “I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” (p.146)
We hope you will approach the new year and set goals for yourselves and make the necessary adjustments to allow yourselves to qualify to be used by Him who is the great Hastener of this work and is only waiting for us to serve with all our "heart, might, mind and strength" so we are qualified to be used.
We love you and look forward to an even better 2016!
Love,
President and Sister Mortensen
We had a great time together last Wednesday at our Christmas Conference. Here are some pictures taken there.
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