Confidence and General Conference

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It was wonderful to see you at the Mission Conferences with Elder and Sister Echo Hawk. They were so impressed with you individually and as a group. They couldn't say enough good things about you. In fact, they sent us a text Saturday morning that read:

"We love your self-assured, confident missionaries. They drew us in immediately!"

Sister Mortensen and I have reflected on the great blessing it is to serve with you which is made more great by someone who doesn't know you at all who can notice the light in your countenances. Our great hope for you for now and throughout your lives is that your "confidence (will always) wax strong in the presence of God" (D&C 121:45) as the prophet Joseph Smith said it would if we will be the kinds of disciples we ought to be.

Part of becoming those disciples is by humbly following the Lord's anointed servants. We have another opportunity to listen to prophets, seers and revelators teach us what the Lord would have us know. We hope you will approach conference with a sincere desire to know what the Lord would have you do to be able to draw nearer to Him. Please be sure to invite as many of your investigators as you can to watch with you and with members where possible.

We are so proud of the work you are doing. We are not done. We must stay focused so we can achieve what the Lord would have us accomplish!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

 

Mission Tour with Elder and Sister Echo Hawk (Thursday session)

Dinner with the Senior Couples at the Chappell home

Mission Tour with Elder and Sister Echo Hawk (Friday session)

Elder and Sister Echo Hawk with President and Sister Mortensen

The Assistants 

We held a Mission President's "Why I Believe" Fireside tonight in the Katy Stake. It was another wonderful evening full of inspiring testimonies and beautiful music. A success! The following are pictures taken at the fireside.

Mission Tour Assignment

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It is breathtaking to witness the hand of the Lord as He works through you to work great miracles across this mission. We commend you as almost all of you accepted the challenge of 6 days of at least 15 ITLs and the fruits of been amazing. We want to give a special shout out to the College Station West zone for not being content with mission minimum standards and finding 50 new investigators last week. The Lord does His work as we willingly do ours. There is a disproportional increase in fruits as we do more than is expected.

We have more baptismal dates (at this stage of month) for next month right now than we have ever had for an upcoming month. Your faith, your fasting and prayers are leading to great blessings.

We look forward to the opportunity to gather with you and learn together from Elder and Sister Echo Hawk. In preparation for part of that meeting, we would like to request that you read Genesis 37,39-46 which is the account of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. We would like you to pay particular attention to the events that take place in Joseph's life and would like you to reflect on the following questions:

1. What did Joseph do to deserve the experiences he was asked to endure? Can you think of other faithful people who endured similar circumstances?

2. Why does the Lord allow faithful people to endure such circumstances?

3. How did Joseph respond to those circumstances?

4. What can we learn from Joseph's reaction to these events that can prepare us for any difficulties that we may encounter?

We trust you will gain valuable insights from pondering over these questions and counseling about them in your companionship studies after reading these chapters and any others that related to them.

We love you and are inspired by you!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We held the 8 week follow-up training for the missionaries who arrived last July. It was a big group and it was an outstanding group. What wonderful missionaries already! Great teaching and a powerful spirit. Here are some pictures I took at that training.

The Assistants did a great job training on teaching the Doctrine of Christ in all we do

Don't they look great?!

My mom and sister were in town and got to see the mission in action.

Lunch and new iPads

Elder Barton and Elder Moon

President got a good seat at lunch

So many sisters in one place calls for a picture

We received three new missionaries last week. What a great addition they will make the the THM!

Elder Nelson with Elder Christensen, Elder Michaelis, and Elder Davis 

They are wonderful! We are so happy to have them!

Some training from President Mortensen

Anticipating the Texas BBQ

We know they won't go hungry  here in TEXAS

Elder Michaelis and his trainer Elder Whitlock

Elder Davis and his trainer Elder Boekeweg and Elder McGinnis

We attended District Meeting in the Harmony Building with one of the Spring Districts. Elder Chase did a wonderful job leading an inspiring meeting and counsel. Here are some pictures from that day.

Elder Chase in action

Role plays