To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,
We hope you had wonderful experiences at the temple this week! We trust that after speaking to your mothers on Sunday and taking family names to the temple during the week has you invigorated and committed to do whatever is necessary to bring the blessings of the gospel to as many families as we can!
Elders and Sisters, I look forward to interviews that start this upcoming week to review with you the elements of effective planning. Our shepherding is slowing deteriorating in effectiveness. We can and must do better. We are working too hard to find investigators, teach them, commit them to baptism and then not safely lead them to the water. I want to reiterate to you that we can't effectively do this alone. We need to be working with members.
As you all know, our objective is that all active investigators (those who we are teaching that have had at least two lessons) will have met a member as we take that right member to a second lesson or visit. The key is that the member extend the invitation to church ON THAT VISIT. We have learned there is some confusion around this. To be clear, this means all active investigators (as defined above) need to be invited to church by the Wednesday night prior to that Sunday by the right member. If your area has 5 active investigators, ALL 5 need to receive and invitation in person from a member.
As a reminder, in Ch 11 of PMG we read that as we invite people to keep commitments, we are inviting them to repent. If that is the case, we need to make sure the invitations are done in ways that allow them to feel the Spirit. The Spirit will entice them to do good. So this invitation is most likely to be accepted when an investigator feels the Spirit and we/the members remember to:
1. Ask Direct Questions ("Will you...")
2. Promise Blessings
3. Bear Testimony Frequently and
4. Follow up
This week was a good start, but we are committed to making sure we are doing all we can to shepherd people to church and then safely to the waters of baptism. Only then will we have accomplished our Missionary Purpose the way the Lord expects us to.
Love,
President and Sister Mortensen
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| P-day activities for Elder Michaelis |
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| Elder Taylor is a wonderful District Leader |
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| District Meeting in Melbourne |
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| Loved seeing these elders at Stake Conference this past weekend |