A Mighty Change of Heart

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

At the conclusion of King Benjamin's sermon to his people, he inquires of them about their reaction to his words. We read their reaction in Mos 5:2 which reads:

"And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."

Just as King Benjamin's people experienced a mighty change of heart borne of the Spirit of God that they felt as they listened to his words, so must those we teach feel if we expect them to make and keep commitments. Too often we are disappointed by their failure to keep commitments and we assume that "they just aren't ready", when the reality is they may very well be ready, but they didn't feel and recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost in our teaching. Therefore they fail to act. More often than not, this is a result of an absence of the spirit when we teach (D&C 50:13-22).

We would like each of you to study Ch 10 of PMG in personal and companionship study this week. We need to qualify for the Spirit in our own lives first. Having the Spirit with us is the most important thing we can do. That comes as we are prepare faithfully, are exactly obedient and we are lovingly bold. That's why we state this in our Mission Statement. Only then will we see miracles and accomplish our Missionary Purpose.

We testify to you that as you do these things, ministering angels will attend you and attend those you teach. That the Spirit will carry to their hearts the words of truth (2 Ne 33:1).

We love you and pray for your continued success!

President and Sister Mortensen

Here are the pictures taken from last weeks transfer

Sister Rowe's parents meet us at the temple

Wonderful group of departing missionaries at the temple together

Testimony Meeting with Departing Missionaries

Signing the flag

The McLeans pick up their daughter 

Rainy morning at the airport

We squeezed into the elevataor

So cozy!

We were quite the spectacle with all of our missionaries and luggage to check

Elder Pongi was the first to depart

We will sure miss these wonderful missionaries! They have been such a blessing to us and to the people in Houston.

Elder Field needs to catch his plane

Last goodbyes

An hour later we received our new missionaries straight from the MTC and CCMA. They look great and ready to serve. We are so happy to have them here in Houston!

Aren't they the beautiful? We are so excited to have these wonderful new missionaries!

Writing home and eating Texas' famous Blue Bell ice cream.

Group picture at the mission home the next morning before meeting our trainers at our transfer meeting

The next several pictures are of the new missionaries and their trainers. They are all in very good hands! We are already getting great reports from them.

Prepare to be Bold!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

With specialized training and zone conferences behind us, I was able to participate in many companionship studies and district meetings. We're so happy for the great things you are doing! I did note a few things that I think are good to remember that sometimes are easy to forget in the routine of things:

1. The most important part of the day is planning at night. Not only planning, but EFFECTIVE planning. In Ch 8 of PMG, we read: Meaningful goals and careful planning will help you accomplish what the Lord requires of you (p. 137). The unfortunate reality is that the absence of meaningful goals and careful planning means we will unlikely accomplish what the Lord requires. Please review Ch 8 with an emphasis on the planning tools listed on p. 139 and start every planning session with the question, "What can we do tomorrow to help ______________ keep the commitment they have made to us." This includes the multiple commitments that progressing investigators ought to be keeping. Often we think of investigators only, but this list of people should include members as well.

2. Member Commits. It seems like we have lost sight of what we are trying to accomplish with our member commitments. In Ch 11 of PMG, we read:

     • Every finding opportunity—with members, referrals, or personal contacting—should lead to an invitation to act,      usually to learn more about the message of the Restoration.

     • Rarely, if ever, should you talk to people or teach them without extending an invitation to do something that will strengthen their faith in Christ (p. 196).

We are blessed to have good members in this mission who are eager to help us by feeding us. We hope you are gracious at each dinner appointment. We also hope you will look to inspire members and commit them to act. This should be something that is role played and planned during companionship study and added to the goals for the day. If we are having 7 dinners provided to us with approximately 20 members present during those dinners, we should come away with 20 commitments. Anything short of that suggests we have significant room for improvement. If you're not feeling confident in this, ask for help. Members need to see us as encouragers, focused and purpose-driven. If they do, their confidence in us will grow and their desire to help will increase.

We love you and pray for your continued success! Keep up the great finding efforts. Many families are coming into the waters of baptism!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Our missionaries are doing such great work on college campuses throughout our mission. We visited Blinn Community College to see them in action.

Elder Barlow in action setting up a table for contacting on the campus of Blinn Community College

Elder Croft contacting on the Blinn campus. We love how kind and focused they are!

Driving through beautiful Snook, Texas

We got to see these darling hermanans at the baptism of one of their investigators

Beautiful musical number at the baptism

And the winner of the Special Zone Activity is the Cypress 2 Zone!! Congratulations on your excellence and hard work.

We went miniature golfing at an indoor golf course. Some of our missionaries had never done this before! We had a wonderful time together.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the home of Pres and Sister Chappell

Relaxed a little in the media room...without any media!

Great Things are Happening!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission!

It was wonderful to see each of you this week during Zone Conferences and to see what great teachers you are! We reaffirm to you that as you practice teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ you will find more opportunities to teach it than you previously imagined. Be sure to apply those principles in your own lives. Adopt the Lord's vision/purpose for us as missionaries. Set personal goals and make plans to achieve them in faith and actively repent so you can achieve them. You will find that there is greater power available to you when you do. 

In PMG (p.2) we read, "You are called to represent Jesus Christ in helping people become clean from their sins. You do this by inviting them to come unto Jesus Christ and become converted to His restored gospel. To come to the Savior they must have faith in Him unto repentance—making the necessary changes to bring their life into agreement with His teachings. You can help people develop such faith by teaching them the restored gospel by the Spirit and inviting them to commit to live according to its teachings. Keeping this commitment prepares them for the covenant of baptism and confirmation and the precious gift of the Holy Ghost. They are to put off the “natural man” and become a Saint “through the atonement of Christ the Lord” (Mosiah 3:19)."

We want to thank so many of you for making a concerted effort to involve members more fully in your work. The number of lessons with members present is dramatically up and many of you have told me you have noticed how much easier it is to retain and progress your investigators with members involved. Please remember to do all you can to have members involved with EVERY investigator and that they are offering to "pick up" our investigators to bring them to church just as the good shepherd "picked up" His wandering lamb and brought it back to the flock. We will do a better job of establishing the church here when we do!

Lastly, thanks to all of your who brought investigators to the Fireside last night! We think we had more investigators present last night than any previous fireside! You are doing a wonderful work and many lives are being blessed as a consequence!

It is an honor and privilege to serve with you!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

PS Congratulations to the Cypress 2 zone for winning January's zone competition!

The Mission Department visited our mission last week during Zone Conferences to install boxes in our mission vehicles to help our missionaries drive even safer. They will remind missionaries to buckle up, drive the appropriate speed and not to make any aggressive manuevers. We are so happy for this added protection for our wonderful missionaries. 

Temple Grounds Tours: A great success!

To the missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

Our first evening of temple tours was attended by well over 200 people! Many miracles took place and a few people determined that they wanted to be baptized at the conclusion of their tour! What a great privilege it is for us to bring our investigators onto the temple grounds to help them elevate their vision to the things that matter most. We look forward to many additional opportunities. FYI: Due to the closure of the temple in March, we will likely hold the tour on the 3rd Sunday in March instead. 

It was great to see you all over the course of the last few weeks for interviews and specialized training. We all would benefit from making a more concerted effort to include members in all of our lessons after the first lesson so we can do a better job of helping investigators feel more comfortable coming to church. If we can do this, we will have much greater success leading them to the waters of baptism and enjoying the safety of that covenant as well as retaining them and building the wards/branches in this mission.

We look forward to seeing you at zone conference and hope to work on our teaching of lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Tour guides

Mission Presidency with APs

Even the deer were out on this beautiful evening!

Everyone Needs a Friend

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

In Ch 13 of PMG we read that "Before baptism and confirmation, ensure that members are present at every lesson, if possible. These members should be with the investigators often to answer their questions, understand their challenges, and encourage them." (p. 216)

We have all read this and for some reason we have not practiced it as diligently as we ought to. Please be clear that it should be the rare occasion that we don't have members with us when we teach any lesson after the first lesson to our investigators. I have discovered through recent conversations with many of you that we have developed a culture of teaching without the members. This must change. We are working too hard to not have the fruits of our labors "remain".

Sometimes we confuse "efficient" with "effective". It may be more efficient to just teach on our own, but it is also far less effective to do things that way, because it will be difficult for our members to feel comfortable after their baptism and after we're gone if they haven't truly made meaningful relationships at church. The time to do that is during their process of progressing in their gospel knowledge.

As you know, President Hinckley has said, "There is absolutely no point in doing missionary work unless we hold on to the fruits of that effort. The two must be inseparable."

Elders and Sisters, please do all you can to make sure members are involved in all of our teaching, follow up and fellowshipping. If we can do this, we can be assured that the "fruit" we are harvesting "will remain."

We love you and pray for your continued success!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Mission Leadership Council

Counseling together

Great group of leaders

8 Week Follow-up Training for December arrivals

It was so good to see them together again!

They are doing awesome!

Practice teaching