Mothers & pictures from zone conference

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It was great to see you all at zone conferences this week. We hope you came away with deeper understanding of why God gives us commandments and why obedience truly is the way we show love to God and the way we receive further light and knowledge to not only be successful in our missions, but to receive eternal life.

We also hope you had a wonderful time speaking to your mothers and/or loved ones. It is interesting to see the loving treatment of the faithful women in the scriptures. The crowning and last event of the creation was Eve. God clearly wanted the earth to be prepared and beautiful before He introduced women into it. Mary, the mother of Jesus was the first to receive the angelic messenger regarding the pending birth of the Savior. The faithful stripling warriors were so valiant because, "they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them." (Alma 56:47). 

Elders and Sisters, one of the greatest blessings you have in your lives will be that of your mothers. Even better, Sisters, you have the promise to be mothers, partners with a loving Heavenly Father to help fulfill the His vision of "bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Mos 1:39) by having your own children. Elders, one of the greatest responsibilities you will have will be to treat your future wives and mothers of your children as the Queens and Priestesses they have been foreordained to be. We hope you will begin now to prepared for these roles. Sisters, prepare yourselves for marriage by doing all you can to be beautiful and refined in every way. Elders, prepare yourselves for marriage by holding women in high esteem. Be respectful of them. Be kind. Treat them with the courtesy and respect modeled by our Heavenly Father. This preparation will prepare you for the level of happiness we hope you all achieve.

We love you and will continue praying for your good success as you prepare for the greatest missions yet to come :).

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen 

 Here are some pictures from the Zone Conferences we held last week.

Spring Birthdays

Spring Birthdays

Spring Birthdays

Spring birthdays

Standards of Excellence

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It has been great to meet with you individually over the past three weeks in interviews and review together important principles of planning. When we have a vision of what we are trying to accomplish, it becomes personal because it is about children of God. We hope that you will spend the necessary time considering all those who we can bless and plan for them in a way that invites revelation. Great blessings will follow. To learn to plan is to learn to become like God. The powers of heaven will be at our disposal when we do it the Lord's way. 

One of the great principles in PMG Ch 8 (p. 150) is that we learn that the only way we can bind the Lord is if we hold ourselves to the revelation we receive. With this in mind, last week we counseled together at MLC to determine how we could further establish standards of excellence to lift our vision and focus our efforts. Since we established two new investigators/week/companionship, great blessings have followed. As you know by now we have now established standards of three investigators at church and five member present lessons each week. 

We are mindful that these additional standards will take greater planning and greater faith, but we also know that as we focus our attention on these standards, great blessings will follow in the lives of those we teach. More people will come into the safety of the covenants and more will remain as they are better fellowshipped by the members.

When I think of raising the standard, I can't help but think of Captain Moroni, who felt a personal responsibility to to lead out in rallying the forces for good in defense of truth. We read in Alma 62:4-5: 

4 And he did raise the standard of liberty in whatsoever place he did enter, and gained whatsoever force he could in all his march towards the land of Gideon.

5 And it came to pass that thousands did flock unto his standard, and did take up their swords in the defense of their freedom, that they might not come into bondage.

As we rally around the standard, we will liberate our brothers and sisters in this area and bring them into the safety of the covenants.

We love you and love the work we are so fortunate to do together!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

The following are pictures taken at Mission Leadership Council last Tuesday. We sure love them and value the insights and spirit they bring.

Enjoying Sister Chappell's "Cowboy Dip" Delicious!!

President Chappell trains us on methods of success

Mission Leadership Council

Sister Bates and Sister Renteria after Stake Conference

District Meeting: An opportunity to instruct and edify...

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

Last week, as a mission, we found well over two hundred new investigators again. Almost every area is finding and over one hundred baptismal dates have been set for May; many will come into the safety of the covenant. Nothing could be better! The work is moving forward at a rapid pace largely because you are consecrating yourselves to do the hard things. We love you for it! We hope every companionship will baptize in May and work diligently in May to find those who can be baptized in June. As we become more united in faith and obedience, the miracles will continue.

This last month we have spent time in District meetings and interviews for most of you talking about goal setting and planning as well as how to begin teaching. We hope you have found these meetings edifying and valuable. The way that they will be edifying is if we will follow the promptings of the Spirit and continue to apply those things we are taught so we can become more effective in our ministry.

Everyone belongs to a district. In PMG we read that the purpose of district meetings is to "teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom" (D&C 88:77). Please do your best to come to district meeting prepared to participate. Our hope if that each District meeting will include the following:

1. Those that teach should be well prepared and strive to inspire and teach after the manner of the Master.

2. Area reports should begin by discussing goals for the month (baptisms) and week (other KIs since those should be fresh on our minds from weekly planning the day before) with an attempt to help us feel accountable to each other. District leaders should identify opportunities to help and assist where appropriate and facilitate a helpful discussion by asking inspired questions. Progressing investigators should be discussed to ensure we are doing all we can to "lead them to the water."

3. Practice: We should teach skills, model them and practice them until we feel confident we can use them effectively (Moroni 10:30).

If you don't come away edified by your district meeting, discuss as a district how you can improve them. Ask for help where necessary. We view district meetings as the single most important meeting we have in the mission. We call on every district leader to rise to a new level of leadership. Please make sure you understand the "Purpose" of the teaching plan and seek revelation to know how to teach it so that we can improve as representatives of the Lord.

We love you and are excited to be here with you during this great time of the hastening.

President and Sister Mortensen

We had the 8 week follow-up training for all the missionaries who arrived in February. It was so good to see them together again and hear them teach so well. They have such great trainers and are really being blessed!

We had another wonderful Mission President's "Why I Believe Fireside"
This time it was held in the Spring/Woodlands Stakes

Elder Stevens captures a "garden" (we hope) snake that found it's way into the Mission Office.

Yikes!

Building Faith Within our Wards and Branches

To the missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We have been so inspired by the miracles that are occurring throughout the mission and sincere desire that is being shown by you in your fasting and prayers. Lives are being changed and Wards and Branches are growing to levels they've never experienced before. The enthusiasm for the work is spreading to the members.

Elders and Sisters, we would like each of you to use sacrament meeting attendance as the great measure of whether we are succeeding or not in this effort. Please make sure you know what the goal is for the ward/branch in which you are serving and then find out from the ward clerk each Sunday what the attendance is. I would like each of you to report this to me weekly in your weekly letter. You can add it after your PIN.

Why should we be interested in this? Is it for "numbers" alone? Obviously not. Our great desire must be on inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Our tendency is to focus so much on baptism that we forget the Lord's admonition to his disciples was not only that they "should go and bring forth fruit," but that also "that your fruit should remain." (Jn 15:16) Why is this? The ONLY way for all of God's children to receive His power in their lives (which power comes by the Holy Ghost) and help them endure to the end is to have their sins remitted. The ordinance of the sacrament is the means by which this happens. Only by regular participation in this important ordinance will members be prepared to receive the blessings of the temple. It is in the ordinances of the Melchizedek priesthood that the Lord says "the power of Godliness is manifest." (D&C 84:20).

Please take an interest in ALL members. They have to believe that you care and that you can be trusted. I had a Bishop say to me this week, "Can you try to help your missionaries introduce themselves to investigators who come to church that they didn't bring." Elders and Sisters, the only way this happens is if we aren't getting to know the members are in our wards as well as we could. When this occurs, we don't recognize if those "new" faces we see are actually investigators or members. We have to immerse ourselves into the ward. Please remember the following:

1. We ought to work as quickly as possible to know the names of the members. If we don't know them, introduce ourselves and work to remember those we meet.

2. Actively text the members of the ward council about your efforts.

3. ALWAYS RESPOND TO MEMBERS TEXTS quickly. This shows trustworthiness.

4. We ought to go to ward activities long enough to determine if there are any friends there, introduce ourselves and work with the members on finding opportunities to teach them.

Lastly, we would like each of you to read the section entitled "The Importance of Members" in ch 9 in PMG and discuss as companions how you can do a better job building their faith in Jesus Christ as well as their confidence and trust in you.

We love you!

President and Sister Mortensen

We held our third Temple Grounds Tours last week. The forecast was for lots of rain but we were blessed when those dark clouds didn't leak at all. A miracle! We had about 260 people attend and many felt the spirit of the Lord. 

Elder Halterman leads a tour

Hermana Saenz leads a Spanish tour

Missionaries after Stake Conference

Hermana Perry and Hermana Jensen after their baptism with a member in Katy

Elder Pace and Elder Nielsen after their ward's fireside "Come Unto Christ" in Katy