Sacrament Meeting Attendance: Planning the Experience

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We have been so happy to see how many people are coming to church due to your faithful efforts to make invitations to church part of everything interaction we have. More than a third of our companionships achieved this important standard of three investigators at church last week. 

Now that we are getting so many people to church, it is important to consider what kind of experience we'd like them to have. Planning for their experience may be just as important than getting them there. In PMG p. 148, we read some of the things we ought to consider in our planning for their experience at church:

1. Plan who will take these people to church, who will greet them, and who will sit with them during meetings (not just Sacrament meeting). 

2. Plan to contact quorum and auxiliary leaders and any teachers responsible for the classes the investigators will attend (as well as finding out who will be speaking at church and what the topic is so you can be sure to prepare your investigators and a call to the speakers to let them know that you will have investigators there and that you will be praying for them to bring a beautiful Spirit to the meeting :)). 

3. Plan to inform the bishop (and the ward council).

We would like to request that you add a 4th principle to this:

4. Who/What member family would be helpful to their progression and commit them to invite your investigators over to their home for dinner/FHE, etc while they are at church. This will not only help those you teach progress, but will also get the members more committed to participating in the work.

As we do our part to plan of the Church experience, we will greatly increase the chances for the Spirit to testify to the hearts of those we teach of the truthfulness of the gospel and enable all involved, missionaries, members and investigators to feel a unity of faith.

Great things are happening and there is no where else we'd rather be than to be experiencing these blessings with you!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We attended the District Meeting in Bear Creek last week

Great leadership from Elder Moon and Elder Barton

We saw many of our senior missionaries at a ward Luau

And Elder Stevens with Elder Toolson and Elder Whitlock

Nearly 12 weeks ago Pres. Mortensen issued a challenge to the new missionaries and their trainers. He said that we would take the companionship who extended a baptismal invitation every day for the most consecutive days out to a fancy dinner. About six weeks in we still had about 9 companionships in the running. We were so impressed! The winners were Elder Kenyan and Elder Sirstins and Sister Korth and Sister Winterton. Great Job!

We held Temple Grounds Tours again yesterday. We had another big turnout and everyone enjoyed the spirit on the Temple Grounds. We are so blessed to have a temple among us. The following are pictures from that evening.

Elder Robins directs traffic and security

Our Tour Guides minus the Assistants

This great group came from Huntsville

Elder Harris leads a tour

Sister Coronado teaches about the significance of the Angel Moroni

Elder Davis and Elder Nixon received their visas and will be leaving us for Argentina this week. We are so sad to see them go, but we know they will be a wonderful blessing to the people in Argentina. 

Hermana Sumsion leads a tour

Elder Steed leads a tour

Hermana Woodard leads a tour

It was a beautiful night!

Requirements to Teach with Power

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We have been so delighted to see that we had more investigators at Sacrament meeting in recent weeks than we have had in many, many months. It is inspiring to see the fruits of our faith and efforts when we invited consistently.  We know that this week was even bigger, but we will wait to celebrate those results. We do know last week's results and want to give a shout out to Elders Moon and Barton who had 10 investigators at sacrament meeting along with 6 others who came, but haven't been taught yet. Also worth mentioning were Hnas Reese and Bohn and Sisters Jolley and Carlson who each had 7 investigators at church. Many of you achieved our standard of excellence of three and that will continue to get better as inviting people to church becomes more deeply rooted in how we do things.

I haven't been able to respond to your letters this past week the way I would like because Sister Mortensen and I have enjoyed participating in a Mission President Seminar with the Area Presidency. We  learned some valuable things that we are eager to pursue, but most of all we felt grateful to be in this mission with you. There is no place we would rather be.

We have felt the need to address an issue relating to the process of becoming powerful teachers: Don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen overnight. It IS NOT a process that relies just on learning important tactics even though tactics are important. It's a process that requires you to be dedicated to not only seek God's will, but to do God's will over an extended period of time. This shouldn't be surprising because to teach like Him, we must become like Him. This can be one of the greatest blessings of your missions.

We read a little about the requirements to teach with power in Alma 17:2-3. You will recall that these verses describe Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah reuniting at the end of their long missions to the Lamanities. They are valuable to us because they describe the requirements to teach with the kind of power we need. We read:

 2 ...yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.

 3 But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God.

These requirements to teach with power include:

1. Searching the scriptures diligently. For us Elder and Sisters, this highlights the need to make the most out of the time that is set aside each day for personal and companionship study. Please plan for this time during nightly planning so you can be edified each day so you can "know the word of God." We are not taking advantage of this the way we should. In D&C 11:21 we are admonished to first seek to obtain God's word before we declare it and if we do so, "then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the POWER of God unto the convincing of men."

2. Giving ourselves to MUCH prayer and fasting. I think that the least understood part of this passage is what the "spirit of prophecy" means. There are things you ought to know about that. President Joseph Fielding Smith has taught that the spirit of prophecy is the ability to teach in a way that can be understood. This speaks to our ability to enlighten minds. Think about that. In 1 Cor 14:3 we read that "he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to EDIFICATION, and exhortation, and comfort."

Elders and Sisters, we hope that you will be diligent in understanding the requirements to teach with power that we might edify, enlighten and convince our brothers and sisters who reside in this part of His vineyard.

We love each of you and are grateful for the privilege of serving together in this great mission,

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We took President Mortensen's mother to Huntsville last week to visit the Hueffners (Sis. Hueffner is Pres. Mortensen's father's cousin) We are family!

President Mortensen meets Carl at institute

The Hueffners make the institute a welcoming place

We found Elder Noriega and Elder Chavez on campus

We also found Elder Sirstins and Elder Kenyon!

Good times in Huntsville!

Improving our Effectiveness II

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We hope you each felt edified in your recent zone meetings. We are certain that as we exhaust every effort to get our investigators to church and plan for them to have an edifying experience, we will gain a stronger testimony of the way attending church can help our investigators progress in the gospel. We are also certain that if we learn to teach more effectively we will find a much greater ability to bring many souls into the safety of covenants. We hope that you will take the opportunity this week to prayerfully study chapter 10 of Preach My Gospel to identify how we can individually improve our teaching skill further. In particular, please consider the exercises at the end of the chapter for personal and companionship study (p. 193-194).

As I have listened to many of you role play "how to end teaching," I have been reminded of the things TV show producers have learned over the years. Their success is determined not just by how many people "tune in", but more importantly by how many people continue to tune in. They have learned that one great episode doesn't make them successful, but rather that they need to captivate their audience to return to watch. One of the ways they do this is to show "scenes" from the next episode at the conclusion of the current one. We could learn a lot from them. Often at the end of lessons we simply say, "we'd like to return in 2 or 3 days" but we never give them "scenes" about the things we'd like to share so they don't have great motivation to have us return. For example, at the end of the first lesson, we can say:

"we are so grateful for the time you have taken to hear this important message and for the Spirit we have felt together. We would like to come back in 2 or 3 days to share with you some answers to life's greatest questions that we now understand because Christ's church is on the earth. Questions like, where did we come from before we were born, why are we here and what awaits us when we die. This knowledge will bring greater hope and happiness that anything else you can do. Which day would work best?"

We promise that as you plan to give them something to look forward to and to do those things we outlined in last weeks letter, you will have much greater success in getting back in with those you have worked so diligently to find.

We love you each and are inspired by your faithful service!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We had Mission Leadership Council last week and enjoyed a great meeting. It's such an edifying experience counseling with these inspired leaders. We love the way they are "shepherding" and leading with love. They are great leaders and examples. 

Our Mission Leadership Council

We received three new missionaries last week straight from the MTC assigned to labor in the Texas Houston Mission ASL program. We are so happy they are here and feel of their great desires to serve the Lord and the deaf here in Houston. Here are some pictures taken the day they arrived.

Receiving some training

Real Texas BBQ!

Elder McGinnis will train Elder Day and Elder Boekweg

Elder Hendrickson will train Elder Roberts