Fishers of Men

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

At the outset of the Savior's ministry He came to Peter and Andrew who were involved in their very prosperous fishing expedition and said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt 4:19) It is interesting that He doesn't say, "Follow me and be fishers of men." Instead He says "I will make you..." The point is that just because we choose to follow Him or just because we are "willing" to serve doesn't result in us "being fishers" of men. There is a difference between "fishing" and becoming "fishers". The Lord "makes" us fishers as we learn to "fish" the way He asks of us. Sometimes that means changing small things like casting our nets on the other side of the boat like He often asked of His disciples of old.

One of the critical tools the Lord has provided us as latter-day fishers is the Book of Mormon. We are convinced that if we can learn to present the Book of Mormon in a way that helps our investigators understand it's significance both as evidence that God has called a prophet in our day ("fruit") and as the way that they can find greater peace in this life and happiness in the eternal life to come, we will have far greater success.

In this month's district meetings, we will focus on the Book of Mormon. We hope that each of you will read or reread Chapter 5 of PMG throughout this month. Review it together during companionship study. Determine how you can be more effective teachers. You will know when you are more effective when people feel motivated to read and keep their commitments to read and pray to know it is true. Once this happens, you will realize that the Book of Mormon is what President Ezra Taft Benson declared it to be: "The tool the Lord has prepared to sweep the earth and gather the elect in the last days."

Sometimes we are too quick to get to lesson two which reflect our lack of understanding about the power of the Book of Mormon. We shouldn't begin teaching the plan of salvation until their is a testimony of the Book of Mormon born of the Spirit of God. That may mean we spend a couple of visits reading it with them. Reviewing it and making sure their is evidence of understanding. You will find what I found a a young missionary: that the Book of Mormon possess within its pages the power to convert and lead people to Christ unlike anything else we possess.

We testify that as we ourselves are diligent in reading from the Book of Mormon EVERY DAY and using it in the way the Lord has intended to bring the souls of men unto Him, we will see the power of God descend upon His children in ways we have never seen before. This will not only bless their lives, but it will bless yours as it has blessed ours. It is because of this sure knowledge we can testify unequivocally that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's kingdom once again restored to the earth to prepare us for His second coming. There is no greater blessing than to know these things are true! Our duty as fishers is to help as many others come to know this too!

We love you and are proud of the great work you are doing!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We held Mission Leadership Council last Tuesday. It was a wonderful meeting and especially edifying with the District Leaders from the mission in attendance as well. We are grateful for such dedicated leaders in this mission!

Binding ourselves to act (D&C 43) 

Here we are binding ourselves to the Lord

The whole group! Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, District Leaders

President Mortensen instructing us

We held an Open House to kick off our 1st Family History class on the Montgomery campus of Lone Star University. It was a great success and shows us how many of God's children want to know where they come from.  We are grateful for Elder and Sister Nelson of the Texas Houston Mission and for Sister Prince and Sister Cheney of the Woodlands Stake for staffing the booth and answering questions.

We Are Here to Help Others Feel

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

What a wonderful year we've had and what a great opportunity we have to now look forward. Elder Holland has said of faith and hope that they are, by their very definitions, forward looking. We hope each of you are filled with hope as you consider the opportunities that await you this year.

One of the challenges each of us face as we become missionaries is how to not only recognize and understand the Spirit, but to teach others do so as well. Many years ago Elder Henry B. Eyring gave a training to gospel teachers and said, "Often we spend too much time trying to explain to people how the Spirit feels. I submit that we ought to spend less time doing explaining it and more time giving them experiences with it so that they can come to recognize it for themselves." These are inspired words.

Everything we do depends on whether we understand the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. It isn't by coincidence that the sequence of the chapters in Preach My Gospel are in the order we find them. We need to understand our purpose, get familiar with the doctrine and create lesson plans and then master them. It is only then that we can be prepared to allow the Spirit to do its job. We invite you to read Ch 4 of PMG this week which is entitled "How do I Recognize and understand the Spirit." Please look up the scriptures and devote time in your companionship study each day to review what you've learned.

There are a few keys to being able to help others feel:

1. We must be worthy of the Spirit ourselves which will happen as we become aligned with the Lord's will and exactly obedient.

2. We must master the content of the lessons so we can be prepared to listen to the promptings and act on them. This means we need to be role playing daily.

3. We need to learn to act on the impressions we receive as we listen. One of the greatest resources to know if we are receiving impressions is found in Moroni 7:16-17.

Most investigators, when asked about their decision to be baptized, will say something along the lines of, "I felt something as the missionaries prayed" or "I felt something as I read the Book of Mormon" or "I felt something when I went to church." The point is, it is the way they are feeling that causes them to want to change and progress and less about what they are understanding.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the material that we need to teach that we forget who the actual teacher is. Elder Ballard has taught, "True conversion comes through the power of the Spirit. When the Spirit touches the heart, hearts are changed. When individuals … feel the Spirit working with them, or when they see the evidence of the Lord’s love and mercy in their lives, they are edified and strengthened spiritually and their faith in Him increases. These experiences with the Spirit follow naturally when a person is willing to experiment upon the word." (PMG p. 93).

We hope you will all feel edified and enlightened as you study the doctrine in chapter 4. It will help us gain greater appreciation for the power of the Spirit in conversion.

We love you and are excited to embark upon this year with you!

President and Sister Mortensen

The winner of the special zone activity is the 

Houston North Spanish Zone

We had fun playing soccer, ultimate frisbee, and volleyball together. The weather was beautiful but the field was muddy! 

We held the 8 week follow-up training for the missionaries who arrived here in November. It was an revelatory meeting and one we hope will shape our teaching forever. They are doing well!

THM Christmas Slideshow

Here is the slideshow that we were able to watch at the Christmas Conference. Enjoy!

New Year, New Opportunity

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We had a wonderful time sharing the Christmas spirit with each of you this past week. We hope you each had a Merry Christmas.

As we now turn to the New Year, it is inspiring to recognize that part of the plan we accepted pre-mortally allowed for there to be several "news". We have new days, new weeks, new months, new seasons and new years. Each give us an opportunity to recommit ourselves to do better. As we embark on this new year, we hope you will take this opportunity to make whatever course corrections are necessary to enable you to enjoy the blessings you are entitled to as servants of the Lord.

Recently I had the privilege of sitting down with one of our faithful missionaries at the conclusion of her missionary service. She reflected on some of the critical moments that changed the destiny of her mission and consequently the direction for her life. She spoke of how she had served the first six months of her mission without having seen a baptism. Despite this, it was at this time that she set some pretty ambitious goals. She then described that over the next few months the results didn't change. Instead of being discouraged, she allowed these goals to cause her to do a lot of introspection and began to get rid of the "small" things that she thought may be keeping her from qualifying for the blessings she desired. She said that once the small things were eliminated, people started appearing and asking to be baptized. She went on to mention that with a baptism during the very last weekend of her mission that her goals were achieved. Maybe just as importantly, she realized that as we qualify ourselves for the blessings, we can patiently wait on the Lord and He will deliver. He always does. That realization will bless her and her posterity for the rest of her life and beyond.

In PMG, we read wise counsel from Elder M. Russell Ballard who teaches, “I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” (p.146)

We hope you will approach the new year and set goals for yourselves and make the necessary adjustments to allow yourselves to qualify to be used by Him who is the great Hastener of this work and is only waiting for us to serve with all our "heart, might, mind and strength" so we are qualified to be used.

We love you and look forward to an even better 2016!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We had a great time together last Wednesday at our Christmas Conference. Here are some pictures taken there.

The best of the best! The Texas Houston Mission

We had an awesome musical solo from Elder Queen

Caroling together with the Chappells and Sister Bohn on the violin

Amazing piano solo from Elder Self

Sister Korth's beautiful solo

What a treat to hear a solo from Elder Berry!

Sister Bates and Sister Pinster sang with perfect harmony. Awesome!

Perfect finale of "O Holy Night" by Sister Packard. Wow!

We loved Christmas in the mission home with these ladies!

It was a "chiming" good time!

Merry Christmas!