Thanksgiving!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We loved the outpouring of the Spirit we felt as we assembled with you at zone conference this week. What a blessing it is to understand that the great evidence of God's love for us is His willingness to give us "instructions" or commandments so we can safely return to His presence.

It has been said that the more often we see the things around us, the more they become invisible to us. Lest we be guilty of this, we need to take a step back and reflect upon the miraculous events of this year. We feel to exclaim with Ammon:

"Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners (the temple), that they are not wasted." (Alma 26:5)

Elders and Sisters, you are the sons (and daughters) of Mosiah! Due to your efforts and faith, we have seen an unprecedented number of souls "harvested" from the field and then taken to the temple (the garners) with their own names so they are not wasted! We are so grateful to be witnesses of these great events!

In this spirit of gratitude, we remind you that how important it is that we recognize the hand of the Lord in our lives daily. In our day, the Lord has said, "And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments." (D&C 59:21)

We are grateful for Thanksgiving holiday; a day set aside initially by President Abraham Lincoln in 1964 for the nation to remember the goodness of God. The key for us as children of God is to learn to live in a spirit of Thanksgiving daily. If we could learn to focus on the great blessings we have instead of worrying and stressing about those we don't have yet, we would find greater happiness in our own lives and feel greater love for others. One of the most important ways for us to show our gratitude to our Heavenly Father is to "willingly" keep His commandments and to serve Him with all of our "heart, might, mind and strength."

We close sharing Ammon's closing words to his brethren as if they were our own to you when he says, "Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is "our" joy, and "our" great thanksgiving; yea, and "we" will give thanks unto "our God forever.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We are grateful for each of you!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

 Here are some pictures taken during Zone Conferences last week.

Fall birthdays

Fall birthdays

Fall Birthdays

Temple Days and Zone Conference Assignments

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

There has never been a better time to be serving in the Texas Houston Mission! It looks like we will be enjoying a White Christmas here in the South! We are having a remarkable November and already have more people at this stage of the month with dates for December than we have ever had for an upcoming month since we have been here! Wonderful things are happening as a consequence of your commitment to find and to use the the Book of Mormon as the powerful tool for conversion it was designed and preserved to be!

We have heard from many of you about the wonderful experiences you had taking your own family names to the temple this week. We are so happy for you and for those of your family who received the saving ordinances for which they have been longing.

We are looking forward to be with you this week during zone conferences. We would like for you to prepare for 5 minute talks with the following assignments:

Senior (longer serving) companion: 1 Samuel 15:1-23. Help us understand what is of greatest value to the Lord and what are the temptations we face to confuse or forget this.

Junior (shorter serving) companion: Alma 37:38-47. Help us understand the application of this teaching to our success as representatives of Jesus Christ in Houston.

We love each of you and look forward to learning from and being with you this week!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

8 Week Follow-up with the ASL missionaries that arrived last September 

District Meeting in the Klein Oak District

We had a Mission President's "Why I Believe" Fireside tonight in the Houston West Spanish Stake. We enjoyed beautiful music and testimonies and felt a wonderful spirit. We love these great missionaries!

Unity of Faith and Zone Meeting Follow-Up

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It is exciting to see the fruits of increased unity within the mission. As we are all striving to find more consistently in order to have two baptisms by the end of the year, we are seeing a significant surge in baptismal dates. It is remarkable to see that as we share a purpose/vision and an understanding of what is required to achieve it, miracles happen. This will always be the case no matter the organization of which you are a part. Unity is essential in marriages, families, wards/branches, workplaces, sports, etc if we are going to accomplish our objectives.

We reiterate our challenge to you to be sure you are getting at least 6 days of ITLs. We need to allow our efforts to find define us and our discipleship. The promises the Savior makes to His disciples is that the "seekers will find." We are seeing that here. Let's hold one another accountable to be sure we qualify for the blessings the Lord promises to the faithful.

We trust you had uplifting zone meetings and that you came away feeling like you are part of a team that is focused and committed to the Lord and to each other. As you know, we role played a way of how to effectively read with an investigator. We worried that because we chose 1 Ne 8 and because you have already role played that, maybe our focus and concentration wasn't where it needed to be to really understand the principles we wanted to teach. Instead, it seemed as though we reverted to what we have always done and may have missed the point. 

Elders and Sisters, we are not reading with them to explain to them a story about someone else. We are reading with them to "put them in the story" which is to do as Nephi did when he says "I did read unto them that which was written...; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning." Interestingly, he says that he read the scriptures with his people to, "more fully PERSUADE them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer" (1 Ne 19:23). We must do likewise.

With this in mind, we request that each of you read together as companions the tips described on pages 110-111 in PMG about how to help investigators read and understand. Note: reading with investigators should happen throughout our teaching experience with them, NOT just after the first lesson. 

Consider the following principles of reading the scriptures with an investigator:

1. Stop frequently. If we read too much without a break to keep us together, we lose them.

2. Stay together. This means as you stop, discuss what you read to ensure understanding and be sure they are reading along. 

3. Put the investigator in the story. Make sure you are not explaining someone else's experience, but rather you are reading someone else's experience because it relates so well to what the investigator is going through.

We promise you that as we read The Book of Mormon more effectively, those we teach will begin to feel the spiritual power associated with that book and the chances of them experiencing a "mighty change of heart" will increase dramatically.

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen 

Bear Creek Zone

College Station West Zone

College Station East Zone

Cypress Zone

Houston North English Zone

Houston North Spanish Zone

Houston West North Zone

Houston West South Zone

Katy Zone

Klein Zone

Spring Zone

The Woodlands Zone

Mission Leadership Council

We attended Zone Meeting in the Cypress Zone last Friday. We loved being in that great zone and learning from each other. Here are some pictures taken that day.

Role playing

Cypress Zone

Senior Missionary Conference at the Chappells (not pictured: the beautiful Sis. Chappell)