Getting our Investigators to Church

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We hope you had wonderful experiences at the temple this week! We trust that after speaking to your mothers on Sunday and taking family names to the temple during the week has you invigorated and committed to do whatever is necessary to bring the blessings of the gospel to as many families as we can!

Elders and Sisters, I look forward to interviews that start this upcoming week to review with you the elements of effective planning. Our shepherding is slowing deteriorating in effectiveness. We can and must do better. We are working too hard to find investigators, teach them, commit them to baptism and then not safely lead them to the water. I want to reiterate to you that we can't effectively do this alone. We need to be working with members.

As you all know, our objective is that all active investigators (those who we are teaching that have had at least two lessons) will have met a member as we take that right member to a second lesson or visit. The key is that the member extend the invitation to church ON THAT VISIT. We have learned there is some confusion around this. To be clear, this means all active investigators (as defined above) need to be invited to church by the Wednesday night prior to that Sunday by the right member. If your area has 5 active investigators, ALL 5 need to receive and invitation in person from a member.

As a reminder, in Ch 11 of PMG we read that as we invite people to keep commitments, we are inviting them to repent. If that is the case, we need to make sure the invitations are done in ways that allow them to feel the Spirit. The Spirit will entice them to do good. So this invitation is most likely to be accepted when an investigator feels the Spirit and we/the members remember to:

1. Ask Direct Questions ("Will you...")

2. Promise Blessings

3. Bear Testimony Frequently and

4. Follow up

This week was a good start, but we are committed to making sure we are doing all we can to shepherd people to church and then safely to the waters of baptism. Only then will we have accomplished our Missionary Purpose the way the Lord expects us to.

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

P-day activities for Elder Michaelis

Elder Taylor is a wonderful District Leader

District Meeting in Melbourne

Loved seeing these elders at Stake Conference this past weekend

Mother's Day and Upcoming Interviews

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We hope you had a wonderful time speaking to your mothers and/or loved ones. It is inspiring 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 good 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.

With interviews approaching, we want to remind you that we will pay particular attention to your goal setting and planning as reflected by your planners. We will also look at your lists and hope that we will see evidence of you using them to engage your members, create unity in the work and inquire as to the status of your 5 invitations to baptism.

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

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

We had transfers last week and had no departing missionaries and we received one new missionary. We are so happy to have Sister Valenzuela here with us! She is delightful and ready to work!

The Assistants provide some training

Sister Valenzuela with her new companions

True Disciples

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

When the research teams from the missionary department were here, they met with us and one of the greatest tributes to you they made was that the missionaries in this mission are "true disciples." They said in the way they observed you teach, interact with members and investigators, your language, your appearance, everything reflected true discipleship. We are grateful to be among you.

As we have been reflecting on this interaction last week, we were struck by the description of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies in Alma 24. If you recall, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had buried their weapons (v19) as a symbol/testimony to God that they were entering into a covenant with the Lord that they would rather serve Him than use their weapons to take the lives of their brethren. 

Their commitment to this covenant was quickly put to the test as the Lamanites came against them to war. The interesting part of this account is that although they knew they would suffer, they didn't waver in their commitment to God. Elders and Sisters, Mormon included this in the Book of Mormon for us. It is not always easy to remain committed to do what is right when everything in your mind tells you not to. This is the essence of true discipleship. We see it growing in you and many lives are being blessed as a consequence just as happened with the faith and commitment of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. We read of the great blessings that come as a consequence of this kind of discipleship:

26 And it came to pass that the people of God were joined that day by more than the number who had been slain; and those who had been slain were righteous people, therefore we have no reason to doubt but what they were saved.

27 And there was not a wicked man slain among them; but there were more than a thousand brought to the knowledge of the truth; thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people.

These blessing of salvation will continue to be the result in our mission as well as we remain committed to our Missionary Purpose even when the temptation is to do otherwise.

We hope that each of you will be committed to daily and weekly planning so we are sure we are planning to succeed particularly in light of the new standard of excellence for Investigators with a Date. 

We would like you each to be sure and plan to meet with each recent convert if you haven't already and remind them of Lehi's reaction as he partakes of the fruit and challenge them to do likewise. Find your Amuleks!

We promise you that the Lord will pour out His choicest blessings as we are united in "fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of th souls who knew not God." (Alma 6:6)

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Mission Presidency (Pres Chappell, Pres Mortensen, Pres Kizerian)

Bear Creek Zone

College Station Zone

Conroe Zone

Cypress Zone

Houston North Zone

Houston West North Zone

Houston West South Zone

Katy Zone

Spring Zone

Tomball Zone

Klein Zone

The Woodlands Zone

Happy companions

Happy to see these missionaries serving at BYU Fanfest

President Sharp (Stake President of College Station Stake) with Pres Mortensen

Look!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We attended the creation of the new Conroe, Texas stake today. What a miracle it is to be serving at a time when the Lord is performing such great miracles in this part of His vineyard! We are grateful for all those missionaries and mission presidents and wives who have gone before us for their great effort and sacrifice that has made all of these miracles possible. There are now 10 stakes in our mission with an 11th to be created soon. As we see new stakes created, we are witnessing the fulfillment of the Lord's admonition in D&C 82:14 when He says:

"For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened; yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments."

We felt inspired in our gatherings with you this week. Since zone conference many of you have reached out to share the miracles of what is happening as you engage the members using your Master list of those wandering sheep that should be known to all of us and ever present in our minds. We are confident that as you use those lists to encourage members to be involved in the lives of those who are a great source of finding, we will continue to see even greater miracles!

We remind you that your assignment is to find 5 people through your lists to whom or through whom you will extend baptismal invitations in the next 30 days. Your chances of succeeding on this will increase dramatically as you get your ward council involved. Remember to get them committed to follow up with individuals and use the list at every member dinner. You will be more inspiring as you communicated your commitment to baptize and the efforts you have made to identify those who may be the most likely candidates to baptize. If you simply convey this effort as something you are being asked to do, you will lose the power of the invitation.

We are confident that the Lord has greater things in store for us. We challenge every companionship in the mission to do all you can to have AT LEAST two people with dates going into the month of June. We would love nothing more than to have the biggest month of convert baptisms we have ever had. The blessings of the gospel will continue to bless many lives of our Heavenly Father's children as we recommit ourselves to invite all to come unto Christ and be baptized!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Here are some pictures taken at zone conference last week

So fun to be together again!