Inviting all....

To the Elders and Sisters of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

It has been inspiring to meet each of you during interviews over the past several weeks. Each of you are uniquely gifted and, despite your individual challenges, your faith and determination to follow the Lord has been incredibly edifying for me. As you have committed to do so, one by one, by being as obedient as you can and extending at least 25 invitations to learn each day, we have seen remarkable things happen in our mission. As I shared with you in our initial zone conferences, our collective worthiness matters. Because it matters, our individual commitments to be obedient matter. I hope you will strive to always channel your inner Captain Moroni and care more what the Lord thinks than what men do. If we are found to seek the Lord's will daily by prayerfully planning each night and faithfully following the morning routine, we will invite the Holy Ghost to be with us and He, "will tell us all things that we should do." (2 Ne 32:3).

As I have visited with some of you about the 25 invitations to learn each day, I have felt the need to extend a small caution. In the Old Testament, we see the children of Israel forget that the purpose of "the Law" was to lead them to Christ. Instead, they became so consumed with the law itself that when Christ came to the earth during His mortal ministry and stood before them, they didn't recognize Him. I think sometimes we become a little Children of Israel-like in our obedience when we get more consumed with the "means" or the how of what we're doing and less focused on the "end" or purpose of why we are doing it. This can happen to us with anything routine that we do from saying our prayers, to taking the sacrament. In this same way, I can see that if we're not careful, we can forget that our objective in extending invitations to learn is not the "end", but the means. One of the great indications that we're remembering the "end" is that as we extend many more invitations to learn sincerely, the number of lessons we teach should dramatically increase. When this happens, miracles are sure to follow!

We love you all and look forward to seeing you again!

President and Sister Mortensen

Elder and Sister Cummings faithfully completed their service. They will be missed!

Farewell to Sister Parry. We will miss her!

Charming Texas

That Texas heat really wears you out!

Getting Organized and a Luau to Remember

A letter to the missionaries:

It has been so good to see so many of you again during interviews! Your commitment to the Lord and His work has been inspiring. I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week. As you have more fully committed to searching out those who are seeking the truth, we've seen miracles poured out upon so many of our Heavenly Fathers children. It's exciting to see the fruits of our collective faith and obedience! 

As a Mission President is released, so are his counselors. So I have called two counselors to serve with me in the Mission presidency. They are President Rob Chappell who will continue his service in the Mission Presidency as first counselor and Jose Vasquez who will join us as second counselor. 

     - President Chappell has wonderful Priesthood Leadership experience (particularly with the YSAs) and is married to Sister Jan Chappell who is the regional public affairs representative. They will be wonderful resources as we begin to pursue more community service opportunities in the mission. 

     - Presidente Vasquez not only brings his hispanic heritage to our presidency, but he is also the engineer in the Houston temple. His connection to the temple is invaluable as we begin to do some things to elevate the profile of the temple in our teaching efforts.

We will be announcing more on these new, upcoming initiatives in our next MLC and then distribute this information through our established patterns to all of the mission. In the meantime, please extend the same respect and courtesy to these two brethren as you have to me. We are meeting every week to organize events that we believe will bless countless lives. 

Lastly, As you have been working so diligently to dramatically increase the number of referrals received in our mission, we have realized that we need to improve our referral management process. To accomplish this we are bringing in some additional resources to assign out referrals more timely and follow up on them diligently as well. So if you are getting texts about the status of referrals you've received, you'll know why :). Please do your best to follow up on any referrals you've received within the first 24 hours. 

We love you and look forward to continue working closely with you in the upcoming days, weeks and months!

President and Sister Mortensen

Here are some pictures we took from a luau that our Melbourne Ward Elders and Sisters put on for the ward. It was such a successful evening with delicious food, live polynesian entertainment and a spiritual message. The cultural hall was packed and everyone had a great time! We were so inspired to see what can happen when we take initiative and plan something for investigators 

A full house

Mortensen kids getting into the spirit of things

Elder Pauga was a great MC and showed us how to open a coconut with a rock

Elder Pongi showed us how to make fire

Fire! That was fast!

Elder Veamatahau on the Polynesian horn

Elder Veamatahau serenaded us

Elder and Sister Wolfley were a huge help. This may be the first time they sat down all night!

Hula dance performed by the beautiful Sister Tau and Sister 'Aisea

They were awesome!

Getting ready for the Hakka

Game face. Don't let them scare you. They are so kind.

Hakka with the young men in the ward

We loved the spear dance

We love the Wolfleys!

Farewell to the Pingrees

On June 30th 2014, the Mortensen family arrived in the Texas Houston Mission! Sister Mortensen will be updating the mission blog.

We spent a few short hours with the Pingrees and felt of their great spirit and love for the missionaries and this great work of salvation. We were sad to see them go and I know the missionaries were too. To their credit, we have felt the full love and support of the missionaries and their desire to "not skip a beat" with the transition. What a blessing!

Here are a few pictures from that day.

Mortensen Family leaving Orange County, California

President Mortensen and President Pingree in the airport in Houston

The APs with the Pingree and Mortensen kids

A real Texas BBQ meal with the office couples

The assistants, Elder Christensen and Elder Hillebrant getting to know President Mortensen

From the Mission Tour

We spent a few days the first week touring the mission and meeting the missionaries. We loved getting to finally be with the missionaries. They were awesome! We love them so much and feel it a great honor to serve beside such consecrated servants of the Lord.

Temple Training

What a remarkable week!  As a mission, we met in groups on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to attend the Houston Texas Temple. We attended an endowment session and then received training from President and Sister Crane. We are thankful to temple workers who came and arranged early morning sessions for us. 

June Transfers

Transfers were held this week. Sadly, we said farewell to Elders Bradshaw, Mitchell, Gardner, Valdez, Anderson, Hill, McKnight, Frandsen, Barney, Torres and Sisters Auten, Thurber, Morris, Glauser and Philips. They have each served well and will be missed. On Wednesday, we received a great new group of missionaries from the MTC in Provo and Mexico. In addition, mission transfers took place on Tuesday morning with big changes for all. Please see some pictures of both new and departing missionaries below.

Departing Missionaries

Elder Gardner greets his mother

Off to the Temple

Hermana Auten with parents

Elder Torres with family

Elder Gardner with family

 New Misssionaries

New Missionaries with Trainers