A Mighty Change of Heart

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

At the conclusion of King Benjamin's sermon to his people, he inquires of them about their reaction to his words. We read their reaction in Mos 5:2 which reads:

"And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."

Just as King Benjamin's people experienced a mighty change of heart borne of the Spirit of God that they felt as they listened to his words, so must those we teach feel if we expect them to make and keep commitments. Too often we are disappointed by their failure to keep commitments and we assume that "they just aren't ready", when the reality is they may very well be ready, but they didn't feel and recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost in our teaching. Therefore they fail to act. More often than not, this is a result of an absence of the spirit when we teach (D&C 50:13-22).

We would like each of you to study Ch 10 of PMG in personal and companionship study this week. We need to qualify for the Spirit in our own lives first. Having the Spirit with us is the most important thing we can do. That comes as we are prepare faithfully, are exactly obedient and we are lovingly bold. That's why we state this in our Mission Statement. Only then will we see miracles and accomplish our Missionary Purpose.

We testify to you that as you do these things, ministering angels will attend you and attend those you teach. That the Spirit will carry to their hearts the words of truth (2 Ne 33:1).

We love you and pray for your continued success!

President and Sister Mortensen

Here are the pictures taken from last weeks transfer

Sister Rowe's parents meet us at the temple

Wonderful group of departing missionaries at the temple together

Testimony Meeting with Departing Missionaries

Signing the flag

The McLeans pick up their daughter 

Rainy morning at the airport

We squeezed into the elevataor

So cozy!

We were quite the spectacle with all of our missionaries and luggage to check

Elder Pongi was the first to depart

We will sure miss these wonderful missionaries! They have been such a blessing to us and to the people in Houston.

Elder Field needs to catch his plane

Last goodbyes

An hour later we received our new missionaries straight from the MTC and CCMA. They look great and ready to serve. We are so happy to have them here in Houston!

Aren't they the beautiful? We are so excited to have these wonderful new missionaries!

Writing home and eating Texas' famous Blue Bell ice cream.

Group picture at the mission home the next morning before meeting our trainers at our transfer meeting

The next several pictures are of the new missionaries and their trainers. They are all in very good hands! We are already getting great reports from them.

Prepare to be Bold!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

With specialized training and zone conferences behind us, I was able to participate in many companionship studies and district meetings. We're so happy for the great things you are doing! I did note a few things that I think are good to remember that sometimes are easy to forget in the routine of things:

1. The most important part of the day is planning at night. Not only planning, but EFFECTIVE planning. In Ch 8 of PMG, we read: Meaningful goals and careful planning will help you accomplish what the Lord requires of you (p. 137). The unfortunate reality is that the absence of meaningful goals and careful planning means we will unlikely accomplish what the Lord requires. Please review Ch 8 with an emphasis on the planning tools listed on p. 139 and start every planning session with the question, "What can we do tomorrow to help ______________ keep the commitment they have made to us." This includes the multiple commitments that progressing investigators ought to be keeping. Often we think of investigators only, but this list of people should include members as well.

2. Member Commits. It seems like we have lost sight of what we are trying to accomplish with our member commitments. In Ch 11 of PMG, we read:

     • Every finding opportunity—with members, referrals, or personal contacting—should lead to an invitation to act,      usually to learn more about the message of the Restoration.

     • Rarely, if ever, should you talk to people or teach them without extending an invitation to do something that will strengthen their faith in Christ (p. 196).

We are blessed to have good members in this mission who are eager to help us by feeding us. We hope you are gracious at each dinner appointment. We also hope you will look to inspire members and commit them to act. This should be something that is role played and planned during companionship study and added to the goals for the day. If we are having 7 dinners provided to us with approximately 20 members present during those dinners, we should come away with 20 commitments. Anything short of that suggests we have significant room for improvement. If you're not feeling confident in this, ask for help. Members need to see us as encouragers, focused and purpose-driven. If they do, their confidence in us will grow and their desire to help will increase.

We love you and pray for your continued success! Keep up the great finding efforts. Many families are coming into the waters of baptism!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Our missionaries are doing such great work on college campuses throughout our mission. We visited Blinn Community College to see them in action.

Elder Barlow in action setting up a table for contacting on the campus of Blinn Community College

Elder Croft contacting on the Blinn campus. We love how kind and focused they are!

Driving through beautiful Snook, Texas

We got to see these darling hermanans at the baptism of one of their investigators

Beautiful musical number at the baptism

And the winner of the Special Zone Activity is the Cypress 2 Zone!! Congratulations on your excellence and hard work.

We went miniature golfing at an indoor golf course. Some of our missionaries had never done this before! We had a wonderful time together.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the home of Pres and Sister Chappell

Relaxed a little in the media room...without any media!