Texas Houston Mission

Monday, January 28, 2019

Faith Meets Families at the Temple and Why I Believe Fireside

4Th Friday of each month we have Faith meets family, 31 converts came to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for deceased family members. It is always a joyful spiritual experience.

Sunday January 27 we held our Why I Believe fireside, we had not had one since October and it felt good to hear converts bear testimony of their conversion and hear missionaries sing and share musical talents.

Faith meets Family

Elder and Sister Soakai and

Sister Peterson

Why I Believe fireside

Getting ready to go in the chapel and sing

Talking after the fireside

Baptism, FHE and the Temple

Each Saturday in our mission there are several baptisms, we were blessed to attend the baptism of Patti who had attended many churches. One day she googled churches in her area, our church was one of 3that showed up and she felt she should attend ours. She came one Sunday and knew she had found the right church. She studied with sister missionaries, a few months later she was baptized and her children and husband are now taking the lessons.

The 3rd Monday of each month we meet at the mission home for a FHE with the senior missionaries. The Soakais taught from the Follow Thou Me Sunday manual, we had snacks and enjoyed fellowship with one another. We welcomed a new couple the Waddoups who will serve in Sealy,

Once a quarter missionaries are able to attend the Houston temple and do work for their ancestors, they are to find their own name during the one hour a week in which they do family history. We were blessed to be able to go in January on short notice! Senior missionaries helped in the laundry and all elders were asked to bring their own white pants, long sleeved white shirts and ties.

Sister Egelund, Sister Crandall

Sister Smith, Sister Tseng

Pattis baptism watching a video the ward mission

leader created

FHE The Fellows and President Peterson

The Blanch's FHE

Elder Castleberry and Elder Soakai

Elder Waddoup and Sister Owens

Houston Temple

Sunday, January 20, 2019

More Pictures from January Zone Conference

Woodlands/Spring Zone

Spanish Zone

Elder Jewell conducting (looking at camera)

Lunch

Eating lunch with President Peterson

Elder Stevens and Elder Sellesin

Elder Morgan and Elder Tyler

Singing Called to Serve to our sisters who made lunch

Happy Birthday

Elder Stubbs, Elder Jewell, Elder Sevy and

Elder Greer

Elders Low, Ramsey, Hitchcock, Chavez

Crow and Hansen

Sister Mullings, Elder Clark, Sister Cloward

Sister Ethington and Elder Heiner

Zone Conference January 15-17

Zone Conference began with music, prayer, reciting the THM Mission statement, the missionary purpose followed by a special musical number by our talented missionaries. Each day the training is the same however we always learn something new and different (for those of us who attend each of the 3 days).
President Peterson began by teaching us from the scriptures, John 3 & 4. We studied and learned of being born again (baptism), living water ( the woman at the well) and meat, the harvest is now, not in a few months! The assistants spoke of the new Sunday manual and how we could use it with those we are teaching to help them be prepared as they attend church.
Sister Peterson taught from the white handbook about community service and also about mental health, what we could do to reduce stress, remembering we choose to be Happy!
We then had a 15 minute break and came back together to learn about looking up and how to use the area book planner on our mobile device.
Before lunch Elder Larsen gave out awards for the cleanest car, the reward was a bag of fishy crackers, pizza flavored! The missionaries seemed very excited about those fishy crackers.
Lunch was served each day by the wonderful relief society sisters in the wards and stakes. Called to Serve was sung to those wonderful sisters and Happy Birthday to missionaries who had a birthday in December and January. They received a candy bar!
After lunch we heard testimonies of the Book of Mormon and how we are affected by reading and marking all the references of the doctrine of Christ. President Peterson chose between 6-8 Missionaries each day.
Zone breakouts followed as we went into separate rooms and the zone leaders led a discussion on what all have done as a zone and how to improve.
We joined together in the cultural hall to hear final testimonies of those missionaries who are going home soon and closing remarks.
After the closing prayer many missionaries helped put away chairs, tables and tablecloths plus throw away garbage. Some stayed after for interviews and many went on their way back to their area for lessons and finding.
We were so grateful for the opportunity to spend those 3 days with our wonderful missionaries.