February 15, 2016 Presidents' Message

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Happy Valentines Day!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

Valentines Day has a tradition that goes back centuries, but as we think about it today, we think of love and of those we love. It was the Savior's love that we celebrate each week as we partake of the sacrament. It was He who said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (Jn15:13) Each of you possess a degree of this love as evidenced by the fact that you have laid down your lives or set them aside in order serve a mission. We will forever be grateful you did. We wish each of you a Happy Valentines Day :)!

We are looking forward to seeing you this week at Zone Conference. We are going to be discussing a couple of important topics:

1. A Reverence for the Sacred

2. The Book of Mormon and the Restoration

We are sending you two talks (each in a separate email) to read before zone conference to prepare your minds to receive the revelation you need. The first is a talk by Elder D. Todd Christofferson that he gave to the YSAs of the church a few years ago entitled "A Sense of the Sacred." The second is a classic talk on the Book of Mormon given by President Marion G. Romney a former counselor in the First Presidency of the Church given in April 1980's General Conference. We request that you read both, but we only assign each companionship to prepare 5 minute talks on the following themes (one companion prepares a talk on the first and the other prepares a talk on the second):

1. In what ways can I better show reverence to God as a full time missionary?

2. How can I better teach the Book of Mormon and what blessings can I promise that have already been promised?

We are inspired by the increasing number of miracles we are seeing in our mission and know that it is a reflection of your continuing faith and hard work. We love you for it!

Love,

President and Sister MortensenHouston Texas Mission Blog