April 12, 2016

Lance took this in Priests' Quorum this past Sunday:)

    

Elly turned 18 months old!  She misses her Mark O!!!

Mark Owen Vickers	Apr 11 (1 day ago)
to me, Spencer

Mom!

Yes, the weeks seem to be flying by. Apparently the first 3 months of your mission are supposed to be the longest. I don't know if that's true for me yet. I know Elder Spencer Vickers can probably attest that as a missionary when you are busy(anxiously engaged) it goes by that much faster. 

Did we want to try to coordinate a time when Spencer and I can Skype at the same time in a group session? May be hard but not impossible. We'll have to see what guidelines our Mission Presidents have for contact home that day. :)

Where did Elly come up with Bobbie and Didi? haha

Did you take the picture of the pear tree?

Wish I could have been there for that special day.

I will be sure to send Lance a happy b-day. Does he have any plans yet?

Can't believe Kirk is getting married! At this rate I'll be last :P

Mark Owen Vickers	Apr 11 (1 day ago)
to me, Spencer

Chickens! I have seen so many chickens in this area already. There are places where they just roam free. In fact there is this one street where they climb 20-30 feet into the air. It's nuts. 

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 9:08 AM, DEANNE VICKERS <deannevick@gmail.com> wrote:

   

   

DEANNE VICKERS <deannevick@gmail.com>	Apr 11 (1 day ago)
to Mark

How's my boy? We miss you so much!! How is your investigator pool coming along in the new area? Tell us about your companion. What is he like? Do you guys get along pretty good? What is the new ward like? Do they split with you guys? Are they feeding you guys O.K? Love that you took your bike to the new area. It looks like it fits you pretty well How much are you weighing now?

Mark Owen Vickers	Apr 11 (1 day ago)
to me

Hey dad!

I miss you all too. Seeing the pictures of our house there in Utah really make me miss it as "home" It's weird how you don't really appreciate a place until you leave it. 

Our pool is doing pretty well. In this new area(Magnolia 1st), which we just got to this last week, we are 

currently teaching Josh, Billy Toby, Sandy, and Jackie. Josh has a baptismal date which is awesome 

but that may need to get moved. Sandy is super prepared for the Gospel and has several member friends. 

I had to get a new inner-tube for the bike. I hope it's just the tube and not the tread. :)  I am now weighing 

about 254 which is great but none of my clothes really fit. I think I'm going to try to wait until at least the

 1 year mark to start trading out clothing. Luckily several pairs of the pants I bought before coming out 

were super cheap so not a huge loss. It's a good problem to have. :)

Mark O., weekly letter April 4, 2016

Mark Owen Vickers	1:34 PM (32 minutes ago)
to bcc: me

Greetings from the best state in the union,

Another fun week of changes. Our mission president called us Friday night after interviews that morning. I answered and he told us that he had "been thinking about us all day" and that we were being transferred to a new area. He assured me this move was being done because of a need in the mission and not a problem/some sort of lacking on our part which was re-assuring. 

Our new area is the Magnolia 1st ward and I can tell this area is going to be fun! We are starting our 5th week of Elder McDonald's 12 week training and will have his 8 week review on May 4th. '8 week' is something that is unique to our mission, so far that I am aware, where missionaries that arrived 8 weeks prior along with their trainers come together to review the new missionaries progress. It can be a bit intimidating. As a new missionary you don't quite feel a sense of mastery and I don't think any missionary ever does. It's actually a good thing as we are motivated to continue learning/growing. 

This new area is quite a bit more rural than our last one. Churches dot just about every corner which is cool. We will be reaching out to the various leaders/pastors to see if there are any opportunities for us to serve their congregations. 

We had the opportunity to listen to our church leaders in the semi-annual General Conference sessions this last Saturday and Sunday. The messages they shared touched me and as I listed I had specific promptings on how to further the Lord's work in this new area. These messages and more can be found at:

gc.lds.org 

The new format makes it easier than ever to find answers to the questions we all have.

With that said if any of you that receive these weekly updates ever have a question please don't hesitate to send me an email and I will do my best to answer. 

I'm sure after I send off this email that I will think of about 10 things I haven't mentioned but that's ok. 

Love ya, until next week,


      

    


     

    

Mission weekly letter from President April 4, 2016

Texas Houston Mission

 

Monday, April 4, 2016

A Wonderful Weekend and Wonderful Month!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

What a wonderful experience it is to listen to general conference. It seems like it is even better while serving a mission! We loved the messages we heard. Many really stood out to us. One of them was Elder Renlund's talk. He spoke of how our proximity to the Lord determines the way we receive His counsel. If we are finding ourselves complaining instead of willingly receiving it, we need to repent and draw nearer to Him.

How inspiring to hear from President Monson. He doesn't have the strength that he once had, but is still committed to share the impressions that he is receiving from the Lord. We hope you listened. He spoke of having a vision for our lives; that when we understand where we are going, all of our decisions become very important in helping us get there.

We encourage District leaders to reserve some time at this weeks district meeting to discuss highlights and impressions of general conference especially focusing on how we can implement those things to make us better servants of the Lord.

This has been an equally remarkable month! More souls have come to the waters of baptism during this past March than they have in decades! Your increasing faith and obedience is leading to greater and greater miracles. We love you for it! You are making profound impacts on the lives of our brothers and sisters in this part of the Lord's vineyard.

We love hearing of the other miracles, some of which include the Tomball Elders asking a member who works for the school district to find out if we could teach family history in the schools. The request made it to the superintendent who said, "not only are we interested, but I'd like to attend myself." Great job Elders. We were equally excited to learn that the smallest branch in our mission in Hearne has invited 8 non member girls to attend girls camp and all have accepted the invitation! Great work Sisters! Many other miracles are taking place as we are broadening our vision and extending our reach. Think bigger. We loved reading about the Katy 1st Sisters stumbling upon a large family reunion (more than 50 people) in a pavilion and went to the microphone and shared a message about Easter and families.

We are the light bearers. We must speak out and speak up; stand out and and stand up. The blessings will continue!

May the Lord continue to pour out His bounteous blessings upon you as you labor in this beautiful portion of His vineyard! We love serving with such valiant servants!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

The Following pictures are each zone giving their accountability reports at MLC. They are awesome!

Week of March 28, 2016

Mark Owen Vickers	11:23 AM (4 hours ago)
to bcc: me

Howdy!

This week was sweet. We had the opportunity to serve with an local organization here called Special Angels who host a day care for adults with special needs. Aaron played Monopoly with us for most of the time and we had the chance to talk with several of the other participants. Can't really explain the joy that comes through service. Guess you all with just have to give it a try. :)

On Thursday we had a mini Zone Conference consisting of around 50 missionaries. The subject was on family history and how the work we do for our ancestors and missionary work are really one work. This training was perfect as later that day we were on campus at Lone Star teaching a family history course to about 30 people. A little intimidating, however I realized towards the end that I know more than I thought I did, so that was cool. 

We continue to work to get to know the members in this ward. Working with more than one ward has been different and a challenge, but a good one. 

Love you all, until next week

P.S. Not sure if I've sent this picture home yet. This is Elder Roper, Bishop Ryan(he's the man!, from my first 

area Spring Creek), and me on the right. 

Mission Presidents' Letter of the week

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Easter and Passover

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We thoroughly enjoyed seeing you at our mini zone conferences this last week. We hope you found the training to be helpful and we look forward to hearing about the wonderful experiences you will have as you begin to teach others to do their own family history.

With Easter here, we have been reflecting on the significance of the Passover. The Passover is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the Hebrew exodus from slavery in Egypt. It is also the celebration that took place in Christ's day right before His crucifixion and resurrection. 

We invite you to read Exodus 12 in your personal study that explains the way that the Lord institutes the Passover. It is rich in symbolism. Unleaven bread means without yeast so that the bread doesn't spoil. There are things that we indulge in that can spoil our spirits. Perhaps the most important symbol is the blood of a lamb that is male and without blemish. The children of Israel were commanded to take the blood and, "strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses" (v. 7). The reason for this was that the Lord promised to pass through the land to smite/destroy the firstborn of Egyptians, but would "Pass over" those who had the blood of lamb upon their doors. This would ultimately prepare the way for them to be delivered from bondage by the Lord. 

We hope you can see the application of this symbolism in our day. We too depend on the Lord for deliverance. If we will allow His atoning sacrifice to permeate our lives, we will be delivered from our sins as well as those calamities foretold by the prophets of old. It is interesting to consider the counsel by Prophets in our day to observe the Sabbath in this context and the value of the sacrament as we consider its protective influence in our lives.

We love you and hope you have a very Happy Easter!

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

Message from the president March 21, 2016

Texas Houston Mission

 

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Easter Season is Upon Us!

To the Missionaries of the Great Texas Houston Mission,

We hope you had wonderful experiences with family names in the temple. We are eager to hear about your experiences. We are so happy for you. We have never had the opportunity to do all of those ordinances in a day for one of our ancestors before. What a blessing for you!

We are coming upon perhaps the greatest Christian holiday that is celebrated across the world. For Christians, the Easter season is a time to celebrate Christ rising from the tomb, overcoming the bands of death and giving hope to the world for life after death. It was this victory over death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that caused Paul to write to the Corinthians:

55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor 15)

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have an expanded understanding of this victory, or the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that is critical that the world understand.

Over the next two weeks we hope you will work with members and leaders diligently to use the #Hallelujah initiative and invite commit the ward/branch leaders to encourage members to invite friends to church for an Easter service this coming week as well as to listen to General Conference (including the women's general session this Saturday evening) the following week so they can hear from those whom God has called as Prophets, Seers and Revelators in our day. Some of our greatest memories are when we have invited friends not of our faith to participate in these events with us.

We promise you that as you work diligently to invite ALL members (children, youth and adults) to use this initiative and invite their friends, we can help many turn their hearts to God and receive the blessings that He has in store for them.

Because of the promise of the resurrection, we are excited to about this week when we can roll out our Family History curriculum to help us be more effective in helping those we teach (members and investigators) deepen their faith in Jesus Christ as their hearts are turned to those who matter most to them.

Love,

President and Sister Mortensen

These wonderful sisters provide food for the needy in our community

The Cypress Zone was recognized for their community service 

We held a fireside in the Woodlands tonight and were blessed to have the Jeppsons as our keynote speakers. They shared some of the faith filled experiences they've had since losing Jazmyn in a car accident last month. We all loved hearing about our dear Sister Jeppson and left with a greater resolve to be a little better and to "be the Hero in our own story".  It is wonderful to have them here with us. 

These five former companions of Sister Jeppson performed, "Each life that touches ours for good" There was not a dry eye!

They comforted us

"I Will Go Before Thy Face" by Ken Turner
Brother Turner painted this for the Jeppsons