He Said...No Matter What You Do, Go Work Hard And Just Be Yourself

Hello!!! 

This was a great Easter week! it was pretty normal. Lots of walking around and knocking doors and trying to talk to everyone. We didn't see a lot of success this week in all of that, but we don't always do it to have success. Sometimes its just to show the faith that you have. and use the time you don't have anything to do, the most effective as you can. In a missionary Broadcast they shared that its the members work to find and ours is to teach. but when we don't have people to teach, we get to find. These last few weeks all the members haven't had time to help us out. They are all working and on top of that Hermano Sanchez, the group leader, just bought a house and is repairing it. he hasn't been to a lesson or correlation or any meeting other that church with us in like 6 weeks. So the work is hard now, but that is never been a problem.

Easter sunday was great! It would have been even better if i didnt have to talk again! but it went alright. We texted the E-- family inviting them to church again but we didn't get a text back. It was a little into the meeting we were sitting up at the sacrament table and they walked in!! It was crazy, my stomach dropped! We were so happy and we both had the biggest smiles on our faces. The other missionaries told us they could just tell that we were happy they came. It was the best thing of the whole week. When a Family comes to church, especially a Hispanic family, you know that they are really interested and really want this. Most Hispanics only go to the Catholic church on Christmas and Easter. So we will have to see if they will come next week. We went to a lesson after that day and they said that they loved church! The mom and the daughter said that they wanted to be baptized! They set a date in July! that was terrible. its usually like 3 ish weeks. They thought that they had to read the whole Book of Mormon before they are baptized. When we cleared that up they said then it would for sure move up. WE are so excited for them and all the steps forward they are making.

This week we were walking around Mabton and there was a Mexican family out having a party. It was their day off so of course they were drinking. We stopped and talked for a little. They invited us in and wanted to feed us some carne esada. So we ate that. Haha they really wanted us to take a beer and get drunk with them but we decided on a soda. It was funny. They guy that was cooking was drunk and just singing as loud to the music that was playing. It was a crazy time. It was a lot of fun though. We had a pretty good conversation about the restoration with one of the older daughters though. She lives in Yakima and wanted the Restoration pamphlet. We hope that missionaries find her up there.

Planting kinda always goes on. We had a lesson with a family that lives on the hill, with all the farms. So its like a 30 minute drive up. We were talking about all the planting time and everything like that. Its pretty complex. but there is always something being planted or harvested, its just right now is the big push to get it started so its really busy. We do text scriptures and thoughts to our investigators some times. We do what we can.

8 months, thanks for reminding me. Its been great. One of the biggest things that i have learned is actually from the advice Brayden gave me before i came out. When i asked him i was ready for something that would just help right away and i would be blown away. but when he said it i was just like, ok i will try. He said, no matter what you do, go work hard and just be yourself. i was thinking well of course i am going to be myself, how would i not?   But i have seen a lot of missionaries and me at times, change and become kinda like a robot in a way. They are different people when they are sharing the gospel, even to how they speak and how their voice sounds. The way it all works best, is you have to show your personality and people have to see we are normal people and we love the things we share. I have grown so much from making this gospel a part of me, then sharing what i know because i love it. It was hard but it has been the biggest affect on my mission. So thanks Brayden for your advice! even if it seemed not like a lot of advice when i first heard it. It has changed me and my mission.

We are watching conference in the church here in Prosser. I dont know if it will be English or Spanish, so that will be fun.

Life back in Utah sounds fun! Easter is always a great time and even better with snow i am sure! Its been in the 60s so i kinda feel bad for you all. but at least you get that sun at times and you can have fun while it is there. I see the Easter Bunny got lazy and just put a bag of candy rapped in a bucket! but i guess it works. We got a bunch of candy and a cheese cake from The family we ate with for Easter. I love cheese cake! Its funny to see that Ali Brianne and Jaxsen are all the same height!

Thanks for the letter! i love you all! have a great week!

Elder Mortensen

Ps sorry no pictures. i dont have my cord for my camera. But thanks mom for your testimony. it always strengthens mine. I probably wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for you. i love you especially mom!!

We Are Just Praying For A Miracle

Hello!!!!   

How are all of you doing!!  I am doing great! This was for sure another great week. We are doing a lot of walking around and knocking doors. Well, we always do but especially now! It is planting season so all the Hispanics are working around 15 hour days, 6 days a week. The only time that its worse for the Spanish workers is harvest season. Also their day off is their party and drinking day! its crazy how many parties are going on on the weekends. We found some good referrals for the English elders. They get a lot of referrals from us and the sisters because we dont do any English work. Its unusual for at the end of a week to have 1 maybe 2 referrals not contacted, but they have 16 now!  

We had a few lessons with the E-- family. They are still excited about it and they read a little and prayed but they didnt come to church! The problem is the 9 year old girl is almost done with her first communion in the catholic church, which is a long possess i guess, but she doesnt want to do that. She wants to come to our church! The mom and the member dad also want to come. But they have had what they call Godfathers to plan everything for them and buy dresses and all that, and they dont want to back out on him. They said because its so close they dont want to look bad if they back out. so that is the problem that we are facing with them. Their meeting they have to be to starts are 11:15 so right in the middle of our meetings. We are just praying for a miracle. i dont know what that miracle is, but we are praying for it. We are still going over often because they love the message that we have to share. They fed us this food thats called Mole. its this chocolate sauce with a ton of spices in it and it was on eggs. spicy chocolate sauce on eggs, probably the weirdest and worst thing that i have eaten here. I tried to get in down with Fanta, but spicy Fanta dosnt taste very good either. That was fun. They had some fruit after so that was good. We are excited for them.

We are still teaching E-- and M--. They work a lot and she also goes to school so its hard to find time. But this week we found E-- home. they haven't been reading the Book of Mormon so we started that with him. He said he liked it so far and we hope that that will get him started into reading it more.   We did do service this week! 7 hours of it. There is this lady, she is a little crazy at least with her methods. We have helped her move like everything in her house and her 4 storage sheds about every week i have been here. I think i have moved everything about 3 times. We helped her set up a yard sale. We dont know how much money she made yet but she sold a lot of things. I also mowed her lawn. it was weird doing that again. One of the members has a friend that is getting too old that its hard for him to do a lot of his yard work, so we also went and did that for him. We fixed up his yard and garden. It was good. we are going back for both of them this week. It was a great week. not to busy, but it happens.

It sounds like a great time already starting the wedding planning!! Also you better make sure that that life size cut out is is taller then dad and Brayden because it has to be accurate. also i am still growing! i dont know if its up or out, but its still happening. everything else sounds like a lot of fun. But have a great week! i love you all!!

Elder Mortensen

Ps!!!

 i hope i fooled you. sorry i dont have pictures for this week. but thanks for that quote. i really like that one

It Was Powerful

Hello!!!!!!  

i am not dead dont worry!! This week we got another chance to go to the Temple!! So Preparation day is today!! The temple this morning was great! the session was at 8 so at least i didnt have to get up any earlier. Elder Harward got up a little earlier at 5:45 to get the showers going. I love the temple here. its smaller but still feels just the same. Well one of the best things of this week was M-- got baptized!! the other elders got here at the right time. All they had to do was come teach the last 2 lessons and plan the baptism. It worked good because we taught him almost everything they just had to do the work to plan it! just like T--'s. He got out of the font and was just so happy! he grabbed the closest person when he got out and gave him a hug. His suit got a little wet, but thats alright. His confirmation was great. He had a lot of his soon to be father and brothers in law there. We also had interviews with President Ware this week. We had to come up early and the interviews were going late so we were at the church for like 4 hours watching things on LDS.org with the other missionaries. The interview was great. We talked a lot about accessing the power of the Atonement. President told me that that is what i need to be doing more and more because that is going to be how i become the person the Lord needs me to be. He just told i am doing great. 

Just to answer your questions, well we usually dont get bashed  very often. There is a lot of people that disagree and a lot of missionaries would bring it to that point, but you can usually stay away from it. The Spanish group party was awesome! We ate. they did a little church tour and i got to know everyone. it was at the same time as M--'s baptism so we weren't at the party the whole time but we still got the food! The E-- Family came!! they loved it!! it was great to get them to the church. They got to know some of the members, so that makes it even better so now we can bring members with us to the lessons with it not being weird for them.  They said that they were going to come to church. But they didnt!! we went over for another lesson that Sunday, and they just forgot to move their clocks an hour!! so that was lame but they have a lot desire. They were going to come to the baptism that happened yesterday, Tuesday, but they didnt so we went over with Hermana Sanchez. We had a really good lesson. it was about how the lord can strengthen us! that is what she really needed i know that for sure. Hermana had her crying! in a good way. it was powerful. also yes!! everyone works in the fields! probably around 90% of the Hispanics we talk to work in the field. They have soooo many workers and soooo many fields!

It was a great week! it went by way to fast! it sounds like everything back at home has been really fun! its good to see that you are all staying busy and doing the things you want. Especially a good week fro Brayden. That is all exciting. also yes i am keeping in contact with a bunch of people still.

Thanks for the letter and especially the quote!! i love you all a ton!!

PS.   yes i do have pictures!!

Our District at the Temple

M--'s Baptism

She Was Telling Us That Yesterday Was One Of The Best Nights In Her Life!

Hey!! Hello! 

Its great to know that every thing is going so good! This week was an awesome week. Actually just thinking about it, it is so important to endure to the end! even if that end is the of the week. This week the best and greatest blessings came on Saturday and Sunday! The whole week was great but we were not able to see a lot of success. We talked to a lot of people. That lead to sitting in a house while a couple bashed us! It was the craziest one i have had thats for sure. They were saying a ton of things about us and our church and how we are wrong and that we dont know Jesus. I was tired of it so when they decided to take a breath i bore my testimony of how i personally know Jesus Christ and asked if we could do anything for them real fast because we have to go. It some how lightened the mood and a little later we were joking with them and left. You have to love knocking doors! The two families that we found last week, the E-- and R-- families, were busy this week with planting getting started up on the farms so we couldn't catch them. We stopped by both of their houses on Sunday and the R-- family let us in. We didnt have much time so we saw how they were doing and invited them to the party that the Spanish group is doing this weekend. They said they might be able to come. That day, the reason we were so late going to the R-- families house is we felt that we should go and try to find a lady that said we could come back. We knocked her door the week before. Her husband was outside. we talked to him and said that his wife said that we could come back so he let us in. They were watching tv so if we didnt find them outside and let us in, i dont think that we would have got in. but we taught a lesson on the restoration. It went really good. The spirit was for sure there! They said they would both be baptized but the "husband" said i would love to but we are living in sin, we arent married. I thought only missionaries said that!! but we can plan a weeding also, its no problem. They both seem sincere and are reading the Book on Mormon now. They are two awesome new investigators we were blessed with.  The best part of this week was T--'s baptism!! it was such an awesome time to be there for. It was awesome to see how converted she became up to the point of her baptism. For her baptism she was kinda nervous. You can see it is the pictures before and after. I got the chance to baptize her. That was such a great experience. i was a little nervous before because i havent done it before, but when i saw how she was kinda scared i wasnt for some reason. it might have been because if i messed up she wouldn't even know!! But it was great! I did pull a blonde moment and forget to pack a extra dry shirt!! so i shook it off my best, rolled up the sleeves, put on my suit, and prayed really hard it wouldnt soak through.  Prayers are answered!! and i am lucky they do. No one noticed. When i told the other elders later They got a pretty good laugh! T-- after was so happy! The next day in Sacrament for her confirmation, she was telling us that yesterday was one of the best nights in her life! that she is so excited for her confirmation. During the confirmation is the first and only time i have seen her cry. She said she was so touched by the spirit. It was an awesome weekend!!

Its crazy Brayden is getting married!! i was just waiting for it to happen though. It sounds like the rest of the week wasnt quite as exciting as that, but its hard to beat. I wish i could have been there for the campout in the rain! that sounds fun. I bet Ali has scored higher then me on the ACT. so good job on that one. Its great to hear all the great things you all are doing. I love you all! thanks for the letters. have a great week!!

Elder Mortensen

The first with just the missionaries was before the baptism. She is for sure happier after! its awesome. The guy in the other one is her coworker that gave us the referral to go visit her! hes a great guy. They other missionaries are the leprechauns that we are living with for St. Patrick's day.

Elder Harward, Elder Mortensen, T--, the English Elders