CHRISTMAS AND A NEW CAR!

Hello Everyone!

I hope all of you had an amazing Christmas! My first Christmas in the mission field was so good! I felt peace and happiness as we celebrated Jesus Christ's birth. Thank you to those who sent me a Christmas package, I loved what you sent and appreciate you. 

Today for Pday we had a district Nerf Gun war at the stake center in Trenton. It is an hour and half away from home but this is where our district meets. Because we have an all Elder district it was actually super fun to get a little crazy today. All of the Elders came ready to play and it was one of the best Pday's I've had since I've been out. 

This past week we had a great Zone Conference and President Ames showed us a movie BYU made about the story behind the song SILENT NIGHT. It was pretty interesting and I enjoyed it. We had a Zone Conference party and then took our traditional Zone Conference picture with President and Sister Ames. It was good to see so many missionary friends and catch up with them. Sister Ames also gave every missionary an ornament. 

Funny story...we needed to get our car washed before Zone Conference and we just didn't have the time or miles to drive to get it washed, so before Zone Conference started we pulled into a car wash stall, and wearing our suits, we soaped up the car and got it sparkling clean. Here's the funny part...we pulled into the stake center parking lot and were met by Elder King, the missionary car fleet manager. He stops us and we roll down the window and he asks us how many miles are on our car. We told him 50,024. He says to pull over next to a brand new car because we are taking a new car back to our area. We were pretty surprised to hear this but have since learned that after 50,000 the church likes to switch out the cars and give missionaries new ones. We were driving a Toyota Rav4 and now we are driving a 2022 Chevrolet Equinox. So, the funny part is that we washed the old car and ended up driving a new one back home!

This week we struggled to get into a lot of homes and share messages. With the Christmas holiday so many people were busy and asked us to come back after the holiday's. We did teach Shauntea the Plan of Salvation lesson so that was great. We are currently teaching: Robert, who is close to being on date. Emily, who we taught the Plan of Salvation lesson to and now we are on hold. Jeannie, with the cats and dogs, also, asked that we come back after the New Year. And, we found Chuck this week. He is a great guy and we are looking forward to sharing more messages with him. 

We spent our service hours this week back at the Bed and Breakfast hauling and moving things around for the owners. We also were asked to bust and break down old furniture and that was a fun exercise. They fed us pizza afterwards and we were also able to share a message with them. 

A family in our ward, the Rickey's, invited us over to make holiday cookies. We spent hours and hours making and baking cookies. Then we wrapped them all up and, with Brother Rickey, delivered them to ward members, neighbors and others who are not members of the Church. We spent several hours out doing this and it was a great opportunity to meet new people--in fact, that's how we met Chuck, and he really seems interested to learn more. 

This area that I am serving in now also covers smaller towns called Lamoni, Bethany, Albany and Grant City. We are also allowed to track and go door to door in these areas. We have a ward member that owns a restaurant called "Ruthie's Farmhouse Pies". It is Pattonsburg, MO, and she invites us there several times a week for food. We can also bring anyone we are teaching to her restaurant and she will give us a slice of pie as we teach. Even though this area is so small, there is a charm about living amongst people who truly care about one another. I have found that these small towns really know each other and the people in them. 

We made sure and visited the family displaced and living in the abandoned church. They are still waiting on a few things to get help--we don't know all of the details. We will continue to visit them and serve them as much as we can. 

I met Bella this week. She's an old but sweet one. She's pretty tall. She seemed to like me. BELLA IS A GREAT DANE! I just love meeting new dogs and this week was a blast meeting a great dane. She is older and slower and her bark was so deep. Great experience hanging out with her and her owners one afternoon. 

On Christmas Eve we were invited over to Bishop Peterson's home and we had a great dinner. We each told mission stories, family Christmas stories, and felt joy being with their family. 

On Christmas Day we called and talked to our family and opened our presents. We had a lesson with Shauntea and her and husband were invited over to a member's home and that's where we met up with Shauntea. It was great to share the message of Jesus Christ on the day we celebrate His birth. 

Our mission released a Christmas message to all of Kansas City this week. It was a pre-recorded broadcast and me and my zone were the featured singers at the end of the broadcast. I'll include a picture at the end. 

One of my most favorite moments this past week was going around with Brother Rickey to all of the homes we visited handing out plates of cookies. We were met with smiles and thank you's and good feelings all around. I really enjoyed that experience. 

This week my companion and I studied Genesis and Moses at the same time. It was a really cool way to study both of those books. We read one scripture and then one from the other book to see how they matched up. I would recommend this experience to any of you who want to study in a different way. 

Have a safe and Happy New Year's everyone!

Elder Mortensen

Pictures this week: 

Singing Silent Night for Kansas City Broadcast 

Car Washing before Zone Conference

A beautiful sunset

A park showing Christmas decorations

Christmas Day with my parents video chat

Scenes from Zone Conference

Kansas City Temple

Elder Hancock and I 

Me and what it looks like Albany, MO