Happy Mother's Day

Hello Everyone,

Happy Mother's Day to all of the women who read my emails. I hope you had a great Mother's Day yesterday. I am grateful for my mother Stacey and all that she has taught me and the support and love she shows me. 

This week Jordyn was able to attend a baptism of a recent convert and she reported back to us that she felt the spirit during the baptism and knew the person was doing the right thing. We continue to teach Jordyn and Kara and they both would already be on date for their own baptisms if they had their parents approval. We are still praying to know how to best handle this situation and I ask for your continued prayers for both of these women.  

We found and started teaching a man named Josey. I placed a Book of Mormon with him and we taught him the Restoration lesson. We will continue to teach him and have a return appointment this week. Josey has a pretty sweet Bronco sitting in his driveway. 

We also placed a Book of Mormon with a guy named Tristan. He is a new find for us and we have a return appointment with him on Wednesday. 

We had an apartment inspection and passed with flying colors.

This week President Ames and Sister Ames invited me and Elder Thompson to their home one evening for ice cream. It was good to see them in a different environment but poor President Ames could hardly sit and talk for too long before he had phone call after phone call. 

We had Zone Conference this week and there was a lot of information shared by President Ames. One of the things he talked with us about is deepening our conversion to the Savior Jesus Christ. He talked with us about the depth of the deepest part of the ocean and showed us a picture and then said, "Your testimonies should be deeper than that!" It was pretty intense and gives a whole new meaning to increasing our testimonies. 

We are being fed well here in the Hodge Park ward. We continue to meet the members and share messages with them. 

Two different ward families asked us for help in moving items this week. One family needed a washer and dryer. Another family wanted their piano moved and it took Elder Thompson, me, Elder Casebolt and Elder Midgley to move the piano.

I went on an exchange with Elder Casebolt this week. I went to his area and he had three appointments set up and all three fell through. Through our visits I met a gal named Rena who is a recent convert. Rena has had some concerns and asked for advice from us. I shared with her the things I was impressed to say and she said it helped and she felt a lot better. 

One evening Elder Thompson and I visited less active members in our  ward. We met a gal named Rhonda, and when she answered the door and saw who we were, I felt impressed to tell her that "Christ is coming soon and He wants you back." She immediately started to cry and once she composed herself she said that her brothers are all active and when she is around them she feels their light and goodness and knows she needs to come back but wonders if she can do it. We talked with her for a while more and will revisit her again to see how she's progressing. 

Another less active brother we visited was William VanRye. Bill is a collector of many cool things. I'll post a picture of his sweet car which is stored in a very old wood barn. It was neat to walk around and see the things he's gathered over his lifetime. 

Today for Pday we went to the same ward members home and had a very intense boxing workout again. It's nice to be motivated and pushed and to really feel your body go to new limits. I have really enjoyed the boxing and workouts. 

After our workout we played pickleball with President Ames at our ward building. It was a bit of a shock to see him walk in wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I've never seen him in anything but a suit and tie. We played for several hours and he hung in there. 

I know that if we put in the work and are diligent we can fight off the attacks of Satan 1% more effectively each day. We need to keep up with our studies and increase our efforts to serve others and be living as close to the spirit as we possibly can. These efforts will pay off and we will notice a difference. 

This week in my personal studies I felt inspired to start at the beginning of the Book of Mormon again and this time mark and annotate every point of inspiration from a prophet. So far I've been surprised to see how much I have marked. 

Elder Mortensen

Pictures and Videos this week:

Bill's cool yellow car

I was here--at the chalkboard