The Greatest Joy We Can Have In This Life Is Most Often Associated With Our Families

Hello family and friends,

 

 

We had a great week this week! Our Christmas was great as well and the proselyting went great. I would also agree that the best part of Christmas was talking you y'all! The rest of our day went really well! We went and ate with our Branch President and his family. There was about 30 or so people there. They were all very nice! We had a good time visiting and eating some really good southern cooking. They asked Elder Persinger and me to sing a few Christmas carols and we did. They loved it! A few of the members that were there came up to us on Sunday and said that they really enjoyed us singing and everyone else did too. The rest of the day we visited a few more people and had a great day overall!

 

 

There were a few events that were really exciting this week. On Thursday night around 8:30 we were driving home from our appointment and we decided to go to the church and do a few minutes of online proselyting. We got to the church and started to walk toward the clerks office. When we got there we saw that the door to the clerks office was opened. We were surprised when we walked in to see a man "working" on the computers. At first we thought he was a maintenance man, but soon came to realize that he was not. We talked with him briefly and it was easy to see that he was trying to steal the computers! Once he had left the church we made a few calls to the branch leaders. Meanwhile we are doing a sweep of the building to see what else he had tampered with. We found the kitchen window broken and blood smeared on the counter. He had accidentally cut himself while he was climbing in the window. To make the rest of the story short, the cops came, we told them what we saw and within a few minutes they had found the guy walking a few blocks away. They had us come and identify him just to make sure it was the right man. It was a pretty crazy night.

 

 

The rest of our week went really well. We had a few great miracles happen. Two of the less active members that we have been visiting regularly came to church this week! We were really excited to see both of them! R-- is also doing well.  He is very converted. He really really wants to get baptized and is going to great measures to be worthy of baptism.

 

 

Elder Persinger and I also taught the 5th Sunday lesson this week. We taught about missionary work and how the Tabor City branch could utilize the strengths that it has to share the gospel. It went really well. Transfers are this week and both Elder Persinger and I will be staying. We are excited to serve with each other for another 6 weeks. Something we have seen this transfer is that our trust and relationships with the members of the church here has gone up a lot! We have seen a lot of the less active members especially start to come to church again, that is probably what this branch needs most right now is for the less active members to come back to church.

 

 

Sounds like y'all had a great week! The greatest joy we can have in this life is most often associated with our families. I love all of you and miss you. I hope that y'all have a great week! I feel you prayers and hope you feel the prayers I say for you.

 

 

Love Elder Mortensen

 

 

PS I have pictures to send, but I forgot to bring my camera to I'll send them next week!

 

 

Note from Lauri.  We had a great time talking with Brayden on Christmas Day!  He looked so happy.  You could tell that he truly loves being a missionary.  This phone call was the best Christmas gift ever!