Week 51

My appreciation for members who are involved in missionary work has sky rocketed so much this week and let me tell you why. so on wednesday, sister dubon and i had to report on our exchange super fast to president and we needed wifi to do it. so we swung by the church cause it was close. as we were driving to the church we were talking about who would be a good family to really be assigned to the L___ family to have them as they continue to investigate and get baptized in the church. well low and behold as we enter the church this cute mom with these three blonde boys walk by us. we say hi and walk past and she turns around and says, "sisters, are you in the spanish branch?" we said yes and then she said, "are you teaching the L_______ family?" we said yes again and she went on to tell us that her son is best friends with J_____, the 7 year old. *back story* j_____ tells us a new story about the two of them every time we come over. but we had no idea that he is from a mormon family!* she told us that she served her mission in sweden (her children are fluent in swedish) and that she would be more than willing to be the fellowshipping family for the L______. she said her husband speaks spanish because he served spanish speaking. we planned a bbq at their home and it was so amazing. everyone got along so well. J_____ was jumping up and down saying that it was his first play date ever hahah its amazing how mindful the lord is of us that we literally ran into the perfect fellowshipping family. (oh and to top it all off, they live 3 streets from them) we would have never figured that out if it wasn't for running into Sister Nilsson at church!

The greatest testimony this week is how amazing the spirit is! this week it guided us to 2 less actives that we haven't been able to contact our entire 3 months here in this area. its so cool because sister dubon and i will both feel like we need to go somewhere its almost weird. like she will say something and i will be like no way i was just going to say that or vice versa. its so clear that this is the work of the Lord. I never get tired of have this random bursts of love for people i hardly know, and i never tire of telling them how much the Savior loves them.

so sunday was so eventful because.... THE L______ FAMILY GOT BAPTIZED :) for real it was so awesome. We love that family so so much. the night before, the mom mentioned that she didn't have any shoes so we swung by on our way home and i gave her a pair of wedges to keep and as soon as she put them on to see if they fit, her son grabbed her and they started dancing the night away. it was the cutest/funniest thing. sister dubon and i are still talking about it to this day hahah it made me want to dance (temptations... i miss dancing!) the most amazing thing as well is that maria's uncle happens to be a member to the church who was suuuuper less active. like when you looked him up on the phone it said do not contact. well of course, we contacted him and he CAME TO CHURCH THAT VERY SUNDAY! he then bore his testimony during the baptismal service and it was so sincere. sister dubon and i were waiting with towels on the side of the font for m____ and j______ and as soon as we went in the dressing room with them m_____ said, "I feel like my soul has been cleaned" it is such a testimony that through sacred ordinances, the power of godliness is manifest. as we were sitting waiting for c_____ to come out, m____ whispered, "the next person to get baptized will be my husband" we are so excited to teach him. we will we teaching him tonight! he works all the time, but they are looking for a different job. he has seen a difference in his family and wants in on the gospel. we are excited to go with M_____ and C______ to do baptisms for the dead in the temple :)

Love you all!

Hermana Mortensen

Familia L______ with hermano robles (m_____ uncle who was super less active who came back!!)

Us with family L______ and hermano morales :)

Week 50

this week was so awesome! (i may or may not say that every week) for real though. as soon as i sit down to write, all the tribulations of the week seem to totally be erased from my mind and only the good things remain. seriously, tender mercies.

so my dearest el salvadorian family is progressing wonderfully. For real. the kids went up at church during fast and testimony meeting to bear their testimonies.. WHAT? they sound too good to be true right? Its so cute because the mom, said that they were looking for a house because they have to move in 3 months and they found a really good apartment in denville that they might have to move to, but then she said, but no worries, we are going to keep looking because we don't wanna move away from you sisters or from the church. ahhh it was so cute. you should have seen their faces when we told them that denville was still in our area and the area of the branch. so darling. the daughter (pictured) is 10 and i love the girl as if she were my own little sister. every time she prays she says, "please bless my sisters" ahhh shes so darling. she wants a selfie. its so funny because her name is jen  so we call her J-Lo or Jenny from the Block. hahah we love them all so much. also, we got the boy scouts involved with the son and he will be going to the boy scout camp this month :) The mom, was telling us about a few miracles that had happened to her the very day that we visited her. she said that she only had 20 dollars. nothing else. and she needed gas to drive home from having done her grocery shopping. she said she prayed to her heavenly father and said that she had faith that with the very little money she had, he could do the rest and fill up her car. ive never met anyone that has faith like her. with the small amount she had, the car filled with gas. she said she was amazed. i felt the spirit so strong and i knew what she was saying was true. the first thing that came to my mind were the words of Mormon "have miracles ceased? NAY!" she said she also went shopping so she could by her daughter a dress and her sons white shirts and ties for church. she said she prayed before she left so that she could find a good deal and buy what she wanted with the little she had. she promised god that her desire was so her children could dress well to be in his house and that they would always forever do all they could so that they will always be at church on sunday. and what do you know? she found amazing deals and showed us the white shirts and ties and the dress. I got teary eyed when i saw the clothes! i felt this strong impression that these young sons will be serving missions one day and their first white shirt a ties was a direct result of the faith of an obedient mother. Mothers have such a powerful impact on generations that follow them. so awesome. they will be getting baptized next sunday :)

Another miracle. C____ GOT BAPTIZED!! so there was drama behind this. our ward mission leader... forgot? he went to nyc for the day... so that was awesome. sister dubon and went to the chapel to fill up the font when we realized we didnt even know how to do it and their were so many valves that we were scared of a gas explosion. by the time we got it to work we had to go into the showers and fill up buckets full of water and dump it into the font for the sake of time. (which is why we look so beat in the picture at the baptism) also, we set up all the chairs, make and printed programs AND made the light refreshments because everyone has about 20 things to do on a saturday. but it all came together. it was a beautiful service. very small but reverant. the best part is that ISDEIVER BAPTIZED HER! our recent convert baptized his wife! it was so beautiful. its amazing to see the progress of people's conversion right before your eyes. she got the holy ghost o

A_______ is progressing super well (the guy i jumped in front of in the street). he is coming to church and reading the book of mormon like a champ. when he came came to church, he had his book of mormon and bible in this like lunch box thing it was so cute! he when we visited him on friday, there was a bbq and we eat with him and his amigos and he bought us these giant watermelons full of mexican fruit. sandia with chili pepper. it took be right back to a year ago when i was in the Mexico CCM. i got two!! one for each of us... way. too. much. food. 

Love you all so much! keep the prayers coming.
Hermana Mortensen

Week 49

hello hello!!

so much to say and so little time. literally we have so much work to do here in this new part of the area we got doubled into its unreal and the absolute best! seriously. we are running from appt to appt and finding prepared people left and right. we also are seeing less actives that we have never seen at church our past 3 months here coming to church after just one visit! we are involving the ward and making the steps necessary so they can come back and get the priesthood and get callings! 

its hard to narrow down a few good moments so i will leave it to numbers. we had 5 investigadores at church and we have 7 on date. june is gonna lookin up :) we are so excited. Something that is cool about the mission is being able to rub shoulders with missionaries who are such spiritual giants. since we are in morristown, we have to exchange often when missionaries are sick and about to go home. So we had a sister from Brasil stay with us for 2 days. she served in the spanish program and she is such a work horse. i want her for a comp one day. she would tell us how they did missionary work in brasil and its was amazing to see how different the missions are world wide. we have the same purpose, but its quite different there. she said she baptized many without knocking a single door... what? hahah but anyway, she has dealt with major health (knee) probs for years and she still just works through it. she wants more than anything to complete her 18 months. i could tell when she would walk up stairs she would hold back tears but not once complained. she wouldnt even lip. she didnt want to impede the work by limping. (i love brasilians, she is so tough) it made me so grateful for the heath i have and for it permiting me to serve. i learned so much with her as we taught together and she told us about the tecniques they use in brasil. (she served there for 5 months, had surgery and then come the nj) I am praying she comes right back here. 

We had a mission leader council where we were talking about changing the mindset of the mission. we set a baptismal goal for the months of june and people stared talking about how you have to do A. B. and C. in order to get a baptism and how people dont baptize for X and Y and the whole time something was bothering me. as i was looking around the room and saw the one of the very best elders in the mission (who happens to be my zone leader) who hasnt baptized his whole mission and goes home in one transfer. I mean seriously, you feel the spirit so strong when he speaks and walks into the room and you can just tell he works so hard by looking at his shoes! president posed the question, "what would Christ say to us if he were here as we discuss the new goal for baptisms this month" one elder raised his hand and said that Christ would tell us that we need to change our work ethic and went on to expound. okay folks. the hairs on my neck raised up. it was an electric, spirit yelling me my head "NO! Christ would not say that. Raise your hand sister mortensen and speak up" I normally dont speak too much at these. so i raised my hand and said that I think that Christ would simply remind us that he in the one in charge in this work. He is the Lord of the vineyard and we are his servants working along side him. when his disciples returned to fishing after he had ascended to His father, did he come back to tell them to change their work ethic?? NO WAY! He came back and asked his beloved disciple Peter if he truly loved him three times. I think Christ would ask us if we truly love him and are willing to trust him. If we trust him, than we know that HE knows what it will take for us to grow closer to him and come to know him. Baptisms will happen because its his work. but at the end of the day, he knows his elect and we are here to find them. as i was talking, i felt so overcome by the spirit and it was confirmed to me that Christ would say that.  President stood up right after that and tearfully thanked me for what i said and powerfully closed the meeting with many promised blessings of what is to come in this mission. 

Now a year ago, I couldn't have told you what he would say. But the greatest blessing and one that i will always treasure is coming to know my Savior. I truly love Him.

love you all!

Hermana Mortensen

Week 48--Week of Loco

so this week was so crazy! a ton of changes are going down... but I'm so excited about every one of them. 

So first of all, WE HAVE IPADS! we really have them. Literally, studying with the gospel library is life changing. i am like sometimes almost overwhelmed because of all of the options at my finger tips. Its really funny too because i have to re-train my fingers to us like touch screens and stuff (and those of you who know me, know my thumbs are terrible with touch screens haha) but its so eye opening because from this point forward, no lessons will be the same. we have soo many options now that we can fine tune every lessons exactly to the needs of our investigadores. It has been amazing to see how the spirit communicates to be about how to use the ipad. We were in a lesson with a recent convert who is a single mother and who is very frustrated with her imperfect self. As sister dubon was speaking, i felt impressed to open up my ipad and pull out the talk by one of the Seventy about how the Latter-Day Saints keep on trying. I felt like I was just winging it but I know my fingers were being led my the spirit because I pulled up the talk and scrolled to a paragraph and asked her to read it without knowing myself exactly what it said. but as she read it, the spirit filled the room because it addressed her needs in words that I, myself, am incapable to express. and this is just the beginning! we are stoked on the ipads. it was weird though because the iPad mission conference was the first time I've ever felt old in the mission because we had to get the used ones and we don't have to option to take it home. weird. 

Second of all, the Elders that are serving with us in our branch are getting doubled out and we are taking over their area... which means that WE WILL HAVE SO MUCH WORK. oh my word i am so excited. we have been itching to get into their area ever since the A.P.s called and told us. BUT the biggest pain has been moving. so we have to move into the elders apartment because they are closing our apartment which is nicer than the elders. the elders are like basically our neighbors, so they were just like, you're on your own on this one. So sister dubon and I spent SO LONG having to go through all the junk that missionaries have left in that apartment for the last 10 years to get it move in ready. We found the most bizarre things. It was not fun at all and frankly gave me slight anxiety because I hate being inside when we are normally prosyleting, but I'm just glad its over. Luckily when we went out in the evening, we were able to do to work. But good grief major deep cleaning (see me vacuming couch)

Third, so many people are progressing that we are working with right now that it is unreal! we are focusing way more than just new investigadores, but zeroing in on making sure they progress. we do daily follow ups and we have been sending our daily scriptures to random potentials on our phone and investigadores and menos activos. its amazing the response that we get. one amazing investigador that we have that we found knocking doors always sends us a scripture back that he found on his own :) His name is J_____ and he is progressing so much. we will definitely be getting baptized this June. As well as A_______! (the guy I startled in the street) he loves reading the book of mormon and also will be baptized this June. 

Fourth, all was SO WELL in Zion that sister dubon and I thought for sure that something was gonna go down that would shake everything up. We thought that for sure the transfer text would have one of our names on it and we were dreading it. but.... WE ARE STAYING TOGETHER FOR A THIRD!! AHHHH. we definitely were jumping on the beds so happy. major miracles are gonna go down in this area this transfer :)

One last thing! we met with I_________ after his baptism and he is doing amazing. He said that after his baptism, he felt warm inside like all day. Yesterday, he received the holy ghost and the priesthood! We will baptize his wife, C_______, this Saturday :)

Love you all!

Hermana Mortensen

Pepe (he was a less active that i worked with in Kearny, came to visit me!! he had a taxi job up here in morristown and we were one our way home when we met up with him to say hi super fast! he is so awesome. he recently got endowed on Saturday night he called saying that just got called as the second counselor in the bishopric! yes i screamed on the phone. so amazing.

Week 47---Milagros on milagros

So many great things happened this week! It will be hard to narrow them down to just share a few!

So first off, we worked at Ellis Island this week and WOW. it was so amazing. It was actually a really spiritual experience. So every time we went to work there in the winter it was pretty much a bust because it was so cold that hardly anyone came over. But this transfer, we were assigned to go this month on a Saturday. the weather was great and there were so many people! So what we do there is we help people use the system there to look up the ship manifests and find their ancestors. It was packed! So I went over to help this Italian family and both the mom and the dad had ancestors from Italy. I helped the dad find his grandfather and they were all so excited! and then the mom was like, "hmm this will be far fetched but Im gonna give it a go" all they had was the name of the ancestor and where she was headed after she went through ellis island. I was like *gulp* this is gonna be slim. but then we found her and they both welled up with tears when they realized that their grandparents come over on the same boat! the woman was crying saying, wow if only they were here now. I took that opportunity to explain to them that their spirits very well could be here with us right now, rejoicing over this find! and how we I know that families can be together forever. I wanted to go more into it, but its a federal government operation and we promised not to proselyte. </3 but seriously, the spirit was so strong as we looked for and found name of many people that day. Its made them seem so real. 

Soooo one awesome experience happened on an exchange this week. I was leading out our area with a dying missionary who was majorly fighting some "trunky tendencies" if you will. I decided that the best way to fight off laziness was working our behinds off finding. so we changed up the plans a little bit, drove up to Boonton and I prayed specifically that we would find a prepared son or daughter of God to share the message of the restauracion. so we get out of the car and we get to walking when literally 10 seconds later, and short little hispanic man nearly passes me! I step right in front of him and probably scared the guy to death haha it was so abrupt that my comp kept on walking because she didn't realize that we had stopped! but I am so grateful I stopped because this guy IS SO PREPARED. he is from mexico and he is probably in his 30s. So we taught him right on the spot the restauration and he was like "wow that makes so much sense!" he said that he has walked this same path for 7 years and no one had ever stopped him to talk, and how that day we was longing for someone to talk to him and felt as though God had forsaken him. we said was so grateful for us angelitas for having stopped him. We met with him again after that and he had read the first couple chapters of book of mormon and said he wants to be baptized! stay tuned for June 14th folks :)

Other news: I_______ got baptized! the drama involved is unreal to get to this point. he has been investigating for 10 years with his wife, and they didn't like that all the missionaries pressured them so much for baptism (i mean, that is our purpose) so when we came in we just dropped them because even though they were going to church and what not, they were not progressing. so when we dropped them, I________ came to us at church and was like, ummm why don't you visit me? we explained our purpose told him that we are on the Lord errand to find people who are ready to act now, and we cannot waste His time. The guy was like, well then, I will be getting baptized the 17th of may! It was cool how dropping an investigador could make him realize how important it is that he ACTS. His wife will be getting baptized next week because she was sick last Sunday :( but the good news is that I_______will be able to baptize her!

sister dubon and i in front of this new exhibit at ellis island that talks about migration of the people to the americas and its basically evidence that the book of mormon is true :)

us in the great hall where the immigrants were loaded into and interviewed 

where we ate lunch on ellis island

talking with my family reminded me that i had a first name... here is its in jersey city!

Our investigator - deprimido

Our investigator - feliz!

Week 46--Feliz Dia Madres

So I think the hugest time warp realization of my life happened yesterday. So the secretary asked me to bear my testimony in sacrament and I was like okay! So when I went up to go and share it, I realized that on mothers day of last year, I gave my farewell! It was so crazy for me to see how first of all, when I gave my farewell, I knew hardly any spanish. and then second of all, how my testimony had so much more meaning to me now than it did then. My testimony itself hasn't changed drastically, but i feel as though as I look back on the past year in the mission, I have experiences that back up my testimony. I seriously I am soooo grateful for that foundation. I love how we are taught in Doctrine and Covenants, "seek not to declare my word, but first, seek to OBTAIN my word" when we obtain the word, it becomes our very own. So I feel like I take ownership, as did many prophets of old, when I say that I know that Christ is our Savior and that He leads and guides His church and this missionary work. We could not do anything if it were not for Him. 

So earlier this week, I went on an english exchange in the area clinton. and its like suuuuper farm land not even kidding, but SO beautiful. so we went to this lady's house and she let us in and she showed us around her HUGE farm and sister rogers, my companion for the exchange was sister rogers who is from austrailia and grew up raising hens, so we go to the farm and the lady passes sister rogers a hen to hold and they flap their wings like crazy and i have a HUGE fear of birds, so i have my arms crossed, you know, trying to send the message that i really don't want to hold it, but the lady gives it go me anyway and i wanted to run away screaming, but i held it. so yeah. and i didn't have my camera so their is no photo evidence, but you all would have been very proud of me haha

So we had an amazing miracle this week!! This week was pretty long, with a few exchanges and what not, and we had seen little success. well on Saturday, I was leading out the area on an exchange and I remember clearing the thought coming to my mind as if it were out of nowhere, "text J_____! you need to see him tonight" So I texted him right away. J____ is from Ecuador and we knocked into him one day and he was super nice and told us to come back in like 15 days because he was super busy at the time. As soon as I sent the text he responded saying that we should come by at 7. So we went there and he asked us, "how did you know that i had been thinking about calling you all this week?" we were so asombradas! He was explaining that he had a really rough week and he felt like he had forsaken God for so long that he doesn't even know where to begin or how to return. So we began to explain to him the restauracion and how God sent someone here so that we can always know how to make it back. We talked about how Christ established His church and he said, "so where is that church now?" ummm... best question ever? probably.

By the time we got to the book of mormon, we was so excited. he was saying, wow these are my ancestors here in the americas that wrote this book, I must know what it says! porque nadie me ha dicho todo de esto antes? (why hasnt anyone told me about this before?!) then he offered the most sincere prayer thanking God for having sent us to answer his prayers. and he said it right outside on a bench in madison. I was so so soooo grateful for having followed the prompting to meet with him. then he told us before he left, he said, I feel like Ive met you two before, from another life. Sister dubon and i just smiled, knowing that it very well could be true.

 

I was soooo good to talk with the family!! :) being away from the family definitely makes you realize how much you LOOOOOVE them. 

love you all!

Hermana Mortensen

skpye with family that mom sent. we are complete!

Week 45

Well, this week on Saturday night we went to visit a less active family and they took us out to this place called fuddruckers, and they are the craziest funniest family from Honduras. anyways, they were messing with me telling me that I'm so flacita that i probably don't eat and i told them during my mission I've learned to eat a lot. And so they put me to the test and hermano garcia bought me the 1 pound burger. okay so that might not sound like a lot, but that was the biggest burger i have ever seen. and so I started eating it you would be so surprised, I didn't even feel full until the last two bites (i'm sure my dad is laughing right now) so my companion pulled out the camera and recorded me eating the last two bites. wow, the day after, I was full all day long. I'm actually still kinda full, but don't be fooled folks, yo como sin verguenza (I eat without shame)

well I'm awesome, sent too soon. anywho

this week was super eventful actually! I feel like we did so much! so on wednesday we had a lesson with E____again and wow the guy is so cool! so I talked about i think last week about how i met him with one of my english sisters and we introduced him to the book of mormon and committed him to read the intro. well I had a really good feeling about him and I really want the guy to progress because he has so much potential so I was praying so hard that he would actually read what we left him and that we would be able to meet with him again. Well the cita came and he came out to meet with us and we met with him in a park with a member. he sat down and he was shooting some super weird questions with us left and right and was super rude kinda and i don't know, like a totally different person. Sister Dubon was looking at me like, "uhhh this was the awesome guy you were talking about?" like 10 minutes later he said "you passed the test" and we were like ummm what? he said that as soon as people who teach about Christ get impatient with people, everything else they say is discredited and how we passed the test because every time he was rude or something, we just testified of Christ and thanked him for asking questions. it made us laugh for a while and then he looked at me and said "I know you've been praying for me." and i said "well it's true I have been! but how did you know that?" He said that the night before, I came to him in a dream and and asked him if he had read what we had given him in the book of mormon, he replied saying yes but he had forgotten most of what he had read, and that i had told him to read it again. So he woke up, sat down and read it. He said that dream helped him realize that we really have been sent by God and that he needs to listen to the mensaje. He even said, "you are fishers of men and let me tell you, soy un pez gordo (i'm a fat fish). Its amazing because he really is someone who is prepared. we can find toooons of people, but very few and truly prepared. So that is super excited. 

Also, sister dubon and I have been enjoying taking the train lately, I feel pretty independent when we do, except for when we almost get on the train going to New York instead of the nearby city. but hey, baby steps. It was so cool too because on saturday I told sister dubon, hmmm i feel like we need to go to Hermana _____ right now (who is a member who is mas o menos activa who we hadn't seen for a long time) and she was like okay! so then we drive up and we see these balloons out side and a ton of cars and there was a huge party going on, and so then I immediately was like "oh gosh well its probably not a good time, we will just go by tomorrow" and then sister dubon looked at me and said "Sister Mortensen, this was YOUR revelation. we are going now" I felt so uncomfortable and everything but sister dubon made me shake it off and we went and its was such a miracle because 1)it was sister ______ birthday so we wished her a happy birthday, and 2)one of our former investigadores was there who explained why she hadn't been able to see us for so long and invited us over, 3)after we left, hermana _______ was talking to all her friends about the word of wisdom and a gospel discussion started! then right after we left, E______, another investigador, called us over to get birthday cake with her because it was her birthday, and oh my word, she not only invited us, but a ton of her friends and she was like, "I love them! trust me, you want them to come visit you" by the end of the party, of couple of her friends were like, hey! text us so we can set something up! so cool. 

how could I almost forget!! Carmen and Isdeyver, husband and wife (shes in the hiking picture in the orange shirt) are gonna get baptized in 2 weeks! we are so excited. So good things are happening here, the members are majorly warming up to us and we are just getting to work (unfortunately so are the mosquitos so the bug spray is a must. I don't want more scars to compliment my scars from last summer)

Love you all!

Hermana Mortensen