This One Thing

Missions are hard. They are supposed to be. I heard many people say that before I was a missionary, but nothing compares to actually going out there and living it. Mortality is also hard.

I studied Paul’s writing quite a bit while I was on the mission. Aside from his powerful writing style and succinct description of doctrine, I have often felt a connection to Paul.

Paul had a lot of hard missions. We learn that he struggled with a “thorn in the flesh”. I had a break in the ankle. He was shipwrecked repeatedly. I was car-wrecked in the last weekend of my mission. He ended his mission earlier than anticipate when he was executed in Rome. I guess he just helped me feel like I was in good company.

The important thing, however, is not that he suffered through those things, but that he made that suffering worth something. He was faithful until he could say:

 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: ”

2 Timothy 4:7

In the end, Satan could have no power over him.

An obvious question follows: How did he do it? How did he keep the faith through years of persecution with no earthly reward in sight? How did he not cave?

Well, I don’t know, but he gives us a little insight into his method for overcoming and moving past hardship in a letter he sent to people in Phillipi.

Pay close attention:

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended;

I’m not saying I’m there yet.

But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward unto those things which are before.”

Phillipians 3:13

It took me three years to understand that this is the way I could progress, unfettered by the past. This is the way to eventual perfection. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the purifying and ennobling power of repentance and forgiveness.

So, what does this principle look like in my life? Rewind back to early 2016. I was a new missionary in Barranquilla. My first companion had me memorize a list of 10 statements found in Preach My Gospel (a guide for missionary service). Those statements, generally called “How to Begin Teaching” include the following:

Each person we teach has personal challenges and concerns. No matter what your needs or concerns might be, the Savior and his teachings – the Gospel – will help you.

PMG Ch.10

I taught that while I was in Colombia. I told people that the Gospel could really help them through problems that were far beyond my power to empathize with, let alone offer solutions to. But I trusted that the Gospel would help. That was an unproven trust.

I didn’t have the opportunity to prove that trust until I after I had been sent home. I hurt during the last months of 2016. I was questioning. All of a sudden, I was the one with “personal challenges and concerns,” but I didn’t want to believe that living the Gospel really would help. A few questions gnawed at my physically (and spiritually) injured insides.

“Why did have to break my ankle?”

“Why did I have to leave Colombia prematurely?”

“Why did my life seem to get so much worse when I tried to serve the Lord in Colombia?”

Some of my hardest memories from my time in Colombia would play on an endless repeat in my mind, growing darker and more malicious every time. I had tried to serve the Lord. Now I was injured, pessimistic, and stagnant. I consisted on an emotional diet of self-pity and fear.

What took me months to realize is that I was not acting on my professed beliefs. I had taught people that they could overcome anything through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was being hypocritical. After living at what I considered to be rock-bottom for months, I decided that I better find out if what I had taught was really true. And not just true, but useful. Practical. Life changing. That’s when I started to do what Paul did.

I recognized my imperfection. “I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I d[id].”

I “forg[ot] those things which are behind.” That doesn’t mean that I can’t remember them. I can. But I don’t. I learned to stop actively remembering them.

And, “I reach[ed forward unto those things which are before.”

I got back to good habits of studying God’s word and praying. I got back to my academic studies at BYU. As soon as I could, I started running. I got the help I needed and forgave myself and everyone else. I liberated myself of my past.

That is how I know that repentance is a joyful process, by the way. It liberates us from our past.

We are now in mid January, 2019. A lot of time has past since I made that course correction. I’ve served another mission. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve repented incessantly. And, in personal hindsight I have no doubt.

No matter what your needs or concerns might be, the Savior and his teachings – the Gospel – will help you.

PMG Ch.10

Most people figure January is the right time to start fresh and get the disappointment of not actually keeping their resolutions over with quickly so they can get on with life as usual. And so I’m not going to invite you to take up a new hobby or make a new goal. I’m going to invite you to leave something behind. It’s not too late in the month to do that.

If you are carrying around an old sin or grievance or doubt, I invite you to do what you can to make it as right as you can, and then forget it. God isn’t concerned with who we were or what regrets we have. He is concerned with who we are trying to become, and we are the only ones who can stop us in our progress. Jesus Christ, the God and Creator of this planet suffered INFINITELY so that you can let things go and move forward. He won’t force us to, but if we choose to let him, He will heal us.

He has healed me. Distrust in everything has been replaced with trust and confidence for the Lord’s plan in my life. Optimism in Christ has replaced secular cynicism. A once-broken ankle has run a half marathon. The darkness of what happened 3 years ago was replaced by a quiet but persistent hope that I felt as a missionary in California.

So, I invite you to take one of your old resolutions to hold a grudge or hide a weakness or preserve a scar, and leave it in the recesses of the past. It will be one less habit to worry about keeping up. One day, all of our scars will be completely erased, but even now in mortality we can let peace replace hurt in our lives. I know that it is possible.

The mission in California was also hard. I had good times, and I had rough times. But with every trial I learned to set aside my fears and repeat Paul’s resilient refrain:

I’m not there yet, but this one thing I do.

You can do it too.

-Daniel Mortenson

Enter December

Hello Family and Friends!

I don’t have much time to email right now because we spent the day in San Francisco (first and only time I’ve gone during my mission).

This Christmas season is upon us and the wonderful feelings and promises of Christmas are heavy in our foggy skies here in Oakland.

I am becoming ever increasingly aware of the truth that is taught over and over in the book of Mormon: If ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land. It is really true, and this week I was able to note the difference in others and my own life when the commandments are obeyed or not obeyed the consequence naturally follows.

Last night, Elder Maruyama and I went up to the Visitors’ Center to watch the First Presidency Devotional, but after Elder Vinson’s talk we both felt like we should go and do visits instead. I felt the Christmas spirit more strongly going out to visit some formers from the last few months than we did listening to the Tabernacle Choir at the Visitors’ Center. There is just no replacement for hard work on others’ behalf.

Have wonderful, service filled weeks! If you’re wanting it to feel more like Christmas, go help someone else feel like it’s more like Christmas.

Love you all,

Elder Mortenson

The Lion Remembers, The Tiger Forgets

There is a nice man that we see every day standing on the median of an intersection we cross frequently. He knows us by now because we usually roll down the window to talk with him for a minute. He always writes jokes or bits of wisdom on cardboard, so you can thank him for the subject of this post.

This week, we had the awesome opportunity to listen to Elder Uchtdorf, one of the 12 living Apostles of the Jesus Christ in the world today. In his wonderful German accent, he talked to us about The Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is many things. Some of its characteristics are more important than others. Here are a few of them:

The Book of Mormon is:

1. A 531 page book. If you read in English.
2. Free, for anyone that asks on Mormon.org for 2 guys like me to come bring it to them
3. An extensive history, spanning a thousand years and 2 continents, that follows several nations’ cultures, wars, and teachings.
4. A collection of philosophical writings encouraging moderation, kindness, selflessness, and courage.
5. A book written by God’s anointed servants that supports and complements the Bible.
6. The strongest tool God has given us in these last days to help us know that He loves us and that we can be blessed in this life and the next through His son Jesus Christ.
7. Another Testament of Jesus Christ

There is a reason that the subtitle of The Book of Mormon is not “A 531-Paged Book.”

Whatever you believe or don’t believe The Book of Mormon to be, I hope you understand that you will get out of it exactly what you put into it. If you read it with the intent of reading a 531 page book, it will likely have little impact on your life. If you read it, however, to know and understand God and His plan for your life, and to get to know Jesus Christ more fully, then I promise you you will not be disappointed in your reading.

The Book of Mormon has changed my life. I love using it to help other people change their lives as well.

“Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.”

—Mormon 9:21

He has made His promise, now let us take action to receive those blessings.

The work is going great here in Richmond! Missions are awesome!

Love,

Elder Mortenson

A Mid-summer Missionary’s Dream

Hello everyone!

I’m sorry I haven’t written a post in a while! Things have been busy up here in Richmond.

Elder Corrigan and I have been praying for an opportunity to help someone take the step of being baptized ever since we became companions 6 weeks ago. Unfortunately, about a week ago, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen during this 6 week period. We are working with a lot of amazing people, but none of them were ready yet. Or so we thought.

One of the most important and frustrating aspects of missionary work is that no matter how much we do as missionaries, people have to make their own decisions, and use their own agency to obtain personal conviction of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to act on that knowledge.

Lehi explains this better than I can. He said:

“Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”

This week, a man who has been coming to church for a long time, decided to start choosing liberty and eternal life by being baptized. We got word on Friday that things were in order for him to be baptized, and we organized it in two days. Last night he was baptized by his nephew. We all cried. They have waited so long for that day. It was a wonderful service.

As I reflected on the experience, I was filled with gratitude for being able to participate in that event.

Elder Corrigan and I didn’t do anything that extraordinary. We did our jobs as missionaries, but his conversion can’t be explained by our actions. He felt the holy spirit whisper to his soul that he ought to enter into the fold of God, and that alone led him to be baptized. There was no dramatic surge of emotion or brilliant sales pitch that could have produced the feelings we felt last night as he was baptized. It was a missionary dream, but not because we deserved it. It was a gift.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that through Him we all have all the hope in the world of living forever in a state of happiness, if that is what we want. If you find yourself thinking that you have lost that privilege or that you are just not cut out for such a thing, I would kindly remind you that you are wrong. “The Son of Man hath descended below all things, art thou greater than He?” Who are we to limit the reach of His infinite sacrifice? I would also tell you that I have been there before. If I could send myself a message from that time, I would probably tell myself that help I didn’t deserve was on the way.

I testify that he loves us and wants us to come home, and deep down, that is what we all want too.

I’ll be in Richmond at least another 6 weeks with Elder Corrigan!

Love you all!

Elder Mortenson

Saquen sus Cabezas

The Oakland Temple Visitor’s Center has this awesome exhibition about families that we often view with the people we are teaching. The Spanish voice-overs are funny to us missionaries, and so they become inside jokes in the Spanish program in the mission.

At one point, the dad in the film tells his kids, who are behind a rock formation in what looks like St George, “saquen sus cabezas” which translates to “take out your heads”.

This week we watched that film with our investigator and her son. She has been through a lot of difficulty after losing a close family member.

My earliest memory, at least I think it is my first memory, is from my Great Grandfather Francis Mortenson’s funeral. I remember sitting in a church somewhere and listening to the children’s song “Families can be Together Forever”.

I shared that this week at the end of the film, and as I did I was struck by the beauty of that memory.

There isn’t much that sticks around in this life. Our high school promises to Keep In Touch sublimate faster than the dry ice in our 7th grade science class, and often our values change at the same rate.

Suns rise. Suns set. Protons decay. Ankles break and heal.

The beauty of being a missionary and of the Gospel is that there is another type of object that does not break, decay, vary, or waver. The truths taught by Jesus Christ are eternal. One of those truths restored through Joseph Smith is that family relationships need not decay or dissolve, even after death.

Families can be together forever.

Alright, now saquen sus cabezas. I have riddle.

I die. I expire. You want me now, but you’ll hate me later. All of my supposed positive effects are quickly replaced by negative nonperishable woes. You won’t believe you could be rid of me until you are.

Now, whatever sin you’re thinking of, kill it and save your eternal family. There is nothing perishable worth losing the only eternal hopes you have.

I am well here in Richmond. The mission is awesome. I love helping other people find the truth! I’m sorry I’ve been bad at weekly emails/blog posts.

Love you all!

Elder Mortenson

De Regreso

Hello Family + Friends! I hope everyone loved conference.

Things are good here in Oakland! Conference was awesome, and we’re all super excited for all of the changes that our Prophet announced. We are so blessed to be living in a time where the fullness of the gospel is present and it’s dispersion is accelerating.

This week I saw that people can really flourish and grow when we carefully minister to them, which was a major theme of conference.

Salvador, our awesome member who had a terrible accident (fell three floors) a few months ago, told us about an awesome member of our bishopric who called him out of the blue one day. He took time out of his work schedule to go pick Salvador up, take him out to get some food, then to see the temple, then up around a park, and then to get food again, and ice cream. He said he picked him up at about 10 am and didn’t drop him off until like 5 pm. That is ministering. A man who has been in his house and the hospital with a dilapidated leg for months, was able to spend a whole day with his old friend. It meant the world to him to have someone besides us reach out to him.

So go minister to the world!

I’ve been transferred! I’m going back to San Leandro! The area I left in November was dissolved into the Zone Leaders area in San Leandro, and that’s where I’ll be serving now. I can’t wait to be able to visit with all the people that I worked with and to help them progress toward eternal life! The work continues!

Love,

Elder Mortenson

The Phone Call

So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with strange Mormon short films from the 70’s, there is this one called “The Phone Call“. It’s worth a watch if you have a moment. Basically, it tells the story of an awkward high school boy getting the courage to ask a girl out. He plays the “Bassoon, which is like a Balloon but with ‘s’s”. Anyway.

I haven’t seen it in years, and it has almost nothing to do with this post.

But,

On Tuesday last week we had a miracle! I was going through a bunch of Former Investigator records. People that who were thinking about becoming members at some point (usually years ago) but for some reason didn’t continue.

I came across this one that was from like 2011, and it looked like the family had probably moved away based on the comments there. So, I almost just skipped it and kept going. But, I had a strong impression to call, not the investigator, but a member who was friends with the investigator, whose information was on the sheet. I didn’t recognize his name but resolutely called him anyway, not having any idea what I would say. That’s how we met Salvador, who is a wonderful member of the church who had a terrible work accident a few weeks back. He had fallen 3 floors, and landed on his leg, fracturing it in several places. As I talked to him, he started open up to us, and invited us to come give him a blessing that same afternoon. We did so, and he was so grateful for the visit and the blessing. It was so incredible to see how much those meant to him, and I felt so blessed that the Lord had helped our paths cross in such an improbable way. He since has been to a fireside at the chapel, and we even went to the Family History library to help him search for his ancestors! He is such an incredible man, and we were able to bond just a little over broken ankles and physical therapy and such.

Moral of the story, if you want to help someone that needs you, pray for guidance, and then follow the whisperings of the spirit, even if it is awkward or strange. The Lord will guide you to someone who has been praying for your help! Make that awkward phone call! It could change your life!

The work goes on! Go be a part of it!
Love,

Elder Mortenson

Pura Vida Mae

Hey!

Things are going well here in Oakland! We are on bikes in the heart of Oakland, which is awesome because there are SO MANY people that speak Spanish here!

This week I got a new companion, Elder Mendez, fresh from the Missionary Training Center in Provo! He is from Costa Rica and he is awesome! So bold and loving with the people! We’re going to have an awesome time! His catch phrase is “pura vida mae” which roughly translates to “pure life, dude”. He’s awesome!

This Tuesday, we taught some people that we used to visit, but had stopped visiting because they hadn’t acted upon the things that we were helping them to learn. So, we read Alma 32 with them, and they finally began to understand the importance of ACTING on our faith. As James said, “Faith without works is dead, being alone”

Anyway, that principle really sunk in, because at the end of the lesson, our investigator J said, “I’m going to the church on Sunday! No matter what! I don’t care if it rains, or if there is a storm! I will take the bus if I need to!” We were absolutely floored by his desire to begin acting on the faith that was growing within him.

When I called him on Sunday morning, I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “Con ganas para ir a la iglesia hoy!” (with desires to go to church today). And he did. He brought his wife and their 2 little kids, and had an awesome experience there!

I invite you all to act on what you believe in, so that your faith is not dead! Every time we act in accordance to God’s will we get one step closer to Him, and we become a little bit more like Him. Don’t lose out on that opportunity every day!

With love,

Elder Mortenson

 

 

Double-Dutch Miracles

Hello everyone!


So, I was very much satisfied with our miracle in finding and talking to H last week, but this week, we had a follow-up miracle!


We went to tract the same street where H (the godless atheist) lives, but the other side. We noticed that her lights were on, so we called the English Elders really quick to find out if they had contacted her yet. They said that they had tried, but that she wasn’t home/didn’t respond. So, we went to go to talk to her. Miraculously, she was home, and she opened up! Even more miraculously, I had a fresh English Book of Mormon to give her! She was so eager to get her hands on it, but I made her promise that she would read it first! The power of The Book of Mormon to attract attention and bring the spirit is incredible, and it can happen to anyone.


This week, we also invited Y, one of the coolest people ever, to be baptized on the 30th! When I asked her about what she thought about the Book of Mormon, she said that she loved it and knew that it is true!


I repeat the same testimony. I love it, and it is true! I just finished annotating the book of Alma, and it is incredible how much meaning one can extract from every page of that book! If you don’t know what I mean, go to the Book of Mormon with a question or problem in your life, and read closely until the answers and comfort come. It is incredible!


Do it!


Elder Mortenson

Dutch Miracles

Hello everyone!

I’ve now been transferred into Oakland, the heart of our mission. My new companion is Elder Alvarado. He is awesome! He is from Peru, studying Mechanical Engineering at BYU-I and is just out of his first 12 weeks in the mission. I’m really excited to be working here!

I don’t have much time, but here is a little experience I’d like to share:

On Saturday we started talking to this Dutch atheist college sociology professor with 7 cats. She was a character. Anyway, as we got talking to her, she said that she was raised godless and that she was a scientist, that she wouldn’t believe anything without evidence. We also found out that she knew a significant amount of LDS church history. We explained that The Book of Mormon is our evidence to the world that Joseph Smith really did talk to God, and that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored anew. She remarked that she has always seen discarded bibles around, but she’d never been able to get her hands on a Book of Mormon. We said we didn’t know why that was, but that we could bring her a free copy of The Book of Mormon that she could read and examine for herself. Then we sent the referral to the English Elders. Anyway, it was incredible to see that The Book of Mormon really does respond to people’s questions, even if they have a completely non-religious background. It is true. It was truly written, starting from the time of the Tower of Babel in the Bible up until four centuries after Christ. The authors of it were real people, and Joseph Smith was able to translate it by the power of God.

Please, if you haven’t, read the Book of Mormon. You will come to know, if you search it sincerely, that it is the word of God, and that by reading it you will receive guidance for your lives!

Happy December!
Elder Mortenson

​Elder Alvarado and I

Homemade (almost) Pizza for P-day

Favorite scripture of the week

We said goodbye to a lot of great friends last week.