Week 55 - Translating until our heads hurt! - Helping with the special Olympics

My knee is still buggin me. It's not so much pain that I can't stand it, but it's just really annoying lately. If it's just pain, I'm not worried about it, but I just don't want to find out I screwed it up in my knee somehow from doing so much on it. So I don't really know what to do. I fell on it playing basketball and it's been hurting since then. 

I don't know if I wrote it incorrectly or if there was some misunderstanding, but it's actually A. and S. who are together. A. and J. were living with them but apparently they moved out so we're only teaching A. and S. now. They weren't able to come to church tomorrow, but they are still progressing. They love the Book of Mormon and they said they're planning on getting married but they are thinking it's probably going to happen next year. -_- But we're still trying to get them to do it sooner. We're hoping they'll be willing to come to conference this next weekend.

This week was a little slow in terms of investigators, but we did have a lot of service opportunities this week which was great! On Tuesday, we went to a public school in the city to translate for parent teacher conference. We did that from about 1-8 so after all of it, I had a huge headache from all that translating, but it was a lot of good practice and a great opportunity to plant some seeds in the hearts of the many parents and teachers at the school.  And on Saturday we were able to do service at the Indiana Special Olympics finals. Our group helped with a game called "Corn Toss" which is a local Hoosier game similar to horseshoes, but it is played by throwing bean bags into a hole. It was a blessing to spend that time serving Heavenly Fathers innocent, sweet-spirited children. 

Like I said, this week was a little slow. We had 4 people tell us they were all coming to church, and not a single one showed up. That might be the most frustrating thing in the world. 

I had asked him what is the missionaries role with a new convert after baptism?  Here in Indy, we continue teaching recent converts all the lessons over again after they are baptized, but we usually have a member teach them with us. We try to let the member do most of the teaching and assist them with the lesson. So we've been teaching Catalina and we're trying to get her started on her family history work so she can go to the temple and do vicarious baptisms for her ancestors. 

Other than that, there's not much going on. We started teaching this guy named P. and he seems really willing to listen, but he has a ton of Virgin Mary paintings and candles in his house so he seems pretty rooted in Catholicism. But we have an appointment with him tonight so we'll see how it goes. 

I love you Mom! I got your package last Monday and I love it! Thank you so much!! I miss you and pray for you every day. I'll see you all in a few months! 

Love,

Elder Thayne

Week 54 - C's baptism!

This week was pretty good! It was kinda slow to begin with but it turned out great with a baptism! The adversary was working hard on C. She called us Saturday morning and told us she wasn't feeling good and wasn't sure if she wanted to do it. But we reassured her and she went through with it. Sadly, nobody from her family came to her baptism or confirmation and there was little support from the branch with only about 6 members there. But she got baptized, and then afterwards we had a branch multi-cultural activity and it was great! 

A. and his white girlfriend, and her friend A. all came to church yesterday! We have been teaching them for a couple weeks now and they have a lot of potential. S. said she wants to get baptized so we set a date for Oct 31 (Halloween!). The only problem is that she and A. will have to get married first since they are living together. But we told them about temple marriage and they seemed really excited about that. So they said they're willing to get married in order to be baptized. They seem really prepared and ready to accept this message and enter into a covenant with our Heavenly Father.

We've been having a rough time having the presence of the spirit in our lessons lately. It seems we're doing everything right and everything we need to do but for the past few days it seems like we haven't had the Spirit in our lessons. We're not sure what the reason is, but we're trying hard to resolve it. 

That's pretty much it! I hope you guys have a wonderful week! Have fun! I love you Mom. Thank you for everything. I'll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Thayne

Week 53 - Never ignore a prompting - you might miss a miracle

I can't believe it's already been a whole year since I was saying goodbye to all of you! Crazy how fast it goes. We had a great week this week and were able to teach a lot of lessons. We've been teaching this new family pretty consistently and they look like they might have some potential. The mother is very committed to her church so she might be a little tough, but her two 30ish year old sons are a lot more open. The only problem is, the 2 sons live with their girlfriends and the girlfriends are both white and don't speak Spanish. So when we teach we are having to switch back and forth between Spanish and English A LOT. They all seem pretty intrigued and willing to learn more so we're trying to help them have a spiritual experience. 

So on Thursday we ate dinner at C's house with another missionary companionship in the branch. Up to that point in time, C. hadn't told her son ,J., (about 40 yrs old) about the baptism. I knew he didn't know and that she wasn't ready to tell him, but I forgot and accidentally brought it up. Luckily, it kind of blew over without him noticing and then later, Elder Markward, who didn't know that J. had no clue about the baptism, brought it up again and he found out. I was a little nervous about what his reaction would be. He sat there silently and just thought and C. immediately started talking about how even though she had already been baptized as a baby in the Catholic church, she didn't know back then what it meant to her. But know as she's older, she knows that it's a big deal and an important step in her life. She also talked about how excited she is to be able to be baptized vicariously for her Mom and other relatives that passed away. And then she surprised us. She said, "The baptism is scheduled for the 19th right?" I said yes. She sat and thought for a second and said, "Why don't we do it Saturday?" So for some reason she changed her mind and decided she wanted her baptism to be in 2 days. I said that would be okay, but inside I was suffering a mini panic attack because I didn't want to have to prepare a whole baptismal service and have to teach her everything else we need to teach her in 2 days. Luckily the next day we were visiting her and she told us that her daughter got really sad when she found out the baptism was on the 12th and she wouldn't be able to make it. So she changed her mind once again and we're back on for the 19th. Haha it was a bit of a stressful couple of days, but we're good now. 

Yesterday we were tracting a bit after church and we came upon a house that was listed as being a Spanish household on our records, but I distinctly remembered that the last time I knocked that house we were turned away by a white guy. I told Elder Shepherd that I remembered the house and I was about to walk away and go to the next one. But I had a feeling that we should knock the door anyway so we did. Just as I thought, the man was white, but he was willing to talk. We asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said, "kind of". After inquiring a bit more, he told us he believed the bible is flawed due to years of translations and rewriting. It was perfect to lead into the Restoration of the Gospel and The Book of Mormon. We told him we absolutely agreed with him and that we too believe  that many "plain and precious truths" had been taken out or lost from the Bible. He was really interested and loved Joseph Smith's story and he said he really relates to it. (side note: I find it funny that we can recite the first vision perfectly in Spanish, but we seem to struggle a lot with the English version haha) Sadly, he didn't accept a return appointment because he said he's always busy, but he said he'd read the Book of Mormon and call us if he had any questions. I was so glad I knocked on that door so we could experience that miracle. 

Well that's all I have for today!  I pray for all of you every day! Talk to you next week!

Week 52 - one year mark! - You can't teach someone a testimony or explain your own testimony by physical reasoning

Labor day was pretty much the same as any other p day, except we couldn't email because all the libraries are closed. So that's why we're emailing today!! 

This week was a good one. It started off really well with us teaching a lot of lessons and finding a lot of people, but the end of the week kind of slowed down a little bit. C.   is still planning on getting baptized, but we moved it back to the 19th because her kids wouldn't have been able to make it on the 12th. We talked with her about the Plan of Salvation this past week and she loved it. She was so happy to know and understand her purpose in this crazy life. It's great to see her learning more and to see her desires to be baptized growing more and more each time we visit her. Last week she asked me to be the one to perform the baptism, and it'll be my first one! I'm pretty excited to be able to participate in that sacred ordinance. 

There was a talk introduced in District Meeting last week titled "The Challenging and Testifying Missionary" by Alvin R. Dyer. it talks mostly about the importance of testifying and challenging people to be baptized. It talks about how a lot of missionaries try to teach from their knowledge and what they know about the restored gospel, but he states that that is not the way to teach the gospel. He says the only effective way to do it is by the spirit. 

He later talks about the importance of inviting to baptism. A lot of missionaries (me) are often afraid that the answer will be no. But how are they going to accept an invitation that isn't extended? He talks about how a testimony can't be taught. He says, "Do you think you can teach a testimony? Can you analyze your own testimony of the gospel? Try and do it. Try and explain why you think Jesus is the Son of God. You will never explain it by physical reasoning. Where do you get the knowledge to say "I know Jesus is the Son of God?" John said, "Of this no man needs teaching." The gospel of Jesus Christ is not knowledge

These words had a big impact on me. I often find myself trying to convince or prove that the gospel is true through doctrinal knowledge or facts. But I now know that this cannot be done. It must be done by the power of the Spirit through testimony.

Well that's really all for today! I love you Mom! I can't believe I'm already at a year! It's all going by way too fast. Have a good week! Talk to you next week.