Week 59 - Led to those who are searching

This week was great! We had a lot of good lessons and tons of member support this week. It is getting pretty chilly here and I'm just imagining how fun the winter will be here... meh, so cold. 

We witnessed a great miracle on Monday! After p-day we went to C's house for dinner. She made us some Milanesas which is my favorite thing ever. While we were eating, some of her friends unexpectedly came over. Their names were L and J. We started talking to them about where they're from and stuff and eventually we started talking about the Restoration of the Gospel. They received the message really well, and after the first vision, J said he felt a feeling he'd never felt before. He asked us what that was and we explained to him exactly what it was. Afterwards, L. seemed to be pondering the message we just shared, and then she explained to us that the day before in church she prayed and asked God to show her a sign as to what church she should go to. We were stunned and we told her that we are definitely here to deliver the sign she's looking for. They live outside of our area, but it was a great lesson and they committed to come to church. Sadly, they didn't end up coming just like all the rest of our investigators -_- but hopefully we'll see them there soon.

So, funny story, last week we were mowing Sarah's lawn for her bc she needed it cut really bad. E. Shepherd was mowing at the time so I thought I'd just sit on the porch and read my scriptures while I waited. As I was reading, E. Shepherd mowed over her dog's solid, rock-hard, plastic bone sitting in the yard, and the mower blade shot the bone out of the mower and it hit me right in the jaw!!! I thought it was a rock or something so when I reached up to touch my face I thought for sure there'd be blood. Luckily, it didn't even bruise, just got a little red. E. Shepherd was laughing so hard. It was such the kind of direct hit you only see in comedy movies. 

We taught L. again and we were able to bring a member from the branch with us. It went well, but she said that her husband is still super against the idea. She said he doesn't even go to church or anything but as soon as she brought up going to our church, he shut her down. She seems to have a sincere desire to learn more, so we told her to just keep praying and hope that his heart is softened. 

That's pretty much it for this week! I think I should be good for winter for now. If I need anything, I'll let you know. I love you Mom, have a good week!

Elder Thayne

Week 58 - The simple unadorned testimony of the servant of God

You lucky patos! (ducks) I wish I could go to Mexico! Haha yes hielo is ice and that's super weird that other countries don't use it. That's what sets us Americans apart. That reason alone makes us a great country!

This week was great! It's getting quite chilly here, and I hope fall hangs around for long time. We had a lot of success in teaching lessons this week. On Thursday, we found this one lady named L. She said she had met missionaries in Mexico and she still communicates with them over facebook. Her parents and some of her siblings got baptized in Mexico about 8 years ago, but she never did although she did attend the church down there pretty regularly. We talked to her about Joseph Smith and she said she remembers quite a bit from when she learned it all before. We invited her to be baptized if she came to know that it was true and she said yes. She warned us that her husband is very Catholic isn't at all open to other religions. That's a very common problem among Hispanics. We're hoping to talk to him sometime and let the Spirit soften his heart. We had an appointment with Lizbeth on Saturday and we brought our branch mission leader with us, but unfortunately the lesson fell through and she wasn't there. 

We talked to S. and A. more about marriage. They moved their baptism back to Nov. 7th so S's parents can come, but that probably means I won't be here for it because I presume that I'll be getting transferred soon. They said they'll plan on getting married on the 6th, and baptized on the 7th. We're praying it all works out!!

Yesterday, we walked out of a member's house after a meal appointment and as we were walking to the car, an African-American man approached us and asked what we're talking about. I replied, "Jesus!" and he immediately felt something in his heart when I said that. We talked to him and he said he really wants to make some changes in his life. He noticed that we were both pretty tall and asked if we play basketball. I immediately started some playful trash talk with him about basketball and he loved it. Haha by the end of our talk he was really comfortable with us and said he really wants to play ball with us and come to church on Sunday. It's a shame we won't be able to teach him since he's not Hispanic. Maybe we'll see if we can just teach him some spanish first and then teach him the gospel. ;)

We still haven't been able to meet with Y. since he seems to work 8 days a week. I swear, Hispanics work sooooo much, but they seem to have no motivation to come to church.

My ponderizing scripture this week is actually a quote by Brigham Young. 

"The world, with all its wisdom and power, and with all the glory and gilded show of its kings or potentates, sinks into perfect insignificance, compared with the simple, unadorned testimony of the servant of God"

I like this a lot because a lot of times we get caught up in making our lessons too flashy or sophisticated, when all we need to do is testify simply and clearly and the Holy Ghost will handle the rest. I find that as I learn more spanish I get away from the simple stuff, so I need to get back to that and stop trying to convince people with flashy words and stuff. 

I love you! I hope you enjoyed your trip to Mexico! I can't wait to go with you guys some day and try my spanish out! I miss you. Be safe!

Love,

Elder Thayne

Week 57 - Testifying of Jesus Christ

I love your thoughts on grace and the Atonement. It reminds me of Brad Wilcox's talk titled "His Grace is Sufficient". He also talked about how people think we, as Mormons, are trying to earn heaven. He said something along the lines of, "We're not earning heaven, we're learning heaven." He talks about how if we don't change in this life, we won't even want to live with God in the next. I love that talk and those thoughts on the Atonement. 

This week was a pretty good one. It's still been pretty slow lately in terms of finding people who will actually progress, but we try not to get discouraged. Yes, Y. did turn out to be Hispanic, but sadly he's been really busy with work and we haven't been able to meet with him again. We've called him and talked a few times and he still sounds interested, but he's just trying to work around his busy work schedule. We're still working a lot with S. and A. We had interviews with Pres. Cleveland this week and at the end of my interview with him I asked if he had any suggestions as to what we should do in their situation. He asked if we had taught the Law of Chastity yet, and we had talked about it a little, but hadn't taught the lesson. I guess we were just hesitant because we didn't know how to go about it as they are currently breaking the Law of Chastity... I guess it just seemed harsh to us. But he told us that should be our next course of action. We taught them the Law of Chastity, and then that night we got a call from S. and she told us she read through the pamphlet and now she realizes that she needs to obey this commandment. She felt bad for breaking such a serious commandment of God and now they both want to get married. They are planning to get married ASAP, but still have a few road blocks to get over. We'll see if they can make their goal of being baptized on the 31st of this month. 

We've been doing a ton of tracting lately and trying to expand our teaching pool. I feel like this is a weird time of year when people are working a ton so it's been a little hard. We were tracting yesterday in an apartment complex and we found ourselves talking to an African-American man named D.   At the door he told us he believed in God, but only considered Jesus Christ as a prophet. After a little while, he let us in. We had a pretty lengthy discussion, but in the end he said, "I'm never going back to Christianity." I told him to never close the door completely and to pray about it. He replied saying "Hey you shouldn't close the door either, who knows? I could be right." I then had the blessing of looking into that man's eyes and telling him that I know he's not right. That I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our Savior. It is a huge blessing to have a testimony of the Savior and I hope that D. can receive that for himself someday.

So I've started ponderizing every week and I thought I'd share my scripture with you every week.This week, it's Helaman 3:35

"Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts to God."

Yielding our hearts to God is something we all need to work on constantly. It's become a lifelong goal of mine.

I love you Mom! I hope you guys have fun in Mexico! Tell me about all your adventures! I pray for you and miss you dearly. Have a good week! Love you!

Elder Thayne

Week 56 - Depending on the Lord

This week was good, but pretty slow. We didn't teach as many people as we would have liked and we would have liked to find more people as well, but the people we did find are GOLDEN! 

We've been trying to depend a lot more on the Lord and it's been paying off. Specifically, we've been praying more fervently in regards to where we should go to tract and to find people and we have seen miracles. On Tuesday we were praying about where to go and after the prayer I immediately had an area come to mind and press upon my thoughts. It was an area we had tracted a couple months ago and it didn't yield much success so I was a little hesitant. I started considering other areas, but again, the impression to go to that area returned. So we decided to go. 

So usually when we tract, we bring a list that we have made using the city directory that has all the listed Hispanic families in a specific area of the city. This way we can more easily know which houses to knock. In this specific area that we were knocking, there were not many houses on the list. We knocked all the listed ones and they all happened to be family from Guatemala. They were nice, but not at all interested in our message. When we had knocked all listed houses, we were thinking about going to a different area, but I suddenly decided we were going to knock all the houses on the current street, whether they were Hispanic or not. After knocking on the next door, we were found talking to a man in his mid-20's named Y. He was darker skinned and looked like he could be Hispanic, but he spoke perfect English and Y. isn't a Spanish name so we weren't sure. We talked to him for a bit and we ended up asking him why he thinks there are so many churches here on Earth. He said he didn't know and we offered him the answer. He invited us in and we started to teach. We taught him about Prophets and dispensations and Christ's earthly ministry. At this point he told us, "You know the church Christ started on the Earth with Apostles and prophets? I think if there was ever any one true church, it was that one." He was so prepared! We excitedly told him about Joseph Smith and how he thought the exact same thing. We told him about the Restoration of the Gospel and he loved it. He told us he'd be baptized if he came to know the truth. He wasn't able to come to conference due to work, but we're hoping to be able to meet with him soon and help him find the truth. It was great to know that because we followed a prompting, we found someone who was prepared to receive this message.

I loved conference! I especially loved Elder Renlund's thoughts as a new apostle. I have always known that we must try to see others through Heavenly Father's eyes, but he somehow brought it into a simple and more powerful perspective that caused me to think a lot about that matter. I learned that that is the way missionaries should serve. We need to see the people we serve as a loving Father in Heaven sees them. That's something I want to improve in my life.

I also really enjoyed Elder Andersen's talk in the Priesthood session about faith and increasing our faith. It was a really good one and a message I definitely needed to hear. 

A. and S. were only able to come to the Sat. morning session of conference, but they seemed to enjoy it! They did seem to get a little restless after sitting for 2 hours, but they said they liked it a lot. They still want to get married, they just say they're unsure about it and want to wait. We're still pushing a little to get them to do it, but we'll see what happens. 

That's pretty much it for this week! I love the work and I can't wait to meet the experiences that await me this week! I love you Mom. I pray for you and the family always. I miss you and hope you're all doing well.

Love,

Elder Thayne