Happy Pioneer day!! We had a slow, but great week! Like I said last week, I was pretty bummed to be sent to a new area, but I love it here! I know the Lord has something very important planned for me here and I'm excited to find exactly what it is.
Things in Columbus are great!! We live with the Nehring family in their basement. It's the best!! These are easily the best living circumstances I've had my whole mission and I'm sad I'll only be here for a short amount of time! The Nehrings' son and grandkids are staying here for a while too, so it's fun to be able to see them every once in a while. Sometimes we'll be downstairs doing language study and 5 grandkids come down and ambush us with nerf guns! It keeps things fun and interesting :)
The work is hard here, but I love the branch. The members are so great and willing to work. We only have about 15-20 active members in the branch, so it's really small, but we're here to help it grow. The members have all already welcomed me so warmly and I look forward to working with them over the next few weeks.
This week was full of a lot of tracting and meeting new people. It seems like for the longest time this area has struggled with finding investigators that will progress and be baptized. I know it's gotta be all in the mindset though. The Lord wouldn't send us here if there weren't any people prepared for his gospel. I have a lot of trust in the words in Alma 13:24
For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.
I have faith that the Lord has prepared somebody here in Columbus to accept the gospel and join the Columbust3rd branch. We just have to seek them out with the guidance of the Spirit.
We found 2 really prepared people yesterday as we were knocking doors at a trailer park. We knocked on the door and when they opened it we saw 2 heavily tatTooed women who seemed a little stand-offish. One of the ladies, T, had a tattoo that said "Blessed" so I complimented her on it and we were able to start a gospel conversation. They stepped outside and we taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel and they were so prepared!! After we shared the message, we committed A, T, and her step-daughter to be baptized on Sep. 3. They only speak English, so we had to pass them on to the English Elders, but we're all on the same team, right? It was a great miracle.
We saw another miracle yesterday! We both had to go to the bathroom really bad while we were tracting, so we got back in our car and drove to the closest gas station. As we were walking in, a lady walked out of the bathroom and said, "Missionaries!!" She explained to us that her grandmother was about to pass away and she was on her way to the hospital. She said it was really hard for her and that as she was in the bathroom, she was thinking that she really needed to say a prayer. When she saw us, she asked if we could go to the back corner of the gas station to pray with her and we said yes. She asked me to say the prayer and by the end, she was crying and was so grateful that we could be there. I'm sure she will always remember when the Lord placed the missionaries in the right place at the right time.
Miracles are happening!! We seek for them every day. I hope you have a great week!! I love you Mom!!
Love,
Elder Thayne
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| I said goodbye to Catalina |
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| Most of the Spanish missionaries |
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And of course I had to take a picture with the Indy sign
before I left Indianapolis again :) putting the I in Indy
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