A drought of investigators

This week has been OK. I'm still pretty sick and it's been hard to sleep because of the sickness so I'm running low on sleep. I haven't really taken many pictures yet.. Sorry! There's just not much to take pictures of quite yet. 

It's still really slow since we don't really have many investigators with whom we regularly meet. J recently dropped his baptism date which was disappointing.  He's just afraid that he won't be able to live the commandments after he's baptized and he says he doesn't want to commit to it until he knows he can do it.  We have another investigator named L who is progressing pretty well, she just has some personal legal issues that are making it hard for her to commit to baptism so we are trying to work with her. Other than that we don't really have any other investigators.

Last week we found this lady named B who lived with her friend C. We were talking to them about the restoration and B seemed to know quite a lot and was pretty excited about it. We were so excited to have finally found a good investigator.  We returned to her house and taught her again this week. We were talking to her about baptism and she kept telling us that she was already baptized. We assumed she meant into the Catholic church or something, so we asked her which church she was baptized into and she said, "you're church!".  We were so surprised! I guess through the Spanish speaking there was a little bit of a miscommunication and we didn't hear that she was already a member.  We still think C would be interested though, so hopefully we will start regularly visiting him soon.

When we go tracting, the door approach we use is usually centered on Christ.  First we start out by getting to know them (name, where they're from, how long they've been in America). If we are focusing on the Restoration we say something like "what do you know about Jesus Christ when he was here on the Earth?" and then proceed to talk about how He established His church and then go on to the Restoration.  If we are focusing on the Plan of Salvation we will usually say something like "do you think God loves you?" and then go from there. If people aren't interested they usually make up some excuse like "oh we're about to leave we don't have time" or something like that. But every once in a while we find some really nice people.  I have done the door approach plenty of times, but I'm still trying to get the hang of it. 

Dad, I love that thought you shared about prayer. I feel like prayer is always something I have taken for granted. Something that I would just do as a routine thing before I went to bed and stuff. But ever since I have been on my mission, it has become one of the most important things of my life. It is such a blessing to be able to talk to our Heavenly Father whenever we want. I truly have learned how important it is to just pour out your whole heart and soul in prayer to God and it strengthens me so much. I feel that through prayer I have grown much closer to my Father in Heaven.

I know that God lives and He loves us. He is mindful of every single one of us and He knows us. I know that in this work, I am not alone. As I try to bring the knowledge of this light and love to others I can feel help from the Lord. I see it in my own life and in the lives of those around me. I also know that without Christ nothing is possible. He has made an eternal sacrifice for us and none are exempt. It's beautiful to know that no matter what we do or who we are, we are always children of God His hand is always stretched out to us. I know he watches over us.

I love you and I thank you for all of your support!

Elder Thayne

Biking Selfie!

Elder Thayne, Elder Weese, Elder Schoneman, and Elder Markward with a branch member who is moving