Week 29 - Wow Wee Woo, Easter and Conference!

This week was pretty good for us. Not much happened but we've been trying our best to find more and more people to share this gospel with. Yes we have been using the new Easter video to find/teach people and it's working pretty well. I'm surprised at how many people don't really know the real reason we celebrate Easter. It's hard for some people to see behind the eggs and the Easter bunny and see the real reason we have this hope. I love the message that the message gives that Christ is here for us. He rose the third day. We just have to do what we can to find him. 

N. was able to come to all 3 hours of church today and she loved it! We had a really good lesson about the Atonement in Gospel Principles and she really enjoyed it.  Sadly, L. and E.  weren't able to come. L.  has been having a hard time believing that God really will answer her prayers. We've been trying to help her so much in finding the truth but she's struggling. E. was in Michigan so he wasn't able to go. I'm definitely learning how to be patient.

 We had a mission wide fast yesterday due to a new mission goal we have. For the next 3 months (apr, may, jun) we have a goal to get 120 baptisms in the whole mission. We were inviting members to fast with us and I know that our efforts and faith are seen by the Lord.

Not much else happened this week.. I've been really trying to study a lot out of Preach my Gospel to improve my teaching skills. I've found that there is SO much to learn and study and it's kinda overwhelming but I'm trying to stick with it. 

That's so sad to hear about Brother Allred. I can't imagine how hard that must be for Nick out on his mission. That is literally my worst nightmare and I don't know if I'd be able to do it. That's good to hear that Sis. Allred is staying strong and leaning on the Atonement. That would be incredibly hard. It's good to know the things we know about families. It would be so hard to bear that if we didn't have a firm belief that we would see them again. 

That's pretty much it for this week. Pretty uneventful. But I'm looking forward to listening to conference this week and I hope you enjoy it! I love you!

Practicing the organ at church

Elder Thayne and Elder Latu stole the branch mission leaders (Bro Alcaron's) phone when he
 left the room and decided to leave some funny pictures on it.  Crazy Elders!

Deep in thought...haha!

Love, Elder Thayne

Week 28 - Seeing the Lord's hand in our work

This week flew by! It was super warm on Monday and then it started cooling down throughout the week, and it's currently snowing -__- but hopefully this is the last of the snow until the next dreaded winter! We've been having tons of success up here and I can really see that the Lord has been helping us lately. We currently have 3 baptism dates set and the other elders in our district have 2. Ours are N(April 18), E (May 2), and L(May 9). 

N. still hasn't quit work but she said it should be soon. She has a ton of support from her family and we're able to teach her about 2 times a week so it's going pretty well. She just hasn't gotten in the habit of reading the Book of Mormon so she's kinda struggling with that. 

E. is a 9 year old boy who's mom is a member but his dad isn't. His mom really wants him to get baptized, but his dad has been kind of against it until recently. He's one of the smartest kids I've ever met and he remembers every thing we teach him. We gave him a Book of Mormon picture book and he's been reading that every day. 

L. is the daughter of one of our students in English class. C.  has been one of our only consistent students and she brings L. with her to class. L.  is 18 yrs old so she speaks perfect English, so she just sits in the gym with us and the kids. We started teaching her stuff in between watching the kids and she has a real desire to learn more about God and be a better person. She seems to be struggling with her prayers and believing that God will talk to her, but we're trying to help her with that. We have also taught her mom a couple times but she has not accepted a date yet because she wants to learn more first.

So we've had some good success! We did have the chance to go back to the drunk guy, but sadly this time he was even more drunk! He told me he had a dream where he saw me and Jesus. He said Jesus told him he was supposed to give me something. He then took out his wallet and handed me a $100 dollar bill! I tried and tried and tried to convince him to take it back but he just wouldn't take it! After arguing about it for about a half hour his sober friend walked up the stairs in the apartment building and tried to reason with him. It went NO WHERE, so eventually we just accepted the money, left with his friend and gave the money to his friend who said he'd give it back when he was sobered up. It was quite the interesting experience! 

We love the success we're having up here and I can't wait until these baptisms happen! Thanks for your love and your support! Love you all!

Love, Elder Thayne

Me with A. and N.  N is getting baptized in April

With A. a cute kid fro our branch

Week 27 - Happy St Patrick's day!

The weather has been SO nice lately and I am loving it. There are many times when we choose to take the bikes even though we could take the car because the weather is so beautiful. I am loving it so much! 

This week was one full of success! We found a few more people to teach and the other elders in our branch had 5 people at church so it was a really good week for us. 

Our investigator recently told us that she's quitting her weekend job so she can come to church. I know that is an answer to our prayers. I'm so glad she'll be able to progress more towards baptism!This week was a great one with a lot of success. We taught a lot of lessons and found a few new people to teach.

One person we found was a really interesting experience. We knocked on the door and we could hear really loud Spanish music playing from inside. Out came a super drunk hispanic guy. At first I just didn't want to deal with it because he smelled bad and he was talking gibberish and I had no faith that it was going to turn out well. He talked and talked and talked for about a half hour straight about his life and his problems and why he drinks so much and eventually I just had the feeling that I need to be super bold and interrupted him and said, "Listen! We are representatives of Jesus Christ and He is talking to you. Are you going to listen??" It got kinda quiet for a bit and then he started telling us about how he used to be really religious and he had kinda fallen away so lately he'd been fasting and praying for God to help him get on the right track. He said that when he decided it wasn't working he started drinking and partying again. He said he never answers the door for random people that come by but he said that something told him he needed to open up to us. Eventually he let me throw away the rest of his beer and we set up another time to come back when he was less drunk. It was a very spiritual experience!

Our investigator, N., is still on a baptism date for April 18th, but she has been having a hard time coming to church because of her work schedule. We've been praying a ton so she can have the opportunity to come to church. She was able to come to church yesterday and she was smiling the whole time. After Sacrament meeting she came up and told us that she's giving them her 2 week notice today so she can come to church! It's definitely an answer to our prayers and I am so excited for her!

I had the opportunity to teach English class last week and it was actually really fun! It wasn't all that hard. We just cover a certain subject (we did "Hobbies") and then learn various words and phrases. Such as: sports, piano, like, dance, and things like that. All the people that go are very kind and humble, and I know how they feel because that's exactly how we did it in the MTC. I'm just not very good at making the class exciting or fun so I'm not sure I'll be teaching it any more. We'll see. 

My old investigator P,  in my old area, just got baptized on Saturday! I was bummed I had to miss it, but I'm so glad she stuck with it! I texted her after her baptism and she said it was a great experience and she loved it. I'm so happy for her. 

Well that's all I really have this week! 

Love, Elder Thayne 

Elder Thayne and Elder Latu

Week 26 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God and a baptismal date!

This week was great! It's getting a little warmer up here and I can't wait until we're done with all this cold weather. Fun fact: The Spanish words for "winter" and "hell" are only different by 1 letter! Coincidence? Hmmm probably not. 

We have been doing a lot of finding lately and it's been great! We found this couple named M. and G and we gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and she said she'd read it and we could come back and talk with her husband too. I was SO excited about this. When we showed up on Saturday we sat down and talked for a little to get to know them, and then they said they had tons of questions. After answering their questions G. started shooting more and more questions at us trying to disprove us and soon enough it just turned into a lot of bashing from him. We tried time and time again to just lead it into a discussion about the Book of Mormon, Plan of Salvation, Joseph Smith, or anything that would stop the "bashing" attitude that he had. Finally we just read Moroni 10:4-5 and invited them to just pray about it and he just said he's not going to do anything that isn't in the Bible. So by that time we had spent 2 hours in their home and it ended up being a waste of time. We gave him many examples in the Bible that clearly disproved his ideas and theories of the Gospel, but it's true that convincing someone of the truth won't do any good if they're not willing to be open and listen to the Spirit. 

On a happier note we have an investigator on a baptismal date! Her name is N.and she's 23 years old. The rest of her family are all members and her dad is in the branch presidency. She has strong desires to change and bring herself closer to God. She told us she's seen the change it's made in her parents' lives and she wants that happiness for herself. She's way excited to be baptized, but the only problem is that she works so many hours between 2 jobs that it's hard for her to meet with us, let alone go to church on Sunday. Just please keep N. in your prayers that she can have the time to learn more and come to church. 

Something I read in the Bible this morning was a story I really liked. It was the story about the Prophet Elijah and his encounter with the widow of Zarephath. At this time, Elijah had just caused a huge drought in the land. He came into the city and asked the widow to get him some water and make him some bread. She explained to him that she didn't have much left and she was just about to go make a last meal for herself and her son so they can lie down and die. Elijah promised that if she fed him first that she would have all the food she needed until the drought ended. Imagine how hard it would be to follow such a commandment. He was asking this poor widow to give up the last of her food. She obeyed and the Lord kept his side of the promise. It reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures in 3 Nephi: 

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat?or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

 32 For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.

It's true that when we seek God's Kingdom first, we are blessed with everything we need.

We have a returning less-active member in our branch named L. He has been coming to church pretty consistently now and it was great to see him ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. It's so good to see him turning back to the Lord and becoming more active in the church.

Well I hope everything is going wonderful for you guys! Any fun plans for spring break? I'm sure you guys will have a blast! 

Love, 

Elder Thayne

Elder Schoeneman, Elder Thayne Elder Hansen and Elder Latu
with Brother Juan Carlos Alarcon their branch mission leader

Shoveling snow...Brother Arcon says the axe is for chopping through the ice.
Indiana doesn't have any wussy winters like we are having here in Utah!  

Week 25 - So Sick of Snow!

So as you all know I got transferred last week. My new area is.... Elkhart, Indiana!  It's smaller than the Orem/Provo area for sure. It's a pretty small city. It's the farthest north in the mission so it's pretty frigid up here. It's been snowing every other day... Can't wait for spring!

My new address is:

1019 Wolf Ave. 

Elkhart, IN

46516

My new companion is named Elder Latu. He's a big Tongan guy from Hawaii and he's been out for about 16 months. He's a way fun guy and I'm definitely excited to serve with him. Our apartment only has one little heater so it's really really cold in the mornings. The branch we're in is pretty small. There were probably about 30 people at church yesterday, but they are all super nice people who want to feed us a lot. Elder Hansen moved up here with me from Indianapolis and he's serving in Goshen, Indiana which is about 30 minutes away from where we're at. 

We got double transferred into the area which means that neither of us were previously here. It's a little difficult because neither of us really know the area or the investigators so we're just working on meeting people and seeing where they're at. We apparently have a couple of investigators that have shown desires to be baptized this month, but we haven't exactly met them yet... We have an appointment with one of them tonight. Her name is N. and her family was all converted to the Gospel about 3 years ago, and she recently moved back in with them so she started learning more from the missionaries. 

Something fun about this area is that we teach free English classes twice a week at the church. Elder Schoeneman and Elder Latu teach the classes while Elder Hansen and I take care of the kids of the people taking the classes. It is quite exhausting, but it's good practice. ;)   President Cleveland told Elder Latu he'd probably be here for one transfer maybe 2 so I'll take over teaching after he leaves :) we usually have 15 - 20 coming to English class. It's pretty good Spanish practice talking to the kids too. 

So I've started reading the Bible because I've never really read it all the way through and I just finished the story of David. David was such a righteous king and servant of the Lord. He was greatly blessed by the Lord, but it's interesting how in a matter of a few verses in the story he falls from exaltation due to his small mistakes that eventually lead to serious sins such as adultery and murder. It's incredible how quickly he fell from his glory. If he would have just turned around and went back inside after seeing Bath-sheba on the roof everything would have been ok. Even after committing adultery he could have confessed it honestly and stopped there and he would have been forgiven. But he took it even further and shed the innocent blood of Uriah which caused him to "fall from his exaltation." 

This story has always made me a little sad due to all that David lost because of his sins, but it shows us how careful we need to be. We must never think that we are too far gone and justify more sin in this way. We can always turn back to the Lord and receive his forgiveness. As Isaiah says in chapter 9: "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." The Lord's hand is always stretched out to us, we just need to take hold and accept his forgiveness the the Atonement of Christ. 

I love you and thank you for all that you do! I miss you more than I can say, but I love serving the Lord. I love you mom! 

Love,

Elder Thayne

With Investigator P. in White River Area.  I'm going to miss her baptism since I got transferred.

This is Y.  She fed us every week in our old area

We found this chair thing on the sidewalk when we were riding our bikes, so we took pictures haha

Elder Latu