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
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| With Investigator P. in White River Area. I'm going to miss her baptism since I got transferred. |
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| This is Y. She fed us every week in our old area |
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| We found this chair thing on the sidewalk when we were riding our bikes, so we took pictures haha |
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| Elder Latu |
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