Week 37 - Heavenly Father knows his Children

I'm glad you guys got to all spend the baby shower together, but that's too bad that you all had to do so much work on memorial day weekend. Sometimes I wish I had sooner learned how to work hard, because now I am having to work harder than ever! But I learn from my mistakes and I hope my future children aren't as stubborn as I was ;)

This week was a great one! We had transfers on Wednesday and my new companion is Elder Cruz! He's originally from Cuernavaca, Mexico, but has been living in Chicago for about 6 years now. He was actually called English speaking, but Pres. Cleveland sent him to this Spanish area because we are losing so many Spanish missionaries and we don't have enough to fill all the areas. I'm really excited to serve with him! As you can imagine, his Spanish is really good ;) so I think it will help me to improve my Spanish during the time I serve with him. He is still learning English even though he already speaks it really well, so we are both helping each other out. 

Memorial day p-day was pretty much the same as any other p-day, except we couldn't email so we just had more time to play basketball and such :) We did, however, get to go do service at the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend on Saturday. We went in the morning and pulled weeds for about 3 hours and then they let us wander around the zoo for about a half hour. Sadly, my camera died after a couple pictures, so all I got were some pictures of a Tiger.

Last Monday, before Elder Latu left, we were biking home from the church when a lady in a van stopped us and yelled out the window, "Can you guys come by my house sometime and tell me about your religion?" Startled, we quickly wrote down her information and she drove off. About a minute later we saw the same woman pulling into her driveway. We asked her if she had time to talk now and she said she had a little bit of time. Her name is J and it turns out she had received lessons from the missionaries about 10 years ago but she remembered very little of what they talked about. She said the only thing she remembers is that they talked about different "stages" of heaven and that she had been thinking about that for a long time and she believes that it's true. We have taught her a few times since then and she loves listening to us. She's really open to the message and she's reading the Book of Mormon between lessons. We can tell she has a real desire to find truth and we can't wait to see the power of Christ's Atonement affect her life!

We had a really cool experience this past week. Every Thursday, we have a weekly planning session as a companionship. We were planning on what we can do to improve our finding efforts and Elder Cruz suggested we pray more when we tract. I agreed, so I decided I wanted to write "Pray Always" in my planner. I distinctly remember thinking out the letters as I wrote out "Pray Always" in the notes section. I looked up and we continued planning, and a few seconds later, I looked back down and instead of seeing "Pray Always" where I had intended to write it, I saw that I had inexplicably written "Angel".  Confused, I searched for reasons why I would have written that. My mind wasn't anywhere near the thought of Angel so I knew that I had written it for a reason. I eventually thought of the only person named Angel that I knew and made plans to visit him that week. But a nagging feeling that I had written it for a different, specific reason lingered in my mind.  

Well we finished up planning and had language study for about an hour and then decided to bike over to the local food bank to look for service opportunities. About a block from our house we saw a Hispanic man pushing his car. We offered to help him and he accepted, so we got off our bikes and ventured to assist him with his car problems. Elder Cruz introduced himself and asked him what his name was. Immediately he responded, "Angel". At that moment I had a strong spiritual impression that he was the reason I had subconsciously, or by some other influence, written Angel that same morning. We helped him with his car battery and ended up talking to him for about 20 minutes about God and the church. He said he had been thinking about getting into religion and was planning on studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses. After talking to him and sharing a little bit about what we believe, he invited us to come back.

So I don't know for sure that Angel will get baptized or if he'll ever end up coming to church, but I feel that the Lord sent me this experience as a way of reminding me that he leads this work and he knows his children.

Well that's pretty much it for this week. I'm looking forward to working with Elder Cruz here in Elkhart! I love you! 

Love,

Elder Thayne