Week 43 - Back in Indianapolis and going the extra mile with confidence in the Lord

Well, I'm in a new area and I'm back in Indianapolis! I'm back in the branch I started in, but I'm on the east side of the city now. We got double transferred into our area, so neither one of us was here before. Our area is HUGE, and we don't know any of it so it kinda stresses me out. But we're trying to get to know the area more and more each day. My companion is Elder Ryan from Oregon! He's hilarious! He's only a transfer younger than me so we're both learning a lot from each other. He reminds me a lot of Justin Male haha

Going into this transfer, I felt we needed to do a special fast to know the will of the Lord so we can do this work His way instead of our way. So I told our district and invited them all to do the same so that we can hasten the work in this branch.

In our Priesthood meeting at church, we had a great lesson about doing more than is expected of us and going the extra mile. It reminded me of a scripture in Philemon 1:21

 21 Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee,knowing that thou wilt also do 

more than I say.

During the lesson, I thought everything was great, but I didn't really think much about it, and honestly, I had kind of forgotten about our fast. After the class was over, Elder Hansen (yeah he's still in my district. going on 10 months in the same district) turned to me and said "Elder Thayne I think that's the answer to our fast!" And I remembered it and decided to see if that is what the Lord wanted us to do.

So we were tracting in an apartment complex right after church and we weren't finding any Hispanic people to teach. We had a meal appointment in about a half hour so we both kinda decided that we'd just go early since nothing was really happening. But then I remembered the lesson we had and I said, "Let's just knock these next 4 doors." And on the second one a man from Mexico named J. opened the door and let us right in. He was there with his nephew and his son. We taught about the Restoration and they were really receptive to it. At the end of the lesson, J. said, "Don't you guys have that Book of Mormon?" we said yes and he told us that he was talking about it with his son and nephew literally the day before. They said they'd be willing to come to church next week and we're planning on inviting them to the temple open house.  It was a confirmation that the Lord wants us to go the extra mile and keep going when we want to quit. It was a great miracle to meet some of the Lord's prepared children.

4th of July was pretty good. We had a branch activity where we played soccer and volleyball and had a barbecue. We had the day off,  but we weren't allowed to handle any fireworks, not even sparklers. 

I hope you guys had a great 4th! That was the last major holiday I hadn't already celebrated as a missionary! Next up will be my second round on Halloween. I love you! 

Love,

Elder Thayne

With Abi from the Elkhart Branch

Elder Thayne and Elder Cruz w
with Juan and Sister Alarcon