Week 16 - Puppy Saver!

It was so good to call you guys and hear from all of you! I'm definitely looking forward to doing that again on Mother's day. Christmas went by way fast for me! But it was cool to have a different Christmas as a missionary. It was definitely hard being away from family, but there was a really good spirit about it.

New Year's Eve is coming and I'm pretty excited. We have that day off so we are just going to the Branch Pres. house again. It will be nice to get another little break and then start off the new year working hard! 

This week was pretty good. We still aren't having tons of success, but it was a good week. We set up to give a church tour to Janet and we had a member come with us and everything, but sadly she didn't show up. It was really discouraging. Especially since we went to her house that same morning and confirmed the appointment with her. But we'll keep trying. I'm learning how to be patient :) 

On Friday we were tracting in this neighborhood, when we saw 2 little puppies walk up out of no where. One was a little Golden Retriever, and the other a Labrador. They were very wet and seemed very cold and neither of them had any sort of tag on their collar, so we decided we'd just pick them up and carry them from door to door looking for the owner. We walked from door to door up and down that street for about an hour and couldn't find who they belonged to. We decided to stop and say a prayer. About 20 minutes later, a lady drove by and told us that those dogs belonged to her Hispanic neighbors on the next street. So we followed her to her house and we were so excited to give these dogs back to a Hispanic family and perhaps turn it into a teaching opportunity ;) sadly, she did not want to talk at all. She sort of just took the dogs and shut the door in our face. But I'm glad we could save those 2 adorable puppies! 

It was great to have a missionary Christmas and I'm looking forward to the New Year and all the experiences that it will bring! I love you so much! It was great talking to you on Christmas and I'm looking forward to doing it again in 5 months! 

Love, 

Elder Thayne

At Our Branch President's House for Christmas

With the Martinez family children where we spent Christmas Eve

Week 15 - Christmas this week!

Christmas Conference was great! All the missionaries got together and we had a conference where the Presidency spoke and then a few missionaries and there were some great musical numbers too. Then we ate lunch and then we all played bingo (which I won :) ) and then we had a mission talent show which was way fun. Our branch party turned out pretty well too. We actually had American food haha. We had some sloppy joes, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes, but it was all very good! The branch probably has about 200 people, but there are a lot who don't attend church. It's actually really close to becoming a ward. 

On Christmas day we are going to the branch president's house and then to a member's house later. We will probably skype you from the member's house. What time would work best for you? We'll probably be over at her house from 5-9 so I guess that'd be 3-7 your time. Mexicans celebrate Christmas on the 24th so we have dinner at a members house on that day too :)

We haven't been able to meet with J. again ever since we set her on a Baptism date. We have gone to her house a few times this week, but she never answers. She hasn't responded to any of our texts/calls either. So we'll keep on trying.  

I haven't heard anything about going to the temple yet, but it would either be the Louisville Temple or the Chicago Temple depending on where I am when I go. But I am super excited to go again when I get the chance!

It's super weird and really hard to be away from family during the Christmas season, but I have found that this year I am more focused on Christ than ever. It's so amazing how great Christmas can be when you focus on the real reason for our joy. Everything we have is because of Him and when I focus on that, it helps me  be so much more grateful for the things I have and it helps me to be happier. 

I love you mom! Thank you for everything! Let me know when would be the best time to call. Feliz Navidad!

Love, 

Elder Thayne

Elder Thayne in downtown Indy

Elder Thayne and Elder Schoeneman with Christmas Stockings

Week 14 - We have someone committed to baptism!

This week has been pretty fast. Transfers was a couple weeks ago and we got new English Elders in our area and they are giving us SO many referrals on the Spanish people they find which is awesome! One of them is named J. and we have only been able to teach her once, but it went really well! We brought a member with us to teach her and they got along really well, and then at the end of the lesson we committed her to get baptized on Jan 17. I pray that she will continue to have the desires to continue on this path and find the happiness that this brings.

We talked to a guy who had an interesting van (picture below) and he seemed pretty happy about his religious beliefs. He tried to talk to us about the "Holy Ghost" baptism. And then he asked what differentiated us from other churches and we started talking to him about how we have a prophet. He was blown away haha.

I got your packages! Thanks mom! I also really love the little book of testimonies from the missionaries from our ward. That was super nice and it was great to read through them all. 

I actually got pretty bad at basketball since I left haha. It might be because I didn't really play it in the MTC much. We do play basketball with members/non-members and other missionaries every Tuesday which is a lot of fun. 

I love that scripture you shared from Mosiah. It's really similar to one of my favorite chapters in Isaiah ch 53. I love reading about the Atonement and how much we owe to our Lord and Savior. 

I'm glad to hear that Zach enjoyed the XC season.   I too noticed that my favorite part about the XC team were all the people on the team and the great environment it was. I really wish I could be playing with Zach on that Jr. Jazz team! Oh man I miss that dingus.

We have our Mission Christmas Conference on Thursday. I'm not really sure what that will be like but I think we're having a little Christmas party after that. And we're having a branch Christmas party on the 20th. It should be fun :) 

I love you all and I'm looking forward to talking to you in 10 days :)

Thank you for all the support! 

Love,

Elder Thayne

An interesting van we saw a few weeks ago.  

pretty exciting photos this week - lights on our balconey

Decorations on our window...yes that is Elder Schoeneman's head!

Week 13 - The delicacy that is cow tongue tacos

This week has been pretty good! We haven't been able to meet with J. and C. again yet, but we're working on it. We went and visited a lady named L. We found her about a month ago and when we visited her a month later she remembered everything we taught her! It was awesome! She really wants to come to church but sadly she works on Sundays so she's trying to figure that out.

I told him that a former ward member Owen Hartle, a 9 year old boy with cancer, passed away this past week.  That's so bittersweet to hear that Owen passed away :( but he was such a strong kid and he was in a lot of pain so I'm glad he does not have to suffer anymore. The knowledge we have about the Eternal Plan of Salvation is so comforting in times like this.  I've definitely learned a lot about conforming to God's will and I continue trying to do that. 

I absolutely LOVE the advent calendar! It gives me that Christmas joy I need every morning :) 

The "He is a Gift" video has been quite helpful in finding people to teach. The video invites such a strong spirit. We've already got a few return appointments thanks to the video!

We asked him about his apartment complex...looking on Google maps it looks like he's surrounded by water!  Yeah there seems to be a man made lake at every apartment complex in this city haha. I don't think I have seen one that doesn't have a little lake or pond. 

I haven't ever visited that park but I'd like to someday. Usually on p-day we just go do laundry, then do all of our shopping, and then go to the library to email and then we go get lunch somewhere (yes we are allowed to eat at restaurants) and then we go to the church and play basketball and volleyball and stuff. 

Yeah I've gotten pretty used to the sleep schedule, but waking up early is still really hard in the mornings. My favorite part about this week was probably yesterday. We had a great testimony meeting and then after church we had 2 meal appointments with members which is always great. Guess what I ate yesterday?? Cow tongue tacos! It was actually pretty good and I ended up eating 6 of them :)

Well I don't really have a ton more time but I love you all so much and thank you for all you do! I'll talk to you next week and Skype you soon :)

Love

Elder Thayne

Week 12 - Thanksgiving and finally teaching more regularly!

So for my first month here we pretty much just tracted around all the time, but now since we've actually found some people, it's so nice to actually have appointments every once and a while!

I know what you mean about the "eternal perspective" idea. I've definitely caught a glimpse of that on my mission as I've thought about the sacrifice that this is. In an eternal perspective, these 2 years are well worth the blessing it is to share the restored gospel. But it is often hard to keep that eternal perspective.

Glad to hear Thanksgiving at the Thayne home was a success! I'm also glad to hear that you're getting "swoll" ;) I miss those days when I could go to the gym everyday and work on my own "swoll".

 We did get another lesson with Hna Lyon's friend. We actually gave her a church tour on Thursday which turned out way better than I expected. Usually we are supposed to have a member there to give the tour with them, but we couldn't find anyone to do it so I was kinda stressed about that. Not to mention I hadn't practiced my church tour very much so I was worried about remembering how to say all the things I needed to say. But everything went well, and then afterwards we taught her a quick Plan of Salvation lesson. She doesn't seem to understand very well. She said she'll start coming to church but we still haven't seen them there. J. and C. are still showing a lot of interest. It's just a hard situation because J. works every day from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. and C. works every day from 3 p.m to 1 a.m, so it is going to be hard to teach them together. We might have to end up just going twice a day and teaching them individually. It is also hard because they have a strong desire to come to church and see what it's like, but they can't because of their work schedule. We invited them to pray that the Lord would give them a way to attend church and they told us they would. 

The highlight of the week for me was thanksgiving. We had the whole day off and it was nice to get a break.  Yeah it was definitely weird to have a thanksgiving away from family.  We started out with a nice breakfast at Denny's with everyone in our zone and then we went and played a turkey bowl :) it was really cold, but after running around for a while, I warmed up enough. Then we ate at our branch president's house and it was way good! He's such a fun guy and he loves the missionaries. He's actually from AF but he hasn't lived there for many years now. Then we had a dinner appointment at a members house. We eat at Cristina's house every Friday, but this week she had us over for thanksgiving instead. It was a lot of fun to have Thanksgiving here, but I definitely miss Thanksgiving at home! I got your thanksgiving box and I LOVED it! There was some sticky syrup that got on a few things but it wasn't too bad ;) All those leaves that you guys wrote notes on made me tear up. Thank you so much.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Cristina's House

Something I learned this week is how important it is to have patience as a missionary. Patience with your investigators, your companion, the weather, and much much more. It's definitely hard to be patient and it's something I have always struggled with, but I can see that I am learning to be more and more patient each day. 

On p-days we usually just go to the church and play basketball or volleyball with all the other missionaries in our zone so that's what I have planned.  It has actually warmed up a bit in the past couple of days, but it's still pretty dang cold. The thermals help a ton! Thank you! 

So I don't know if you have seen the church's new Christmas video "He is the Gift", but if not you should all go see it! It's only about 2 minutes long and it is quite powerful. We have started using this video as a way to talk to people about Christ in order to find more people to teach. Since so many people have smart phones now days, we even just ask people if we can watch the video right there at the door. We have already seen some success with this as the first person we showed it too invited us back to talk some more next week! I'm hoping this will help bring people closer to Christ through the winter season. I hear it is the hardest time for missionary work. 

Thank you so much for your prayers and your support! You're in my prayers every day and I love you so much! Happy Holidays!

Love,

Elder Thayne

We're spot on with our Christmas spirit :)  We found this tree in a closet. It was probably left here by some previous missionaries.

Sporting a tie mom bought for me for Halloween...a little too short, but looks great under sweaters!

Week 11 - Feeling so blessed for opportunities but would love some people to teach!

It is WAY cold here and it is always so windy. It actually warmed up the last couple of days so right now it's not too bad. 

Thanksgiving is so soon and I can't wait!  Yeah we actually got invited to 5 different thanksgiving dinners, but I think we're just gonna accept a couple of them. One of the members cooking for us said she's gonna give us a Mexican thanksgiving. I don't really know what to expect, but I'm excited! I definitely have a ton to be grateful for. Especially after seeing the people here. There are a lot of people living in poverty and struggling just to get by, and I'm so blessed to have the opportunities I have been given. 

This week has been OK. We had a lesson with a friend of Hna. Lyons.  Her friend is a non-member christian who came to the baptism of the Lyons' kids a couple weeks ago, and when we talked to them they seemed way excited to listen and invited us to come and teach them. We were looking forward to teaching this lesson SO much. So when we got there, we were expecting to be teaching her whole family, but her husband was asleep because I guess he works all night, and her kids didn't really want to listen. So we ended up just teaching her. We taught the lesson of the Restoration, and it went SO bad. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't organized and there wasn't really any spirit there either. We asked her to be baptized at the end of the lesson and she just straight up said no because she had nothing telling her that this was true. It was really discouraging to hear that. We were both so excited to teach the lesson and we had such high expectations, and it just bombed. Luckily, she agreed to meet with us again some other time and she said she is going to come to church to see what it's like. Hopefully at church the Spirit of the Lord's house will confirm the truth to her. 

On a happier note, we did find a couple who seems pretty interested in learning more. Their names are J. and C., and they are Catholic. We were talking, and C. asked us why bad things happen in the world, so we decided to teach the about the Plan of Salvation.  We talked about the Atonement and what happens after this life and stuff like that and they were both asking so many questions. It was great because they both seemed to have a lot of interest in understanding our message. Then, near the end of the lesson C. asked us how we are supposed to know which of all the churches we have today is the right one. That was the perfect question for us to set up a second appointment to teach about the Restoration! So we have an appointment with them on Friday and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it goes a lot better than the other one. 

That's pretty much it for this week. We're just still trying to find people to teach. We just have to keep pleading to the Lord that He will send us to someone who has been prepared for this message.

I love you so much and thank you so much for all your prayers and support! And Happy Birthday Mom!! I hope it was a good one! Only one more birthday without your favorite son ;)

Love,

Elder Thayne

Week 10 - Blessing others through the priesthood

I am feeling much better this week. I actually woke up Tuesday morning and pretty much all of my sinus pressure went away over night! Missionary work is wayyyyy better when you're not sick.  

J. is still struggling. He seems to think that if he gets baptized he has to be perfect and he can't have any fun anymore. It's hard to help him understand the happiness he will receive from this gospel. L. is doing really well. She would progress much better in a different circumstance, but she seems to like having us over and she feeds us every once and a while. We try to get referrals from members as often as possible. Usually it is just a referral to a less-active friend or something. Something I didn't realize about missionary work is that it isn't just about finding people and teaching investigators. A big part of it is teaching less-active members. That's something that we were working on a lot this week. We actually had a couple less-active members come to church yesterday, so it felt good to know that our visits helped them return to church this week.

I was asking him how they determine which door approach they will use.  We mostly focus on the Restoration when we teach at the door, unless we feel that the Plan of Salvation is something that they need. Tracting is pretty tough, and even more so now that it's so cold! (3 degrees today) 

I was telling him how I met Sister Lyons online.  She is a sister in his area who has been feeding him and watching over him.  She is such a sweet lady!  Her 2 children were baptized this past Saturday.  Hermana Lyons is so nice! (Hermana is the word for sister, but it feels weird to say sister). She is always taking such good care of us and making sure we've got everything we need. Ever since she started talking to you she always tells everyone that "Elder Thayne's mom is the sweetest lady". Hermana Lyons is such a strong member of the church. If I didn't know her story I never could guess she was inactive. It just goes to show how much people can change and the happiness that the gospel can bring to their life.

That's so fun that you guys get to host thanksgiving! Oh good times. Too bad the Hess side isn't all that much into basketball so you won't have the traditional game of speed ;) 

To use the Internet we just go to a library downtown. 

This is the view of Indianapolis from the Library where I type my emails

I asked him the difference between a zone and a district...I can never quite remember how all that works.  A zone is made up of 2 or 3 different districts in an area. The zone leaders are leaders over all those missionaries. A district is a smaller group of missionaries. Like, my district is just the Spanish speaking missionaries. I don't really know how to explain it.

Probably the most interesting thing I've eaten so far is cactus. We had it from a Taqueria (taco shop) and it was actually really good!  Hermana Lyons does cook some really good food! I love eating at her house!

This week was pretty slow. We're still trying to find a solid person to teach and progress in the gospel. We have gotten a lot of return appointments this week so we'll see how that goes. 

I had the opportunity to stand in the circle for the confirmation of Hermana Lyons' kids. It was a sweet experience. I love how in the prayer it says "I say unto you receive the Holy Ghost".  We truly must choose to receive the Holy Ghost in our lives. It is not a passive action. We have to invite the Spirit and strive to let it dwell in us. 

Elder Schoeneman and I had a great experience this week! On Friday we got a text from a member in our branch that said her non-member friend needed a blessing. Her son in El Salvador had just had an operation and she wanted a blessing of comfort. I gave my first blessing in Spanish and it was way scary! Everything went OK though and she said it helped a lot. Then later we were at a members house eating dinner (we go to her house every Friday and it's my favorite meal appointment of the week). We were there for like 20 minutes and then got a call from our zone leaders saying that a member has a son who was in the ICU and she wanted someone to go and give him a blessing. So we had to leave our dinner appointment early and drive to the hospital. Now I have to admit I was a little upset we had to leave that dinner appointment early because I look forward to it so much. We got to the hospital and found the guys room and he was asleep. His mom wasn't there but she told us over the phone that he had been put on some pretty intense drugs so he would be pretty out of it. We went in to give him the blessing and as soon as I put the oil on his head he opened up his eyes and he was pretty alert for the whole thing.  Elder Schoeneman gave the blessing and afterwards the man was so thankful and happy that we had come. On the way out of the hospital we called his mom and told her how it went. She was so happy to hear it went well and how glad he was that we came. She started crying because of how happy she was and it made me feel really good to know that we could help. After that I wasn't really worried at all about missing that dinner appointment because I was so happy to be able to help. 

Well that's all for today! Thank you so much for all your support and your prayers. I love you and I'll keep you all in my prayers! I'll talk to you next week!

Love, 

Elder Thayne