Week 90 - Going to the temple with recent converts is great!

This week was great!! We've continued seeing miracles and we're excited about the people we're working with! 

We're still working with J and E and they're progressing well. E came to church on Sunday, but J couldn't come. Last week, Estefani was saying that she didn't want to get married, but we talked to her about it and she understands now that she needs to do it in order to be baptized and keep the commandments. J says he wants to be baptized, but we're not sure exactly how committed he is. We're worried he is just doing it because E is doing it, but we're going to talk to them today and we'll find out. 

A, the other person that wants to be baptized, is doing alright. She didn't come to church because she told us she had a ride there, but it ended up not working out. So this week we'll be sure to ask a member to go pick her up. She's struggling with a lot of mistakes and things that happened in her past, and she has a hard time letting them go. As a missionary, we can do our very best to help people with things like that, but in the end, it's up to them to do the things necessary to use the Atonement and trust in the Savior. It's hard to see people experience such pain. 

On Saturday, we were able to go to the temple and take the recent converts in our area to go do baptisms for the dead for their first time. It was great!! We took 3 recent converts: Wendy, Audel, and Francisco. They all really liked it and it was great to be able to see them as they did that special work in the temple. After, we were able to attend the baptism of A O, an investigator that Elder Shepherd and I found while serving together almost a year ago. He ended up getting baptized in the Crossroads English ward since his wife doesn't speak Spanish. It was great to see him get baptized!! They had 10 baptisms in that ward that day which is a ton!! Elder Weese, one of my former companions, serves in that ward, so it was great to see their success. 

That's what's happening here in Indy!! Things are going really well and we are seeing progress in the zone. We have one more week in this transfer, so we're going to finish strong!!! I love you Mom! I'll talk to you next week!

Elder Thayne

Week 89 - A week of miracles!

This week was full of so many miracles!! One of them is the fact that Zach will leave five days after I come home! ( Zach got his mission call to Honduras.  Josh will  be home August 19th and Zach will enter the Guatemal MTC on August 24th)  That's such a tender mercy for us. I'm so excited for him and at the same time jealous that he gets to go to a place like Honduras. I gave a talk in Sac. Meeting yesterday and I mentioned Zach's mission call and started tearing up a bit. I'm so proud of him and the decision he's made.

Since you included some facts that you found about Honduras, I'll input what I know about it. 

• Honduras is a dangerous country in some parts, but someone told me yesterday that Comayaguela is one of the safer areas.
• The people there LOVE the missionaries! All the people I know from Honduras tells me that the people there don't harm the missionaries because they know they're sent from God.
• Their food is BOMB!!! 
• Zach will come back speaking some pretty crazy/ugly-sounding Spanish compared to most countries. 
• He will LOVE his mission.
• 
  

I'm so glad he'll be speaking Spanish so we can have some secret combinations together when he returns ;) hehehe

We had a GREAT week!! We found some great people and committed 3 people to baptism!!! Here come the stories:

We had an appointment on Thursday with a lady that told us to come back. We stopped by and she said she was busy, so we thought the Lord must have sent us to that area for a reason, so we knocked the surrounding houses. At the second door we knocked, we found a woman who was really open and welcomed us warmly. She said that she had been visited by the missionaries for 2 different extended periods of time but never got baptized because there were some things she couldn't leave behind.  As soon as she told us where she lived before and what her name was, it clicked in my mind that I taught her when I was being trained in my first area!! She told us that God has been calling her, because the first time the missionaries found her about 3 years ago, she was praying and asking God if He was really there because she didn't think He was listening to her, and the missionaries showed up shortly after. We were both glad to hear that, but then she told us that about 20 minutes before we came, she was praying for the exact same reason that she did 3 years ago. She said she has ignored God too many times and that she's ready to make the commitment to be baptized and join the church. We committed her and her husband to a baptismal date 2 days later for June 25th and we have another appointment with them today.

The other miracle occurred yesterday. We were getting one more hour of tracting in at about 8:00 last night, and we heard a lady yell at us from her backyard. She asked if we had a bible. We said we had one in Spanish and she said that was okay. We walked towards her and she said, "Are you Mormons?" My companion said, "Yeah, are you?" To our surprise, she replied, "No, but I want to be." We were shocked!!! I've never had anyone say that before! We committed her to a date right there and she is preparing to be baptized on June 25th.

Miracles are happening here in Indianapolis! We're so excited about the recent success we've had. It wasn't a coincidence that as a district we were fasting last Monday to find people who we could invite to baptism. The Lord hears our prayers and he answers them according to his time. 

Honestly, I don't remember that conversation with Pres. Christensen in Palmyra, but I know that what he said is true. Obedience brings soooo many blessings. And the more you serve the people and work hard, the greater the love you have for them. 

I love you Mom!! I hope you have a great week! I hope I'll be a good substitute for Zach in 3 months ;) 

Love,
Elder Thayne

Week 88 - Audel's baptism!

This week was great!! We had 6 baptisms in our zone which is awesome! Audel's baptism was on Saturday and it went great! His wife, Wendy, spoke on baptism and she talked about how happy she was to see him join the church and that they are united as as couple. Now we're just praying that we'll be able to work with Wendy's 13 year old sister Y. She's been taught everything and really wants to be baptized, but her dad doesn't want to give her permission to be baptized yet because he thinks she's too young to make that kind of decision. We're praying that his heart will be softened and that he'll see the goodness that comes from the restored gospel. Evidently, my companion and his last companion didn't have a ton of time to tract a lot last transfer, so now that Audel got baptized, we don't really have anybody we're working with super closely... so, we'll just have to hit the pavement and knock a ton of doors!! Should be fun!

This past week we found a sweet family from Guatemala that we're planning to teach on Wednesday and they seem excited to meet with us! They're pretty open so we're hoping we can use that opening to help them feel the spirit of our message and really take interest. It's hard to find those people who are really willing to learn and make the changes necessary to accept the gospel, but when you do, it's a great feeling.

We have a great service opportunity this week! There's a fairly old war veteran in our area who's known the missionaries for about a year now. He goes by Uncle B. He's catholic by tradition, but loves the missionaries, so we go to his house and do service for him every Wednesday. He has a french bulldog named Buddy who is sooooo fun to play with. Uncle B went out of town yesterday, so he asked us to stop by 2 times a day and take care of his dog. It'll be fun!! 

That's pretty much all that's happening here! I hope you guys had a great week and that you're enjoying beautiful California! Love you!!

Elder Thayne

Week 87 - If you are humbly willing to help the Lord, he will use you

It was so great to see you all yesterday and talk with you! I appreciate all the things you shared with me and I'm excited for all the great things happening in the family! I can't believe Zach is receiving his mission call so soon, and I anxiously await the news! 

We had a great week! Our investigator, A, had his baptismal interview yesterday and he's good to go. R is struggling a bit, so we'll see what happens with her. We're excited about things happening in the branch! There's so much growth and it's great to see this unit progress so much since I started my mission here. It was a real treat to hear about all of your missionary efforts and I know that no matter how small the act, it goes a long way. Members are so crucial in this work. 

I talked to you yesterday so I don't really know what to say....

On Friday we had our Mission Leadership Council meeting in Carmel, IN at the mission home. Pres. Cleveland goes home soon and he really emphasized that as leaders in the mission we need to lift the mission with our performance. He mentioned how we can all be much better and do things to inspire the missionaries in our zones. He quoted a talk by Dean M. Davies titled "God Will Use You, God Will Bless You" He said,

Don’t you know that since the beginning of time our Heavenly Father has reached out to those who were average and used them for His purposes?

I know that we all have weaknesses and shortcomings and sometimes we may feel like we're "below average" or "nobody special", but the Lord uses his humble servants and sculpts them into the tools he needs. As long as we are humbly willing to help, he will use us. I love that knowledge!! We also learned a lot about teaching skills from PMG Chapter 10. I have always struggled to develop those skills found in that chapter and it takes constant practice and dedication. But my companion, Elder Porter, is a great teacher and I'm learning a lot from him. 

Sorry, I don't really have much to say since I talked to you yesterday. I love you Mom!! I'm so so so very grateful for all that you have taught me and for the example you've been to me. I can't thank you enough for what you have done for me. Many times throughout my mission, I've thought back on what you taught me and I doubt not that my mother knew it :) I love you so much and I miss you with all my heart. I'm so excited to see you and spend time with you and Dad again, but I will definitely take advantage of my time in the Lord's work.

I love you!!

Elder Thayne

Week 86 - Sanctify yourselves, for tomorow the Lord will do wonders among you

This week was great! It's good to be back in the Zone and I love being here in the White River 2nd Branch again. The branch has grown SO much since I left! There are some great members who are willing to help us. This week we were able to teach 18 lessons with a member present! It was great! The most I ever taught in a week before was 7! 

We have 2 people preparing for baptism for May 14th. One is a 20 year old girl named R M who is now best friends with another 20 year old returned less active from Idaho named S. They have become best friends since they met about 3 weeks ago and R is so excited to be baptized. 

We are also teaching a man in his mid-20's named A who is the husband of a lady that got baptized almost a month ago. A really wants to be baptized too, he just learns kind of slow, so we're trying to meet with him 3 times a week at the least. 

We had a zone meeting on Friday to start off the transfer by setting some zone goals. The theme for our meeting was found in Joshua 3:5 "Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you".  We had a great meeting and set some good goals and I'm sure the zone is really excited for the transfer and the goals we set. 

We're having tons of fun here! My companion, Elder Porter, is from Kaysville, Utah and he's been out only 6 weeks longer than I have. I've never served around him before, so I didn't know what to expect, but we get along really well. We're working hard and time is gonna fly this transfer! 

Other than that, not much is going on. I'm excited to work with the great missionaries in the zone and hopefully we can get a lot of work done! 

I can't believe it's almost Mother's day already! I'll see you next Sunday!! 

Love, Elder Thayne

Me with the Contreras family. I love them :) 

Me with one of my fav members, Bro Rene Rodriguez

With one of my future college roommates who went home yesterday

Week 85 - What Sucess on a misison looks like

Hey Mom!! We had a good week! I got the call from President saying that I will indeed be getting transferred tomorrow and I'm going to Indianapolis to be a Zone Leader in the White River Zone, so I'll be returning to the White River Spanish Branch once again! So now I will have served in every area in that branch. It's been weird only serving in 2 branches my whole mission while other missionaries "branch" out to other branches (haha get it?), but it's good to be able to make such good friends in the branches I have served in. So the zone I'll be over will be twice the size than the one I'm currently in, so it will be a new experience. My companion will be Elder Porter. 

We taught a lesson in jail!! Remember S?? Well he's been in jail for about 5 months and we were thinking about him the other day and we decided to go try and contact him. We went to the Elkhart county jail and set up a video visitation over there. It was only a 20 minute visit via a computer in the jail, but I still spoke through a black telephone like in the movies, so it was pretty legit. We had a good conversation and he said the earliest he'd get out is in June, so we got some contact info from him and hopefully the missionaries can contact him after he gets out. 

This week was great! We got a lot done and were able to teach a lot of lessons, but sadly, still no progression in this area. Sometimes I feel like the Lord of the vineyard in Jacob 5 when he says, "What more could I have done for my vineyard?" Sometimes it feels like we do everything we can and the people still don't change. It gives us a very small glimpse of how our Heavenly Father must feel. 

I know this time of difficulty has been a great learning experience for me and that the Lord wants me to take something from it. I've learned a lot this transfer about what success really is in a mission. There's a page in PMG Ch.1 that talks about success in the mission field and list some points that will be evidences of success throughout the mission. I found it interesting that not a single one of those points talked about baptisms or converts. It talked more about things like:

• Being diligent 
• Feeling the Spirit guide you
• Watching people come closer to Christ
• Serving others
• Loving investigators
• Being exactly obedient
• etc.

I've learned a lot this transfer about success and that just because we don't have baptisms, it doesn't mean we aren't successful. I've worked harder than ever this past transfer and I've been doing my best and although I still have many things I need to improve, I'm confident the Lord is happy with what I did here.

I had the opportunity to share my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday and I testified of the 2 most important things I've learned thus far in my mission: That God loves and knows each one of us personally, and the divine role and purpose of Jesus Christ as our Savior. It was a blessing to be able to share that with this branch that I have come to love so much and it's sad to say goodbye to them. 

I'm looking forward to a new transfer and a new area! I'll learn a lot and grow from the new experiences I'll soon have. 

Have a great week and I'll see you in about a month :)

Love, Elder Thayne

Week 84 - Following through on spiritual guidance

Whaaaat?? A new nephew?? Awesome! I can't wait to meet little Lucas! Man, all my sisters are taking that "multiply and replenish the Earth" commandment to heart for sure. There are so many nephews I need to meet! 

Our week was pretty good! The weather has been beeeeeauuutiful over here! This week it was in the 70's and 80's and I loved it! It was a good change for sure. 

This week was a little frustrating in terms of teaching lessons with members. We've been trying so hard to try to bring a member to every single return appointment, but either the member ends up not coming or the lesson falls through. We had about 7 of them planned this week and only taught one, so that was rough.

We did exchanges again this week, and I always go into exchanges unexcited and not wanting to do it (because I'd selfishly rather be in my own area), but in the end we always have great experiences and end up enjoying it. I went with Elder Reidhead, an English Elder in Elkhart on Thursday. In our mission, Pres. Cleveland expects us to tract at least 2 hours every day, so we did. We didn't really talk to many people in those 2 hours, but we were confident that we had been obedient to the schedule. After those 2 hours, we could have gone on to doing something else, but we decided to tract for one more hour. At the 2nd house, a 17 year old girl named J answered the door. We talked to her about church and stuff and she told us that last week she saw a movie about our church called "Once I Was a Beehive" and she loved it! I'm not sure what that movie is about, but it sure left a good impression on her. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she had so many questions! About halfway through the lesson, I felt the prompting to commit her to a baptismal date. We invited her and she said yes! She's now preparing to be baptized on May 21st. It was a miracle! 

This past weekend we had Stake Conference up here in the South Bend Stake and we had the privilege of having 2 members of the Quorum of the 70 come. Elder Randall K. Bennett was assigned to come to our stake, and he brought with him a newly called 70, Elder Beheshti. They were all great meetings! For the Saturday evening session, Elder Bennett had asked each member of the stake presidency to prepare only a 5 minute talk. When they got to the meeting, he told them to throw all their talks and notes away and to speak by the Spirit. They did so and it was great! But even better was that after every talk, Elder Bennett asked everyone that was willing to share any spiritual impressions they received. Every time somebody would share something, Elder Bennett would ask that person a question such as, "Based on that spiritual guidance you received, what are you going to do?" They would reply and then he always answered back, "When are you going to do it?" I was so inspired by that teaching method! A lot of times we ask people to read or pray or do something to come closer to Christ, but I love the idea of directly asking them when they will complete it. I received a lot of personal revelation during Stake Conference, the most frequent being that I need to be more open to the guidance of the Spirit in my life. 

That's it for the week! We're still working on finding somebody that's willing to progress and accept a baptismal date! It's been tough but we won't give up.

Elder Thayne