Week 104

No Email from Patrick this week.  He is flying home tomorrow, Wednesday, June 18th.  Can't wait to welcome him Home.  He served an unbelievable and amazing mission in North Carolina.  I hope you enjoyed following him during these past two years.

Week 103

My Dear Family

Monday June 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM

Hola family,

This week has been really good.  Elder Graham is a machine!  He's such a good missionary.  We have really stepped up our game, especially in terms of asking referrals from everyone, and we received about 18 referrals last week, many of which came from members.  It was great.  We also found 5 new investigators, including a Colombian lady who wants to recruit us onto her life insurance company team.  Nice lady though :)

We taught this one family this week, and it was great!  The 4 kids actually sat on the couch with the mom for most of the lesson, quietly.  The 2 younger ones got up part way through, but it was great none the less :)  It is always amazing to be able to teach a family.  We are really hoping and praying that everything continues to go well and that they will be able to attend church this next Sunday.  Oh, as a side note, just in case you aren't going to recognize me enough as it is . .. .Y'all might want to sit down for this one.  Elder Graham and I, at the prompting of myself, volunteered to sing an A Capella Duet this next Sunday in Sacrament Meeting... Okay has everyone started breathing again.  I know, I even astounded myself.  :)  

Everything still hasn't sunk in yet.  Let me paint you a picture of my mind.  I feel like I'm standing in front of a dam that is holding back all the water.  The dam is slowly disintegrating, and I'm doing everything I can to plug the holes until next Wednesday, when the rushing waves will surely overtake me.  Or another example...I am standing there, in the middle of the Sahara desert, doing everything I possibly can to keep a pool of water from evaporating by covering it with my hands...

I don't know if that correctly elucidates the state of my mind, but in other words, I know that there is a looming upheaval that is about to occur, and all I'm trying to do right now, is simply push off addressing it until addressing it won't cause the rest of my work that I need to do to become disastrous.  AKA, I can't address it now, so I simply keep pushing it off, but eventually, my brain will explode :)  Happy thoughts ;)

So, on another note, I received 1 from grams and #102.   Also, congrats on your new calling.  :)  You're the man...well...sorta :)

I don't think I really have much else to say this week.  We have 2 exchanges with other missionaries on Tuesday and Wednesday; President is coming proselyting with us Thursday evening, and Elder Corbridge addresses us Friday (and Interviews Elder Graham and me.  This week is going to be a whirlwind week.  

We had our 1st transfer training meeting this past week as well.  It went really well.  That's a really fun meeting, getting to be with all the missionaries that we picked up a month prior and their trainers.  That transfer 7 sisters and 2 elders came in. so we had 15 sisters (one trio) and 4 elders.  Then on Wednesday we had our zone training meeting where the zone leaders asked Elder Graham and myself to give our instruction that we gave at the mission leadership council meeting last Friday.  It went really well, I would say even better than the first time :)  Good stuff.  Also, as a side note, you sure do bear your testimony a lot in this period of life :)  

We have found a lot of great potential investigators also.  One great experience we had this last week was when after dinner with one of my favorite families in the ward, we asked for referrals and they had one neighbor that had moved in recently, so we were going to go by and visit them.  Well, as we left their home, and the family walked out with us because the little daughter wanted to show us how she could ride a bike without training wheels, the neighbor walked by with her mail.  The wife of the family we were with began a conversation and we stood there all talking together for about 10-15 minutes.  It was a great experience that could have gone on the Hastening the Work website.  Members, Missionaries and Non-Members all together in the same place...that's what this work is all about.  We told the lady about what we do and then the father in the family, who is awesome, invited them to come over to dinner sometime when we come.  Because of these amazing experiences...all future invitations from this family to this neighbor will be infinitely easier. why? because they have already been naturally introduced to missionaries and know that we don't bite too hard nor do we stink too much :)  Then, to make a great story fantasticer...another 2 kids were playing outside a couple doors over, so we all went over and started talking with them, and then the mom came outside, and we started talking with her, us and the members, and now we have 2 families that are so much more prepared to accept invitations into their member friend's home to hear a message from set apart representatives of Christ.  Good stuff :) 

I got to be with Elder Bagley, my companion from Fayetteville, from Saturday to Sunday.  I love Elder Bagley.  He is such a good missionary and was such a good companion.  

Well, that's a wrap, my brothers and my sisters.

If you would like to email next week, I might probably have the chance to look at them, but if you don't email, that's okay too; it won't hurt my feelings...too bad ;)

Love y'all so much

Elder Thornton #1