Week 101

May 27, 2014 at 1:17 PM

Amigos!!!

So, no one at church for us today, dad, but we keep hoping and working.  Congrats to Juston on all the hurrah for Israel going on.  I didn't know y'all were going camping.  Good stuff.  

Life's good.  as always.  

We had a beautiful memorial day yesterday, and we had a crazy adventure.  So, we went mountain biking with President again.  Another 8 elders joined us.  So, another Elder and myself were the sweepers, so we followed in back to make sure no one got left behind.  There was one Elder who was struggling a little bit, so we got separated from the main group.  When we got to this fork in the road, we asked these other bikers who were fixing a flat at the fork, which way the big group had gone.  They said left, so left we went.  Too make what could be a very long story shorter, left was not the correct direction.  So instead of just heading back out for a few miles they way we had come in, we took this crazy 8.2 mile loop.  We were already out of water, and our struggling Elder had even less energy than before; however, we didn't know that we had gone the long and wrong way until after this was all over.  But seriously, it was one of the craziest adventures I have ever been on.  I'll just tell you a few highlights, but this was an amazing and intense experience, but also spiritual in some ways.  We had some moments where I felt like an early pioneer.  My saliva got thicker and thicker; I started getting a head ache.  My lips got really dry, and I felt drained and exhausted, and there was no end in sight.  Finally, we had another pioneer experience where 2 elders came back on the trail and found us, exhausted and low on hope.  They stayed behind with the struggling Elder and sent us along so we could just power through to the end.  The Elder told us that we had like 40 minutes left though when we met and my heart sunk.  But we started going.  Eventually, the other elder with me passed on ahead and I was alone, biking in the woods, dehydrating.  Several times, I just couldn't go any further, and I had to stop and I just draped myself over my bike.  At one point, I tried to swing my leg off my bike, and both legs seized up and cramped and I couldn't do anything about it.  I just fell into the side on some pine straw and rotten wood, hoping that the ticks wouldn't crawl  in me.  I just had to lay there, and eventually, I crawled to the trail and laid all the way down.  I just couldn't go anymore.  I probably laid there for like 15-20 minutes.  I think I fell asleep for part of it.  I was having periodic conversations with Heavenly Father, and I had a bunch of random weird thoughts going through my head, like "what would I do if my family needed me?"  I had Romans 8:31 float through my head.  And somehow, I was granted the strength to count to 3, stand up and keep moving.  I felt some heavenly mental encouragement as I went, especially in a few cases where I just wanted to get off my bike again.  I felt so dehydrated and drained.  All I had for lunch was a powerbar at 12:30.  We started biking at 1:30, and because of our detour, we didn't get out of the forest until 7:00 at night.  President had gone down to the convenience store at bought Gatorades, waters, and candy bars, so when I came out, I just sat down and started drinking water.  I might have been semi-delirious.  It was hard in the forest because I didn't have an end in sight, nor did I know how much longer I had, but I knew that I didn't have any water or food, and I wasn't sure if my body would have the capability of continuing.   It had nothing left to burn.  I probably burned well over 2000-2500 calories... and the longer I was in there, the less energy I would have.  Hope was hard to come by, but I asked Heavenly Father to give me strength.  I told Him I couldn't do this by myself.  It was a crazy experience, but an incredible and memorable one.  We definitely bonded as missionaries.  Oh, and as a side note, I probably went over my handlebars 4 or 5 times.  I ran straight into a tree and twisted my ankle on it before sliding down the slope in a clump.  I wish I had some of these on video.  For example, one of them, which has left a huge bruise on my hip, I was going down this slope; I picked up a lot of speed, and then my feet lost the pedals; I was semi-flailing, managed to snake between 2 large trees before losing my balance at the same time of hitting my brakes and I superman-ed at a significant speed.  I landed straight on my hip and then proceeded to plummet forward several more feet before I came to a complete stop by kicking a tree stump with my ankle.  Groaning, I stood up and walked it off . . . for we had a long way to go :)  Now mom, don't freak out too much; I'm still alive, so all is well as manifested by me typing this email. ;)

So, we're teaching this ex-Baptist preacher, who basically forsook Christianity as a whole, and I have an analogy to describe the difficulty of helping someone who once professed such great faith and then forsook it, to regain faith.  It's a lot more difficult than helping someone grow in faith or build from scratch.  It would be as if I asked you to eat this chocolate chip cookie I had made, but I had poisoned it, so it made you sick for the next month.  At the end of the month of sickness, I came back to you with another Chocolate cookie, professing that this one was better and wouldn't make you sick.  What is the likelihood of you taking that cookie, slim to none.  Why? Because of your life-shattering negative experience in the past.  He's super nice though, and he said the prayer at the end, which was a shock to his girlfriend, but he said the Mormons asked him to :)  But in his prayer, he said ," Dear God, the elders are cool."  That's how he started it :)  It was great.  We left him with a ton of chapters to read in the Book of Mormon, so hopefully he'll read them.  We're going back over there this Wednesday evening.  Life's good.

Not much else to say.  We're striving to find new investigators, ones that are willing to progress/have more than 1 lesson before dropping us like a stuck pig.

Thanks for being the best family, ever :) Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 100

May 20, 2014 at 9:52 AM

Hey family!!,

Soooooo, I received 99 from mom, one from Katherine Gibson, and 1 from Rachel.  Thanks a bunch!!  

So what first, So, last week, I think it was last week, we were...actually, I think it was before last email but I didn't tell you...anyways, we were teaching that lesson after the catholic lady and I was unfairly bombarded by a bajillion mosquitoes that had strategically targeted an un-defendable location on my body...my ankles.  We were sitting at this table next to a swamp and as they say, sacrifice brings forth the blessings, well, my ankles were sure as bedrock sacrificing themselves.  I got bit so many times that the little buggers were biting bites.  I must have had like 40 mosquito bites in a 2 inch diameter circle and it was through my socks to boot!  Seriously, I should have taken pictures.  By the time we got home, you couldn't even see any distinguishable bites; my ankles were sooo swollen, especially my left one.  And the thing was, they destroyed my ankle so bad that we surpassed the itchy stage and went straight to the painful stage.  No joke, it felt like I had sprained my ankle or at least twisted it.  It actually was painful to stand on it and put weight on it for like 2 days!  I was getting a little worried for awhile on the 2nd night because it was still swollen and I felt occasional shooting pains up my lower calf and then I felt some weird pains in my quad.  I thought I was getting some sort of infection and I was going to call the mission nurse the following day, but it felt a lot better. Weird, right.  Now that the swelling is down I can see several of the remaining bites.  Crazy stuff.  

Also mom, you are exactly right on the cleanliness invites the spirit principle.  That's doctrine, more than just a thought :)  

What else, well,

Elder Graham and I have had some great lesson with our members here.  Really inspiring and productive.  We are excited to see some good things come from it.  

The Lord blessed us with some miracles on Saturday.  We were able to find 2 new investigators.  1 came after trying to visit a former investigator on this country road.  She was busy and "unable" to talk with us.  We only had a few minutes before we had to leave for dinner, but we decided to go across the street to this pretty red log cabin style home.  We were just going to knock on the door, but it turns out she was on her porch.  Her dog was on the porch too, and she started barking at us (the dog, not the lady this time ;) ) and then the lady put the dog inside.  We started talking with her and she asked us if we would like to sit down.  Of course!  We had a great conversation and mini-lesson, introducing her to the Book of Mormon.  It was a great.  She is from Texas and seemed to be open to learning more.   Okay, so that incredible experience took us to 5:25, and dinner was at 5:15....we were going to be grossly late. :( except that during the lesson, I got a text in my pocket.  It was our dinner saying the wife was running a little behind so we could come at 5:30 if we hadn't already left yet.  We arrived at dinner at 5:30.  Ah yeah, Double miracle status.  I love it :)  

The other gentlemen we started teaching has several younger children and he used to play semi-pro football, he's on a biking club, and is awesome :)  We're excited to teach his family and help them see how beneficial the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored church will be for his family.  

Church was good too.  President and Sister Bernhisel spoke and then they did the 3rd hour combined with the youth.  It was great.  2 funny stories about this are 1, President asked us to come up and do a role play with him, so we did and in the midst of the role play, I was saying something where I wanted to say this character's name who was laying his mulch, and I almost called him Bro. Bernhisel, but then last second I switched it and I called him Marc.  Everyone started laughing but we managed to keep the role play going.  Even President and I chuckled a little.  Not often do I call my mission president by his first name :)  The second thing was Sister Bernhisel asked us a ridiculously vague Guess-what-I'm-thinking" question that was going to make Elder Graham and myself look like fools, so I told her.  "Sister Bernhisel, I'm not going to lie...that is a ridiculously vague question."  haha :)  Tis funnies. 

Well, that's a well unorganized wrap of this week.  I hope you enjoyed another episode of "What goes on behind Elder Thornton's Blue Eyes."  Please join us again for another new episode featuring The Ragin' Random Rhinoceros once more next week.  

Signing off now, 

Elder Thornton

ps. I love y'all

pps. Any update on work opportunities?

Week 99

Okay, book it.

May 14, 2014 at 2:10 PM

So, family, twas good to talk with y'all this weekend.  

Y'all look good, though.  Which is always good.  

I received letter 98, one from grams, and I'm not sure if I ever said, but I recently received one from Kayla Nelson O'Dwyer; if she happens to see this, I also sent her a letter that I wrote about 3 months ago, but in the transfer, I forgot to send it and didn't find it until a couple weeks ago.  I hope it got there.

What to tell you.  

Okay, the Lord is seriously the best.  My new companion is Elder Graham as I have told you, and he is seriously the best.   We get along SOOOO well and we are completely on the same page in our desires to serve the Lord and be exactly obedient.  We help each other reach higher instead of one of us having to drag the other one along.  We laugh all the time and have so much fun, but we also work so hard, and we are excited to see really good things happen here.  He is such a loving person; I don't think there can be a single missionary that doesn't like him.  It's such a tender mercy of the Lord to finish my final 6 weeks with a companion like him.  I can't thank the Lord enough.  We work in great unity together, and we both can be completely open with each other.  We learn and grow and become better.  It's incredible.  

Last night, we had 2 wonderful opportunities to teach lessons on the spot to people we met in this apartment complex.  One lady was on her porch, sweeping.  She is from Newark, NJ.  She has 5 sons, and it was incredible talking with her.  She is Catholic and she is very devout, but we were able to share with her some scriptures from the Book of Mormon and then we were able to give her a copy.  She said she definitely would read it and we are welcome to come back and talk with her more.  We plan on going by later this week.  Another man we met, we talked with for a very long time.  He has had a powerful conversion experience where he has come to learn His Savior and he strives to "witness" to others and help them feel how he did.  He would seriously be a great member.  Sometimes, I wish that our membership as a whole viewed their relationship with Christ with the same love and gratitude, so much so that sharing it with others becomes a part of who they are.  We had an incredible conversation with him and taught him about the restoration.  It didn't end up as great as we would have hoped, but and nevertheless, we still have hope.  He doesn't really see the need for more "bible," and the whole concept that the bible is missing things and/or has been corrupted in part over time is heresy in his eyes as the bible is the "infallible word of God."  But we tried to encourage him with all our soul and energies that he would just give it a chance and keep his heart open.  I hope he really does.  I really do.  We'll see...

Elder Graham and I have been talking a lot about hope recently because sometimes it's hard to view every situation as an isolated event and not allow past and recent experiences to taint our expectations for the results of the next individual's response.  We experience a lot of straight up rejection in the Falls Lake area.  The demographics here are very comfortable.  Very few people immediately see 2 20 year old "kids" and think, man, I wonder if they could teach me something about Jesus.  We have to be able to meet people in a setting where their hearts are softened and prepared to hear the word.  There are some people out there that when we speak with them on the street or at their door, they will be ready (and we're doing everything we can to find them too), but we are really trying to work with our members and help them see the irreplaceable role they play in this work.  It's a combination of always staying optimistic and hopeful with the members, enthusiastic and excited, without sugarcoating everything so much that they think they are unneeded.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt to say that we are struggling to find investigators. :)

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to pick up a Visa-Waiter missionary who has been serving in our mission for 9 months and take him to the airport to fly to Sao Paulo for 2 weeks of intensive language immersion before he heads off to Cuiaba Brazil to complete the remainder of his mission.  It was a fun experience, but it's sad to see people go.  He is a missionary that I served around when I was in Fayetteville, and if we gave awards out as missionaries, he would receive the most improved award.  It is incredible to see how much he grew over the course of a few months.   You could tell he didn't really want to be here just by briefly interacting with him.  Then, a few months later, I went on exchange with him, and I was astounded.  He had changed so much!!!  He said that he finally had accepted the Lord's will, and though he still wanted to go to Brazil, he served his heart out while the Lord gave him time here in North Carolina.  He grew up so much and is such a changed man; I know the Lord knew what He was doing.  His time here will dictate the direction of the rest of his life, and we (Elder Graham and I) know that he is going to be able to do even greater things for that mission as well.  

I don't know exactly why I told you that story, but maybe it will help someone out there that reads this :)

I think that is all.  Mother, I did regain possession of my retainer, so you may once more rest at ease :)  Thanks for being such a ridiculously good mother...seriously though!  Y'all are the best parents ever.  Enjoy life.  As always.  

Love,

Elder Patty

Week 98

buen hecho, amigos!

May 7, 2014 at 2:22 PM

Good afternoon, family.

My brain is so fried right now.  We got up at like 4:45 this morning to take the departing missionaries to the airport.  Then we traveled to Durham for a Zone Training Meeting.  I feel exhausted.  My new companion is Elder Graham.  He's from Atlanta, GA.  He's awesome.  Decidedly, we are going to be best friends.  Enough Said.  We get along super well so far.

So, exciting news for the week.  1st) we found 4 new investigators last week!  Hizzah :) 

Now for the less than exciting news for the week.  3 of those investigators semi/straight-up hot-potatoed us :( aka, they dropped us.  And the sad thing is, or I should say, 1 sad thing is that it was a ridiculously good lesson.  They were loving what we shared, and the mom even started answering some of the son's questions and 2 of the 3 committed to coming to hear Elder Andersen speak (I'll tell you that story later).  On Sunday, we received a text saying they weren't interested anymore.  :( :(  We're in the process of trying to recover the situation, so hopefully, things work out...

So, now, back to the exciting news for the week.  Elder Neil L. Andersen came to Raleigh for Stake Conference.  Originally, it was supposed to be Elder Perry, but he had come down with a persistent cough after a long 10 day trip around the United States, so Elder Andersen took his place.  But because Elder Andersen didn't just have a 10 day trip and he's not 91, he wanted to have a meeting with the missionaries if we could.  So, President Bernhisel found out at about 11:00 Thursday night from Elder Piper of the Seventy, and we found out Friday, and in 1 day, we coordinated everything to get 230 missionaries to Raleigh on Saturday at 2.  There we were blessed and privileged to learn from an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as Elder Piper, Elder Martinez, and Elder Parker of the Seventy.  It was great. (That's an understatement)  Elder Andersen was so humble and real.  It was awesome.  He was also super funny.  One of my favorite things he said was at the very beginning.  It was when he was explaining to us how he ended up being the one to come to our mission.  He was in an elevator on Thursday with Elder Perry and Elder Ballard, and Elder Ballard said that he probably shouldn't go to Raleigh because of his cough, and Elder Perry asked out loud, rhetorically, who could take my spot.  This was Elder Andersen's weekend off, and Elder Andersen said that he has learned to listen and follow when the spirit speaks to him, and the spirit spoke to him that he needed to take Elder Perry's spot.  But my favorite part of this is that the alternate activity that Elder Andersen was going to do this weekend wasn't hit up the rich snooty people parties, or go on some extravagant vacation and spend a ton of money, he was hoping to have some time to mow his lawn and get the mulch ready.  It's absolutely incredible how humble these men are and how normal they are.  The Mormon "culture" tries to put them on pedestals, but they don't want to be there.  They are also ridiculously busy.  

He really emphasized building people's faith and not focusing so much on the differences in religious beliefs but in the similarities, and if we do that, the differences will be addressed in a spiritual manner in the right timing and manner.  Here in the South, as we focus on our similarities of faith in Christ, we can then teach them more about their Savior through the Book of Mormon.

He then spoke in our special stake conference on Sunday.  

I also had an incredible experience with exercising faith.  I was here in Falls Lake with a different missionary, on exchange.  We were unable to set any appointments up for that night, but I was fired up from our Leadership Council meeting we had and also I was with another really good missionary, and we made a goal and committed it to the Lord, that we would teach a lesson that night.  As we got in the car to go to a Less-active member we have been trying to contact, I had the impression to go somewhere else first.  We did.  We talked to the man, but he was sick, but he gave us his phone number, but there were these 3 girls next door.  2 were like 8 and 10, and one was older.  She was the baby-sitter, and it turns out, she was really open and interested, and we were able to teach her a lesson right there on the spot, and it was amazing!  Wow, testimony/conversion builder for sure.

Thanks for all you do, family.

Love you tons,

Elder Thornton