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