January 21, 2014

Hey Thorne Fam!

Brr! Hello from freezing cold Morehead! We've got about 2-3 inches of snow out this way and it's still snowing! But don't worry, we are staying safe and driving even safer. We are very blessed to have so many people who are watching out for us. :)

As for investigators: we have 6! Chris, Yoyo, Michael, Connie, Maddie and Harley.

So first off, Connie, Maddie and Harley. Connie is the grandparent of Maddie and Harley and she has guardianship over them. They are doing so well! Maddie and Harley came to church and they really seemed to enjoy it. Harley especially. We are meeting with them again this week and we've already brought up baptism. This week we are going to try and get a bap date with them. At least for Maddie and Harley. :)

Yoyo came to church! We haven't been able to teach another lesson so she won't be getting baptized this week... but she is still set on getting baptized and loved church! So we are hopefully going in to reset the date this week.

Michael also came to church! We met with him yesterday and brought up baptism again. He says that he wants to make sure that he makes this decision for himself and not because of anyone else so he is still praying about it. I'm actually really proud of him for making this decision. I know that he will get baptized eventually, he feels it. And when he does, he won't ever waver. :)

Chris wasn't able to come to church. They actually had to put their family cat down on Saturday and  then they slept in, so it was a crazy weekend for them. But we have another lesson with him tonight and Bishop is coming! As long as he doesn't miss church again, he should be good to go for his baptism February 2!

As for your email:

1) The mural is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Oh my goodness! Gpa Ralph! You're so incredible! I can't wait to see the finished product. :)

2) Sounds like everyone is doing awesome! Lots of fun adventures this week! I'm glad to hear the everyone is safe and sound. :)

3) I'm not sure about Matthew 9. I'll study into that and get back to you next Monday.

4) I actually do know God's Greatest Creation. We get 2 hours of mormon.org time each week and we usually watch Mormon Messages on it. That's one of the new ones and it's so cool! Bro Curry is actually making us a DVD of all of the Mormon Messages. :)

5) Have fun in San Diego Daddy! Say hi to the sun for me!

As for my spiritual thought:

This week I've been spending all my free time reading the Book of Mormon, trying to finish it so that I can start on the Gospels. I actually finished Alma today! For me this week, it has been really interesting to read through all of the war chapters. I don't really know the last time I read them all consecutively and it was really very interesting to see how the war's all fit together. The first thing I learned is that I'm not sure I look up to Moroni as much as I used to.... in his chapters it rarely ever mentions the Lord's name and a lot of the time it says, "Moroni won this battle, Moroni got this city back." And he kind of seems to have quite the temper, especially with Pahoran. But as I read through Helaman's letter to Moroni (Alma chapter 56-58) I realized how incredible Helaman is. He is constantly attributing all that he did to God. Constantly. And that brings me to the second thing I learned. You know Alma 56: 47-48. It's about the 2000 stripling warriors and how they did not doubt their mother's knew it. Well, I didn't realize how amazing those boy's faith was until I put that story in context. Apparently these boys are being chased by a huge Lamanite army and if they stop, they will be over taken and surely die. But suddenly the Lamanite army stops chasing them. Helaman then comes to these boys and says, "Okay, either they stopped because Antipus's (good guy) army caught up to them and they may need our help or it's a trap and they are waiting for us to turn around so that they can take us down. It is your choice my sons. We could be walking into a trap or Antipus may really need us. What do you want to do?" It's then that they say, "Let's turn around. We trust that our God is with us an he will not suffer that we should fall. So let us go forth." As I read through that, I got chills. What incredible faith and courage that these young men had. And as they go back, Antipus is just about to fall into the hands of the Lamanites and they get there literally in the nick of time. Because they trusted in God. I would invite each of us to read through this story and then ponder on what you would have done in that situation. Where does your faith, courage and trust stand? And are you willing to do what you need to, to get it to where it needs to be?

Cool thoughts from this week. :) Love you all eternally!!!
Sister Thorne

 Yes, yes that is a squirrel. Yes, yes I am cutting it's leg off. It's called "working it up" and it's a Hill Billy thing. No, it's not weird. It's cool! :D

 This is Smiley. Well, his real name is Jordan. But as you can see, he is ALWAYS smiling and giggling. Never have a I seen a man giggle more than our dear Smiley. And last Sunday was his birthday! So this was his bday party with our dear Emily who planned it all. We didn't have any bday candles... so he just blew out a normal candle. :)

 I don't even have words.... welcome to Kentucker y'all.

We had a blood drive yesterday at the church and the Amish came again! I got to see Katie and Susie! The incredibly tall Elder is our district leader Elder Behling. His family owns a huge farm so he was SO excited to see a horse again! And he talked farm with all the Amish people. He fit right in!