February 3, 2014

Hey Thorne Fam!

Holy cow this week has just flown by! I think I say that every week... but this week seriously did! Before I knew it we were at Chris's Baptism Interview and then his baptism! Whoa! But what an amazing week it has been. :)

As for investigators: we have 5 who are progressing Yoyo, Leslie, Tiffany, and Connie and Harley

Yoyo has been reading in both her Chinese and English Book of Mormon but she was out of minutes this week and we tried to drop by and she wasn't home so she wasn't able to come to church or the baptism. We will try and get back in contact with her this week.

Leslie is still progressing wonderfully! She doesn't have a for sure baptism date yet, but she almost came to church, even though Hannah wasn't able to come! We will be meeting them this week and are hoping to set a solid baptism date with Leslie then. She is currently praying to know for herself.

Tiffany went home this weekend and was going to try and come home for church, but then decided to stay home to watch the super bowl instead. But we did set a baptism date with her this week and she seems really solid about it! We taught L2 and discussed why it is so important to know if this church is true, using the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's experience.

Connie and Harley are both reading! They just haven't come to church yet.... Connie is really ill and it's difficult for her to get up in the morning and Harley doesn't like going without her grandma. Maddie is out of the picture for now. She has decided that baptism is not essential to get to heaven and she WILL NOT budge on the idea. At all. She's completely closed up and we're not exactly sure why. :( Hopefully as Connie and Harley can be good example, Maddie will come back around.

Also in the wings, we weren't able to meet with Malcolm and Brittany because of their crazy school schedule, but we are meeting with them today and praying to set a baptismal date!

Christine and Sean, we set a baptismal date with Christine (Sean is LA) and we were hoping to get them to church and the baptism but they didn't make it... but the spirit was so strong in our last lesson! And Christine is still reading from the Book of Mormon. We are meeting with them again this week and getting them to church this Sunday.

As for your email:

1) So if all goes as planned, we will have a baptism nearly every week of March. We have Yoyo Mar 2, Leslie Mar 9, Tiffany and Christine Mar 16, and Connie and Harley Mar 30. Crazy huh?!? I'm hoping and praying that I'll get just one more transfer here... but it probably won't happen. But at least I played my part and am fulfilling the role my Father gave me. :) Michael we still haven't been able to meet with. He seems to be avoiding us. We taught WoW last time so we think it may be that... keep praying for him.  

2) Yes, it did warm up! I was actually warm Saturday and Sunday! And then we woke up this morning to an inch of snow on top of 2 inches of ice. It took forever to scrape off our car this morning and the roads are awful! We've heard rumors that over the next few days we could get up to as much as 13 inches. Kentucky weather... wait 5 minutes and it'll change. Literally. :P

3) Sounds like y'all have had a fun busy week ending with a fun crazy party! I'm sorry the Bronco's lost... though I wasn't even aware they were playing. ;) But still sounds like everyone had fun!

4) Gus is going to IRELAND?!?! And... Chinese speaking?.... That... is definitely a weird combination. I didn't realize there were so many Mandarin speakers in Ireland and Scotland. I will have to tell Sister Saunders though, she will *flip* out!

5) Thank you so much for the thought on the spirit Mom! I am going to print off that quote and post it on my wall so I never forget. And thanks for the encouragement. It was a difficult week, but things always get lighter. The Son always comes again. :)

As for my spiritual thought: Sister LeFevre and I are going to memorize 2 Nephi 4:35 this week. She found this scripture and I just fell in love with it. It says, "Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen." I think it beautifully illustrates 3 principles that I want to work on. First, that God truly is aware of us and will give liberally or gladly to all who ask (James 1:5 which is also a scripture that changed the course of history). He is our Father and is so eager to pour out blessings upon us. We need only to ask. Second, prayer is essential. We must pray always if we expect to be able to get through each day (D&C 10:5). If we want to be able to put on our armor and even deem ourselves ready to face Satan each and every morning, we must always have the shield of prayer girt round about us. Third, God is our rock. He must be our rock (Helaman 5:12). If we are built upon any other stone or foundation, we will surely fall. I would invite each one of you to go and study 2 Nephi 4. There is something to be learned there for each of us. 

Love you all so much! Thank you for the pictures!!! Hope you have an awesome week! 

Love,

Sister Thorne

 Hard at work making cake pops with Tiffany.

 So cute!!! So... turns out that you had to refrigerate the cake pops for 20 minutes after rolling them into little balls and ain't nobody got time for that. So we decided to form them all into one giant penguin! We also added orange eyebrows afterward to make him and owl so he's a penguowl because Tiff LOVES owls. It still tasted good and was so much fun!

 We washed Larry (our car) on Friday because we knew it would be snowing again on Monday and he hasn't been washed in over a month. So we deeply cleaned him and vacuumed him! Look! He literally shines! He's all dirty again now... but this is proof that he *was* clean if only for a moment.

Christopher's baptism!!! Elder Marshall (used to be a bishop in the Owingsville ward but is now a service missionary with his wife here in Morehead), Sister Thorne, Chris and Sister LeFevre