May 28, 2014

Hey Thorne Fam!

This week has been awesome! Monday and Tuesday were very difficult because a lot of our appointments fell through, but we had our exchange last week and found a new investigator plus several potentials. It was a great day and a fun exchange. This week consisted of a lot of finding because of those appointments falling through, but we always managed to have a smile, laugh and enjoy it. That's what I love about Sister Minson. She can always make me smile. Even if I don't want to. :) Together, we've had a lot of adventures, talked to a lot of people, and we will continue to find God's lost sheep. 

So funny story for this past week. I haven't ever had anyone tell me I'm going to hell, but this past week there was two! One woman answered the door and before we could even talk she told us outright that we were lost souls, damned for hell and we needed to go confess our sins. We were kind of stunned and she said, "I'm sorry girls. But we just have different theologies. Don't you believe only 144,000 people will go to heaven?" Then everything clicked. We kind of giggled and said, "Sorry ma'am. But that's Jehovah's Witness. We're Latter-Day Saints." You could see her backtrack. She ended the conversation by stating she knew several very nice Mormon's and then closing the door. Hilarious! The second one happened yesterday and it was a little more serious. His name is Tim. He started his conversation by saying, "Oh girls. You need to read the Bible. It has things missing and if you really knew your Bible, you would know that going door to door is actually a sin and is really blasphemy. You are lost souls and I feel so bad for you." Again, pretty dumbfounded. We couldn't even bear our testimony, he would cut us off and state again that we were "lost". So he ended by inviting us to his church that meets at his house on Sunday nights where we could hear the "real" word of God. Wow. Just wow. People can be so ignorant. 

As for new investigators this week: we found Francis (a former) and Judy. We had our first lesson with Francis and it went awesome! She's a sweet lady, in her 60's and has a lot of past hurt in her heart she is trying to get rid of. So we are focusing on the Atonement to help heal her soul. Judy has met missionaries in the past, but we don't have her in the area book. She has a deep connection with music and we talked to her about the Book of Mormon and sang her a coupe hymns. The spirit was so strong! I love music!!!

Chris is still progressing slowly but surely. We taught the WoW this past week and his only problem is smoking. We taught the 15 step program, but he only lasted 24 hours. So now we are trying a different route with him. He didn't come to church last week, but I know he will get there. When he's ready. 

We had a lesson with Whitney and that went awesome! It was very spiritual and Whitney felt it. She said she couldn't come to church this past weekend because of memorial day, but she is going to try to come this next week!

As for your email:

1) THE TEMPLE WAS AWESOME!!!!! We didn't get to see the new new movie. We saw the old new movie. But it was still fantastic! I learned SO much and finally started piecing together some ideas that I've been pondering from the scripture studies. I learned a ton from the symbolization of everything and it was so spiritually uplifting and DEFINITELY needed. It's been a long week and a half. XP As for who got to go, our zone went. So there were 20 Elders and 12 Sisters all from the Louisville Central Zone.

2) I'm so glad that you all got to go to the temple this week! Yay temple! And I have a special place in my heart for Brigham City. :) 

3) Sounds like all the kids had a big week! Go super-hero-bird-savin' Britney! Go drivin', orchestratin', YWin' Mandy! Go singin' Joshie! Go basketballin' Brandon! That's my brothers and sisters! :D

That's it for this week! Love you all so much! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you all out. :) 

Love always,

Sister Thorne

 Sister Minson and I. :) Love her! 

At the temple!!!! 

May 19, 2014

Dear Thorne Fam, 

First and foremost, I LOVE SISTER MINSON!!!! I have to tell you, it was totally the spirit putting us together. I have really watched her this week and I have been so very impressed with her teaching skills and where her heart is. She also struggled a bit with obedience at the beginning of her mission so we totally understand each other. We know our weaknesses and we are working together to become better. We are equals. I love her so much!!!! There is so much we have to learn from each other. A little about her: She is a HUGE LOTR/Hobbit fan and quotes the movies all the time. She knows Miyazaki and quotes and sings Disney with me like every day. She has a gorgeous singing voice that sounds celtic and I made her sing me to sleep a couple nights ago. :P She's a fiery red head with a sense of humor just like mine. She's from SLC so we already have a ton of plans made for when we both get home. She's 22, 2nd of 6. Her older sister served a mission, her younger sister is currently in Tokyo serving her mission and her other younger sister is turning in her papers soon. She goes home October, so only a transfer after me! She's awesome! I think she will be my very favorite companion and I'm hoping we'll be together until the end of my mission. I would love that. :) 

In other words, we have done a lot of good work this week! We found 2 new investigators this week and picked up a former. First we found Erica, with cancer. She wasn't able to come to the first appointment we set up, but we rescheduled. Next is Regan. We found her last night. She's so adorable! We said a prayer with her and she told us that she was given a Book of Mormon by a friend, but never read it. So we invited her to read 3 Nephi 14 and testified it would help her family and we are going back this week to talk about it! Then we picked up Debbie again. I'm not 100% sure how it's going to work out, but we've both felt good about it so we are going to follow the Spirit and see where it takes us!

Chris came to church!!! He totally abandoned our appointment with the Brown's last Monday night and then ignored us for a couple of days, but Saturday night contacted us and asked if we could get him a ride to church. Then while there, he said he's been praying about his bap date and he asked if he could ask someone to baptize him. We've been praying about it alot and we think that with his personality, he needs to take this at his own pace. If we push him too much, he super backs off and then will slowly come back. But he is coming. He'll get baptized. He just needs to decide when and this needs to be his choice. :)

As for your email: 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!! I thought of you so much yesterday! Thank you for being born and willing to take on the crazy life us kids have led you on. I look up to you so much and brag about you all the time. I hope to one day be half as amazing as you and I know that I will never be able to really thank you enough for all you've done for me. Love you!!

She says she's not sure if she knows a Randy Minson.

Sounds like everyone has had an awesome fun week!!!! I love you all so very much! Keep on keepin on!

Love always,

Sister Thorne

P.S. Pday next week won't be until Wednesday because.... *drum roll please* WE ARE GOING TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D Which means I also won't have much time to email next week. So be forewarned. I can't wait to go!!! :D If you can't tell, I'm a little excited. :) Love y'all!

 Craziness on Sister Goodman's wheelchair. :)

 Elder and Sister Halvorsen, me and Sister Minson. The Halvorsen's are one of the office couples and I've gotten really close to them. They are going home in a couple weeks and I will miss them dearly. They're the ones who helped me through the roach apartment in Jasper. They're awesome!

Sister Minson and I at transfer meeting. :)

May 12, 2014

Hey Thorne Fam!

'Ello! Long time no talk! haha it was such a blast to get to talk to everyone yesterday! You are all so incredible and I felt the spirit so strongly from each of you. Go Thorne's! Thorne's serve missions right An? haha Love you all!

So we didn't find any new investigators this week and dropped a few more. Very annoying. But we did take Chris to Steve's baptism and he really enjoyed it and said that that IS something he wants to shoot for. We are having a lesson with him at the Brown's house tonight and it should be awesome!!! We are going to set a bap date, do a bap calendar and teach the Word of Wisdom. Awesome packed! We're excited. :)

Other things that happened this week: we taught Misty! The investigator in the Elders area that requested sisters. She really does need sisters. In the lesson, we were able to help her understand some things that the Elders just didn't connect with. It was a really good lesson and we will be teaching her again soon!

We taught Andrew and Jennifer again and this time we got on the subject of death and what happens after this life. So we gave them 1 Corinthians 15 and Alma 40 to read and they didn't object to reading in the Book of Mormon!!! Which they had to previously! So that's a good sign. Now we'll go tomorrow and hope that they actually read!

We also saw John with Sister Brooksher. That was an interesting lesson. He had read in the Book of Mormon, but he hadn't prayed about it. We talked about the importance of prayer and challenged him to read Moroni 10 and pray about it. He did say the closing prayer but doesn't want to open with Dear Heavenly Father because he has father issues. So he wanted to say Dear Spirit or Deity. We told him to say God or Father. He did. He's definitely obedient! Haha so we'll see how that goes this week. 

Then we finally got to sit down and talk with Christian and Amanda and that was VERY interesting. Turns out Christian is very atheist and Amanda is kind of sort of Agnostic and they both were just very interested in knowing how our church works. Christian just kind of made fun of us the whole time, but Amanda was sincerely listening. They both travel a lot so no return appointment (they'll be out of town the next 2 weeks) but they did download the Gospel Library App and said they would listen to the Book of Mormon because they drive a lot and listen more than read. So we'll see how that goes!

Sounds like you all had a fun week! I did get to see the big flower pot yesterday Mom. Daddy took me outside and showed me. Those flowers are so cool!!! Are they annual? And I love the birdhouse you got! So antique! Love it! And of course you would send me the funny face picture. :P Has Sis Brooksher posted any of my funny pics up on fb yet? She left Sister Smith and I in charge of her camera for a little while so of course we took the opportunity to take a ton of funny pictures. They will be both entertaining and embarrassing. Good thing I'm not home!

Kids, great thought for Mother's Day! So cute! Did you all come up with that idea by yourselves or did Dad help you? Brandon looked so cute as a waiter! And Josh makes a great Breakfast chef. :)

CONGRATS CALEB!!!!!! You are going to have such an incredible mission! Cali will be beautiful and you'll get to learn Spanish with Brit! Adorable! You two will be unbearable when you both get home. :P If you need any help with anything, please let me know! You're family. I'm here for you too. :)

I think that's it for this week! Love you all tons! Have fun. Work hard. And BE GOOD! :D

Love always,

Sister Thorne

 I told yall yesterday about volunteering at the Forum, the nursing home. So Friday when we went they had a beautiful Mothers Day Celebration and we all got corsages. It was so much fun! I love the Forum!

 The Perrero's. We got to skype at their house. Sister Summer Perrero, Sister Smith, Sister Thorne and Brother Tyson Perrero. Then you have little Taylor (my buddy) and the twins: Tristan and Trevor. 

We had chocolate fondue at the Cliffords to say goodbye to Sister Smith. Yum!

May 5, 2014

Hola Familia! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This was a really really long week. Until Friday and then it zipped by in a blink of an eye. Wednesday, our first appointment was a member dinner at 7 so we literally tracted from 10 to 6:30 with an hour for lunch. It was a long day. :P But Friday was district meeting and a planning blitz with the STL's and Saturday was an exchange with the STL's and Sunday was church! So the weekend went super fast. :)

Guess what???? We picked up Chris again!!!! And he came to church and loved it!!! And he's coming to Steve's (the Elder's investigator) baptism this Thursday and is so excited! He is also reading in the Book of Mormon and truly gaining a testimony. He still has far to go, but he's getting there. It turns out that he had just had a really bad week, his mom ended up in the hospital, and he didn't want to talk to anyone. But we didn't give up, dropped by again and he finally answered! Miracle!

We also have been working much much more closely with the members this week. Sister Mumford came to a lesson with us to Andrew and Jennifer on Tuesday. Neither of them are very interested in the church anymore, but we'll try one more time and may drop them after that. 

We also had Rachel come to our first lesson with John. Turns out he was just looking for someone to help him clean his house and wasn't all that interested in learning about the gospel. :P But we didn't take no for an answer, sat down and talked about the Restoration. He seems to have a very strong catholic background and had a lot of questions for us. But, we were able to resolve them all and serve him, which really softened his heart. 

Then we had our first lesson with Gail. Turns out she was just planning on being good friends and didn't want to hear about the gospel. But we sat down and talked about our purpose and taught her the Restoration. She seemed very intrigued but ended by saying she wanted to talk to her pastor before she read the Book of Mormon. So we committed her to read Moroni 10 before talking to him. We'll see!

We also found 5 new investigators this week! Again! Woot! We picked up Andrew (Jennifer's husband), Chris again (woot!!!!), Jason (someone we tracted into and knows one of our members really well), John and Veronica we found contacting Saturday. Things are moving forward!

As for your email:

1) Louisville was actually super obnoxious during derby. :P Sister Logan and I had to do alot of tracting because we only had 2 appointments Saturday, and no one really wanted to listen to us because they were all having huge derby parties. But we did meet a couple nice people! It was really cool to be downtown Friday for District Meeting because that is Oaks and everyone dressed up derby style and we saw them all over the streets. I was imagining derby dress as more classy black and white dresses like in My Fair Lady. Turns out I was very wrong. :P Derby colors are actually Easter colors! All the men were dressed in pale blue, green, pink and purple dress shirts and the girls were in tight mini mini dresses that looked more like shirts. Modesty is lost on today's people. :/ I completely agree with Sister Logan though, she said it totally felt like we lived in the Capitol form the Hunger Games because of how everyone dressed and acted. It totally was!

2) Rollin who? How did he know Elder Woodard? That's so crazy that they he knows him!

3) Please tell Chris and Brei that I love and miss them so! It was so good to see them again! Their family is growing so quickly. I barely recognized Luke.

4) Elder Cutler has been emailing me weekly too! It's been fun to hear from him and see how much he's changed. :)

5) Sounds like everyone is doing well. Can't wait to talk to y'all in less than a week! It will be at 2:30 your time. See you then! :D

Love always,

Sister Thorne