July 30, 2012 - I Need Thee Every Hour

Hola todos, 



Wow, I cannot believe that Monday is already here. Last week seemed to have flown by! We had a pretty great week with a good mixture of excitement and awesome miracles and some really big heartache as well. On Tuesday we were blessed to have another mini-missionary come to stay with us for three days. Her name was Emily Foley and I LOVE HER! She will be attending BYU in the fall for her first semester at college and I hope that I get to see her when I return to Utah. We had some pretty great adventures while she was here. She was very lucky because we had a car the whole time so she did not have to experience public transportation for the greater Kansas City Kansas area...maybe she was actually UNLUCKY because this is where I get a lot of my stories from, ha ha. I was so proud of her because for a 17 year old with not a lot of missionary experience I was pushing her to talk and bare her testimony a lot, and actually teach, and she did great even though she was nervous. I think this whole mini-mission thing is a great idea! I wish that I could have done it when I was younger...although that might have made me a bit more scared to serve a mission...I think she is now. She left totally worn out and at the end of the first day she asked us if we had days like that everyday. Hermana Sant and I both laughed and told her that yes, but usually worse because the day that she was talking about was the day of our Pioneer Day party that I had mentioned in an email previous, so the last part of the night she got to just watch 17 Miracles and eat ice cream. I am thankful that I get to meet such wonderful people out here in Kansas. 

Ok.So our Pioneer day party...Hna Sant and I were in charge of it in ward council the bishop had asked us to delegate everything to the different auxilaries so that we did not have to do everything because that is not even possible as missionaries. We had someone in charge of everything and we were excited to see how the turn out would be. We showed up about 45 minutes early to set up and then realized that only one priesthood holder had shown up to help us set up...this was not a big deal because we just needed to set up chairs and the projection screen. Well about 10 minutes before it started no one had yet shown with a key to open the closet with the plastic bowls, the spoons, the cups, and the napkins. We were very nervous because a ton of people from the ward were already showing up so we decided to run over to the market close by and buy the necessary items. We were gone about fifteen minutes and when we returned all of the elders from our ward were there and a ton more people waiting for ice cream and a movie to celebrate Pioneer day. Well we got right to dishing up the ice cream when the bishop's daughter, Karlin(man she is awesome...I LOVE her) came over to me and said that the member of our ward who was supposed to bring his computer so that we could hook it up to the projector was not there. I ran to grab our phone to call him and a few of the elders started calling him too, but he would not answer calls nor texts. So. Here we are with a gym PACKED with people, members and non(the attendance was AWESOME, just like I had prayed!) and we did not have a computer to play the movie that they were all waiting for. Our chapel is outside of our actual ward boundaries so everyone's houses were too far away to just run over and grab a computer to help us out. I started trying to figure things out in my head like mad and ended up figuring out that we could use a DVD player that was at the church. So we got it all set up and we were breathing easy again. Until we figured out that we only had the sound that was coming from the little projector to reach all of the people in the gym. Yeah. So we decide to start it because we are already late and we need to be home by ten and there is already some murmuring going on in the crowd as to when the movie is going to start, even though everyone can see that we are sweating bullets trying to start the movie. Oh man...then the whole time we are hearing people say things like "Why did they not plan ahead?" or "Why did they not think of that before?". So we just started it with a little bit of sound in English and Spanish subtitles. About ten minutes in we bring in a microphone to hold up to the speaker and although it does not sound awesome because the quality is not great, at least they can hear it right? Ha ha! THEN more than half way through our dear friend, Elder Holt(who had been trying to pick the lock of the clerks office the whole night for us to get the cords that we needed to plug it into the speakers) finally brought the cords that we needed and they proceeded to discretely plug in the cords to give the people better sound. Well. Dear Elder Holt accidentally hit the open button on the DVD player and stopped the movie...bad news bears. We almost had a revolt on our hands! There was moaning then because there is not scene select on the menu of the DVD we had to skip scenes to get to where we thought we were at, all of this done in front of everyone. Yeah, anxiety to the max. BUT we had non members come and we now have some potential investigators out of it. Stressful? Yes. Worth it? OOOOHHH YES! The church is a well oiled machine when everyone does their part...but when they don't it's like a movie party without a movie and not nearly enough ice cream for the hungry crowd. 

You know we also got to meet with one of the most wonderful men that I have met in my entire life this last week.His name is Gabriel and he has so much faith in Jesus Christ and he loves God with all of his heart. Just 3 years ago he was an atheist and now he reads the Bible everyday and attends church on Sunday. This last Saturday we had an appointment with him and we ended up teaching him, his friend Jose(he is awesome also) and Jose's mom, Maria(this woman is a mix between and angel and one of the funniest people that I have ever met). This lesson was one of the best that I have yet to experience on my mission. Everything that Gabriel was saying to us about his testimony of the Savior went right along with what we had to teach him and have yet to teach him. Jose and Maria were very excited too and I just felt the Spirit so strongly testifying of the truth. They all felt it too, I know they did, because we talked about it. They wanted to know what it was that they were feeling and we explained it to them. Gabriel already knew but Maria and Jose thought it was awesome. Jose and Gabriel said they would come to church yesterday and with all my heart I felt that we were supposed to meet them and especially him because I feel like I knew him before. When we got home I prayed so hard for them to come to church, especially for Gabriel because he is so very ready. I prayed and prayed and then we prayed as a companionship. I prayed more for Gabriel than I have every prayed for anyone to attend church. I had full faith that he would come with Jose. Yesterday at church we waited and waited and they never came. We called them both and only Jose would answer and he said that he was waiting for Gabriel to pick him up but that he would not answer his phone. Last night Jose told us that Gabriel needs us to pray for him because he is having a hard time. We have no idea what happened but he won't answer our calls or texts. It is like the difference between night and day. When he read from the Book of Mormon he said that he felt filled, that it was sacred. Before my mission I thought that I had experienced heart ache, but it was NOTHING like I felt last night when I realized that Gabriel might not want us to teach him, when I realized that Satan is working so hard and that especially in the cases of the people that would be the most valiant members of the church he wants to have them for his own. I have not cried that hard in a long time and as I write this I can't help but continue doing so because I love Gabriel so much and he deserves to have greater light in his life, the light that only the gospel can bring. Please pray for him? He needs it, and we need it too. 

Last night I felt so sad and sick to my stomach that I could not for the life of me fall asleep. Finally at mid-night I turned on my flashlight and started reading Jesus the Christ. I am almost finished with it and I feel a bit sad about this because I love it so much. Last night, for what seems like the hundredth time, I realized even fuller what it meant for Jesus Christ to have gone through what He did for us. Although I felt so sad and I also felt a temptation to be upset with Heavenly Father because we have had SO many wonderful things happen and then time after time they seem to fall through, I recalled a scripture from the Bible that is one of my very favorites. It is Luke 1:38 when the angel Gabriel(a bit ironic isn't it?) tells Mary that she is going to be the mother of the Christ, and the part I love says "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.". I thought of that scripture and then I realized that I did not decide to be a missionary because I expected every thing to go right, but because I love my God and His Son Jesus Christ. I love them with all that I am and if the Lord with all of miracles that He has shown unto me chooses to have these things happen in this way, then I will accept these things with love in my heart and a smile on my face knowing that there is ALWAYS a reason. Always. You will not always understand why things happen the way that they do. It's okay. Look to what you do understand. Jesus Christ suffered for you and loves you. You specifically. He cares about the small things. Seek to understand what He did for you to a greater degree and you will feel free from the burden of sorrow that the world so often brings. 

les amo mucho 

con amor, 

Hermana Thorne 

P.S. Pictures:
Have you ever seen a wasp this BIG?!
I got to hold a baby swan :D 
Sister Emily Foley is in the picture when we are sitting on the steps, this was right after interviews with President Keyes on Tuesday. 

July 23, 2012- la Hermana Thorne

Hola todos!

Espero que todo esta bien con todo y que hay mucho gozo en sus vidas! This week was another week of adventures in good old KCK. We had no car so we were out in the heat for a large amount of the time. Have no fear, I shall attach pictures of a sunburn that I got last Friday(it was my own fault, olvide my sunscreen). Notice in the picture that I am showing my tan line and it is right next to my white shirt. I know that the color of my skin before the tan/sunburn is about the color of my white shirt. Ha ha my good friend from the ward here, Jennifer(oh I LOVE her!) she laughed and said that no one is going to recognize me when I get home because I am no longer going to be a gringa. I speak the language and have the skin to match now, ha ha. I shall not be forgetting my sunscreen again...

We are really in the process of finding new people to teach who will keep the commitments and really have a desire to learn. Honestly this last week did not go nearly as well as I would have liked. We did find a couple people and I pray that they want to learn more, but we also found ourselves in the position of needing to tell people that we are not coming by anymore because our purpose is not just to be friends with them(sometimes this is a bit hard for me because I love them and want to hang out with them and get to know them better) but to bring them closer to Jesus Christ through repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I feel within my soul that there are people all around us that are ready for the gospel and that we just need to find them. We have really been praying and fasting to find these prepared people and I know that the work will continue to progress.

I cannot even tell you how much I love reading the book Jesus the Christ. Every second that we are home that I can read it I do. I have never in my whole life had a relationship with my Savior like I do now. How could I have been a member of this church before and not have known so many things about Him? Well all I know is that now I am so thankful to be able to experience such awesome progression in my relationship. I can say with the utmost surety that working to develop a closer relationship with Jesus Christ and looking to know who He is will help you to understand how to be more like Him. How can we follow the example of someone that we don't even know? When we give the baptismal invite it goes as follows: "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?". So just about everyday I am asking people to follow His example, but am I? Do I even know Him? You know, I am really beginning to. You know what else? He is the most wonderful person that I have ever met and He is my dearest friend. I wish I could express in words the way that I feel when I understand something new that I did not before about His life or Him as the Son of God. I feel like the more I learn about Him, the more I understand who I am. I feel...free. I can make a promise to you. Draw near unto Him and He will draw near unto you, and you will be filled with a light like you have never known in this mortal existence.

The Lord loves His missionaries. Let me explain further. I love Latin food of all kinds, but it is very different than what I was raised on and while we are eating most of the Hispanic members do not eat with us, they just watch us eat. Because of this we really do eat a lot more than we normally would because in a lot of cases it is offensive if we do not. Because we have both English called missionaries and Spanish called missionaries in our ward we rarely eat with english speaking families because the elders do. Well last week on Tuesday my dear friend Sister Chelsea Walker signed up to not only feed the sisters, but to also come and pick us up in the city AND give us a ride home afterwards(this is a big deal when we don't have a car). She actually does not live in our ward boundaries but about 30 minutes outside in a really nice neighborhood. Sometimes people receive callings to attend a different ward than the one that they are in because some wards need strong members to help the members who do live in the ward boundaries and that's why their family goes to our ward. Anyway, this dinner was one of the best of my whole mission. SHE FED US THAI FOOD!!!!!! My favorite foods are Indian food and Thai food. Not only that but we got to see her two bearded dragon lizards, look at her family's artwork, and eat carrot cake and Reese's peanut butter ice-cream(two of my absolute favorite desserts...). It may seem like a small thing to you readers back home, but for me it was such a miracle and a re-charge of my battery. I am thankful for members who are so loving and nice to the missionaries. I think sometimes members expect the missionaries to not be actual people, but evangelical robots or something...nope. We are not. Hey, the next time you see a missionary, tell them how much you appreciate them or do something nice for them, will ya? For me? :D In Utah I bet they are pretty spoiled already though, at least from what I hear from certain people who have served there (;D) ha ha.

I believe that I am going to have to do a scrap book just devoted to the animals I have held on my mission. Have you noticed the trend? I. LOVE. ANIMALS. Especially now that I don't really get to show love to people the same way that I did before I came out here. My companion hates animals. We are quite the pair. She knows the look in my eye when I want a picture with an animal and she just sighs, rolls her eyes and grabs my camera. Man I love her.

A few quick funny stories. #1 Yesterday a Guatemalan Testigo de Jehovah (Jehovah's Witness) tried to dispute over the Trinity with me in rapid fire Spanish, we left quickly #2 A man named Juan called us during the night last night and left a message calling me his "hermosa amor" and at the end of the message(which was all in Spanish) he said "te amo...I love you". Just like that. He said te amo in spanish, then with a thick accent "I love you" in English. We laughed for a good ten minutes straight. We had met him earlier in the day and we thought he wanted to learn about the gospel. Yeah. #3 Yesterday we were eating with our ward mission leader and his daughter who are from Argentina. I am feeling a ton better about my Spanish and I can talk and have a comfortable conversation now. Hermano Morinigo(our ward mission leader) and I were talking about my family and I was talking about my mom and I called her my mama but I should have said "Mamá" with the accent mark. The thing is that Mamá means mom and mama is another work for breast. Yep. I don't think that they would have said anything but right after I said it I realized it and I started laughing really hard, then they started laughing and we all laughed for a very long time over that. I cannot tell you how much I love Spanish and speaking to people in Spanish even though I say inappropriate things sometimes.

Les amo mucho con todo mi corazon 

hasta luego,

Hermana Thorne

PS THANK YOU NIKKI FOR THE MINI BLENDER!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

July 16, 2012 - Hola world.

Hola todos! 


Espero que todo esta bien con todos. So it is the middle of July. Already. I can seriously hardly even believe this! Time is FLYING. We had a really good week. We experienced some kind of random things this week that I really did not expect. First off we found a new investigator at the beginning of the week who accepted baptism in the first lesson. This lesson was AWESOME. I felt the Spirit testifying and she was really excited. She made sure that she had our phone number and that we would be coming back the next day, she even said that we could come early if we wanted to. So the next day we showed up for our appointment with her and she was not there and would not answer our phone calls. Later in the week we called her and she answered, then when she found out who it was she hung up on us. Yeah. It was sad because I know that she really felt the truth of the message, but I also know the the adversary works so hard after a time of light. This woman lives in one of the shadiest parts of the city, she is black and not even kidding you, her name is Moquesha. Can you imagine if she accepted the gospel, was baptized and really started to understand who she is and what she really can do? She could live COMPLETELY differently than she is now but I don't think that she could even imagine living a different way. We see this all of the time. These people don't know any different because of the way that they were raised, but a good amount of them are living off of the government month to month and suffering from horrible addictions. I have never seen so much substance abuse or really so much abuse period. It makes me feel sick because we can only do so much, and what we can do is completely based on whether they choose to let us help them. Every day my heart goes out to these people and I love them more and more. Although I feel so sad when others choose to not even listen to what we have to say I also feel so incredibly blessed to be able to see these things, to show me what things to REALLY avoid. I know now more than I have ever known in my entire life what I want. Sometimes I think of a mission as having a whole life's worth of experience in a year and a half. I continually and grateful for this mission and especially for this area. Above all I am thankful for goodly parents who showed me how to work hard, who showed me that it is necessary to be self-sufficient. So many people have not had anything close to this. 

The day that we went back to Moquesha's house and she was not home, we were tracting and we knocked this door and this woman named Barbara came out. She let us in and we had an incredible lesson with her. She also committed to be baptized and she also did not show up for the return appointment the next day. This was a week full of ups and downs, such a roller-coaster ride! You know what? Such is life. Sometimes I want to just not get excited over anyone who commits to do something or over an awesome lesson because a good amount of the time it does not turn out how we hope that it will and then it feels like we go our hopes up and they were dashed.. I am not going to stop getting excited though. I am not going to stop holding in the my squeal of excitement until I get to the car. I am going to continue to squeal after something exciting happened and smile so much that my cheeks hurt at the end of the day, because I know that "men are that they might have joy". Although these things may have not turned out the way that we would have liked, who are we to say that our teaching and our excitement was in vain? Dios sabe, todo. 

The temperatures are supposed to soar for the next 13 weeks! This guy at church told us that it is supposed to reach temperatures of up to 120 degrees! Wow. I thought 110 was bad. Pray that we don't melt okay? Remember the Wicked Witch of the West? Yeah. That happened here people!!! It must have been a really dry and hot summer like this one in the Wizard of Oz...sorry couldn't help making a Dorothy joke, you knew it was bound to happen sometime. :D 

So a quick, funny, and typical story. A few weeks ago we were at the gas station filling up the car. I was the one filling up and Hermana Sant was sitting in the car with the windows rolled down. As I was waiting for the pump to be done this black guy comes up to me and is like "What is the uniform for?"(I guess the shirt and skirt combo I was wearing looked like a uniform). I told him that I was a missionary and then I promptly turned away so as to not encourage further conversation about my wardrobe. Well that did not deter him, her then said "Giiiiiiiirl, you make that uniform look goooooood!". Not even kidding. I was trying so hard not to laugh. Then he just stood there and stared at me. After what seemed like forever he left after having said something in my companion's direction as well. Asco. This is now a joke between us. "Giiiiiirl, you make that uniform look gooooood!" If only he knew that this is the "uniform" of a missionary of the Lord, boy would he have said something different. I am attaching a picture of me wearing the "uniform". ha ha. 

Thank you for the support that you all give me. It helps me so much to get letters of encouragement. Special shout out to my Mom for writing me every week, your letters always make me laugh! Thanks Nikki for being a cheerleader(ps ha ha ha HA!) and thanks Payson 11th ward for your hilarious card! 

les amo muchissimo!!! 

con amor, 

Hermana Thorne

July 9, 2012 - Sweet libertad...

Hola todo!

Hermana Thorne here, writing from a beautifully overcast day in Kansas City, Kansas. I am still gathering my thoughts, trying to figure out exactly what I want to write because our week was a wee bit CRAAAAZY. Well first of all let me say with gladness that although transfers was this last week, both Hna Sant and I are staying in the Kaw River ward. I was really happy to hear this because she is great and I wanted to get to serve with her for one more transfer. She may not have been as happy about it though, she has a bit of a struggle with this area because it is full of things that disgust her(i.e. dogs, cats, drunk men, germs, the occasional gunshot(or firework because this week we could not tell the difference), public transportation, etc.). She was really excited to be called to the VC and would like to go there soon. I have tried to comfort her and she is doing fine now.

So I experienced my first 4th of July in the mission field. It was a day of miracles, I can say that for sure. The day before we had been walking a good amount of the day in a very hot temperatures and we both started to get pretty sick, I am thinking we were starting to show signs of heat exhaustion, so we went and bought some powerade and took it easier for the rest of the day. On the 4th after our studies we headed down to the bus stop(it is like a mile and a half from our house down this big hill) only to find that the bus was not running because of the holiday. As we sat on the bench discussing what we would do next, I was sweating so much that I felt like I had jumped into a swimming pool. Down the street was a bank thermometer and it read 103. We could not get into our area because we need the bus, and the thought of walking up the hill in that mid-day heat was extremely daunting. After taking a short break in the shade we made our way back up the hill and when we made it home the member that we live with, Sister Jones, asked us if we had a dinner and if she could take us anywhere. We did not have a dinner so she made us an AMERICAN 4th of July dinner, hamburgers included. It was amazing! Also that night(and during most of the day) we heard an insane amount of fireworks and after we planned for the next day we went outside to see if we could see any going off from our house. Yes we for sure could...EVERYWHERE! There are not restrictions on what kind of fireworks that you can light of here like there are back home. Everyone and their dog was lighting off the big time fireworks so we had a show going on all around us. It was the loudest 4th of July that I have ever heard!

We were really excited for the weekend to come too because we were having a 17 year old girl come to serve a mini mission with us for three days. Well she came and she really got to experience what it is like to be a missionary in the Kansas heat. We did not have a car last week so we walked everywhere. Now we thought that 103 degrees was bad...when we were getting on the bus into the city on Saturday I took a picture of the thermometer when it read 108. Yes...with humidity!!! We could do nothing but laugh and try to find people who were out in the crazy heat. We did actually end up teaching quite a few people that day! We also experienced my first real scare with a dog. We were walking up to this house that had this cute little beagle like puppy chained up to their porch. The puppy was barking like crazy and I went over to pet it before we knocked on the door. Just as Sister Beesley and I got close to the puppy this huge white dog crawled out from under the porch and jumped toward us growling and snapping. We backed up just enough for it's chain to pull tight and it was not able to get to either of us...yeah we both probably wet ourselves. Lucky Hna Sant was behind us and did not even know what had happened. Don't you worry, I took a picture of the dogs through the fence afterward. Phew, I am so glad that we did not let our little missionary get eaten on her first missionary experience...her parents would have been so upset!

I learned a ton this week about avoiding sin and temptation. While we were doing companionship study one of the mornings that Sister Beesley was here, she talked about not putting ourselves back into the circumstances that we were in when we committed sin. For some reason this really stuck me. Why would I ever put myself in a situation that I had before found to cause me to sin? Many people do this because it is comfortable and all that they know, they go back to the things that they have done before...I would go back to the places I had been and the people I knew, situations that made me more prone to commit sin. The Lord asks us to stretch ourselves, to let go of those old habits and sometimes even to cut ourselves off or distance ourselves from the friends that we are more apt to sin around. The Lord asks us to really upon Him for happiness and then to share the pure love that we receive from Him with others. God is the source of Love, God is love, and that is where all love comes from. I testify that if you are needing to change circumstances in your life to allow you to be more successful, do not be afraid of this. When you are asked to give up something that you feel that you love, or hold dearly by the Lord, He really does want to give you something better. Trust Him, He will never fail you.

I am doing well, I am healthy and happy(and hot most days :D ha ha!). I pray that you all are doing well and I love you so much!!!

con amor,

Hermana Thorne

Hola Numero 5- July 2, 2012

Queridos todos,

Hi. So now you have a ton of pictures from my last transfer here in Kaw River. It has been FANTASTIC. This last week was literally one of the best weeks of my entire life! Not only did I get to go to the temple on Saturday to see Kathy baptized for the dead, but we also got to see Brian be baptized yesterday!

So I will go in chronological order here. Earlier in the week we found out that Kathy would be going to the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. Well I love Kathy with my whole heart and I knew that I really needed to be their to support her and just less than a month ago we found out that we can go to the temple with our new converts, so we were able to(through the help of Heavenly Father) find a way to make it to the temple on Saturday. We had to plan for someone to be able to take us there(it is a 30 minute drive and most of the people in our ward are very low income so this is a VERY big deal for some of them to drive that far) and for someone to pick us up. Well a recent convert in our ward named Jennifer gave us a ride that morning and then our bishop's daughter, Karlin, picked us up and then went to teach with us afterward too! We were so blessed. When we finally got to the temple we were running a few minutes late but I prayed that I would be calm because there was nothing that we could do about the fact that we were running late, I also knew that anxiety does not come from the Lord. As we walked through the doors of the temple right away I saw my old companion, Hna Méndez and I felt so happy. Then I saw Kathy. She is a completely different person. When we first met her she seemed so dark and depressed. Every time that I see her now she is just glowing and sooo very happy. She was SO happy to see me and very surprised because the other sisters did not tell her I was coming, due to the fact that we did not know if it would be possible. Well I hugged Kathy for a very long time and I just cried I was so happy. Seeing her confirmed and then baptized was one of the absolute highlights of my entire life. She was SO excited when the man who confirmed her explained that the people she was confirmed for are people who lived in the 1800's and that is how long they have been waiting to have their work done. After we were all done in the temple with Kathy we went outside of the temple to take pictures and she was able to receive some written testimonies that her friends had done for her at her baptism. She read the one from her very best friend who has been a member for a long time and she just cried. I will never forget the way I felt that day and the way that I still feel. EVERY thing that I have done in order to serve a mission, EVERYTHING, every tear, every worry, every sacrifice, they are ALL worth every second. I knew this with my whole heart as I watched Kathy enter the holy temple of the Lord. I ensured her that when she goes to the temple to receive her endowments that I will be there. This was one of those days that I felt my heart could not contain any more joy, and then the Lord surprised me in my capacity to feel way more. Sadly I cannot put those pictures up because I transferred my pictures to my flash drive before this happened but I am sure I will get them up soon!

Okay. This was wonderful! And we also held Brian's baptism yesterday!!! He has been counting down the days, and it finally arrived!!! We worked really hard to make sure that the baptism went smoothly and honestly a ton of the things did not go the way that we had planned, but he was baptized and he was happy. I was able to do a musical number with my companion. She plays the piano beautifully and she transposed the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth" to be lower so that I would be more comfortable singing it. We actually made it into a mix of that hymn and my very favorite hymn "God is Love". I was nervous but I think that it went well. Brian will be confirmed next Sunday! He is so excited to take the sacrament as a member of the church. I can hardly believe that it happened! He is a strong man and I cannot wait for him to receive the priesthood.

So one thing that I forgot to mention. We actually got to do a session right after Kathy left from the temple. This was something so very special to me. I have missed getting to go to the temple more than I have missed do anything else back home. I felt like I was going home. I felt like I had been really hard and that I had just a few hours to let go of it all and to remember who I am and why all of this is so eternally important. I love the temple so much.

Also before any of this other stuff happened we got to see Hermana Sant's family earlier in the week. They were driving through and President gave them permission to take us out to eat, so they did at Olive Garden(it is not actually in our area, there are not many restaurants besides hispanic ones in our area). It was really great and also a bit hard for my companion. I told her that she was tougher than me because when I see my family I am not going to want to let them go! She did well because we only had a short time with them. They are so proud of her, and it was a good reminder for me that people back home are really expecting me to work my hardest too.

I love this work. Honestly it is hard, some days more than others, but I have never felt joy like this before. Thank you for all of your love and support, I will forever remember it.


I love you all,

con amor,

Hermana Thorne

Hola#...4? July 2, 2012

In these pictures is included one of me kissing a snake(Grandma Thorne I put that in there just for you :D). There is one of me and my companion eating out with a family in our ward and we got to hear a mariachi band play right next to us. VERY FUN. Also there is a picture of my companion and I. We tried to eat a whole cake one night. It did not work, even though I am competitive, I then wiped frosting on her face and we proceeded to have a short lived frosting fight. Then you will find....THE BAPTISM OF KATHY!!! I am so glad I get to send these pictures. I LOVE her SOOO MUCH!!!!