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.
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