Heidi's journey of Independence as she serves God's children in Independence, MO teaching them the word of God as a Sister Missionary!
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Hermana Thorne here. No joke, this last week was a bit of a rough one honestly but really wonderful too. This is the story of a missionary. The week before my birthday was transfers and the mission office holds the mail then sends it out when they know where we are going. I have no clue where the senior sister who does the mail sent my mail from that week and she can't remember either so I have been so worried about it all week. I know that I am missing at least two birthday cards from my Mom and from Grandma and Grandpa Thorne. If you sent me something for my birthday, the reason that I have not responded is because I did not get it. I just feel sick about it but there is absolutely nothing that I can do. I have called the office to ask her several times and she said that she sent it to me the Friday before last but it never got here. At one point she was sending our mail to three different places even though I had told her that we had moved and had given her our address on three separate occasions. I have felt pretty angery about this and I don't want to be angry at a sweet, old lady who is one of my dearest friends, but I just don't know what she did with my mail. Sometimes I wonder if the Lord wants me to be REALLY, REALLY polished because these kinds of things have been happening. Maybe I shouldn't be so emotional about not getting my birthday cards but I know that there was money in a couple of them that someone had to sacrifice for and it makes me sick to thing that it is lost. The Lord will provide, He always does.
Also we have roaches. They keep coming back even though we had an exterminator come right after we moved in. At first it was like, okay...well lets kill them and maybe they won't come back. Yeah. They did. They keep coming back and it is really gross. It takes quite a bit to gross me out but this is enough. My companion hates it too, quite a bit more than me. Bugs are one of her greatest dislikes. We both just know that we will look back on this and laugh. I can just picture myself saying "Remember that one time when we lived in the ghetto of Kansas City, Kansas and we had roaches in our apartment and we laughed until we peed, and we lost 50 pounds because we were too grossed out to eat anything that we had in the apartment because maybe a roach touched it?" It will be so funny...later.
I love my new companion. I feel so much more like myself with her. It was such a miracle that she got called here because it is a Spanish speaking area and she is an English called sister. I understand how she feels so much! I was where she is nine months ago! We are great friends and we both love to work hard and to love the people with all that we have.
We are teaching this family that we have been teaching for awhile. They are black and I love them SO much. I am sending a picture of me with all of the kids. It is so funny, they love to touch my hair and I love to touch their hair. I love seeing the way that the gospel is changing their family life. They are praying as a family now and reading "The Mormon Book" as they call it. I know that they are so ready to become members and the Mom and one of the kids have a baptismal date!
The Lord sometimes allows things to happen in our lives and He never will leave us comfortless. Never forget that, and I will work on this too because I really need it! Thank you for all of your love, support, and letters. They make all of the difference!
Hey! So transfers happened last week and we did end up having a change here in the Kaw River ward. I got a new companion. Her name is Sister Castellano and she is from Corvalis, Oregon. I actually knew her before at the Visitors' Center but I did not know her very well. I already love her so much. We laugh a LOT and she loves the work and being obedient. It's crazy how the work can seem different with different companions. So she does not speak Spanish, she is an English called missionary. At first I was a bit confused and honestly a bit nervous because we teach A LOT in Spanish so that means that I am doing that part of the teaching all on me one-sy. Yes it is really hard but I am progressing so much already in my Spanish and she is trying her hardest to learn the language. Getting to be her companion is such a blessing because I know exactly how she feels because I was in her shoes on 8 short months ago! I also have really come to understand that I do speak Spanish even though when people ask me if I speak Spanish I always tell them that I am learning to speak Spanish. This is not a lie, I am always learning and I think that I always will be learning, but I do speak Spanish right now too. I can hardly believe how much the Lord has blessed me to be able to speak the language and how much I absolutely LOVE these people!!!!!!!!
I am attaching a HILARIOUS picture of me hold up these furry tail things...these are squirrel tails...no joke...three of those tails were eaten by the woman behind me in the picture. Her name is Candi and her husbands name is Gene, he is in the other picture(the one holding the buddist book, he is currently trying to convert us to buddism). Yeah. They eat squirrels. And bunny rabbits when their dogs kill them and bring them to them. Did you know that a squirrel has about the same amount of meat as a small game hen? Hmm. Neither did I...Gene tried to get me to shoot his gun but I told him it was against the rules. He did not really like that response, so he just rolled himself a cigarette(filter free of course, the better to kill your lungs my dear) and was silent. I LOVE these people. TO DEATH! Just know that there ARE REAL PEOPLE who do these kinds of things and you can find them in the heart of KCK.
I love getting to introduce my new companion to the city. It is hilarious. She just came from a very wealthy ward. Ha ha! She now is in the most impoverish in the mission! She is loving it though and we just laugh when crazy things happen. It is such a relief for me because I feel more like myself again. The Lord answers our prayers, just not always in the way that we expect. I love the line from this church song that says "I turn to the one who sees all the pieces put together, He knows me better". This morning during our companionship study my companion shared the scripture in Mosiah 21:23 "21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to achasten his people; yea, he trieth their bpatience and their faith." The Book of Mormon, the most pure form of Holy scripture that we have available, tells us the the Lord tries our patience(whether we pray for patience or not mind you). He will try our faith, looking to see if we will trust Him that He knows best and to move forward with stead fast faith in Christ. Because the Lord loves us He tries our patience and our faith. Show Him that you love and trust Him and you will be overwhelmed with how much better He knows you than you know yourself.
Hermana Thorne aqui, espero que todo esta bien con todos porque les amo mucho! Wow, this last week was a bit of a weird one. I had some things happen that were quite out of the norm...first of all my Grandpa Owen passed away last Monday. He passed away not too long after I found out that through my email last Monday that he was not doing well. I had asked my mission president if I could call my grandpa to say goodbye and he did not return my call until late that night so I called my mother the next morning to ask her if she could give my grandma and grandpa's phone number so that I could call and tell him that I love him and goodbye. Well she told me that he had already passed the day before and she let me know that he died very peacefully. I struggled a bit for the rest of the day but I felt much better after talking to my mom. I also got to call my grandma and she was very teary but she is a tough old bird and is doing well. She has given me her word that she will be there when I return home. The first thing that my grandmother said when I got on the phone with her was that she was so thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that she was so comforted because she knows that she will see him again. My eyes filled with tears when I heard my wonderful grandma, who has lived a righteous life and passed on a legacy of faith to me, bearing this heartfelt testimony. I immediately thought of how what I am doing right now is giving people the chance to know with a surety as my grandma knows that they can see their loved ones again. I am so thankful for both sets of my grandparents who raised my parents in the gospel and for my parents who, although not perfect, taught their children to go to church. I know that the reason that when I am having a really hard time and go straight to the side of my bed and kneel to converse with my Father in Heaven, it is because I have a mother who showed me by example that this is the way that we rely on the Lord and trust that He can help us through anything. Man, I am just so thankful for the gospel and the chance I have to be here.
So we also moved this week. We found(thanks to the elders) an apartment in the middle of our area. It is an awesome location and we are really happy to live there because the walk to the bus stop is only five minutes!(before it was 35, uphill both ways;D) It is a bit nerve racking to live in the middle of Kansas City in our own apartment but the Lord is watching out for us and we always rely on the Spirit, or try to. Oh. And. We have cockroaches! I have never in my life lived in a place with cockroaches! The manager is having the place fumigated on the 16th so all will be well after that. Right now we are just using this Rid spray that we got. It was REALLY hard for my companion to cope with at first, but she was very comforted when I reminded her that it will help us save on grocery money because we can just eat the dead carcasses of the cockroaches and that should keep us pretty full. ha ha! I just keep telling her when we find new things that neither one of us are used to that it is an adventure. She says that she is tired of adventures. Then I welcome her yet again to la vida de una misionera. The elders also live pretty close to us now so that helps us feel not so alone in the big city.
We had something awesome happen yesterday! A family of SEVEN came to church! They said that they would and we were REALLY praying for them to and sacrament started but they still had not shown up. I had had a feeling that they were for sure coming so I was so confused, but then during the opening hymn I looked over and there they were! I think I may have peed my pants I was so happy! All of the kids loved primary and this week we are praying to set them with a baptismal date. Please keep Lawanda's family in your prayers! We love them so much!
Transfers are on Thursday and we find out tomorrow night what will be happening. Man. I feel a bit nervous because I think that I am getting a new companion...honestly there really is no use in me worrying because there is nothing that I can do about it anyway, it's just crazy to live your life not knowing what is going to happen to you because you really don't have any choice in the matter. Oh well. I will love her, I just will really miss Hna Sant.
This week I learned more fully how to let go. When I let go and trust that the Lord is in control I am a better missionary, friend, companion, daughter, sister...a better person. I am realizing that a lot of times I only feel comfortable if I am in control, this is something that I don't want to feel anymore. I am learning to go with the flow and relax. Things happen, and you pray and then adjust all of your plans accordingly and in the end everything ALWAYS works and we are stronger despues. This week when you start to worry, pray instead. You will realize just how much time you have spent worrying when you could have been growing closer to your Creator.
Les amo mucho!
con amor,
Hermana Thorne
Ps. Picture descriptions: -I got to eat Indian food!!!!! I WAS SOO HAPPY!!!! It is the first time I have gotten to eat it on my mission! -There is a pic of us moving -We made cupcakes with a member that I LOVE named Jennifer -The cute twin girl and Miranda and Marisa and their sister Sandra
I know that I always say that the time is flying...and that is because in all reality it really IS! This last week was a week full of...well lots of things...we had a place that was a perfect location and right next to a family in our ward to move into but then we found out the day before we moved in after we were all packed that we can't move their because of some legal problems with the people who were going to rent it out to us. We are currently trying to find a place to move because there are not any members who can have the missionaries live with them. We hope that we might have found a place and can move in but we will see later this week. We have to be out of the place we are living by next week because the member that we are living with is selling her house.
We are teaching an awesome family right now that we found quite awhile back. The mother's name is Lawanda and their are 7 kids and her husband. At first Lawanda seemed more interested in her oldest daughter Tiana learning and not really doing it for herself but now she seems to have started to understand that this message is about everyone and that her family can be better and so much happier. They have been reading and praying together for the last two weeks and Lawanda and her mother in law with all of the kids are going to be coming to church this next Sunday. I am really praying that they come and feel the Spirit there. I love these people SO much!!!
Some of the pictures that I am attaching are from last Monday's p-day. We went to a place called the Plaza in Kansas City Kansas with a member and a girl that we are hoping to be teaching soon. Because of her previous religion it is not the safest thing for her to do to convert right now so we are just trying to work by the Spirit and praying for miracles. Her name is Nayge and she is one of the most beautiful people that I have ever met.
So I am learning to do hard things. Plain and simple. Sometimes when something is hard you just do what you have to do and the Lord always provides when you have faith that He will. I am learning to not worry over things that I cannot change. As a missionary I am very limited in the way that I can help people and sometimes this just frustrates me SO much. I am referring to this last week when we went over to our recent convert, Brian's house, and we realized that he is living in a very unsanitary situation. My heart almost broke because we thought his house was so much cleaner because when we were meeting with him in his living room it was very tidy, and his house is very tidy...just very grimy. He does not have a washer or dryer, so he washes his clothes in the bathtub. There are so many other things as well but I will not go into details. I felt sick to my stomach and all that I wanted to do for the rest of the day was to clean his house and take care of all of the things that he needs. We are trying so hard to get the ward to come over and help them but a lot of these people cannot even help themselves. We are allowed to do three hours of service a week and we will be doing our service at his house for quite awhile.
