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. I just sent a bunch of pictures and if you read the captions you all should know by now that we got a flat tire this morning so we just barely got to the library to start emailing! It was alright though. We made the most out of it and it was enjoyable getting the car all fixed up and ready to be used again. It snowed again a few days ago and it is still snowing a bit. Man. I would LOVE to see some signs of spring! I love spring here, it is BEAUTIFUL! Alas, I shall wait out the snow and then the spring shall be all the more welcome. Yesterday church was cancelled because a huge snow storm came in Saturday night. I am not sure that I have ever experienced church being cancelled before. I was SO bummed out about this, which is funny because when I was a child this probably would have been joyful news. ha ha. We were asked to stay at home yesterday until 4 pm when we were told that we were not allowed to drive in the car but that we could walk so that is what we did. The picture of Hna Jorgensen and I with our faces covered by our scarves is from yesterday when we were walking because it was FREEZING! We did feel great after having gone out though and we were able to find some great service opportunities. It is really fun to get to teach Hna Jorgensen about missionary life and she is learning just as I did that even when it is hard we just do it and then we and those around us are blessed. When we focus on how hard the task at hand is it just seems so much harder. I don't see a point on dwelling on how difficult something is when I am going to have to do it anyway. I might as well enjoy myself!
We found some INCREDIBLE people this last week! We prayed that we would find someone on Saturday who had really been prepared. This is exactly what happened. We ended up finding a woman named Breanna who is so sweet and I just love her already. We are going back to her house to teach her tonight and we are both really excited. We also found a really young couple who are super nice and they introduced us to their pet monkey...yes. Their pet monkey. HE IS SO CUTE! His name is Mac and he is 11 years old. This means he is old enough to be baptized and have us teach him the lessons too! Sadly I think that this may be against one of the rules so we will just be feeding him bananas when we visit his owners Scott and Megan. What a great story though, right?!
Saturday was just a pretty great day because Hna Jorgensen invited one of our investigators for baptism and he accepted! He will be getting baptized on the 13th of April. Ha ha! You all should have seen Hna Jorgensen's face when he said yes, she looked shocked and so I had to finish the invitation by asking him if he would prepare himself to be baptized on April 13th. She has invited one or two people before but they did not say yes so she did not know what to do. She gets really excited when we find success and I love that about her. The man who is getting baptized on April 13th is named Victor. This man is so prepared! His wife is already a member of the church and he has a very solid Christian background so he is such a pleasure to teach! I am so excited for his baptism!
Things are going so well here! I love the Kaw River ward!!! Oh I almost forgot, my mom told me that my homecoming talk we be on the 28th of April at my home ward in Payson. I hope that you all can make it because I would love to see you there :)
les quiero mucho y espero que todo esta bien en sus vidas!
The first thing that I really want to write about this week is a miracle that the Lord blessed us with. The story really starts a few weeks ago. When I was still companions with Hermana Altier we were walking to a dinner appointment one night and we were late so we were walking really fast when we passed by a car with two people in it that had broken down by the side of the road. As we walked past I asked them if they needed any help and they said no and so we just kept walking. By the time that we had walked about a half of a block past these people I just had a feeling that they really needed a pamphlet so I told Hermana Altier that they needed one and that I would be right back. I ran back and handed them a pamphlet through the window. They were all awkward about it like they really did not want to talk to me so I told them that our number was on the back of the pamphlet and to call if they wanted to learn more. I then ran back to my companion and we walked to our dinner appointment. Well this last Thursday Hermana Jorgensen and I were walking to the bus stop to catch the bus when this car pulls up next to us and this guy yells out the window "Where is your church and what time does it start?!". When we walked over to him I recognized him as the guy in the broken down car. He then told me that he had been pulled over by the police and because his car appears to be stolen and he had an open beer bottle on the front seat the police officer was going to arrest him but then the officer saw the pamphlet that I had given him and he let him go. This guy was completely serious and he then told me that he knew he needed to come to church. I then was like "Yeah, WOW! You better come to church! I think that God is trying to tell you something!" he then laughed and said that he knew this. So yesterday we were at church in Relief Society sitting with an investigator that came to church named Maria when one of the guys from the elders quorum came to the door and signaled for me to come out into the hall. When I got out into the hall guess who was standing there?! Osvaldo! The guy in the car! He came to church!!! He connected really well with the guys in the elders quorum and is going to be helping a member out this Saturday putting up dry-wall or something. SO COOL! The Lord knows what He is doing.
Another awesome thing that happened was that a woman that we have been teaching pretty much since I got back here to Kaw River, Maria, came to church yesterday! We have been trying to get her to come to church for the past like 6 weeks! We were at her house last week and I just felt like the lesson that we were having was going no where and I had no idea what to teach and my companion is still very new in the mission so she looks to me to lead her in our teaching still. I was feeling a bit helpless when the though popped into my head "Clean her house" and so that is what we did. My poor companion is so tired because she is still getting used to the mission schedule and so she looked like she was about to fall over as she was sweeping the floor but we cleaned her house! As we cleaned I could see Maria's countenance soften and she was glowing by the time we were done cleaning. When we were done we sang some hymns in Spanish for her and she said that if we came by her house in the morning that she would follow us to church, and the next morning she was in her car all ready to go when we got to her house! But this is not all! After sacrament meeting we were in the hallway and a man that was visiting our ward yesterday came up to Maria and started talking to her and it turns out that they know each other because he taught her daughter English many years ago! What are the chances? I mean this guy was visiting our ward just this one week and finally Maria decides to come to church. She was so excited to see him and was just all smiles after this. We are going to invite her to be baptized tonight and I am really looking forward to it. The Lord has been and continues to be so good to us.
Well I have to go because time is running short but I love you all and I pray that you are all progressing in your various lugares.
Here I am again, at the computer wondering how I am going to fit in all that I want to say into this little email. SO much has happened!!!!!!! Last week was a bit rough, I was really in need of a change and so I prayed that we would have one and WE DID! I am now training a bran new missionary fresh from the MTC! Her name is Hermana Jorgensen and she is absolutely wonderful! When I was at the transfer bus on Thursday morning the mission President's wife, Sister Keyes, came over to me and asked me if I had met my new companion yet. I told her that yes I had(at this moment I was saying hello to all of the missionaries that we at the transfer bus and my new companion was not right next to me) and Sister Keyes asked me if I knew that she already knew me before she got to the mission. I was completely shocked and I told her that no I did not know. She then told me about how Hermana Jorgensen knew me because she read my blog before the mission!!! Literally right when she got her mission call last August she went on the computer and looked up our mission and my blog popped up and she read all of it. She also told me that she wondered if I would be the one to train her right before I went home...crazy right?! My dear friend Nikki made me a blog and updates it with these emails that I send home and also the pictures so when President showed her my picture he was quite shocked when she told him that she already knew me a bit. The Lord knows what He is doing, does He not? I feel so humbled by this experience because that Lord knows me so well. Hermana Jorgensen is the BEST. We are already great friends and absolutely LOVE getting to train her. It is crazy to see so many things in her that I have experienced myself and to look back and think how far I have come. I love that I can relate to her when she feels inadequate with her Spanish. I can tell her that I knew WAY less than she knew when I first got here because unlike her I did not get to go the the MTC for Spanish. She thinks that I speak perfect Spanish but she is quite a bit mistaken because I have a TON of room for improvement and I know that she will be doing even better than me at the end of her mission if she works diligently at it. Training is the BEST!
I keep trying to tell Hermana Jorgensen that Spanish and the things of the mission will come to her as she works. Line upon line, precept on precept. I cannot even believe that I am saying this. I feel so different than I did before I was a missionary and training helps me realize this more than anything else. Honestly talking about this makes me feel emotional because the understanding that I have gained that good things take time is so valuable in my life. I know that if I work hard at something that day by day it will improve and that I will look back some time later and see the progress that I have made. This is hard living in a world full of instant gratification, but it is what we learn in the scriptures and the word of God will NOT fail us. You know those days when you feel like you just can't do it anymore? When you are just too tired, too worn out, and stretched too thin? Yeah I know those days very well myself, and then I reach Sunday. Oh blessed Sunday. If we are keeping the Sabbath day holy then Sunday is the re-charger of our spiritual, emotional, and physical batteries. We just need to make it to Sunday and then those feelings of being "too" anything will be dissolved in the Atonement of our loving brother, Jesus Christ. This is an eternal truth, and I know it because although on Sundays we do not get more rest(in fact for me this day tends to be the most stressful and hectic) and we do not spend more time studying our scriptures or being with family as missionaries, we too get to partake of the Sacrament. For those few minutes during Sacrament meeting when I get to take Christ's name upon me a new, I feel whole again and I know within me that there is not anything that the Savior and I won't be able to handle the coming week. I cannot sufficiently stress the importance of not missing church. You need it. I need it and when I go with faith that I will feel renewed, then I am renewed and the world is a much happy place for this missionary. Keep the Sabbath day Holy, in this there is safety, in this there is peace.
Sometimes when I write letters home there are tears running down my cheeks and today is one of those days. I bet the people around me wonder what in the world is going on with me. It's okay, I have been a missionary long enough that people staring at me has become the norm. What will I do when people no longer stare at me like that?! Ha, ha :D I pray that you all have the best week yet. Go hug the person that is nearest to you RIGHT NOW! ha ha, sorry that sounded forceful and also I just laughed out loud to myself because I was picturing some of you getting up from the computer to hug your bosses at work. HA HA! Do it! Maybe they need it...
I cannot even believe that the month of March is already upon us! Yes, I am aware of the fact that next month I go home. On the first day of March this was quite strange for me to be able to say that and I felt such mixed feelings about it but as I have talked to the Lord about it and my companion I really do feel at peace. I am loving the time that I have here and when my time is over then it is over and I will go on to the path that the Lord has prepared for me for after my mission. It is good to finally feel this way and to not feel fear in leaving the mission...don't get me wrong though, I am nervous about it but usually change brings a level of nervousness with it.
This last week was quite full of adventure. We had a HUGE snowstorm and the snow has not yet melted from this storm, it still covers the ground and makes it feel like me are in a refrigerator when we are outside. We had to stay inside all day on Tuesday. We worked by using our telephone which actually turned out to be a big blessing. We found a few people to teach by calling former investigators and we also got to teach quite a few of our investigators over the phone. Let me tell you though, I was VERY ready to go outside and be able to teach normally. It turns out that it REALLY is not a good idea for me to be inside for too long...
I think by now all of you may have seen the picture of me holding my shoe with my tights all wet on the right foot? Yeah my feet get really bad blisters with the snow boots that I have and I knew that we were going to be walking several miles that day so for the first time on my mission I wore my tennis shoes so that we could keep our set appointments and my feet could be without blisters. As we were walking to our dinner appointment that night I pointed to a house that I wanted to go and knock and my companion followed me. I just started walking in the snow leading up to the house when I sunk into the puddle beneath. My companion thought that it was hilarious but it was so cold that I had to catch my breath. Thankfully I was carrying boots in my bag and we did not have too far to walk, but it was still pretty funny. Yeah...I am not wearing my tennis shoes again...it was too silly and I felt a bit like a weirdo...Thankfully this week we have the car!
I was able to go on exchanges with the sisters in Overland Park this last week on Thursday. I almost called off exchanges due to the weather but it turned out that by Thursday the roads had been cleared enough that we could drive safely on them. I sent a picture of Sister Schwarz to you all. She is such a beautiful person, inside and out! She is from Gilbert, Arizona and she is 19 years old!!!! I got to serve with a 19 year old sister! I feel like she is wise beyond her years and I am so thankful to Heavenly Father that the roads were cleared and that He inspired me to plan the exchange on that day because we could not have done it had it been any other day of the week. Sister Schwarz was really in need of some confidence boosting and that is what happened while we were together. In their area it is really hard to find investigators because most of the people are very wealthy but we saw a miracle happen. We were trying to contact a potential investigator that the sisters there had talked to a few weeks previous but they were not too friendly and saw us out the window and would not come to the door. We then went and got back into the car and I told her that we were going to pray to find the person who we were supposed to find in that area. We did so and then I started to drive. As we were driving we passed a street and I felt like we should turn onto it but I didn't turn. I kept driving but then I felt like we needed to go back. I told her that there was someone down that street that we would find. So we went back and we pulled up in front of this big, green house where a girl was standing outside. She went inside right after we pulled up and I told Sister Schwarz that we were going to go in and talk to her. Sister Schwarz was really nervous but I reassured her and we prayed and then went and knocked on the door. The girl who had been outside opened the door and when we said that we were missionaries she let us inside. We then proceeded to teach her and she accepted the message really well. She actually got really excited and told us that she felt like God wanted her to know more and to expand her spiritual understanding. This was such a tender mercy from the Lord. We got all of her info and set a return appointment and after we left she sent us a text thanking us so much for coming to her house and sharing what we know. Our prayers were heard. The Lord led us to her. I am praying that Sister Schwarz remembers this forever and continues to let the Spirit work through her so that she can find those that are prepared by the hand of the Lord. The Lord loves us and He will hear and answer you.
Well I have to go because we are going bowling with the elders in a couple of minutes! I am excited because I have not been bowling in forever!!!
Have a great week and keep moving forward!
con amor,
Hermana Thorne The snow storm hit! This is the view from our front door and also the cars are our neighbors. One of them was trying to push the other with his car...it was funny...also there is a pic of the mission car One of these is to show how deep the snow was, another is me laughing at our neighbor Jose because he is stuck(this is not just because I am cold hearted but because he is this hilarious Mexican man who says that he is a missionary too and my companion thinks that he wants to take me out to dinner because he is always asking us random questions...also he wants us to buy him pizza or "peek-za" as he says it), the other picture is of me hugging the heater because we borrowed it from the other sisters due to our lack of heater for a small amount of time in our apartment. :D This is a picture of Sister Schwarz and I when we went on exchanges last week. There is also a pic of the Kaw River gang(uh...not literally a gang...the missionaries...I gotta be careful with what I say...) ha ha and then there is a pic of all of the Kaw River sister missionaries-we needed a family photo. A not blurry pic of Sis Schwarz and I, Elder De Leon making tortillas at the Perez family's house, and also all of the elders crammed into the back of a VW Bug...it was funny. My comp and I at a child's baptism in the ward this last week, another pic of me is when I stepped in a puddle the one day that I wore tennis shoes...yeah...THEN the pic of us in front of the food is VERY special because it is my favorite food in all of my mission...CHICKEN CHIPOTLE
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