I cannot believe that this day has come, I am about to write to you all my very last email home. I am doing really well this week. I have mentally been preparing to leave the mission and praying that the Lord would help me to live in the reality of the situation and to accept it for what it is. I am going home and my call as a full time missionary will end at the end of this week and I have finally accepted this and the Lord has helped me to feel such peace and hope for the future. The other night my dear Bishop and his wife had all of the missionaries over one last time for dinner before I leave and Sister Smith(the Bishop's wife) asked me if I was going to go home and just sleep and sleep. She was a bit surprised when I told her that no I was not planning on doing that because I know that sleeping in a ton will make me way more likely to have depression and recently returned missionaries are already really prone to this so I want to do all that I can to keep myself active. I did tell her that I WILL be taking naps though and she laughed at this. I do have quite a few goals and plans that I will be accomplishing when I arrive home and I am thankful that the Lord has inspired me to think about these things and that missionaries that I know who have gone home before me have given me advice. I really just feel like I am about to enter into a new mission field! What will I do when I do not need to talk to every person that passes by me to share the message of the Restored Gospel? Every time we leave the house I am looking for a person to talk to about the gospel. Preach My Gospel says that we should speak with someone about the gospel within 5 minutes of leaving the apartment...I am just picturing myself watching out my parents front window for one of our neighbors to come out of their house so that I can share a message of truth with them...no wonder newly returned missionaries are weirdos...
Alright. I need to tell you all about what happened this last Saturday. My companion and I were talking last week about how I want to finish my mission. I was having a pretty hard week because the fact that I was leaving was really setting in and I just felt so sad about it. She asked me what was something that I really wanted to do before I left and I thought for a minute and then I told her "I want to teach one lesson for every year that I have been alive all in one day.". So we made our goal, 24 lessons in one day. We decided that my last Saturday on the mission would be the perfect day for this so we kept our schedule pretty clear. That morning before we left we made a goal to give out 30 copies of the Book of Mormon(20 in English, 10 in Spanish) along with teaching our 24 lessons. I sent the picture of me with the copies of the Book of Mormon right before we went out. We prayed so hard that the Lord would put people in our path because honestly teaching 7 lessons in a day is a really good day and we knew that the Lord would have to be a big part of this goal as in all of the work that we do. Another catch was that we had dinner with our Bishop that night and we knew that he would be picking us up at 5:30 and because he lives a half hour a way from where we live we did not know if we would be able to get much done after dinner. We only had 5 hours to make our goal! So we prayed and left the house and right away taught our neighbor named Henry and then gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. Literally just as we stepped out of the house the Lord put someone in our path and things like this continued to happen during those five hours. About three hours in we had given away 20 copies of the Book of Mormon and taught many lessons when all of a sudden every single person that we talked to did not want to listen and we even came across an anti-Mormon...person after person kept rejecting us, about 10 people in a row. I could feel that we were starting to get discouraged because we both were a bit hungry and tired but I knew that the Lord could give us the strength to finish strong and because we asked for it He did. We finally found another person who wanted to listen and then another and another and we ended up finishing those five hours having given out all 30 copies of the Book of Mormon and having taught 28 lessons and getting 9 new investigators!!!! This week our schedule is literally all booked up with new investigator appointments! When we got home that night I was so exhausted that I could hardly see straight but I was also so full of joy and gratitude because I know that Hermana Jorgensen and whoever her new companion is are going to be very busy with teaching and busy missionaries are happy missionaries! It was an AWESOME last Saturday as a missionary and I am SO thankful for Hermana Jorgensen and her desire to work hard along side me.
Yesterday was such a great last Sunday as a missionary. The bishop asked me to share my testimony first in sacrament meeting and so I did. I shared my testimony half in English, half in Spanish so that the investigators that we had at church who only speak English could understand me. Looking out over the ward I felt so happy to know all of those people and to have had a chance to be changed by them. I have spent half of my mission in the Kaw River ward so it really is such a home to me. So many of the members came up to me afterward and asked that I please come back and visit soon and that I am welcome to stay in their home(Mom and Doug this means that we have to go back ASAP and we will never have to pay for a hotel!!!) My companion and I also made dinner for Brian Jones, a recent convert who I taught and got to see baptized last summer. He was so excited about the dinner and we had a really nice time showing him the movie Legacy. Okay so maybe we did not really "make" him all of the dinner. An investigator that we have knows that I love tamales and so he gave my companion and I 8 tamales and we saved them to have for dinner with Brian. It was a great night of good food and wonderful company.
This next Wednesday(my last day in Kaw River) my companion and I will be going to the temple with Brian Jones and Lawanda Reese(one of my favorite people in the whole world who I taught and got to see baptized the last time that I was here). They will be doing baptisms for the dead for the first time! I cannot think of a better way to spend the last day in Kaw River. Honestly I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that my mission has been so perfect for me. My call was switched to Spanish and then I got to spend over a year in two Spanish wards with some of the most wonderful people in the whole world. I have been able to train Hermana Jorgensen and here is some crazy news-my new child missionary is already going to be a mother when I leave! She has only been here six weeks but she has been called to train a new missionary! She has worked really hard to memorize her lessons and she is as ready as a missionary can be. I am going to be a grandmother in the mission! With the new influx of sister missionaries things like this are happening. I am so blessed to have been able to see the age change during my mission.
I would not have been a missionary if it was not for my Mom and step-dad Doug. They supported me when I told them I wanted to serve and they have also financially backed me. They have made possible all of these beautiful experiences that have changed me and so many others forever. I also want to thank all of the other people who have helped my parents and who have supported me by writing me and praying for me. I have felt those prayers as a missionary and they have gotten me through many trials.
This has been the greatest experience of my life. My Savior has become my best friend, and I know that the best is yet to come.I will forever be a missionary. I want to end with some words of the dear Prophet Joseph Smith, my friend and brother.
"Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. aCourage, brethren; and on, on to the victory!"
See you soon my friends,
Hermana Thorne
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