Hola todos!
Wow, so I got here to the computer lab at the library and I looked over to the right of me and saw a man that we met one day at the library. He is hispanic and he was reading his Bible so I had started talking to him and actually gave him a Book of Mormon. Well I just sat down next to him and as I was about to start writing you all he leaned over and asked me "Te gustarÃa a cenar conmigo?" He whispered it and I was like thinking in my mind that he asked me if I would like to talk about the gospel but I felt a prompting to say no but instead I was like "Si claro" (yeah sure) and he was like "Enserio?"(seriously?) and then I had a sick feeling in my stomach so I said "Perdon, no se esta palabra 'cenar'" and he said "You want dinner with me?". I then tried really hard not to laugh and said "Oh, no, no, no, soy una misionera...no puedo." (I am a missionary...I can't). So...I just said yes to a date as a missionary. Okay on accident. But it was funny. He then proceeded to ask me for how long I will be a missionary. Man. Oops. When you don't know exactly what someone is saying, DO NOT say yes. Lesson learned.
So our week was good! Lawanda and Tiana, the mother and daughter that are getting baptized on the 29th of September came to church again yesterday and they both loved it. I can't even express to you all how much I love this family. I think I sent a picture to you guys of them awhile back, the family consists of the mom, Lawanda and her six kids. They are black and these kids are the cutest little kids in the entire world! I LOVE THEM. Yesterday as Lawanda and Tiana were about to go home after church Lawanda asked Tiana if she could feel herself changing for the good inside, and then she said "Cuz I sure can!". They are really excited for their baptism and so am I. We have worked really hard with them for months now and finally they are really close to the waters of baptism and we can see the changes in them. It is the greatest thing that I have ever seen in my entire life. The youngest of Lawanda's kids is named Maria and she is my little buddy. As a missionary we are not allowed to pick up kids and it is the hardest rule for me. Instead I just pinch her little cheeks and play with her. At first when we were visiting them she would not even come near us, now she runs to me and tries to get me to hold her. I need to take a good picture with her and send it to you all.
I have been thinking so much this week about the way that we as humans choose to set the tone of our homes and our lives. I see so much abuse and neglect going on in the homes of a good amount of the people that we visit and even our neighbors right now. Yesterday we witnessed this man yelling his head of at his little boy who could not have been more than 4 years old. He yelled horrible words and profanities at this cute little kid and called him horrible names. Man, what must this man have gone through that made him think that it is in ANY way okay to say things like that to a small child, let alone to anyone? I was talking with my companion about it because it made both of us sick and I told her that I wonder who yelled at him that way and if he remembered how it made him feel as a little kid. We have so many choices in this life. We can choose to use the things that have happened to us in the past as a crutch and repeat the cycle of abuse that may have happened to us, OR we can use the atonement of the Savior to help us let it go, and then use the example of the Savior to teach us how to be the best parents, friends, brothers, sisters, etc. that we can be. I then look on the other hand. Tonight we are going to eat with the daughter of the bishop in our ward. Her and her husband are not perfect people but they have chosen to have Christ be the center of their home and the difference compared to the kind of homes that we visit normally is HUGE. There is love and respect and the Spirit of the Lord abides there. I feel like I can breath so much easier in their home. I want to raise my children with a good sense of discipline and at the same time I am going to love them very much and that is one thing that they will never wonder about. Sometimes I just want to cry because I want to pick up so many of these neglected kids that we see and hug and kiss them and tell them that they are so very loved. I always wonder if they ever have anyone tell them that they are loved. I wonder if they every have anyone touch them lovingly and tell them how special they are. People need to be loved. The more love that you give the more you will receive.
I am sending some pictures of a night that we went and at soul food in one of the most shady areas of the city. It was so fun. The place is called Mama R's. They gave us SO much food! I had sweet potatoes, fried corn, fried pork chops, salad and mashed potatoes and gravy Cajun style. I thought I would burst after we were done. I did not even eat half of it. Hmmm...soul food. They should call it "make your hips big" food.
Well I love this gospel. It is everything to me. I am continually learning so much. I really appreciate your love and support!
les quero mucho!
Hermana Thorne
Hola todos!
Oh man, how are things going in your various parts of the country? I pray that all is well and that this email finds you all healthy and happy. I am doing well here in Kansas City, Kansas. We have less and less cockroaches as the days go on because some bug guys came and sprayed the whole apartments complex(pray answered!). They are slowly dying off and we are rejoicing in our many dead blessings...I have never been so happy to see a little dead carcass in my whole life...
You know we had a really successful week this week. We met a lot of wonderful people and we worked really hard to get members to come teach with us which has always been such a struggle in this ward because it is low income and a lot of people do not have transportation. Well we tripled our number of member present lessons! (okay so it was just from 1 last week to 3 this week, but still! HOOOORAY!!!!) Yesterday as we were walking I told my companion that maybe I was a bad missionary, when she asked me why in the world I thought that I told her because right in this moment I do not want to be working(we were tracting at the time...). We laughed and she reminded me that a lot of missionaries don't want to tract but we do it anyway. This has been such a lesson that I have learned this week. We live in a world where if people don't want to do something, they just don't do it. Because of this fact we find fatherless children, lack of discipline, unemployment, obesity...just to name a few. So many people have no self respect or level of self worth and I am starting to understand that at least in part it has to do with never doing things that they don't want to do(don't worry, I am totally included in this catagory...). This last week although successful was a bit of a rough one. I think it was Thursday night we were over at one of my favorite member's homes eating dinner. I had been excited to go all day because she is such a sweet old woman from Mexico who is a recent convert and also recently has had to deal with her son getting severely beaten and his eye gauged out down in Mexico. Also she loves me so that helps too:D anyway she made this awesome dinner for us and I was so excited! She had made homemade flour tortillas(ay mi vida!) and carne asada con papas, and there was fresh avocados and tomatoes, and mashed potatoes...all so GOOD! Well I started eating and as I was about half way through my plate my stomach started aching really bad and slowly got worse and worse until I had to run to the bathroom because I thought I need to vomit. Well I could not through up which was a bit exasperating because I wanted to feel better. I was in and out of the bathroom a few times until the last time my companion came and said that we needed to get me home but could I come and tell the Hermana that was feeding us because my comp does not speak Spanish. Well I went and sat down at the table and told her. By this time I was shaking a bit and my face was white, I just did not feel well. The wonderful Hermana had fixed me a big bag of the food to take home and eat the next day but just as we were about to leave she told me to sit back down and wait because she had something that she thought would make me feel better, she was just really worried about me(I LOVE her). Well she came right back with a little packet of something that she poured into a glass of water. When she handed it to me my companion whispered to me "It is antacid!". At this point with all that was in me I DID NOT want to drink that antacid. I was terrified that I would throw up on the darling abuelita! Well I did not want to be rude so I took a swig and it tasted horrific! It took everything I had not to spit it right out. The Hermana was just looking at me smiling all tender as I gagged. She told me to finish it because it would help me feel better. So I did. One of the worst moments of my life. So this story is pretty hilarious and the next day we laughed a lot about it. This is a silly example of doing something even though we don't want to, but a more serious one is how I have really changed the way that I do my studies in the morning. It is hard to stay focused some days, and a lot of time I just want to study the Book of Mormon or the Bible for myself because I love them so much. In Preach My Gospel we are asked to study specifically for our investigators. I have really worked on this and I feel like it is part of why we are having a lot more success. I have really tried to direct my thoughts to why I am doing the things that I do as a missionary because then I do what I don't what to do because I love God. I challenge you all to try thinking about the reasons why you do or don't do the things that you don't want to do.
I am also including some pictures of cutie patootie animals we got to hold this week. I was in Heaven.
ALSO our investigator, Ivan, came to church yesterday and we will be holding his baptism and hopefully the baptisms of 4 others(our family we are teaching) on the 29 of Sep!!!
les quero much!!!
Hermana Thorne
Hola todos!
Pues como está? Espero que todo esta bien y que sus vidas estan llenas de gozo. Les quero mucho!!!!! So because Labor day was on Monday I was not able to go to the library to write my email and yesterday we had exchanges so I was in another city called Overland Park, Kansas. So. I am writing today. My experience in Overland Park yesterday was crazy! This city is one of the wealthiest in all of Kansas so we actually tracted in an area with multi-million dollar homes...pretty much the exact opposite of what we do here in KCK. Yeah. I missed my area very badly. People were not friendly at all to us there. We did find a couple of people that were in the lower income parts of the area but it was still crazy because the lower income parts of that area are like the highest income of my area...needless to say I am so grateful for that chance that I had to go there because I feel so thankful for the mission experience that I have thus far had and I LOVE that I have had the chance to serve with some of the most humble people in all of our mission. For dinner a member family(they are actually from Twin Falls and that was pretty cool) took us to the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah I have not eaten somewhere like that since before my mission. It was nice but highly over rated. Why spend so much money on food that is so bland?! I needed some more spice to my food...man it's like Americans have no taste buds(no offense if you are American, ja ja!)! I would prefer a plate of beans, rice and carne asada with some corn tortillas on the side any day. The women in the wards that I have served in know how to cook, seeing as how a good amount of them are Latinas(and so am I now!...just a very freckly one... :D). Anyway. I love authentic Latin food. LOVE IT.
So I am realizing something extremely important on my mission. The thing that I should be the most afraid of in my entire life is sin. Honestly on my mission I am not super tempted to commit a whole lot of big sins or anything. One thing that sometimes I do have an issue with is lack of...well I guess that you could call it oomf. Like the "I am so excited that I could pee my pants because I am a missionary and I want to convert the whole world" type of feeling. Some days I feel a lot more excited than others but I am realizing that the biggest fights that I am going to fight in my life are doing things even when I really don't want to do them. The world teaches us that if we don't want to do something then we don't have to do it and that it is our "right" not to have to do anything that we don't want to do. My area is completely jam-packed with these kinds of people. We see parents all of the time never making their children do things that the kids don't want to do...but how are these kids turning out? Kansas City has some of the highest crime, drug use, and gang activity in the entire country not to mention the insane amount of people living off of the government on some type of disability. I have compassion for people with disabilities, believe me I do, but when I say that the majority of the people that we come in contact with in the projects are on disability I am not even exaggerating. So. Getting back to my original thought. What would happen if I did things because Heavenly Father asks me and because really in my heart I have given EVERYTHING I have over to him, knowing and trusting that He knows the beginning from the end and what is best for me? From my personal and companionship studies recently I know that the Lord is asking me for my whole heart. Well I am about ten months into my mission, you would think that I would have gotten this down by now but the honest truth is that I have not. I find myself thinking about how tired I am, or how hungry or how stressed. I find myself thinking about the "outside world" sometimes and things from home, especially my family. You know all of this makes the work harder, not easier. I am realizing that one small choice at a time can help me give myself over more and more to the Lord. I am still human and sometimes I get scared that if I give myself over too much to the Lord that I am going to be a real weirdo after the mission and it will be even harder to give up this name tag and the work that has become who I am and I love who I am...well today I realized that this is going to happen anyway so I just need to let it go and trust that the Lord will provide. Sometimes I am afraid of my own potential because I feel like if I reach that high that no one around me is going to be able to relate with me because a lot of people I have found(on the mission and otherwise) can settle for a different level of commitment and hard work and feel fine about it. Well I think that part of my problem lately with focusing has been that I have not been trying to work my hardest and give all that I have. Jesus Christ says in 3 Nephi 12:6 " And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost." So if I put my whole heart into the work, all of my thoughts, my wants, my desires I know that I will "hunger and thirst after righteousness" and then I will be "filled with the Holy Ghost". As missionaries we CANNOT teach with out the Holy Ghost. This is it. I don't want to just feel the Holy Ghost, I want to be "filled" with the Holy Ghost. If I give my whole self, then every night I can lay down knowing that I was filled with the Holy Ghost and that I did not use my frail, mortal words to try to convey the most beautiful message that ever existed. A message of truth such as this needs to be taught by divine power so that the divinity with in all of those that I am teaching will be able to recognize it. So the key to this? Let go. Give it over. I am too weak. I need to give Him my wants, my dreams, my desire, and especially my thoughts and actions. So that is what I need to do. What do you need to do? How can you purify yourself before the Lord? How can you further receive His image in your countenance?
So. A quick reference to the pictures I am sending. One of them is of a member of our ward who is very proud that he can fit a whole soda can in his mouth, his name is Benjamin. Ha ha! Then the others our with some of the lovely sisters that I serve around including my companion.
An update on the mail situation, it has been resolved and my prayers have been answered! The senior sister missionary at the office sent all of the mail from the week before my birthday to an address that does not exist so if you sent me a letter and got it back you can send it to me again with the mission office's address and I should get it because she changed the address to our address. Thank you all for the love and support that you give me, especially letters because it really helps a lot.
Les quero mucho!
con amor,
Hermana Thorne
COCKROACHES.
Hola todos,
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!
les amo!!!
Hermana Thorne
Hola todos!!!
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.
I love you all very much! Have a great week!
con amor,
Hermana Thorne
Hola todos,
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
