Week 37!! Groningen (Also known as the Closest Place to Heaven)

Gooie Morgen!!!!!


Hey everybody! I hope you are ready, because these week has been incredible! I came to Groningen on Wednesday, and I have been amazed by ​absolutely​ everything!

I mentioned that it was a student city last week, but I didn't quite realize what I meant. There are sooo many young people here. And since it is mostly hoge school (bachelors degree), they are almost all our age. It was kinda a shock.

With the business of the new week, we haven't gotten to do a lot of proselyting, but the times that we have I have been awestruck. And that is no exaggeration. I will give you an example. We were knocking in the middle of the day, so there wasn't a lot of people home. We ended up talking with a total of 4 people. 2 young men, 2 young women. We had a 50% success rate. And we all know what gender tends to be more open... It is a good thing we have sister missionaries to pass them along to :).

Sunday was the best day of my entire mission! This is the biggest ward in Nederland, and it is obvious why. Everyone magnifies their calling, and 1 or 2 people every week have given out of ​B​ook of ​M​ormon. We had an investigator come, and he loved it! And we got a bunch of dinner appointments too, so this upcoming week should be good :). After church we went and knocked some doors, or tried to. Our first door was a guy named Bennie, and after the normal introduction, he let us in, we got to know him a little bit, and managed to fit a restoration lesson in there too :). And of course a return appointment.

After that we knocked a few more doors, but we had almost a 100% success rate, and we didn't even have enough copies of the Book of Mormon. The worst answer we got was "I am really busy with school, so maybe another time." I am unbelievably excited for this transfer!

Being a district leader has been super cool, but more time consuming than I thought. Elder Mostoller and I are district leaders together (that is normal in our mission). Our district is super cool, and I am super excited to work with them.

Elder Mostoller and I!

Farewells to Sandra and Jamali! :( (sorry about the red eyes)

The sunsets here are incredible!

Sorry this email was so long!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 37!! Groningen (Also known as the Closest Place to Heaven)

Gooie Morgen!!!!!

Hey everybody! I hope you are ready, because these week has been incredible! I came to Groningen on Wednesday, and I have been amazed by ​absolutely​

everything!

I mentioned that it was a student city last week, but I didn't quite realize what I meant. There are sooo many young people here. And since it is mostly hoge school (bachelors degree), they are almost all our age. It was kinda a shock.

With the business of the new week, we haven't gotten to do a lot of proselyting, but the times that we have I have been awestruck. And that is no exaggeration. I will give you an example. We were knocking in the middle of the day, so there wasn't a lot of people home. We ended up talking with a total of 4 people. 2 young men, 2 young women. We had a 50% success rate. And we all know what gender tends to be more open... It is a good thing we have sister missionaries to pass them along to :).

Sunday was the best day of my entire mission! This is the biggest ward in Nederland, and it is obvious why. Everyone magnifies their calling, and 1 or 2 people every week have given out of ​B​ook of ​M​ormon. We had an investigator come, and he loved it! And we got a bunch of dinner appointments too, so this upcoming week should be good :). After church we went and knocked some doors, or tried to. Our first door was a guy named Bennie, and after the normal introduction, he let us in, we got to know him a little bit, and managed to fit a restoration lesson in there too :). And of course a return appointment.

After that we knocked a few more doors, but we had almost a 100% success rate, and we didn't even have enough copies of the Book of Mormon. The worst answer we got was "I am really busy with school, so maybe another time." I am unbelievably excited for this transfer!

Being a district leader has been super cool, but more time consuming than I thought. Elder Mostoller and I are district leaders together (that is normal in our mission). Our district is super cool, and I am super excited to work with them.

Elder Mostoller and I!

Farewells to Sandra and Jamali! :( (sorry about the red eyes)

The sunsets here are incredible!

Sorry this email was so long!

Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 36! Overplaatsingen! (Transfers!)

Hoi jullie!

This week has been so great! AND... we received transfer calls Saturday!

I have been called to serve in the city of Groningen! I will be serving with my old district leader Elder Mostoller as a district leader. I am really excited to serve the people there and learn how to be a leader! Groningen is the most north area of the mission, and it is a student city, so that will definitely be a change for me. I am sad to be leaving Amsterdam, with our investigators and members, but Elder McDivitt will do an excellent job keeping it all going. He is going to be training in Amsterdam! I am super excited for him!

We worked really hard this week and it has paid off! We had several good lessons, with several people progressing to baptism. One of them is Patricia, a Surinamer I mentioned a few weeks ago. She just soaks in everything. Our lesson went so well with her. We went through 3 Nephi 11, which set ​everything up​:​

Christ, priesthood authority, and baptism absolutely perfect. She asked perfect questions, and she accepted the challenge to be baptized and wants to set a date after she has seen the baptism of 2 investigators of the zone leaders. I am kinda sad I won't be here to see her progress, but we are all on the same team, so as long as she keeps up her incredible curiosity and enthusiasm.

I love you guys!



We got some hats from our ward mission leader... So of course we took a sweet "thug missionary" photo :)



Last run through the graveyard! This is by far my favorite!



Photo as a district!

Love,
Elder Thornton

P.S. If you would like to send me music, you can send me the digital copy or give the cd to my parents. The easiest way to play music for me is through a USB, so the CDs end up getting left in the apartment. All Christian music is "hartelijke welkom!"​ (warmly welcome)​

Week 35! De Lente! (Spring!)

Good Morning Lovely People!

I hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring, because I certainly am! The flowers are blooming, the days are warmer, and so are the people! People are a lot more willing to talk to a couple fancy dressed young men when it is beautiful outside. And winter coats are finally getting put away! Yay!

We had a really busy week this week with almost 3 appointments per day, and a fairly decent amount of them went through! Now we just have to get them progressing!

I talked a little bit about Marco and Lijon a few weeks ago, and they are progressing! Marco accepted a baptismal date for the 6th of May, and Lijon accepted with a very positive "I will pray about it." I am really excited and I hope they continue to make the big steps to baptism.

We have been continuing to do our best at talking to everyone, and we have kept on getting a ton of new potentials, so we hope that they will turn into some solid investigators.

I wasn't super good about taking photos this week, but I will make sure to take some of Amsterdam in the spring this next week!




Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 34! Too many people!

Howdy Y'all!
We have had a super busy week! We had Zone Conference, and appointments back to back for a lot of this week. Unfortunately "the Plague" seems to still be in play, so several of them fell through since they were sick... But we rescheduled them for this week, so it's all good :).

We have been talking to everyone, and it has really been paying off. Almost too much. We have way too many people to keep track of and set appointments with, but so far we have about 3 appointments every day this week, which is crazy good. I have faith that they will go through!

Miracle of the Week: Pedro was incredible yet again this week! One of his friends asked him if they could go to church with him, and she loved it. Her name is Augustine and she is from Indonesia. We have a dinner appoinment with her and Pedro this week and I am super excited to see her progress.

I did really bad with photos this week, so sorry...



It doesn't really do it justice, but I got to spend a day doing missionary work in Zaandam! It was really windy, so the whole city smelled like chocolate because of the neighboring chocolate factory.


Elder Smith turned 20, so we had a little birthday party with a delicious cake from Sister Giok and a little bonfire of boxes and "apostate" books. And the Sisters who live directly across the street came too. Left to right is Elder Smith, Sister Smith (no relation :)), and Elder Miera.

Houdoe! (equivalent of howdy but goodbye)

Love,
Elder Thornton