Week 68: Finally Autumn!

Hallo!

It has finally gotten cold this week! We have been enjoying some beautiful weather for the past few weeks, so I guess it is about time. But it has been a pretty great week. Lot of cool things. Also a lot of disappointments. We have a bunch of investigators, but almost everyone missed their appointments and fell off the face of the earth. So hopefully we will eventually be able to get back into contact. We had a few good lessons this week! They were all with Africans, and they went fairly well. One of them said that he was "mormon in spirit." We will make sure to make him a mormon in body as well :).

We also went to Brussels this week to finish up some legality work for Elder DuWors, and while I was waiting I got to talk to a bunch of the other missionaries. In summary of that conversation, I am "ancient" in missionary age... It made me laugh, because it doesn't really feel that long, and I still do have plenty of time to keep on working hard. But it is pretty cool to be that older example.

We had 3 people in church on Sunday! That was pretty exciting, since it doesn't happen too often. One of our investigators, Dijana, brought her friends with her. Dijana kinda has a short attention span, so we had to remind her that it probably wasn't a good idea to Skype or call in Sacrament meeting a couple times :) She is pretty funny...

It has been great, and we can't wait to kill it this week! 

 We used the banner in contacting this week! It went really well, and we are planning on doing it some more this week.

I forgot to say that we played Dungeons and Dragons as a district for last district p-day. Super nerdy... But it was pretty fun :)

Week 67: An appointment with Destiny

Goeiemiddag!

I hope that this week has been pretty great for all of you! We have been pretty busy, and found a few more investigators! One of our new investigators is Destiny. Fun Fact: A lot of Africans name their children names like Faith, Divine, just to give a couple examples. So we met Destiny on the street, and gave him a Book of Mormon, and we should be able to keep on meeting with him. We have a whole bunch of other African investigators! They are all super religious! They just really struggle with keeping appointments. This Saturday we had 5 different appointment and they all didn't go through... So it turned into a pretty long day of knocking. But it wasn't too shabby.

We had yet another miracle occur on the tram! We were just sitting there sending a couple texts to our investigator, and in the aisle next to us a guy asked his friends why there were so many churches, and how he could know what was right. They were struggling, so Elder DuWors jumped in with "Have you ever tried praying?" We ended up getting his number and an appointment for Saturday, so hopefully that goes well!

 Cookie race with Elder Jensen at the ward pumpkin party. I won :)

 We made some delicious food this week! With lots of leftovers :)

Another beautiful European street! No one wanted to get baptized, but they were pretty nice.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 66:(insert captivating title here) :)

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to say something about miracles for the subject, but then I realized that that has been the title for the past few weeks... But I guess that is a pretty good thing! We saw so many miracles again! Our week was also riddled with quite a few disappointments, but they definitely are blown away by the super cool miracles we have seen!

The first one was on the tram. We were talking to each other about our next appointment, and the man sitting across from us had noticed our name tags and asked us what the difference was between Islam and Christianity. We provided a pretty good answer and he continued to ask us questions to which we were able to testify and teach. He told us he is really searching and isn't sure what to believe because the Koran and the Bible are both good but say so many different things, and so does everyone else. So of course we pulled out the big guns and shared James 1:5. "Indien echter van u in wijheid te kort schiet, dan bidde hij God daarom, die aan allen geeft, envoudig weg en zonder verwijt, en zij zal hem gegeven worden." Or in English, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." (That is one of my favorites! All we have to do is ask!)He got some serious chills from that scripture and we got his number from him right as he was stepping off the tram, so hopefully we will be able to meet with him again!

The second and third ones were on Saturday. We had planned out a pretty solid day, and were on our way to the area of our next appointment, but I felt like we should look someone up earlier than planned. We were a little hesitant to change the plan, but we went for it! He wasn't there... But we ran into Chris, the man we met a few weeks ago! The crazy thing is he is out of the country almost all of the time, and we don't actually know where he lives, but we just happened to be run into him for the 15 minutes he was sitting on the bench right in front of another investigator's home. Pretty crazy...

And even better is that the other investigator we tried to look up finally called us! We had met with him a couple times before, but we had never got his number, so we were finally able to get back in contact with him.

During our lesson with him he said that "you have the best job in the world, serving God all day long."

We really do have the best job ever! I love it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world! God is good, and it is so wonderful to have the chance to help others understand that as well.

 I kinda forgot to take photos this week, so here is one that didn't fit on last week's email :).

This is Rotterdam Station. It is pretty cool!

This is the biggest Indian temple in all of Belgium or Europe(not sure which), and it just happens to be in our backyard!

Have a great week! Enjoy the Fall, because it is the best!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 65 Never-ending miracles!

This week has been yet another incredible week! I am a little freaked out that we are not going to be able to keep it up! But it has been really cool! We found 4 more new investigators this week, which is pretty abnormal. We had a lot of really good lessons and at least a couple pretty great miracles. 

One of our new investigators was the girlfriend of Chaief, an investigator we found last week. She was even more interested than her boyfriend, so we are excited to see them progress!

We had 5 people promise us that they would come to church, and we were super pumped! But... Sacrement meeting started. And then was over, and then 2nd hour started. We were pretty frustrated, but right then a new investigator from the day before showed up! And then a member escorted someone else in, and I knew I had seen him before, but I could not remember where. I then realized that we had talked to him on the tram 2 weeks ago on p-day! 

He loved it! And he really really wants to learn more, so hopefully our lesson with him later today will go well!

We ate some Lebanese food this past week, and it was super leker!

Action shot :) Elder Thornton choking down his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the beautiful city of Lier. There was a better one, but I though this one was pretty funny.

We went on a long run today! 5 or 6 miles! It has been forever, and it felt so good! We stopped by all of the old mansions/castles in the area, so that was pretty cool!

Have a great week! I love you!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 64! More Miracles and Words from God!

Hallo Iedereen!

This week was excellent! We saw a ton of miracles, we had Zone Conference, and we got to watch General Conference. We also found a lot of new investigators! 

Zone conference on Tuesday was really great, and we got to end the day off with a lesson with a new investigator, and several new potentials. 

The next day I was with Elder Jensen on exchanges. He was in my district in the MTC, so it was a little weird but really awesome to be with someone who could speak as much Dutch as me and who can teach way better than me. We went to an appointment with Derick, someone who we had met on the street last week, but he wasn't there so we belled his neighbors, and one of them let us in! We taught him the first lesson, and he seemed pretty interested. When we were done with that lesson, Derick was home, so we walked right next door and then taught him the first lesson. It felt like I was in Brazil or somewhere in South America. He took it really well and accepted the goal to be baptized on the 19th of November! So that should be pretty exciting. He is from Suriname, so I am pretty excited. I love Surinamers! We also had a really cool lesson in the park with someone who had come there to contemplate becoming a nun. It was definitely no coinicidence! Hopefully she will end up coming to church!

We got to watch the Sunday Morning(6:00 pm here) with Joris! We ate dinner with him and his mother, and then watched the whole session with him. We also found out that he watches BYU TV for fun, meaning he watches Studio C and American Ride. And they had 2 photos of the Salt Lake Temple hanging in their front room... I'm still not certain why he isn't a member... But after he defends his thesis for his doctorate this Wednesday, we will make sure to figure that out with him. I'm pretty sure he took more out of General Conference than most members. 

We also had another miracle with Tahir this week! We didn't have a lot of time left in the day and I thought that we should spend some time finding, but Elder DuWors felt really strongly that we should visit Tahir, so we headed all the way over there, and it turned out that this was his most difficult night since the accident that took his wife and two daughters away from him less than a month ago. It was so amazing to see how happy he got while he was talking to us, and he really recognized the light that we carry as Missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

My Birthday was great! Elder DuWors made pannenkoeken for breakfast, and then we got to teach people on the street about the Book of Mormon. One of the guys we talked to said,"Why haven't I heard about this yet?!" We told him a bit about it and set up another appointment :) Then we got to watch General Conference. 

 Conference! With some delicious cake for my birthday!

 Budda in the park with Elder Jensen!

 We had to go down to Brussels for paperwork so we took the opportunity to get some frites. It was reeeeaaally good!

Calling the people to repentance :)

This was a pretty long one... Sorry! I love you guys

Love,

Elder Thornton