One Month In!

Hey Everybody!

This week was pretty great! I got to host the new missionaries on Wednesday, and we have been learning the language and how to teach pretty fast.

When I hosted I got to escort two of my friends, Elder Robert Kennedy, and Elder Martin Edwards (and kinda Elder Laren Edwards cause they are twins.) It was super great to see several familiar faces. I wanted to host Elder Bryson Williams, but he was a little late so I missed him... I also get to host next week, so I am pretty excited for that!

The language has been going pretty well. I am far better at understanding than speaking. I know the grammar rules, I just don't think far enough forward to use them. I currently working on that. As we have been getting better at the language, we have realized we have been saying a few things wrong, a couple that are really funny. During our lessons, I have often wanted to tell the investigator (usually my teacher) that Jesus died for them, so I said, "Jezus dood voor ons." I understand now that this actually means "Jesus kills for us," which is not quite what I wanted to say. :)

Another good one was when I was practicing conversational past tense. "Heeft u de verzoening gebroken?" I thought that it meant "Have you used the atonement?", but it actually means "Have you broken the atonement?" My teacher got a pretty good kick out of that one. :)

This Sunday we had President Holland speak to us!!!! (The one in charge of UVU :) )

He gave a really detailed story of Joseph Smith, and I learned a lot of things I didn't know about. We never hear about how crazy his life was before Palmyra. His family was constantly in debt, they moved around so much, and a couple of these times when they moved he still was recovering from the famous leg surgery, and the cruel mover forced him to walk. He also pointed out how it would have been impossible for a poorly educated boy to translate an ancient record as fast as he did, and to especially make up such a detailed record. It was pretty powerful, and it really helped me because one of my goals is to gain a stronger testimony of our Prophet Joseph Smith.

One of our teachers who served in het Nederland showed us some of her pictures, and it made me super excited to go there in two weeks! Nederland is so beautiful. She also told us an interesting fact. 33% or so of the missionaries in my mission end up marrying someone who served there as well. I thought that was pretty funny! (I'm pretty sure that won't be me.)

This week the choir had 1557 missionaries in it! (we currently have approximately 2,700, which is full capacity) We sang Praise to the Man, and it was so cool! I really enjoyed it. The director is super funny and spiritual at the same time.

Thank you all for your letters, especially my family one on the Wilcock side that wrote me during the reunion! I loved them so much! I won't be able to respond individually to all of them, so thank you!

Have a great week!
Elder Thornton