Week 76: Christmas!

This week has been a lot of fun! And we got finish it off yesterday with Christmas!

We went on exchanges with both Vlissingen and Eindhoven, and it turned out pretty well. Elder Penman and I found a young (and quite pretty) new investigator in Vlissingen. You could tell that she really liked Elder Penman :). He is a super incredible teacher and speaks the best Dutch in the mission. I was with Elder De Castro in Eindhoven. He is from Brazil, and he is a super solid missionary. He knows how to work hard, and has a ton of faith. And his Dutch is progressing super fast.

We spent Christmas with Familie Van Den Vlis. They had a couple of their children and spouses there, as well as a Senior Couple. We spent the first little bit doing some service to help them prepare the last minute things, like hanging up light fixtures and cleaning a bit. (They have been remodeling an old farm house for a while.) This was the first meal that they have ever served in their house, and it was delicious! It was great to be able to Skype my family and spend a little time playing some games.

 We went bowling as a district last P-day!

 Christmas decorations at the fancy little shopping centrum in Roosendaal

 Opening Christmas presents!

This is where we had christmas dinner! That is Brother Van Den Vliss

Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy the break, and don't forget what is important!
Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 75: Snow!

Hey jullie!

This week has been pretty great! I'm honestly not really sure what happened this week. It is all a little blended together. We have been working really hard, and are still going to this next week. What we really need is some miracle investigators.

Last P-day it snowed. A LOT. We got over 6 inches of snow, which is pretty unheard of here. So for our last three hours of proselyting that day we decided to borrow a couple snow shovels and we shoveled a pretty large section of a nearby neighborhood. The first neighborhood was a little too rich so they all were just super confused at why we were helping. We moved to a less rich area we knocked a little while ago and we got a lot better of a reaction. "Blessed are the meek," I guess :).

We dropped by our gay investigator to see how he was doing and we were surprised to hear that he was still following the law of chastity! We have been praying super hard that he will feel a difference, and decide to keep it up.

My Bike after after the first storm


We shoveled a ton of snow.


A snowy view of Roosendaal. The entire city is houses like this, with a little bit of variation.

Have a great Christmas!
Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 74: White Christmas!

It is snowing!

This has been a pretty eventful week! We have been working really hard and it has been paying off. We had a couple super cool miracles this week, even with all of the craziness 

Friday night we looked up a referral, and since he wasn't home we knocked in his area. His neighbors had somehow all read anti material, and the other side of the street were all non interested muslims. We were pretty convinced that it wasn't the best area. We still had 15 minutes, so we said a prayer to ask for some guidance. We had a very slight feeling to head back down the street, and the 2nd door we knocked was super excited to talk to us, and we will be headed back this next week!

The very next day we were looking up a less active member who supposedly just moved back from a long vacation in Africa, but we had forgotten to write his house number down. It was getting pretty late, and we weren't sure where to go to next. As we were walking to find somewhere to knock, I had a prompting of "that door." We knocked it, and the daughter who opened the door let us in. It turns out that the father had studied with the missionaries in the past, and his schedule has just recently become more free! It was pretty crazy to see how God helped us in those small amounts of time to find solid investigators. It also really strengthened my testimony with the need of the Holy Ghost. 

We taught one of our investigators the Law of Chastity this week! And even more interesting is that he is gay... And it actually went really well! He took the challenge to live it for the next 10 days, and so we will see how that goes. 

It is also definitely winter. It snowed really hard yesterday during church, so when we got out we had 2 or 3 inches, which is pretty abnormal here. We biked back to the station in the snowy slush, which was quite an adventure. All of the trains were cancelled, so we ended up taking a bus to Etten-Leur, a city inbetween Breda (where the church is), and Roosendaal (where we live) to look up a couple of referrals. Neither of them had interest, and so we ran back to catch the bus to get to the station. It didn't come... At this point it is no longer snowing, but pouring rain, making all of the snow nice and slushy. So we walked for 30 minutes back to the station in Etten-Leur, and finally made it back home at about 6. It was quite an adventure. But lots of fun!

Photos!

The Cathedral in Breda!

Biking in the snow!

Have a great week! Enjoy the Holidays!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 73: Roosendaal

Hoi!
This week was lots of fun! I said goodbye to Antwerpen, especially with our two solid investigators Joris and Calithos! I'm excited to see how they progress, and I am sure Elder DuWors will do an excellent job with his new companion.

Now I am in Roosendaal! My companion is Elder Jeanfreau, and he is pretty cool. He is really smart, speaks great Dutch, and we get along really well. The only downside is that he is from Utah... :) Meaning that he broke my 17 month streak of non-Utahn companions.
The Ward is great, and I am really excited to be able to work with all of the awesome members here.

It is also the beginning of winter, so it got really cold the past few weeks. With how cold it is and how early it gets dark, the people become a little more closed off. Especially when it is dark outside. But we are adapting to it, and I am sure we are still going to find plenty of the Elect!
 Tranfer Day! Traveling for 20 minutes on the train. Definitely the easiest transfer day ever.

Roosendaal Centrum!

 
I thought I send a photo of Elder Jeanfreau. So here it is :)

I love you all! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Thornton

Week 72: Here we go again!

Hallo mensen!

I hope that your Thanksgiving was awesome. Elder DuWors and I kinda forgot about it, so we ate spaghetti. Oops.

We had a really good week! Lots of exciting stuff. Calithos is still progressing well, and we are hoping to put him on baptismal date later today. 

Joris just came back from his vacation in America! He came to church and brought us some coveted microwave popcorn, something they do not have here. He is still doing really well, and we are also planning on setting a goal for baptism with him tonight. 

Transfers are this Wednesday! And I will be headed to Roosendal, right at the bottom of the Netherlands. My new companion is Elder Jean Freau (I hope I spelled it right) and we will be co-district leaders. I have been a single district leader for nearly 8 months, so hopefully it means that I will get a little more free time at the end of the day. I am going to miss Antwerpen, but I am excited to go back to Nederland and get to know a new city!

I had a pretty life changing experience this week. Even though I won't share a lot of details as it is personal, it has really made me appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He suffered all of the pains of everyone, so that he can understand us all even better than we can understand ourselves. I pray for at least a little bit of that understanding so that I can better my relationships with my companions and others.

Pretty cool tank that we always bike past. I thought I would take my last chance before I head over to Roosendaal to take a photo with it.

The bike shed! 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 71: Meeting some Greek Gods...

Hoi jullie!

How's it going? We had a pretty good week. We spent a lot of time finding and also got to go on exchanges with the ZL's. We also found a solid new investigator! That has been something we have been struggling with. We have so many investigators, but all of them are super unreliable. We only one prescheduled appointment that went through this week, and we had 5 of them in a row on Saturday...

But the one that did go through was awesome! His name is Calithos! It's a Greek name, but he's actually from Groningen in Nederland, which was my last area! We met him while doing banner contacting in the Centrum. He stopped on his bike to look at our poster of Jesus, and we had a decent conversation, and then he said "I'll come back," and just biked away. He didn't come back before we left, but he called us! And now we have had a couple good appointments with him, and not only does he respond to our calls and texts, but he actually wants to meet with us. He says that he believes Joseph Smith is a prophet! YAAAAS! Next time we are going to help him connect all the dots

We also went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders Elder Reaveley and Elder Jensen (both from my MTC group) It is always pretty cool to go out with Elder's my "age." I hope I get to have another older companion. It has been so awesome to train, but it would be pretty nice to be able to not have to lead all of the time. Not that Elder DuWors does that. He actually super responsible and dedicated. 

I hope you all have a great week!

They have hamburgers here, but they put them in the bun... So I tried one, just to check it off the list :)

The beautiful view ​from​ our apartment! The leaves have finally turned colors, and it looks pretty great.

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 70: Temple!

Hoi!

This week was pretty great! I got to go the temple this week, and that was especially amazing because it had been a whole year since I had been. It felt wonderful! And I got to do it for an ancestor who I had performed the baptism for in Nauvoo a few years back, so that was pretty cool. I feel a little bad that I made him wait that long, but he probably never expected to recieve his endowment in Nederland. 

As for Antwerpen, it is going pretty good. Our investigators have kinda disappeared... We had one initial investigator near the centrum of Antwerpen, and since he kind of struggles keeping appointments, we ended up doing a lot of knocking in his area. And, seeing that it is pretty much the slums of Antwerpen, the people are pretty poor. And as we learn in Alma, also super humble and open! But... They tend to struggle with reliability and keeping appointments... So we are trying to figure that one out. We have 5 investigators on 1 street. That is really abnormal. But we only have contact with 2 of them.

But they are super cool! I am excited to see how much progress they will make.

We also got a text from Joris this week! He is currently on vacation in Seattle, but he still attended church! He is the best! (He also said he would bring some microwave popcorn back for me, so I may be slightly biased) :)

 The river next to Antwerpen!

The Temple in Den Haag!

Cake with Isabel! Isabel is one of the investigators of the Lokeren Sisters, and I got the opportunity to do her interview! She is so ready! She has completely turned her life around since she started learning about the Gospel. She got baptized this Saturday! It was Sister Klenk's birthday so we had some cake.

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 69: Halloween and the secret to winning a Bible Bash

Hey Family and Friends!

I hope you guys had a great week! It was pretty good for us. Halloween is a little more of a thing here than in Nederland, so we saw a few trick or treaters, but it made it pretty difficult to do any work since we didn't have any appointments that night. The next day was also a holiday, so we thought it would be a great day to find people at home, but it turned out that everyone was out and about, so it turned into a pretty long day.

We did some more banner contacting this week, and it went pretty well. One of the guys that we stopped ended up coming to church, but he said he was too busy to make any appointments before December, so hopefully that will work out.

Dijana told us this last week that the 18-year-old girl who came with her to church is in love with Elder DuWors, and she in continually trying to pair them up now... So they will definitely be taught by the Sisters from now on. It is a good thing that he is more handsome than me :)

We had a super good afternoon after a dinner appointment. We went out to knock in their neighborhood for a little less than an hour, and we only made it a few doors because of all of the people who wanted to talk to us. One of them was Dina, who is a 28 or so year old woman who knows the Bible really well. I have developed a pretty good knowledge of that on my mission, so we had a really good conversation and she wants a Book of Mormon, so we are going to bring that to her tonight. I am excited!

Related to that, we talked to a couple Jehova's Witnesses this week! And they tried to bash us... They got destroyed :). The first one we talked to tried to pull out a few scriptures on us and I totally tore them apart. The secret to winning a Bible Bash without actually bashing is just to supply facts about the scripture they gave, and put it into context. Or agree with it and supply another scripture that goes along with it, giving you control of the situation. And then testify! I always like throwing in some good metaphors too. While being nice, of course :). I think I like it a bit too much. But hopefully they got the point.

We got a little lost. So we thought we should a least take a photo.

Have a great week!

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Thornton

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

Week 63! Miracles!

Yet another great week! A little long, but we had some beautiful miracles that kept us going!

The first one was on Tuesday! Our appointment had fallen through, and for us, that almost always mean knocking in the area. Because if you don't have appointments then you got find some new ones. As we were working our way down the street we came across a house that was completely demolished for renovation, and we almost skipped it. But we had a prompting to knock on it anyway. So we did, and we heard someone say, "Hallo, what can I do for ya?," in English! We then had an excellent conversation with this man! His name is Chris, and he is from South Africa. He has had a really rough past few months, and really needed someone to talk to right as we knocked on his door. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon, and he said that he would read it in the next month, and that he would love to keep on meeting with us to talk about it. As we were leaving he said "Keep in touch!" at least 5 times. We are really excited to work with him!

The next day we were looking up some former investigators and as we were parking our bikes we felt prompted to talk to the man sitting on the bench. Little did we know that just this last month he lost his wife and his 2 daughters. He was in total despair, and we showed up at the perfect moment to help him. As we listened to him, we testified of the reality of life after death, and eternal families. He really opened up, and he accepted a Book of Mormon. As we were leaving, he asked us if he could give us a hug, which was super amazing because both Elder DuWors and I had the feeling but we both felt too awkward to ask. I feel super blessed to have been in the right spot and at the right time for him!

As for our other investigators, we made some amends with Sarah with some pastries since we have been pretty demanding on her. Joris said that he really enjoyed church and that he wants to come again after he defends his thesis on the 4th. 

This week has made me feel super blessed and has helped me better understand the blessings of obedience and hard work. For the most part we found a lot of rejection this week, but because we just kept on pushing through we were able to play a huge part in the lives of several people.

I did a pretty poor job of taking photos this week, but here is one of minigolf! Elder DuWors and I were neck and neck until the last few holes, where I really lost my game... 

I love you all! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes, and enjoy the fall!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 62: Lots of Miracles... and rain.

Goedemorgen!

This week has been great, but it was super wet! Easily the wettest week of my mission. Before Sunday it had rained every day since Elder DuWors had gotten here. But we worked super hard, and talked to a lot of people, and so we saw quite a few miracles.

Joris (the investigator I talked about last week) came to church! I'm not really sure what he thought of it. He still doesn't quite get that he needs to take studying this a little more seriously. So we will do our best to help him out with that.

We finally got back into contact with Sarah, who was set to baptized on the 30th of September. After asking several different members to go on a joint teach with us, we finally found one, but we called him 10 minutes before to confirm, and it turned out he had forgotten... So we decided to just head in there without a joint teach and hope for the best. Her cousin opened the door, and said that she wasn't home, so we went to leave, but I felt prompted to share the Book of Mormon with him. And he let us in! After about 15 minutes of explaining the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, Sarah walked in! She actually was home... but after she ranted about how all churches are saying different things and so forth, we just reminded her of the story of Joseph Smith, and told her to come to church. So hopefully she gets it a little more. We're going have to get after her because she didn't actually come to church. 

But we did find a couple more people to teach this week, so we are excited! It's gonna be great! 

We also got a few referrals from a member, so we are excited to follow up on that.

 We took the opportunity to teach this lovely family last p-day!

 And we walked through a pretty cool graveyard.

And we helped build a member's shed. 

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 61: Elder DuWors first week!

Hoi!

This week has been super great! It has been pretty crazy with transfers and with a greenie who needs to do a bunch of paperwork for visa stuff, but we have seen a ton of miracles! 

Elder DuWors is super cool! He is from Seattle (I have still never had a companion from Utah. The goal is to go the whole mission without one :)  ) and he did cross country before! YAY! More running! He is super hard working, and at the pace he is going he will learn a ton in these next couple transfers. 

For his first lesson we got back into contact with a sort of "investigator" from a few months ago. His name is Joris, and he has already read all of the Book of Mormon. On top of that, he knows it is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. But he has some problems with polygamy and church history. Now before everyone starts sending me advice on how to fix that, don't. Trust me, I tried everything. We are going to keep on helping him understand it a little more, and help him develop the faith to overcome his challenges. By the way, he is super smart! He is currently working on his Doctorate and he is studying the effects of pornography and sexting on the teenage mind. So you could say he is a kingdom builder. Plus he has been to Temple Square 4 or 5 times and knows the Mormon Tabernacle Choir director. So yeah, pretty cool.

As we have been working super hard we have been seeing Gods Hand in our days! It feels like my first transfer with Elder Stanger, where we just put the pedal to the metal and started baptizing. I am super excited! 

One example is Monday! We had to go all the way down to Leiden in the Netherlands for some paperwork, so it took the entire day, but on our way back to the station we ran into Jamiel, who was interested in meeting with the missionaries, so we got his number and sent it on through to the Leiden Elders. The rest of the day was filled with perfectly timed travel miracles, for which we are always grateful.

Elder DuWors and I

 Station in Gent! Super Pretty!

I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 60! Third time's the charm...

Hey everybody!

This week has been pretty great, and we heard about Transfer Calls this Saturday! Elder Dial's mother is coming in October for a family reunion and is going to stay for a few months, so it wasn't going to work for him to stay in Antwerpen. So he is headed to Rotterdam! And I am staying here and will be getting another greenie! I am pretty excited and I feel pretty lucky, not only because I get another opportunity to train but because there are a few other missionaries who are training again, but they are keeping their 2nd transfer greenies! That means they will be a 3 man companionship with two greenies! 

We had zone conference this Wednesday, and it was incredible! Elder Gary B. Sabin of the Seventy came, and he was incredible! He talked a lot about personal conversion and helping investigators achieve that too. I was super impressed with his scripture knowledge, and I now have the goal to memorize more scriptures. I really liked how he explained true identity, how we have an eternal destination. It was super spiritually up-lifting.

Our lesson with Elder Dial's aunt went ok, but she doesn't think that she needs a church in order to be a good person, which is totally true! All she needs is Jesus! We are

​n't​

here to sell a church, or a prophet, or even a book! We are here to deliver the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and thankfully it has those sources of truth like a church and a prophet! I just wish that people would give us a little more of a chance to help them understand it and to be open to just test it. If it isn't true, then you just took a little time to find out why a whole bunch of "weirdos in Utah" do "strange things." If it is true, then it is pretty important. I have developed a super strong testimony of the completeness of this gospel, and its ability to answer the questions of life. But yeah... she didn't want to keep on "investigating." But someday! Elder Dial's mom is coming, so you never know what could happen!

We are going to kill it here in Antwerpen! I am super excited for this next transfer!

 It is the beginning of fall! I love it!

 There was this huge line of old military vehicles that drove through the middle of the city! They were

Bus back from Zone Conference :) 

 escorted by tons of police bikes that stopped traffic at every intersection. It was pretty cool! 

Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 59: Miracles!

Hey Guys!

This week has been super great! A little interesting but super great! We saw a bunch of miracles and found some new investigators, which is always super great!

We have been helping a less active who originally from California, and has a really really long story, and she has been having some serious problems. She is getting evicted from her house this week, and so we helped her get all of her stuff moved out on Saturday. It was really dirty... But in addition to that we have been texting scriptures to her daily, and she told us that one in particular really helped her! She has some friends who were willing to pay for her to leave the country, but she got our text of Alma 7:12, and decided that if Christ suffered then she can withstand her trials a little longer and not illegally flee the country... So that was a miracle!

One other miracle is that one of our new investigators is Elder Dial's aunt! She believes in almost all of the same things we do and she seems super ready. She even wanted to get baptized a couple years ago, but her husband didn't support her. Now she is divorced, and seems to be pretty willing to take some steps! We are really excited!

We went to Gent last week for P-day, so lots of the photos will be of that. It is super beautiful, and so old! One thing that was kind of funny is that they have so many churches. The tour guide said that the reason for that is because they believed that you either had to do good things or build a church to be saved, so they built a church :). I don't know how true that is, but there are a ton of huge and beautiful churches.

 Boat tour with other missionaries!

Gent Castle! The only "battle" that has ever happened there was with students in the 1950's complaining about beer prices, but it was still pretty cool :)

 

The whole city is so beautiful!

Keep it real!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 58: A new investigator!

Hey Friends and Family!

This week has not been too shabby. We have spent a bunch of time helping people move and also lot of time finding. I don't know what it is with less active members and moving, but they sure do seem to do it a lot... 

We got a new investigator! Finally! We have spent so much time talking to people on the street and knocking door, and we finally found someone to teach! Her name is Sarah, and has lived in Belgium for the past 17 years since she moved from Congo when she was 5. She was super open to the Restoration, and asked where the church was before we invited her, and where she could buy a Book of Mormon before we gave it to her. I thought that was pretty cool. She accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 30 of September!  She didn't come to church yesterday :(, but hopefully she will have at least a semi-decent excuse for us tomorrow during her lesson.

Our lesson with her was also on an exchange with Elder Stopper, who is on his first transfer, and I was really impressed with his language abilities. It was a pretty great experience for both of us.

A couple of our appointments didn't go through this week, but hopefully we will be able to reestablish contact and get them back on track

to baptism. 

 A castle in the park behind our house!

 Moving stuff. Again :)

Studies in the Park! (We might have locked ourselves out the apartment, but that is an unimportant detail :) )

I love you all! Enjoy the ending of your summer!

Love,

Elder Thornton!