Week 53 New Investigator

Week 53 New Investigator

HALLO!!!!

This week was super busy, and I am super confused where it went, but it went really well! We FINALLY found a golden investigator! We have been looking for such a long time with no success, and we finally found her! We met Linda while knocking, and we had a great first lesson with her this week. She really thought about the restoration and when we asked if she would be baptized through the authority that was restored she said that she couldn't give a yes or no answer right then, but she would pray about it. She couldn't make it to church this week, but she should be coming this next week, so yay!

Otherwise our week was filled with a lot of service. It was not originally planned in, but it wasn't too shabby. We spent a lot more time than planned helping set up for a member's wedding reception on Monday, then we got called on Wednesday night by someone from the church that asked us to help clear out the Assen church (they recently got combined with the ward in Groningen) the next day. So we did that for about 4 hours, mostly clearing out the chairs and tables and heavy stuff, and then biked to our previously planned appointment with some members who needed help with their garden, and then biked back (approximately a 50 minute bike ride). You can imagine we were pretty tired.

Photos!

We got some super fancy milkshakes at this really funny "rainbow shop." They put sparklers in them, but I wasn't fast enough to get a photo when it was lit.

Nederland is super pretty!

I left district meeting for 1 minute and when I came back everyone was balancing books on their heads...

Love,

Elder Thornton  

Week 52! 1 year on a mission!

Howdy!

This week has been yet another good one to add to the pile! And I am really happy that I have gotten to have so many good ones! and also that I still have many more good weeks to come.

This was a pretty average week of knocking doors and finding. We found several potential investigators, and I am excited to see them progress. 

We had a super incredible afternoon this Thursday! After a hectic morning of traveling back from exchanges, we finally got back and did some studies. Both of us were pretty done, but we still had the whole afternoon in front of us. We just decided to go out and find! After trying a few places, we ended up on a street we had knocked recently. We started knocking on a part we hadn't gotten to, and eventually we had a good conversation with a college student who was a member of a Christian Student Society, the "Navigators." She invited us that they had a meeting later that night, but it conflicted with our original plans to eat dinner, so we decided not to go. We headed over to Marcel (the convert who was baptized 2 months ago) and we had a great conversation with his mother and grandmother. After we were done there we had 30 minutes left before we were planning on heading back, so we decided to knock his neighbors' doors. On one of the doors a large black man opened the door, and Elder Etchells did one of our normal approaches of "What brings you happiness?" He told us and then got really angry, saying that we didn't really care, and that we were only here to convert him to our church. I reponded calmly that we were here to share happiness, and his face immediatly changed, and he said, "Come in." We talked a little bit about the restoration, and he said we are always welcome!

Two doors later we ran into a student who was on his way to the "Navigators'" meeting, but he had some food for us, and he invited us right in! We were originally planning on heading back home at that time to eat, but because he just happened to have food for us, we were able to accept his invitation to go with him to the meeting! He acted as our guide, and introduced us to all of his friends!! He then sat with us on the front row and explained everything to us when we had questions. The meeting was really cool, and I was very impressed with how active all of those students were with their faith. 

What most amazed me was that if we had done anything differently that afternoon everything wouldn't have worked out. God guided us to be at the right place, and at the right time. It was one of the most cool nights of my mission!

We had an excellent p-day, so here are the photos!

Prinsentuin! A super pretty garden in the Centrum

We tried some clothes on. Yes, that is a mens jacket :)

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 51: Working Hard!

Good morning!

Groningen is doing great! It was a little rough with investigators, but we have found some new people, so that is nice. We spend a lot of time finding this week, and it was really fun, even if we didn't see a lot of solid investigators come from it. I worked really hard this week on not letting people get away with weak excuses on the door, while being extremely nice and polite, of course. If they were willing to listen, I just kept on talking to help them understand the importance of Joseph Smith and the fact that he saw God and Jesus Christ. It amazed me how many people could be confronted with a solid argument and a personal testimony and say that it is cool but that they don't think it is for them, or one of the many different ways of just saying no. These people are really really hard-hearted... But there are people who are ready and willing to listen so we are going to keep searching. We did find 3 new investigators, so we hope we can help them progress.

All of our investigators who were progressing dropped off of the map, so we hope we can find them again, but I think they are purposefully avoiding us. We were pretty bold with our purpose last week, with love of course, but I think it scared them off. That includes Sander (the deaf investigator I talked about last week), and a couple others. 

Photos!

Last P-day we went to a Pannenkoeksschip! So we ate some tasty Dutch pannenkoeken on a boat.

We also climbed Martini Toren. That was pretty cool It is super old and it was over 300 steps.

Love,

Elder Thornton 

Week 50:

Hoi jongens en meisjes!

​ (Hi guys and girls!)​

I hope your week has been great! Our

​s​

has been! We have

​been ​

working hard, and even though almost all of our appointments didn't go through last week :(, we have been having fun and seeing some progress with some of our investigators. We challenged both Sander (the deaf guy) and Ruben to baptism, and Ruben will be setting a date with us this next week. Sander has already been baptized twice, so we had to explain authority, which is already hard enough to do with someone who can hear you. We had to be super blunt when writing it down, but he didn't get offended, and I think he understands it. He said he will think about it, so hopefully he will be prepared to accept a date this week.

But otherwise we just did a lot of knocking this week! The people here are really nice, and we had a lot of great discussions, but we still haven't found the next golden investigator yet. But he

​ ​

(or she) has got be be here somewhere. We'll just keep on looking.

Thank you for all of your support! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Thornton

1. Ice cream last p-day! 

2. Stroopwafel break 

Week 49: Just Having Fun!

Dear Family and Friends!

Groningen! Enough said! I love it here! The family who the Sisters were teaching got baptized this week, and it was super beautiful. The ward had just gotten back from a long and tiring Temple trip, but they all showed up anyway. The family, Jolanda, Celine, and Fabio were glowing, and after they got confirmed all they talked about was how amazing it felt when they received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We found a new investigator this week. His name is Sander, and he is deaf! We communicate by writing things down, and with the small amount of sign language that he knows. Apparently he has met with the Elders before, and has even been to church before. And he came this week! Koen, a member in the ward, helped us by typing everything that was said during sacrament meeting so that he could follow along. Sander loved church, and we are planning to set him on baptismal date this next week. 

As for the rest of our investigators, we are still trying to get them solidly investigating.

We took a quick trip to Brazil this week! (not really, this is just right behind our house, but it looks super cool!)

One of the squares in the Centrum of Groningen

Canals are super cool! And they are all over the city!

We went to a member's "man-cave" last P day. He had a race track, virtual golf, and pretty much all table games ever invented.

 

Burgers for Father's Day! The Richardsons are the best!

It has been an incredible week! I hope you guys have a great week too! It is always amazing to see how the Gospel

​affects

 people's lives, so don't forget what you already have!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 48! Crazyness!

Gooien Morgen!

I hope it is going well with everyone! This week has been great, and we have seen a bunch of miracles and met a ton of super nice people. We set up a lot of appointments for this week, so I am pretty excited. 

This week was really full. Elder Etchells had to go to Brussels for his Visa, so I went to Dordrecht since Elder Jensen's companion had to go too. We did some service at a food bank, and studies, and we found 3 potentials in the 45 minutes we had to go contact people, so that was pretty cool!

I got the opportunity yesterday to interview 2 candidates for baptism. One of them was Fabio. Fabio is 11, but I can't believe that! He is so smart, and he understands the gospel better than most members! If I gambled, I would put money on him to be one of the next apostles. The other one was Celina. She is 22, and also is so ready. They will both be baptized next Sunday with their mother Jolanda. They are going to be really really good members. I feel super lucky to be a part of their baptism.

We had a funny but pretty cool experience yesterday! We were knocking some doors when a

​guy ​

hopped off of his bike and approached us. I did not understand a thing he said, and then I realized he was deaf. He managed to communicate that he had already received some pamphlets and he wrote on a paper his contact information and we set up an appointment. So that should be really cool! Elder Etchells knows a little bit of Sign language, and I can do the alphabet, so hopefully we can make it work. 

I forgot my converter, so no photos this week :/. I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 47: Adventures in the Jungle

Hallo!

This week has been yet another great one! Tim and Robert, investigators of the 2 Sister companionships in Groningen got baptized this Saturday! The service went really well, and they were both super happy with it! Robert was just glowing on Sunday, and Tim is a little awkward, but as far as I could tell he was pretty excited too. 

We spent a bunch more time finding this week, and we found some pretty solid potentials. On one door a young college girl opened, and then her other 2 room mates came to talk to us too, and now we need to bring all of them a Book of Mormon! They live pretty close to the church, so that will be convienient. But we will probably give them to the Sisters if they do become investigators, since they are all about 19... 

Our backyard was super overgrown, and we finally had the opportunity to "de-forest" it. It looks great now. It is not completely done, but now that we have the big stuff done it will be easier to maintain it. 

I really needed a haircut, and normally I have my companion cut it, but I do not trust Elder Etchells with the clippers. Not that I don't love him to death, but hair is somthing that takes a little bit to fix if you really mess up. So I cut it myself! and I would say that it went pretty well. Almost... Right as I was making the finishing touches, I got a little overconfident and tried cutting a piece without the cover... So it looks pretty great from the front, but there is a small patch in the back that will need some time to grow back.

I love you guys! Enjoy the summer!

Love,

Elder Thornton