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!

Week 57: Finding!

Goedemorgen!

This week has been fun! We have spent a lot of time looking for new investigators, and it is finally showing some progress! We have several appointments set up this week, and we are excited to see how it turns out! What is even cooler is that two of them are from the Philippines, where my dad served his mission! I have always really wanted to teach someone

​from​

 the Philippines, so I am pretty excited. 

We met with two of Elder Dial's cousins for dinner, and that was pretty cool. They are living in

​a ​

mansion (Europe standards) that was build in 1906, and it was so cool! I didn't take any photos... :( They were both super cool, but we still aren't sure where they really stand with the gospel.

 We made foo-foo (a traditional Ghanaian dish) with an investigator! It was... interesting... but I ate it all!

Belgium waffle with ice cream! Super lekker

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thornton

Week 56! Elder Dial's family!

Dear Family and Friends!!

This week has been pretty great! We are still trying to find some people since we had to start from scratch, but it has been a lot of fun! We have met some pretty cool people, and hopefully we will be able to get them to progress.

One cool thing about this week is Elder Dial's family. His mother is originally from Antwerpen, so his grandparents, aunts, and cousins still live here. He has never met any of them before, and they are all super excited to meet him. His grandparents don't come to church because of health problems, but the rest of his family is not really active, so it will be cool to see how they react. One of his cousins showed up to church for the one of the first times since she got baptized when she was eight, and she even came up to give a testimony in sacrament meeting. We are meeting with her as well as other family and friends for dinner for the next couple days, so that should be pretty cool. 

Antwerpen is super beautiful! We got to walk around it for last pday, so here are some photos

 We also smashed a shed for service! It was pretty fun

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Thornton