Loving the MTC week 2!

Two weeks down! 

Crazy how fast time is flying by! Only like 6 days until Chi-town!!! So many cool spiritual things happen here everyday that it's hard to remember and think of what to write in my emails.  This week has been super good, the Chi-crew is continuing to progress and we are all pretty good friends but me, Elder Scoresby, Elder Taggart, and Elder Dietz are the closest. Elder Scoresby and I play ball together everyday, usually with Elder Mortensen too! Elder Scoresby is dang good, and I'm a two time city league champ so you know we make a good team;) lol. The ankle is doing a lot better, it's still swollen and purple on my foot but I'm pretty tough;) 

 So before I left on the mish people told me your MTC experience is made by your teacher. And honestly we have the most amazing teacher! His name is brother Lim, and he is one of the coolest people I have ever met! He is a spiritual giant! There is another teacher named brother Hackman who teaches us sometimes and Hackman is good too but the difference between them is night and day! Brother Lim I swear has every verse of scripture memorized and same with preach my gospel! Whatever questions we ask him to help us with our investigator he knows exactly what scriptures we can study to help us, it's so crazy!! So last week we got 2 TRC investigators that we taught everyday, and Elder Eltsosie and I killed it, by Friday we had committed both of them to baptism it was sweet! One thing I've noticed that is pretty cool is that, sometimes Elder Eltsosie and I don't get along all that well, but when we are teaching and we focus on our savior Jesus Christ and our investigator, things flow really well and I feel so peaceful, I don’t know how to describe it but it's cool! 

A sister in my district asked me to give her a blessing, it was the first actual blessing I've given! I was pretty nervous but once I started I felt calm and I don't remember exactly what I s aid but all the sisters said that it was really good! So when we first got here we became super good friends with a couple elders in our zone that are on the same floor as us, we would hang out and talk and play spike ball. Their names are elder Campbell, Elder Grasteit, and Elder swensen. Campbell and grasteit left to the Kennewick Washington mission this morning and Swensen leaves tomorrow to Arkansas! They are way cool and funny guys. I'm super pumped bc our district got asked to be hosts for the incoming missionaries this Wednesday, so I'm praying that I get to help Cole!! 

My spiritual thought for you all this week is a good one, lol I'm in the laundry room right now doing laundry trying not to tear up just thinking about it. We had such a cool experience in class. Brother Lim was talking about how we end our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. We studied more about the way Jesus prayed. He then asked us to go find an empty room, close the door, and kneel down and really pray the way Jesus would. It was the longest prayer I've ever said, it was probably around 10 minutes long, things just kept coming to my mind and I prayed so hard for you mom and for the rest of the fam. Dang I'm embarrassed because I'm tearing up in the laundry room around a ton of other elders and sisters. But anyways I felt so much peace and love during my prayer from our savior Jesus Christ! Then a couple days later mom you sent me that email telling me how positive things were looking for the surgery and I knew that heavenly father was intently listening to my prayer and he answered it! I love this gospel so much and the joy that it brings me to invite others to come unto to Christ by having faith in him and his atonement, repenting, being baptized and receiving the gift of the holy ghost and then enduring to the end! I want to challenge all of you to try and pray the way Jesus would this week, so that you can truly say "in the name of Jesus Christ amen". 

I love you all, keep on keepin on!

Elder Thorpe-

                                            The Elders in the District after the temple.
 

The Rampage boys in the MTC

First Week in the MTC!

First week

Hey everyone! This week has been so crazy! The first couple days were just so jam packed with meetings and lessons and stuff like that. I felt a little overwhelmed with how much info they were giving us and we had to prepare for a couple lessons with investigators, a sacrament talk, and a 40 minute priesthood lesson. Luckily they didn't call on any of the new elders to teach or speak this Sunday. 

My companion is Elder Eltsosie, he is 100% Navajo! He has some pretty cool stories and is a really neat guy and I will learn so much from him! He loves to play baseball, so we have that to relate with.  I was blessed to be put in the best room!  I love all the guys in my room so much! Its Elder Eltsosie and I, Elder Scoresby,  Elder Dietz, Elder Taggart, and Elder Tanne. I'll tell you a little about each of them. Elder Scoresby Is dope, he is 6'5 and is going to play basketball for USUE. He is from Idaho and he is way cool. I hope we get to be companions in the field because we get along really well. Elder Tanne is Elder Scoresby's comp and he is a cool guy, too. He has a great sense of humor and he gets along with us really well. He is also a crazy good artist. Elder Dietz is one of my favorite people I have met here. He is 6`3, or maybe 6`4 because he is at least an inch taller than Dad (; and he said he is 285 lbs. He is a big friendly giant. He is the life of our room, and is absolutely hilarious. We stay up at night just cracking up because of some of the things he says. Elder Taggart is Elder Dietz comp and he is way sick. He played soccer for Sky View.  He has some crazy stories he has told us, he lived in Hawaii for a year and told us some crazy stories about surfing and sharks. He also did crazy stuff like free climb buildings. I love them all so much! Our room is the gathering room. A lot of the other Elders on our floor come into our room at the end of the day to talk to us. The Elders below us actually came up and got mad a little bit because we were being kinda loud, laughing and talking and having a great time,  but it was all good. I have met so many cool people here and it's hard to see them go. My district is so awesome, too. We have all bonded really closely. It's the Elders in my room, who are all going to the Chicago West mission, then 4 Elders that are serving in the DC South mission. Elder Carter is in my district which is way cool to have someone I went to high school with! The sisters in our district are really cool, too and we have a good relationship with them, they are serving in the Fort Collins Colorado mission.

I see Elder Mortensen all the time and we had some exercise time together which was sweet. I wish I got to see Elder Gardanier more, I've only seen him twice, but I love getting to see my boys out here doin the work. Yeah, seeing the Ollerton's on the 2nd day was so awesome, I love those peeps! I've seen Taylor Murphy a couple times and I also saw Mckay Murphy and it was great to talk to them. Yesterday right before my TRC lesson I saw Steven Nelson and we took a picture, I hope he sent it to you guys! Lol on my second day of exercise time Elder Scoresby, Elder Taggart and I were balling it up (we are only allowed to play 3v3) anyways we were ballin and took this kid to the hoop and as I drove by him I stepped on his foot and sprained my ankle pretty bad.  But it's good. I'll send some pics. 

So we have a 3hr class in the mornings and then again at night, the rest of he time we either study, eat, or teach our TRC investigators. The food here isn't bad, we eat so much (it feels like) and its been kinda weird eating Dinner at 4:45 every day. I love It here tho, the spirit is always so strong wherever we are. I was made District Leader on the 2nd day here.  I'm a little nervous, but I know my Father in Heaven will help me. 

Bummer to hear about the football team, I hope they can bounce back this week! Keep letting me know everything that is going on back home! The Eclipse was yesterday!! Did you guys watch it? Elder Scoresby brought special glasses so we could all watch it, I'll send some pics of that too. I wanna share an incredible spiritual experience we had. So yesterday we were in class and we were having a discussion on service and we were all raising our hands sharing experiences and then Elder Dietz raises his hand, he can be pretty shy when it comes to class time, but he raises his hand and says "I don't know why, but I feel prompted to tell Elder Eltsosie that he is an amazing person and had such a cool story and I know he is going to be an amazing missionary." Elder Eltsosie immediately started crying and said " thank you so much, I have been praying so hard these last few days and that was a direct answer to my prayers." It was amazing how strong the spirit was in that room, we were all tearing up. I know that our Heavenly Father lives and that he loves each of us so much and when we pray to him he will answer our prayers.

I love you all and hope you have a good week! I'll talk to ya next Tuesday!

Elder Thorpe

My roomies (except for Elder Tanne.  I think he was in the bathroom.)

The District watching the Sunday devotional.

Our district.  District 38 A Baby!

Trying out the selfie mode on our tablets.

Swollen Ankle