"The church was true in 2018 and it still will be in 2019!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some Red Bull!! Lol a few weeks ago we were down town on preparation day walking around and this Red Bull car pulls up in front of us and these two chicks hop out of the car with red bull jackets and red bull cooler backpacks full of red bull and they just start handing them out to people. So we all grabbed one and then they asked us if they could take a picture of us haha. It was nice, and free Red Bull! Elder Shipp loves red bull so we gave them all to him and he pounded them all haha.

I'm convinced there is no such thing as a bad week in Hyde park! I love this place and could spend the rest of my mission here! We've had lots of lessons like usual and lots of solid people to teach! Last week Sister Bello called us and said she has a friend who she wants us to teach, so we hopped on that right quick. She referred us to her friend Shadi, I think that's how it's spelled, it's pronounced "shawty" haha. She is so awesome and hecka prepared! She has 15 and 12 year old sons, the 15 year old is named David and has very severe autism and can't communicate. The 12 year old is named Joshua and he is the coolest kid! He's a genius and loves the scriptures. He tells us that he loves our "preaching" every time we come over. They all came to the baptism last week and to church this week and they are preparing to be baptized on January 26th! Super solid!

All of our people are doing really well. Joe Ibekwe is preparing to be baptized on January 12th and he's looking real good. Cerenity is also preparing for the 12th, so January should be a real good month too! Elizabeth and Wale and doing awesome, Wale's mom just got here from Nigeria and came to church with them. She barely speaks English but we got her a Yoruba Book of Mormon and she started reading it! Nicole is still awesome, haha this week she said to Sister Pope while we were standing there, "Thorpe's part of the family, he's got a little color in him!" Haha she explained it was because I play sports, I can understand her lingo, and because I love Chance the Rapper! Lol I knew my boy Chance would win me some brownie points down here in the south side!

I love these people so much and I love this gospel!! The church was true in 2018 and it still will be in 2019! I hope y'all have a happy New year!

Elder Thorpe

Dara Opadele wanted to take a selfie.

Christmas Service

The Hyde Park Elders with our bowties courtesy of Bro Pope's daughter.

#whatsmysnack Redbull

"...a day full of food, friends and the Gospel of Jesus Christ!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some classic Nigerian pepper soup! We had a lesson with the Opadele family on Sunday and afterwards Ibukunolu asked us if we wanted to come over on Christmas for pepper soup, of course we said yes! Elder Egbert is a really picky eater and he was really nervous for it haha so we had to go on a mini exchange and elder Bingham came with me. This was probably the sickest thing I've ever had in my life! We were sweating bullets and breathing fire Haha! The taste wasn't horrible it was just hecka hot! Apparently they cook it with ginger, garlic, and this dry pepper, and they throw in some cow leg... which is basically just bone, gristle, and cartilage. Somehow, by the grace of God, we were able to finish the soup! The bucket next to me in the picture is just full of soapy water and after you eat the soup and cow leg you wash your hands in the bucket haha.

This week was a good one!! On Saturday we had our baptism!! Unfortunately not everyone we were hoping for got baptized, so we only had 11 in the ward! You know things are going good when you use the word "only" to describe a baptism of 11 people!! A couple people will be pushing their date back to to January 12th, but they are still excited and looking forward to being baptized!! For our companionship, we had Elizabeth Awoniyi & Wale Aderemi, Vitus Ndu, James Komolafe, and Nicole Young all get baptized! Serenity Andrews was one of the investigators who decided to push it back to the 12th but she is still solid! Lots of good work going on here!

On Christmas eve we did a serve project with President and sister Bingham at this university, which was fun! We started off the whole project by all reciting the Lord's prayer which was great Haha! Before the mission I had heard/ read the Lord's prayer like 2 maybe 3 times. Out here I hear it almost everyday! Christmas day was awesome too! We had breakfast with the bishops family, lunch with the Opadele's, early dinner with the Quezada's, and late dinner with the Adeguns! It was a day full of food, friends, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ! No better combo in my opinion! I hope y'all have a great week, and a happy New year!

Elder Thorpe

The whole team

Elizabeth, Wale and Emmanuel

Nicole

Vitus

James

#whatsmysnack Nigerian pepper soup

Dara and Moore

"Life is good as usual here in the Southside."

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some real good baked chicken. There is a less active lady that we started teaching and she loves us and so she has us over for dinner once a week now. She is from Tennessee and she makes some real good southern food. This was like half a chicken baked with seasoning and cheese on it. Then she also made us some fried chicken with Cole slaw and that was bomb, I just didn't snap a pic.

This week we were running around like crazy teaching lessons right and left getting all of our people ready for their baptismal interviews that will be this week. Most of them are doing super good and are solid for the 22nd. Two of them however, Joe and Victor are still up in the air... They both have crazy jobs that require them to work ridiculous hours and so they might not be able to make it to the baptism. So they may get pushed back a week or two but we will figure it out this week. Everyone else, including the rest of the district, is looking really good for the 22nd. Despite not having any snow over here, we will still have a white Christmas in Hyde park!!

This week I was on exchanges with Elder Howe again. He is a good guy and we have lots of fun together. He forgot his glasses and contacts so he was walking around blind all day haha, luckily we had 9 lessons so he didn't have to do too much walking. Life is good as usual here in the Southside. I hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

The Egbert

My man Elder Howe

Elevator pic

"So when are y'all coming back?"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack the boys hit up this hole-in-the-wall Mexican place on the west side, called Machettes. This place is big time, literally... They make 20 inch quesadillas!! They were freaking good too! 20 inches of corn tortilla, cheese, carne asada, pastor, cilantro, onion, and their special salsa! Muy bueno!

Another week closer to December 22nd! Our 8 people on date are still looking really solid! They have all pretty much been taught everything and are living all the commandments, they just need to get dunked! The 22nd is going to be a great day!! We stay real busy with all of these people we have to teach down here in the south side, it's fantastic!

We had a pretty cool experience on Sunday night, we got a referral for this lady named Yolanda. We confirmed with her and everything and we show up to her apartment at 7:30. We call her a couple times and text her and we get no response. A Lady comes out of the apartment building and tells us that Yolanda is home, but then the lady dipped out of there right quick before we could ask her to get her for us. So we decided to wait just a few more minutes. 2 minutes later Yolanda calls us asking if we are still there and we say yes. She let's us in and we had an amazing lesson with her. The spirit was super strong and she has definitely been prepared. She told us she had tons of questions about "mormons" but that our message pretty much answered them all. Before we could even mention a return appointment she asked, "so when are y'all coming back?". She told us right before we left that she had made up in her mind that us "mormons" were a cult and were of the devil and that's why she didn't answer our calls or respond to our text. But she said as she sat on her couch something inside her told her that if she didn't let us in, she would be missing out on great blessings from God! What an amazing testimony she shared with us, the knowledge of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the greatest blessings that we can receive! How well do we cherish that blessing? I'm so thankful for the opportunities I have out here to meet people like Yolanda!

The church is true!

Elder Thorpe

"It's gonna be the whitest Christmas of my 20 years of life!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some Vita Malta! This stuff is pretty nasty not gonna lie. But the Nigerians love it for some reason so they always give it to us when we come over. It's some non-alcoholic barley malt drink that will put a little hair on your chest! Elder Bingham bet me Giordanos pizza that I wouldn't drink 3 of them in 20 minutes. I crushed those bad boys and he bought me pizza! 

On Tuesday I said goodbye to Elder Ward and picked up Elder Egbert! He's a real good guy from Fernley, Nevada! He knows the gospel really well and has very good teaching skills, which is super helpful because we teach a ton here. He has a powerful testimony that he loves to bear, it definitely brings the spirit into our lessons! 

Our people are looking real good right now. We have Nicole & Serenity, Elizabeth & Wale, Joe & Vitus, James Komolafe, and Victor Johnson all on date for December 22nd! And the rest of the district all has people on date for then too! The Hyde Park ward is looking to put up at least 18 baptisms on December 22nd! It's gonna be the whitest Christmas of my 20 years of life! We are hyped! 

I love this time of year and I love sharing this gospel!! I hope y'all have a great week! 

Elder Thorpe

Nicole and Serenity

#whatsmysnack Vita Malta

E Ward saying goodbye to the Bellos

Doin' service with Elder Bingham

The Bingham's, me and Elder Egbert

All the trainers and their greenies

..."it should be a white Christmas for sure!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack the district threw together a potluck Thanksgiving lunch after district meeting. Elder Bingham and Howe cooked a turkey, Elder Miner and Shipp brought stuffing, the sisters brought homemade Oreo cookies and we brought some cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. It was freakin good!

What a great Thanksgiving it was! We had a ton of appointments and 3 Thanksgiving dinners! More than half of our appointments were with Nigerians, most of them don't even know what Thanksgiving is, they just know they don't have to go to work haha. We were able to have our dinner with Nicole and her family and boy. Was that an experience! If you had to imagine what a Thanksgiving might be like with a big African American family in South side Chicago, that's exactly what it was like!! They had so much food and it was all amazing! They were super welcoming and happy to have us white boys join them. One of her brothers walked in and saw us and says, "Dang (he didn't say dang) we've got a little color up in here! It's about time we get some white brothas in this family!" They were so welcoming and had some bomb food. Baked Mac n cheese and sweet potato pie is real good!

It's about that time of the transfer again, we got our transfer calls last night! The Hyde Park District is pretty much staying the same besides Elder Ward going home. I will be training again and will get my greenie tomorrow! I'm pretty pumped to be training again, but mostly to be staying in Hyde Park! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that President Bingham let's me train him for 2 transfers!

Life is so good here, we are super pumped for December! We have like 20 people on date for December in the ward so it should be a white Christmas for sure! I love this holiday season! Everyone is so much happier and more loving! As they should be as we remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ! I love and miss you all, have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

Downtown

Hyde Park squad minus Elder Shipp.

Downtown

#whatsmysnack Thanksgiving feast

Sketchy elevator...

Exchanges with my boy Elder Bingham

"Of course baby, we don't see color!!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the orange chicken Friday lunch special from see thru Chinese kitchen! This is some good stuff! Probably not that good for ya, but it tastes delicious. It's only $6 for a ton of food, we can only eat half of it so it feeds us for two meals!! Its a dang good deal, Classic orange chicken with a boat load of shrimp fried rice, an egg roll, and of course a fortune cookie! What more could ya ask for?

This week was real good. We had zone conference on Tuesday which was bumpin, after wards we had stake MCM so we were at the stake center all day. From 8:45am to 8:00pm! It kinda stinks taking a whole day out of proselyting but President Bingham taught us some good stuff! He had a missionary ask him, "why don't we acknowledge that Joseph smith was a very flawed person?" He based his whole zone conference talk on that and how Joseph smith was NOT a very flawed person! He taught us more about the little details of his life and all the awful stuff that he and the saints went through.  It was super powerful and the spirit definitely testified once again to me that Joseph Smith truly is a prophet of God!

We found the coolest family this week! They came to the haunted house a few weeks ago and we were finally able to get in contact with them. It's a mom (Nicole) and her two kids (Serenity & David). Nicole has been really looking for a home church and she had a dream where God told her she needed to increase her knowledge of the gospel. The churches here that she had been going to just weren't doing it for her. Then we called her up! We met with them 3 times this week and they love it so much! She says that we are giving her the knew knowledge that she needs! We met last night and had an awesome lesson and they accepted to be baptized, not David though, bc he is only 7. Afterwards Nicole said, "alright let's set our schedule for next week, we can meet tomorrow night, Wednesday night... Oh and what are you guys doing for thanksgiving?" Haha she invited us to come eat with her whole family. We asked if she was sure that would be okay with the rest of her family to which she responded, "of course baby, we don't see color!!" Lol it should be a good time!

Oladele and Nifesimi both spoke in sacrament meeting about their experience at the temple and it was so awesome!! All of these Nigerian recent converts continue to amaze me in their conversion and faith in our Savior! I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Thorpe

The boys were impressed with my parallel parking.  So was I.

Wheelchair Willy, the man, the myth, the legend.

#whatsmysnack orange chicken dinner from See thru Chinese kitchen.

Classic elevator pic going to read with Louis.

The Chicago Zone.

"Highlight of the week, and probably of my mission"...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have our break-the-fast feast! We made some dang good cheesy garlic potatoes, stuffing, Cesar salad, and pork chops! Thanksgiving came early this year! 

Super good week in Hyde Park! On Tuesday we got to go to the Temple for a session! I had not been in the temple for the last 15 months and boy was it good to be back!! Pretty much our whole zone went together and we all had members take us up. The Chicago Temple is awesome! It was really last minute that we officially were able to go to the temple and so we had to only take half a P-day last week. It was awesome tho, we taught tons of lessons and had a super successful week! 

On Wednesday we had a pretty cool opportunity. We got a call from a girl who is going to the University of Chicago, she told us she is writing a paper for sociology about us missionaries and she wanted to interview us! So we did it! It was awesome, she asked a ton of really good questions about our experiences as missionaries and we were able to testify to her a ton and the spirit was super strong! At the end of the interview She said she is interested In learning more about the additional scriptures that we have! She was super nice and we feel like she has some solid potential! Pretty cool!

By far the highlight of the week, and probably of my mission, was on Saturday we got to go back to the temple for our recent convert temple trip! So cool to see the Nigerians go from font to font! All of the men were able to baptize too, dang it was so cool!! The coolest moment for me was when Dami Bello was baptizing his mom! As I sat there and watched it, the spirit hit me so hard, there was no other place that I would rather be!  It's been amazing to see the progress that they have all made, I love these people so much!!

Elder Thorpe

MLC with the boiz

Temple Trip

MLC

Recent convert temple trip

Temple P-day week

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we had a nice big bowl of popcorn! I think this was my first time having popcorn in 15 months haha, good stuff! On Wednesday because it was Halloween we had to be in by dark so we popped some popcorn and watched the Testaments! 

I don't have much time this week because we only have half a P-day today. It's kind of a long and confusing story, but we are going to the temple tomorrow and that is counting as the other half of our P-day! This week was great though! We had to move Elizabeth and Wale's date back because they weren't able to make it to church. But we did have a great lesson with them today and they are wanting to be baptized on December 1st! They are a super cool family and we are excited for them.

James was crazy busy this week and canceled all of our lessons then wouldn't get back to us. Then on Sunday during sacrament meeting I was out in the hall helping little Miracle Bello get a drink and I walked around the corner and James was there on the phone! He handed me the phone and said, "Talk to her" lol I was so confused, but I took the phone and said hello. I then had a pleasant conversation with his wife who is currently in Nigeria! I barely understood her and who knows how much she understood me haha but it was cool! Then James wanted to take a selfie with me to send to his fam haha so we did. Good stuff!

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

"Building a new Chicago one Book of Mormon at a time".

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we got to have dinner with our main man Heath Sheridan! He was our branch mission leader in the Hyde Park YSA before it got dissolved. He had just gotten home from his mission a few months ago and he is the dopes guy, playing basketball for Illinois tech. He used some of his cafeteria guest passes and let us come have dinner with him on campus. It was awesome, so much free food and it was pretty dang good too! He had just gotten back from proposing to his GF in Argentina (it's a long story) so we had lots to catch up with him about. Good guy and a real good time.

We had a bumpin week out here, we've been crazy busy with all of our current investigators and now all of our referrals. We were able to set up a bunch of lessons with the referrals and only about half of them went through, which is pretty good compared to how it usually goes. A lot of them became new investigators too! We are gonna be super busy these next few months, it's super exciting how much is going on here! There is so much going on that President Bingham is sending another companionship of elders to Hyde Park, so we will now have 4 sets of missionaries in 1 ward!

We have been working a lot with some more Nigerians. E & W are a young Nigerian couple with a 6 month old baby named Immanuel. Super solid couple who should get baptized by the end of November. We have also been meeting with a Nigerian guy named J. He has a young family back in Nigeria that he is working hard out here to provide for. He is also looking super good for baptism by the end of November! All of them came to church for the first time on Sunday and it was so awesome, they immediately connected with the Nigerian recent converts. Bola says to me, "Elder Thorpe we have a lot of africans coming to the church now!" It's such a blessing to be here at this time, I thank Heavenly Father everyday!!

Pretty cool, we also had another young African lady come to church for the first time named A! She just showed up and we didn't know who she was so we started talking to her and she told us she was wanting to come to a church so she googled ours and found out the times and everything and just showed up!! Super sick, now we will be teaching her for the first time tomorrow, seems super promising! We also got to ordain Arnaud to the priesthood after church which was an awesome experience! Such a good guy who will be a great member!

I hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

Just out here building a new Chicago one Book of Mormon at a time.

Ya bois

After ordaining Arnaud

Post workout rooftop sunrise.

#whatsmysnack dinner with Heath Sheridan

"We received 152 referrals..."

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack is the famous Harold's chicken! Probably the most popular fried chicken place in all of Chicago! They have a money half dark special every Wednesday that is 4 pieces of fried chicken, covered with fries then drizzled in BBQ sauce. It tastes amazing, but man you feel tired after eating that stuff! 

This week was pretty wild, we had a huge ward mission activity that everyone has been looking forward to for a while now. We had our own haunted house in the church and it was LIT! On Thursday and Friday we had 1200 nonmembers come through the church to see our haunted house!! On Thursday night elder Ward and I were in charge of the "tunnel room" we had made a long tunnel that wrapped around the room out of cardboard boxes. We had a couple of black lights in it and a blower blowing through it. When the kids would crawl through we would bang on the boxes and scream haha we had some good scares! The best night was Friday night though. On Friday I was with Elder Bingham and we were assigned to the "freak room" idk what they were trying to say about us, but we had fun! Elder Bingham wrapped me up in toilet paper and I was a mummy, so I laid still on the ground then when kids would come into our room I'd jump at them and scream. Man it was hilarious, we had lots of kids crying and we had a couple adults fall down haha it was a good time. And the best part about it is at the very beginning Brother Pope had them all fill out a paper that asked for their name, phone number, and if they were interested in learning more about the church/worship. We received 152 referrals, all of which have families attached to them!! So we are freakin pumped and are going to have our work cut out for us for the next little while! 

Another great thing that happened this week was our man Gregory, if you remember from a month ago, resurfaced!! We had called him for a while but his phone was disconnected. Then this week we had a prompting to try giving him a call again, so we did and sure enough it rang, and he answered! We were able to meet up with him this week and had a great lesson, in which we put him on date for December 22! He is the nicest old guy and has sincere desires to know the truth.  While he was on the phone with elder ward he said, "who am I speaking with?" which elder ward responded, "elder ward". Haha then Gregory said, "oh ok, is Larry still with you?" Lol my man still calls me Larry! Gotta love it! 

The weather is nice and cool, the leaves are changing colors and it's the best time of year here in the best area! Life is good in the hood! I love and miss y'all!  

Elder Thorpe

Putting together the tunnel room!

E Ward parcore

My boy

The "freak room"