We ate Baloot!

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have a real good one. Not good in taste, but good in experience haha. The Zone Leaders brought over some Phillipino food from a member and they gave us some Baloot. Baloot is a duck egg and the duck has grown for a month so it's formed and everything. So we ate it, it was a little crunchy with the beak and everything and boy, it was gross, but now we can say we ate Baloot! 

Another solid week over here in Glockford! Chapter 14 of PMG was put into good use again this week! We have a new investigator named C. We had our first real lesson with her over Skype this week and the first thing she asked was, "how do you date in your church?" after I told her she says, "oh ok, so are you dating anyone right now?" Haha I had to really get the point across that we dedicate these 2 years 100% to the Lord and so we don't date. I was pretty sure she got the point, but at the end of the lesson she asked me for my Instagram haha so we will see. She is a solid investigator though, she said she really wants to come to church when she gets back in town and she wants to be baptized. After we taught the first vision she shared an awesome experience with us. 

So she had just moved to Rockford from St. Louis and she said she wasn't the person she wanted to be, she had stopped being religious and she could really feel the absence of God in her life. She moved here and had no friends. So she prayed for the first time in a while and she asked God to help her get back into church and to have friends. She said that about 5 minutes after she finished her prayer we knocked on her door! It's even more amazing to know how we got to knocking on her door. One day as Elder Bagley and I were planning, we saw that we had a random task to stop by somebody we had never heard of, and neither of us put it in. We thought it was weird, but we figure it was there so we might as well stop by. The Lord definitely has his hand in this work!

We have been working with members a lot more so we have been stopping by some less actives that we've never met. This week we stopped by a less active and he pulled up as we were on his porch saying "how's the mormon church treating ya?" He let us in and we talked for like 40 minutes. He likes to talk and we got through all sorts of topics for example, UFO's, native Americans and how he's a member of the KKK. He told us he was offended by something that happened in his little branch in Wisconsin 20 years ago and he hasn't been back since. Since then he has stopped praying and reading his scriptures and gotten into a lot of anti and does not have a testimony of modern day prophets.  Something President Griffin said in our last zone conference had stuck out to me. He said, "Don't take a chance on your testimony, strengthen and nourish it everyday!" Love y'all, have a great week!

 I love elder Elton and Hollist

Elder Thorpe

BALOOT

The frozen Rock River

Chopping trees and carving initials

A chick told us she doesn't believe in God and she is a Ghostbuster.  She gave us a card.

Elder Elton and Hollist

2018 is a good one for Missionary work!

Hey Gang,

This week on #whatsmysnack we have a meal we had with some members after we did service for them. The food was super good, BBQ pork ribs, Shrimp Alfredo, Veggies, and cobbler. It tasted really good, but was quite an experience. We ate the meal together with their cats and there were mice everywhere.   While we were eating there was a mouse crawling on the table next to us! Great experience!

The zone leaders, north elders and us watched the special announcement of President Nelson, which was awesome! It definitely strengthened my testimony that Jesus Christ truly is the head of this church! We had 2 exchanges this week, first with my Zone leader, Elder Cook, then with Elder Hollist. Elder Hollist and I tore it up, we found 7 new investigators in one day! While knocking on doors we heard gun shots off in the distance, it was sick. It's Always a good time with my man Elder Hollist! We had zone conference on Thursday which is always awesome. We, as a mission, set baptismal goals for the year 2018 and as a mission we have a goal of 579 baptisms!! Last year we had 149. So we are very optimistic and President Griffin talked a lot about letting our goals drive us rather than letting them define us. We are really trying to focus on part member families and less actives because thats where we have had the most success in the past. I'm super pumped for this year, its gonna be a good one for missionary work!

I had kind of a cool experience last night. Elder Bagley and I were walking out of an apartment complex and there was a guy sitting outside the door smoking, elder Bagley must not have seen him because he just kept walking to the car. At first I just walked down the stairs following Elder Bagley, but I had a feeling that I should go back and talk to this guy, so I did. I asked him how he was doing and kind of about his life. We talked for about 5 minutes and he told me how he went to our church for a little bit but then stopped because he had some family members pass away and it was really hard on him. I told him that something that brought me happiness and peace when things were tough was the Book of Mormon and I told him that I wanted to give him one. He instantly lit up! As I handed it to him he said, "wow thank you so much! I haven't had one of these in 30 years!" It was so cool to see his countenance change in just those short 5 minutes. I love this gospel and the joy it brings to me and, even more so, I love sharing it with others and seeing the joy it brings to them!

Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack

Gotta bundle up

Choppin trees

Good times with Bag-rag

Do the little things...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have a money dinner us and the North elders whipped up! A member gave us some pork roasts and we crock potted the crap outta that beef. We threw in some Idaho potatoes for elder Hollist (our potato farmer) some carrots, Celery, onions, and some jalapenos! Mm mm good!

This week was great, I love serving the Lord!! Said goodbye to elder Parkinson and welcomed in elder Decker! Elder Decker is a cool guy, he is from Vegas and he played TE and DE, so he is pretty jacked. Still a lot of fun here in Rockford! The work is tough in the winter, everyone is getting sick and can't meet with us. We did however meet with our solid YSA investigator, A. He is such a stud, he is on soccer scholarship at college here and he just turned 19. He is on date for baptism on February 17th. This will be our 2nd baptism that came from dating a member! Chapter 14 of PMG is so real, gotta flirt to convert!! The one tough thing for him is his parents are very strong in their faith and they are all from Peru and the Latino culture is not very forgiving if you switch religions. He thinks there is a good chance that his family might disown him. He has so much faith though, he said, "I know even if they disown me it will all be ok because I feel very strongly that this is the right thing for me to do." I freaking love A!

Another person we are working with is a less active member named P, he was baptized 2 years ago, but went less active real quick and now is wanting to come back and go to the temple. He is from Africa and speaks mostly French so it's kinda hard to communicate with him. But he is awesome, he is super genuine and a very happy guy. We are teaching him about the priesthood and preparing him to receive it. Thinks are looking good for P.

We got to watch the YSA devotional with President Uchtdorf and it was amazing!! President Uchtdorf is definitely one of my favorite apostles! The jist of his talk was that if we do the little things as perfectly as we can, like prayer, scripture study, tithing, and word of wisdom, then the big things will fall into place! And we need to be patient for the answers we are seeking for. If you didn't watch the devotional I would highly recommend it! The church is true, I love y'all, have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

Our own crock pot roast

Pic from the zone Christmas party a while back.

Winter Wonderland

Gettin' home after a long day.

Defending the Faith...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the one and only Famous Dave's BBQ! Definitely some of the best brisket and spare ribs I've had! They have like 6 different BBQ sauces and I tried them all and can't decide which I like best, they are all money!

Pretty interesting week we had, full of bashing against the trinity! Just kidding, we don't bash, we just "defend the faith";) on Wednesday we met with one of the YSAs.   We met him at Rock Valley Collge and sat in this learning center. He was nice at first and we got to know each other a little bit, then he said, "the problem I have with Mormonism is you believe you can become God and you believe God has a body ". He then started throwing out all sorts of biblical scriptures telling us how we were wrong. Elder Bagley had some great responses to him but this guy wasn't having it. So elder Bagley started to get upset. He was fuming and he slammed his hand on the table and told him that he didn't have a desire to know if this church was true and that us meeting with him is pointless. Then he stood up, grabbed his stuff and left. I kinda just sat there in shock haha then I realized that he left and I needed to leave with him, so I hurried and grabbed my stuff, shook the man's hand and said, "Well, it was great to meet you, have a great day!" Then I dipped. It all happened so fast haha. 

Then on Thursday elder Hollist and I were on an exchange together and we taught this lady named R. She started going in on how the trinity is true, so we read Mathew 3 with her about the baptism of Jesus. We explained how they are 3 separate distinct beings. Her answer to everything we said was, "well yeah, he's the son in the flesh", it made no sense. Then I bore testimony of the book of mormon and invited her to read and pray to know if it's true and out of nowhere she says, pointing at elder Hollist, "well, he told me the book of mormon wasn't the word of God!" Elder Hollist was like, "Woah, What? I never said that!" Haha somehow 90% of the people in Illinois are clinically insane! 

As I was reading Alma 4 and 5 this week I realized that there are going to be those people who are very stubborn and won't accept what I say and all I can do is be like Alma and "bear down in pure testimony!" Nothing trumps a testimony! We may not have answers to everyone's questions about the church, but the most powerful thing we can do is bear testimony!!

Elder Thorpe

Famous Dave's BBQ

Frozen Rock River

My man Elder Bagley

Not sure what happened to this car...

Just another accident we witnessed

My dudes

Becoming a Disciple of Christ...

Hey Gang!

This week on #whatsmysnack we have a solid home made burger. A member gave the north elders a George Forman grill so elder Parkinson has been whipping up some mean burgers this week. Gotta add a fried egg on them, ya know for the protein, gotta get them gainz! 

It was real cold this week, well below zero. Today is -15 And -32 with wind chill. So we arent really allowed to do too much, weve been trying to figure out the best ways to still be effective while having to stay inside. We had a lot of investigators cancel lessons because they were sick or because the roads were too icy. After the snow storm we had we did a lot of snow shoveling. We had a member from California call us and tell us his inactive daughter needs her driveway shoveled. He said she is a single mom and just had surgery. So we went over and shoveled for her. A few hours after we did, we got a random text from a California number telling us that this guys daughter had posted on Facebook and said, "You guys! There are angels out in Rockford today, and they shoveled my driveway! Thank you so much whoever you are!" I love serving others and trying to follow the example of Jesus Christ!

A member in our ward gave one of the greatest talks I've ever heard yesterday in sacrament meeting. It was only like 8 minutes long but the spirit was so strong and it was incredibly powerful! His topic was on becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. He talked about the apostle Peter and how at first when Christ asked Peter to come follow him, he wasnt truly a disciple of Christ. He didn't leave his boat behind, because once Christ was killed Peter went back to his boat and back to fishing. Then the resurrected Christ appeared on the beach and called out to Peter and the apostles again. This time Peter truly became a disciple of Christ because he leaps from the boat and swims to shore because he simply couldn't wait for the boat to get all the way there. His message was that in order for us to truly become a disciple of Christ we must leave behind "our boat", whatever our boat may be. His challenge, I would like to extend to all of you, and that is to, in 2018, figure out what your personal "boat" is and leave it behind so that you can truly become a disciple of Christ!

Elder Thorpe

Home made burger

"Do not grab net or rim"  

A "black lives matter" sign on a local church.

The apartment pt1

The apartment pt2

It is chilly!