Last week of the transfer...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the Elder Decker special, "giant french fry". Throw a potato in the microwave for 5 minutes, dip that bad boy in ketchup and boom, giant french fry! Elder Decker is a freaking genius! Just make sure you let it cool down for a bit or it will burn your mouth real good, I learned the hard way!

 This week was pretty crazy, it started with a bed bug scare in our apartment complex. There are 4 apartments and we all share a basement where there are washing machines. Apparently some chick let her friend do his laundry there and he had bed bugs! So everyone was flipping out cleaning like crazy and putting all sorts of chemicals down there. So far we haven't been bitten or anything so we will keep our fingers crossed.

A miracle we had was on Wednesday, was our investigator A (who we haven't been in contact with for over a month) messaged us telling us he was so sorry that he hasn't messaged us and it was because he was super busy. He told us he decided to transfer schools and it has caused a lot of contention with his father. But he said, "I am now fully ready to commit to becoming baptized. The busiest times are past, and I told my soccer coach that I am finished. So I for sure can FaceTime on weekends now. And I am figuring out a way to get my car so I can go to church too. Again I am sorry for being an inconvenience and I apologize. But if you will still have me, I'm 100% ready." So yeah we were freaking pumped about that! We had a lesson with him today and things are going well, he is on track for baptism April 15th!

We had exchanges with the North elders this weekend and it was such a blast being with Elder Taggart. Took me back to the good ol days in the MTC. We did a lot of good work, found some new investigators, taught some people and laughed our heads of all day long. 

On Friday our Ward Mission Leader's daughter was baptized and he asked me to be a witness and to be in the circle for her confirmation. It was a pretty awesome experience. I love brother Taylor and his family, such great people! It's crazy this is the last week of the transfer, can't believe I got elder Gibby 5 weeks ago! We will find out on saturday what is gonna happen. So this weekend should be awesome! Super excited for conference, gonna hear some good words from the prophets! 

Elder Thorpe

Elder Decker's Giant French Fry

Rock River

"I be in da kitchen cooking dinner for my Gibby yaaahhh"

When you're at the point in your relationship where you can use coupons for dinner.

Another Rockford accident.

Stopped to watch in n out of the Harlem High School baseball team.  The Mighty Red Devils woulda destroyed them.

"Love the Grind!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have Coffee!! "Oh, I don't drink coffee!" But the rest of Illinois does! But guess what, you can cross 2 people off that list! 2 of our investigators committed this week to stop drinking Coffee! Woot woot! So we were able to toss some coffee and a coffee maker in the dumpster! Good stuff.

We had another solid week of missionary work out here in Glockford! Had a cool experience with a new gator we found named A. It was a nice day outside so we were walking to and from a couple of stop by's (ya know, gotta save those miles) and we decided to take a little detour. There was a family outside playing on a play ground in the front yard of this house so we started walking up to talk to them. Immediately the mom and dad get up and go inside, but the older daughter stayed out with the little kids. We started talking to the older daughter and she told us she went to church growing up, but she had a baby and her church shunned her. So we showed her a virtual chapel tour of the primary and she loved it. She said she didn't think it was a coincidence that we found her that day because she has recently really started to turn her life around and make a good life for her and her daughter! I know the Lord puts us in people's paths whom he is preparing!

There really isn't a whole lot of new going on around here. Elder Gibby and I keep working hard and things are going good! There's nothing quite like being a missionary for the Lord, it's hard, but worth every minute. Everyday I think about something my boy Elder Gardanier would always say, "love the grind!" I love and miss all of y'all! 

Elder Thorpe

Making the toss

My dudes, Elder Dietz and Elder Taggart.

Elder Bolton spilled the milk trying to bottle flip it.

Service at the Northern Illinois food bank.

Good times choppin wood.

In honor of the Sunshine Tournament!  2k17 champs, #RDP

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Dope graffiti wall.

"Life is good in Glockford"...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the Elder Thorpe version of Dutch oven potatoes (without the Dutch oven). Sunday morning I chopped up some potatoes, onions, bacon, and chicken then threw it all in the crockpot with some butter, cheese, salt and pepper. Let that baby cook for a couple hours while we were at church learning more of the good word, being spiritually fed, then Elder Gibby and I grubbed!

This week was pretty sweet! We worked real hard and had some results! We found 3 awesome new investigators named T, D, and R! On Thursday we stopped by an investigator who hasn't been in contact with us and she wasn't home so we felt like we should knock a few doors in the area. Two houses in T opens the door and let's us right in, we teach her about the book of mormon and she invites us to come back on Saturday. Friday we stop by the investigator again and once again she wasn't home, but a guy was in front of T house washing his car so we stopped to talk with him. We quickly found out that D lives with T and he's her cousin. So Saturday we came for the lesson and R, D's fiance, joined in! They all were super interested and participated a lot as we taught them the restoration. They want to keep learning and we are super excited for them! 

We had a super awesome experience with brother and sister P, sister P is a less active and brother P is a non-member we have been teaching forever. It's been really frustrating because we have invited them to church a hundred times and they always came up with excuses not to come. On Saturday night we had a lesson, that the bishop came with us to, but it fell through. Bishop asked me if there was anyone we should stop by and, even though the patrons had canceled our lesson for early that day, we felt like we should stop by. So we did and we talked with them for a while and invited them to church. They had the excuse that they needed to reorganize their dining room and move a bunch of boxes, so we told them we would do it for them right then and there. We did and as we left we invited them again and they said they would try to come. Sunday morning we were kinda disappointed when the meeting was starting and none of our investigators had come to church. Just then in walks brother and sister P!! It was such a beautiful sight, and they both loved it. After church sister P said, "I already want to come back next week!" The Lord definitely works miracles!

Life is good in Glockford, the weather is warming up, people are already starting to BBQ and it makes it easy to contact them! I'm praying it keeps warming up! The church is true!

Elder Thorpe

Well, life is good and the church is true!

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have a good hearty breakfast I whipped up for Elder Gibby and myself! Elder Dietz is in my zone now and last Monday he told me and Elder Taggart that he had a gift for us. Then at zone conference he brought us some bacon haha so we put that to good use!

On Tuesday we got a call in the morning from a less active member who needed help moving, so we threw on some service clothes, picked up the north elders and headed over. This guy was living in a tiny little shack and it was nasty. He had dirty dishes piled up in the sink, there was animal poop in all of the corners and it wreaked of poop and smoke. We just moved a bunch of old beat up furniture and one massive oversized tool box, with all the tools still in it. It probably weighed close to 700 pounds! (Good thing we've been pumping iron every Monday with bro Lee) But we helped our guy out. When we first got there he said it would take 5-6 hours, but with 4 hard working missionaries and the Lord's help we got him all moved out of his old house and into his new house in 2 hours. 

We had a pretty crazy zone conference on Thursday, President Griffin started it off by giving us the details on our mission merge. He told us that on July 1st all the missionaries in the Peoria stake will be serving in the Iowa mission and all missionaries serving in the other 4 stakes will be serving in the Chicago mission! Pretty big changes coming up soon! The other thing that made zone conference crazy was my boy Elder Dietz had a seizure during the middle of the Zone Leaders Training! It was pretty intense, he was sitting right next to me and all of a sudden he just got super tense and sat up and was shaking. We hurried and moved the chairs out of the way and helped him down to the floor. It only lasted about 2 minutes then he came to. As soon as he came to he was his same old self, the funny ol elder Dietz we all love. Elder Taggart and I were sitting right next to him when he woke up and he said, "dang I felt that coming, Taggart go get my camera and take a picture of me laying on the ground so I can send it to my mom!" Haha then when we took the picture he closed his eyes and stuck his tongue out like he was dead haha, man elder Dietz is a hoot. But don't worry he's all good! 

This week we struggled a little bit finding new investigators to teach but on saturday we got a bible referral and so we went to bring her the bible on Saturday and she was sitting on the steps of her porch smoking and she started getting all antsy when we started walking up to her. She was a little freaked out by two white guys in white shirts and ties, but that's how everyone is here in Rockford haha. She was super nice and friendly when we told her who we were. She accepted the bible and let us inside to teach her the restoration. She seemed very interested and we gave her a book of mormon and she asked us to come back next week so hopefully she has some potential! When we got back to our apartment we realized that we locked our back door and left the chain on the front door so we were locked out. I wasn't about to call somebody to come help us out so I went into our storage unit and found a box to a phone charger that you plug into the outlet. So I took that and used the prongs on the end to unscrew the chain haha. It was pretty sick, I saved Elder Gibby and myself. Well, life is good and the church is true!

Elder Thorpe

Good, hearty breakfast I whipped up.

A mask we found helping the guy move.

Exchanges with the zone leaders.

Locked out of our apartment, but to quote Coach Willy Child, "It's a beautiful day!"