Mega tism is on for September 1st!!

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack I was on exchanges in Morgan Park with elder Crowley and he showed me a very different way to do oatmeal! He heated up apple juice on the stove, then once it was nice and hot he poured it in a bowl over some raw oats and sprinkled some salt on top! I was pretty skeptical, not gonna lie to ya, but it was actually pretty good! I never knew there were other ways to make oatmeal but  there's more than one way to skin a cat, so it makes sense!

It has been pretty stressful this week trying to get all of the details for the baptism all worked out. Dang it  sure is tough trying to coordinate with 4 Nigerian families who all work crazy hours in factories, but the Lord definitely has his hand in this!  We had been anxiously waiting to hear if Ibukunolu (the father of the Opadele family) would be able to get work of for the baptism. On Wednesday he asked his boss but of course she told him she would get back to him on Friday, so we were pulling our hair out waiting to hear if he and the family would even be able to get baptised on September 1st. But "by the grace of God" (as the Nigerians always say) she gave him the day off! Many prayers were answered when we found that out! So the Mega tism is still on for September 1st!! It's gonna be a lot of work still getting all of their interviews set up and and all the details but Elder Noble and I are giddy over here, like two kids on Christmas eve! September 1st is going to be a day we will never forget!

As we have been planning this baptism we realized that after September 1st, our teaching pool is going to be pretty much depleted. So on Tuesday we were looking through former investigators on area book to see if there was anyone who had potential to be taught. We came across a Nigerian guy named Arnaud, and of course we saw that he was Nigerian so we figured he would have potential! We felt very strongly that we needed to call him, so we did! We set up a lesson with him for Wednesday and it went super well, he asked us to come back on Friday. The lesson on Friday was also amazing and so he asked us to come back on saturday! On Saturday we invited him to be baptised on September 29th and he accepted!! He also wants us to teach his God father now too!! The Lord sure is working mighty miracles and I thank God every day that I get to be here in Hyde Park to be apart of it!

Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack oatmeal

Southside Alleys

Culture is power.

The Opadeles

"Lovin' the mish and lovin' life!"

Hey Gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have pan fried tilapia and rice! This is what we eat whenever we get tired of chicken and rice haha. I've literally eaten rice every single day this transfer, it's great. The tilapia is pretty good, not gonna lie, we season it with Adobo and lemon pepper. Then we add some sweet baby rays to give it that extra umph!

We had another great week in the hood! On Wednesday and Thursday we had back to back exchanges, which kinda sucked, I didn't see elder Noble for 2 days. On Wednesday elder Romm and I worked here in Hyde Park and had a GT. Then on Thursday we had our exchanges with the AP's which was super dope. Elder Tavenner came down and spent the day with me, he's a stud! We are very similar and had a real good time together. We had a ton of super good contacts, a couple solid lessons, I learned a ton from him, and we talked a lot about our boy Chance The Rapper! It was fitting as we contacted up and down 79th! 

Our investigators are doing great, the Bellos are super ready and excited for the baptism. We met with Bola and taught her about tithing and she is more than willing to accept it. She even told us about some of the tithing blessings she has received in the past from paying tithing and bore her testimony about it, it was awesome. We met with Dayo and Falawami, Falahomi wasn't there bc he had football weigh ins, boy did that remind me of the good ol days in Springville youth football! They also are solid and ready for  baptism. Abiola and Ibukun and their family are still on the edge if they will be baptised with everyone else on September 1st. Abiola and the kids all understand and want to be baptised, but Ibukun says he has already been baptised. So yesterday during priesthood we took Ibukun into a classroom and had a little lesson with him. We had invited him before to pray to know if he needed to be baptised by proper authority, but he told us he hadn't had the chance yet. He also used the excuse that he had to work the day of the baptism. So we taught him more about the proper authority and how it is only found in this church. We bore our testimonies to him and then the 3 of us knelt in prayer as he prayed and asked God if baptism by proper authority is what he needed to do. It was a straight up miracle, after the prayer Ibukun told us that on wednesday he is going to ask his boss for work off on September 1st so that he can get baptised with his family!! It's so amazing to see how much the restored gospel of Jesus Christ blesses the lives of every single person who accepts it! Multiple times this week I got to testified to people about how much it has blessed my life and how I know that it will bless theirs!

Pretty crazy I hit my 1 year mark this week, time is flying by for sure! Elder Bingham also hit his one year mark so he and elder Spahr came over and we had dinner together then we had the ceramonial burning of the shirt on the roof of our apartment building. It was a good time! Im lovin the mish and lovin life, hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

Me and my dude

Supporting my Red Devils against Dixie

One year Baby!

#whatsmysnack Talapia and rice

Hump Week!

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the one and only Raisin Canes! Nothin quite like some canes fried chicken! Still not sure why Utah doesn't have one, they need to get on that!  We had some time before we were gonna go play ball on Monday so we decided to treat ourselves!

On Tuesday we had zone conference and it was money, we gave some dope trainings and enlightened the zone. President Bingham as usual dropped some fire on us via el libro de Mormón. He shared some stuff from Joseph Smith's writings and compared it to the Book of Mormon. It was amazing the only way to explain it is, el libro de Mormon es verdad!! After zone conference we were supposed to have a stake MCM with our stake President and President Bingham. We waited for like 20 minutes and the stake President never showed so we stayed for a little bit and talked with President Bingham, it was legit, that man is amazing! Then he took some dope pics of us on his new IPhone haha.

Our Nigerian families are all doing awesome! We were able to meet with them all this week and they all came to church! We met with B and taught her the word of wisdom. She has so much faith, she didn't quite understand why we couldn't have tea and she had just barely bought some really expensive tea and had it shipped to her from Nigeria to help with weight loss. Despite not fully understanding why, she has faith that it's from a prophet of God so she got rid of it!!

This weekend we were contacting by la Fruteria, which is an African market. We always street contact there because it's loaded with Nigerians. We were walking down the street and a Nigerian man came up to us and asked if we were the latter day saints. He told us he got to America 2 months ago and before he left Nigeria his mormon friend took him to church. But when he came to America he didn't know how to contact the church, then he ran into us! And lo and behold his name is Noble!! Talk about Divine Design!!

Love and miss y'all, read the book of mormon every day! It will change your life!!

Elder Thorpe

Zone Conference

Pics with President Bingham

My boi Elder Noble

#whatmysnack Raisin Canes

Massive brass statue in Hyde Park

"Feeding children everywhere"...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have something I've been craving for the past year! Costa Vida sweet pork burrito baby!! Im pretty sure there is only like 1 Costa Vida in the mission and it's downtown Chicago so we had to go! Man I've missed Costa. Plus the worker had the hots for elder Spahr so she gave us free chips and queso, it was a win win!

Pretty crazy week we had in the Southside! We taught a bunch of lessons and found a couple new investigators during the first half of the week. Our weekend was full of meetings and service and not much time in our area. The service though was super dope. We, as a zone, got to go downtown and help provide 1 million meals for hungry people in Chicago with an organization called "feeding children everywhere". All of us missionaries got to be table captains which meant, each session, we trained a group of 12 volunteers on how to fill, package, and box meals. It was super fun and we were there for 4 sessions so we got to work with a ton of people! They even had a DJ who played some bumpin music, man I miss music... tender mercies!

Yesterday was so great. Fast and testimony meeting in Hyde Park is known for its interesting testimonies haha but yesterday's was much more normal, so I'm told. One lady did break out into song mid testimony, which was LIT. Then Jabari Parker's dad, Sunny Parker, bore his testimony and told us all about the bball camp he and Jabari did last week. Oh yeah the Hyde Park ward is the ward Jabari Parker grew up in, so that's pretty sick. Now only his dad goes to the Hyde Park ward, pretty cool though he sat next to elder noble and I, he is one large individual.

Hyde Park is a missionaries dream. I'm so unbelievably blessed to be here! We had 12 investigators come to church yesterday which was so cool, and all 12 were given rides by members!! We are currently in the process of planning a mega baptism for September 1st!! I'm so pumped we have 4 Nigerian families who we are teaching and are preparing to be baptized on that day! I know you'll forget them all but I thought it would be cool to tell you all of their names. They are, Oladele, Lydia, Dami, Victor, Abiola, Ibukun, Nifesimi, Issac, Bola, Fatima, Folahomi and Folawami!! I love Nigerians!!! They are so nice and so faithful!

Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack Costa burrito

Helped the Bellos move.

Me and my boy, Elder Parkinson, at MLC

The big time service for feeding children everywhere.