Monday, September 24, 2018

"The Book of Mormon works Miracles!!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have fried ham and Elder Bingham's famous biscuits and gravy! We had to be over by their apartment for stake MCM so afterwards we just had dinner with them. Elder Bingham sure knows what he's doing, he whips up some mean biscuits and gravy!

We had zone conference on Tuesday, which was awesome as usual. Elder Ward and I dropped some fire and so did President Bingham. He taught a ton about increasing our teaching skills and asking more inspired questions. He said it's one thing to teach, it's another to testify, but the best thing we can do is ask inspired questions and get our investigators to testify of what we would have testified of! Pretty cool stuff, it's been awesome seeing the difference in our lessons and the progress of our investigators from it!

On Friday we had the ward mission carnival! Every month our ward mission does some free activity and invites the whole community and this months was a carnival in the church! It was crazy! There were over 450 nonmembers from the community who came! Elder Ward and I were in charge of the sling shot station. We stacked Dixie cups and let kids shoot little plastic marbles to knock them down. It was a miracle I only got shot once! I was setting up the cups for the kids to shoot them and some little turd sniped me in the butt!

Something super dope that happened this week, we were meeting with A and he told us how stressed out he was about this class that he is taking to become a cab driver and he said he doesn't think he has time to read the book of mormon. So we promised him if he read the book of mormon everyday then he would pass all of his tests. He did it and he got 100% on all 4 of his tests! He was the only one in his class who did that and he said his instructor was super surprised. The Book of Mormon works Miracles!! Now A is super pumped and ready for his baptism on Saturday!!

Elder Thorpe
#whatsmysnack Elder Bingham's famous biscuits and gravy.




Monday, September 17, 2018

..."for some reason he calls me Larry"...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have Russian chocolate. My main man Elder Taggart, who is Russian, hooked me up with some authentic chocolate candy straight from Russia! Pretty good not gonna lie!

We had an awesome week here, we were able to find a bunch of new people to teach, hopefully some of them pan out! We have been teaching this older guy named G for the past 2 weeks. He was a bible referral that we gave a book of mormon to. He has been super interested and he even came to church yesterday! It was awesome, he was taking notes during gospel principles and was loving church. He said he really enjoyed it and would be coming back! He doesn't want to commit to baptism yet because he is still "doing his research". He loves it when we come over and teach him tho. Haha and for some reason he calls me Larry haha. On the phone when I tell him it's the missionaries he says, "Ahh hey Larry!" Then in priesthood he was sitting next to me and he introduced himself to everyone and said, "I just barely started learning about the Mormons, thanks to my man right here, this young man, Larry" as he points to me haha. I don't really care if he calls me elder Thorpe or Larry, as long as he is able to come to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and enter the waters of baptism, it's fine by me!

Something super cool this week, also on Sunday, was Nifesimi and Folahami passed the sacrament!!we gave them some white shirts and ties and they looked awesome. They had the biggest smiles on their faces as they passed it! Then Oladele, Dami, and Victor all received the priesthood! It's such a rewarding experience getting to see your converts progress in the gospel!!

Things are as good as ever out here, this surely is the Lord's work, and I love it more than anything else!! I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe
Rollin out!

"Whatsmysnack" Russian chocolate

Post video chat lesson.

Monday, September 10, 2018

"Pretty sweet stuff" this week...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some authentic Nigerian food! Sister Bello filled up our plates for us and said we had to eat it all... It definitely wasn't the best thing I've ever had lol it tasted pretty gross not gonna lie. We choked it down. It was pounded yam, some type of fish, and some spinach/pepper stuff pretty nasty. But we ate it!

So we were having a lesson with the Bello family and a Nigerian lady, who always brings her daughter over for the Bellos to babysit, tells us it's her daughter's birthday and we are invited to the party. Then she went out and came back in carrying cases of Heineken. She just kept going back and forth and probably brought in 12 cases of alcohol! So of course we went and it was bumpin! They had a DJ with some massive speakers, a bounce house for the kids and About 50 Nigerians showed up! We got to talk to a bunch of them, I'm sure they were like why the heck are these white guys here haha It was LIT! 

Earlier in the week we were at the Quezada's for dinner. They are such a fun family and they make dang good Mexican food! They have 5 daughters and they are super funny, it's always a good time there. After dinner and our lesson sister Quezada asked us if we could give the girls preisthood blessings for the start of the school year. It was such a cool experience! Brother Quezada has been inactive for a little while and it really had an impact on him because after we blessed the girls he asked us for a blessing also, to "help him get back on the path". Pretty sweet stuff. 

It was a pretty good week, we also had MLC on Friday and President Bingham dropped some fire as usual, gotta love that guy. Life is good and the church is true!!

Elder Thorpe
Early morning tennis.

Goodbye dinner for Elder Spahr and Noble.

"I already won the lottery, I was born in the U S of A baby " -Creed Bratton

Trekking through the rain.

#whatsmysnack authentic Nigerian dinner.

Monday, September 3, 2018

"Wow, what a crazy, awesome week!"

Hey gang! Yesterday we had a member meal with an awesome less active Hispanic family. They made us some dang good carne asada with beans, rice and tortillas and some oatmeal water (which is basically horchata but oatmeal instead of rice). That is one thing I've really missed is some good Mexican food, my home made quesadillas just aren't getting the job done on satisfying my Mexican food craving. But the Quezada's food sure did! I definitely ate too much but my food baby was well worth it!

Wow, what a crazy, awesome week! It happened... all 12 of our investigators got baptized!!! Such a hectic, stressful week with trying to finish teaching them all, schedule baptismal interviews for 12 people, actually having all 12 interviews, arranging for all 12 to have baptismal suits that fit them, creating the baptism program, making sure they all were at the baptism on time, organizing the confirmation, making it all happen, then filling out all the baptismal records! But Heavenly Father definitely worked His miracles and it happened!! And boy was it an awesome experience seeing the joy on all of their faces after they got baptized!!

It was the last week with Elder Noble, and I'm sure gonna miss that guy, he is such a stud! We've become great friends and I'm so glad we got to end this transfer with a bang! I'm so happy and grateful for the opportunity to know and teach these amazing people; the Bello's: Oladele, Lydia, Dami and Victor. The Opadele's: Ibukun, Abiola, Nifesimi and Isaac. The Bodunrin's: Fatima, Folahami, and Folawemi. And Bola Olola. How amazing it was to hear their testimonies of how they came to know the restored gospel is true and how much it has blessed their lives. Bola shared her testimony and said, "I'm so grateful for my elders, Elder Thorpe and Elder Noble and all they have done for me!" Definitely tugged at my heart strings!

I'm beyond grateful for the amazing people I've been blessed to meet and come to know. They have brought so much joy to my life! I can't thank the Lord enough! We also got our transfer calls and I will be getting Elder Ward. I've heard lots of good things about him so I'm excited for this next transfer here in Hyde Park, to keep the ball rolling! The gospel is true! I love you all!

Elder Thorpe
Last district meeting with the Hyde Park District.

Tried on the Speedo caps for the women getting tized.

Hyde Park aka the most bumpin place in the mission.

#whatsmysnack carne asada

Cleaning the font with Elder Bingham

The whole crew, plus President and Sister Bingham

The Opadele family, plus Bola in the middle

The Bello family

The Bodunrin Family