"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"

"Life is good and the work is progressing!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have a nice meal Elder Ward and I concocted together. We made some fried rice with ham, veggies, and ramen noodles! A classic Aldi Cesar salad, and some weird Aloe Vera drinks that Elder Ward likes. He talked me in to getting some and they weren't bad, tastes kinda like grape juice but has these slimy chunks of aloe vera in it, kinda weird. 

It was a great last week of the transfer here. And we got the very good news last night that Elder Ward and I will be staying for another transfer! We are both super pumped about that. Because this is Elder Wards last transfer I will most likely stay here another transfer after he leaves! Woot woot!

I was on exchanges this week with Elder Howe, Elder Bingham's trainee. He is from north Salt Lake and went to Woods Cross high school! Haha he played corner for them when we beat them
in the playoffs my senior year. Lol he told me that the 2 TD passes I threw to Brennan Rymer were on him. We had a good time, talked to a ton of southsiders and taught some bomb lessons. 

On Friday while we were in our lesson with the Bello family, sister Bello got a text from her son David (who is still stuck in Nigeria). He sent her pictures of his baptism!! After their baptism last month they gave us his information and we sent him as a referral to the missionaries in Nigeria. A few weeks ago she told us they met him and started teaching him. And now he is baptized!! Pretty sick. Life is good and the work is progressing! Love and miss y'all, have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack fried rice meal

The Hyde Park crew

My boy Elder Howe

35 degrees and rain can't keep us from some early mornin p-day tennis

After a long day in sweater weather

"This week was not the usual week for missionary work..."

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we've got probably the best popsicle I've ever had! Elder Ward and I were at the church doing weekly planning and of course we had to check the fridge/ freezer. There were 2 white popsicles in there with no label on them. We figured we would give em a shot. They were coconut and they were fantastic! They had bits of coconut in them and man, good stuff! Shout out to whoever left them in the freezer!

This week was not the usual week for missionary work. With this trial coming to a close everyone was expecting riots in the Southside! The police had sent out the projected area for the riots and it was all our area, so President Bingham shipped us out of our area and we spent a couple days staying at the other elders apartment. On Friday he told us we weren't allowed to go out, luckily we had MLC which took up most of the day. The rest of the weekend we just had to be inside by 7pm, so with conference we didn't have much time to proselyte.

Luckily the cop got convicted and there weren't any riots so we are back in the Southside! General Conference was awesome as usual, talk about a spiritual high! I had a couple favorite talks, President Oaks talk about marriage and gender was money! Elder Holland's talk about not being offended was good, and well needed!

One pretty cool experience we had this week was one day while we were contacting, we stopped to send a text and this lady just walks up to us and asked us if we could give her a bible! We didn't have one with us so we set up a time Sunday night to deliver it. When we delivered it she invited us in and we were able to teach her, and her two friends that live with her! They didn't have any furniture in the house so we just sat on the floor...super humble circumstances.  We taught them about prayer and then we each said a prayer, they loved it! They all said they felt so much better! Like Elder Gay taught, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to true and lasting happiness!

Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack coconut popsicle

The squad

Caught in the rain

Good round of tennis this morning

"Better late than never!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack I'm tossin it back to a few weeks ago. After MLC, Elder Ward and I were making the trek back to Hyde Park and we were hungry so we pulled off to a panda express at this truck stop. It was pretty good panda not gonna lie but the cool part was sitting over the freeway while we ate. It was pretty neat.

Dang good week out here in South side!! We had exchanges with the AP's and I got to go out to Woodridge with elder Clegg. It was good to be back in the West, I sure miss those corn fields! Crazy, the last time I saw them they were tall and green, now they are all brown and cut! It was a real good time out there with elder Clegg, he's a stud!

Saturday was real good too. Arnaud got baptized!!! We were nervous bc he wasn't answering our calls and it was 10 minutes before the baptism. He finally called us and said he missed the bus, so we had a member go pick him up haha. He got there 20 minutes late but hey better late than never! Also pretty cool, Elder S. Gifford Nielson who is a 70 and is on the missionary department came and met with our stake President and our ward mission leader. Elder Ward and I ran into them coming out of the meeting and so we got to shake his hand and talk to him for a bit!

On Sunday I got to confirm Arnaud, which was great, he was so happy, he couldn't stop smiling! It's been awesome to see the progression with the recent converts too, the Bellos all got callings. Oladele is a primary teacher, Lydia is a ward missionary, and Dami is a young men's advisor! Oladele and Dami also blessed the sacrament, such a cool thing to witness!!

Hecka stoked for conference this weekend, gonna be a good one! Love y'all!

Elder Thorpe

Post font cleaning

Elevator mirror pic

Arnaud's tizm

The boys callin' the gators.