..."it should be a white Christmas for sure!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack the district threw together a potluck Thanksgiving lunch after district meeting. Elder Bingham and Howe cooked a turkey, Elder Miner and Shipp brought stuffing, the sisters brought homemade Oreo cookies and we brought some cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. It was freakin good!

What a great Thanksgiving it was! We had a ton of appointments and 3 Thanksgiving dinners! More than half of our appointments were with Nigerians, most of them don't even know what Thanksgiving is, they just know they don't have to go to work haha. We were able to have our dinner with Nicole and her family and boy. Was that an experience! If you had to imagine what a Thanksgiving might be like with a big African American family in South side Chicago, that's exactly what it was like!! They had so much food and it was all amazing! They were super welcoming and happy to have us white boys join them. One of her brothers walked in and saw us and says, "Dang (he didn't say dang) we've got a little color up in here! It's about time we get some white brothas in this family!" They were so welcoming and had some bomb food. Baked Mac n cheese and sweet potato pie is real good!

It's about that time of the transfer again, we got our transfer calls last night! The Hyde Park District is pretty much staying the same besides Elder Ward going home. I will be training again and will get my greenie tomorrow! I'm pretty pumped to be training again, but mostly to be staying in Hyde Park! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that President Bingham let's me train him for 2 transfers!

Life is so good here, we are super pumped for December! We have like 20 people on date for December in the ward so it should be a white Christmas for sure! I love this holiday season! Everyone is so much happier and more loving! As they should be as we remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ! I love and miss you all, have a great week!

Elder Thorpe

Downtown

Hyde Park squad minus Elder Shipp.

Downtown

#whatsmysnack Thanksgiving feast

Sketchy elevator...

Exchanges with my boy Elder Bingham

"Of course baby, we don't see color!!"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have the orange chicken Friday lunch special from see thru Chinese kitchen! This is some good stuff! Probably not that good for ya, but it tastes delicious. It's only $6 for a ton of food, we can only eat half of it so it feeds us for two meals!! Its a dang good deal, Classic orange chicken with a boat load of shrimp fried rice, an egg roll, and of course a fortune cookie! What more could ya ask for?

This week was real good. We had zone conference on Tuesday which was bumpin, after wards we had stake MCM so we were at the stake center all day. From 8:45am to 8:00pm! It kinda stinks taking a whole day out of proselyting but President Bingham taught us some good stuff! He had a missionary ask him, "why don't we acknowledge that Joseph smith was a very flawed person?" He based his whole zone conference talk on that and how Joseph smith was NOT a very flawed person! He taught us more about the little details of his life and all the awful stuff that he and the saints went through.  It was super powerful and the spirit definitely testified once again to me that Joseph Smith truly is a prophet of God!

We found the coolest family this week! They came to the haunted house a few weeks ago and we were finally able to get in contact with them. It's a mom (Nicole) and her two kids (Serenity & David). Nicole has been really looking for a home church and she had a dream where God told her she needed to increase her knowledge of the gospel. The churches here that she had been going to just weren't doing it for her. Then we called her up! We met with them 3 times this week and they love it so much! She says that we are giving her the knew knowledge that she needs! We met last night and had an awesome lesson and they accepted to be baptized, not David though, bc he is only 7. Afterwards Nicole said, "alright let's set our schedule for next week, we can meet tomorrow night, Wednesday night... Oh and what are you guys doing for thanksgiving?" Haha she invited us to come eat with her whole family. We asked if she was sure that would be okay with the rest of her family to which she responded, "of course baby, we don't see color!!" Lol it should be a good time!

Oladele and Nifesimi both spoke in sacrament meeting about their experience at the temple and it was so awesome!! All of these Nigerian recent converts continue to amaze me in their conversion and faith in our Savior! I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Thorpe

The boys were impressed with my parallel parking.  So was I.

Wheelchair Willy, the man, the myth, the legend.

#whatsmysnack orange chicken dinner from See thru Chinese kitchen.

Classic elevator pic going to read with Louis.

The Chicago Zone.

"Highlight of the week, and probably of my mission"...

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have our break-the-fast feast! We made some dang good cheesy garlic potatoes, stuffing, Cesar salad, and pork chops! Thanksgiving came early this year! 

Super good week in Hyde Park! On Tuesday we got to go to the Temple for a session! I had not been in the temple for the last 15 months and boy was it good to be back!! Pretty much our whole zone went together and we all had members take us up. The Chicago Temple is awesome! It was really last minute that we officially were able to go to the temple and so we had to only take half a P-day last week. It was awesome tho, we taught tons of lessons and had a super successful week! 

On Wednesday we had a pretty cool opportunity. We got a call from a girl who is going to the University of Chicago, she told us she is writing a paper for sociology about us missionaries and she wanted to interview us! So we did it! It was awesome, she asked a ton of really good questions about our experiences as missionaries and we were able to testify to her a ton and the spirit was super strong! At the end of the interview She said she is interested In learning more about the additional scriptures that we have! She was super nice and we feel like she has some solid potential! Pretty cool!

By far the highlight of the week, and probably of my mission, was on Saturday we got to go back to the temple for our recent convert temple trip! So cool to see the Nigerians go from font to font! All of the men were able to baptize too, dang it was so cool!! The coolest moment for me was when Dami Bello was baptizing his mom! As I sat there and watched it, the spirit hit me so hard, there was no other place that I would rather be!  It's been amazing to see the progress that they have all made, I love these people so much!!

Elder Thorpe

MLC with the boiz

Temple Trip

MLC

Recent convert temple trip

Temple P-day week

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we had a nice big bowl of popcorn! I think this was my first time having popcorn in 15 months haha, good stuff! On Wednesday because it was Halloween we had to be in by dark so we popped some popcorn and watched the Testaments! 

I don't have much time this week because we only have half a P-day today. It's kind of a long and confusing story, but we are going to the temple tomorrow and that is counting as the other half of our P-day! This week was great though! We had to move Elizabeth and Wale's date back because they weren't able to make it to church. But we did have a great lesson with them today and they are wanting to be baptized on December 1st! They are a super cool family and we are excited for them.

James was crazy busy this week and canceled all of our lessons then wouldn't get back to us. Then on Sunday during sacrament meeting I was out in the hall helping little Miracle Bello get a drink and I walked around the corner and James was there on the phone! He handed me the phone and said, "Talk to her" lol I was so confused, but I took the phone and said hello. I then had a pleasant conversation with his wife who is currently in Nigeria! I barely understood her and who knows how much she understood me haha but it was cool! Then James wanted to take a selfie with me to send to his fam haha so we did. Good stuff!

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Thorpe