BAPTISM! "Just couldn't wait!

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have an authentic Estonian meal. Sister Riismaa in our ward is super cool and feeds us good Estonian food, this week she made us some good pasta with some baked chicken drumsticks. Good stuff. Elder Bonvissuto even said the pasta was good!

The highlight of the week was for sure Elisette's baptism on Saturday! We met with her pretty much every day this week to help her be ready for Saturday! She was so excited and showed up 45 minutes earlier to the baptism because she "just couldn't wait". She asked me to baptize her and elder Bonvissuto to confirm her. It was an awesome service and she was so happy!! It was pretty cool to have elder Bonvissuto confirm her too, he was really nervous but he did an awesome job! The gift of tongues is real! 

We had a couple really solid lessons with Miriam this week too, she is doing great! We have been teaching her the commandments and she knows she needs to make some changes in her life. She is super sincere and when she prays in our lessons she asks God to continue to help her to get on the right path. She brought her 5 yr old son to church on Sunday, man he is a cute little kid. After church he just wanted to arm wrestle us haha. We are really excited for her!

Things are great here. Crazy that this is president Binghams last week as our mission president, he will be greatly missed! But we are excited to welcome in president and sister Shumway! 

I hope y'all have a great week!

-Elder Thorpe 

#whatsmysnack

Baptism of Elisette

"Cited our minds forward by taking us backward."

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have some straight up coconut! We bought it on Monday, cracked that bad boy open with a hammer. It was the first time I've ever had legit coconut like that and the milk is dang good! We snacked on coconut throughout the week, it was good stuff! 

We had another great week this week. We met with Elisette 3 times and she is looking super solid for her baptism this Saturday!! Nathan has been out of town for a bit and hasn't been able to come to church so we pushed his baptism to the 29th! Things are going really well for that family! 

We have been teaching this Hispanic woman named Miriam and she is another one of the Elect that our father in heaven has put into our path. We have taught her the first 3 lessons and she came to church on Sunday! She always sets up the appointments for us and she even asked us if she could come to church before we invited her! She is loving it and is on date for July 20th but if she continues to progress like this we will move it up! 

We had our final zone conference with President Bingham on Friday. Such a bitter sweet day. We got to the buffalo grove stake center at 8:45am and didn't leave until about 7pm! President "cited our minds forward by taking us backward". He taught us for a solid 3 hours straight about foreordination and the pre-mortal life! It was so good! I'm going to miss that man and his infinite wisdom very much! At the end when he and sister Bingham bore their testimonies and pretty much said their goodbyes the whole room was in tears! We are excited to continue to progress this mission with president and sister Shumway! 

The Burg continues to be booming! This is the Lord's work and I'm so grateful to be apart of it! I hope y'all have a great week! 

-Elder Thorpe 

#whatsmysnack coconut

Only pic I've got for the week, but it's a good'n

"Is this what it's always like?"

Hey gang! This week on #whatsmysnack we have a spam, egg, and cheese sandwich, made by a Navajo! Elder Eltsosie had some spam and was talking up his spam sandwiches so we had him make us sandwiches after district council. Elder Freeze's mom sent him grandma sycamore bread so we were eating good.

It's been a good couple of days since I emailed last haha. On Saturday and Sunday we had a mini missionary with us, it was a real good time. His name was Derrick and he is a member up in Rockford and he is from Tanzania. He and his family came here 7 years ago, met the missionaries and got baptized. We had a lot of success with him, we found 2 new people and put 3 of the people we were teaching on date. In all of our lessons he bore some awesome testimony about the book of Mormon. The day started out rough tho haha we had a lesson cancel so we tracted for an hour and a half and literally no one opened the door. We were only able to talk to 3 people that were just out and about, it was brutal. Derrick said, "is this what it's always like?" Haha poor guy, luckily the rest of the time was a lot better so he got to see both sides of the work.

We found an awesome lady named Miriam  on Wednesday. We tracted into her and at first she was not having it, we started talking to her about her family and how much her two little kids mean to her. She then let us teach her the restoration and we set up a return appointment for Sunday. When we came back she was there with her cousin Mila and we taught them both. Miriam had read the pamphlet we gave her and asked a bunch of great questions. We put them both on date for July 20th!

Things are good in the burg! Have a great week!

-Elder Thorpe

#whatsmysnack spam,egg and cheese

Dinner with Peruvians, Egyptians, Italians and a Utahn

Apt selfie

Boutta teach some lessons