Elder Payton Thorpe : YOMO-You Only Mission Once

Well Here I am again at this computer writing you all!

SOunds like we had a great week back in the Ville! Congrats on all the football wins, things must be changing if nick got an interception and Jantsen RAN for some TDs! Haha are you getting faster bro? Brooks, I cant wait to see you play some ball, sounds like you guys are tearing it up! Yes, mom we have been making some pancakes. I haven't put Bananas in them yet, but we are going to because ELder Isom and I are learning the song Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson on the UKE! I love the idea of that pic I sent you haha it is a perfect Gladiator shot! Well, I wrote a bunch this week on the Alphasmart so hope you all enjoy it. I had a really great week and learned a lot about how to improve as a missionary and also with my own personal testimony.

We have had a pretty good and somewhat crazy week so far and it's only Tuesday. Monday was fun, we had a good pday and at night we had a family night with M and her kids and her kids invited some of their friends over. It was really cool to see the kids teaching their friends how to sing the hymns and invite them to church. We had a little message about faith and then later made some smores in the back of their house. A little scary thing happened as we started moving to the back of the house though. M's youngest daughter was eating a sucker and somehow it came off the stick and got stuck in her throat. Elder Isom saw her first and she was lying on the floor struggling to breathe. I ran over to her and picked her up and started hitting her back a bit to help get it out, but it wasn't working, and then it started to get a bit scary. Her lips started turning blue and her mom, M, started crying hysterically. By instinct, I guess, I started giving her the Heimlich, but it wasn't working. I began to panic a bit and about stopped and told them to call an ambulance when the sucker popped out of her mouth. Then she started breathing again and she was fine. Hah, It was really crazy/scary. Luckily something I learned in Lisa Walker's class stuck with me haha. But she was okay and we were able to enjoy the Smores and have a good time afterwards.

Well, now it's Thursday, the time passes ya by fast. I received a cool letter from Bro and Sis Ogden today, please tell them thank you!! We had a great Zone Mtg today and I learned alot. President Spjut is telling us to be more direct with our contacting in the street and we were able to put that in to practice today and it worked great. We found a family all together in the street and we walked up and said that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and we have a message about Him that will bring you all happiness, are you intrested? They all said yes and we gave them a rundown of the Restoration and invited them to conference. We had been talking for 2 min and the dad started asking us if we could get him a a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants. Haha it was super cool. SO my personal goal now is to be FEARLESS. To be bold and direct with everyone we talk to. Because well, YOMO-You Only Mission Once.

Today was Friday and it was a long and tiring one. We went and dug a long trench for this guy's corn/bean field. We were there all morning working and it was pretty tough work. But we got it all done and then had a pretty good day. Dad, I was tthinking a lot about what you said today about the true happiness you found out on your mission. I understand what you meant by how you can feel completely content and happy even though you may have a million problems going on, just by sharing the gospel. We had to walk a long ways for an appointment today and we were pretty tired from the service in the morning, and it was blazing hot, and I had a nice headache, but I felt perfectly happy and peaceful as we were teaching this family. They were accepting and understanding what we were saying and it just felt good to be able to help them see more of the Gospel. I think that that happiness is found when you are truly forgetting yourself and only thinking about someone else and how you can help them. It sure is a cool feeling.

Man, what an awesome Conference!! I learned soo much, hope you all did too! It was so cool how they had some of the speakers speak in their native languages! Did you guys get to hear the language or was it translated in english? I, along with the other gringo missionaries, was watching it in English, but when we heard that they were going to speak in spanish, we switched it over to the spanish channel to hear the real thing. It sure was cool to be able to understand it all! But man, that guy that spoke in Cantanese or whatever it was so crazy haha! That was a cool mix that they threw into Conference. There were so many good talks, and a lot on Prophets and building our own testimonies. I can't help, but think that we MUST have a strong personal testimony now more than ever. That was confirmed to me a couple hours after the last session ended. We went to teach a very positive family that we had found a couple days ago. We talked to the dad and the oldest brother mostly while the rest just listened. But these guys are from another Prophetic church, not sure what it's called. But they REALLY know the bible and were throwing a lot of different scriptures at us when we were explaining about the Restoration. They asked a lot of questions that were actually good questions that I really just didn't know the answer to and to be honest, I was pretty intimidated. I tried to come back with all of the scriptures I knew, but it was easy to see that they knew much more than I did and were determined to get their points across. Elder Isom did his best to communicate but, really it was on me to defend our church and our beliefs. I had no one to turn to to help me out other than the Lord. So I was praying hard in my mind for help to know what to say when I got the impression to just testify. I then stopped trying to think of scriptures to fight them with, and I began to testify on what I knew to be true. My testimony grew greatly because of that lesson. I cannot describe the feeling I had as I was able to testify to these men of the Restauration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know for sure if my testimony got through to them or if it really changed their way of thinking, but after, they didn't argue as much and seemed like they were listening a bit more closely. I was able to realize the strength of my own testimony and how much of a blessing that is to have. I also learned that I need to know the scriptures a lot more than I do now haha. But it is true, we are in the last days and we need to have a strong testimony to be able to defend our faith when those times come to do so. Really was a sweet conference!

Well I love you all so much! Miss you like crazy and am so grateful for all of your amazing examples in my life! Thank you for all of the love and support!

Have a great week!

Elder Thorpe