Permanacendo em Dondo

So to start we had transfers this week and it looks like... Me and Elder Flitton are going to stay put here in good ol Dondo! Super excited because we have a lot of people that we are going to teach that are progressing and this area is so amazing.

This week we had the blessing of being a part of three baptisms of Charmila, Manecas and Artur. It was so amazing and what really hit me hard was when Charmila was bearing her testimony and she talked about how there are so many churches out there and that before she always thought that is was so hard to know which one was true but that when she prayed and from what she felt she knows that this church is true. It was so simple. Just one prayer for 30 seconds and then she said that she is being baptised for the first time and only time because of the spirit that has touched her heart. Wow that really made everything worth it. To be able to be there, to witness the miracle of the Holy Ghost working in lives is such a miracle. Man that was amazing.

ANyways speaking of miracles... We received water!!! HAhahaha we did wash for the first time in almost a month. Super nice to have clean cloths and I got to take a shower so that was pretty much the best too. Right now things are looking really good in Dondo. We have water and the work is really starting to progress. We have 4 people with baptismal dates for the month of October and we are really excited to try and help them to become converted.

WE have really been focusing on helping people truly become converted to the gospel so that baptism is a start of a lifestyle not just a super cool event. We are also preparing to have a wedding here hopefully in the next month or two. Man the work is going great and having water makes things easier too.

Guess we are just ripe for another challenge so... bring it on! hahaha I was reading in the book of Mormon to try and find a scripture to help our investigators and I was reading about the Nephites and how every time they started to receive blessing they got prideful and got hit with some serious trials. SO right now we are working our tails off to remember to whom we are forever indebted to for every blessing that we receive in this life and the life to come. In reality Christ is everything. Without his touch on our lives there would be no point. There would be no purpose. So moving forward we are making Christ our Purpose.

 Hope that everyone out there is doing well and im going to have to say tchau until next week.
 Love you all.

I think I can see the light

Howdy yall just another week in good ol Africa sem agua e energia, but its whatever. Hahaha we counted the days that we have been without water and we are now on day 14. We were also without energy a lot of this week so that was fun.

 I was asked what we do for washing clothes out here. Well here is the simple answer.... we don't. At least not right now. We have a washing machine at the house but for some reason we've been having difficulties getting it work;) So yeah I may or may not have worn all of my clothes at least twice this week soo.... yeah i still smell great.

In all honesty this week has been really trying. We have had a lot of investigators that we have had to drop and lots that have been bailing on our lessons. At times it is really hard until I start to think about how my life isnt my own right now. I am here to serve and invite and that's all I can do. We as missionaries cannot force or make a person accept our message but we can invite them to think and to pray. It is so amazing to see what a difference these two things make. The real difference between those that believe in this church and those that don't comes down to who has prayed to know.

But despite the difficulties we did find an amazing man name Jose. Wow so we found Jose by a well that he was watching over and he was reading the Bible. We both had a super strong feeling that we should talk to him so we did. We taught him the Restoration and returned another time and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ANyways when we asked him about whether he prayed or not he said he had. We then asked him if he had received an answer and he said I don't know. ANyways right before we left he said "Elders I have a question... I want to tell you about a dream i had the night after I prayed" He then started to tell us a story about his dream where he was on a boat and he was fishing with a net. He said that there were tons of fish in the ocean and he was really hungry. He cast his net but only pulled in one fish. He said it was the most desirable fish there is and that when he ate he was completely filled. After he told us this story we were shocked and I immediately thought about the story of the tree of life.

 I know that God answers prayers. He has answered mine and he has answered the people of Mozambique. All he has asked of us is that we take the time to ask him with an open heart, and when we have prepared sufficiently God can give us experiences that can change our lives. Right now we are still teaching Charmila, Manecas and Artur and as of right now they are planned to be baptized this Saturday so we are suuupppeeerr excited. I love the work and it is going to fast here. I will keep on keepin on and I love you all.

-Elder Thornton

Just a side note... this is a banana with peanut butter and chocolate bits in it frozen. Shout out to the recipe book I got from the ward. It is coming in clutch. Also about the title of today's email. The light of the gospel is such an incredible thing. I have loved watching the effects that it has on people. I want to just encourage everyone to look into their lives and the lives of those around them and find how the light is changing your lives.

Is it me?

Hahaha Ill explain the caption more later but for now I have a great story for yall. We were teaching this man about the book of mormon and he asked us why we need to have two books, the book of mormon and the bible. Anyways my companion Elder Flitton used an analogy that we use a lot out here where you compare the bible and the book of mormon to your hands and you say "God gave us two so they could work together to testify of Christ much like your two hands work together to get things done." The only problem is that this specific man only had one hand so that was a little awkward... hahaha.

This week has been really good.... but tough. Really tough. This week we ran out of water. About 4 days ago we stopped having water and we don't have electricity a lot of the time either. Anyways so for my caption it was yesterday and we were sitting in a lesson and I started to smell something really similar to a mix of rotten egg and smelly dog. So I continued to teach and after the lesson finished I was so glad because I wanted to get away from the smell so bad. But when we left the smell followed me until I just stopped walking and said "is it me?!" hahaha I guess thats what happens when you can't shower for 4 days in African weather.

But also we have had a hard time with our lessons because our Area is huge!! like we live in the middle of a big circle of a city and to walk to the outside of our area would be about 3 hours in any direction and we are the only missionaries there so when we have lessons far apart it is hard to teach a lot. But this week we had a lot of people bail on us when we arrive at their house after about an hour of walking just to get there. It is really frustrating but we are still having a lot of success so things are all right.

Right now we are teaching a group of siblings named Charmela, Manecas and Artur. They are probably the coolest family I have met here. They are all super intelligent and feel that the church is true. This last Sunday was our fast sunday testimony meeting and we brought them to church and all of them got up and bore testimony for the (kind of) ward. So our "ward" here in Dondo is actually what is called a group. I don't actually understand it fully but we are pushing really hard to become a ward. We just need 15 priesthood holders to pay tithing one week and they can be a ward. Our group/ward thingy has about 60-90 people that show up every week which is so cool.

 We had a really cool experience this week when one of our lessons fell through and we needed to go contacting but the area is huge and we didn't know where to go. SO we both prayed to know which direction to go and When we said where we thought I pointed north and Elder Flitton pointed East. So I said lets just go in the middle. Anyways I was feeling super weird that like we both had prayed and received different answers but then while we were walking we found about 4 people in 30 minutes. I knew God had directed us and my doubts disappeared.

Anyways I was asked about my p-day so ill let you know a little. Our pdays actually kindof really stink. We have to wake up at 5 to catch the Chappa to beira to get to a place that we can use computers so we arrive around 730 and email until 930 and then have to go grocery shopping which usually takes about 2 hours to walk there buy the stuff and walk back. Then we Catch a chappa back and get home around 2 and then we commence an attempt at cleaning our house. We eat and by then we usually have about 1 hour before we need to go out to the field. Hahaha so not much time to relax or anything but whatever.

Food wise I am literally a chef. The both of us have made some of the best food that I have had in my life. Probably because i'm just super hungry all the time but who knows maybe i'll come home and start a super awesome mozambican restaurant... HAHAHA

but everthing is okay here. At times its hard especially when you don't have any water or energy but besides that things are coming along. I am learning a ton of the language every day and that is super exciting. Until next week!

-Elder Thornton

Our sad faces because no water but we had some coke so it's all good

Just another week in good ol Dondo

Alright to start I have a theoretical question.... what happens when you send Hungry teenage boys to a far off country and teach them how to cook and buy their own food? Ill give you a small answer... they eat... and they eat A LOT.   hahaha we have made such good food here and for my birthday yesterday we made some vanilla cupcakes that were dang good but I fear that I will be putting on some serious pounds here soon because we eat sooo much... and like 5 bananas every day... haha...

But this week has been super good. It has been good... in a hard way.. haha we were sitting down with this family to teach the boy of this mother who is a member of the church and I was bearing my testimony and all of a sudden he starting laughing at my portuguese so hard and just got up and left..... so yeah that was a little discouraging but hey there's not much more I can do. I am trying so hard to learn the language... it's hard but always good.

Right now it is kind of hard because our house doesn't have clean water so we are trying to work around that especially with how much we have to walk every day it is super hard. But I love the mission. Despite all the hard things and the discouragement the spirit out here is so strong. You can feel how the spirit is touching the lives of people here every day. The work is progressing and coming so fast. We are teaching a guy named Matias right now and he is progressing so well.

 I don't have a ton of time today but I was asked about what my days are usually like so I'll give you a quick picture. So we usually wake up between 5 and 630 in the morning depending on if we have to catch a chappa to get someplace far away and then we start to do some super awesome workouts with some ghetto weights made out of concrete that previous missionaries made. haha then we usually eat an egg or something like that and we start our personal studies and things like that. Then we go out around 11 to contact people and try to set up more lessons and then we eat... and boy do we eat. Hahaha for my birthday we had something called sweet chili Raspberry chicken with rice.... yeah it sounds totally nasty but it was probably the best thing I have eaten here. then we do some more studies and finally we leave for the field. In mozambique because your area is so far away from your house we aren't given time to eat dinner so we are in the field usually from 3 until 9 just walking around and preaching the gospel.

Dondo is interesting. All of the houses are about the size of a bedroom made out of tin and concrete and we are in a semi dense forest with mango trees... which at first sounds super dope but with mango trees comes mango spiders which happen to be MASSIVE SPIDERS so thats awesome. Sorry for the super short lame email but just know I appreciate all the prayers and thoughts of everyone reading this. At times the mission is so discouraging but in the end when I go to sleep I always know that I am doing exactly what God wants me to be doing which is such a good feeling.

Elder Thornton

​Also a Shout out to my brother Greg for his shoe shining kit that has come in clutch