Feliz Natal and wow, new companion

SOOOOO this week was suuupppeerr dope, Christmas, Zone conference, baptisms, Skype, Interviews, new companions and all that jazz. Yep lots of great things going on! Lets start with Zone conference.

So,on friday I had the awesome opportunity to spend the day at zone conference and receive lots of awesome trainings about the gospel and all those amazing things but usually I wouldn't write much about zone conference but this time one of the trainings really stuck out to me. President Senna did a training about how we are using the spirit to deliver the Gospel to our investigators and wow was it awesome. First off he brought in a cake with the word Evangelho (or gospel) written on it and set it on the floor. Then he took out a knife and asked if anyone would like a piece, obviously everyone raised their hand and so President Senna chose one person and said alright here you go, sneezed into his hands, and continued to grab a huge handful of cake and slammed it into the hands of the missionary. Lets just say that everyone in the room was dead silent and trying to register what had just happened when president asked "how was that? Did the investigator receive what he was looking for?"  we all replied yes and then he asked another question, "how can we maybe do this a little better?" then he proceeded to take out a plate and cut out a large piece of cake and a fork and some napkins and gave the cake to a different missionary. In the end we all came to realize the importance of bringing the message to the world but in the way God would want us to, at times maybe we simply just bring the gospel but without the spirit and all the other things necessary, the investigator receives the gospel but doesn't really want it at that point because of the way it was delivered. We were still working with the same material, the same delicious cake but in the eyes of the recipient it had lost its value. Super awesome training... loved that, Then we all ate an amazing meal and that was conference.

Then we had baptisms and we had the opportunity to baptize three people, Zunil, Jose(grande) and Jose( pequeno). The baptism was super beautiful and I loved the opportunity I had to bring them the gospel, hopefully in the way God wanted. Then we had skype... wow it was sooo cool to be able to talk to my family again and hear their voices. The time went by so fast but I loved it.

Right after i finished skype President took my aside to do my interview and in the interview he told me that he had felt something today and decided he was going to make Elder Jesus a zone Leader of a different zone and that I would be the district leader in his place and that he wants me to train for the next couple transfers......wow... bombshell hahaha just went from junior comp to having all the responsibilities..... Super dope guess God wants me to work a little harder, no problem, just sad to see ELder Jesus go.... really loved that guy.

So my new companion will be Elder De Costa, A mozambican who is waiting for a visa to go on his mission, and then after this transfer I will be receiving a new companion to train. So super excited/nervous but whatever, If God called me there is no doubt I will be able to fulfill this assignment with his help, 1 nephi 3:7...

mmmhmmm anyways also going down this week, I am going to be moving houses so that will be stressful too but the new house used to be a sister house soooo.... its like 10 times better than any Elder house, way excited.... yep that's about it.

SO for christmas, because Elder Jesus is now zone leader, President wanted him to be at the zone conference for that zone, so I went with him and spent christmas doing all that same things, same trainings and SUPER good food so no complaints, also we watched the best two years... so accurate... enough said christmas rocked.

Peace out

Zunil, Jose (grande) and Jose (pequeno) baptism day

Jonny with pokemon card he got from Hayden

Monique News December 2017

Presidente Senna & Sister Senna

Dear Parents,

Follow our mission periodical, referring to the period of November 2017.
I take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous Year of 2018.

President Senna & Sister Senna

PALMEIRAS COM JESUS

Welp another super crazy interesting week full of surprises! So last pday I got done writing my weekly email when President called us and told us we were going to do transfers a week early.... super strange but whatever! Hahaha It was really sad to say goodbye to Dondo and all the amazing people there, especially to say goodbye to Elder Flitton who became a super close friend.

But in the end I showed up to my new area called Palmeiras and my new companion's name is ELDER JESUS hahahaha Everyone here loves him and his name. He's Brazilian and probably one of the funniest guys I have ever met. So far we have gotten along great together. So the first day I got there we had a Family home Evening event for all the investigators in our district and wow it became clear super quickly that I wasn't in small Dondo anymore. Now i am in one of the biggest Chapels in the country and this activity had about 60 people there. It was insane!!

Then we went back to the house that I am staying at and found out that I was living with Elder Draney(a missionary from the ward where my bro Matt is serving as bishop) . The house is super nice, it has water..... enough said. Then this Saturday we had two baptisms and I had the honor to be chosen to baptize one of them so this week has just been super awesome!

Also Elder Grange just came up to Beira and he's in my zone too and it was super awesome to talk to him for the first time in a long time. Super awesome. I love the work, love the church but above all I love God and because of that I will give him my all out here in Palmeiras!

Ate mais

Jonny and Elder Jesus

Elder Jesus, Irma, Irmao, Jonny and Elder DePaulos

From 0 to 100 real quick

Wow, we are just the most blessed with all the memories out here in Dondo... Hahaha for all those weekly readers out there (at least my parents and one or two of my siblings;) ) We used to have a lot of water problems out here... we went weeks without water in the house and that was definitely super legal.... but as of late we haven't had any problems with water and in fact this week... water became our problem.

So firstly this Sabado we had 4 baptisms! it was a super beautiful experience and even better yet, lately we have been teaching someone named Ronnex. He is from Malawe and he only speaks.... English!! hahaha So we got to teach him everything in english and wow..... I think that was the hardest thing i've done on the mission so far, I have forgotten so many words already it scares me.... but I also had the opportunity to baptize him .... IN ENGLISH hahahah that was so cool!!

Anyways long story short the baptism was super exhausting and took a super long time but we were way excited to get back to the house and descansar a little bit but when we got to the house, we opened the door and TONS of water came pouring out. HAhaha apparently our toilet had busted and water had been spilling out all while we were gone so our house got completely flooded. At places there was only like a quarter of an inch but at other definitely a full inch. SO that was a fun clean up for sure.

The work is just running without problems, we are finding new investigators every day and so far I haven't been eaten by anything so that is super cool too. I know that this church is true, its a fact that I get to state every day here and I just want to share with y'all my testimony that I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Not because an angel told me or because someone argued with me so long I started to believe, but because I offered a prayer, I followed the example of Joseph Smith and I received a feeling so intense and so real that there is no way that i can deny it. I testify as a first hand witness that the invite we find in Moroni 10:4 is real and it works. I have received my answer and I continue to receive an answer each time I look for one.

Deus quer que saibamos a verdade. Porquanto ele sempre responde as nossas perguntas. Amo voces e oro que voces tenham uma boa semana.

tchao caras

SO in the photo with the four baptisms that we had going from left to right we have Guelton(super awesome dude who is super melo) Jennifer(super funny bubbly personality), Manuel(just the chillest guy, always soft spoken but is super smart, and Ronnex our dope english speaker!

Cleaning up after busted toilet

Just another semana

Welp, I'm not going to lie this week was pretty disappointing. We had a couple baptisms lined up and we really thought that they would come through.... until we passed their house and found out that they had gone on a week trip with some of our new converts to the Muslim church...... so that was super disappointing.

Although some disappointments definitely were prevalent this week the same people that went to the other church returned and they said that they are certain now that they are ready to stay in the Church of Jesus Christ forever.

 I loved something that my mom shared with me, she was talking about the profound question posed by the Savior: Will you go away also? and the inspired response of, Lord to whom shall we go? I just want to testify that really this church is unica. There is and only can be one church of Jesus Christ and they way we know that this is his church is through the fullness of the Gospel and the confirmations of the spirit.

This week we did a lot of teaching in order to prepare a group of 4 people to be baptised this week and so far it looks like everything should go through just fine. We will have to see, because as we have found... at times people randomly decide to visit the muslim church, but i really do have faith that these people are truly converted. Also we have been able to confer the priesthood on 4 of our recem-conversos. The mission is good and God is real.

Love yall. -Elder Thornton