Office Season 2, Episode 1: One light, two light, no light

Welp, here I am two weeks later writing again. Sorry for the lack of information about last week but we just found ourselves without enough time.

This last week we got a bunch of new missionaries, about 8 in total. Also, we had our zone conference but here's the thing, President was planning to do one zone conference in the city of that zone, but things changed last minute so we ended up having to drive to all their houses and pick them all up one by one and bring them to Maputo..... hahahaha oh boy that was fun. Then we brought them back to the only open house in Maputo that has water.... ours to sleep with the other 8 Elders that were already there (the newbies). So all in all, we had about 24 elders in our house. Our house has now been deemed the Missionary Hotel by many. (obviously a 5 star experience)

Also featured this week, Car crashes, theft and exploding tires, anyways until next week my friends..... hahaha Psych!!! I'll let y'all in on everything.

So the other day we were totally all sleeping one night at our Five Star Hotel, when we totally woke up and were about to go to the Office but found that all the lights on our car had been jacked.... hahaha what the??? and get this it supposedly happened right in front of the front gate...where we have a hired guard.... who should sit right in front of the gate sooo..... hahaha I'm like 80% sure he's in on it. Anyways we thought it was over but wait! there's more!!! We switched cars because the other one wasn't exactly legal.... and the dude came back!! three nights in a row!!!  Luckily my comp sleeps like a bat (I think this makes sense) because he woke up each night and we were able to chase the dude off before we lost the lights in all of our cars. Then later, we were totally driving in our lane and some dude decided he wanted to turn right in the left hand lane and hit us. I tried my best to use my cat like reflexes to stop the car but we made contact, going like 2 miles per hour...HAHA but still busted the front HEAD LIGHT!!! WHY ALL OF THE LIGHTS!!! haha then I was driving our handy dandy chapa with 24 people in the back and the tire exploded. So there goes like all of our cars.

The highlight of the week was when I got to meet all the new guys here. The light they have and the stories that they shared of what it took to get out here touched me. They are all going to be great missionaries. Also today I found a cool Horizon to point at.

Random skill I have developed: Explaining contracts to people in portuguese. Anyways, it has been a way crazy week but God has been there with me every step, keeping me from losing my light at least.

Love you all, stay well,
-Elder Thornton

Cool Horizon to point at;)

 Ford Ranger

 Group of Newbies

Wow, I really love the focus on ministering, This program seems like such an opportunity for us as a church to grow and more or less progress to the next level. God raised the bar and we just have to jump a little higher! I instantly thought of Brother Meads when the announcement came out, the way he took care of our family and always stayed in contact with us.  With his profession and other things he always helped us out with whatever problem we had. 

I heard an interesting thought the other day. A bishop said that he has had trouble getting ward participation in the missionary work so he made a list of 100 ways that a person could help with the missionary work and instead of going from house to house asking people to do the same thing he brought this list and found things that matched the skills and talents of the members. It made me think of my football coaches. Coach Day, he really studied and found ways that individuals could contribute to an overall cause.  Everybody knew their role even if it wasn't conventional, some were a little bit more complicated but generally equally hard. The way we worked was as individuals who all had different talents. There was no pecking order, no ego, we worked for the same purpose to win as a team and not to boost ourselves individually. In High School football we were thrown into a mold. They had set positions to fill and looked for people whose talents fit those spots. Because our overall talent was in different areas the result wasn't the same as on Coach Day's team. I see it a little bit the same. God just gave us the opportunity to be a "Coach Day" team instead of a High School team, but it will take a lot of prep and study before hand on our part. 

Maningue News April 2018

The Office Season 1: Episode 5

So, today was the start of my fourth week in the Office..... I can't even believe it, the time has been so stressful but has also passed by so fast.

Lets just do a rewind to see what happened this week. Finally the old secretaries came back from opening their new area to help us learn what in the world we were doing (at least that is what we thought) but it turns out that they came back just to prepare to go back to their area for the rest of their missions..... so yeah we definitely never got any training. hahaha just awesome.

Then this week we had to take care of the Nampula Temple Caravan on the way back, I am happy to report that no food spoiled and they had an amazing experience in the temple.

Also my companions License expired this week so now i am the designated driver and lets just say that I am pretty much a semi pro manual driver on the left side of the road sitting on the right side of the car in an African Country with almost no Police..... I am a wizard. Then we also bought a whole crate of coke this week .....just a side note.

Plus we ran all over the city on a hunt to fill up our printers toner that happens to be like the rarest type here in Mozambique, go figure, but in the end we finally found it today so our printer now prints ... Yay.

Hahaha all in all I am super happy, I had a really cool experience at church this week, Everything was super normal nothing crazy special happened except for us meeting our newest investigator, his name is Xavier. (also we found out that our area is Sommerschield... aka one of the richest areas in Mozambique) As I was driving home from church I just felt so light and so happy and I couldn't figure out what had made the big difference. Finally I thought back and realized that the whole week I had been feeling weighed down and not 100% into the work, but as I analized it I realized that something crazy special had happened... YOU TOOK THE SACRAMENT YOU FOOL. It hit mit right then and there, the power of that ordinance is so real. It was practically tangible to me in that moment.

Today we had yet another awesome experience, today was about to be another interesting P-day in the office (a mix of doing normal work all day and buying food and doing email) when some random white couple shows up at the Office.... mmm - k this is weird. Then the presidents assistants or "Assistants to the President" showed up too.... even weirder.... they almost never pass by here. Then they knocked on the door and turns out that they were Elder Stegman's Uncle and Aunt who happen to be over all the finances in southern Africa. They came and picked us up with the AP's and took us to this place named Bom Garfo.... literal translation: Good Fork.... hahaha love it, it also means like good meal too but i like good fork better. Anyways, this place is like an even better version of Rodizios Grill, and it is just as expensive as it sounds. It would have been super fancy for the states standards. I ate a ton of awesome meat and xima and stuff and wow that was the coolest thing ever. Forever grateful for them. I wish I would have gotten a picture with them but I was just so awestruck that I couldn't process what was happening except for the fact that amazing food estava a entrar a boca (was entering the mouth).... anyways it was another great episode out here in the good ole Office.... hahaha until next week my friends and fam.

love yall so much

Fridge ready with coke to keep you going

always on the go in the car:)

 Jonny, Elder Zuca and Elder Stevens

Jonny on the streets

 Maputo high rise buildings and Radisson hotel

Ocean by Maputo

Up late hours to get things done!

Jonny's reply to some questions about the office, etc.

Life here in the office is pretty much always hectic. hahaha like at least since I have gotten here there is always a deadline or something suuupppeeerr important that has to be done or something bad will happen hahaha. 

My favorite thing in the office is that I get to drive all over mozambique and eat way good food here in maputo. Sadly with my lack of exercise my body is definitely not in the best shape ever but... whatever, one day playing sports won't be breaking commandments haha. 

We have a list of things that we are supposed to look for in an apartment and things like that but also its supposed to be like a judgment call by us.... so.... i guess i am an expert now? ;) 

Hypothetically the new baptism process should make it way easier but right now it is way harder because I have to follow up on all the baptisms to make sure the wards are doing them (because they aren't) so I spend a lot of time making sure people don't fall through the cracks of the system.... it takes a ton of time. Elder Stevens has a different job.   He works with everything financial, anything with payments. I work with the baptisms, travel, cars, telephones and houses. So I am like the problem dude. When you have problems who do you call? exactly sou eu.

Love Elder Thornton

Elder Stegman's Uncle who took them out to eat

Temple Trip

So sadly this temple trip I speak of is not a personal temple trip but happily 16 members from a place called Nampula had the opportunity to go this week. My week was spent preparing everything for them so that they could get there, places to stay, food and other preparations so that was awesome.

We had to prepare a ton of food for them as they were going through Maputo. We prepared (with the help of two amazing Sisters from our ward) SOOOO much food. We put it all in the refrigerator just steaming hot ready for them. That is where things got crazy. It was our job to receive and help the Caravan of members coming through to get here, eat and everything but the problem was that President was super far away in a district of Mozambique that doesn't have phone service. They were supposed to get here at 6 PM on Saturday but ended up getting here at 3 in the morning on Sunday. So we waited for them.... and waited hahaha it was awesome, then they got here and everything started falling apart.

The house that we had prepared and put those going to the temple in suddenly went dry, the water stopped working. Then the 12 chickens that we had prepared somehow went bad when they were in the fridge, like completely spoiled. We figured out later after thinking about it that we put in so much hot food in the fridge that everything probably got more slightly warm in that great temperature zone that you don't want to have your meat sit in. Super awesome.

HAhahaha so then at about 5 in the morning we went back to sleep but had to get up at 7 to take everyone to church. The day went well and we figured out all of our strange problems that we had but then Sunday night we had to pick up president coming back from the district. I planned his flight for 10 PM but as we got close to the flight time the flight was canceled and got moved to him getting in at 2 in the morning, super cool hahaha. So we ended up having to wait up for him to come in and we picked him up and got them home and then at 5 we had to go and get all the members ready and at the bus stop so that they could make it to Johannesburg. They woke up late so we had to hurry super fast to get them all there on time but everything in the end went well. Then at 9 we had to go and take the Assistants to the airport so they could go and do some divisions with some other elders. Needless to say, we didn't really sleep very much hahaha. But it's all good we are still going strong and we are just so happy that the amazing members here are getting a chance to participate in the Temple ordinances.

Just want to bare my testimony about the Holy Ghost. This week was so crazy, but the interesting thing is that even though it was super crazy and hard to be doing work so different than what I have been used to, I still had a sense of calmness and I had spiritual confirmations of the importance of the work I am doing. IT is amazing how the spirit is able to speak to us whenever we are listening. The hard part is learning to listen when life is screaming in your face.

Just a quick hint for anyone out there that is trying to feel the spirit more in their busy and stressed out lives, Read the Book of Mormon. Yesterday, Sunday we had a strange occurrence as the food we had prepared for the Caravan went absolutely bad. Because of this three families of adults to little kids were without food. Because of this my president told us to go and buy Pizza Hut for them so that they could eat. We obeyed but I won't lie I had a strange feeling going to a Pizza Hut, Sunday night ordering tons of Pizzas. I had more than just a strange feeling I felt disturbed. I remember sitting down at the table waiting for the Pizzas and just pulling out my Book Of Mormon for 5 minutes. I read words that barely had any significance with the situation I was in and more to the state that my spirit was in. (sorry I only have portuguese scriptures) " Porque estreita é a porta e apertado  é o caminho que conduz a vida; e poucos sao os que a encontram." (translation -"For the gate is narrow, and the way that leadeth life is narrow: and there are few that find it.")

I remember reading this verse and looking around at all the people around me and feeling something for each and every one of them. Something different. A connection. Then the stress, the confusion and the disturbance that I felt was non-existent. I know the Church is true. A phrase that never gets old because it carries so much meaning. Stop and think about what you are saying with this simple phrase, the significance of a knowledge that about  7583881831 people haven't reached. It's a blessing.
Love you all. Until next week

P.S.  Also I had an amazing opportunity to welcome for my first time a brand new missionary. It was way fun to meet Elder Ferfagula from Sierra Leone and be able to welcome him to the mission!

P.P.S.  Also for anyone interested the fourth photo was taken at 3 in the morning.... hahaha