Leadership Council!

This week was full of learning and crazy experiences and God blessing our area. At the beginning of the transfer, I got in Chamanculo with a goal of three convert baptisms, and we didn't have a single person with a date that was coming to church. Hahaha I prayed a lot those first weeks to be able to make things work. We read a talk by Elder Anderson that talks about the faith to find and baptise converts. He talked about if we have faith and go and give our all, with our goal always in our mind he will make miracles happen. I testify that just this happened.

We had some people that we were teaching, 2 actually, that we had ready to be baptized in the following weeks and suddenly they all fell through. I felt devastated. I had worked so hard and given everything to try and complete my goal but it had not worked. How? But I kept on going, and we kept on working. Anyways, God made things happen.

We found a man named Serafim, who we gave the book of mormon and he read it, read it all...I mean in two weeks. He will be baptized next week. Then we received a reference of a little girl that had been coming to church for over two years and whose uncles and aunts are members but she just never was baptized. Chelcia will be baptized next week. Then we were stumped about our last baptism. We had no idea how it would be possible, but miracles happen. We got a call from the sisters in our district informing us that they had taught a woman for the last 3 transfers that lives in our area but goes to church in theirs, she hadn't been baptized because she wouldn't go to Chamanculo because she had been going to this other ward for so long. Anyways, something happened this last week and she decided after 6 months that she wants to be baptized, so she will do what it takes and start to come to our ward. Miracles!!! it's incredible. Sister Maira will be baptized next week.

Then we had a council this week with all of the leaders of the mission about establishing a mission culture. We talked for two days straight about what our culture needs to be and what we can do better to see the miracles that we want to happen here happen. We are all working so hard so that Mozambique can have a temple. The church is growing so fast and we are doing all we can, but its all up to God. I love the work I love the people. It hurts my soul when people choose to disobey what they know is true. It hurts so bad, but the joy that comes from the people that choose to obey brings joy greater than anything.
Love you all and can't wait to tell you about this week!

-Elder Thornton

Jonny and Elder Van Orden

The Last Ride

So, when I was in the office, President Senna planned a trip to a place called Quelimane where we have a branch and then another branch way out in the middle of nowhere named Marromeu. Anyways, as part of this planning, I bought flights for all of us, me included. So when I was transferred, the said flight was  already bought. I thought that I would be uninvited, but because cancelling the flight would mean lost money for the church, President let me come! Ahaha so I spent the week with the old group for the last time. It was incredible.

We started by flying out of Maputo to Quelimane where we spent the night doing visits and helping less active members. We got to know some awesome families. Then we woke up early the next day and set out for Marromeu. It was about 6 hours by car and the road is pretty wrecked, so it was definitely an adventure. We were driving along when all of a sudden the President's car got stuck in a huge hole.  His wheel got stuck and the hole was big enough that the wheel couldn't touch the ground. Luckily, President brought 5 missionaries with him (me, elder Stevens, Elder Mere(new Sec), Elder Flitton and Elder Cordy) and we picked the truck up and moved it out of the ditch. Super cool. HAhaha but we finally made it.

When we got there we got something to eat. We ate at a place that sat on the edge of a river. Anyways, when we went to go and have a look at the river we met a man named Victor. (I sent a pic of him.)  Anyways, he is a fisherman and I went and started talking to him about his life.  Ended up talking about pedro and how he was also a fisherman and about apostles and all the good stuff. Then we invited him to come to church that Sunday. He said he would bring his family. Cool contact!!

Fast forwarding, the whole trip we went out walking with members to try and invite as many people as possible to the conference that they would be having that week. WE walked a ton and it was suuuuupppppeeerrr hot. But gotta love the heat right?

Sunday finally came, and the normal attendance of 190 people shot up to 298 people, our goal being 300. It was incredible. Also Victor made it to church with his wife and kid. They left their house at 7:30 am walking and made it to church at about 9:30. Mad respect and I felt the spirit so strongly when he said he would be returning every week after.

Tons of people that we invited made it to church and it was an incredible experience. Lots of things happened but because of my faults as a human being and my impairment of writing things in english that's about it for the week.

On the way back through Quelimane, we had a family night with the branch that was super well planned. President was supposed to give a lesson, but because of some problems, he couldn't make it so we ended up giving the lesson and it was a super fun night.

On the way back I was walking with Elder Cordy and Flitton and we passed a man on the street on a bike. Hahaha, i called him out and he stopped to talk with us. We shared a little bit of the message and he had a lot of interest. I am always blown away by how prepared the people are to hear the truth. The people are incredibly humble and make me want to be better.

The Elders in Quelimane and Marromeu will have a lot of work in the next couple of weeks. We flew back today and we had a little time to write some emails. I love you all and I can't wait to get back to work in my area. Hope Elder Van Orden is doing good without me;) Until next time!

-Elder Thornton

Trip to Quelimane and Marromeu

Elder Mere

Beautiful Foliage

Elder Cordy, Elder Stevens, Jonny and Elder Flitton by river

 Jonny by river

 Victor - a fisherman by the river

 Jonny with boys

 Jonny and Elder Cordy with family at church

 Jonny and Elder Flitton with a family at church

 Jonny with the boys and young man

 Church

 Sister and Pres. Senna with beautiful sunset

 Elder Cordy with a young man on an old tank

How He Tests Us

Mozambique is doing well.   I'm still alive and excited for the work. Lately I've been doing a lot of studying in Nefi and Jacob and I was struck by how much those books talk about obeying the commandments. It's incredible. Then I started to think more about the mission rules and exact obedience with the stripling warriors. I've been trying to practice exactness in my obedience and testing to see how the Lord blesses us.

This week two of the nieces of one of my recent converts, Emanuel, were baptized. Being the new district leader I got to interview and even had the opportunity to baptize them. It was a super amazing experience, and I was so grateful for the opportunity to teach them and still be able to be a part of their baptism. Their names are Ines and Irene. There are also 3 other people that me and Elder Stevens were teaching that will be baptised on the 22 so I am looking forward to that as well.

This week we taught a lot of lessons, and with Elder Sitati's visit, we were really trying to focus on the importance of hearing and responding to our peoples problems. As we did this we started talking about the restoration with a brother named Abilio. He started to talk about the guilt he felt by not being married to his wife legally. We ended up being able to talk about God's love for families, still teach the restoration but talk about how God wants him to have an eternal family. He said he wants to get married and baptized so we will see how that goes!

We marked a lot of people for baptism this week and we were super optimistic about the future, then Saturday night it started to rain HARD and I started to fear that our people with dates wouldn't make it to church, so I kneeled and started praying to God that the rain would stop so that they could all make it to church without a problem. That was when a blast of lightning struck and it scared the crap out of me, I was sitting there thinking when a feeling came to me that God wasn't going to stop the rain, and the words came to my mind, "Provarei a fe de meu povo".  (I will prove the faith of my people)

Then on Sunday almost none of the people came. The attendance was low and I realized that we needed to teach the importance of the church better. I know the church is true and that God will continue to test the faith of his people. Hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Thornton

P.S. Also in one of the photos you can see Wilton who is one of my favorite people i've met on the mission, HE RECEIVED THE PRIESTHOOD THIS WEEK YEAHHHHHHHH also one of the people that I was teaching thats going to be baptized was a reference from him. He's the coolest.
Oh mentira ele nao saiu na foto, kkk desculpa. mas ainda e bue fixe. (Oh, he is not in the picture, I'm sorry. but still it's cool.)

Elder Stevens, Jonny, Ines, Irene, brother and Elder Mere

 Baptismal support

 Ines, Irene and Jonny

 Maputo

Going into the wild

Well I'm out, hahaha no longer do I sit in front of a screen for hours on hours each day, and i would like to say that.... I love it. Completely love it! My companions name is Elder Van Orden, he is from Idaho and he has a fire about him! He works so hard, talks with everyone and already has taught me so much. We have been working together really well and enjoying our companionship.

Some crazy stuff went down this week so I'll start with the first thing and also least important, I got a little sick. I caught pneumonia, no clue how, but yeah that happened hahaha. Super legit, but of course that didn't stop me!!! hahaha i stayed inside a few days and then we had to get back to work.

So we worked and worked and we have been meeting and teaching some incredible people. They are having difficulties making it to church. Then for my birthday we had our Mission Tour with Elder Sitati. Wow, I learned so much. We had a leadership meeting where he taught us to be spiritual therapists, using more questions and love to help direct their answers so that they can create their own desire to change and know more. So we had this amazing mission tour and I don't know why but after I was feeling incredibly overcome with how pathetic I seemingly was as a missionary.

Meanwhile we got a text from someone we are teaching that there was a serious problem that we needed to know about, so we went to visit her. When we got there, Elder Van Orden said that he didn't feel that we should be there, so we left. As we were standing in the road he said he felt that we should try and teach this other person that him and another missionary had met a long time ago. I was trying to get over myself and just work so I cheerfully said Oh yeah lets go! and we went walking. On the way someone from behind yelled out ELDER! and came running to us. This big man with a super kind voice came up and started talking to us about how he hadn't been visited for a long time and everything. We asked to go to his house and he accepted.

Some background is that this man works construction and works a ton on sunday, he hadn't ever gone to church but has a lot of faith in Jesus Christ. So we got there and we started asking questions, and it was incredible how the lesson flowed.  We asked questions and his answers led directly to something that we had felt he needed to know. We ended up sharing 3 nefi 18 with him about the sacrament and its importance with him and then his wife got there. We shared the scripture again and we tried to apply every single thing we had learned in the mission tour in this lesson. And in the end when we invited them to come to church they started planning of all the different ways that they both could get work off for 1 hour in order come to church. Then they started asking more and more about the book of mormon. They had an incredible desire to know more. And then we talked about eternal life as a family. I pulled out a picture of my family and turned to them and told them that I want to have eternal life so that I can have an eternal family, so that I can be together with those that I love forever. They both agreed that they want the same.

I know that as we follow the instructions of our leaders in the church and try to become better we will find the peace and happiness we want. After that lesson I felt so light, invigorated and excited to continue and help people the best I can for the rest of my time here in Africa. I know it's all true. I want to live forever with those I love more than anything else in this world. I hope that everyone can come to catch the vision and understand the magnitude of this promise that God has given us "if ye keep my commandments, ye shall have eternal life." Until next week.
-Elder Thornton

P.S.  oh yeah and it was my birthday hahaha fetch almost forgot I'M 20 ahhahaha who woulda guessed that I would have made it this far? hahah

Jonny with another Elder

 Elder Van Orden, Jonny and Elder McCormick

 Elder Van Orden, Jonny and Elder Rocha

 Jonny's 20th Birthday!!!!