Hola familia! Como estan? In case you didn't hear, I had to fly to Las Vegas yesterday morning to get my Visa for Mexico. But let me tell you, it was definitely one of the most memorable days I've had here at the MTC. I had to wake up at 4:00am (keep in mind I could only got into bed at 10:30pm the night before) to catch the 4:30am bus to the SLC airport. We were all so dang tired but we knew we had to do it so we forced ourselves out of bed. We get into the airport, and EVERYONE takes a glance over at us (I mean, who wouldn't take a look at the Mormon missionaries haha) and we head over to our gate. There's just something about actually being out in public while being an Elder that makes you feel like your calling is somewhat real haha. So often I feel like I'm just in college learning about the gospel and Spanish here at the MTC, so it felt really nice to remind myself that I'm actually on the Lord's errand and doing His work.
We, as a group of 8 Elders and 2 Hermanas, brought a total of 10 Book of Mormons with us on our trip. Just on the plane ride down there, 2 of the missionaries placed BOMs with people that seemed super interested. We land in Vegas and have to hop in this Mormon-mobile van that holds like 12 passengers haha. We all think we're heading to the Mexican consulate to just get our Visas but nope. We end up going to the Mission office in a church building where we had this senior service missionary kill time and talk about whatever he felt like talking about for FOUR hours. We only had one bathroom break and he demanded our full attention the entire time. To put it plainly, it sucked. Really sucked. I wanted to kill myself. Even debated taking off my nametag and just walking home. Haha just kidding. But it was more boring than any other class I ever had in high school. We were all hoping to go out and get lunch somewhere, maybe visit a place or two because after all, it's Vegas. That didn't happen. Pero estaba bien. We finally get to the consulate at 1pm and we just take a picture and give them our fingerprints and we were out of there by 2pm. Everything went fine and I got my Visa. So the old missionary, Elder Greer, drops us back off at 2:30 at the airport. Keep in mind, our returning flight is at 6:30pm so we had a solid four more hours to kill at the airport. We were all starving we decided to get some lunch. I may or may not have dropped 15 bucks for two whoppers at Burger King because I was so hungry haha.
It's 3:00pm by now so we decide to do some airport preachin'. In about 3 hours, we placed 6 more of the BOMs. Every one of them seemed genuinely interested and a couple of them even bought the missionaries lunch. I still didn't have any luck finding people that were interested with my companion so I kept holding onto my BOM. Still though, miracle after miracle continued to happen and so many people were willing and accepting of our message, it was crazy. Heck, even one of the companions in my district taught a real investigator in Spanish and placed a BOM with him. Our 6:30pm flight got delayed to 8:30pm so we had another two hours to kill. We did almost everything imaginable to keep ourselves busy haha. Anyways, the good part of the story is about to come up.
We finally get on our plane, after an extremely long and tiring day, Elder Noorda and I start talking to this really nice guy from Georgia. We talked about football, work, our missions, everything seemed perfect for us to break the wall and talk about the gospel with him. Around the end of our flight, we decide to pull the trigger and try to talk to him about Jesus Christ. He said no thanks in a bit of a rude manner but we still felt good about what we did. We tried our best but just couldn't find anyone who's heart was soft enough and ready for our message. I had been praying all week to find someone to give it to, but nothing happened.
However, as we were getting off our plane, Hermana Peterson ran over to me and asked if I had any BOMs left. I was holding the last one left out of the ten in our entire group. I told her I did so she took it from me and ran over to this woman she had been talking to on the plane. The Hermana and the lady both started crying and hugged one another from the Spirit they felt immediately after she gave her the BOM. Apparently they had talked for an entire hour about the gospel and she taught the first three lessons to her all there on the plane. Hermana Peterson was praying that we would have one BOM left to give to this woman. Her prayer was answered with the BOM I had which had my testimony in it. We got back to our apartments last night at 12:30am, only to have to wake up at 6:30am the next morning. You can say I'm tired!
Well, that was my Vegas experience. The rest of the week has been great and I hope everything back at home is going well. Let me know how things are, specifically news, sports, events you guys are all up to, just anything.
I know it wasn't a coincidence that I had that last BOM to give to that woman. I think that God knew she needed it more than anyone else I would have came in contact with and it was the answer to my prayer.
I know that this Church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and anyone can find peace and joy from reading and following its' teachings. To anyone that may be struggling right now, I encourage you to read it. You will find comfort and the Spirit will testify of its' truthfulness unto you. It has helped me overcome so many challenges. At times when I've felt alone, sad, or down on life, it's helped me feel like I'm on top of the world.
I love you all, have a great week.
Love,
Elder Thayne
We, as a group of 8 Elders and 2 Hermanas, brought a total of 10 Book of Mormons with us on our trip. Just on the plane ride down there, 2 of the missionaries placed BOMs with people that seemed super interested. We land in Vegas and have to hop in this Mormon-mobile van that holds like 12 passengers haha. We all think we're heading to the Mexican consulate to just get our Visas but nope. We end up going to the Mission office in a church building where we had this senior service missionary kill time and talk about whatever he felt like talking about for FOUR hours. We only had one bathroom break and he demanded our full attention the entire time. To put it plainly, it sucked. Really sucked. I wanted to kill myself. Even debated taking off my nametag and just walking home. Haha just kidding. But it was more boring than any other class I ever had in high school. We were all hoping to go out and get lunch somewhere, maybe visit a place or two because after all, it's Vegas. That didn't happen. Pero estaba bien. We finally get to the consulate at 1pm and we just take a picture and give them our fingerprints and we were out of there by 2pm. Everything went fine and I got my Visa. So the old missionary, Elder Greer, drops us back off at 2:30 at the airport. Keep in mind, our returning flight is at 6:30pm so we had a solid four more hours to kill at the airport. We were all starving we decided to get some lunch. I may or may not have dropped 15 bucks for two whoppers at Burger King because I was so hungry haha.
It's 3:00pm by now so we decide to do some airport preachin'. In about 3 hours, we placed 6 more of the BOMs. Every one of them seemed genuinely interested and a couple of them even bought the missionaries lunch. I still didn't have any luck finding people that were interested with my companion so I kept holding onto my BOM. Still though, miracle after miracle continued to happen and so many people were willing and accepting of our message, it was crazy. Heck, even one of the companions in my district taught a real investigator in Spanish and placed a BOM with him. Our 6:30pm flight got delayed to 8:30pm so we had another two hours to kill. We did almost everything imaginable to keep ourselves busy haha. Anyways, the good part of the story is about to come up.
We finally get on our plane, after an extremely long and tiring day, Elder Noorda and I start talking to this really nice guy from Georgia. We talked about football, work, our missions, everything seemed perfect for us to break the wall and talk about the gospel with him. Around the end of our flight, we decide to pull the trigger and try to talk to him about Jesus Christ. He said no thanks in a bit of a rude manner but we still felt good about what we did. We tried our best but just couldn't find anyone who's heart was soft enough and ready for our message. I had been praying all week to find someone to give it to, but nothing happened.
However, as we were getting off our plane, Hermana Peterson ran over to me and asked if I had any BOMs left. I was holding the last one left out of the ten in our entire group. I told her I did so she took it from me and ran over to this woman she had been talking to on the plane. The Hermana and the lady both started crying and hugged one another from the Spirit they felt immediately after she gave her the BOM. Apparently they had talked for an entire hour about the gospel and she taught the first three lessons to her all there on the plane. Hermana Peterson was praying that we would have one BOM left to give to this woman. Her prayer was answered with the BOM I had which had my testimony in it. We got back to our apartments last night at 12:30am, only to have to wake up at 6:30am the next morning. You can say I'm tired!
Well, that was my Vegas experience. The rest of the week has been great and I hope everything back at home is going well. Let me know how things are, specifically news, sports, events you guys are all up to, just anything.
I know it wasn't a coincidence that I had that last BOM to give to that woman. I think that God knew she needed it more than anyone else I would have came in contact with and it was the answer to my prayer.
I know that this Church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and anyone can find peace and joy from reading and following its' teachings. To anyone that may be struggling right now, I encourage you to read it. You will find comfort and the Spirit will testify of its' truthfulness unto you. It has helped me overcome so many challenges. At times when I've felt alone, sad, or down on life, it's helped me feel like I'm on top of the world.
I love you all, have a great week.
Love,
Elder Thayne