May 27th, 2019

Being in the service of God 24/7 is the best!! There is nothing better than being able to help others come unto Christ, and inviting them to know of His church on the earth in these last days! Some days are definitely hard.. and to be honest I've never felt Satan work harder on me than while I've been serving, but my favorite thing to do is prove him wrong every single time he tries to get me down. One particular day this past week, we had a lot of things cancel and everything just made it seem like the day was never going to end hahah but my sweet companion suggested we listen to a talk, so she turned on "come what may, and love it" by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin from Oct 2008 General Conference. And wow, it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. Every single thing that was said, I felt was directed towards me, it was amazing. I would like to invite you all to read or listen to that talk, because it is a very good one. And I'm sure we could all learn something from his words. 

This week we did a lot of tracting, but also a lot of teaching!! We were able to get THREE people on date for baptism!! So I'm gonna tell you guys a little about these people so you can pray for them, if you would like :) 

First, we invited someone named Llsa. She is about my age, and she is married to a member who we are working with as well so that he will be able to baptize her on June 22! I'm so excited for them and hopefully in about a year, they will be able to reach their goal of being sealed in the temple! 

Second, we invited Dale, who is a retired man who is engaged to a member. He is a very young hearted guy who has just been soaking up the lessons. At first he was taking the lessons just because of his fiancé, but on Friday he told us that he wants us to keep coming back because he actually likes learning and has started to gain a testimony for himself! We were all a little shocked but very happy to hear that! He will be getting baptized June 8th! He is super ready for baptism and is excited for this step in his conversion process. 

Lastly, Donovan! He is in his 30's I believe.. How we found him was he actually just showed up to church one day and me and my last companion, Sister Blaney, went up and talked to him. We told him that we were missionaries and that we could teach him more about the gospel if he wanted to learn. So we started teaching him, and now he will be getting baptized June 22nd as well! 

I love being a missionary and being able to see miracles every single day. Something that I have realized though is that, if I'm not actually looking for/reflecting on my days, then I'm not going to recognize and notice the miracles. So at the end of each night, I have been writing down my miracles that I have seen and it has made such a huge difference in how I view my days. 

Remember to count your blessings and your miracles!! 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love, Sister Thorpe ️ 

May 20th, 2019

I hope you all had a great week this week!!

First, I want to wish my parents a happy late anniversary this past Wednesday! And also my brother Braiden a happy birthday this week on Friday!!

On Wednesday we had transfers! So the quad, (Sister Blaney and me, and the YSA sisters) drove up with our good pal Randy Fontenot up to the city of Hurst, which is about 3 hours away from where we are at. On our way up we stopped at Buc-ees and got some breakfast! 

A little personal miracle that happened to me this week happened on our drive up. It might seem kind of silly but it made me realize again how much the Lord is involved in the littlest details of our lives. So as we were driving I kept thinking about my dad and how when I was little he would sing our song to me, which is "Butterfly Kisses". I was just thinking to myself how I wish I could hear that song right then. Then about an hour after I had had this thought, out of no where Brother Fontenot plays this song. I was so shocked and so grateful that a thought that I had about listening to this song, was answered. It might seem silly and just a coincidence, but I know that there are no coincidences and that God's timing is perfect. 

That moment was probably the highlight of my week haha 

This week was my first week leading an area and being the senior companion!! I've gotta admit I miss Sister Blaney a lot and I don't know how I got so blessed to have her as my companion for 12 weeks, man she's a best friend for life now.

BUT my new companion sister ward is pretty cool too!! She has been out 14 months, so she's only got 2 transfers left and then she'll be heading back home to Pleasant Grove, Utah!

We've been working really hard this week, meeting with the people we are teaching as well as introducing her to some of the ward members. Hopefully this next week we'll have some people on dates for baptism! 

Not a lot has happened this week though. It has probably been the longest week on my mission but that's alright!

Yesterday I made a goal for this next transfer, so these next 6 weeks, to read all of President Nelson's past General Conference talks so if you feel up to it, I would like to invite you all to do it with me! There is 82 of them! 

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love, Sister Thorpe ️ 

Sister Brooklyn Thorpe 

May 13th, 2019

This past weekend was sooo crazy busy! Saturday we had 2 baptisms!! One was Grant, and the other was Roy! They are both super awesome people and I'm so happy I could be apart of their conversion process :) I was able to speak at Grant's baptism which was super fun for me. And then I also was able to speak in Sacrament meeting yesterday when Roy was confirmed! And then to top off the weekend, we got transfer news last night :( My training is officially over! I'm gonna miss my companion Sister Blaney, but I'm super excited to meet my new one, Sister Ward!! We will go Wednesday and pick her up and drop Blaney off. 

This week in "come follow me" we studied the story of the prodigal son and also the parable of the lost sheep. And I have felt impressed to share my thoughts and insights about what I have learned in my group email this week. 

As soon as we came to this earth, we were all (in a sense) lost. We are a fallen people and we are separated from our Father in Heaven. But because He loves us and wants us to return to His presence, He provided the means of a Savior. Jesus Christ volunteered to make this whole plan work, He chose to be the one to come to earth and to make forgiveness, redemption, and eternal life possible. He also chose to be the example. And to be the one who we would follow. We refer to Jesus Christ by many names, one being the Shepherd. We are his sheep and we are all "lost" at one point in our lives or another. 

In the parable that he taught of the prodigal son, he tells of a man who had 2 sons. he gives them each an inheritance because he loves them and he wants to help them. The oldest son continues to live with his father, helping him in his field. But the younger son decides to take this Inheritance and leave to a different city and live his life the way he wants to. Overtime he ends up losing everything and realizes what he has done. He had moved away from his family, lost all his money, home, food, everything! 

He decides to make the journey back to his home where he is from and plead forgiveness to his father for the mistakes he had made. He wanted to offer to be his fathers servant to repay him for all he had done wrong. He was very lost, he felt completely alone and afraid, he desired repentance. He wanted to change. 

As he made the journey back home, and when his father saw him coming, he RAN to his son. He had so much compassion for him! His son was lost, and now he was found. All this father knew and felt for his son was love and happiness that he had used his agency and made the choice to return home. 

"He determined to find his way home, hoping to be accepted at least as a servant in his father’s household. The tender image of this boy’s anxious, faithful father running to meet him and showering him with kisses is one of the most moving and compassionate scenes in all of holy writ. It tells every child of God, wayward or otherwise, how much God wants us back in the protection of His arms." - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland 

I know that we are all sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. He wants us to come back home to Him. He sent His only begotten son Jesus Christ to provide a way to live in His presence once again. 

Jesus Christ teaches us how simple the way is, all we need to do is 

1. Have faith that Jesus Christ is the Christ

2. Repent of our mistakes and continue to change and grow and become better

3. Become a baptized member of His restored church on the earth, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 

4. Receive the greatest gift of all time, the gift of The Holy Ghost 

5. And lastly continue each and every day to follow Him and His holy prophets that He calls to lead and guide us in these latter days

Luke 15: 4-7

4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

   

6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

I hope you all have a great week and continue to remember to follow Jesus's example and His simple teachings.

 Look for those in your life who might be lost, and minister to them. I promise you will receive blessings as you help God's children feel His love for them. I love you all!! 

Read Luke 15 to read more about the prodigal son and the lost sheep 

And also Elder Hollands talk, "the other prodigal" from April 2002 General Conference!! 

Love, Sister Thorpe️

May 6th, 2019

We had a really cool experience happen this past week with a girl we are teaching that I wanted to share with y'all.

Here's a little back story to understand more about her... 

So the way she found out about the church was she was on YouTube watching something one day and a free book of Mormon ad came up, so she clicked it and requested one! (The church is super fast about responding to these immediately, the online missionaries are amazing) so minutes later, the online missionaries called us and told us about her. So we made time in our schedule to go over to her house and give her one! She was very interested in learning more about the gospel, so we set a time to come back!

We met with her a few different times, talked with her about the restoration, plan of salvation, and even set a date for her to be baptized! She was so excited and she told us that she knew all of what we were telling her was true. She told us she felt the spirit testifying of it and making her feel good!

This of course made us sooo happy for her, but we realized that she was 19, which means we would switch her over to the YSA sister missionaries. So we planned another lesson with her and the other sisters to "hand her off" to them.

So here's where the story actually starts, we were about to leave to go to this lesson and we get a text from her.. In the message she basically dropped us and said she's too busy to meet with us anymore. So I looked at Sister Blaney and was like this is clearly the adversary, we're still going. Hahah 

So we texted her back and said we were already on our way, could we just come by and visit for a minute? And so she said yes that's fine. So we went and picked up the YSA sisters and got in our Van and drove to where she lives.

When we got there, before we went in, we said a prayer and in the prayer I remember specifically praying for her family's hearts to be softened. I didn't know why.. But the spirit prompted me so I said it. 

When we got up to her front door she opened it and started coming outside to have our lesson out there. Then out of nowhere her dad pulls open the door and you could just tell he was furious. He says to us, "the next time you come over to pray I need to be there" so we were like perfect you can join us right now! So he ended up inviting us inside their house to meet. We go in, and we could just feel how angry this guy was, it honestly scared me a little bit.

He started off by saying that his daughter already has a church and that she's been baptized. And he didn't like how we were coming in trying to change her religion.

We tried explained that we weren't trying to change her religion and we weren't forcing baptism on her or anything, and then we apologized for any inconvenience. but he was still just so angry.

So what the 4 of us missionaries did, was each of us sat in silence, just waiting for the spirit to help us and tell us what to say.

We each ended up sharing our personal conversion stories and our testimonies of Jesus Christ to him. 

The entire time we were there we could tell that the girl we were actually teaching was not on board with what her dad was saying to us and that this was all his decision. We could tell she wanted to continue meeting with us and learning more. 

To make a long story short, after we bore testimony, we asked if we could come back and just study Come Follow Me with them. He said as long as we keep it Jesus we could come back and do that.

He ended up singing us one of his psalms for our closing prayer. He said he had never sang it for anyone before.

It was one of the coolest experiences so far that I've been here in Texas. I wish I could type out all the details of the full story but it would be way too long. But this guy went from being SO angry, to singing us a song he wrote and then after singing it, he was worried that it offended us in any way. His heart became so soft and willing to listen to what we were there to do, which was teach more about Jesus Christ and bare testimony of Him!

We had no idea when we were outside praying in the car before we went in, that her dad would end up joining our lesson, but we saw that our prayers were answered. his heart was softened and we are still able to meet with the girl we're teaching. It might take years before she's able to be baptized but as long as she's doing what's right, following the way of the Lord, then she will be okay.

I want you all to know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers!! no matter our situation in life, however far away you feel, He is all always there for you. I know this because I have felt that way, multiple times, and He continues to help me, lift me up, and shows me how much He loves me and is aware of me. He will do the same for each and every one of you who is reading this email. Have faith, and act upon it! Pray always, no matter how tired you feel or how difficult it may be, make time to talk to your Father in Heaven. :) 

Have a great week and happy (early) mothers day to all the moms reading this ️

Love, Sister Thorpe