The Last Letter

Yikes. I feel like sense its the last it has a lot of pressure to be a really good letter to you all... unfortunately I will not stress about it too much so it will be a pretty average letter! HAha! I can tell stories way better than write and you will all get to hear them soon enough!

What a wonderful week it was! Christmas is always lots of fun as a missionary! It was really nice being able to talk to you guys you are all still super cute and I am SOO proud of Tacie loosing a tooth! 

Okay so for the week here. Well its true that in the last week of your mission weird things happen. It happened with Sister O'Brien and with Sister Gagon and now to me too! But mine was on a way less scale than both of theirs! My favorite flash back from just barely was that I thought of the time when in YiLan with Sister O'Brien some creepy little old man stopped her then tried doing some really weird stuff! HAHA mine was more like this, we had a ton of people set up to meet with us and then they all canceled on us like 5 minutes before their lessons. And our poor Rockstar Brother Qiu got an ear infection this week so he wasn't able to meet with us at all! But he is doing really good thank you all for your prayers for him. 

UHMMM... We had a lot of members take us out to dinner this week sense it was Christmas! One of my favorites was with the Xie Family. They had set up with us for 6 and then the day of it got changed to 7 and then when we got there the whole place was super booked which they weren't expecting and we didn't start eating till 8... sometimes in life there are things you just can't control. 

My next favorite moment was on Sunday. I was sitting in the waiting room before sacrament waiting for investigators and then two women walk in the door. I stared at them for a bit unsure of who they were but they looked super familiar and then it clicked! YILAN SISTERS!!!!!!!!! Two incredible members came to visit me on my last week all the way from YiLan! They are so nice I love them to death! 

Uhm, any other fun moments??? OH! I remember my silly little body decided that it wanted to get a cold this week. That was super inconvenient but pretty funny as I talked to people with a dripping nose and hoarse throat haha they were all looking at me like, "What the heck are you doing outside ya crazy!!!!" its cute of them because the Taiwanese go to the doctor for a cat scratch they were dying that i was out in the rain with a cold. It was fun! And good news is that I am getting a lot better and am able to breath out of my nose again now so that is great progress!!!

Well, that is pretty much it I wish I had more cool stories but okay well I do but I'll just wait to tell you them in person! Wish me luck on the 21 hour travel process to get back home to America!!! Love you all so much!!!

-Sister Thornley 

Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! I am so sorry we don't have much time here now for emailing I am sorry. 

The good news is I am still alive and happy! And I will talk to you all soon so its okay I am emailing short. I want you all to know I love you and don't have time to email today cause I need to go buy you all presents so I am sorry but you will all love me for it later. 

-Sister Thornley

Submissiveness

This week was a fun week! It went by so fast! And I don't know if I have ever been so tired in my whole mission! Apparently Heavenly Father wants me to really make sure I run all the way to the end and leave nothing on the field cause thats what training a new missionary is making sure I am doing. Sister Cardon is doing really well I am so happy for her! She is starting to jump into conversations on the streets now and even starting up small talk on the bike! She is doing really well. It got SOO cold here this week... okay now you can all laugh at me when I tell you what temperature it was here... ready? 16 degrees Celsius. Do any of you know what that is in Fahrenheit?? Good I'm not going to tell you or you really will laugh at me. I was FREEZING wearing 3 coats huge gloves and a scarf and super thick tights and still shivering in my skin... okay I'll tell you... its 60.8 degrees fahrenheit... I only have one thing to say, PLEASE BRING ME A HUGE COAT GLOVES AND BOOTS TO THE AIRPORT. Okay that is all :)

Alright for the other fun adventures this week! We met with a Brother Huang who met with missionaries before about two years ago was taught all the lessons and even had a baptismal interview but then ultimately didn't end up getting baptized for some reason. Anyway we met with him and he completely forgot everything. However he still had a Book of Mormon. The cool part was the lesson got started off all awkward as Sister Cardon and I were trying to get a feel for each other and in what she was going to want to say in the lesson and then the spirit just took over and words came flowing to both me and her as we taught with great clarity and power of the book of mormon. I am not bragging it was NOT me. I have never done that before and if its not the Lord's will I will never be able to do it again. All I know was that it was one of the coolest lesson's I have ever been in and it really strengthened me. Let me quickly share with you all, it is TRUE. The book of mormon really is true. The accounts really did happen and what does that mean why would that be important?? Because that means that Christ really is risen and he really is our savior just like all the prophets said he is. I know that it is true. 

Next cool moment. We had just biked back home from an appointment and started DPS I asked my companion if she could lead us the next day to our lessons. She looked at me and shook her head a little. I chuckled and asked, "do you know where the McDonalds is that we JUST came from? Can you get us to there?" she looked at me in deep thought retracing how we got back home then looked again and shook her head. I started laughing super hard as I told her "Its just down the street no turns or anything you get on the street and go straight :) " Then we were both laughing as she told me "Okay look its not my fault I can't pay attention to where we are going I'm trying not to get killed!!!" haha shes right the streets in Taiwan are a little scary I don't blame her! Then the next day she really did lead us there! Haha too fun! LOAM! (life of a missionary) 

UHmm... okay trying to think of another story I could tell you...UHMMM... Oh! Yesterday we were biking to a dinner appointment with a member here and Sister MIller and her baby were leading the way we were biking pretty fast cause we were almost late well I have been very good recently at checking behind me to make sure my companion is there and safe well I hadn't looked back for a while  and suddenly got a yucky feeling and thought to look back I was worried she had gotten hit by a car.... I looked back and saw here there but suddenly she stood up on her bike pedals and stopped. I had just rounded a turn cause I had saw she was safe so kept going then saw the had stopped. So I waited for a few seconds she didn't come so went back to check and her bike chain had popped of in the moment she stopped the same moment I felt to look back. Now maybe she wasn't in huge danger but if I hadn't looked I wouldn't have known she had stopped and I would have kept going yes I would have looked and noticed soon enough she wasn't there but it would have made her super nervous and worried. We got the chain back on and got going again! I love the Spirit. He's a super cool guy to have around.

Okay I think thats all the stories that I have left in me... hope thats okay! Love you all!

-Sister Thornley

Stressed.

Haha okay well I need more prayers guys. ;) So I have my new missionary here in NanKan with me! Her name is Sister Cardon she is a doll I love her a lot shes got a lot of desire to do the work. She is 21 and already graduated from college she majored in Linguistics with a minor in Japanese. Unfortunately that won't help much here in Taoyuan more so in Taipei city. I am sure she will get a chance. While she was waiting for her visa she was serving in Georgia yes... I just spelled that wrong I think but I don't know how to spell it right. and you all know what I mean. but  yep she is now here in taiwan with me!!!! Her chinese is INCREDIBLE. I talk to her in complete Chinese so either her chinese really is that good or she is a really good actress and makes it seem like she understands. Super impressed with her! 

Funny story from our first night out on the streets I invited her to lead us that night for the hour we had of contacting. She looked super nervous at me but I wanted to push her so she could get used to contacting really fast and I had already spent a day leading it so I figured she was ready. Well I helped her get started by stopping a man then looked at her to talk she looked panicked back at me so I smiled and helped her out. After we finished the contact I laughed with her and asked why she froze up and all she needed to do was teach the gospel to which made me laugh even harder when she said "I FORGOT THE GOSPEL! " Haha it was adorable! So after we finished laughing we turned and saw a couple walking towards us I turned to her and said, "Okay your turn!" She said a nervous Ni Hao then let them walk past. I looked at her she looked back at me and shrugged her shoulders we continued to walk then all the sudden she collapsed on the ground! It scared me to death I though she had passed out! But she hopped up quick after and went to walk another step I had put my arm around her and she collapsed again! I forced her to sit down after her protesting that she was fine and we could keep going. After some intense pointing at a chair and a loud voice telling her to sit down she sat. Turns out that when she gets tired or nervous her left leg gives out and looses all strength to support her weight. She has had doctors test her before and there is nothing wrong at all just the way she is :) So lesson learned I need to go a little slower with her than what I originally was thinking. Which is TOTALLY fine she is so great and incredible she will get it down in no time. And this is how great she really is. Even after I did that to her she still loves me and will laugh with me about the whole thing! What a rockstar!!!!

Okay now about the Baptism we had!!!!! Lily and Liu Mama are baptized!!!!  It was such a beautiful night! They came dressed in some super asian china style dresses that were SO beautiful the pictures do not do justice as you can't tell the material and texture from it. And it all went really smooth only one time and good! 

This sunday was a really special sunday probably the buisiest sacrament meeting I have ever attended as we had FOUR confirmations THREE baby blessings and FOUR new missionaries bearing their testimony! IT was so incredible! Three of the four confirmations were ours and all three of the babies were from our recent converts children! IT was incredible. I was close to tears. I really love this area so much there are so many miracles the Lord is giving to us. 

Okay I need your help. We have two investigators right now that are really progressing towards baptism but they need more prayers. Qiu Ming Su and Zhang Jing Ping. They are both brethren. They are incredible. Brother Qiu is fighting to quit some WOW problems and Brother Zhang just needs a confirmation its true. Thank you for your help from the other side (of the world) we really can feel it. 

Next story. This is before the new missionaries came Sister Miller and I were studing at our desks when suddenly we heard a humming bird in our apartment. We looked around to see where it was coming from and it scared us to death when we saw not a cute harmless bird but a HUGE GIANT hornet!!!!!!! It was terrifying and took us a good hour to kill with the assistants from our gaurds downstairs! 

Uhm... yep I think thats all. I love you all have a good week! 

-Sister Thornley 

Sister Cardon eating lunch

 Okay no judging. For some reason ALL baptismal pictures are really terrible.

With four sisters in our TINY apartment this is what we are living in now...............

dont worry today is pday it will get better

a good ol picture of Sister Millers BEAUTIFUL face!

 Okay rest at peace in knowing these are NOT my legs. They are Sister MIllers. Look close. she hasn't shaved her legs the entire time she has been a missionary. 

dont worry I shave all the time!

Okay all you, Crazy good news that you probably won't appreciate as much as I would like you to. So as I am sure you know I have only 4 weeks left :( I was sure I would finish my mission in peace with my calling as a Sister Training leader here in nankan. Well then tables flipped Saturday. Here in our mission we get training calls Saturday which means the assistant to the president will call the few lucky missionaries that are now called to train a new missionary. Well my companion and I were ridding home in peace when our phone rang. We ignored it and quickly biked home. Then they called again we looked and saw it was the assistants I was really happy for my companion knowing it would be for her cause to train a missionary takes 12 weeks! She goes home next year in april so I was so happy for her that she would be training! And then the assistants chuckled and said, Sister Thornley, we also need you to come to the trainers meeting Saturday, you will be training too! 

So my mission has been officially extended! I will now be coming home in Feburary of next year. The Lord needs me to stay here a bit longer to train this new missionary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Too cool huh?! Okay not true. But I really will be training a new missionary as well as being a Sister Training Leader. Please pray for my new baby she will have to work really hard to get all the training done in the 3 weeks we will have together that are supposed to have 12 weeks to do. She must be incredible!!!!!

Hehe hope that made you all chuckle a little! I really will need extra prayers I am not sure how this is supposed to work out. So now let me tell you about the rest of the week! 

I want to share with you a miracle we saw yesterday. We had met a girl last last week and she was really awesome but super busy and wouldn't be able to meet with us until yesterdays Sundayshe told us she would come to church. our hopes were really high but we were secretly really sad inside cause we didn't think she would really come. But she DID!!! As we met with her yesterday we taught of the resoration of the gospel and she accepted a baptismal invite! She set the date for Dec 27! GO Meghans Birthday! We are hoping to have at least 2 baptisms that day! Please pray that they will go through! 

The next really incredible miracle to which I need to thank you all for your prayers for is that this saturday our two beautiful Sisters from China have passed their baptismal interviews and are recieving baptism this wednesday! Thank you so much for your help in their conversion process they have felt the added prayers in their behalf. They are so incredible! i'll send you a pic of Sister Lily's son you will fall in love he is so adorable! 

Last fun story for this week This morning as Sister Miller and I were studying this morning we suddenly heard a really strange noise it sounded like a humming bird as we looked up their was a HUGE bug flying above us. It scared us to death it was huge! We werent sure what it was either never seen anything like that. Then it did the worse flew toward us. Both Sister Miller and I scram and dove under our desks. Then  the humming stopped. It had flown onto a ledge thing in our apartment that holds the lights. As we tried to get it out to kill it we saw what it was a huge hornet  litterally about 4 inches long with a yellow orange head and you could see its stinger poking out about 3 cm. We got too scared and called our door man to help us. He came in with a misquito killing wracket thing anyway he did kill it for us but it took steping on it about 3 times to really kill it. Terrifying. Then the next fun part we went out to a flat tired bike of mine. Poor little guy had ran a real good course. and I needed to go buy a new tire for the last month of my mission. huu :) smile and take it all in right?! 

Well I love you all have a great week! 

-Sister Thornley

Thanksgiving dinner!!!!

 His name is QIQI :) haha sound asian to you??

 and then a member surprised us and invited us over for dinner. I about dropped dead~!

Repent

Haha oh man this week was so much fun!!! 

From day one- monday was super fun my poor companion got an asian haircut on accident and so we went to try to get that fixed... it didn't work. She is really patient though so its okay! Then in the night we went to see Lily and Liu mama! They are so incredible! I love them so so much! They are starting to read and pray today every night together as a family! TOo stinking awesome! and Liu mama is really starting to develop her own testimony i was almost in tears i was so excited for them! We then went and visited our cute new member family. They are doing so well. And very excited to go to the temple and do family history work`1

Tuesday- Okay i can't really remember tuesday very well. . oh wait no its comin back to me! So I went on exchanges with Sister Beazer and it was so COOL we had a lot of contacting time in their area we said a prayer to get started and set a goal of two lessons and two new investigators and in the hour we HIT THE GOAL and a bonus we got a new baptismal date investigator~! It was relly awesome!

Wednesday- English class rocked this time! Normally it is really hard for me cause i can't answer their questions about english and feel like they don't like me but this time it went really well and i thikn they like me know! SCORE!

Thursday- interviews wit Pres Day ended up being behind schedule and needing to race home for the dinner appointment. But so much fun I love our other RC she is to die for with such a strong testimony!

Friday- We were able to refind a family we were teaching before but dropped off- they are back!!!!

Saturday okay this is where the story gets cool buckle down fellas~!

SO it was stake conference this week end and we have an area 70 come to it! Reflect for a moment to this last conference remember how they had the sweet cantonese speaker?? MMMHMMM he came here! And his english is crazy good and his chinese is super cute and funny! HE is such an awesome man I look up to him. He teaches a lot like Elder Holland, very bold with no fear and calls us to repentance. Really though he said this line, "missionaires, you know that working with the members is the most efffective way of missionary work right?" We nod and say yes to which he says "THEN WHY HAVE YOU NOT REPENTED? I invite you to repent now. Tomorrow in your companionship study you think of ways you can better work with the members and then do it okay? And memebers when they call you up to ask your help you don't say that you are too busy with work or with this that and the other you realize..". and continued on it was AWESOME! haha it was really so so so cool. All the missionaries faces were huge with smiles as we laughed at his sarcasm  but truth to the challenges that we have here in taiwan of people being too busy for God. And i realized that actually its not just Taiwan. everyone everywhere is getting sucked into this trap from Satan to be so busy with maybe even good things that we don't have time to do the Lords work. And I promised myself that I can't let that happen. And then today in studies it was perfect I was in 3 NEphi 13. Go read that chapter. 

I love you all so excited to hear from most of you. Some are too busy to write the missionary now but hey thats okay so long as what your doing is going out with the missionaries ther to do work instead of writting me. if not... Well I won't share with you the good presents i was planning to bring home to you all. ;) Haha i am just kidding i will still share! Love youall!!!

-Sister Thornley

A beautiful winter week

Well you guys all jinxed us here and sent the winter winds the weather litterally changed over night from sweating in my cool shirt and skirt to freezing in my thick tights and coat! It was a pleasant surprise and actually I like the weather here in the winter its really pretty. The clouds roll really fast and really low dropping out their rain. Its not to bad except when biking it gets really really cold as the puddles splash up but i like it a lot! 

So many cool things happened this week! We are starting to have more success on the Less Active front which I love working with. They are such special spirits. I love helping them come back and feel the spirit and remember why they were drawn in in the first place. They are such important people to work with. And usually the hardest. I was reading in Alma 24 this morning and read of the conversion of the lamanites and that there was not one of them who once knew and were once nephites that came back. Well, its true its hard to get them back when they turn away but its so important to invite them back! Please add in this man to your prayers he will really need extra help, Brother Yang Jian Bing. He is willing just nervous of failure. 

Last night was super cool we had lessons set up every hour and as we just left a members house who had had us over for dinner our next appointment canceled. So we were off to find some new people on the streets but as we turned a corner I noticed a street and slowed down. I asked my companion if she had ever been down there finding before she said she had not but that she didn't want to either. We thought of some more options then turned it over to the Lord in a prayer. And as we finished the prayer I turned my head back to look to the street and saw a woman turn off it walking toward us. We smiled and said hello. THEN SHE STOPPED. She herself stopped and began talking with us. To our surprise she knew a lot about our church and had been to it before as well as a lot of our English classes but it was a LONG LONG time ago. At first she seemed so nice and then all the sudden the conversation spun and she began telling us of all the terrible things she had heard of us and that she couldn't believe we would support that and in one breath and a sentence said some very hurtful things. My body shook a little with anger as I wanted to clarify the horrible things she had heard of us. And then a peace. no not a peace... a different route came into my mind and I began to testify to her of a Living God and the love that He has for her. And that he is there. It was suddenly as though a warm energy pulsed around the three of us. And the spirit was there very thick. The woman's expression changed and the scripture came to mind that we would not be confounded. I was very touched as the feelings had done a 180 from my frustration of her saying that to us to a love for her and a deep compassion for the pains and trials she has gone through and a hope for her and the life she could have with a hope of a Father in Heaven. She did not end up accepting our invitation to learn more but she and I went our ways a different person. 

We also have two beautiful women working towards baptism. I ask that you all may also add them into your thoughts and prayers a Sister Han LiLi and her mother Momma Liu. They are from CHINA here to hear the gospel and be baptized! (okay so not the reason they would say if you asked why they are here but the reason I am convinced of) It is a mother and a daughter but the daughter was once married and has a small son QiQi They are incredible and so full of faith. They love the church and love the family feel that they have here. Please pray that they may gain a testimony they want to be baptized so badly their desire is there now they just need to be able to have a tesitmony to pass the interview! Please pray for them especially Momma Liu.

Well family, I love you all so very much. I am grateful for your prayers and encouragement for me. I love this work so much and am so grateful to have come. I love the people here and love you! 

Be safe 

-Sister Thornley