Elder Packer!!!

Yes that is right Elder Packer came to TAIWAN!!! but.. it was Alan Packer and not Boyd K Packer but I personally think that it is almost just as cool to have the son of an apostle here and shaking my hand!!! He taught all of us missionaries about family History and how important it is. He then extended an invitation to us all so I am now following through.

 

I would like to share a precious family memory I have. This memory takes place in my Grandmother Thornley's house. My sister Alicia and I would often run over next door to avoid any boring house choirs our mom would inevitably assign to us if we were in sight so we would run for safety to play at our Grandmothers house. We would run up into her upstairs and dress ourselves in the fancy old hats, gloves, pins, clip on earings, rings and any other goodies we could find. Then walk back downstairs and sit in front of our grandmother as we would pretend to be her visiting teachers there to share a message. I remember she would instruct her granddaughters to always remember we are beautiful and Beauty is as Beauty does. Her counsel and love for me to always act as I would have others see me has become significant counsel in my life. What a perfect example she was of this saying. I saw her faithfully attend church every week until her body was no longer able to do so. I am grateful for the touching experience it was to live with her the last year of her life and see her beautiful spirit each day as she would so lovingly counsel me her grandaughter as I would leave or come home from the day to day life. I know that God has given us family to help us, to love us,. and to teach us of the relationship we have with him. We are not just creations. We are his Children. He loves us he wants to counsel and to guide us just as our parents and grandparents here do. Look around and reflect upon the precious moments you have had with your family. And know that they are a gift from Heavenly Father to help us learn of what it was like for us before we came to this earth. I testify it was not much different.

 

This week was a great learning experience for me to conform my will with the Fathers. There were many hours where we worked and thrusted with seemingly no benifits or profits. But as I read in my studies this morning the field is white already to harvest. I know that this work is no longer a time of planting. The planting has been done and the members of the church are now called to the labor of harvesting! Each effort is not wasted! Its all a part of harvesting.

 

And for the funny moment of the week from Taiwan this week as my companion were preparing for our english class we were deciding to share the story of Jonah and the whale. And conforming our will to the Lords. Then for some reason I said something along the lines of- yeah or else we get swallowed and then spit out later to go do it anyways! To which Sister Gruwell responded- "Wait what! Jonah was not spit out! He came out of the spout!!!"" Haha now I extend one last invitation to you all. Go and ponder for a moment at what that would look like for a grown man to pop out of the spout of a whale... :) I love you all have a great week!!

 

-Sister Thornley

Oh also the other part of Elder Packers invite was for me to ask you all to share a family memory that you all have :)

debeigaowa!!!

(start paying attention to the subject titles) Some good old Taiwanese for you all!!! this week I saw a huge miracle come from me being a little odd and talking to a random girl to ask her if I was saying a random thing I heard on the train in Taiwanese correctly. Here in Taiwan they have 4 main languages Chinese, Taiwanese, English and some other that I havent figured out yet. So when we are on the trains traveling to and from our areas vast locations we will often hear these four languages spoken to tell us which station we are at. So I picked up on one "debeigaowa" but I wanted to make sure I was saying it right and if I had the right meaning. So I casually strolled up next to a young girl and asked her, Hey am I saying this right? And does it mean quickly arriving at..?!" Yes her face was quite precious to see and the miracle about it is that we then we are able to teach her a lesson say prayers with her and schedule a next time to meet with her!!! I know that this work can be done so easily! IT DOES NOT HAVE TO FEEL FRIDGED AND STIFF!!! Please please you guys do your part and talk to someone about the gospel the Lord will provide a way!!!

This week I finished the book Our Heritage and in there it teaches about all the prophets in the latter days. Every single one of them emphasized the importance of members being missionaries please heed the words of the prophets. You can do it. Pray for an experience and then dont be scared when it comes. It can be so easy as asking someone how to say something in a strange language. ;)

Alright now due to Mom's letter to me just barely I am going to tell you all of the cute investigator we are teaching right now. Her name is You2 rei3 jia1 (the numbers are the indicator of the tones so you can say her name right in your prayers) Okay, so she is a 19 year old girl and I love her to death! She is so amazing and has now just been taught all of the missionary lessons!! Her baptism date is set for the 4th of January but if she cant get her job to change her work schedule so she can come to church she will not be able to make the date so please pray for her. Okay so why am I telling you this because mom just wrote me that she just killed a mosquito on a Sunday! Now you all need to understand my mom  is the cutest woman ever and tries hard to not kill even mosquito on Sunday and rather brushes them off than slap them. But today she just slapped one! Okay so this is too ironic because yesterday we taught Rei3 Jia1 the ten commandments and on the commandment of thou shalt not kill i teasingly asked her do you have any problems with that and she looked up at me and was like, "can we not even kill mosquitos?" HAHAHA!  So... :) Yes I think this is very funny coincidence. Too cute!

OKay so fun fact here in taiwan there are 7-11's everwhere!!! which is nice and convenient cause they usually have toilets and not just squaty potties. Well one day this week we went to visit a member who lives kind of far away ish and suddenly I needed to use the restroom but the member wasnt home!!! ZAO GAO (messy cake) so my companion and I decided to walk around the corner to go to a place where I could use the bathroom convinced because we were in Taiwan it would be very close. Well... unfortunately there was NONE then to torture me we even passed a store that sold toilets but wouldnt you know it their was no one in sight all but a little dog. So we kept walking and finally got to a 7/11. I learned my lesson. Never walk to a bathroom ALWAYS use the bikes!! Our bathroom break ended up making us take an hour to walk to and back!

Alright and now for the spiritual cool share- Last night we went to visit an investigator that chu jie mei and I had taught but she stopped meeting with us for a while. Last night we were able to go to her house again after months of no contact. I was saddened to hear how terrible of a life she had and yet how great of faith she had been demonstrating even when we werent able to meet with her. She had been praying with her son at night to help his nightmares stop from a horrifying experience that had happened to him. And I was touched by the love she had for her son. The miracle is that the day before when we were planning what to share with her my companion and I both had odd impressions to share with her some passages from Isaiah. We were not sure why or how this would help but with faith prepared. The revelation was revealed to us as we shared with her 1 Nephi 21:15-16 and then 1 Nephi 20:10. We encouraged her faith and ensured her that the Lord has not forgotten her and that she has been chosen to endure those trials to strengthen her faith. We then were able to set a new baptismal date with her for the 21st of December. Which I have just learned is my nephew Easton's baptism as well! I am so grateful for the Lord and so privileged to be here sharing the good news.  I am so happy I will not be far from attending my nephews wonderful day as I attend a baptismal service here in Taiwan as well. I love you all. This work is so wonderful and I know the Lord is providing ways for us all to help others accept the gospel!

Love, Sister Kimberly Thornley

Hi, my last name is Thornley. Sister Thornley.

Haha so the subject line describes my new companionship quite well! Don't you even worry anyone I LOVE my new companion! Sister Gruwell is amazing and having an American companion is way fun as we are able to better be funny in english than in Chinese. Our main source of humor comes from translating our very common sentences we say from contacting into English. Such as the subject line. Here it is very common to ask their surname before their first as everyone here already calls everyone like how the church does as if we are all family so you ask the last name and then they will call them little sister or aunt or uncle. So imagine this- we pull up on our little bikes adust our skirt back down brush our hair out of our face turn with a big smile and happily say, "HI! Where are you going?! they then reply quite astonished we are foreigners talking to them. we can see their are trying to figure out why and what we are so we happily tell them, "I am a church missionary! My last name is Thornley, Sister Thornley! Whats your last name? They then tell us and we smile again and say, Well thats a great name! Do you have a special religion (last name) aunt?" Yep thats about how my day goes here!!! I LOVE it!!!

 

This week was so incredible and I am seeing so many amazing miracles coming from all the hard work we have put into this area. I want to share a few of them with you. So this week My bike started making a weird noise but we were in a hurry to catch the train we had no time to stop and look at what was going on. I knew the Lord would protect me and that I would arrive safely despite the bikes issues. The next day we returned to YiLan from Loudong and needed to use our bikes which we had left in YiLan to get to our next appointment that would be impossible to walk to. When we got to our bike my tire was completely flat. I was discouraged and frightened. I need to lead the area my companion has only been in YiLan once before and I was completely at a loss as to where we could find a bike shop to fill up my tire. I began to ponder on the danger it would be to use the bike anyways and had faith the Lord would allow me to get to our appointment because after all he created the world he could create a tire! then my companion who is much more realistic than I suggested we would say a prayer to know where to go to find a shop. I was scared. I didnt know where one was and I could not think of anyway to fix this. But as Sister Gruwell began to offer a prayer my mind was instantly opened to a rememberance as I clearly saw two bicycle shops in both the directions we could take to get to our appointment. As soon as the prayer closed I told her what happened and that the fastest shop was to our left. We arrived at the shop and were able to get my tire filled with air and arrived early to our appointment. But thats not all. After the appointment we came back out and of course the air was again gone. This time we turned to a shop owner and asked where the nearest bike shop was he looked at us strangely and then said, Its right next door. And sure enough three steps in front of us and we were at the next shop. He told me I needed a new tire and he would fix it in the next 15 minutes. So we were going to be late again... But then we saw a girl sitting on a bench across the road. We went and talked to her. She had great interest we gave her a book of mormon and she commited to coming to church the next sunday. .I know the Lord will give us miracles. I know he will only give us trials to help us see his hand. I invite all back home to reflect upon this. Among the trials and hard times. The Lord will not leave you! Turn to him allow the trial to do what it is inteneded to do that is to help you become more like Christ. How could we learn to turn to him if we do not ever feel backed up against a wall with no where else to turn but to him.

 

The next miracle I want to share with you all is... hmmm I have so many but I cant type fast enought to write them all to you. Lets see... OH! Okay so we ride our bikes so so so fast here as missonaries always racing to the next place we need to go but I set a goal to never not contact a person on the street! So I quickly say hello to everyone I can as we ride. We were coming back to the train and it was important we got to that one because it allowed us to bring our bikes back home but we passed another foreigner man sitting on a bench I slowed a little said hello and asked how he was but kept going. My companion then stopped behind me to give a flyer quick to a young girl. I Turned back and heard a mans voice in english saying, "well you must be missionaries." I turned and saw it was the man I said hello to. I said, "yep! We are the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints missionarys I am sister Thornley how are you?!" He smiled and then said I am Elder Tommy i am a member of your church. He was from Finland touring Taiwan. What an incredible miracle to meet a foreigner who was also a member of our church! We had a very interesting talk shared a scripture said a prayer and then had to leave for our train. which we missed. But another was soon and it also took bikes.

 

The Church is growing! the work of the Lord is hastening and we should all be grateful to be a part of it! do all you can now to help the work grow it is spreading across the earth!!!

 

 I love you all and my prayers are with you!!!

 

-Sister Thornley

 

*funny note, So in my personal study this mornign I was reading in Isaiah I was super lost as to what he was talking about and then I thought, "Man I am just like the pirate in pirates of the Carabiane when I read Isaiah, "It's the Bible you get credit for trying!!"" keep studying it will make sense one day!

Transfers

Wow I can't believe another week has past and that I am now "done" with training. However I am not so foolish to think that I am done being trained. I know this life is an entire training and I am willing to continue to learn. I am so grateful for the lessons I have learned from my last companion Chu Jie Mei. I am so grateful for the Lord bringing us together and helping us build a strong and dear friendship. I learned so much about becoming like Christ from her.   I have been called to stay in YiLan! I am so gratful to be here for another transfer and be able to help the people here come unto Christ. I love YiLan and I am gratful to still be here. My new companion is... AMERICAN! Sister Gruwell from Texas! She is 20 years old blonde hair blue eye and full of love for Christ and this work. Already I am learning from her. We are going to need to set some really high language goals as we are both coming from ben di ren companions so we do not want our chinese to get worse just cause we can speak english. My last companion Chu jiemie is the TEMPLE SISTER and cool relation is that sister gruwells trainer also became the temple sister after training her. SO basically something big is in store for this new companionship! So I am having a new experience!! Sister Gruwell is amazing and I can already tell I am going to learn so much about love and how to serve with charity from her. I will admit this week was so stressful. I really felt as though I had done NOTHING when I was being trained to learn how to do a DPS or WPS or teach or contact! I felt so stressed and worried. And then I realized I was scared because I was trying to impress my new companion. My concern should be toward the Lord. And it is not me. The Lord will direct this area and we are merely the tools he is going to use. I admire my companion so much. Our second day here together we had literally NO set ups for the first time ever on my mission and I had no idea what to do in that situation. So we knocked and contacted and walked. I was so grateful for her good attitude of endurace and good attitutde. While I was concerned with killing off my new companion I realized her true love for the Lord and doing his work in whatever way is necessary even if it means we are contacting the entire day! I am already learning from her and grateful for her service. We had a very amazing experience. We were at the trainstation doing some more contacting until our train came and we decided to go talk to a woman. Well on the other side Sister Gruwell began to talk to another woman who was from China. And suddenly next thing we knew there were at least twenty chinese people siting talking laughing wondering who we are what we are doing why we could speak chinese. They asked us questions and though they were not so concerned with our answers my companion was impressed to sing to them in their own language. So, we sang Silent Night. I have a firm testimony of the power of song and the blessing it is. The spirit it brings. I am not ashamed of this gospel! It was out of my comfort zone I felt odd but as I felt the Spirit. I knew! THIS IS TRUE! Perhaps they will not look us up or learn more but they know who we are. We are Mormons and one day when China will open they will recieve the missionaries. This week was one of learning. To really trust the Lord. He will guide this work despite the weaknesses of man. And I am confident that Sister Gruwell and I are going to become disciples and servents of the Lord and help YiLan progress. I love the Lord. And I love this gospel!   -Sister Thornley