Monday, March 31, 2014

TRAINING

What an amazing experience this week has been for me. Saying goodbye to Sister O'Brien was super hard it is so awesome how my setting apart blessing is happening of developing bonds of sisterhood with my companions. I am so grateful to the Lord for knowing who to put me with and for what reasons. This mission is not only blessing me for the now while I am in Taiwan but for the rest of my life.
 
Much of the week was spent up in Taipei- yuck the city is so... cityish. But no it is good I like it its just different. So for being a trainer we go up on Thursday night and meet all the new misisonaries and have some training with them from President Day and his assistants its really awesome then that night they randomly assign us to a girl and we take her out for two hours and go contacting with her! My girl was Sister Keung from New Zealand! WHAAATT?? Super cool i was really really impressed with her. I have never proselyted in Taipei city before so we were both super new at it and we really needed to be led by the spirit. I turned to her and asked her where the Spirit was telling her we should go and we went. She was so stinkin brave and would talk to anyone! We were blessed and had THREE other lessons in two hours with one new investigator for Taipei. It was awesome. And then we got lost. Yikes. They dont give us a map. I guess they dont expect the spirit to lead us so far away but we were lost. haha poor girl first night on island and we get lost. I was asking everyone how to get to the Mormon Temple and we were getting pointed in the right direction it was really fun. Well the tradition here is to buy them a drink that night cause they are super delicious so we were lost we were almost out of time and I was determined to do it right and get her a drink. So we began to run! HAHA it was AWESOME! AND we made it back on time. Thats right. It was so cool being led by the Spirit that way.
     So then the next morning comes and we are all sitting eating breakfast together and Sister Keung comes up to me and says I decided I want to serve on the East coast. And I am just thinkin Hmm thats nice yeah everyone wants to serve on the east coast. No other thoughts about it. Then as all the missionaries who will be transfering file into the room for transfer meeting I start getting super nervous this is my first time at a transfer meeting that I have literally no clue no feeling at all at who my next companion will be. The new missioanries start to introduce themselves and get assigned their trainers.. Sister Keung stands up says where she is from and stuff then President Day starts, SIster Keung is from New Zealand and loves to play basketball. She will be starting her mission on... the East coast... (my heart is excited for her as I expect her to be assigned to TaiDong) IN YILAN WITH SISTER THORNLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
HAHA I have no idea what sound came out of me but I was suddenly running up to her to hug her and start off our companionship. So ladies and Gentlemen I am a momma of a KEWI!!!! She is adorable. I love her to death and we are here safe in Yilan!
 
We are already seeing so many miracles and I could not be happier she is the best and her accent rocks. she is fearless! She will bear her testimony to anyone and yeah wow I love her such a rockstar!!!!
 
Margie got confirmed yesterday it was so special! A RECENT CONVERT cant get better than that!
 
Well everyone have a wonderful week I love you all so much keep doing missioanry work you can do it!
 
-Sister Thornley

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

THE news!

I am TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!

COOL HUH?!?! Haha I am really excited to get to do this. Now where will SIster Thornley be training at I wonder????......

宜蘭!!!!!!!
cant read that?? No worries YILAN! HAHA I am staying here for another 2 transfers at least! :) hehe its okay though I am happy and okay with it!
So what happened this week? Miracles. This week we saw our precious Margie get baptized! It was so awesome. This is the third baptism I have had while on island and this was the best one ever because I was at peace and relaxed about it all. Such a blessing. She is phillapean so the service was a bit stressful as we had to be either translating for Margie or translating for the branch but it was fun They all are very supportive of
her
.
Hmm... I had other things I wanted to write to you all but I kind of forgot them.. I appologize I have kind of gotten a bit off in knowing what to write about and stuff. I know you all want to hear stories... oh i know!! Okay last night we took a train and went down to the south part of our area. Its called Suao. anyway we went down there to find one of our less actives who was just baptized in August so she shouldnt be less active. we had been trying for weeks to get a hold of her and set up but she was ignoring our calls so we decided we would go pay her a surprise visit. Well... except that I had only been there twice and she had always driven us. Well we got lost. I prayed so hard that Heavenly Father would open my mind and be able to lead me where to go. Well I remembered.. We were going the wrong way so we turned around and then I saw a big bridge to get on the freeway.. yep that was the way she took us so up we biked as fast as our little legs on gear 1 and 1 would let us. Okay so we are up over the bridge and onto the main road.. Great now I cant remember anymore than just that yes this is right. I pray again. Rather than having a clear memory like I have had before when I am lost I saw a police officer. We pull over and ask him where to go. Turns out he was wrong but heres whats cool. This man has no religion he looks at me and says what are you? A misisonary? I tell him yes I am a representative of Jesus Christ! He looks at me and says... Like Zhang Shen Mao? I blink- okay. So heres whats awesome. That is a name. Not just any name. That is the name of a member of our church who I love dearly. I say yes do you know him?! He is his next door neighbor and we are invited to come visit him and his wife next time we go out to WuJie.
The Lord will lead us to those who are prepared. I know this is true. I have seen it so many times. Now I encourage you all again. Pray and then go do and invite others to come unto Christ. I love you all have a wonderful week!!!!
-Sister THornley 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

THE WEEK

Well this week was not too awesome to chat about. It was good we learned a lot about being willing to submit to the will of the Lord and I learned how to ride a bike in a long skirt. The weather is getting hot here so my companion is convincing me and helping me know what clothes to buy well one of them was a long skirt so I wouldnt have to wear shorts under when we are biking. Well the first 5 minutes with it was fine then it caught in my brakes and my chain and ugh what a mess but dont worry She taught me the tricks and it wont happen again! This week we found FOUR new investigators! Which was really awesome but sad two of them ( a family) are not in our area and will be given to the elders here. It really is interesting sometimes being a missioanry. We are here to teach the Gospel but there are a lot of times when we cant. FOr instance the other day we were out knocking doors. A Christian man answered and as we talked he welcomed us in. Except there were no other girls inside and we are not able to go in if its just a man. It really stunk because if we had had a member with us we could have taught him but when we explained why we couldnt come in and asked to come back tomorrow he was busy and then it was too stressful for him and he turned us away. Actually this happened to us three times this week. Talk, about a slap to the face of needed the members to come with us! Please family. Do not let this happen to the missionaries there go with them. They really do need you. THis week we went up to Taipei for a training and PResident Day was there. He trained us on the importance of members and showed us this cool statistic. It takes missionaries talking to about 50 people to get one new investigator. THen 20 investigators to get 1 baptism. LOok fellas this is not how we hasten the work. That is way to slow. AND WE KNOW A BETTER WAY!!!!! I am going to ask you all what is it?? What is the better way that the Prophets have taught us? Now please do it. You know the people who dont know the gospel. Dont be scared invite them over to dinner and bring the missionaries trust them. They will do a good job! Besides what if you told that one person up in heaven dont you worry bud I will help you. I will find you and I will help you come to know the truth. Maybe. Dont miss the chance. I want to hear about how you all did next week okay?! I love you all so much I know you will do great at opening your mouths and inviting. I will be praying for you! Now go and Jia the you! (Add the oil) which is the way of saying go do it! :) I love you to death be safe!
 
-SIster Thornley

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

It's raining in Utah?

You all keep mentioning the rain in Utah I cant help but giggle a little every time. You all need rain? I'll talk to the clouds here for ya ;) Isnt fasting so great? That leads into my miracle for the week here.
Our Mission President has invited us all to work so that we can have a baptismal interview every week among our districts. This means we sisters need to have someone ready every three weeks. Its really big. Anyways our district has been struggling a little to get this. We have so many amazing people but they are facing jsut a few rough trials they are struggling to overcome and so we havent had the interviews yet. So our District of 6 little white people from America began a fast for them. Miracles did happen. In a very different way than we thought. First, the Elders from Luo Dongs investigators- an 8 year old boy William and his less active grandma (who I origionally started teaching) he CAME TO CHURCH! the YiLan elders two of their girls (Rei Jia and her friend who I also started teaching) commited to a new date and are willing to live the law of tithing! And ours... two of our investigators let us know they dropped. BUT our one Margie (a phillapino I wrote about before) IS SO SOLID!!!!!!! She will be baptized this month! then the unexpected blessings. Because us sisters have been having little time with solid investigators we have been spending a lot of time trying to contact our less actives and strengthen thier faith. It has not been an easy process... especially cause now I am good enough In chinese that I can understand every mean word they are saying to us. But after calling and calling and praying and praying we had such a miracle! We called one her name is Yan jie mei, she wasnt in town. We thought a dead end but then SHE CALLED US BACK! She called us and told us "hey I just got back into YiLan where are you girls?" We set up and visited her that night. The next day after months of not coming she CAME TO CHURCH! Next, I have been trying to get a hold of a less active sister geng that lives nearby but each time its a no answer. We even climbed up 12 flights of stairs to try to see her she didnt answer. But we kept trying. And yesterday SHE CASME TO CHURCH! Family, I wish you could feel the joy I felt as I saw those precious sisters sitting with us. It was wonderful. I am so thankful for the strength of fasting. it truly will bring miracles. Continue to fast. Continue to pray. They will be answered.
And now for the funny awkward moments of the adventures of Sister O'Brien and Sister Thornley-
We often get to have time for knocking... which means we get to stand at the bottom of a HUGE building and ring the doorbells and talk to them from a speaker to try to help them feel the spirit enough to let us in. Well... yesterday we were ringing and one man let us up without even hearing us... needless to say he was having a party that night and thought we were just his friends (haha!!!!) Well then normally we would go back down and start ringing again. This time though Sister O'brien had us just go the next floor down and ring right at their door step (yes this is indeed a little rude) But we did. WHen no one answered the door I thought we were off safe. Op, spoke to soon a woman answered then and then most awkward thing ever- after introducing ourselves and asking a little about her she turns us down then says, "Hey by the way how did you get in here anyways?" HAHAHAHA AHH MAN so awkward! :) hehe anyway we learned our lesson. Just go back down and start over again. :) WEll everyone I love ya all hope you are all safe and happy!@
-Sister Thornley