The TSUNAMI

Did my subject line freak any of you out a bit? YES I WAS IN A TSUNAMI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But dont worry. It  was a missionary tsumani not a water one. So no fears. What it is is that Our Mission President prayerfully selects missionaries to leave their area for a week and send TONS of missionaries to one area that is struggling to get new investigators and our soul purpose while we are there is to find the area new investigators to teach. IT WAS AWESOME. I spent 4 days in HuaLian which is on the east coast. It was over 100 degrees outside each day and we from 11 till 9 were out there finding for the sisters there. We had 14 companionships on the east coast helping them out. And here are the results from our four days of work-

During this Tsunami, our mission was able to do the following:

Total individuals contacted:                         3256

Phone numbers obtained:                              572

Copies of the Book of Mormon placed:           144

Set ups:                                                         217

Lesson taught:                                               226

New investigators:                                          171

OUr goal was to get 110 new investigators. A for reals tsunami. crazy. Feel a little bad for the missionaries there that is a HUGE responsiblity to care for them all now. I know of one of our new investigators that my companion and I found that is already crazy progressing for baptism. Such a miracle. It was so fun! And my companion Sister Gagon is a rockstar. the way it works is one companion leaves the other stays and combines with another area's companion cause thiers left too and while we are gone they have to keep up both areas. Crazy hard but she did so good!!!!1

One of the coolest miracles I saw while I was there was we started talking to an atheist but as we continued to talk with her and help her learn to pray we prayed for her and she told us after. that she had a memory come into her mind of once when she was driving a car and was almost in an accident that would have killed her and that she did feel the presence of a God. We then explained the spirit and its role in that memory for her. Bore testimony that what we were teaching was true. That Heavenly Father exsists he loves us very much and wants to help us. She set up a next time to meet. it was incredible. 

Then yesterday we had our prayers answered. We wanted so badly to be able to have a baptism this month. It was looking very unlikely because investigators have to come to church several times before they can be baptized. But yesterday one of our investigators Joy came for the second time. And set a very firm date for her baptism this month. Miracles are for reals. Fasting brings them about. All dependent upon our faith. 

I love you all!!!!

Sister Thornley

uh...

Whoops sorry all I spent to much time today replying to individual emails that I ran out of time for a good whole group one... ONe quick story.

So last night my companion and I were for sure going to find a new family to begin investigating the church and get baptized on June 26th. We were sure. Prayed to know where they were at we felt to go to a place where.. yeah cant describe it in english I cant remember what its called.... Lots of houses together with a park in the middle. OKay so we were there and talking to all the families we saw.. they were all turning us down flat. Like an asian seeing a missionary. Nope just no success. It was super frustrating. We prayed again. No feeling... We thought maybe we were in the wrong place. Started to leave it began to sprinkle. We had both forgotten our umbrellas and so went under a... roof thingy to walk back to our bikes. It began to POUR and lightning and thunder (which is super cool here crazy big i love it) any way we got closer to our bikes and would have to run about 15 steps under no roof to get to another roof then to our bikes and our rain jackets. we both looked out at the rain and ready to go. I wanted to put my scriptures in my bag and I was struggling to get them in. Thinking to myself. Hmm maybe Heavenly Father is trying to slow us down so we can meet the person we came here for. Finally got my stuff in my bag looked up to see who it was the Lord had prepared. Then actually there was a woman. She looked at us I smiled and she said Oh man did you not bring your umbrella? I laughed told her no that we were getting ready to run the 15 steps to the next roof then to our bikes. She smiled and I asked if we could give her a flyer. We began talking to her. She is Christian. We hear she is from LingLiangTang church (no meaning to me either never heard of it before). We shared with her about Joseph Smith. She looked at us so confused and began to get very heated that we would say that ours is the only true church and only one prophet. That we could not worship joseph smith or thomas monson. That if we were true Christians we wouldnt pull out a picture of Thomas Monson and Joseph we would pull out a picture of Christ. She then went off on how churches just cant make up things like the Mormons for instance! They say they have some experience and make a whole church on it. (I am thinking... oh awkward she doesnt know who we are...) My companion smoothly pulls out the Blue Book. She looks in uhmm... cant describe the face. We slow down help her see who we are and why we share about Joseph. Over all it got calm and was a really good lesson. We told her that we were not here to prove her wrong. To take away from her what she held to be truth. But to add to it. That all we were inviting and ask her to do was to test the Book of Mormon. To read from it and then let Heavenly Father tell her if it is true or not. To believe enough in God to believe he will tell you if its true or if its false. We saw the spirit touch her. There was no way she couldnt have felt the spirit testifying to her she needed to read. But fear. Just as in the times of Christ. They knew. How could they not know and FEEl that this is the truth. But told us. I am sorry, I can not. I dont want to confuse myself with what I know. I dont want to question what I thought to be true. If I read and find that all I have known is wrong.. I just cant. I am sorry.  

I know that Heavenly Father leads us to the people he wants us to teach. because then right after we said a closing prayer with her the rain stopped. We were now free to leave the place we were at. We had done what the Lord had us go there to do. And were this Sisters first contact with the truth. She will have another opportunity again. Now, I give you all an invitation. We have a great opportunity. THe missionaries are now living in Thatcher. If you dont take this up, if you dont go with them to the lessons meet the investigators. Provide names and numbers of less actives and non members... you are missing a very big opportunity. Dont do that. 

I love you all. Be safe.

Sister Thornley