A new companion. Operation-"okay Sister thornley do you remember all sister Gagon taught you"

So my companion Sister Gagon is now a returned missionary! So weird. SO so weird. And I now have a new companion Sister Nelson from Idaho! She is awesome. Here family is exactly the same as mine which is a bit weird. Also she went to SUU too.. also went there to do ballroom... mmhmmm... a little freaky. I love her to death she is such a sweet heart and super dedicated to the mission. Now the only trick will be remembering how to get everywhere and who everybody is here! Good thing this isn't my work and I can lean on Heavenly Father to know it all! 

It was a really good week we worked really hard every day. Saturday we had a special day... of no set ups so straight walk outside contacting all day. It was really cool we met some really awesome people! I love being in Taipei its really easy to have tons of people to talk to its hard to find those who will stand still and listen. But still possible.

 I am learning over and over again just how much the Lord is in charge of this all. Yesterday at church we had no investigators there. But one had told us she would come. She wasnt there and wasnt picking up her phone. We had no other way to get in contact with her and I felt so completely helpless. But I love those moments they are so good to me because I find I often forget that if I rely on me we will fail and that I need to trust in Heavenly Father. To have complete faith in him. So I bowed my head and prayed. I know that Heavenly Father is very aware of his children. As sacrament meeting started she walked in and sat down. Very grateful that what we are sharing is true. 

I spooked my mom about the typhoon last week. No worries our mission President takes very good care of us. He had our district leaders all call and let us know the day before it would be coming and that we were to watch carefully the weather and that when it started to really blow we were to return home immediately. 

I am excited for today! We are going to the mission office ( about 10 minutes away) and making cookies with our mission presidents wife Sister Day! She is the greatest woman ever besides mom. She really takes good care of us all. If you could remember her in your prayers she is such a trooper but has been having some health issues lately. We dont know what because they wont tell us but I know she is in a lot of pain. Please pray for her. 

I invite you all to join with our mission this month and improve our Christlike attributes. Because of the restored gospel it is possible for us to become like Christ. That is our goal. As He has invited us to follow him the invitation is for us to become like him. I love you all! 

Shout out to Bryan! what a cool goal to start working on our family history I will pray for your guys success!!!

-Sister Thornley

Hello Family! This week was really awesome! Joy was baptized!!! It was so great! She and another 8 year old girl were baptized. The cute little 8 year old had to be... uhm?? immersed 4 times. Her little elbow kept stickin out :) But Joy was once and good! She rocks! The rest of the week was pretty standard. We are working really hard to fill up our investigator pool again and get more investigators with baptismal dates for August. We met with a boy yesterday Huang er Chen. It was really sad. He is studying in college right now and told us he really hopes that there is really a God and that He will watch out for him. We were so excited to share with him the message of the restoration and the truth of our Heavenly Father. I saw his eyes light up and knew that he knew what we were saying was true. He even expressed a small belief right off of Joseph Smith's experience. We asked him that when he came to know that our message was true if he would follow the example of Christ and be baptized. He said YES! We then worked to set a date with him... this is where it gets sad. The taiwanese in general are so so so wrapped up in studying and testing (its not a stereotype its true.)That as we showed him the lessons we would teach to help him get ready he didnt want to set a date because he couldnt dedicate that much time to coming to God. It broke my heart. So many people want Heavenly Fathers help but arent willing to receive it. But...I have faith one day he will get it and accept the gospel! As far as anything else... yikes. I really am not sure what to tell you all. The stories are all blending together of what I have and have not told you. OH!. yikes. So today I got an email from my President informing me that my mission date has been changed. I will be returning home December 31. So... I will have 4 days to get ready to go back to college. I will need all of your help getting me ready for that. It will probably be a slap in the face of culture shock.. Oh and there was also a typhoon here! That was fun! The wind was crazy and ripped out a few trees! Yep.. thats pretty much it. I love you all be safe!

-Sister Thornley

 Sister Gagon's little guy with the new thing our mission is workin on getting our eye single to the glory of God! 

 We were doing temple square tours while I was on exchanges with Sister Call.. we found this little guy in the chapel and had to get him out... 

 Our stairs :) 

 Buying breakfast after exercise!

 My little sister Sister Wu

 The baptism!!

 :) Sister Gagon and I waiting while Joy walked to the font

Sister Zheng after being baptized! 

The week of no email from the parents....

Hello everyone!

 

Good news is that I am still alive!

 

BEST NEWS IS WE ARE HAVING A BAPTISM THIS SATURDAY!

Alright so everyone this week was really such a great week. there was only one day of the seven that I was with my actual companion due to tons of exchanges with sisters and from trainings. But what I learned from the week was the importance of becoming a Preach My Gospel missionary. I want to invite and encourage you all to look at it. There are principles you all can use in it!!!

Recently

 Taipei 101

 Sister smedly from going to Hualian and sweating so so so bad;)

 Morning breakfast time!

 The temple from our window as doing facebook

  We are now using facebook... yep thats how we feel about it.

 Anyone recognize her?? SISTER WENHIEMER FROM THE MTC!!!

 Sister Gagon and I with MANGO ICE

 uhm.. and what i really look like here in Taiwan...

 and the nice welcome home surprise we were given one night. This thing was the literally the size of an outstretched not baby sized sister thornley hand. It was HUGE AND CRAZY flipping fast. it took us an hour to kill it. not kidding. one hour.

The final effects of it. Like for reals check out the fatness of that guys legs. It grosses me out even now. I thought it was going to eat me. 

his is a baptismal font at one of the chapels here in taipei. and their chapel. I was shocked. The importance of having melchezidic preisthood is big. not enough no way to build a new chapel

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

Wellp.. Good luck sister Thornley welcome to a new world...

Well everyone I have now experienced my first transfer! WHOA! And I went from shaddy sunny rainy beautiful east coast of YiLan City to... wait for it... The heart of Taipei City I am in Xin An as a Sister Training Leader with my new companion Sister Gagon! WHOA

 

Little bit of a culture shock when I realized I just moved to a new country all over again. Yep. Bit of a shock to the system. But I love it already so so much. My companion rocks she has been here almost as long as I was in YiLan flippin the tables. But she really is so incredible and I am learning so much already like one you have to talk FAST if you want them to stop. Its the pace of New York City on steriods here and if you want these people to stop you've got to get your message out fast a little crazy. But I love it. So much. I may move to New York when I get home. (Sister O'Brien you got room for a roomie??) we had such a great end to the week and it really built my testimony. I came here and the sister who just moved is our mission's rockstar like baptisms galor whereever she goes. A little intimidating stepping into that shadow. But we prayed that we would still see much success and in the 3 days I have been here with her we have already seen the Lord blessing us so much. We set four baptismal dates with people in two days. Yes. That is really crazy ridiculously ALL the Lord. I am so looking forward to being here and getting to work with the Sisters here that we look over. such a giant blessing.

 

The baptism on Thursday was beautiful. It was a little scary as we had to literally fly on our bikes from a lesson to get to the baptism about 30 minutes away in 10 minutes. Dont worry guys the Lord protects his missionaries. So sense we had just flown there our hair is a bit wind blown.. excuse the ugly baptism pictures. It was awesome and Sister Liao's testimony after was really super awesome. I love her!!!

 

So for the past 3 days I have not spoken any english. Its mine and Sister Gagons goal to shoot her english before she goes home. I will be her last companion and since preach my gospel says speak the language of your mission at every opportunity we are not speaking any english to each other at all. ever. I thought at first it would be crazy hard but a relief to see that the Lord is blessing us so much as we try to improve our Chinese and it has been not too bad. Pray for me. ;)

 

Well family I love you all. Super excited to report better next week after I have been here a bit longer. Keep the faith

 

-Sister Thornley

my last p-day in YiLan. we went to go see these super cool sand sculptures. be jealous

 And the Wu family a less active family I have been working with for a year

 The baptism Sister Liao and her Son

 My new incredible beautiful amazing new companion in a new area! Sister Gagon