Week #4

August 16, 2013

This week Elder Thayn wrote two emails to post on the blog.
First email, about his experiences this past week, second email, pictures, just two and neither of him. :(

STATESIDE???

Previously, Zac had mentioned the troubles missionaries were having getting visas especially in Argentina, Brazil and some other South American countries.

Email #1

Hello everyone, 

So I will start out with the news I just barely received within the last hour. 

So, we finally found out if we were going to be reassigned or not. In our mail we received a notice that our visa clearance has not been cleared so this Thursday or Friday we will receive a temporary reassignment. Since now we know for sure, we're all getting kind of excited because it's like getting another mission call! I will make sure to tell you guys where I will be reassigned as soon as I know next Friday.  

On Tuesday we had our Tuesday Night Devotional and there were rumors the speaker was one of the 12 apostles and...... it turned out it was true! 

Elder Scott came and spoke to us, it was pretty sweet! It's really amazing how strong the spirit is with him, like as soon as he walked in it was like a wall that hit us! A good wall that is haha. Here's some quotes from him that I really enjoyed: 

"The Lord has called us to succeed, not to fail." 

"Pray, even when you have no desire to do it....that is when you need Him the most." 

"He is our PERFECT Father." 

And then my favorite was... 

"Sometimes he will let us struggle so we can grow." I really liked this one because it tells me (us) perfectly why we have hardships in our lives. 

After he finished speaking and the closing prayer had ended no one even moved. It was crazy, like no one even thought of moving. It was almost like a 6th sense in the way where our spirits didn't want to leave, that strong presence of the Spirit. It wasn't until Elder Scott stood up and started walking off. It was funny because as he was leaving he yelled out to us "Be good" and then right before he left through the doors he yelled "I love you" It was funny.

Also on Tuesday we had TRC which is where we teach members a 20 minute lesson. They just come and volunteer here at the MTC. But this time we did TRC over skype! Me and Elder Averett skyped a member named David from Texas. It was a really neat experience, but also kind of hard cause it was more difficult to understand him since it was through skype.  

Just today we had the opportunity to go to the Temple!! We went at 6:50 in the morning. We were able to see the new endowment video which is 13 minutes longer and what I thought was better too. It's always so peaceful in the Temple, especially in the Celestial Room. We will get the opportunity to do it again next Friday so I can't wait! 

Well that's all for now. I hope everything is well at home! I would like to challenge everyone to come closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father by trying to make our morning and evening prayers more sincere. Maybe by taking more time to say them and having no distractions around. For after all he is our loving Father and wants to communicate with us as much as possible. Thank you! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Thayn

Hmm...did you get that? He is giving us a 

to make our prayers more sincere, by taking more time and having no distractions around us...are you up for the challenge???

Email #2

Here's a pretty picture I took of the temple last Sunday!

That other picture is a picture of my "new missionary Host" sticker. I totally forgot to mention that on Wednesday our zone was able to be missionary hosts. It was pretty cool! The first one I got was an international missionary who was from France. And yeah basically he did not know any English... haha it was really hard to show him where everything was and get everything he needed but we eventually got it all. This was his first time in Utah he said. He was going to Tahiti, I just wish the best of luck to him in the MTC! haha. The other one was from Bountiful and he was the usual, we picked him up at the drop off and took him to his room and everything. It was a cool experience, but kind of weird to see all the crying parents and stuff. It reminded me of when I got dropped off, haha. 

 "NOTICE: These email messages and pictures are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited."