Hey! I'm so excited to hear from all of you! Ha-ha, I'm gonna get a new little nephew! I'm stoked.
I'm having so much fun here in Fort Lewis. Today I saw three Green Berets at Subway. We have a bunch of people in the 160th SOAR in our Ward. They are the ones that infiltrate and ex-filtrate special ops; and we have a couple Army Rangers also. I feel like I'm in the movie “Black Hawk Down,” because I can always here M-16 fire and artillery in the back ground, and there are Black Hawk choppers flying around over head all the time.
Tracting here is so much fun. We taught 29 lessons last week; we gave out 9 Book of Mormons, and we have 7 people on date to be baptized in February! I love it.
The other day we showed up at the Church, and there were a bunch of non-member kids who got invited to the Church to play basketball by their friend who is investigating the gospel. Their friend is studying with the Lake City missionaries, and the Elders were taking their guy, the Kids’ friend, on a Church tour. I saw all these kids standing in the gym, so I was like, "hey, do you want to take a tour of the Church while you wait for your friend?" They said, “yeah.” So we took them on a tour and put them all on date. Two of them are looking like they’ll get baptized!
This is a super good area, but it is also a super easy area to be slothful. The members actually do invite us Missionaries over to watch movies and football games and stuff. My companion’s previous trainer (I'm his follow-up trainer) was a bit lax in following Mission rules. So I'm working on breaking some bad habits my companion inherited. He is a super good Missionary; he has a good attitude; he works hard, but he has gotten use to wasting time at members' houses and sleeping in and such. He's getting better though. It’s hard to be obedient and set good habits when your senior companion rented movies and stuff.
It all comes down to focus, and purpose. In this Mission you might think you can get away with breaking the rules and still get baptisms. A lot of Missionaries seem to do it. But obedience is about aligning your will with Heavenly Father's will. This is His work, and His glory.
"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them: I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (3 Nephi 14: 21-23)
Our eye must be single to the glory of God. We have to align our will with the Father's. This is the only way to truly be a successful Missionary, and to be truly successful in this life.
That's about all that is new with me. I'm doing fine. Our house only gets down to 40 degrees, and we do have a space heater, which we keep in our room, lol. We had a couple gangsters tell us they've got our backs if anyone messes with us. They call us Jesus people.
I love this place, my companion and I get along well, and we have fun. I’ll hit my six-month mark the 24th of February... Time flies when you're having fun.
Love,
Elder Thornton
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