The Work

We found 5 new investigators out of a part-member family on Tuesday, but found out that they will be gone on vacation for the next month. The part-member family is Aaron the one who served in Florida, the new investigators are his two children and Kelly, his girlfriend's 3 children as well as Kelly. One of her daughters is only 6 so she doesn't count as an investigator. It was pretty cool teaching them last Tuesday because at the end, Kelly wanted to know what she should have her kids say to their Dad who is Anti-Mormon and how to stand up for their beliefs.

Michael, the one from Nigeria is getting baptized this Saturday at 2pm and has so many friends in the priest quorum that he didn't know who he wanted to baptize him the most but ultimately he chose Steven to do that, Steven is going on a mission to Germany and has been coming with us to teach Michael for a while, he is even friends with him in school, at home and in church so that's pretty cool. Michael also wants to know what he should be doing to prepare himself to go on a mission, weird huh? He isn't even a member yet. Michael is the brightest person I have ever known and understands the Bible and Book of Mormon way better than I do. Maybe I will get to see him leave for his mission before I head home, that would be so cool.

John, the old guy, developed pneumonia and is up with his sister in north Mesa and will be there permanently. I wish our mission was a little bigger because maybe then would I get an opportunity to check up on him and see how he is doing he is still my favorite person I have met out here.

We tried our hardest to work with everyone in the ward to invite the Johnson family to church yesterday but they did not show up, I was pretty bummed because I had fasted for them the night before.

Love Notes

In the last 2 weeks, I have gotten 3 different email's from different members wanting to let Hal and I know just how great Trenton is. I'm not going to lie, these emails mean the world to me and always seem to come at just the right moment. I'm going to forward them on to Trenton, so that he too can see just how awesome people think he is.



 Dear Brother and Sister Throckmorton,

As President of the Queen Creek Stake I wanted to send you a personal thank-you for sending such a remarkable son into our area to serve with our members. Recently Elder Throckmorton took two of the young men from our Stake on a 3 day mini-mission. He gave our youth a remarkable experience. In the testimony meeting that followed the mini-mission, each companionship from our Stake bore testimony of how much they admired the missionaries. Your son provided an experience that built faith and testimony. Every one of the youth that attended claimed that they wished "the week to never end." I am personally so grateful for your son and his obedience to the mission rules and their dedicated effort to assist us in this great work. Though we may never meet in person, just know that we are praying for your sons success. He is an outstanding young man.

Sincerely,

President Dal Zemp
Queen Creek Arizona Stake  



Dear Sister Throckmorton, Your son is a missionary in our ward. My wife and I have recently moved to Arizona from Rigby, Idaho. You can be very proud of your son. He has a good spirit about him and he wants to "do the work". He has been well trained. It is a pleasure to have him in our home. Have a happy mother's day.

Rick Potter




Just want to let you know you have a great son!We appreciate him in our ward. We feed him often. We too have a son on a mission. We hope our son is taken care of as well as we take care of your missionary.know you raised a great son!

Bro. Jones

More is More and Less is Less

This last Sunday, Elder Ramon and I decided to really crack down on the over aged youth in the ward, we got an updated list to start that initiative. Last week we met with John (the old guy), his COPD is getting drastically worse. We have an amazing ward missionary, age 75 by the name of Monk, who is in stage 4 cancer and is even worse off then John. The amazing thing is that he wrote John a note telling him of the great blessings that come from baptism and truly knowing abut the restored gospel. I just thought it was cool. Monk also gave out 4 cake mixes to other members in the ward and challenged them to bake the cake for a non-member family nearby, so Elder Ramon and I will be following up.

 We did a lot of service this last week - from preparing food storage for old ladies in the ward, to yard work for old men in the ward, haha! We also helped another companionship's investigator repair an old dresser, which I was surprised we could do, it was pretty bad off. I also helped them with yet another yard work project. Last week on Friday, it hit 101! needless to say, that is quite hot and when you are doing yard work or riding bikes it feels even hotter. I have about 15 more degrees to add before they officially proclaim it to be summer time.

I truly do love my mission, my area, and my family. I will be talking to you all on Sunday, so I will try to find another miracle to share between now and then. -Elder Throckmorton

News From Santan Valley

We currently have 8 investigator.  Michael, a 17 year old from Nigeria who is actually on date to be baptized on May 30th, but if I get transferred I won't be here for that. He loves soccer and knows the bible inside and out, His mother back in Nigeria made sure that he grew up with religion in his life and he bore the most amazing testimony on how he has a need for baptism not just a desire.

John, a 77 year old man from Kentucky was found on Nov, 24, right before I came to Arizona and he is my overall favorite investigator in the whole world, mostly because we have only been able to teach him while we are on exchanges.  I have been to every lesson with him so I have had the amazing opportunity to watch him excel as the spirit works it's power and influence. He worked in the mines when he was younger and developed COPD. He was an alcoholic but his niece, who is a member, got him to quit a few years ago. When we started teaching him he was horribly addicted to cigarettes but as I taught him about the priesthood he accepted a blessing and hasn't even touched a cigarette in 2 1/2 months, a miracle. He loves horses and farming, he owns a really cool model T Ford and a wheelchair that has a Harley motorcycle body.

Then there is a family of six with a very spiritual man named Duane at the head. Duane is not married to his "wife", but has lived with them for a really long time, they just need to find time to get married. I love this family because their daughters, who are all 10 years old and younger, give us missionaries each exactly 5 handshakes and they always have the best input on whatever principle of the gospel we end up sharing that day. We haven't been able to meet them a lot in the past couple of weeks, but that is fine because Duane says that they are attending his sister's ward. No one in this family is a member, yet.

As for Less-Actives, Part-Members, and Over-Aged-Youth the list is extremely large, so I will just talk about my favorites, even though I don't really have favorites. There is Aaron who served a mission in Jacksonville, Florida and got back in 2000. He has 2 kids, a son and a daughter who are not baptized, but really, really want to be. He lives with his girlfriend who he would love to marry, but he doesn't want the marriage to be a "because he is Mormon" thing and offend her which I don't really think would happen if he asked her to marry him. He loves cars and has allowed us to go to some car shows with him even though I know nothing about cars. He just recently had surgery to correct a torn bicep and asked his home-teacher to give him a blessing, first in years.

I have more but have no more time, I will add more next week. It is true that this area is so small and we don't really have enough to do to keep us busy and I haven't found a new investigator yet. But the fact is that I love this area and I love my mission and have the great blessing of serving in the Arizona, Gilbert mission.

-Elder Throckmorton

Easter

My new companion's name is Elder Ramon, he has like 5 names because he is from the South Pacific, Micronesia on a little island named Pohnpei. He has very crazy stories about his island and what happens outside of the US and I really appreciate the fact that I wasn't called to the islands haha.

General Conference weekend was really cool and pretty different but I couldn't quite tell if that was because I am a missionary or not. Did you hear those people yell "oppose" while they were sustaining the Presidency? That was a pretty big shock. Also I really enjoyed President Monson's talk in priesthood session because it showed me how the Lord can really work through people and that no matter who we are, we can dedicate our lives to serving Him and receiving awesome blessings that we didn't know we were able to receive.

I did got the package you sent,  I really enjoyed it. I do not really need anything though, I already have the one suit and my pants should be fine until they just get destroyed and my shirts are all still pretty white. I can't think of anything that I would need.

Love you all and hope you have a fun little vacation.

-Elder Throckmorton

Pictures!

Our luck with being able to get mini missionaries appears to have run out it. Spring break is over now and the minis are back in school. We have not found a new investigator the whole time that I have been here but I know that we will find one soon, I just know it.

Transfer calls are coming this week. I am staying in the Morning Sun Ward, while Elder Fa' Amuli is leaving.  Leadership calls are going to be Tuesday night, I don't know what will be going on with that for sure until Wednesday as well.

I have felt pretty bad about not sending enough photos, so I have taken pictures of random stuff.

This one made me think of Dad.

I have no idea why I took this picture, but it made me laugh.

See how HOT it is already getting here?  YIKES, summer is going to be hard.

An awesome sunset, that happens pretty much every night.

A road runner that pretty much lives in a member's backyard.  He is almost always there.

Some members dropped off a bunch of groceries at our house.  The members here are so amazing, I love them so much.

I got a Russian Book of Mormon, I've been reading it at night, just for fun.

I am loving my mission and don't really know what else to say only that I love you all back home and I do keep you in my prayers.

More "Mini's"

I don't know if you would believe it but we got two additional mini-missionaries this last weekend, that's 3 in a row! These are Young Men from others stakes within our mission boundaries. The stakes they were from are up in Gilbert. The first week we had Brother Milllett and Brother Jones; Brother Millett got his call to Oklahoma and did a great job. Brother Jones turns in his papers in a couple of weeks, he has 4 older brothers who all served missions and he did a great job as well. The second week we got Brother Fowels and Brother Kitchen, they were my favorites,  if I had to choose some. Their desire to work and bring others unto Christ surpassed mine, both at the start of my mission and now.  It really got me thinking about why I'm out here and why I'm not exactly as excited for mission work as they seem to be. This last week we got Brother Stapely and Brother Potter, they taught me how to talk to others in a better way, telling better stories, and to just be myself.

The "Mini-mission" is set up like this; The Stake Presidents in the Arizona Gilbert Mission really wanted the youth to get involved in mission work and to be better prepared for their missions, so they came up with the idea of an "extended split" where they would go with a set of missionaries -- sleep, eat, and work like one for a weekend or longer, they presented it to the mission president who of course accepted it fully.

I taught Gospel Principles class in the Morning Sun Ward that I am serving in, I only sweated about 4 buckets full, I just blamed it on the heat, it has gotten above 90 for the past week consistently.

Thank you for the words that you have written and thank you for all the support and love that I can honestly say I feel from you and the family. I love you all too!

-Elder Throckmorton