Training, Again

The weather has just barely cooled off to just under 100 everyday and I am embarrassed to say that it has been a little "chilly" lately, especially at night. My new companion is Elder Hurst from Lehi, Utah and currently has been out in the field for 6 days.

We were super busy this last week helping out with a scouting activity that is happening this Saturday. They are reenacting The Candy Bomber from "Meet the Mormons" and they might even be able to get Gale Halverson to come to it. He is currently 95 years old and lives in Tuscon, Arizona, but if he gets his doctors approval he will be able to attend. We helped them make the little parachutes for the candy, for roughly about a total of 8 hours last week.

Halloween was different because President Nattress didn't want us to even proselyte in the morning, so the whole day was like another P-Day minus the whole e-mail bit. We attended some of the baptisms in the zone and went to the Temple at night for Endowment sessions, the whole mission went with the first session starting at 4:30pm and the last (our zones) starting at 7pm. I loved it because I haven't had the opportunity to go to the Temple for almost 5 months because of Migranes, Elder Barney being a 2 transfer missionary and then last transfer I had a horrible ear ache. It was great to be able to go.

Training is pretty easy and Elder Hurst is a nice missionary who has a sincere desire to do the work, so hopefully I will be able to help him become the best missionary he can. I know how upset you were last time when I didn't tell you I was training so I thought I might as well tell you this time.  Haha!

I love the Temple! I am happy, happy, happy that I now have a testimony of something that now means a lot to me and I hope to increase that every time I go. This is definitely where I need to be and where the Lord would have me.

The Area

We have to travel fairly far everywhere we go, one of the wards is just as big as the last one I was in and the other is twice as big, so overall it is three times bigger than my last area plus we live just outside the area. The roads are busier than where I was before and that makes it interesting some of the time especially with people yelling out of their cars "ELDERS!" which always puts a smile on Elder Kearns face.

We went to a place in Queen Creek last Monday called Schnepf farms and it was a blast. Schnepf farms helped to invent the word Agritainment which is apparently in most modern dictionaries. We got to ride a little roller-coaster that they had found in someones backyard, it was really short and only slightly fun but who else can say they got to ride a roller-coaster on a mission? We also got to ride around in these little pedal go-carts which was probably the most fun thing there. They also fed us some hot dogs and told us a little bit about the farm and what goes on there. They are all Members of the Church and so the whole day was free. They had 2 corn mazes which we didn't have time for but that was fine.

Oh yeah, transfers. Elder Kearns is leaving his greenie area after 9 months here. I am staying and the whole district is staying the same. Normally we know about the rest of the zone as to whether or not people are leaving or staying, and through the grapevine you just hear about pretty much everybody else's condition for transfers. I will get a different companion at the meeting on Wednesday, that makes a new companion every transfer since being with my trainer for the first 4 1/2 months of my mission.

Family History

The beginning of this week was pretty slow but that's just how it goes on a mission sometimes. Towards the end it started to pick up. We stopped by a part-member family who Elder Kearns hadn't been able to contact yet and they let us in and stopped watching football just to talk to us. They almost talked our ears off about anything and everything but it was neat to blend everything they talked about back into the gospel and the non-member husband said we could come back and teach him the discussions.

There was another guy who talked to us about wanting to learn more about the church so we went over to his house and an older man with the same name answered. We started to talk to him and the other guy was actually his son but this older one wanted to learn more about the church's family history help because his great grandpa was a very successful person and they just want to know as much as they can about them. We are setting up a time for him to meet with the family history specialist who lives in the stake and he was really excited. He accepted a Book of Mormon but only because it appealed to his "history" part of his brain. He was really nice and hopefully we will be able to teach the whole family here in a little bit.

General Conference

So, this week has been really great because we invited a bunch of people to come to church and they have almost all said they would, we realized on Thursday however that last weekend was actually General Conference, haha. We tried to stop by people and tell them, but no one would answer so we just showed up at the times that people said they would come to church and no one ended up coming which was both a relief and a bummer.

I got to do my second district meeting which went a whole lot better than the first one because I had actually organized all the things that I wanted to do in a certain order. Still really weird being around Sister missionaries all the time because like I said my last zone only had 1 set and they weren't even in my district, now my zone has more Sister missionaries than Elders in it haha. It is a great change of pace because before we were pretty focused on what we could do as missionaries and now it is more like how we can help these people feel better in their lives and it is more focused on the investigators.

Primary Program

Elder Kearns had been teaching an over aged youth named Ella, who just got baptized last Saturday. She had a blast! She was more excited than anyone I have ever met about getting baptized. We invited a part-member family to attend the baptism but they didn't show, not all was lost because they showed up to church yesterday and we had an amazing Primary Program which definitely invited the spirit.

We were walking around last Saturday around 7pm-8pm just talking to people and figuring out what we could do when an investigator that we have been trying to contact pulled up next to us and talked to us for 5 minutes. She had been working like 100 hours that week and just wasn't ever home, we set up a time to come by this week.

The members up here in Mesa/Gilbert are a little different than in San Tan Valley just by what they are able to provide. We always get attention no matter where we are and it is sooo embarrassing, because literally everywhere we go people are like "Wooot, it's the Elders! Yeah!" I really don't like this much attention.

Transferred

I live in an apartment complex, there is a lot that is different about it from where I have been living. But some things are similar, I once again live with zone leaders, so in all of my mission, I have only lived with other missionaries and have only not lived with the zone leaders for 2 transfers.

My new companions name is Elder Kearns, he is a hard working dedicated servant of the Lord, which is really great because I never have to worry about trying to go out and work, we just do.

I was called to be a District Leader in this new area. It is the Higley Zone, we technically live in Gilbert, right on the East border (Power rd), our area is technically in Mesa, Arizona. We live on the very North boundary of the mission (Base line), so I am as far North as you can be in the mission, but not so far North as to even think about buying a jacket, haha. In my district there are only Sisters and a senior couple, which is really weird because I haven't had Sisters in the same district as I have been in since my first transfer, so as you can imagine I am pretty nervous about that, but not terribly. In my last zone there was only one companionship of Sisters, and now there are 5! Add to them, 3 sets of Elders including the zone leaders, they joke that we make up a Relief Society Presidency. So, even though we are in an apartment, we still have access to our own washer and dryer which is really nice. And we have a ton of different facilities, like a gym and vending machines. We are pretty close to a Walmart and other things, we e-mail from the Stake center computers which is different as well. A lot has changed but missionary work is virtually the same just different people.

I'm Being Transferred

So we got calls really late, in fact they were supposed to come last night around 10pm but we just got them at 2:30 today. Not really a problem. I am getting transferred and don't know exactly where yet, I will find out on Wednesday, which is transfer day.

The senior missionaries in our zone set up a movie night at one of the church buildings that we could invite investigators to.   Nolan, one of the more solid investigators came. We watched "Meet the Mormons" it was pretty good, I had never seen it before.

Nolan flew home on Saturday last week, home being Washington. He was living with his aunt and was supposed to be here for a little while longer but he has agreed to keep meeting with the missionaries when he returns.

I am not sure what I am going to do, but hopefully I will adjust to a new ward well enough to work effectively right away, and if not, I guess I will have to at some point.

So Much Learning

To start off, Elder Meyer and I had the opportunity to bless the sacrament yesterday, because all the priests were on vacation except for one, and that was one of the most spiritual experiences of my mission, for whatever reason. We even messed up and prepared only 9 trays of bread so, one of the Deacons didn't get to pass the bread which I felt terrible for, but it worked out anyways. Bishop Brown trusted Elder Meyer and I enough to ask for help with the accounting of tithing and fast offerings, because one of his councilors was gone. I learned a ton about how the Church works, it was a great learning experience.

We also taught Blake on Sunday, the kid who actually lives outside the Stake but attends our ward because the youth in our ward invited him. We also found out that we are not allowed to teach him even though he would attend this ward after his baptism so we handed him off to the Queen Creek zone leaders and they will take care of him. We found out that Nolan, the Relief Society's nephew is leaving this Saturday so that will be two investigators down in one week.

We went on exchanges with the District leader and I went to Johnson Ranch with his companion Elder Feusner and I learned a ton from him. We worked hard all day and literally talked to EVERYONE we saw which was kinda tough because some people were obviously too busy or too distracted to talk with us, but it made me want to change more and give everyone an opportunity to learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We also made it a goal to leave our testimony with everyone we talked to and that made everybody we talked to a little nicer in most of all the cases. Elder Feusner has been out for about 5 weeks now and is just such a great missionary. He also came out with Elder Tomlinson who lives at the Gold Dust house with me and is being trained by Elder Breneman, it still amazes me how great this transfer was because both Elder Tomlinson and Feusner both have increased my desire to serve others by how good they are at missionary work.

 Love you guys and want you to have a good week.

 -Elder Throckmorton

Blake Is On Date

This last week has been great. We taught the older guy, John and he asked us where our Church was, which we had told him a bunch already but he can't remember a whole lo,t point is he asked us, so it is a step in the right direction. We taught Duane's family and it was so neat. In the middle of it Elder Meyer asked Christine the girlfriend if she would like a priesthood blessing which she accepted and the spirit was so strong. Things have been going so good for them and they are not moving like they had planned on doing. Duane left us by saying "Guys, the idea of baptism is a whole lot better now than ever before and I think I would like to have me and the family baptized, I just don't know when." So we need to figure out a time that would be best for them but it is another step in the right direction. There is a man who went less active and he lives just outside the stake and ward by one street, anyways his son (14) had been invited by the youth in our ward to come to church with them and so his dad took him and they both have been coming to our ward for the past 4 months. The son's name is Blake and he was so prepared for baptism. He went on trek with Queen Creek South stake and loved it, they had a three hour space of time for the youth to read the Book of Mormon which is the first time that Blake started to read, he is now in the middle of Mosiah. We taught him directly after church on Sunday and he accepted the invitation to be baptized of September 26. His mom is not a member and doesn't want missionaries over at the house so we can only teach him once a week at church, that is the only reason that the baptism is so far out.

Morning Sun Baptism

So, this last week was crazy in a way. Elder Barney got a call from Salt Lake with their decision on him going home, he left back to Maricopa last Tuesday. So, it is just me and Elder Meyer covering the same old Morning Sun Ward, which has picked up in the last transfer and a half.

We have a few return appointments that will hopefully result in some new investigators. I have decided that less-active work is extremely important, it has been a huge blessing in this area as we have just recently focused on the help that we can render to the ward, besides just baptisms.

About two weeks ago, we got a referral from mission office for  Stephanie, but every time we stopped by she wasn't home. Come to find out that Stephanie had visited the Mesa visitors center and was blown away with the Joseph Smith story, she wanted to have the missionaries come over that instant, only she specifically requested Sister missionaries, which I don't mind at all. Stephanie lives in the Morning Sun boundaries but is being taught by Sister Bulilon (Philippines) and Sister Holbrook (Alaska), it is the coolest thing to see the morale for the whole ward sky rocket because of one golden investigator, they will set a date for her baptism sometime this week. It is also cool because Sister Bulilon goes home after this transfer and this is Sister Holbrook's first transfer.

Just yesterday we ate dinner at Bishop Brown's house and he invited his friend over. It was really neat to see the spirit work, Elder Meyer and I prepared to teach a short restoration message but on the way to dinner we felt prompted to share the significance of the Book of Mormon and it turned out pretty well with Bishop's friend both accepting a copy and an invitation to learn more.

That is what has been going on in San Tan Valley, Arizona and it has been a huge blessing to see the ward get really excited about missionary work, we got members already planning on accompanying us for the return appointments going on later this week.

I love you guys and am enjoying my mission more and more every day.

-Elder Throckmorton

115

So, the temperature this past week has been "up there", last Friday the temperature in the shade was 115 Fahrenheit around 2pm - 5pm, in the shade! We put a thermometer in the sun and it got up to 152 Fahrenheit, so yeah it was warm. It has gotten to the point that our house sits at 80 Fahrenheit and it is pretty cold in there.Just the one ward has had more going on since the start of the transfer than it ever has for the past 9 months. We haven't got any new investigators yet, but this week is full of return appointments with different potentials. We have also been teaching a few less actives, including a single sister in the ward who just got her children taken away from her by CPS. She loves it when we come over. She also is going to the addiction recovery class twice a week by her own free will,l because nothing makes her happier than her children, so she is doing everything it takes to get them back. I knew Elder Meyer in the MTC, but he was in a different zone, so we only saw each other from time to time, but we knew a lot of Elders and Sisters that weren't in our zone but were going to Gilbert, Arizona. We get along pretty well and I would say that I got along better with my MTC district than any other missionaries. I guess I just keep getting better and better missionaries haha Elder Barney didn't go home and might not anymore depending on what Salt Lake says, because they still haven't made a decision, but I am pretty sure that he is staying the rest of the transfer because it is already half way over.

Triple Companionship

Transfer day was really different. We got there expecting Elder Barney to be heading home but apparently Salt Lake never got back to President Nattress. I am currently still with Elder Barney but also Elder Meyer who was in the MTC at the same time as me. He is from Texas and works hard. We are in a tri-companionship because Elder Barney might be going back. Elder Barney is from Maricopa, Arizona and when he received his call it was for two transfers here and then the rest on a different call, he has been a great Elder and has helped us get out and work ALL the time, very exact with the rules kind of guy. Anyways if he goes home early it will be for him to take care of things and he will be able to come back out. Salt Lake has been reviewing all the information on him for 2 weeks now and we don't know what is going on, but for now Elder Barney, Elder Meyer and I are in a tri-companionship covering one ward, Morning Sun, yes still haha.

Early August

So, transfer calls came last night and we found out that Elder Barney (My Greenie) is leaving. This wasn't really a shock to us though because he has been talking to his Stake president and President Nattress, who are such nice people, all last week. He just has some stuff to take care of, I am so glad I was able to be his companion for the time I was. I learned a lot from him, like I need to actually have a weekly planning (every week).  At the beginning I wasn't really great at weekly planning, but we steadily improved over the course of this transfer. I also learned that we need to teach concepts more simply than we have been because he didn't get some stuff I was trying to tell him and that's because I tend to over-complicate things, but that is just me haha.

Not much happened in the Morning Sun Ward this week.  Alice got knee surgery last Monday, she has been in Mesa with her grandchildren recovering. Stacy has been really flaky and we haven't been able to get a hold of her in a while (around a month) so we have decided to just forget about her for the time being. Aaron and his children dropped us due to a busy summer schedule, but I am pretty sure that they will come back once they get back into school. Brenar pass ward has been awesome, we have found a total of 5 new investigators in the last 2 weeks and they had a couple of baptisms right  before we became a triple companionship.

With Elder Barney leaving we have been informed that the trio will be split up on Wednesday, if Elder Barney had stayed we would've been kept in a trio. And about the comment on it being early August (in my letter to Trenton this week, I commented that I was excited that it was August and that means that soon the temperatures are going to start coming down), natives say, that from here till about October is the worst time to be in Arizona because of the weather, apparently it is going to get more humid but not cooler until about November.


I love you all and hope that you are doing well.

-Elder Throckmorton

July 27

This week we taught a lesson to Alice and Jimmy, but they are no longer interested in the church and dropped us. The Brenner pass ward got 3 new investigators last week who are all pretty solid and might work out. Other than that not a whole lot else happened. love you

July 20th

This week has been full of meetings, so we didn't do a whole lot of work, in fact we never even saw a single investigator this week, only because they were all out of town or sick, oh well I guess those weeks happen. That is pretty much it

A Trainer

Trenton is such a funny kid. A couple of weeks ago, his Mission President called me with concern over a few health issues Trenton is having, nothing serious and I am sure he will be fine. Anyway, during our conversation President Nattress told me that Trenton was called to be a New Missionary Trainer. This is pretty awesome. I was anxious and excited to hear from Trenton about his new call, so I didn't tell him that I knew. That silly kid said NOTHING about being a trainer. So, finally I sent him this in my letter to him this week --

"Yesterday, Dad and I were renewing our temple recommends. President Marshall asked for our names, when I said Throckmorton, he said "Ohhhh, you are Trenton's parents". I told him I was amazed at his memory, he said that it was partly because he had just gotten a letter that told him you were made a trainer. I was like "what?". I came home and picked up our mail, sure enough there is a letter from President Nattress detailing your call to be a New Missionary Trainer. Why didn't you tell me? That is pretty awesome and a big responsibility. It's pretty cool that you get to take the things you have learned from serving with your other companions and teach them to Elder Barney. How are things going? Is Elder Barney excited to be out in the field? Poor guy, coming to Arizona in the middle of the summer. Where is he from?"

So, yes I fibbed and didn't tell Trenton that I have known for a while. Anyway, this was his response.


"I really didn't want you to know that I am training, I didn't realize that they would send you a letter."

Really???  

Well, here is the rest of his letter for your enjoyment.


So we live with the Brennar Pass Elders, Elder Neil and Elder Breneman. Elder Breneman was actually training Elder Neil but Elder Neil just wasn't ready to come out and went back home last Wednesday. So, Elder Barney and I are now in a Triple companionship with Elder Breneman. We cover two wards, which is great! Because we now have stuff to do every hour of the day and that feels at least somewhat productive. It was just too bad that Elder Neil had to go home. Elder Neil was a convert of a year and his parents even kicked him out for converting, he and Elder Breneman are from Philadelphia just opposite sides and they were sure that they had been best friends the the pre-mortal realm. Other than that all of the ivestigators we have are not progressing at the moment and Aaron and his family dropped us, but it should all work out.

 -Elder Throckmorton

July 6th

Elder Barney and I have worked pretty hard this week. We have talked to more people than I have ever talked to. We were actually asked to participate in the Young Women's lesson on Ordinances and Covenants, we role played in front of them what to say or do when you are having a gospel conversation with your friend and they ask you why they would need to be baptized again if they already were in another church. I don't have much else to say, because not a ton else happened that I can remember, we didn't see a single one of our investigators this week because they all had one thing or another going on, but that is the way of missionary work more often than not. -Elder Throckmorton

June 29th

Well, my new companion is Elder Barney, he is a really great missionary. We have set some similar goals as when I was with Elder Ficklin, they seem to be working pretty well. We had our first lesson with Stacy - our miracle investigator, last Saturday. She accepted an invitation to be baptized on July 11th. She came to church yesterday and brought her 84 year old mother with her, who may be just as interested with our church as Stacy is. Stacy's 12 year old daughter is extremely shy, but I think she will come around in a little bit. We got Elijah to church, but not the rest of the Johnson family, It will happen eventually.

Transfers

So,  Elder Ficklin is going to leave and I am staying, he was only here for 6 weeks, wow. I didn't really get to know him that well but I feel like we were the most unified out of the three companions I have had. Especially when we discussed what we wanted to do with the area and it somehow showed as we picked up a total of 11 new investigators this transfer.

This week was eventful being that we were flagged down by a woman named Stacy, she just really unloaded about her situation and told us all about how she had heard great things about the Church and that she needed help. At first I kinda thought "Oh no, not another one of these" but as she kept going on about her situation she expressed a desire to join our Church to help her daughter become more active in her life. and she knows that the Church provides a way to do that through the youth programs. Anyways we set up a lesson for this coming Friday.  She has been calling us since last Thursday, that being when she first flagged us down, with a lot of great questions about the Book of Mormon, she is currently the only "investigator" reading it right now.  It is really great to see that the Book of Mormon really is the key to helping an investigator progress. She also said that her mom who is 84 and was stuck in her catholic ways wants to learn more about the Church, wow.

Love you guys and hope you are doing well

Love,
-Elder Throckmorton

p.s. I have failed to mention the fact that it is way above 100 F everyday now and only gets down to about 90 every night. Last Thursday it hit 117 F and it was 106 F at 10pm that night. This is an Arizona summer I guess.  Also, we keep our house at a chilly 85 degrees.  I guess it feels chilly after coming in from 117, but it sure does make it hard to sleep.

Almost 10 Investigators at Church

So, we picked up yet another 2 investigators, they are black as well and say funny things like "Oh my loafus" and "What is they name?" and most exciting, they want to get baptized. They were a media referral and just recently moved in like 2 weeks ago. They said they were planning on coming to church as well as Alice and Jimmy, and Duane and his family; sadly none of them showed up, but they will next week.