Only In A Week

So this week was pretty long and I can't really remember a lot of it, but we found 2 new investigators by the names of Alice and Jimmy, who lived back East in West Virginia then started moving west ever so slowly until they ended up in Arizona, where they now live with one of their daughters. They have a very Southern accent and are pretty funny because of how they act with regards to God and Jesus Christ, Singing praises and shouting alleluia every so often as we are teaching. They haven't heard of the LDS church and they are a part of  The Seventh Day Adventist with a female prophet, needless to say that she doesn't really understand the whole "priesthood for males" thing but I have faith that she will overcome that as she reads from the Book of Mormon. We are planning on going over "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" with her tomorrow, they both seem pretty solid.

We were going to have around 10 investigators at church yesterday but for one reason or another none of them showed up and no one answered their doors at all yesterday, I guess those days just happen haha.

Baptism For Michael

Saturday was actually more interesting than it needed to be, not stressful just interesting. We had the Cloud building (one with a font) scheduled for Saturday, the building coordinator told us that our little "magic key" should work for that building, which is just outside of our stake. Well we showed up about an hour and a half early to fill up the font and found to our surprise that our key didn't work. After about 15 phone calls we tracked down some missionaries who had some keys that would work. The font takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to fill and we had 40 minutes until the baptism. The baptism went well, one of the priests from the ward got to baptize him, in a half full font. It was mildly entertaining witnessing the baptism, because Michael was forced to be fully immersed in the water, it took 20 seconds, I thought maybe he was being drowned haha! The same priest who baptized him got to confirm Michael a member of the church, it was pretty cool.

We have a new member who just recently decided to come back to church,  his name is Brad, he is pretty awesome. He served in the military and hasn't been to church since he was 10 so he doesn't know a lot of the doctrine, it is kind of like teaching a non-member and is actually fun.

I would say that Elder Ficklin and I get along a lot better than any other companion I have had so far, and the work has been going so much better too. Not to say I didn't get along with the last two, because I did, just to say that we get along better. We are more obedient than I have ever been on my mission and we have been blessed with a sense of success that I know could only be found through exact obedience.

-Elder Throckmorton

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