SMELL THE BARN

So this week has been an interesting week, although not much happened. 

We started off the week with a Skype TRC. It's basically just you and your companion skyping someone who speaks Chinese, usually a native, and then teach them a lesson. We taught this lady and her husband was a non member. She told us within the first 5 minutes that he had died 5 years before. It was really shocking that she would share something like that, but it was nice she trusted us. I then shared that I have recently had someone pass away close to me too and I was able to connect with her. We taught her about faith and the power that it has and can bring to us. By the end I could see she had some tears so I guess that's a good sign haha. She talked a lot though and would go on for about 4 minutes talking without stopping and we had no idea what she said. Our teacher told us to not let them talk that long, because she knew we couldn't understand the member haha. I guess it'll just come in time.

During that same time, our teacher was skyping one of her friends from China. I moved my chair over and said hello to the lady. I then said that Ye laoshi loves me. Ye laoshi turned over and just said:" Shei Ai Ni?" which means who loves you? She is crazy and really savage sometimes, but I still love her and learn a lot. She told me a few days later that Chinese people won't tell you they love you, they tell you through their actions. Chinese can be harsh sometimes!!

We got our travel plans this week! I'll put a picture down below, but I was super glad to get them. It really shows you that you are actually going somewhere to teach people. It gets you to think about your MTC experience and things you could've done differently. I don't know if I'm ready to go Preach the Gospel to a people who have never heard of it before in a foreign tongue. Ready or not though, here I go. The crazy thing is that all the teachers in the MTC were called into a meeting to discuss teaching. They found that missionaries have been teaching with almost too many materials. Some missionaries are relying on the teaching materials too much instead of teaching to the people's needs.

 I really had a breakthrough with this. I know I could be teaching way better than I am now. This whole week while I've had this in my mind, I haven't even thought about the language, it's all just been about personal testimony and conviction in the lessons you are teaching. The theme this week for me has been to strive to get a deeper testimony of these things, so I can teach them to others. I really have this desire now to study and find for myself these things. There's only one was to make these powerful and give these messages to these people. And that's through the Holy Ghost bearing witness of what you say. I am working on having the Holy Ghost with me all the time as a constant companion. I know I can be more obedient and waste less time. This is what I'm trying to accomplish. Some MTC rules are a little weird, and it will be different in the field, but me and Elder Beus have decided to be 100% obedient this week before we go out to the Field. We are really wanting to change.

I was able to see my cousin Karter come into the MTC this week which was awesome! We talked and I know already that he'll be great. We have different experiences at the MTC, but it's all the same work. It's good to see familiar people before you ship off to a foreign land. It gives me a strong start for sure.

Sorry this email is short. Nothing much happened this week. This time next week, I'll be packing to get on the plane and I'll have much more to tell. Love you!

-Elder Thayne

Oh yeah and the title has a story behind it. When horses smell where they want to go(which is usually home) You can sense it and they speed up to get there. We are speeding up and want to get to Taiwan now!!!

God Loves to Kiss

I know this is a weird subject line but I'll explain later.

So this week was a good week. Elder Beus and I wanted to make our lessons better. We are limited because of the language of course, but we knew for sure we could do better lessons and work harder. We were already planning a lot for the lessons, but we needed to rely on the spirit more and let it direct us instead of our plan. We got more personal this week with our lessons and got to know the people more which is what you want. I accidentally went too far though during a lesson with a member. I straight up asked her if she was 23, and it turns out she was. The problem was that it isn't very polite to ask age the way I did. I guess I asked her age as if she was less than ten years old. You are supposed to use a different word for older people so she got kind of offended. It was a learning experience though haha.

I still haven't gotten fat here for some reason. I have been eating so much and haven't been exercising. I just don't really see the point in exercising very much anymore cause everyone says I'm going to lose all the weight I gain when I get to Taiwan because they feed less than most places, and you're biking all the time. I'm pretty sure I won't be fat by the time I come come, can't say the same for my cousin Karter though(@AtlantaGeorgiaMission).

We brought in another big group of missionaries this Wednesday. A total of 762 in one day. I was hosting and met some really cool people, some guys I know from high school too which is awesome. Seeing all these missionaries coming into the MTC every week is amazing to me, I never realized how huge this work was until I came to the MTC. We got 42 new Chinese missionaries just in our zone. Canto's and Mando's. The other day I went to Choir because I like the Director's stories that he shares. That day he was telling us how amazing it is to live in the time right now. He was telling us that in this dispensation we've had about 1 million 300 thousand missionaries go out. Then he said about 800,000 of those missionaries have gone out during Thomas S. Monson's Presidency. In a little over a decade there has been more missionaries than the other 150 years or whatever. The work is really hastening, and I'm beyond excited to be part of it. I love that this calling I have right now is the most important work in the world. I'm lucky to be here and be a part of it. I'm going to give it my all during these next two years I promise. 

Something crazy happened in our zone this week. We had a sister here for 3 weeks, but she had a boyfriend before she made it out here who just got back from his mission. He emailed her this past week and told her to come home and he would marry her in the temple. I don't like the way it happened because she was torn in two between her mission and her boyfriend. She eventually made the decision to go home and marry him after a blessing from the MTC presidency. It was just really crazy and out of the blue for all of us so we didn't know what to think. Everyone has different opinions about it, but we're happy she is happy. It just tells me that God works in mysterious ways sometimes and we just need to trust him when we don't know what to do because he does have a plan.

We had a pretty weird devotional last night that I wasn't going to talk about but it was funny. When you're at the MTC for 9 weeks, the devotionals are the thing you look forward to the most. So last night we got a devotional from this singer who does a lot of EFY songs and stuff. He has a very good voice and it was great to listen to him. The weird part was when he started talking, he was talking about how God loves to kiss. He also said that he himself likes to kiss people to show his affection. He said:" Once at my daughter's wedding reception, I kissed most of the people there. And a lot of them were guys." After that line I looked around and everybody was cringing. It was really funny cause no one expected that. He was a dramatic guy, but he's a very good singer. Thought I could share that with you.

I was on the tours this week and I got to see a lot of people I knew, It was nice to be able to see people I know that could lift me up before I leave to Taiwan with a totally different culture. It makes me even more ready to go out and work hard.

Regrets are a big thing when talking about missions. Last week our teacher Ding Laoshi was talking to us. We got new Zone Leaders to replace the ones that left, and our sisters became the STL's so they went to a meeting one day that we went to a class, just four of the elders in my district. Ding Laoshi wanted the whole district to hear what he had prepared so he just started talking about the Plan of Salvation and how we could teach it simpler and more complete. It was good and then I asked a different question about our lessons. We then went into a deep discussion about what we could do to be better. I love those talks the best because I've learned to love how to self-improve while here. We were asking how we could make the most of our missions every day, and know that God is proud of the work we have been giving him. He was talking seriously about his mission and how day after day, he felt like he had messed up over and over. He never felt like he was the best missionary he could've been. He told us that the last week he was on his mission, God gave him an answer. He finally told him that he had served a successful mission, and it wasn't about Investigators progressing as a measurement of success. It's about knowing you are doing everything you can. Heavenly Father told him he was successful and was proud of him. Only then he had 0 regrets.

I love you all, I have less than two weeks here now and it's almost my time to go. I look up to all of you.

-Elder Thayne

Just some pics at the beach:

Lock Your Heart

Hey everybody,

This week was good at the MTC. Our Chinese teacher gave some of the Elders and the Sisters Chinese first names. They're actually really cool. Elder Cheung's Chinese name means glorious sky and heaven shine or something like that. She hasn't given one to me yet. She's had us memorize 7 things in Chinese in order to get our Chinese name tags. The 7 things are: James 1:5, 1 Nephi 3:7, Moroni 10:5, The purpose of a missionary, I am a child of god, The first vision, and the baptismal invitation. It's pretty hard stuff but It's really nice to know it in Chinese. The language is progressing. It's pretty slow, but I know that God will help me learn the language in his time not mine. I know that all I have to do is put faith in him and everything will work out the way he has planned.

Some of the Elders and I have been trying to practice flips outside. We went out one night and they were teaching me how to backflip. An old senior missionary was walking by when I was gonna do a flip off the wall and we just kinda sat there and waited for him to talk to us cause we knew we were in for it. He just got a little mad at us and told us to go to our dorms. I think they're extra stingy on this because lots of people have been disobeying the rules and staying out really late. We got locked out of our room so we went and got a new key. Turns out the one they gave us was wrong so we went back and got another key and we weren't in bed until 12:00 but it wasn't our fault!!!

This Sunday I had a little bit of redemption from missing Elder Bednar's talk last week. This week we had the opportunity to have Elder Ballard come and speak to us. What was cool is that it was broadcast to most of the other MTC's in the world live. It was an amazing talk, he talked about obedience and keeping the rules. How it keeps us as missionaries safe, and keeps the Power of God in our teaching. We want to have people when they see us know that we are messengers from God. He referenced Spencer W. Kimball talking to missionaries around 50 years ago. A Missionary just disobeyed a small rule and bad consequences started because of that decision. The missionaries that were with this Elder were interviewed and asked why they didn't tell their Mission President what was going on before it was too late. They just said that it was his decision to ruin his mission and they weren't going to get in the way of that. Elder Kimball then said:" What about your mission? This is your mission. This is your church. You all are representatives of Jesus Christ." He was saying that we are responsible for every other missionary, not just ourselves.

The main point of Elder Ballard's talk was that we need to Lock our Hearts. He said to not open it for anything while we are on our missions. You can't fall in love with someone you don't open your heart to. There are problems with Missionaries losing their focus on their purpose . He reaffirmed that our main focus is Jesus Christ and he's the only one that we should be looking to. We have time after our missions, but right now we have a different purpose.

 I just really loved his talk cause it told me that no matter what, the thing that matters most is bringing people unto Christ and not focusing on yourself or your needs. We are so much happier when we are focused on others and helping them better themselves and strengthen their relationship with God. It's only when we revert back to ourselves and try to help ourselves progress that we fall short. I want to learn Chinese so bad, but if it's not for the right reasons It won't come to me. I've realized that if I focus on helping others God will give it to me. 

During the tours this week some of my best friends saw me. Hunter, Daniel and Dawson. Seeing them was so awesome and I was so happy. It's so cool to see people like future missionaries and past missionaries on the tour. Sharing experiences just makes the spirit of missionary work escalate. By the way sorry that this email is all over the place. It's just a kinda random fact week.

We hit our six week mark so all the missionaries in our zone left. We are now officially the oldest missionaries in the MTC!! It's pretty weird honestly that people are coming and going all the time. But it just means I'm getting closer to leaving to my mission. A huge group of Mandarin and Cantonese missionaries left which was sad. They've been here for the six weeks we have and we all got super close. They passed down all of the traditions to us and now it's our turn to keep them going. In Sacrament meeting they sang a special musical number: "Be Still My Soul." It was really cool because the Cantonese sang the first verse, Mandarins sang the second, and they both sang in English the third verse. It was really touching.  We woke up at 3:00 this morning to say goodbye to them and they gave us some advice and told us it would be us in no time. They told us not to waste our time in the MTC. Seeing these people leave just makes me want to work as hard as I can for these last three weeks we have. 

Anyway, sorry for the random email but I hope you enjoy it!! Here's some pics

Letter to Mom

I was hoping they would be able to see him!! That's great! Yeah it's weird cause he came way after me and he's gone now. That's nice of the Lyman's to say. I hope I get to see them. I was doing tours on Saturday and it was really fun that's when I saw them. I'll try to make things work, but I'm probably gonna be in class at that time when they come. 

Yeah I miss you guys a lot too. Is Mitchell done with the big video of our trip though?? Yeah there is lots to talk about and not much time. Me and my companion are progressing, we have different minds, but we are both trying to work really hard. My teacher is off and on sometimes. I can tell she really loves me and wants me to be the best missionary I can be and that's really cool . She just does it in a way that tries to tear you down. She puts the Sisters on pedestals and she is constantly telling us we are bad missionaries if we aren't studying every second we have free time. It's just really annoying and it's like I'm always having an internal battle with her. I do what she says, she just thinks there is  only one type of perfect missionary and I'm not the type she likes. I just have to keep relying on God and that's what matters. I know he's happy with what I'm doing, I just have to bite my tongue when I talk to her. She is an amazing teacher though and I'm really happy I get to learn from her.

I was really surprised when I got that package. It was really awesome though!. Yeah I left that MP3 player cause it was broken. Really they don't have them at smiths anymore? If I can have that that would be awesome. Just some instrumentals and stuff. Like Inception songs, and chill songs that are nice. They are pretty lax with music in my mission. I also really want that song you sent the lyrics to. It sounds amazing, Nashville Tribute would be amazing too. Just load it with tons of songs if you can. Yeah I really want lots of pictures of stuff. If you could send me like a racketball that would be nice. That's awesome you are working on the scouting, you'll get caught up on it I know it. Halsten is getting a lot done it seems. I'll for sure email sister Griffin too. 

I heard you guys are going to Chicago!! Good luck with that! I can tell Afton is nervous about going to EFY. She'll do great though. Halsten will be alone haha too bad. That's crazy that Parker is getting married. I hope he and Mitch still get to hang a lot. I actually met someone who shot with Mitchell the day before on the tours and we sent him a snapchat which was cool. I also saw one of Noah Thayne's best friends and we took a picture together, and they thought that we look a lot alike.

That's great to hear your friend moved out here, pretty exciting! When you said there was a boy Afton's age I got a bit nervous though. I hope you guys are looking out for her. Boys can get kinda crazy. I'm super proud of you for doing your personal progress and seeing you can grow your testimony. Simple things like that can help us immensely. I'm trying to rely on the Lord more, but I've always just relied on myself so it's something I have to work on cause I know there is no way I can do this by myself. I'm happy that we have this family though. I love our family so much and we are so lucky it's as special as it is. I want my family to be the same someday.

1. I forgot I had it and I suffered this whole week without medicine which blows but I think I'm finally getting better now. I guess it's Karma.

2. They don't let me take pictures of them. They are pretty strict about things, but I took one awhile ago.

3. No we don't go to the temple or outside much which kinda stinks. I am just going crazy honestly haha. 6 hours of classes, 3 hours of study, and service and stuff makes you crazy. 

4. It's hard in a different way. I feel like this is what I should be doing, and I'm wanting to learn to strengthen my testimony and help others instead of just to get good grades. It makes you think that it really does have a purpose which is nice.

Well hope this is good enough for this week. Love you Mom!!

-Elder Thayne