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: