July 27th, 2015

Dear Family,

The love that I continually am able to feel from my Father in Heaven is incredible. I'm not sure what I would do without the knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father and his great Plan of Salvation. This morning I was reading in 3 Nephi 11 and as I was reading I thought of the love Heavenly Father has for his Son as he presents him to his children in the Land Bountiful. It made me think of the ancestors of all the people that live here in Peru. It has become evident to me that their ancestors truly did see Christ and had an enormous amount of faith. I have been able to witness that first hand as I see God's children make the right decisions.

This week for me was so wonderful, just like every other week. For P-day we started off by going to a seaport, which was awesome. We were able to have an entire tour of the whole port, so that was exciting. On Tuesday we had our first interviews with President Rios, which I thought they went really well. President Rios is certainly a man of discernment. He is so loving and is inspired by the spirit. Throughout the rest of the week we had few but powerful lessons including one with an investigator that has had her baptimal interview and is scheduled to be baptized this next Saturday. While in church her son leaned over to us and asked us what we did to help his mom to decide to get baptized, because she had listened to the missionaries for 4 years without accepting, and we simply replied, it isn't what we did, but what our Father in Heaven has done and what the spirit testified of. There is no doubt in my mind the this is the Lord's work and it is through his Holy Spirit that his children are able to come unto his Gospel once again, just as they promised in the pre-mortal life.

I love the Gospel and I love my Savior. This is His work and he is hastening it. His pace has quickened and so must ours if we decide to take a role in his work.

I love you all and hope you have amazing weeks!

Love,

Elder Thorpe

July 20th, 2015

Dear Family,

Another week has come and gone. It has always amazed me how fast time goes by, but let me tell you, as a Zone Leader I have so much stuff to do in such little time that the time goes by even faster! It feels twice as fast! But nevertheless, this week was super good! We had changes this last week and ended up getting a few new missionaries in our zone, and so we are super excited to work with them. The Zone is growing so much and we are seeing such great miracles here.

This last week Elder Gonzalez and I were able to have such great visits. Even if we weren't able to have as many as we wanted, we know that what we did this week was what the Lord wanted us to do and that the people that we visited were touched and able to understand a little bit better their potential and the next steps they can take.

The way that we teach has really been centered on agency and the potential that we have as children of our Father in Heaven and I feel like as we have had this vision, we have been able to see so many more results. It gives me such happiness to allow other people to understand who they are and what they can become and then to see these people decide to take the steps necessary to becoming this person. I love teaching and love helping others understand this and watching them as they use their agency for good.

I love this gospel and have such a huge testimony of it. At the begining of my mission I had an interview with President Marler and he asked me to share my testimony with him, which I did, and what he said after has had such a huge part in my mission. He told me that if I was faithful and obedient that my testimony would be able to touch the hearts of God's children here in Peru. As the months have gone on I have been able to see this great blessing in my life, being able to help so many people come unto the gospel.

I love you all and hope you have amazing weeks!

Love,

Elder Thorpe

July 13, 2015

Dear Family,

It has amazed me to see how fast time has gone by on my mission and it is such a blessing to have this time and be able to look back on all of the experiences that I have been able to have. I have been so blessed to be able to have had this last year in Peru and to have been able to see countless blessings in my life and in the lives of others. I am truly grateful for the time that my Heavenly Father has given me to serve him and to serve his children. This week I gave a class on service this last Sunday, and it made me reflect on how blessed I am to be able to serve. Many people think that service is a task, but I don't ever think I would be able to see it like that. Service is a blessing and if we are ever so fortunate enough to have the opportunities to serve, we should realize how much our Father in Heaven wants to bless us.

This last week was really good! My companion and I were able to give a zone training on Wednesday which went really well. Our focus for our zone is that we may be able to search for incomplete families. We have such a unique message that Families can be together forever and we feel at this time that this stake that we are serving in really needs this message. I feel like everyone needs this message always, but especially now that I am able to not only work with one ward, but an entire stake, I am able to see a more clear vision. It has been such a blessing to be able to serve as a zone leader for the past month and to be able to see what so many people in the stake need.

We are super excited for a bunch of our investigators that are progressing a ton! We are teaching some of the most inspired people that I have met in Peru. They are people that are searching for the truth and want to do what is right, not only because we tell them to do it, but rather because their hearts are in the right place and understand their potential as children of God. 

I feel blessed to serve in such a great zone with a great companion. At times we feel a little overwhelmed with everything that we have to do and at times we feel stuck, but it has always been clear to me that as we trust in the Lord and allow him to guide the work, everything else falls into place and the load that we feel like we have on us, suddenly becomes lighter until the moment that it is lifted from us.

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Thorpe

July 6th, 2015

Dear Family,

Well the Mission has officially split! This last week I was able to meet President Rios and his Family. They are all so nice and have such great intentions! Every month we have a leadership meeting with the mission President, the AP's and all of the Zone leaders of the mission and so what we decided to do this leadership meeting was to go to the Temple! So this last Wednesday I was able to go through the Temple with all the leadership of the mission including President Rios! It was such a good experience going through the Temple again, especially the Temple that we have been talking about my entire mission. So Wednesday I was able to get to know President Rios and his Family, which was so great. He is such a powerful and spiritual man and has great desires to serve. I already love him so much and am excited to work with him. 

This week has been such a great week. We have such great people here that we are teaching. We have an investigator named Daniel who is such a great person. He has great desires to change and do to what God wants him to do. He has a hard time coming to church, but this last Sunday he came and had a great time. We are hoping that he continues to progress and is able to be baptized in the next upcoming weeks. We also are teaching two parents of a missionary. Jose and Vilma are such wonderful investigaters and just want to keep all the commandments. They are progressing really well and it looks like they will be baptized really soon. The only challenge that we have with them is that they aren't married. They have the desires to get married so we are working with them and their papers. We are also teaching the Lescano Family. They are a less active Family that are sealed in the Temple. They really want to come back to church and become the strong Mormon Family that they were before they went inactive, so we are excited for them and with their progress.

It's kind of funny because here in Moche we teach a ton of people that speak a little English. Just about half of all the people we teach speak a little English and so my companion and I joke all the time about that and how Heavenly Father wants us to search for these people. I love my area so much and all the people here. At times it is hard teaching because of how much Catholicism there is, but I love it so much and I love seeing great people progress. 

I love the gospel so much and am grateful that I have this time to share it and change as a person. 

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Thorpe

Just so you all know, my companion and I did celebrate the 4th of July by eating Hotdogs and chips, but that was on the 5th of July because that is the day that we are able to cook! But all in all it was a great 4th of July!