September 29th, 2014

Dear Family,

Well to start off this letter, I think I want to just tell all of you how much I appreciate you and love you! You truly are amazing and don't let anyone tell you differently!

Anyways, My week has been pretty good. Elder Porter has been pretty sick and so we have been staying in for him to rest a little. We had a bunch of lessons with this one investigator named Carlos. He really wants to get baptized, but he has problems with the Palabra de Sabiduría.. (word of wisdom) but we set a goal with him to really pray hard and ask our father in heaven for strength to quit drinking, and to have a date in mind to live this commandment. We also taught a couple new investigators, which one of them was kind of crazy. He was preaching to us (he is catholic) and he said the missionaries gave him a folleto of the restoration of the gospel, and so he said he read it and did just as Joseph Smith did and prayed to God to know which church was true... He said God came to him in a dream and told him the Catholic church was the true church.. ha interesting guy.. Our food is still amazing, and so are the people!

Well enough about all of that.. I have some pretty crazy news.. 

So my companion got called up to Trujillo for some reason and so I was supposed to be spending my week in a trio. Well the zone leaders talked with me and told me that I would be in my area with a companion that isn't in the mission. In fact, he is leaving for a mission in about a week. Basically what this means is that I have gone from being the one who was in training, to senior companion and partial trainer.. I'm pretty sure my training is getting cut 7 weeks early, but it's ok because if this is what my father in heaven wants, then that is what will happen! 

Also, this week I don't get to watch general conference. There are elections here in Peru on the 5th and so we get to watch general conference in 2 weeks.. Well I am a little nervous about this week, but I am also super excited!

I love you all and I hope you all have fantastic weeks this week! 

Love, Elder Thorpe

P.S. I now have 2 nicknames.. Elder Thor or superman

Training with the mission president

 Zone Chimbote Buenos Aires

Sis. and Pres. Marler , Elder Juan Uceda (area seventy) and his wife

September 22nd, 2014

Dear Family,

This week has been really good! Even though our numbers might have been down, due to the lack of people being home, this week still wasn't too bad. My Spanish has really picked up, and the ability to understand the people here has become a lot better. I feel so blessed every time I come out of a lesson and I could understand everything that we talked about. Everything seems to be coming a lot easier for me and as I have been learning so much from the scriptures and my companion, I feel that my relationship with my father in heaven and the spirit has strengthened tremendously.

On Sunday I was able to give a talk in church, which as a missionary you really don't have time to prepare a talk for church, so what I did was I wrote down 4 different scriptures on a topic I felt was needed to be discussed, and shared my thoughts about them. I thought that I would only be able to talk for 5 minutes because I didn't know that many words, but to my amazement, and knowing the type of speaker I am, I ended up speaking for 20 minutes! As you can imagine our meeting went a little long because of this, but that is ok, because I think the reason I was able to speak for this long is because the Lord needed this to be heard by the people here.

Well once again we have a false alarm for Frank. He endeed up having to travel to Trujillo for a couple of weeks and so his new baptisimal date is for the second Saturday in October.

Other than this, my week has consisted of walking and not a whole lot of success. Elder Porter and I probably walked for a good 30 miles this week. We taught few lessons, so this next week I'm really hoping for more success and less walking!

Well that's pretty much all for this week, but before I leave, I have a funny thing about what the people here call me. The people here either call me, Elder Thor, or Thor of Asgard, because they think I'm like him and mostly because of the last name Thorpe.

Well, I love you all and I look forward to writing next week!

Love, Elder Thorpe

September 15th, 2014

Dear Family,

This week has been pretty great! In fact, I have learned so much this week from my personal studies, even though we only have an hour a day to study. I have learned so much from Predicar mi Evangelio and in Doctrina y Convenios. I never realized how much Doctrina y Convenios can help me as a missionary. It has honestly given me so much strength throughout my days, as they are long and very difficult, but as I have been reading, I have more of a desire to work and serve even harder than I am able to and that is because if we put all our trust and faith in the Lord we are able to serve and are blessed with unimagineable things. The amount of strength that I receive has honestly amazed me, and I feel so blessed, because I know that without it, I wouldn't be able to do this work.

This week Elder Porter and I taught a lot of different and new people. We received so many contacts from members this week and so we have I think a total of 7 new investigators. Along with that, we have been teaching a lot of Menos activos throughout our days, and I honestly have seen so much progress in so many different people. 

We also had stake conference this week, so the baptism was a false alarm. The baptism is now this Saturday for sure and I am still super excited for Frank and his decision of being baptized. Elder Porter and I have been working really hard with getting all of the blessings and ordinances down in Spanish, well mainly for me because he already knows them, but I am happy to say that I have them all memorized and not only this but we have given multiple blessings throughout this week! 

Today for P-day we are going up to some mountain with a church at the top of it, so hopefully I will be able to take some pictures and send them home!

Thank you for all of your love and letters. I appreciate them so much and I have so much joy as I read them! I love you all and I pray for you every night!

Love,
Elder Thorpe

September 8th, 2014

Well another week has gone by, and let me just say, it was so fantastic! Elder Porter and I have had a lot of success and I know that this is because of how focused and how hard we have been working! This Saturday we are having a baptism for Frank and I know that he is going to be such a strong member of this church! We also had a lot of investigators and less actives come to church with us yesterday, which was just so great!

Along with all of this we taught a lot of lessons and got to know a lot of the ward members. Speaking of ward members, our pension is at the bishops house, and all I can say is I have never had meals as big as the ones I have every single day here! Like we at least eat a good 8000 calories a day, but we work out a lot so I'm staying in shape!

Once a month for P-day we are allowed as a zone to watch an animated movie, so last p-day we watched how to train your dragon 2 which was awesome, even if it was in Spanish. Oh and by the way, Movies here come out when they are in theatres, and not in bad quality, but good bluray quality, and in English, so I might come home with some movies since they are only about 2 soles here which isn't even a dollar back home! Oh I forgot to say, that after emailing we are going to play basketball and so I'm super excited!

Well that is pretty much my week! Hope everything is well back at home and everyone is doing great!

I love you all so much!

Love, Elder Thorpe

Sept. 1, 2014

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well I have been here out in the field for a whole week! Let me tell you it has been so crazy. I am in a place called Chimbote, which is the fish capital of Peru, and so it's hard to believe it but I sort of like fish now. My companion is Elder Porter and he is from Provo Utah. He is a really good guy. The first day here we did a lot of training and had a couple classes. Elder Porter and I had to stay the night in Trujillo because Chimbote is 3 hours away from Trujillo. So we got here on Wednesday and met a lot of ward members. We didn't do a whole lot of teaching on Wednesday, but we picked it up on Thursday.

Thursday we taught a couple less active members and and investigator named Soledad. I'm hoping that she is really feeling the spirit and progressing a lot. We have been teaching a lot of different people, mostly less actives, because that has really been our focus. Also we work a lot with the ward members here which is so great!

Other than that, that is pretty much how my week has gone. I love you all and I hope you all have amazing week!

Love, Elder Thorpe