May 27th, 2013

So I had a pretty solid birthday here in Mexico. It was full of service and teaching. I was able to teach the first part of lesson one in spanish which was pretty intense. Later for lunch a member gave us money to go get lunch, so we went to Wendy's and got a family pack, which was awesome. After eating we went to go get a cake from walmart. I decided on chocolate. We went back to the house and dropped the cake off and headed back out into the blistering heat. After a long day of work we went home to prepare our things for meeting Elder Christopherson. We went to the Juarez Central missionary's home because it was closer to where the bus would be to pick us up. So there we celebrated my birthday and ate my cake. The cake was amazing. We then went to bed and slept hardly.

The next morning we arose at 4:15 to get ready and head over to the bus. It was about a 3 hour bus ride which was long and tiring. But we were extremely excited to meet an Apostle. I tried to read as much in the scriptures as I could to prepare myself spiritually for the meeting.

When we arrived we were all super excited and anxious to meet him. He walked in 10 min. after we arrived and we all stood up and the spirit that came in was just amazing. After we sat down we all went up row by row and shook his hand. It was super cool meeting another Apostle, and shake his hand. He of course spoke spanish and having only been here for 4 weeks I didn't understand him. But I understood some things. I listened with all my heart to what the spirt was saying to me.

I wrote,"My call is inspired. My service as a missionary will effect and bless the lives of my family, my future family, and my friends. Be patient in missionary work. I am called to the work."

What he said in his talk was,"We as apostles see you as companions, shoulder to shoulder. The mission here is going to improve really soon."

Then he pronounced an Apostalic Promise."Over the next few weeks you will know if the Lord is satisfied with our work. He will let us know."

His last words were,"REMEMBER SEEING ME & HEARING ME TODAY, REMEMBER THAT I KNOW JESUS CHRIST & I KNOW THAT HE LIVES.

The whole time he kept talking about how he was super humble to be there with us. One thing he said that was cool was when the apostles call us to this mission they say,"I hope they're strong."

He also talked alot of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon everyday. I can't tell you enough how happy this made me because this is exactly what we have been telling all of the members here in our ward. Reading is extremely important.

My feet are starting to finally get better so that's good. We still have been having a hard time getting a hold of people here. The area that I'm in is super poor and everybody just works so it's hard to find people home. My spanish is still a struggle and I have been trying to participate more in conversation its hard though with the lack of words.

I know tha the work is going to improve and the Lord will bless me one way or another. I know that he lives.

Elder Thorpe